The Bill Simmons Podcast - Utah’s Finished, NFL Draft Winners, and Philly’s Big Night With Kevin O’Connor, Rob Mahoney, and Benjamin Solak

Episode Date: April 29, 2022

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Kevin O’Connor and Rob Mahoney to discuss the Mavericks’ series-ending win vs. the Jazz, just how much this Jazz team needs to change to be considered a contender, and a look ahead to Mavericks-Suns (1:45). Then Bill talks with Benjamin Solak to discuss the first round of the NFL draft! They discuss the Eagles trading for A.J. Brown, the Jaguars’ no. 1 overall pick, a good Round 1 for the Giants and Jets, QBs sliding, Round 2 predictions, and more (24:25). Finally Bill is rejoined by Rob Mahoney and Kevin O’Connor to discuss the Suns winning their series vs. the Pelicans, the 76ers advancing to Round 2 after their Game 6 win over the Raptors, predictions for Heat-76ers and Celtics-Bucks, and more (56:44). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Kevin O’Connor, Rob Mahoney, and Benjamin Solak Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I have a crazy podcast coming up for you. We were taping it in multiple parts, staggered over Thursday night. Three playoff games, the NFL draft. Good God almighty. It's all next. It's the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action.

FanDuel's highest rated sports book is the best place to bet it all. We've been doing pretty well on million dollar picks this year. I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good. I think the Chargers are going to be good. I think Seattle's going to be good. And then trying to back what you think in those first few weeks and then zag the other way. If you were wrong, you could bet on new and fun markets on FanDuel, like to catch your pass, same game parlays, highest scoring game across the Sunday slate, offensive TDs in the next drive.

They have so much stuff. It's crazy. The app is safe and secure and easy to use. And when you win, you'll get paid instantly. Plus, look out for FanDuel Squares this season. Here's what you have to do. Visit FanDuel.com slash BS to download America's number one sportsbook. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming.

Please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available and listen to the end of the episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem called Win 100 Gambler or visit rg-help.com. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this, it's game day, all the gangs here, you're tailgating outside the stadium. It's a great time for beer. Or how about when you're standing at the grill and the smell of sizzling burgers is in the air?

Moments like that. Or when you want a light beer that tastes like beer, that's delicious. You don't want to load up on those heavier beers and then you only have two of them. Then you feel tired. Your stomach feels full. Miller Lite, it's your friend.

It just accompanies whatever else you're doing. You're super happy with it. Opening an ice cold Miller Lite can signal the beginning of Miller Time. Miller Lite is the light beer with all the great beer tastes we like. 90 calories per 355 mil can. So why not grab some Miller Lites today? Your game time tastes like Miller Time. Must be legal drinking age. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. You might have heard of it. I hope you have been checking out

two of our newest podcasts, Matt Bellany, The Town. It's about Hollywood. Man, is it relevant these days with all the stuff happening on Netflix. It has the pulse. Got a lot of anecdotal feedback, people who love the town.

Same thing for Plain English with Derek Thompson, who has really done a great job of tapping into smart guy stuff over and over and over again. Had a podcast about quarterbacks this week, actually. I have been on the Prestige TV podcast twice. Not once, but twice. Broke down Winning Time, episode eight.

And we also talked about We Own This City. It was me, Chris Ryan, and Big Waz on both. So check those out. Hope you checked out the rewatchables as well. We did League of Their Own if you missed it. Coming up on this podcast, I'm going to talk basketball playoffs all the games tonight with Kevin O'Connor and Rob Mahoney and the happiest Philly fan alive the ringers Ben Solak is going to break down an especially lively NFL draft

for us it's all next first our friends from ProJet All right, we are taping this. It is 9.30 Pacific time. We taped earlier with Rob Mahoney and Kevin O'Connor. So much happened today. We had to bring them back to launch the pod. Ben Solek's going to come on after them, talk about the NFL draft.

Then we're bringing KOC and Mahoney back from earlier to talk about the first two games. Utah and Dallas went down to the wire. I can't remember. I'm sure it's happened. Bogdanovich, to save Utah's season, has the most wide open three I can ever remember I'm sure it's happened. Bogdanovich, to save Utah's season, has the most wide open three I can ever remember for a buzzer beater with your season on the line.

And I thought it was going in. The Utah crowd thought it was going in. I thought maybe he didn't think it was going in because it was short. But in the air, I was like, that's going in. And then it was just short, crowds dead. It was just, the sound was sucked out of the arena. And that's it.

The Utah era is done. KOC, is that it? Are we going to see this Utah team again? It's over. It's done. You know how Danny Ainge operates, Bill. His first trade is Celtics GM. The first big trade training,

Antoine Walker away, trades Isaiah Thomas months after he has a top five mbp season and has emotional connection to the fans age has never cared about emotional connection to players and jazz fans are smart enough to know that this core with rudy gobert donovan mitchell mike conley who was absolutely horrific in this series especially down the stretch that turnover i mean you know that honestly that was an old guy turnover yeah that's like getting um near the end of my career turnover but for the jazz here it's it's done with this

core it's just a matter of what opportunities are going to present themselves over the off season for them to make a big move and reshuffle things here because even even if you keep gobert and mitchell together even if you do that, everything else got to change. Everything else has to change. You need more wing defenders, have to have more stoppers on defense. It can't be solely on Rudy Gobert, who, by the way,

before that Conley turnover, made a great stop on that layup by Luka. That was a really great defensive play, ran the floor. It's too bad for Utah. There's so much bad shooting down the stretch of that game, too. The step back by Conley, the pull up by Bogdanovich earlier.

It was ugly to watch Utah throughout the entire season and tonight. It wasn't a great series. The poetry of it is not lost on me, though, in terms of the team that every year bows out of the playoffs because they had open threes. They just didn't hit this time. And for that to be the way they go, I mean, Jesus, that's as good a look as you could possibly hope to get. Well, they should have lost tonight and they did, but they almost stole it. They should have lost game four and they actually stole that one. And both times, Dallas, this last minute offense from them where they just need one more play to finish a game off and they

have someone who you think would be one of the best closers. I didn't like the shot either time offense from them where they just need one more play to finish a game off and they have who someone do you think would be one of the best closers i didn't like the shot either time where you have luca 50 feet from the basket you know with in the right corner next to the mid-court hash line with seven seconds left trying to make a move on gobert i just didn't understand that oh they also could have gone even for a two-for-one potentially. But Dallas kind of, when you think they don't have Luka for the first couple games of this series, they blow game four and they still win this

series pretty convincingly. I almost think that says more about Utah. I don't feel like this was a nice win for Dallas. They definitely skated by tonight with that Bogdanovich three, but ultimately Utah was not very good. And the drop from where Utah is to where they're about to go,

having to play Phoenix in this next round, who we talk about later in the podcast, like good luck, Dallas. This is going to be a jump. On the Utah thing, Rob, what's your move? How much TNT are we using in the remodeling? on the Utah thing, Rob, what's your move? How much TNT are we using in the remodeling? Is this a full,

I'm using all my explosives or is this, I'm going to basically knock out the master bedroom and maybe build out of the back and I might do something about the office. How much are we doing here? Are we using explosives

to take out a house? That seems like an overkill maybe. Or maybe a building. When people blow up a building. I don't know. Or they blow up an old sports arena or something. This is a great twist on the Property Brothers here.

Seriously. Whatever it is, I just want to be the one who pushes the plunger to do it. Yeah, there you go. But yeah, I think the foundational pillars have to change. I think, obviously, the Mitchell Gobert thing

has run its course in a lot of ways, but it's not just them. It's the structure of that perimeter defense. It's, frankly, I think Quinn Snyder does a lot of great things

as a coach. I don't know if he feels limited by what Rudy Gobert can do or not, but this is a team that is super dogmatic defensively to the point that I'm not even saying you have to switch a lot. I'm not saying you have to do anything too radical, but even in this game, this deep into the series, they couldn't come up with an alternative rotation

so that Rudy Gobert wouldn't have to go from the paint out to the corner to contest threes that the Mavs were still getting. Wide open corner threes. I don't know why you can't change your scheme to adapt, to adjust for that, to take away some of those possibilities, to have someone rotating from a different angle. There seems like a lot of things that could have been on the board

and yet I don't know why this Jazz team feels they need to play in such a limited fashion, but they absolutely have. So whatever needs to happen to take that mental block off, I think that's the first step. KOC, a good way to think about this is let's go backwards. Who are the keepers on this team? Who are the unequivocal? Well, we got to keep that guy. The Jazz, surprisingly, not that many. I mean, you could basically tell me it's just Mitchell and Bogdanovich and everybody else is expendable. You could even tell me

everyone's expendable. How many keepers do you think they have? Zero. None. I mean, like the closest thing is obviously Mitchell or Gobert. But even then, like neither of those guys are untouchable.

You're open. You're listening. If somebody gives you a call, if the Knicks win the lottery and land a top four pick and they're offering something with that, future picks,

young players, for Mitchell, you're listening. If the Nets call up and say, hey, what do you think about Ben Simmons for Rudy Gobert?

You're listening. I think for the Utah Jazz... I'm in on that one. That was one of your better ideas. I saw that the other day. That one at least solves some fun content problems for us this summer

as we try to figure out what we're going to talk about. We get a week of podcasts out of that. Danny Ange, call on in for TheRinger.com. Danny, thanks for the help again. We appreciate it. But seriously though, with Danny Ange, I know people make fun of him saying almost Ainge, this and that,

because of some of the misses that he's had. But Danny Ainge has authored some of the bigger, riskier moves in the last 20 years in the NBA. The trade down from one to three, faults for Tatum. That's a guts, man. How about KG and Pierce? No kidding. Exactly.

Even trading Al Jefferson for KG, never mind trading them away when he did for all the picks. Also, he took Marcus Smart and Robert Williams. He took Grant Williams. I mean, granted, he took Romeo Lankford in the same draft, but he did take Grant Williams, who turned out to be a really valuable role player

who got right in Kevin Durant's chest and guarded him for long stretches of playoff games. I don't want to turn it into like a Danny Ainge love fest. I think he's good and I think for jazz fans, they have, you know, head coaches for 20 plus years. They had Quinn Snyder for eight years. They're used to cores and coaching staff staying the same. But with Danny Ainge, buckle up, get ready because this is this is

someone who came into a situation that is in need of major change like like rob said it's the personnel that needs to change because i think with quinn snyder he definitely deserves some blame for some of the rigidity with his system but also like like they signed eric paschal and rudy gay yeah as their small ball guys and then they get hernan gomez mid-season and it's just the options on this limited like if gobert when gobert is pulled to the perimeter as we saw tonight with the jazz switching far more often in the postseason there's nobody inside who can help offer any help if somebody gets by him so i i think for utah it's the defense that needs to change it's the head coach that needs to change and if the right deal is out there for either of those stars or both, even that is a

situation where maybe you go total blow it up mode. But I'm not all the way there with them. I still think keeping one of Gobert or Mitchell could be in their best interest, depending on what the return is for one of those guys. One thing I'm going to have a hard time getting out of my head is Jalen Brunson just straight up outplayed Donovan Mitchell in this series. Oh, yeah. I don't know how you can feel super great about Mitchell's trajectory when something like that happens. This should be the time for him when everything starts coming together in terms of how he reads the floor, when he's attacking, who he's attacking, manipulating the game.

And we've seen Mitchell's progress in some of those areas kind of hit a wall. And I'm waiting for the next evolution of his game. And we've seen Mitchell's progress in some of those areas kind of hit a wall. And I'm waiting for the next evolution of his game. I hope he can get over whatever hump seems to be in front of him. But right now, guys like Brunson are doing very similar things on more efficient shooting. I don't think it's a hump at this point. I think the situation is what it is. He came in with that kind of Booker, Tatum, Town towns, Jalen Brown's kind of generation, whatever that generation is. And all those guys have ascended in different ways, especially Booker and Tatum,

who I think were kind of peer groups for him, right? Tatum and Mitchell were in the same draft, weren't they? 2017. Yeah. Yeah. And he's just not a two way guy like those guys.

We've talked about this a few times on the pod, but he's probably closer to CJ McCollum than he is to Devin Booker. He's an offense-first guy. I think he's a, at least in this series, was a legitimate liability. And he got outplayed by Jalen Brunson, who's about to go in the free agent market.

He's for contracts 30, 32, 35, 37 next four years. In general, we didn't mention this yet, the Jazz, they're on the books next year for 155.6. Now that's the number like right now without adding minimum guys, draft picks, whatever else you have. So that's a tax team. This is a team that will not be one of the best,

I think, seven teams in the West next year. So we're in legitimate blow it up mode. I was looking, what if it's everybody? Because Conley is going to be the really tough one. Conley's 21 million next year. And there is no world where if he's in the free agent market this summer, I would say he's somewhere like a 5-6. He's in that, what Patty Mills got last summer. But maybe they're the team that takes Westbrook. Maybe there's a version where... I was trying to think of a four-team trade

where Mitchell goes to the Knicks with Hernan Gomez. Brooklyn gets Gobert. They get Derrick Rose and Royce O'Neal. The Lakers get Ben Simmons, Mike Conley, and Kemba Walker. And the Jazz get Russell Westbrook, Joe Harris, Talon Horton-Tucker, and RJ Barrett. And it's just, we blew it up. We got nothing left. We're going for 20 wins this year, and we're building around RJ Barrett. And we'll take your Westbrook poison pill for a year. Everybody else is gone. Give us a ton of picks.

The Knicks send them picks. The Lakers send them picks. Brooklyn, they just get everybody's picks and they just start over. I would rather do that than go 42 and 40 next year with a luxury tax, right? Yeah, this is nowhere near a luxury tax team. They just do not have the roster to justify it. I think most damningly, they don't have any young guys who you're looking at and saying, that's the guy who's immediately going to take a jump.

That's the young player in waiting that's going to transform our team. Mitchell was supposed to be that guy. Gobert was supposed to be that guy. Unless you're, I guess, miles higher on Nikhil Alexander-Walker than the consensus is, I'm not looking at this roster and seeing that transfer. Was he on this team? He is

technically on this team. We didn't see him on playoffs. It all goes back to that crazy Terrence Mann game, right? You think like there are these weird moments sometimes that happen in the playoffs. Like the Clippers had one in 15 when all of a sudden Corey Brewer and Josh Smith are basically ending this CP3

Blake Griffin thing. And last year, that Terrence Mann game where they blow, I went to it, 26-point lead, and they were never the same. I came out of that season thinking, they're never going to be the same. I don't know how you bounce back from that. It was way worse than I thought it was going to happen. KOC, one out of 10, blow it up.

You're a 10? You're blowing everything up. Everything's gone? It's a first-hand sign? No, I'm not quite a 10 blow it up you're a 10 you're blowing everything i mean everything's not everything's gone it's a no no no i'm not i'm not quite a 10 and that's because of my belief in donovan mitchell okay uh i i think while his stock is down i'm buying low i'm trying you just said they had no keepers so he's a semi-keeper for you well he's a he's a semi-keeper depending on what the return is but you're talking about someone who's only going to be 26 year old next season who we haven't seen him in a situation that like you just mentioned how jalen brunson has shined and outperformed mitchell in the series well brunson is playing oftentimes in a five-out offense and more spacing and he's playing with luca in that

backcourt as well with mitchell i would be very curious about seeing him in a different environment, in a different situation here. I don't think, I think at his age, everything I've heard about him since he was in college, work ethic wise, it's a bet on character. Yeah, I think he's better than he was in this series, including on defense.

So I'd be hesitant to trade Mitchell unless the return is outrageous, especially considering he mentioned their money, but he still has three more guaranteed years fence so i i'd be hesitant to trade mitchell unless the return is outrageous especially considering he mentioned their money but he still has three more guaranteed years left on his deal before a fourth year player option so like you still have time with him to me rudy gobert is the guy you look to move to a team that has real contending hopes that can fit gobert in right away like imagine gobert in place of Robert Williams in Boston. Just envision that.

You'd see a brand new version of Rudy Gobert that we've never been able to see before. And I think with Mitchell... I didn't like that analogy. How come? I like Robert Williams. You hurt my feelings. I don't want to imagine Rudy Gobert in a Boston jersey.

Can't come up with a different team. It might be an upgrade, Bill. As amazing as Robert Williams is. You're going to get cut off by the podcast bar. Just stop. Stop. This is bad. Time Lord is our guy. I was the last person to come around

on Time Lord. I was holding out to the bitter end. He even won me over. Rob, quickly on Dallas Phoenix. I mean, there is like the Luka just best player in the series potential. Phoenix is a way better team. Mikael Bridges gets to guard Luka. This is a fun series.

I'm excited for this. The Jalen Brunson piece. I don't think Dallas has nearly enough talent to hang, but we've learned not to rule out if one team has just an awesome guy that can go toe-to-toe with a team. That could be a problem.

But the way what we saw from Chris tonight, which we'll talk about later, I'm not too confident in Dallas' chances. What do you think? Well, there's a pretty sharp contrast in how these teams execute down the stretch in close games, right? You know, you have total confidence

in what Phoenix is doing. As we talked about, this Dallas team can be pretty reductive, pretty blunt in terms of just running Luka high action over and over and over. Sometimes that looks great. When his step back is clicking, he can hit enough shots, he can show

guys up. They can win that way. But it can be a little solvable sometimes too. It can be a little bit unreliable. So I would be... I'm a little concerned for the Mavs in some of those close games, but I love how they look with this five out system, you know, like this five out style with Dorian Finney-Smith at the five specifically. Having Luka back in the lineup for that where his rebounding can help them kind of round out those smaller lineups. They look super dangerous that way. They look really dynamic.

They have so much space, not only for Luka, but for Brunson and Dinwiddie to slash and make moves and move the defense. I think they're going to need stuff like that because, you know,

if Mikael Bridges is guarding Luka, you're going to need ways to both go through him and to work around him to space things out and create as much room for those other drivers as possible. So I would look forward to that and to see if they can put DeAndre Ayton to some tough

spots just like they did Rudy Gobert. All right, KOC, rank the eight playoff teams for me. And we'll say Memphis wins that series because I would be surprised if they did not. So include Memphis. All right. Okay. How about we start at eight? Let's start at eight.

At the bottom here, gonna go with philly right now at eight worried about hard and upside right now we'll see how that develops like we'll talk about later dallas seven okay miami six yeah memphis five milwaukee four and then we got Phoenix 3 Golden State 2 and I'm going Boston 1 for all the reasons we talk about later in the podcast is that just because you're on the Bill Simmons podcast sucking up to the

family on this podcast here definitely not sucking up to the family I think our discussion later is really good breaking down their defense and I don't think we even get into the development of Tatum later, but no, no, you guys have talked about that plenty on your pod.

And I think Boston number one right now is fair with the Middleton injury right now. That's a factor, the uncertainty with Devin Booker and with golden state, I just give Boston a slight edge at this moment. But if Booker, if Booker is able to return to full health and if Middleton at some, if they get past Boston

and get back Middleton, obviously that changes everything for the Bucs. Was that Memphis over Philly, you think? I would have Memphis over Philly as well. I would have Dallas 8, though. I think that Dallas-Utah

series was one of those. It's a classic first-round series that we'll look back and we'll be like, oh, neither of those teams were that great. But I would have Phoenix one and I would have Boston two. The thing with Dallas, though, is like we were just talking about,

it's not just Luka. Jalen Brunson looks unbelievable. What he's doing. It's fine. I just don't think Utah's very good. I want to see them do it against a much higher caliber competition. That's fair though, Bill, but

Brunson's been doing it all year long. When Luka was out early in the season, he averaged like 22 points, 7 assists. He was awesome for them earlier. He was great all season long. He's one of the more efficient ISO scorers in the league. He can score in so many different ways. It's good if you want to win a first round

series yeah i i think the sample i think the sample with brunson he hasn't gotten the high usage at all except for when luke has been out but we're now seeing what him and luca can do together when they're empowering brunson in ways that they haven't in the past i i'm a buyer and what we've seen from brunson in the first round. Granted, you're right. The Jazz defense is weak. It's an easier matchup for him and it'll be a much stiffer challenge when he might have

like Mikkel Bridges defending him on some possessions. But that's true with anybody when you're dependent by Mikkel Bridges. I'm buying on Jalen Brunson. What do you got, Rob? I mean, I don't want to gloss over the fact with Dallas too that, I mean, they just held the best regular season offense in the league

to 96 points in this closeout game. I think they're pretty stout defensively. Like what Dorian Finney-Smith and Reggie Bullock can do on the perimeter, I can't wait to watch those guys run up against CP and hopefully a healthier Devin Booker by the time that series starts. But I'm in a similar framing. I'm still thinking I mean, again again I'll just I'll just take the pandering

and say Boston won wow and I don't even have Boston won I have them too well it for me it's it's Booker's injury

like if Booker is healthy Phoenix is one but until we see that I still have the game seven the game seven and Phoenix still matters for me in this rankings

in the finals. That's fair. Anyway, all right. So you have Boston 1, Phoenix 2, Golden State 3. Who's 4? Yeah, I would go... I'm going to go Miami... Shit. It's hard.

Once you get to 4, it's really tough. Whoever you like personally. I think I have to go Miami 4 because if I'm putting Boston 1, I'm saying they're probably going to beat the Bucs. And so it would go Miami 4, Milwaukee 5, Philly 6, Memphis 7, Dallas 8, I think is how I'd put it.

If Milwaukee had Middleton, I would have them third, I think. Without Middleton, I think you had that right. I would go Miami 4, Milwaukee 5, and then on down the line. It sucks. You guys are coming back a little bit later in the podcast. We're going to talk about the first two games in the Boston-Milwaukee matchup.

Coming up next, Ben Solak talking about the draft. See you guys in a little bit. Don't just watch the NBA playoffs. Be a part of the NBA playoffs with FanDuel, an official partner of the NBA. All new customers get a risk-free first bet up to $1,000. Place any bet on the NBA playoffs. If you don't win, you'll get up to $1,000 back.

In site credit, FanDuel, you get the easy-to-use app. You get fast winnings paid to you. You get same-game parlays. You get really fun futures. I mean, for round two, you could parlay the Celtics and Miami together. If you think that's going to be round three, throw those two together. You'll get better than even odds.

You can just bet the Celtics in game one with the under. If you like that, that's Sunday. Download FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook today. You can do any of these things and use promo code BS even better. Place your risk-free first bet for a chance to take home a WM basketball's biggest stage. And remember,

use promo code BS for this amazing offer. You must be 21 plus and present in select states only. First online real money wager. Only $10 first deposit required. Bonus issued as non-withdrawable site credit that expires 14 days after receipt.

Restrictions apply. See full terms at sportsbook.fandle.com. Gambling problem in Arizona? Call 1-800-NEXT-STEP. Connecticut, 888-789-7777. In Colorado, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, 1-800-GAMBLER. In Michigan, 800-270-7117. 1-877-770-STOP. In Louisiana. 1-800-270-7117 for confidential Michigan. 1-877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York. Tennessee red line is 800-889-9789. And in West Virginia, 1800gamber.net.

All right, we're taping this part of the podcast. It is 840 Pacific time. The first round of the NFL draft just ended. The Terminator, Ben Solak, is here. What a night for him. Sixers staving off a potential game seven. It just would have been an all-time catastrophe in the works. Did not happen.

Blow out the Raptors. Then your Eagles, you're rooting for this. You're rooting for them to get a little frisky. Yes, sir. They got super frisky. Were they the winners of the draft for you little frisky. Yes, sir. They got super frisky. Were they the winners of the draft for you? One of the few winners, certainly. There's always more than one. But when you look at what they needed defensively in terms of almost letting Fletcher Cox walk in

free agency this year, needing to be able to run this too high defense, needing to be able to get more substantial size up front to play with these light boxes. And then they kept on drafting these young receivers and they clearly can't evaluate them super well or develop them super well. And they just said, you know, send it to hell. We're going to go and just get 24-year-old A.J. Brown. Really, really, really good night for the Eagles, both in terms of the short term,

evaluating their coaching staff, evaluating Jalen Hurts, and the long term. This is a really nice build for moving on from Fletcher Cox, saving some money, and also laying the foundation for a different quarterback than Hurts if that's what it calls for. So, great night for them.

Great night for the Jets. Great night for the Giants. Great night for the Ravens. Well, wait. We'll talk about those other teams in a second. The Eagles, they made a new contract

with A.J. Brown, too. Yeah. They somehow got him in a trade for like slightly more than what the Cardinals gave up for Hollywood Brown, which was the single craziest transaction of the night, unless you count the Patriots taking Cole Strange 29th. But the AJ Brown, like, you know, sometimes I just,

you talked about this the last time you were on the pod about what is the value of these elite guys? Is it two firsts? Is it one first? Is it one first and a, you know, a high mid-round pick? And then A.J. Brown, you could have told me they traded two firsts for him, and I think I would have believed it. Why was the price for him

so low? For A.J.? Or for Hollywood? I'm going to be sure I got my Browns correct. No, for A.J. Yeah, yeah. I think for AJ, the expectation of signing the extension is always going to change things a little bit, right? That's part of the hang up with Debo Samuel moving from the Niners, which is something that did not happen tonight.

You know that you're going to have to spend a lot of money and it always hurts to trade picks to spend money. Because one of the nice things about making picks is you get working contracts. So you spend the pick, but you don't have to spend the money. The Eagles were in a position to be comfortable with that. They had bottom five lowest amount of money spent on wide receivers among all teams in the league when you look at full salary cap, because they were just full of rookies full of young guys. And so they had money at the position to spend, whereas the Titans

clearly felt as if they were not going to be able to get a good contract with A.J. Brown for where they liked him. And so the Eagles give Brown what amounts to $25 million per year, right? That's $100 million over four years on the extension. So if you add in the fifth year, it's not going to be as much, but technically $25 per year on the extension, which is that kind of magic number now. That's the number Debo was after. It's a big number, but only $57 million guaranteed is really not that bad. When you look at the size of that contract, $57 million guaranteed, $14.5 million guaranteed per year

is not too bad on a contract that size. And so I think for a first and a third, expecting to sign that big extension. Overall, not too bad. You got to remember, the Cardinals got Marquise Brown and the 100th overall pick, right? So they got Brown and then another round three pick just for that first overall, which was 23, a little bit of a less expensive pick. But Marquise Brown is not remotely in A.J. Brown's tier. I would say he's probably two tiers below.

Yeah, is he one of the top like 40 wide receivers in the league? I wouldn't have him if we made the list. Like two weeks ago, we did this thing where we did the value

of a different receiver. Basically all the position guys who weren't quarterbacks. I wouldn't have even put him on my honorable mention. Yeah, if you want to see what being speed pilled looks like in the NFL,

look at the way that Steve Kime and Cliff Kingsbury built that team, right? Because there was no reason to not pay Christian Kirk, even the Jags extension, to then trade a first-round pick for Marquise Brown, who the only thing he does better than Christian Kirk is be fast.

That's it, right? This team is so oriented on verticality, so oriented on team speed, so oriented on team speed, so oriented on being able to stretch the field that they are bringing in a small receiver who's plagued by drops, plagued by inconsistency,

who doesn't have much of a role besides running down the field. And you would have thought when they spent a second round pick on Andy Isabella four years ago, and that totally lampooned because he could only do one thing that they would have learned their lesson, but they knew AJ Brown didn't was upset with the Titans. They could made a call to John Robinson.

I'm sure they did and ask and see what the situation was with AJ Brown, but they have prioritized team speed, especially on offense more than any other trait in Arizona. And that's how you get guys like Marquise Brown on this sort of a trades, how you get a top 10 pick on Brown on this sort of a trade. It's how you get a top 10 pick on Isaiah Simmons because you just believe being fast is the solution. This is the NFL, baby. You've got to hit somebody. And the Cardinals don't believe that. And that's a problem in their team building philosophy right now. Well, wasn't isn't he close to Kyler Murray, too? That was the other thing that seemed like a let's try to make Kyler a

little more happy move. Oklahoma connection. Yep. They played together in college. And that always is good. That's always nice. It's they played together in college and that always is good. That's always nice. It's important to keep your quarterback happy, but I think... Is it? I think it would have been easier

to just sign him to the extension. That probably would have kept him happy too. Right. I, uh... The Cardinals were on my list for worst run teams

and they might have might have started climbing a little bit. I didn't get that at all. I don't know why they wouldn't get that at all. I don't know why they wouldn't have gone for AJ. I don't know why make a run at Debo Samuel if you're going to try to get splashy.

Why are you getting splashy with Hollywood Brown? At least they didn't have the chance. And there were good guys left on the board. Yeah, which like, you know, small trade up for Jahan Dotson, not sexy, but good. Like, you know, go and try to get Traylon Burks at Arkansas, who's another speed guy. He's just big. He's actually

physical. He's dense. He's explosive. Would've worked. They didn't draft another first-round linebacker, which is a great success. Big, big A gold star for not doing the third year in a row for a linebacker. They learned that. But everything else about it is a tough look. The Cardinals

keep believing they can build a team this way, and I think they're going to keep discovering in December to January. It doesn't play. Well, Steve Kime just got an extension, so what does he care? Yeah, exactly. He's got a good relationship with the owners, apparently. The Patriots did the more boring version of this, what you laid out with Kirk and then trading draft capital to replace the guy,

where they let Shaq Mason go, traded him for a fifth round pick and then traded back from 21 to then basically overshoot the moon for Shaq Mason's replacement. I'm not happy. My dad who stayed up, my dad's 74, just coming back from COVID,

stayed up late, Pat's trade back. He's like, I'll stay up a little longer. See how this goes. And then they take a guy who, as he said, was not on my board. Yeah, my dad, Pittsburgh fan, also recovering from COVID, was going to try to stay up. And the picket pick comes through and I get no text. And I was like, he's asleep on the recliner.

Okay, it's good to know. He'll find out tomorrow morning. Well, one of the things that usually happens in the draft is people always love the Ravens, whatever they do. And they had another one where people came out

and were like, really? Like the 14th pick, they get Hamilton, who you wrote the piece. When was that? Three, four weeks ago about Hamilton? Could the best guy in the draft be a safety? And why don't we

value safeties? And of course, he ends up on the Ravens. They trade back up. They get a center. So everyone, once again, we have the Ravens party. We usually don't have parties for the Jets and Giants during the draft. And yet, everybody seemed to walk away from this one being like, Jets, Giants.

Good work. This is unusual. Yeah. There are a few teams that a lot of them, most of them are in the top 10 who just perennially do something dumb, right? We had the Panthers at six. We had the Jets four and 10 Giants, five and seven Seahawks at nine. And we were all just sitting there biting our fingernails,

waiting for somebody to do something real dumb. And nobody did anything dumb, right? When the Seahawks picked Charles Cross, the proven sec tackle, good pass protector, left tackle that they so desperately need without any sort of fanfare or kerfuffle. Everybody, I think, was slack-jawed. That's not what Seattle does in the first round.

They trade back and go draft some running back, draft some off-ball backer. And so it was a really nice night for the Giants, who firstly did a tremendous job hiding their interest in Kayvon Thibodeau. Everybody told you that the Giants met a lot with Kayvon Thibodeau and did so because they weren't liking it, right? Like they were meeting with him, trying to figure him out and it just wasn't good. And they wanted to give him a second try and whatever.

Like that was a big narrative in the space that the Giants meet with Thibodeau because they really want to figure out his personality. And meanwhile, it seems like he was the slam dunk pick at five the whole time. That was very well included. And then nobody really knew who their tackle of choice was. And Evan Neal eventually was the guy at seven. So really nice draft for them. Panthers at six with Ikema Kwanu. They've had seven different starting left tackles over the last seven years. They needed to get that guy in place and they did. And then the Jets, who at four get Ahmad Sauce Gardner, who's a press corner prototype for Robert Sala's defense. They never really spent

an early pick on a corner for Sala. So it was a bit of a surprise, but he's the right sort of player for that team. They get Garrett Wilson at 10, who was wide receiver one for a lot of people, not me, but I get it. And I understand why they liked him. And then Jermaine Johnson, the Florida State Edge, who they were apparently ready to draft at four, ready to draft at 10. He's free falling and they trade back up, make three first round picks. All three guys that reportedly are top 10 on their board. This was a huge draft for Joe Douglas because he's really getting towards put up or shut up time with the way he's built this team. And he got three of his guys.

So if he had this draft right, this is the springboard. If he had it wrong, he just kind of dug a grave here for the Jets. So absolutely huge watershed draft for the Jets. So absolutely huge watershed draft for the Jets. Who should have been the first round pick and the first overall pick in this draft? Oh, Mother Mary. Trade. Pass. Leave. No, but who's just

the best player? Who do you think seven years from now, who is the best player in this draft? Kayvon Tibbitt would be my guess. So I feel that way too. All the reasons he dropped and I admittedly follow this basically from reading The Ringer and listening to our podcast

and reading a couple of the draft pieces in different places. But just from a general vibe, dumbasses like me can get the gist, right? It's like every year there's a guy like Hamilton where he's going to fall seven to ten picks lower than he should go just because of the position he plays.

There's people trying to talk themselves out of somebody like Thibodeau, who if you had said at any point, you know, basically before January, who's going to be the number one pick, he would have been one of the first two or three mentioned. He goes five. And then there's the Jags at number one, talking themselves in this guy from Georgia basically because nobody could agree who was the number one pick and it's like oh the upside and then the guy the Eagles get who was the better version of him at Georgia yeah Trayvon Walker was the first round first overall pick for for the Jacksonville Jaguars from Georgia was originally a defensive tackle there and then because the other guys were too good and because of other

mitigating reasons, like Georgia had to get their best players on the field, but in part because he couldn't supplant Jordan Davis, who went 13 to the Eagles and Devante Wyatt, who went 28 to the Packers, he moved to edge. And that is obviously a position, a premium position, a position of value for the NFL. He's a great athlete at that position. So the Jaguars made that pick. But low-key, one of the losers of the draft is the Jags. They would have loved to have traded out a one. Everybody would have. It's not a good year to have the number one overall pick.

They take Walker, who, man, I don't know. I think Walker would have gone nine at the earliest if he did not go number one overall relative to where other teams had him so this was not a consensus top five guy and then they trade back up into the first round at like a weird premium they spent uh they went from 35 to 27 and it's cost them a fourth and a sixth to do it which doesn't sound like a lot but that's like more than the price of admission had been set like you look at the, the,

the Patriots and the chiefs trade up. The chiefs went from 29 to, uh, to 21 and they just sent a third and a fourth, which is eight picks earlier in the first round. It's a difference. So the Jags spent a little extra to get back in the first round to get Devin Lloyd,

who's an off ball linebacker. And there are some off ball linebackers who should go round one, but typically there's not a lot. And in my opinion, Devin Lloyd was not one of them. So it wasn't a very good draft for Jacksonville, who spent two first round picks on defense and still, in my opinion, has no good plan on to develop their ex-first overall pick

in Trevor Lawrence, a quarterback. Trent Baalke is not the sort of guy you want running your team. And we knew that before in the offseason and they didn't fire him. And we're just re-emphasized with it now after the draft. I don't like the way he approached the first round. Well, you'd think there's a couple parallels here that I can relate to.

One is that the Jags are owned by the Khan family. I don't think this is the number one thing going on in Shad Khan's life. He's a big auto parts guy. He's got a lot of investments. And then the son, Tony, who's kind of the heir apparent, he's the guy who runs AEW, the WWE rival. And that's what he's, he's basically the,

he's like Vince McMahon on the rise and wrestling. So neither of these guys are that into it. Doesn't seem like from afar. And those are always the teams that you want drafting ahead of you in a draft. Those are the teams you want to trade with. But I look at that Walker thing. I did on TV, I did the draft when Anthony Bennett went number one to the Cavs. And it was a very similar draft to this one. There was no star. Nobody could agree who the best guy was. Everybody agreed the better guys might be in that nine to 13 range. And nobody wanted the number one pick, so the Cavs couldn't even trade down. They wanted to. And all of a sudden they talked themselves into Anthony Bennett.

And when they did that, they drafted him and it was a huge surprise. And I was on the broadcast and I actually made a noise, which you're kind of not supposed to do when you're announcing, but I was like, whoa, I did one of those. And my mic was on. And Anthony Bennett was a bust and it didn't make sense. It was too high. Nobody really understood it. And this is kind of what this Walker thing

reminded me of. Not to mention, you get the pressure of being the number one pick. What if Thibodeau is awesome for the Giants? You have that thing. If his Georgia teammates are good, he's going to be compared to all these other things. He's on a bad team anyway.

It's such a bad spot for the guy. I feel bad for him. And what's critical is this. He has to learn how to rush the passer because Georgia didn't ask him to. Defensively, when Georgia wanted to get after the passer, they wanted to blitz. They wanted to use their linebackers,

their overhangs kind of structurally. Walker was not the sort of player that they asked. He was in this like under-tackle role to blitz the passer. So with all of that visibility, number one overall pick, Jaguars, new head coach, Trevor Lawrence is there. You know, Aidan Hutchinson went one pick later. Kayvon Thibodeau went four picks later.

Georgia defense, incredible. Unbelievable athlete, Alden Smith comparisons. With all that visibility, he has to learn. He has to develop. He has to take reps and be bad and then get better. He's absolutely one of those players, and the Jags know it. The Jags don't expect him to walk in and dominate. So how long

of a leash does this guy get in terms of public visibility and media coverage where it's week 10 and he's still nowhere on third down. He's still the occasional flash of athleticism. It's a bummer. Yeah. It reminds me of the Trubisky. Remember Trubisky was like the third pick

and how many starts did he have in college? Yeah, he had 13 starts and they traded up three to two to go get him. And they're like, well, you know, doesn't have a lot of reps,

but the talent's there and he can learn on the job. And I don't know, man. There's a reason why sometimes we look at the college production and you can kind of learn some stuff.

Like, I don't know if Hutchinson is going to be better than Thibodeau. I actually, I just think that Thibodeau, the reasons that he fell were so stupid to me. He cares about more than football. He's trying to develop

businesses outside. Like, what? Is the guy the most talented guy or not? Who's going to be the impact guy? The other weird thing about this draft was 12, 13, 14 might end up being like three of the best five picks in the draft, right? Williams falls to 12. Everybody agrees if he was in the draft, he could have potentially even gone first.

Then you get the guy at 13 who, you know, decent chance he's better than the guy who went number one. And then Hamilton goes 14, who might've been the best player in the draft. Absolutely. And yeah, don't sleep on as well. And then Hamilton goes 14, who might have been the best player in the draft. Absolutely. And yeah, don't sleep on it as well. A couple picks later, Chargers' Zion Johnson at 17 is a very, very big pick for that team. Because if they can shore up that offensive line, this team is very well set up.

I like Zion Johnson at 17 a fair bit. Chris Olave also at 11 is a good ball player for the Saints. That was a little early, I think. Chris Olave maybe made it to 16. It was a little wide receiver run, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Let's take a quick break

and a couple other stories to hit. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl ring. He rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support

mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you could still walk or run 60 kilometers, host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November. Sign up now. Just search Movember. All right, coming back, you talked me into betting Desmond Ritter in the first round and it didn't happen.

Hello. It didn't seem like any of the quarterbacks happened. I wonder, now how much do you think they read the discourse and hear the discourse? Because in years past, teams talk themselves into the quarterbacks and they try to see stuff that's, and they go glass half full and all of a sudden teams are trading up. And especially in this kind of draft in twenties,

all of a sudden people, and it just didn't happen this year. Even when we got to like 29, 30, 31, 32, I thought for sure the Pats were going to trade out at 29 and somebody was going to take Willis there at 29 with the

Pats pick. That didn't happen. It was one quarterback, but this was a draft where everybody was like, yeah, we should maybe not even have any quarterbacks in the first round, maybe one max. So did everyone listen to us or were the quarterbacks that bad? Six of one, half dozen of the other. It's tricky. The moment to me that really stood out was when you got the Titans at 26 and the Buccaneers at 27. And the Titans were a team that was rumored for quarterback

and the Bucs were a team that were rumored for quarterback because of Brady being only so many years left to play for the Bucs. Yeah, at least eight years left, but he's on his way out soon. And then the Titans traded out and the Bucs traded out least eight years left, but he's on his way out soon. The Titans traded out and the Bucs traded out. It's not that they stayed and made picks. There were players there for the Titans and definitely players there for the Bucs that that team liked and wanted to take

in round one, and they traded back. To me, that was a strong indication that nobody in the league thought any quarterbacks were going in those last six picks. Those were the picks in that first round that still allow you to have the fifth year option on a player's contract. Only round one picks get the fifth year option, which when you have a quarterback, that fifth year option is unbelievably valuable because it's another year with that quarterback below market price if he is a quality starter. So I think that the bigger agent there was the

league understanding internally and from the outside discourse. We don't have to move on these quarterbacks until late. We can trade back. We can get other guys. We can be patient. And then we can attack it sometime in year two. Because you heard reports like Desmond Ritter, who, trust me,

I lost good money on Desmond Ritter round one. That's our guy. He's still our guy, though. I'm not quitting on him. I'm just a little hurt. Yeah, it hurts. Jeremy Fowler, VSPN, multiple teams have round one

grades on Desmond Ritter. We heard that Malik Willis, multiple teams have round one grades. And so teams had grades where they're willing to take these guys, but they're playing the draft board. I think the draft board told them, hey, once we get past Pittsburgh, it looks like nobody's going for this. The fact that Pittsburgh had their pick of the litter

and picked Pickett is, man, something else. I didn't think their Malik Willis love, which was rumored for a long time, was as strong as it was reported. But man, I would have told you they are not taking Kenny Pickett in round one. And for Pickett to be the lone quarterback selected is really quite stunning.

You were a Ritter guy, right, out of all those guys? Absolutely, yeah. And even if you take Ritter out of the equation, Willis is still worthy of the first round gamble because of the traits, right? If he hits, he hits big. If Pickett hits, you have Mitchell Trubisky. Like, that's who you get.

You get someone on the Carr, Trubisky, Garoppolo spectrum. I'm not interested in hitting on that. I'm not interested in rolling those dice because even if they land the way I want them to land, I don't really feel like that's a big win for me, right? The Steelers, do they fashion themselves as contenders? Because the whole book on Pickett, all 24 years old and eight and a quarter inch hands of him

is that he's pro ready. Pittsburgh, that office of line ain't pro ready. So this receiver room is a little bit discombobulated. He's 24? Yeah. He's a super senior. He's turning 24. That's a bad pick. You know who else is turning 24? I know. Cole Strange. I'm aware.

It might be one of those things like when you have the grandparent who you decide they're not allowed to drive anymore. Oh yeah? Like, Grandpa, bad news. You're not allowed to drive anymore. You're just not. You kind of

clip that parking meter that time. We're done. It's for the best. We'll drive you. I'm worried that I don't want Belichick to get there, but the drafts have been bad now for a couple years in a row. Last year was okay,

but the, like, three of the last four were bad. And this pick, look, if they love Cole Strange, that's fine. Maybe he'll be awesome. It's just when people take a guy, you know, 20 to 30 to 40 picks ahead of where they were supposed to go, that's kind of just,

it's either arrogant or weird. Trade down again. Yeah. Right? Get them in the 40s. What's wrong with that? Could have pulled it off. Yeah.

All right. So round two, we have Bucks, Vikes, Titans, Giants, Texans, Jets, Bears, Seahawks, Seahawks. There will be some quarterbacks, I'm guessing, taken in a couple of those, right? Yeah, I would guess so. Seahawks at 40-41 is a team that has been interested in our boy, Desmond Ritter. Texans at 37 had Kenny Pickett, Steam,

in the betting markets late in the process. I think if he made it through round one, they would have been a picket spot here. Now a bit more of a question mark, but still possible. Titans at 35. We know did their work on the quarterback class.

Ryan Tannehill's contract is the biggest quarterback QB cap hit this year. I want to say he's at least top three. And then Buccaneers at 33 might have to get ready for their guy leaving. Giants at 36.

Also the big wild card. That whole, hey, we're going to announce we're not taking Daniel Jones first or fifth year option on draft day. But also we still have a week to pick it up later if we want thing is very sneaky i don't really think they're in the quarterback market but at this point now they can't be discounted you feel a little baker mayfield ish tiny bit a whiff a whiff of baker if i had to guess right now, Baker is a Panther.

But also, that's such a depressing idea. I really don't want to bet it. Baker for the Texans is also, I think, something that has a little bit of legs as well. I'm on the record. Baker is now underrated. I don't know how it happened. I'm not a fan.

I hated his progressive insurance commercials. I bet against him multiple times last season. You didn't like the progressive insurance commercials? I did not. I don't like when people get commercials who don't deserve commercials. You didn't like Smoke Alarm? I'm not saying the action. I'm just saying I didn't like seeing him in commercials over other guys.

But he's not underrated. He's not bad. He's just not necessarily the guy you can win the Super Bowl with, but he's not bad. He's better than Daniel Jones guy you can win the Super Bowl with, but he's not bad. He's better than Daniel Jones if his shoulder's healthy. What are we doing? He's better than Sam Darnold. I mean, come on.

I'm not with you on Jones. I'm with you on Darnold. And I agree with you. Wait a second. You're not with me on Daniel Jones? No. Where are you? Daniel Jones is better than Baker Mayfield.

Oh, my God. Like a little bit. I'm not saying like, you know, buy a cavern here. But I think Daniel Jones is better than Baker Mayfield. Oh my God. Like a little bit. I'm not saying like, Oh my God. You know, buy a cavern here. But I think Daniel Jones is better. The thing with Baker is Baker is always at his best when he's an underdog.

And right now he's back to being an underdog. And that's what's attractive about Baker to me is I think that assuming he's not completely off the rails and totally unhinged,

a fired up Baker I think is a good thing for my locker room, especially if I'm a young listless. That's why I like him more than Daniel Jones. If Daniel Jones isn't firing up a locker room, Baker's at least got some charisma.

I agree with you. In terms of Monday to Saturday juice in my locker room and then Sunday on my sidelines, I would take Baker over Daniel Jones. Anything that involves throwing the football, I would like Daniel Jones before Baker Mayfield. Listen, there's 10 to 12 quarterbacks that actually matter. And then after that, you're headed toward the same result generally with any of them.

I might as well have the guy who's got charisma. It's just podcast content after that. Baker's certainly giving us a lot of podcast content. Any other storylines that popped out from you for this draft? Did your big picture board for what you thought might happen in the playoffs? Are there future bets you're thinking about now? Are the Eagles a fringe contender to you now? Anybody like that?

Yeah, there were a couple people in the community who steamed Hertz MVP and Eagles odds. I got the little ESPN notification. Caesars, Eagles, Super Bowl odds have gone from like 50 to 1 to 40 to 1 or like 41 to 31, something like that. I do not believe in Jalen Hurts as a playoff quarterback. I saw what that Buccaneers defense

believed of Jalen Hurts and it was that he could not throw the ball. It wasn't great. Yeah, I don't think that changes even with the addition of A.J. Brown. So I think that's a little bit presumptuous. What I will say is this. Two teams who made deep playoff runs last year, who just very quietly added good players who can start next year and be very quality and important roles for their team

are the Buffalo Bills, who got one of my favorite players, Florida corner, Kyer Elam. They've always needed a corner two opposite Tredavious White. It's always been a big need for them. And finally, after Tredavious White got hurt, they decided to make that pick. So if White's healthy and Elam can play in year one, the Bills just solved one of the biggest problems they've had over the last couple of years. And then your Super Bowl runner-up,

the Cincinnati Bengals, who I don't think should have made it that far, and I don't think will make it that far again, but got one of the better players left in round one at Dax Hill, who's the corner safety hybrid out of Michigan, is exactly what they need. They need a quick player who can cover the slots, a guy who can run underneath Jesse Bates and play that nickel role.

He's an important player to them. And they beefed up their offensive line in free agency, the Bengals. They did, yep. Bengals 22-1 on FanDuel. Bills are the favorite right now, plus 650. Yep. Every year we get to draft time and I just go, Bills, please draft around one corner. Please do it. Please do it.

And every year they come up with something else that's creative and cool and it's an important player. But this year they did, I think, the job. They kind of swallowed the pill and said, our defense can hide cornerbacks only so much. We're going to start investing in this position. So, Elam I liked a lot for the Bills. And Daxton Hill at 31, I liked a lot for the Bills and Daxon Hill at 31. I liked

the Bengals. I hate everything the Vikings do. Stop training back, make good picks. That's that. The Vikings, had they taken Jamison Williams and just put him with Jefferson and said, fuck this, we're just going for it. That would have been really fun.

How about the Hotspot on the Lions, though, with Jamison Williams, man? You don't even have a quarterback. You're trading 20 picks to go get a torn ACL receiver at 12. That's a lot of dip on your chip. I respect the moves. Well, and you have that legacy

of the all-time hit-or-miss receivers in the first-round team. The Lions are doing it yet again. I was looking at the NFC. I think the best value right now for future bets, if there is even value, is who wins the NFC? Because I don't think we have

a dominant NFC team, per se. Your Eagles are 17-1. It's possible. Again, I like the Eagles more for, I know, right before the Brown trade, to win the division, they were plus plus 275 plus 250 which I liked a little bit more just because again like I'm really worried about hurts against

playoff defenses for like two three weeks in a row um one team and that's plus 240 right now plus 240 yeah yeah that's pretty solid by the way yeah to me that's still actionable uh the one NFC contender that had a you know a bit of a meme day is the Packers who just didn't take a round one receiver Packers go linebacker one play Walker at 22 who I just thought should be a first rounder and is a good player but I really liked him. Yeah quite quite good player. He's

the second linebacker for the team. It's not like they had none right? They had Devon's or Campbell and then they take Devon Tate Wyatt who's a good defensive tackle but also had massive off the field concerns that were potentially going to push him outside around one. And they grab him at 28. And they're still throwing the ball at Al Lazard, baby.

I don't, I do not see the vision. I do not understand the play-up. Let's just have Aaron Rodgers win his third MVP in a row, I suppose. We'll go back to losing the end of the championship. He's not winning an MVP with the talent that they have on their offense this year. That ain't happening. How's he going to get to 5,000 yards?

4,500 yards? I do not see the plan unless they really, truly, earnestly believe they can move the Raiders off of Darren Waller, which is what they wanted to do in the Devontae Adams trade. They've been trying to do it for this process here before the draft, but the Raiders went and put Darren Waller on the

stage to welcome the NFL to Vegas. They do not feel like a team that wants to move off of Waller. I'm struggling to find the star receiver that they get because Brown is off the board, and I would be stunned if the Niners trade Debo to the Packers. After the way they've seen them repeatedly in the postseason, that would shock me. And so I struggle to find that star receiver left at the Packers

so desperately need. I can't imagine that either. And I think the price for Debo is more than A.J. Brown. I think so. Yeah. And probably somewhere between Tyreek was more than A.J. Brown, right? I need to see the whole list, but we didn't. Devontae, nobody went for two firsts out of the receivers.

Yeah. Which I think was a little surprising. Yeah, so Tyreek went for 29 a second, a fourth, a fourth, and a sixth. Oh, Jesus. That was a lot. Yeah, so I would say... It's less than that.

Yeah. Right, the difference between first rounders is a little substantial, right? A.J. Brown took 18 and Tyreek took 29, but still having to trade five picks for the player and the second round pick as well is pretty substantial, right? Having the remaining picks that the Eagles still be flexible, whereas once the Dolphins did that, it becomes tough to move around right in this draft and for other players. And so I don't know, I would be I'd be curious what the charts would say on that.

But I would expect, yeah, Devo requires a middle first plus. 10 I thought was always a little too much if they made that Jets trade, but a middle first then plus something on the back end. That's obviously not viable anymore for 2022. Now it's a 2023 first, which introduces uncertainty, and that

means that the price goes up in terms of the extra stuff you have to put in. Who do you have, Sixers, Miami? Sixers and Six at all times in every place with no doubt. One of my best buddies is a Heat fan. We've been talking about this for a long time. I think the Sixers can beat him. I earnestly do.

But with that said, I do love rooting for playoff Jimmy. And he is vindicated in many of his Sixers opinions from years past. And so it's a win for the Sixers or it's a win for Ben Solak's opinions about the Sixers in 2019. Well, what a night for you. It really was. The Eagles-Sixers, it doesn't get much better than that as a combo. I was so grateful during that 10, 11, 12, 13 pick. All the trades were happening, right?

Eagles were moving up because that was like fourth quarter of the game. And if I had to be double screening, I think my head would have burst. So it was very nice to just fully lock in on the trades, fully lock in on the lines moving up and not have to worry about the Sixers blowing a 20-point lead. So we're not at home.

You only blow 26-point leads when you're at home. That's the thing. All right. You can read Ben Solak on TheRinger.com. You can hear him on The Ringer NFL show, sometimes on The Ringer gambling show as well. Good to see you as always. Thanks so much, Bill.

What does possible sound like for your business? It's having the spend that powers your scale with no preset spending limit. More cash on hand to grow your business with up to 55 interest-free days. And the ability to reach further with access to over 1,400 airport lounges worldwide. Redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum.

All right, we're taping this part of the podcast. It's a little after seven o'clock. PT just had two basketball games. A third one is happening right now. The NFL draft is happening right now. My TVs are exploding. This is a great time. First game sucked, the Philly game.

We'll talk about that in a second. Second game was New Orleans. The feel-good first roundround loser of this year, pushing Phoenix as far as they could take them. Devin Booker even came back. Phoenix barely wins in the final minutes. Some unbelievable Chris Paul. The Pelicans go home.

Rob Mahoney, what stood out to you about Game 6? That's a hell of a party favor to take home if you're the Pelicans. I think every year there's a team that is young and kind of bad in the middle of the season and we're wondering should they tank for a draft pick? Should they make a push for the playoffs? And I hope we remember

this Pelicans team when this happens next year with some other team because they're going to next season with a lot of juice, with a lot of confidence. They played a hell of a series. My friend Kevin Wilds on Twitter compared it to the Bubbles Suns two years ago. And even though they didn't even make the playoffs that year,

they laid some sort of a foundation that convinced them to trade for Chris Paul. And a year later, they're in the finals. KFC, you see any similarities with that? Absolutely, because now they're going to be in a situation where their Chris Paul, you would hope, is going to be Zion Williamson. With him coming back, if he's able to get in the big if here, but if Zion can get in the best shape of his life and return to the court to a team that has now defensive enforcers

like Herb Jones on that end of the floor, when is the last time we've seen a rookie play at his level on the defensive end with CJ McCollum? Granted, it wasn't a great series for him. If you get CJ McCollum as the third option between Batine Ingram and Zion, that offense is going to become far more significantly difficult to stop on what for defenses. So I mean, for Zion, it all comes down to health. That goes without saying. But it seems like, I'm not sure if you've heard

anything about this, Bill, but I don't think New Orleans wanted to bring him back because they still want him to actually get back into the best shape of his life before risking further injury with the condition he's in now.

But that's my impression from the people I've talked to. Well, he's not in shape. I mean, you can see it from him on the sidelines. If we're going to extend the Bubble Suns comparisons, maybe he could go on a plant-based diet like Chris Paul did.

Because Chris Paul basically changed his career when he got in a crazy level of shape. Tonight was unbelievable. I mean, the stuff he's doing, I don't really even know how to have perspective on this older athlete stuff. You know, I think once Brady had the Falcons come back, that was when everybody's brain

just started to kind of break with this stuff. LeBron was going to win the scoring title this year for a little bit there. Brady's still winning playoff games. And it's just throwing me off. But the one thing we always kind of knew was that aging point guards, Rob, just weren't supposed to be getting better. There was a point in this game when him and Aiton had made 16 of 16 shots to start the game.

And at the end, he did everything. He had the alley-oop. He's setting up Booker. It was just dagger after dagger. I got to say, offensively, I think this is as good as he's been his whole career. I know that's a crazy thing to say, but that's how I feel. I was there for his whole career. I think this is as good as he's ever been.

What do you see? I mean, he's exceptional. Just the level of control that he's able to exercise in the highest pressure moments, in the biggest moments of the game against the best defenders on the floor, the way he's able to pull guys into pick and roll who don't want to be in there, to pick his matchup, to pick his spots. There's just not a lot of guys better than that. I mean, it just really, really pays

to have Chris Paul on your team in moments like this. It's the reason the Suns have basically been the gods of crunch time this season. They've been incredible in those situations all year long. And I thought the Suns did some really smart stuff in this game to allow Paul to conserve energy because we've seen Jose Alvarado pestering him full court every time

he tries to bring up the ball. So they said, hey, Jay Crowder, you're going to bring up the ball in a lot of possessions. Hey, Mikael Bridges, Cam Johnson, we're going to let you guys bring up the ball to save CP half a court and then get into our offense. I thought that was really smart. And of course, just getting Devin Booker back for this game. He was a shell

of himself. He played possum for a lot of it. He made one big three, though. They made the one big shot of the game for him. Yeah, absolutely huge. But he played a lot of minutes and he absorbed a lot of attention that that way, at least if Chris Paul doesn't have to force it, it opens up lanes for Bridges, for Aiden,

for Johnson, for Crowder, for all these supplementary guys. They had a little bit more space to work with because Booker was out there. Chris Paul was 14 for 14 tonight. I didn't realize he made every shot. Holy mackerel. He made all four free throws. He had three turnovers. I mean, the guy's really falling apart here. Three turnovers in a playoff game. I don't know what's going on with him. But the Suns, there was this probably, what, 72-hour stretch there at KOC when it was like, the Warriors! Whoa! Things have flipped!

And then all of a sudden, Booker's in a game six, and the Suns looked a little Suns, even though Booker didn't look 100%. But why do you think they played him tonight? If you had to guess, because he didn't seem 100%, but do you feel like they just wanted to get his sea legs back again? And if there's a game seven, great, but not want to try to try that in a game seven? This seemed early.

It did seem early. I mean, I think it was Willie Green said before the game that he anticipated him to return there in the series. And he told his team that. I don't think Phoenix would have brought Booker back unless they had reason to believe that there's no risk of further injury. But with that said, though, it was still surprising because hamstring injuries we know historically come and go all the time. So maybe it was, as you said, getting him back. But I think Rob's right. A lot of that was just him being a decoy, opening things up more for some of his teammates. I mean, those guys continue to flourish, man. DeAndre Ayton played a sensational game, too. Mikkel Bridges, once again,

was outstanding. Having Devin Booker out there, the spacing he provides, even as just a decoy, does make a difference. I mean, you did say, Bill, it's been a couple days for maybe the Warriors. It still is about that, though. The Warriors aren't going away. These teams could be on a collision course for the

West Finals. It's going to be awesome. You mentioned Aiton, who was just dominant this series. Jesus. What did he shoot for them? I'm looking up on the... Good God. I mean... 70%

on the series. He shot 70% for the series. What the hell? And, you know, he's technically, he's going to be at least a restricted free agent. If I'm the Suns, you know, I thought they were going to lose tonight without Booker. And it's not like Booker was awesome,

but I just, I didn't trust Cameron Payne in this game. And he wasn't good. He was one for five. I thought the Pelicans would play Alvarado more, which they did. The McCollum part, he had another kind of bad one. He got in foul trouble. Fifth one was, I thought, it's a tough one when you're trying to get by the guy and the elbow goes up. They call that seemingly half the time, but he just wasn't good in this game. And it goes back to,

now I might be flip-flopping on the McCollum trade again. 30 million a year. I just felt like the whole series, he was having a lot of trouble getting his shot off and he's going to be a year older next year. On the other hand, they'll have Zion next year.

But what did you see from McCollum, Mone? I mean, on a lot of those positions, he's blanketed by one of the best perimeter defenders in the league in Mikhail Bridges. So I cut him a little bit of slack, especially because he wasn't wildly productive in this game 16 points but his makes were big time makes like he and ingram had some amazing flashes of shot making where you know you need to get your herb joneses and your valentunas is kind of cleaning up

transition and dirty work buckets and filling the gaps here and there, but you need your stars to hit those exact shots. And that's what kept him in the game. Like Ingram and McCollum delivering in those moments. I would have loved to see a version of this game where CJ doesn't pick up that fifth foul, where he's able to play something more like 39, 40 plus minutes because him being out of the game,

although they held water and that in itself is a testament to how together this team is and how much they've been able to scrap and figure things out. They need him. They need him in those moments. And as KOC alluded to, you put Zion in this mix, hypothetically, all those CJ McCollum looks look a lot cleaner

all of a sudden. He's getting a lot more spot-up threes, and it turns a 16-point night like this one into a 24-point night all of a sudden. And you can use Zion as a screener for CJ too, and that opens up brand new dimensions for both of those guys as players. Lovable Pelicans team, their bench. So Nance, who I think all of us have liked, but just seemed like year after year he was on

the wrong team. And then this team, he was unleashed as the guy we always thought Larry Nance could be on a good team potentially. Murphy, looks like they got something with him. Made like a 29-footer in the game, which was good. And then the Alvarado thing, I was thinking there was two really cool things about this series. One was just Alvarado, the classic anti-lottery pick basically, bouncing around. Anybody could have had him. And he's just going toe-to-toe with one of the best point guards of all time in a real way,

in a way that the Suns are having Jay Crowder dribble the ball up with like three minutes left to try to save the miles on Chris. And he was just doing a bunch of playoff stuff. Like, that guy is a playoff guy. Hands down, that guy is the guy you want in the playoffs.

The other thing, and TNT did a good job at the end, was Willie Green shaking hands and hugging some of the Suns guys and how emotional everybody was. And it makes you think, how many jobs change hands every year in the NBA? It's usually like six to eight, six to nine, something like that. Here's Willie Green, who worked for a bunch of great coaches, who was a really respected teammate, who obviously had some really, really, really deep relationships. Even you could see him saying goodbye to Paul and Booker.

And it took like an extra, what, two years for him to get hired? What happened with that KOC? I mean, sometimes timing is everything. And with Willie Green, like right now darvin ham is one of those guys with the milwaukee bucks where they've interviewed for a couple jobs and you know you know it's inevitable that they're going to get an opportunity it just sometimes it doesn't come but for willie green though like doesn't it seem like he is the right guy for this job after we dealt with the stan van gund experience because with SVG, you know, David Griffin, when he explained that hiring, he said he wanted to hire a coach who

could hold Zion and Ingram accountable and turn them into, you know, trustworthy defensive players. But it didn't work, you know, but I think the logic behind that made a little bit sense. Willie Green just turned out to be the right voice for that. And having those guys now, you would hope Zion comes back next season and isn't playing some lackluster defense. You'd hope that after everything that he saw, if you're Zion, how could you look at this situation and want to go anywhere else? How would you not want to play for Willie Green

or get in the best shape of your life to win with these guys? Because I don't know. I don't like Rob and Bill. Do you guys, am I overreacting to think the Pelicans could actually contend if they get the Zion we saw last season? Not at all. I thought Zion was like a

top 12 guy last year. He was unbelievable. He was unstoppable. And the rest of the infrastructure is here. Like the supporting stars are here. The role players are there. Willie Green, to what you're saying Kev like not only did he hold guys accountable and he you know set the right culture he had a really good X's

and O's season he was doing some really inventive stuff to incorporate their best players at the same time where it wasn't a your turn my turn CJ and Brandon Ingram offense those guys are collaborative and you put Zion in there one of the most unusual and unguardable players in the league. I'm very...

I can't wait to see what Willie Green does with that combination of guys. Well, I can't wait to see what the Pelicans do with their payroll next year, because right now it's 141. And that's locked in, and we haven't even added draft picks, anything else. The other piece is,

if they wanted to make a trade other than an OKC, nobody has more picks than them. If they wanted to get frisky and maybe try to upgrade, I don't even know what the spot would be. Maybe if they tried to upgrade

the Valanchunas spot or whatever, but... How about the CJ spot? Well, maybe. I mean, he's already... Just throwing it out there. I'm just saying. It could be CJ

and some pics for like Bradley Beal or something who knows exactly like like I mean Rob you said it earlier like Zion coming back helps CJ but I don't I don't think Zion coming back means Mikkel Bridges is going to be not defending CJ McCollum I still think he's the

fact he didn't shine and in the matchup against the the guy you might have to get past next year that that's a little bit concerning for me um like cj can be upgraded and plus if zion isn't going to be great defensively having cj and zion closing games means you have two weaker defenders that could be attacked so it's important for zion to get better defensively uh but upgrading off of cj or yonas valentrounis like you said bill that could be attacked. So it's important for Zion to get better defensively, but upgrading off of CJ or Jonas Valanciunas, like you said, Bill, that should be on the table for New Orleans.

They have all the picks to do everything. Rob is devastated right now. He was really cold-blooded. He really loved this Pelicans team. He just broke it up. He just traded CJ and picks for Bradley Beal. We tried to trade CJ from Portland for like seven years and we're already trying to

trade him from New Orleans. Everyone on this Pelicans team is talking about how great CJ McCollum has been for them as a leader, as a culture setter. And it's like, no, no, let's go.

Him and two picks. He's out of here. They have definitely emerged as a top five most interesting summer team. And there's two different types of summer teams, right? Where it's like desperate, where you throw the Lakers in there, but then you throw in a team like Utah that we don't know what's going to happen

in the Dallas-Utah game because we haven't gotten there yet. But if Utah loses tonight, that could just be a pure blow it up. You have a team like the Knicks that probably there's a fundamental kind of need to do something to try to, I don't know, which way are we going? Can we get a star? What are we doing? But then you have a team like the Pelicans that are now one move, two moves away from maybe being the fourth best team in the West.

I don't know. I feel like that fourth spot's up for grabs. And you have Denver with the guys coming back. And you have Minnesota making the leap. You know, and then obviously you have Phoenix, Memphis, and Golden State as the top three. But we could see a situation where all of a sudden the West is better than the East again. Let's take a break.

And we'll talk about a very disappointing second half in the Philly-Toronto game for people who were excited for a lot of drama because it was not dramatic. All right, so it's 62-61 at halftime of the Philly-Toronto game. All the breadcrumbs are being laid for what would have been just an incredibly fun basketball situation of Philly going home to an absolute snake pit when things go wrong,

having blown a 3-0 lead with a game seven home. And instead it goes the other way and they absolutely annihilate the Raptors. All of a sudden it was like 95-72. I think they went on like a 35-14 run. They were scoring easily. Harden had a hop and a step, looked like he had some coffee today. Maxey started making some threes. But really in the first half, Danny Green hit four threes that I felt like kind of kept them lingering while they tried to figure out how to get some stops. And Toronto, honestly, just wasn't deep enough with that seven-man team, no Van Vliet.

But are you more bullish, Rob, on this Philly team after that second half, or do you feel exactly the same? How could you not be more bullish? You know, I think they were a supernova offensively in the first game of this series. But I actually thought this was their even... This was even more impressive

in terms of what they did on offense because Toronto was more together. They had finally found a rhythm for their defense. And the Sixers just came in and overwhelmed them anyway. And it wasn't one thing. It wasn't just Maxie having a huge game like it was in game one. Embiid was amazing.

Harden was so much better and so much more aggressive in this game than he was in game five. And you have Maxie finding a huge game like it was in game one. Embiid was amazing. Harden was so much better and so much more aggressive in this game than he was in game five. And you have Maxie finding his spots. And you have the ball moving to Danny Green, as you mentioned, to finding all these role players. I mean, they just slammed the door on this series in such an emphatic way in that second half. I can't help but be impressed with that.

Especially for Embiid to look this good with one hand. That bodes pretty well for how they're going to look in the next round. KFC and plus with Harden, like you said, looked like he had some coffee. He had some energy, a bit burst in his step and that's going to be encouraging too. But

I mean, look like with Harden you might not get the scoring every night from him. He hit that step back three tonight, but you are going to get the playmaking and I think with Harden, that's one of the areas where despite all the knocks and the concerns about his decline as a scorer and the burst getting to the basket, the passing ability and the way him and Maxie meshed together. I mean, we saw it in the third quarter.

Both of those guys played all 12 minutes in the third quarter. Both were a plus 20 in that third period. Maxie was unbelievable. Harden's the guy who slows it down and Maxie's the guy who speeds it up. I just love the fit between those two guys and how, depending on the matchup and depending on who the opponent in the situation is, either of those guys can be your creator, your spark on offense from the perimeter. So for Philadelphia, I mean, yeah, you feel a little bit more optimism. I think they could maybe get past Miami

because Jimmy Butler, we'll see about his health. I still don't see them getting past Boston or Milwaukee in these finals. But if Harden continues to improve, then that changes things, of course. KOC, as you were talking, the Patriots traded down. Which is the official sign of course. KFC, as you were talking, the Patriots traded down.

Oh, no surprises there. Which is the official sign of spring. It's like daylight savings time, pollen, and the Patriots trading down. They traded with the Chiefs. They're down to 29. No surprises there. Every year. My dad and I didn't even talk about it this year

because we just assumed it was going to happen. The thing with Philly that I don't know how this plays out in a playoff series, but when you think about it, because we just assumed it was going to happen. The thing with Philly, that I don't know how this plays out in a playoff series, but when you think about it, I make this point a lot. It's one of my best points. You only have to win four of seven games. So basically, it's slightly more than 50% of the time you have to be the good version of yourself.

And with Philly, when Maxie is good, they're a completely different team. And when Harden's trying, which you would think, like if his back's to the wall, whatever, but to me, Maxie is their swing guy. When he has it going like he had tonight, it's a pretty frightening team.

And I was trying to think like with the Miami matchup, you know, KOC made the point about Butler. Lowry, I think is another one. Who knows if that guy can play for two weeks in a row. They do have some, some length to throw at Harden. They have the band piece.

They're coming off a high of what they did to Trey Young. And so on that end, it's like, I like the matchup for Miami. And the other end, I could see a world where Miami's not totally healthy. Maxie plays well four times. They get one good hard in game.

They get the Embiid 30-point a night thing, and maybe they hang around. I would bet on Miami, but as much as I don't love this Philly team, I don't really love the Miami team either. What do you think, Rob? I think Butler's health and explosiveness are huge. They're going to be absolutely huge in that series. How much he's able to work over individual mismatches. Because we even saw it in this game.

The Raptors were incredible offensively when it was Pascal Siakam picking his mismatch and attacking dudes. And it was Tobias Harris. It was Maxie. It was Harden. All three of those guys were getting picked on and Siakam picking his mismatch and attacking dudes. And it was Tobias Harris. It was Maxie. It was Harden. All three of those guys were getting picked on and Siakam is scoring. Butler can do a lot of the same stuff, but with much better spacing around him, with actual shooters who can give him room to work. And so if he's explosive enough to still work that basic formula, I think

Miami could be super dangerous. And then there's the question of, we've seen Harden do this, and we know he can explode in this way. But if he could do this, why didn't he in the previous game? He's such a confounding player in that way because it's every time you have a big moment, you're never quite sure how James Harden's going to respond to it.

That leaves you on pretty uneven footing in a series against a hyper-competitive team like Miami. It certainly has me guessing as to who's going to win that series. I've got no freaking clue. This is almost a don't bet on it series. I would keep your money far away from that series. I like your point about Harden because

I actually feel the opposite. Most of the time, if it's a big game, I feel like I know what's going to happen, which is he's not going to be very good. Today was surprising. I said today was surprising. I thought he was excellent. This was a perfect response. This was a perfect response by him.

Like first quarter, right out of the gate. He got his first dunk in this game, I think, or sorry, his second dunk since January. Not a great metric over his last few months of health and mobility and explosiveness.

Has not been any kind of vertical athlete to say the least, but he got up for this one and he was going he's marching to the free throw line in the first quarter too it's going to be interesting to see the matchups as well because you mentioned Butler and Lowry during the regular season Butler

defended Tyrese Maxey 54 times according to second spectrum the most for Miami defenders Lowry was second and 39 times and if either one or two of those guys it creates the domino effects in favor of philadelphia because now you get the harden equation in there compared to their past matchups and despite some of his limitations despite some of the past performances you're talking about bill this is this is a brand new environment and

a brand new situation for harden now where now there's the option of oh rather than having to deal with Harden against the teams of the opponent's best defender oh you can throw it into and beat on the post oh you can kick it out to Maxie who's going to make a quick decisive decision attacking a closeout you know rotating the pass for a corner three like the circumstances are different for Harden now where if the scoring isn't there he can lean into the playmaking on nights like he did tonight so yeah I'm with Rob there that with Harden now, where if the scoring isn't there, he can lean into the playmaking on nights like he did tonight. So I'm with Rob there that with Harden,

you don't always know what you're going to get. But I think now we are starting to find out that he can lean into the passing when he needs to. When you talk about a new environment, I think we should include South Beach as an environment too, that might be an advantage for Miami with Harden. That's fair.

I will not argue that. The last time he played Miami in a series, he was terrible. Who knows? I won't argue that. The Oladipo piece of this. So they basically, he was, I guess, in the closet, like on the top shelf underneath some sweaters and a couple hats, and they pulled them out.

And by the end of game five, they're running like one four with him at the top and he's beating guys off the dribble and slashing kicking and was like their dominant creator guy. And we hadn't seen him. There was all kinds of weird rumors about Jimmy Butler and him refuting and Jimmy Butler had felt

like he had to refute it in the press but from what I saw in that game I think Oladipo is a factor in this series because especially with the Philly bench and I don't trust I don't trust their bench at all but if they can get anything from Oladipo in a second unit way plus with the shooting they have and the fact that Philly I think is one kind of team when they're up 15, another kind of team, they're down six and guys aren't really rotating and all of a sudden

there's some wide open threes. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think he's one of the keys to the series. I feel like he could dominate their bench. What do you think, Rob? Well, he definitely seems

like a swing player in a vein that the Sixers don't really have. I guess Maxie is the closest thing, but Maxie seems pretty essential to the Sixers at this really have. I guess Maxie is the closest thing, but Maxie seems pretty essential to the Sixers at this point. Yeah, he played like 40 minutes today. So when you look at Philly's bench in particular,

it's like, who are you counting on to have a huge game? Like to step up and have that signature game five, they have a 13-point second half, and it really breaks things open for you. I don't know who that guy is. Well, I'll read you their bench. I'll read you the bench bench today. Niang was 21.

Reid was 12. Shake Milton, 8. Cork Motts, 5. And then two garbage time guys. They don't have a bench. How about DJ? Wow. That'll be a hack of DJ.

I'm kidding. Maybe that's the big win is that because Philly is playing another small team, DeAndre Jordan will hopefully continue to not play. And those two different Paul Reed. Exactly wrong. Unbelievable.

Yeah, so they're going to need a lot of Maxie. And then, you know, the Lowry piece of this, this is why they got Lowry for a series like this, right? To do aggro Kyle Lowry stuff and to take a young buck like Maxie and school him a little bit on the other side with Harden, do a whole bunch of stuff to piss him off, get a couple charges. But is that guy gone? Are we going to get 90% Lowry? Are we going to get 80% Lowry?

100% Lowry? I have no idea. Neither do you guys. What did we get from him during the season? Was it like 75% Lowry? Something like that? compared to past performance? Yeah. Well, going back to the Chris Paul thing, Lowry looked like a guy who's been in the

league for a long time and has some good nights and some bad nights and some minor injuries. And then there's Chris Paul going 14 for 14 deciding playoffs game. But yeah, if you told me I'm going to get a relatively healthy Lowry and a relatively healthy Butler, I would pick Miami. I just, I don't really trust it. Do you guys, you guys are both on podcasts on the Ringer Podcast Network. Do the Miami fans get mad at you guys that you don't talk about Miami enough? There's a constant thing with them about how they're not discussed enough. And I think the answer from a podcast conversation standpoint is it's really hard to talk about teams that just have so many,

you know, non-absolutes where you're just constantly talking and, Oh, if this happens and we're going to get that. And I don't really know how to talk about, how should we talk about Miami? Well, Miami fans are mad. You don't talk know how to talk about... How should we talk about Miami? Well, Miami fans are mad you don't talk about them enough.

Philly fans are mad about the way you talk about their team. And if you bring up anyone besides Embiid for MVP, all of these things. This is going to be a very interesting series in terms of just angst all around, I think. But you're right about the Heat. They've had one big question over their whole season. Will you have enough half-court offense when it counts? Until we see it,

we just have to throw up our hands and take best guesses and look at Oladipo and look at Butler's health and trying to extrapolate where they might stand at the end of the day, but this is going to be a great test. Philly can be a really good half-court defense when they're set, when they're locked in, when Embiid is in the right positions.

That's a hard team to score on. And I think it's going to be fascinating to watch how they perform in that capacity because we just don't know. I think along those same lines, Rob, the way to talk about Miami is how they shapeshift to beat you in so many different ways. You mentioned old Depot Bill

and the big night he had with 23 points, celebrating at the end of the game. Well, sometimes it's Duncan Robinson going off for eight, three pointers. Sometimes it's max truth and max truth and dribble handoff action. Sometimes it's Tyler hero pie, pick and roll isolation.

Sometimes it's Butler downhill attacks. Sometimes it's bam. It's always somebody different on this Miami roster. And I mean, that's the way I think about them and why they were the number one seed in the East is because they were something different at every single stage of the season and within a series you could see all of those different uh personalities against this Philly defense and I mean that's why I would pick Miami in the series um if you get at least Butler at healthy Lowry I'm less concerned about um but they need Butler in the series against Philadelphia.

But if they have him, again, they can beat you in so many different ways. But who they are at this stage in the season is a team that just put the absolute clamps on Trey Young for an entire series, even in a closeout game, without two of their best defenders. And I forgot to talk about that on

my podcast that I did Tuesday night with Haral Bob. By the end of it, Trey was like a boxer who had been knocked down five times and was just being carried out of the ring. That was unbelievable. Did that change your opinion on Trey Young at all? Or is that just bad matchup, bad series, not enough help? It changed my opinion a bit.

Okay, let's hear it. I think with Trey, it brought back some of the pre-draft concerns. How does he create against massive amounts of length? How effective can he be defensively? What does he bring to the floor other than his scoring

and playmaking, but can he do it off ball? The answer was no oftentimes in that game. If you look at Atlanta's roster, I think Trey should be so much better than he is off ball when you have Kevin Hurd or when you have Bogdanovich granted in that game he didn't play.

But throughout the season, if you're Trey Young, why would you lean into your inner Harden instead of your inner Steph? I just think he should be so much more dynamic off ball as a cutter, off screens and handoffs than he's been. And if I'm him, that's the number one focus for me

in the off season is becoming a guy who's a constant threat on the floor instead of somebody who is a bystander when the ball's not in my hands. That's the biggest flaw in Trey's game, in my opinion, and the most solvable issue that he has. And it really comes out in games like that, just the lack of secondary creation,

the lack of another guy who can help generate offense win, especially when Bogdanovich isn't out there. Some of that is the roster. Some of that is the players they have. Some of it is a lack of investment in the guys they do have. Like in an alternate timeline, could John Collins have become that guy?

Maybe, but because of his health this season and because they put him on kind of a different developmental path, he's become really reliant on Trey. All of these guys have. And so while I love the minutes they got out of like Darrell Wright as their backup point guard and kind of what he gives them, it's just not what they

need. He needs a Jalen Brunson in the way that Luka has gotten one. You can be a dominant creator, but you need somebody to help share that workload with you. Well, they also, the Hunter game, and just Hunter in general,

now, he's also their biggest trade ship if they really wanted to upgrade and get Trey like a true famous second star. I really like Hunter. To me, I don't want to say anyone's untouchable who hasn't made an all-star team, but I just like that guy. I like to me that I, I don't want to say anyone's untouchable who hasn't like made an all-star team,

but I just like that guy. I think their goal should be, can we turn all these other pieces and some future picks into a third guy with Trent Hunter? But I thought the trade thing was alarming. I didn't, the thing that was the most disturbing, I think was that he lost his swagger,

which I wasn't expecting. I thought at the very least, he's like one of those old gunslingers who would go down fighting every time. That relates to my thought though, Bill, because he lost his swagger because he couldn't offer anything else. When it was taken away from him on ball,

this season, during the regular season, he ran only 24 plays off of screens. Trey Young, people talk about him as one of the best shooters in basketball. Steph took 256 possessions off of screens. Trey Young, people talk about him as one of the best shooters in basketball. Steph took 256 possessions off of screens. Klay had 180. Boyan Bogdanovich had 157.

Jason Tatum had 154, just to throw some high numbers out there. Like, Trey at 24 with his shooting ability? Yeah, it's not great. If he doesn't have it on ball, you got to give him something else where he can still be a factor for you.

And that's both on the coaching staff, on McMillan and their staff, but also on Trey. He's got to buy in and embrace that role. Because then if the swagger's gone on ball, then you can do it off ball. That to me is, I'm baffled how he doesn't have that in his game yet. So we think Miami for that series? Rob seems like he thinks Philly. I think Philly won you over tonight, Rob.

I mean, Embiid looks good. And for everything I said about Jimmy Butler working mismatches, Harden's going to have his crack at Tyler Hero, at Duncan Robinson, at those guys. 100%. There's a lot of give and take to this series. I think I would lean Heat slightly, but I don't feel super confident about it.

I think the key will be is if Philly falls behind, Doc Rivers has to do another press conference where he debunks all of his bad coaching moments one by one. Go look at that. Go on Basketball Reference and go look at that Magic roster. Go look at the minutes Daryl Armstrong played.

Yeah, we're talking about the roster that had Tracy McGrady on it, right? Like 32 point a game, Tracy McGrady, that one? Go look at... Oh, I couldn't believe he did that. And by the way, he just kind of glossed over the last one and then he's like,

but it wasn't the bubble. I loved it so much. Oh my God. Okay. So before we go, Boston, Milwaukee, quick, just to get KOC your thoughts and Rob your thoughts, because I'm not going to have another podcast till Sunday. And that will be after game one. I really liked the Celtics in this series without Middleton.

That is not a hot take. I just think Middleton has always killed them. You go through the history of Celtics-Bucks games. He's always been a bad matchup. It's just one of those guys. When you root for a team, there's just certain guys in the league where it's like, oh no, it's that guy. He kills us.

And it's weird because you wouldn't think he would totally kill a team that has always had good wings for most of the last six years, but he has. Taking him out, I just don't see how the Bucs are going to have the offense. And I continue to think, as I've said on multiple podcasts, that people are just completely sleeping on the Celtics defense and some of the stuff that's been going on. The way Milwaukee wins is if Giannis just throws everybody on his back and just does, you know, has one of the all-time series. But Rob, the Celtics are two-to-one favorites.

Am I wrong to think that it could even be a little bit higher potentially? Yeah, I feel like you're asking us this question because you know we're going to say Celtics. Like, Boston's been so good. It's hard to talk yourself out of them without Middleton. I'm totally with you. Middleton changes the dynamic of

that series, but otherwise, you can see the games in which Giannis scores 42, 43 points and Milwaukee still loses because their shooters don't hit. Or Drew Holiday has a really bad offensive night with a really sloppy handle. That kind of stuff could happen. And that's notwithstanding

the possibility that this, the best defense in the NBA, could actually give Giannis some trouble, could actually put a lot of bodies and rotate a lot of guys in front of him over the course of a game. Boston looks really formidable. They look like one of the most confident, one of the most polished teams of the playoffs. We'll see about

their offense against this Milwaukee defense, which can be very good. And if Milwaukee can hit their stride on that side of the ball, that's kind of the equalizer. But it's hard to pick against Boston right now. KFC? No, I agree with Rob there. I'd go Boston at six right now because of the Middleton factor and how high I am on him. I mean, this dude's an amazing bucket getter and Boston's going to be able to match up so much more and help off of some of these guys more to contain Giannis.

Like the number, like you said, Bill, if Giannis, this is a series for him, that is a legacy defining series. If he is able to get through the Celtics defense, because what Boston has done in the new year cannot be underrated defensively. While offensive rating was at its highest all time, Boston was leading in defensive rating by far. Like it wasn't even close. Yeah, they were the season. The fact they did what they did to Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving. People can knock the nets all they want.

Talk about the holes and that's fair. But this defense is legit, legit. And so for Giannis, if he's able to get through the celtics defense and continue to lead milwaukee to the east finals despite how great boston is i mean that that's just going to further elevate him like where is he on your all-time rankings right now and like if he if he does get past boston does that does that move him up at all just based off of the circumstances at all because like i like you can't count out yann, even though I'm picking the Celtics in this series. You can't count him out with his greatness.

So my question is, let's just pencil in the best possible Giannis series. Let's give them 35 and 15 every game. I still think they could lose the series in like five or six, even if you give him those stats. It reminds me a little of that LeBron Orlando series in 09, when LeBron was just incredible. And I think he had like 35 a game, 36 a game,

something like that, and it just didn't matter. Orlando was like, cool, and just basically blew him off the floor. So, KOC, to answer your question. Now, I haven't updated the pyramid in a couple months. I had Giannis at 19. Just a hair above Elgin Baylor and Julius Irving and Bob Pettit and Kevin Garnett, Karl Malone, Charles Barkley,

just because the two MVPs, everything that happened in the finals, assuming he's only 27, even if, you know, whatever's going to happen in the next six years, I doubt it's going to be too crazy. It'll probably be on the same pace of where he's going. And it just, to me, he's clearly headed for the top group. I don't see any scenario where he's not. And the Durant thing basically parted the sea for him where he is unquestionably the best player in the league now. I think that's the one thing that's happened in these playoffs. Rob, is it unquestionable now that he's the best guy in the league, or would you still have somebody else in that conversation? He's the guy I feel most certain about, to the point that you said, let's pencil in

a best-case scenario for him of 35-15. I'm not sure that's a best-case scenario. I think he almost did those numbers against the Bullss and they, you know, they kind of slept walk through the last three games because they were functionally blowouts.

He could be even more dominant than that in a, in a series, even against a high level team. Like I think he's at the point physically where he is almost defense independent. He's not a guy like Durant where he shoots over the top of you, but you just can't build a wall in front of them. He's so good at maneuvering around,

specifically guys who are trying to draw charges at this point. I'm not sure what you're supposed to do in terms of building a game plan to stop him other than you have five guys with a foot in the paint and you're just going to try to do the best you can to at least clutter his space, but even then he could still get 30. KOC, you know the one thing he's added over the last year,

and he had it already, but now it's like a badass version of it. He has the LeBron move that LeBron added the second half of his career when he puts the shoulder down and puts it into the guy. It's kind of an offensive foul, but they're just never going to call it

because you can't call a foul on somebody just being three times stronger than everyone else on the court. But he's just so physically imposing now when he puts his body into somebody, they have to go backwards. And he's figured out how to use that in this way that when he has a head of steam now, he's just getting the call every time. They don't know how to call it otherwise. It's really smart. And LeBron, I feel like LeBron created that. I don't remember anybody from previous generations having that move. But Giannis just tapping into his crazy physicality now.

It's a little Shaq-ish. It's a little LeBron-ish. But do you feel like that's relatively new, KFC? Yeah, I mean, he's got that move. He's got a more efficient fadeaway from mid i like range as well he's got a better more far more efficient pull-up jumper as well like isn't it isn't amazing how janice scores 50 and in a in a clinching game in the finals and he wins finals mvp mirren fader releases releases her book about him everybody loves janice and then he comes back better. He comes back a better player after that.

I agree with Rob that I don't think 35 points is the best case scenario for Giannis. He averaged 38 in the last five games of the finals after his limited game one when he came back from that scary-looking injury. 38 points. I think Giannis, the best case without Chris Middleton is 40. I really think Giannis is capable of something like that. This is a historic player, a guy who's

going to eventually be in your pantheon. He's going to be there eventually. It's just a matter of when. I don't think the Celtics let that happen, KFC. I think they'll trap him. I think they're going to double him. I think they're going to make Wesley Matthews and all these other dudes beat them so so you think they overload on Giannis to the point that they take it it has to be everybody else they don't

want him to foul out people and they're gonna they're gonna basically do what they did to the nets but well well playing devil's advocate here well what if you're getting more six out of nine from three by Pat Connaughton more knockdown shooting games from Grayson Allen and it becomes to a point that maybe we can't help as much off of these knockdown shooters behind the 3 point line they were fine with Dragic and Curry

they gave those shots up they were okay with it Dragic isn't the shooter that those guys are and Curry was limited too you're comparing Grayson Allen to Dragic? This is unbelievable. That was a throw-in in a trade. Better spot-off shooter. I just

think with Milwaukee, if they get the knockdown shooting from those Middleton replacements, then that opens the opportunity for Giannis. I mean, I'm picking the Celtics in the series, but you can never count out Giannis. That's what I learned over, but you can never count out Giannis. That's what I learned over there.

I'm not counting out Giannis. I'm not. That's why I'm treading very carefully. I am going to mutter this in a very low voice, and I don't want to sound like I'm being confident or anything. I'm just asking a question. Who's guarding Jason Tatum in this series? Hmm. I think it's probably Drew.

That's not going to last long. I mean, it's either him or Wes Matthews, I would think, primarily. The thing that Tatum... They like to keep Giannis off the ball. The thing that Tatum has figured out in this crazy evolution he's had over the last four or five months

is if you're guarding with a small guy, he's shooting over that guy. And he's figured out either how to take that guy to the basket or shoot over him. And I think it's going to have to be those Wes Matthews, you know, just like the taller guys with size.

And I think at the end of the games, it might have to be Giannis. I think they're going to have a choice. He might do it for a fourth quarter or something like that. I just don't think for the bulk of a game, he's going to be mostly on Horford or Rob Williams or Dice. Last five minutes, I, he's going to be mostly on Horford or Rob Williams

or Tice or someone like that. Last five minutes, I think it's going to be Giannis and I think they're going to have to do the thing where they put the small forward on Horford and dare the... Hey, you should post

about Horford. He's right there. He's got a 6'5 guy on him. You should give him the ball. It was Drew Holiday during the season. He defended Tatum for 107 possessions.

Chris Middleton defended him for 20, just to put that out there. So Holliday was the primary defender, but with Milwaukee playing more three bigs, with Bobby Portis, Brooke Lopez, and Giannis out there, maybe to Rob's point, maybe for the most part of the game,

you're keeping Giannis near the rim, but maybe in endgame situations, it's Lopez and Bobby Portis as your help defenders inside, and then Giannis is the guy on ball against Tatum. That's going to be fascinating to watch. But that's, again, another thing that Giannis is going to have to do

for the Bucs to have any chance of winning the series. Giannis is going to have to be out of this world. Simple as that. I don't think they can play that Lopez-Porter-Giannis lineup for too much against the Celtics team with the wings that the Celtics have. Yeah, all the spacing. Yeah. And that was huge for them. That was huge against the Bulls.

Porter's turned out to be a great fit in that lineup and it was really productive. A little different. A little different look against the Celtics. Alright, so we're going to stop here. If for some reason the Dallas-Utah is incredible, I'm bringing you guys back. So you're on call. You're like doctors. You're in your little office

wearing your scrubs just in case anything happens. Otherwise, Rob Mahoney, Kevin O'Connor, it was great to see you. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to KOC and Rob and the Terminator, Ben Solak.

Thanks to Kyle Crane for producing. Thanks to Steve Cerutti and Dylan Berkey as well. I will see you on this feed on Sunday, round two of the playoffs, basketball. We'll talk about that and a whole bunch more with Ryan Russo. Let's see you then.

......... I don't have a few years with him on the wayside on the first I never said I don't have