The Bill Simmons Podcast - Will Smith’s Slap With Jimmy Kimmel. Plus, the Somehow Underrated Suns With Ryen Russillo

Episode Date: March 28, 2022

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by two-time Academy Awards host Jimmy Kimmel to discuss the Oscars and the altercation between Will Smith and Chris Rock (1:45). Then Bill talks with Ryen Russillo about the first-place Suns and Devin Booker’s bright future (18:51), NBA awards, struggling to place Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid on the All-NBA First Team (53:55), the Eastern Conference playoff seeding, NBA rumors, Final Four hype, and more (1:18:16). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Jimmy Kimmel and Ryen Russillo Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, nothing major other than the craziest Oscars of all time, which we'll break down with Jimmy Kimmel and basketball with Ryan Rossello. Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars tonight. What is going on? 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.

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so it'll probably be up right after this one goes up. You can listen to that. You can listen to Ringer Dish. Amanda Dobbins and Juliette Libman are going to be on there breaking down the craziest moment of Will Smith's career.

And The Town. Matt Bellany, who's also calling it The Big Picture with Sean Fennessey. He is going to have the Monday reaction on his new Hollywood podcast that he's doing for us.

Coming up on this podcast, we taped, Rossella and I taped for an hour and a half plus at 5.30 Pacific time, kind of during the most boring part of the Oscars. And it was all basketball. We finished.

I was very excited about the podcast. We're going to put it up. I was like, well, maybe I'll wait. Make sure nothing crazy happens with the Oscars. Maybe Will Smith will lose. Maybe we'll get some crazy big picture nominee. Who knows? Who knows what'll happen? Held off, putting the pod right up. And then the Will Smith will lose. Maybe we'll get some crazy big picture nominee. Who knows? Who knows what will happen?

Held off, putting the pod right up, and then the Will Smith thing happens. And Jimmy Kimmel, who was involved in the previous craziest moment in the history of the Oscars, he's going to come on right at the top to talk about it. Then we're still NBA.

It's all next. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. all right taping this part of the podcast 8 847 Pacific Time, right after the Oscars. We saved this part of the podcast just in case anything weird happened. I thought maybe like Chris Rock, who knows, that maybe he'd get slapped by Will Smith. I don't know. I thought Will Smith might get upset for Best Actor, but he actually got upset. Jimmy Kimmel is here. He's hosted this thing a couple times.

This was the craziest thing ever. You're off the hook. You're no longer involved in the craziest Oscars moment. I'm not sure how I feel about that. What fun is it to be involved in the second craziest Oscars moment? You know? Well, that's where you've landed, my friend, because you were the host for La La Land vs. Moonlight.

When you texted me and said, we're going to go on and tape something, it reminded me of when Mike Tyson bit not one, but two of vander holyfield's ears and we were i was doing a radio show as the sports guy at k-rock in la and we were off the next week and i went in alone because i couldn't let it pass i i had to be on the air the next day i think i was planning to go to vacation i was like i'm going into work tomorrow morning i called the station.

They're like, what? I said, yeah, I'm going to go in. They said, well, Kevin and Bean are not going to be there. I said, well, I'll be there. I'll be taking calls. And I just looked at the show myself because I couldn't miss the opportunity. I'm glad you brought up Tyson Holyfield. I think that kind of was on this level. Will Smith walked up to the stage after a joke he didn't like and slapped Chris Rock. And then they did the weird Oscars thing where it seemed like they had technical difficulties.

Thank God, this is one of the few thank God for Twitter times probably ever. Go to Twitter. Is there any other alternate angle? Suddenly there's an Australian angle of what happened and he really did hit him. And I think not only the craziest oscars moment ever but one of the craziest moments ever this is probably the craziest celebrity

altercation ever yeah and especially when you consider the characters involved like the nicest guy in hollywood this is like if you know only if tom hanks got up and smacks crack somebody across the face oh my god God. The only thing comparable, right? I wonder, so Chris Rock's up there. He makes the joke. Now, I don't think he realized that Will Smith's wife had a condition, which I don't think he makes the G.I. Jane 2 joke knowing she has alopecia, right?

I would hope not. I would hope not, but it didn't seem like an off-the-cuff joke, although I guess it could have been. I don't know. I didn't even really get the joke, to be honest with you. Well, I think because he was saying she had a shaved head, so that was the G.I. Jane 2,

because that was the Demi Moore movie where she shaved her head. Right, yeah. And she got mad immediately. Yeah, I get that, but you know. No, but she got mad immediately. Because I guess she probably thought he was doing that which i'm sure he wasn't i'm sure she probably thought he knew what she was going through medical medical right and was being cruel and if you watch it it's interesting because will

smith laughs at the joke and then they cut back to chris and the next thing you know will walks up to the stage and it's interesting because he slaps him and I said to my wife they did a really good job with that that looked really good like Chris didn't like overreact and Will didn't overreact and I was like these guys did a really

solid job with that moment and then everything so you thought it was a bit for the first until everything was bleeped out yeah of course I sure did I So you thought it was a bit for the first until everything was bleeped out. Yeah, of course. I sure did. I mean, I thought it was something was planned. I mean, he came walking up.

It was even shot very well. And my wife reminded me that, you know, Denzel Washington wound up kind of in the middle of it because as soon as it ended, he pulled Will Smith aside and said something to him. Denzel Washington was in the middle of the La La Land moonlight fiasco as well. He was the one who told me, he was directing me from the audience because I was just up there fucking around.

Maybe he's the common denominator here. He's like the zealot of crazy Oscar moments. Yeah, I remember I went to your office like two days after that La La Land Moonlight thing. And I think the opening of the pod

and I was like, this could be like the first paragraph of your obituary. They'll mention all the things you did. And it was like, and hosted the craziest Oscars

of all time. Yeah. This thing, I mean, this thing leapfrogged. I feel like we're going to be talking about this for a year. A year? Do you have a show tomorrow?

You must have a show tomorrow, right? Yeah, we have a show tomorrow. This is going to be our whole show tomorrow. I see this going on for decades easily. Easily. I wonder if they'll put it in the Great Moments montage. That was

absolutely crazy. By the way, you have to hand it to Chris Rock. He barely flinched. He did. He took it. So his hands are behind his back. Yeah, his hands are behind his back.

He sees Will coming up, and I'm wondering, at some point you must notice in the person's eyes that they're losing it a little bit. I don't think he did. I think he was like, oh, okay, this is going to be funny. This is going to take it another step. Oh, like he thought he was going to do a fake hit or something, but then he actually slapped him. There was one angle where

somebody slow-mo'd it and Chris takes it and he falls to the right. Then his hands come out and he looks like he's like, oh my God, I'm going to have to fight Will Smith, which I think some people might have actually like tried to fight back i think he was had the cooler heads prevail thing but what if he had kind of charged will smith and they actually had like a naked gun type of brawl on the stage like they spilled into you know the cast Dakota that was

in play that would have made it so much worse. Matt Bellany was there and he said apparently in the room it was the all-time appalled what is going on and just appalled over the ceremony from that point on. Sure. You feel bad for a lot of people.

I mean, you have to feel bad for Amy and Wanda and Regina. You know, they had some really great moments. And now this is what people are going to be talking about. You feel bad for Questlove and the producers. Right. That was his award.

He was on right afterwards. And he had that sweet moment with his mom talking about his dad. And, you know, of course, I mean chris rock certainly didn't deserve that but in a way i feel bad for will smith too because i think he let the uh let his emotions get the better of him and he is um and this should have been one of the great nights of his life and now it's it's not and now it's it was there anyone who didn't like will Smith an hour ago in the world? Like no one, right? And now he doesn't have a single comedian friend,

that's for sure. I mean, if you look at Twitter, comedians are really mad. I think they all feel like they're next. Well, there was a lot of like death of comedy stuff. Jeff Ross, our friend, was pretty traumatized by it well he and chris rock are really good friends and i was thinking about it and i was thinking like what if will smith had hit jeff we would be really mad right you know we'd be really upset

right so i think that's probably the way jeff is looking at it yeah because it if you think like who are the winners other than people who just love insane TV moments that they didn't expect, Will Smith and Chris Rock lose. There's no path out for Chris Rock that there's no way to unravel this. The only

way they could unravel it is if they get together and they publicly make up and they try to diffuse it. But Will Smith didn't even mention him in the speech. I don't know that Chris Rock loses because, first of all, he handled himself as well as he possibly could have. Secondly, joke, I'm sure he didn't know. If he knew, it was a different thing.

But I'm sure he didn't know that she had that condition. So he's got to make that clear. He has to make that clear. And, you know, maybe, I don't know, maybe that will be what, okay, I don't know, who knows. All I know is the craziest goddamn things I ever saw. All these people complaining the Oscars are going to be boring. Ooh, they were wrong.

Daniel Kellison, our buddy, turned it off about an hour and in. He's like, okay, that's enough. I'm not watching this. And then we start texting about what was going on.'s like well what happened i said you know what happened you fucked up that's what happened you should have left the show on i told my wife took my son to a flag football game tonight yeah and i was texting her and she thought i was kidding and then i called when i was when they were on the way home and i was like can you believe that happened and she's like wait that was a real thing that happened?

I just assumed you were kidding. And I'm like, no, Will Smith walked on the stage and slapped Chris Rock really hard. You know, we did a bit last week where we went out in the street and we told people crazy things that celebrities had said before the Oscars. None of them were even close to as crazy as this.

That's true. You wouldn't even be able to make that up at a writer's meeting. Well, there's a couple other things. So Will Smith gives the speech. Yeah. You know, he's going to win. It suddenly becomes the single most anticipated Oscar speech ever. You have no idea. Is he going to apologize? Is he going to acknowledge it? What, what, how is he going to play it? And he played it like a guy who was still mad that he had to like, you know, it seems like he's just

tired of all the shit he took over the years and turns it into the Richard Williams thing. And then says this thing about Denzel, how he talks about how Denzel copped, basically calmed him down, but during a commercial and he said, Denzel told me at your highest moment, be careful. That's when the devil comes for you. Right. That was an actual thing Denzel Washington had to say to Will Smith

during a commercial break at the Oscars. Very Shakespearean. And probably the first time the loser of the Oscar was consoling the winner of the Oscar. I didn't think of that. It really seems like Denzel is the most important

person in all these things well we had uh we had will smith winning the oscar yeah and now somehow that got lost we waited watch we've known this guy for 30 plus years this is supposed to be the highlight of the oscars tonight other than us winning our coda bet which we did that we had coda plus 850 can i tell you something? I shouted loudly to my children, Daddy just won $4,250. You know, my daughter thinks that's it. Well, I guess we're rich forever. What are we going to do?

She was confused. My wife was annoyed that I mentioned this in front of them. And so then I announced that we're going to give it all to homeless people. So now we're giving it all to homeless people. Well, that's still a win. I know. Well, sure it is. But, you know, it was, I think,

a bad message to send to your children, which I was able to quickly at the last moment turn into a good message. Smart. Well, we had code at plus 850. That was the message I cared about. Smart. Good message. Yeah. Smart. Well, we had code at plus 850. That was the message I cared about. Yeah. And that was your call

and that was all you. And I have to say thank you and congratulations. It's funny. You can make a lot of money doing a lot of stuff and there's nothing more exciting

than betting $500 on a movie that nobody thought would win best picture a month ago. That turned out to be the only major upset. It went, the Oscars went shock,

but Coda wasn't even an upset because by the time it came out today, it was like minus one 60. Um, they, I mean, it start to finish one of the weirdest Oscars. So what, what happens even ending with the Liza Minnelli thing,

which I'm, you know, all due respect to Liza for hanging in there all these years, but I'm not, not sure she was ready to be on stage. Like that was pretty crazy, you know, all due respect to Liza for hanging in there all these years, but I'm not sure she was ready to be on stage. Like that was pretty crazy. But what happened? How about when it was almost over and she announced how excited she was?

She did her like opening line again. She wanted the second take of it. So if you're the host, what are you doing? So Will Smith walks up and slaps Chris Rock. You're the host, what are you doing? So Will Smith walks up and slaps Chris Rock. You're the host. What are the next 20 minutes for you looking like? I am very, very angry if they don't put me on stage after that moment. Now, I know they were over.

And even with kind of cutting all those extra categories, they still went 38 minutes over. Part of it was because of Will Smith's speech, but not all of it, certainly. I would have been very, very upset if they didn't let me on stage to say something about that. I mean, they made Amy wait like, what, like 17 minutes?

Right. I mean, in fact, they gave that moment to Diddy, who was inexplicably presenting the Godfather. Yeah. What was that? I don't know. Snoop Dogg. He's the dog father. You know, if you're going to give it to a hip hop star, that would be the one, but I don't know why they did that. But, um, yeah, Diddy is the only one that really got the comment on it. But the thing is, if you had been the host, yeah, host, maybe not everybody knows this listening,

but you love nothing more than a super awkward moment like that. Oh, yeah. The more uncomfortable it is, the more you're going to gravitate toward trying to make light of it. I'm much the same way. That's just a weird thing

where some people just, they see something like that and they just immediately, they, their reflex mechanism is to try to be funny because they're uncomfortable. Yeah. I would have pulled the sign language interpreter, interpreter onto the state and said,

hold on, we need to explain to the cast of Coda what just happened. And then do you acknowledge Will Smith? What do you do? Uh, like do I acknowledge Will Smith what do you do uh like do you acknowledge do you do the whole thing like well looks like I'm not going to be making any jokes about Will like like the it's the elephant in the room you have to kind of bring him back right yeah you have to bring him back it's tough because he can't do it too quickly. Like, cause Chris kind of made a joke, but it was two people were still in shock. Right. You need like four minutes or maybe even five minutes.

I don't know, depending upon it to end the line needs to be great. You know, whatever you, whatever you come up with needs to be great. But those are the really thrilling moments, you know, because you can have jokes written for weeks leading up to the Oscars and you could try them out with all your friends, your comedy writer buddies. And this one works,

this one doesn't, this one's too much. But the jokes that really, really work are the ones that that are about what just happened, you know? Well, and also you can feel in the room what the room needs. I mean, maybe the room, the atmosphere in there was like, maybe you can't even make a joke right away. Yeah. Did you notice the music for the In Memoriam montage was very upbeat? Right. They tried to

cheer it up. Yeah. It was one of the most bizarre telecasts. I was doing a podcast during the most boring part finished and got to see basically all the stuff was one of the most bizarre telecasts. I was doing a podcast during the most boring part, finished, and got to see basically all the stuff when it went off the rails. I thought it was pretty good overall, I have to say.

I think they did a pretty good job with it. It was, you know, there were some entertaining moments and I thought Amy's monologue she did was very funny. The solo monologue was good. Yeah, I agree. And there's some fun stuff in there, you know, there's some fun moments, but, um, uh, none of them will be remembered other than this one.

And that's the way it goes. And that's, that's, uh, it's a shame in, in a lot of ways, because this is a big night for a lot of people, including the hosts, who I obviously empathize with. You know, you do a good job. And then it's the third or fourth story the next day. So what are the PR people tell Will Smith tonight and tomorrow? I think this has got to be an emotional roller coaster like no one has ever experienced before for his publicity person. Because this should have been just a night of, of pure triumph.

And instead it is like a, it's a crisis. I mean, I would imagine they're trying to figure out what to do right now. So he might be on your show tomorrow. Well, that would be great. I don't really,

I don't necessarily, in fact, actually we asked him to be on the show tomorrow and, and he declined, but I'd be more interested in talking to Chris rock really, I don't necessarily, in fact, actually we asked him to be on the show tomorrow and he declined, but I'd be more interested in talking to Chris Rock, really, because his experience needs to be shared.

You don't wind up in situations like that much, not once you get out of junior high school, anyway. Well, the other thing is Will Smith's like, he's a solid 6'3". He's a woman I'll leave you with. Yeah, he's walking toward you and he's angry that you's a solid 6'3". He's walking toward you. Yeah. He's walking toward you and he's angry that you're on a live telecast. That's quite an experience.

All right. I look forward to watching your show tomorrow. Thanks for popping on with us. All right. My pleasure. What a night, huh? What a night. And thanks again for bringing me in on that code of Beth. You're welcome.

It was my pleasure. Bye. 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.

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The Oscars are happening. There's basketball on. USA is up 5-0. It's Panama. Ryan Rosillo is here. We wanted to get this up because we have a lot of basketball to talk about. There were two great games just now.

One of them wasn't that great because the Celtics killed the Timberwolves. They're now in first place in these. We'll talk about them later. We have been waiting, Rosillo, to talk about the Suns because we knew that we would have many, many rounds in many, many weeks to talk about Phoenix. But now we can't resist because there's some all-time potential with them. There's some Booker MVP conversation that we want to dive into. And most important, they came back from double digits against Philly tonight.

Philly was looking frisky. Booker got in foul trouble. None of it mattered because Phoenix has been a machine all season. They throttled them. It was a two-point game with four minutes left all of a sudden, and Phoenix just did the thing where they just get four stops in a row

and they score four straight times and suddenly the game's over. Should we start thinking about this as at least an all-time regular season team? Because I think I'm there. Yeah, I don't really get what the hang-up is. Maybe it's just because of losing in the finals, blowing a lead. Could be. If you don't have a title in your back pocket, it's tougher for us to give you the benefit of the doubt. There's certainly a lot of the anti-Chris Paul stuff because of the playoff failures, which you've covered a million times in the the podcast so maybe it still feels like it's new because we're not even through a completed second season with this group but they have been on an absolute tear bill and the

clutch numbers will get to them at some point but like tonight's tonight's another perfect example like as soon as we need to take over this game we're going to take over this game they even went 11 and 4 without chris paul through the stretch but at first when you heard about the injury you're like oh not this again. That could end up being something with him that's terrific because it gives him a few weeks of rest on top of everything else. Booker's been incredible. We know exactly who they are.

They're head and shoulders above what is still the better conference in the West, despite more entries into the conversation from the East. So I think it's just because of Paul and it's still sort of new, but whenever I see some of these projections and people talk, I just feel like Phoenix is completely undervalued. There's a calmness to them, especially in these tight games. That's ridiculous.

And I was looking at those clutch stats today. I'm sure you were. Booker and Paul are both over 50% field goal in like these clutch four minutes or less situations. I think after today, they're 31-5 in games, five points or less. 31-6, yeah. 31-6, yeah. It's just ridiculous.

And one of the things I was thinking, because there was some Booker MVP buzz over the weekend, which, no, he's not going to be the MVP, but he's going to be in the top five, and we'll talk about some of the historical stuff. What I was thinking was there are these weird seasons over the years when there can almost be a duo MVP that trumps whoever the actual MVP was. And I'm wondering if the Chris Paul Booker combo will remember. There's been other examples of this. I think LeBron and

Wade in 2011 was a good example. Durant and Curry together in 2017. That Warriors team was so good in 2017, they didn't even have a top five MVP. Going way back, there was West and Wilt, 1972. There was a Cowans-Havlicek, 1973. So sometimes the team is awesome, but there's not one guy that's responsible for it being awesome,

and we kind of don't know what to do with the MVP thing. I'm going to remember the Suns backcourt probably first out of anything from this regular season I don't know would you would you have another candidate for that if you're just like how am I going to remember this season 10 years from now I would probably start with Paul and Booker yeah Booker's not going to be the MVP uh and I know we'll get to that later when we start talking about the MVP guys at the top of it but you know his shooting which when you think of him is always the shooter I mean what he's done since the all-star break he's 40 percent from three what I've always loved about his game back when they stunk was that he initiated a lot of the offense but what you learn from that is that when Paul is missed time like he did or other big playoff positions if somebody decides to trap or blitz or

whatever we see a lot of these teams trying different things with really just trying to shut off the ball handler. Booker's totally comfortable in that role. And we saw that. I went through the 15 games without him. And they played, I think, six playoff teams. Obviously, the playoff team definition is a little different now with the play-in group adding two bad teams in both conferences.

But Aiton may not end up being a one of a franchise guy, but what I've always loved about him and we saw tonight, it's, you know, there's something very simple about body size in basketball. And, you know, sometimes you remember how Belichick, I know you'll love this because we went past five minutes into the podcast, but yeah, whenever they would have like a different matchup with like a bigger guy, like what they loved about Tlaib was they loved that they could body match him. And again, you don't have to listen to me. Bruschi used to tell me about this stuff. He'd be like, sometimes Bill would just want to have body matchups because it just made sense. I mean, unless the guy's incredibly slow

and he's going to get torched. Aiton is somebody that's gifted enough to fight with perimeter players. And even though Embiid dwarfs him in this game today, and Embiid still had sick numbers, so I'm not saying Aiton shuts him down, but it's a super mobile big that you never really have to worry about

taking off of the floor. And they're deeper because they have JaVale, who they didn't have today, which is actually a big thing and probably why they got down because the bench got smoked. I mean, Biombo, who we thought would retire five years ago, and he's going to be said it playing with Paul.

Bridges, you never know what's going to happen. He can get you 25. Cam shot the hell out of the ball before he got hurt again. And they're just, they're deeper. And that's not even including Crowder and Shaman at some point too. So they're a deeper team and they're a better team than they were last year. And I feel like people are just kind of meh about them. They demolished Harden today.

Now, Harden partially demolished himself because it doesn't look like he can get anybody that by anybody the same way that he used to, but the Suns had probably four or five guys who could just stay in front of him. And he was doing the thing where he's just trying to lurch into guys because he wasn't beating, he wasn't getting by them. But we've seen this with them over and over again. These perimeter guys come in a lot of confidence and the Suns just, they just throw waves of dudes at them. And then if, if that doesn't work, then you have eight and waiting in the back. And then on the other end, they, I just love the shots I get. They've been, you look up there's 61. Can I interrupt you real quick though, on that,

what you were talking about? Because Harden tried to dribble Booker to death and Booker just stayed and was like, all right, dude, you want to do a fucking dribbling drill in front of me? All right, Harden tried to dribble Booker to death. Yeah. And Booker just stayed. Didn't work. And was like, all right, dude, you want to do a fucking dribbling drill in front of me? All right, go ahead. And he doesn't move. He can't shake him. It was Kobe-esque.

The way he was treating it was Kobe-esque, how he was kind of just staring at Harden with kind of semi-contempt. You finish all your dumb shit, but if you're actually going to try to go Bobby, you're not going Bobby. Yeah. And he didn't shake him at all. Harden you're actually gonna try to go bobby you're not going bobby yeah and he didn't he didn't shake him at all harden didn't even really try to go he just went between his legs a million times and then booker stayed up and then harden tried to like

all right well i'll just go into a jumper and get a foul and he tried his stuff and booker just didn't go for it and booker you're totally right it's like a great pickup by you. Booker was like annoyed, like dismissive about it. He was annoyed the whole game. He had 22 in the first quarter. He was like, fuck this guy. I'm better than him. And the other thing, this is a carryover too, the Minnesota game where they went in there,

and that was a really good game. But at the very end, Phoenix is kind of like, we're going to slap you guys around a little bit. And Booker's getting teed up after he dunked on D'Angelo Russell and started saying like, I don't have any friends you're not my friend i don't right like booker has an an edge and a nasty to him that to himself now that seems to be growing and that was super evident that one thing you were talking about with harden well you also had obviously chris paul is the most important thing that's happened to Booker's career, having this guy pass through his life.

Chris Paul has two guys on the Sixers team that he's not, I don't know, nuts about. Doc and then Harden. Well, did you see what was going on at the end? I mean, first of all, they were Harden hunting as much as they possibly could. They were even doing different stuff where they were setting the second screen. The first one is like, you think we're not going at Harden? We're actually going at Harden in the second one. And then the deandre jordan minutes which i think any sixers fans would be like you probably just cover your eyes or fast forward through them at that point but

paul hit that layup and looked at doc and then he hit another jumper where they were just struggling like there was one where harden even fell down where paul up fake for a jumper and then just a nice dime to aytonon and Harden had fallen down past it Paul had like two or three moments I mean Doc I don't even noticed it because Doc's gonna say like let's get it to Maxie right but you're right like and again this isn't surprising it's Chris Paul there was a crowd or three that finished the game right in front of the Sixers bench where he did like the double hop step stare down move, which I enjoyed immensely. Just in general, there was some definitely

like under the radar contempt at the Suns had, but that's the way they've gone all season. They're 61 and 14. Say that again. They're 61 and 14. So now we're talking and look, this is why I love the 82 game season. This Say that again. Say that again. They're 6-1 in 14. So now we're talking. And look, this is why I love the 82 game season. This is why I love how all the seasons relate. I think 66 wins is the cutoff for, if you go 66 and 16 or higher,

something really happened here. So, all right, going down. 2016 Warriors, 73-9. 96 Bulls, 72-10. 96 Bulls, 72-10. 97 Bulls, 69-13. The underrated kind of, oh yeah, by the way, our second best season, 69-13. 72 Lakers, same thing, 69-13.

Wilts, 67-6, or 68-13. And then the 73 Celts, 68-14. That was my dad's favorite Celtic team. Havlicek separated his shoulder, then not winning. Then we dipped to 68-14. That was my dad's favorite Celtic team. Havlicek separated his shoulder, then I'm not winning. Then we dip to 67-15. That's the 16 Spurs, which is such a weird one. I don't know. You go back and look at that 2016 season, there's like a weird talent deficiency and some weird records. 07 Dallas, 00 Lakers, 92 Chicago, 86 Boston, and the 17 and 15 Warriors. And then the 66 and 16 club is 13 Miami, 09 Cleveland, 08 Boston, 71 Milwaukee. I mentioned this because I just mentioned 17 teams.

Those are the 17 best records ever. 12 titles, one of them lost in the finals, and then the other four times didn't work out, but 12 titles. So if you're 66 or higher, you already have a two-thirds chance to win the title according to history. Yeah. Whenever you do this, I always forget that 83 Sixers team that I loved. 65 wins. You're right. Because I remember the Sixers, the Sixers are going for 70 cover of Sports Illustrated because they were on such a tear.

I mean, I don't think anybody wants me to go through a game log here of the 83 Sixers. No, they tailed off though. I actually think they could have had, they could end up at 67, 68. The 86 Celts were the same thing where there's some of those,

because I remember I did that for my book. There's some seasons where the teams didn't realize that they should be going for it more like the 71 bucks easily could have gone higher, but you know, so, all right. So we have that club, right? 66 wins are higher than 17 teams. But then this is interesting. There's only seven teams ever that hit that club, but also eight wins more than the second best team. And this is what the Suns are right now. Right now, they're nine games better

than the second best team of the week. All right, so here's that list. We have the 67 Sixers plus eight, 72 Bucks plus 14. They go 66 and 16, next best team at 52 wins. 73 Celtics plus eight, 92 Bulls plus 10, 96 Bulls plus eight, 2000 Lakers plus 12. And then I'm going to throw in the 1960 Celtics, 59 and 16, but 10 wins higher. All seven of those teams won the title. So they're plus nine. My point is, you can get the Suns right now

on FanDuel for even odds to win the fucking West. All the indications are that unless one of these dudes gets hurt, they're making the finals and they're probably winning the title. That's what all of the history says. And get ready to go to Phoenix for four rounds, national media.

I want to share the last clutch number that I have for you because this is staggering. Please. And if you watch Suns broadcast, they've shared this a few times, but I think there'll be a few people that hear this going, wait, what? So Phoenix going through the clutch stuff, number one offense. They're six points better than the number two clutch offense in the NBA.

That's a staggering gap. Yeah. That's an appetizer though. They're the number two clutch offense in the NBA. That's a staggering gap. Yeah. That's a, that's an appetizer though. So the number two defense and clutch, which I think number one is wizards, which is a little weird. There's always some weird numbers that jump out.

You're like, wait, what is that? It's, it's not as big of a sample size as you want, but it's still solid. Right. But here's,

here's significant stuff right here. The sun's net rating and clutch time this season is plus 32.1, which is going to be even higher, I think, after today's game. Plus 32.1. That's 17 points better than the number two net rating

in clutch time in the NBA, and that's the Milwaukee Bucks. That's insane. Oof. 17. They're plus 32.1 and Milwaukee's plus 15. Some other stuff with them. Second in points. Seventh in defense.

Fourth in assists. Fifth in three-point percentage. This is all before today's game. Sixth in steals. Seventh in turnovers. Ninth in pace. Third offensive rating. Third defensive rating, first and field goal percentage. They're shooting 80% for free throws. As a team, they're 49, 37, 80. They're like kind of sniffing at 50, 40, 90. They're not going to get there, but

49, 37, 80 is in the ballpark. Third and defensive field goal percentage, third and three point percentage from the other team. Every metric is that they're just killing everybody. The 61 and 14 is not an accident. What's interesting is the clutch stuff because you figure that should swing a little more toward the other team, but it doesn't because of what we just saw today. When it's a two-point game, they just execute. It's almost like watching a football team. So I think it's legit. I think people should get ready.

And we are going to talk about Devin Booker and how the Suns cannot have a top three MVP candidate after this break. What does possible sound like for your business? It's having the spend to 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 powerfuler piece of this. So that 17 teams I mentioned that had 66 wins and up club, basically. MVPs from those teams. Curry first, MJ first, MJ second, Westwilt two and three, Wilt one, Cowens one, Kawhi two, Dirk one, Shaq one, MJ one, Bird one, Steph one and six. Hold that thought on the six. LeBron one, one, KG three, Kem, one. So the only time out of those 17 did they not have at least a top three MVP

was Steph in 2017 with the Warriors that went 67 and 15. That was the year we voted Isaiah Thomas fifth. That was the year we had Harden versus Westbrook versus Kawhi. LeBron finished fourth. Isaiah Thomas fifth. That was the year we had Harden versus Westbrook versus Kawhi.

LeBron finished fourth. Isaiah Thomas finished fifth. In retrospect, kind of dumb. We didn't have a warrior in the top five. But that was the one time. And this year could be the second outlier. Now, I think, and I think you think too, Booker's probably going to get fourth.

If they end up plus nine, plus 10, I think he's fourth. I know I'm going to vote him fourth. We have eight games to go, but if the season ended now, I'd vote him fourth. I think fourth is fine. I can't put him in the Giannis and Bede Jokic class. He doesn't deserve to be there. But I feel bad because this team kicked ass and the MVP should represent that. But in this case, it's just not going to happen. What are your thoughts? Will you share that other one with me too? You sent me a text last night saying, what was it like everyone that had been

25 and five on a one seed? What was that? It was everyone who had been 25, five and five on a team that finished 80% winning percentage or better won the MVP, which is a little similar to the plus eight thing I gave you earlier with the win teams.

Here's what I would suggest. Why are we making a simple thing hard? At any point this season, have you thought Booker's having the best season of any player in the league? No. Have you ever thought he's the best player in the league? No. And for all the Suns love we just gave him, this shouldn't be taken as offense.

Some people are going to get upset. It's just he's not the MVP. He's awesome. They're awesome. By the way, you can't love your depth and the collection of everyone understanding their roles and having different options and also realizing that you're a weird team to attack because there isn't necessarily one super weak link that you're always thinking about going at. Even some of the really good teams will have a player that everybody goes hunting for phoenix doesn't like you don't get to have all of that stuff and then be pissed off that booker's going to finish outside

of the top three i do not understand mvp conversations anymore because like derosen has two awesome weeks then guys go on first take and start screaming their fucking heads off as if this guy's the mvp and you're, what are you talking about? Like, it's a sick two weeks. DeRozan was historical. None of us think he's winning the MVP. If I went out at night and talked to a woman and said, hi, I'd like to spend some time with you. And she said, well, I've got like seven or eight options

that I would rank ahead of you right now. And I'd go, that's all. I just want to be ninth. I just want to be in the conversation. You know, did I? Does this happen? No, probably. Have I accomplished anything? Like, what if she says, okay, fine. want to be in the conversation you know did i does this happen like no well probably uh have i accomplished anything like what if she says okay fine if this first seven or eight guys leave all

then then you win um so we turn it into this weird deal where it's like so and so needs to be in the conversation you're like to finish fourth okay cool he could be fourth i think tatum has a really strong case when you start looking at Booker and Tatum. And look, I hate to do this to Booker because I like him so much and his numbers have been crazy the last month. 35 and 7 assists,

55% shooting, 42% from three, makes all of his free throws, plays defense. Overall, he's ninth in points. He's 61st in three-point shooting. He's 53rd overall in shooting. He's 61st in three-point shooting. He's 53rd overall in shooting. He's 26th in PER. He's 18th in win shares. He's ninth in usage,

so it's not like he's using... He's 22nd in box plus minus, and you could say, oh, screw all this stuff. He's just... You and I both did it all weekend. We looked at Jokic. We looked at Giannis. We looked at Embiid. It is brutally tough. Booker is not getting in that group. I'm sorry. And it's between him and Tatum for the four spot.

If Boston finishes with the one seed, then I think Tatum probably has to be four. Right now, they're a half game up. I don't know if that's going to last because they play the Toronto Pit Bulls tomorrow. Okay, but... Not excited to see the Pit Bulls tomorrow. The seed thing is going to be interesting

because Philly's propaganda machine is going to be, if Philly were to finish with the one seed, they'd say, hey, look at this, instead of Jokic, because Jokic's seeding is going to be so much worse. But in reality, the records are very close between, I mean, Utah would have going into today, I think been a game and a half out of the one seed in the East. So if Tatum were to get the one seed in a weaker conference, I know it sounds cooler. And now I sound like I'm arguing for Booker against Tatum.

I'm not sure that that's the best argument. I think if they get the one seed with the stats that he's put up basically for three months, be hard to deny him fourth. Like they flashed something on TV today. It was Tatum stats in March. Now March is like, we're almost

done with March. 33.6 points, 54% field goal, 47% 3.7 rebounds, 4.7 assists, plus minus of plus 175. It's for an entire month. I mean, the game has slowed down for him. They killed

Minnesota tonight. Minnesota's good. Minnesota's been awesome. Minnesota's been going at teams and beating teams and they beat the shit out of Dallas and they came to play. They were fired up. It was a tight game in the first quarter and the Celts did what they always do. They just blew the game open in the second quarter and they were

up 20 and then they were up 20 the rest of the way. And Tatum, he's guarding towns. He's doing all kinds of stuff. So we can talk about the Celts later, but I think Tatum has to be four or five if we got two weeks left. Back to Booker. So Ben Thompson and I talked about

who had a chance to catch LeBron with the points record. If anyone currently playing has a chance because he theorized Giannis and we talked about it. And I think Giannis for a couple of years there, it didn't get enough points. I think it would be too hard for him.

Booker, fourth fastest ever to get to 11,000 points. He's only 25 years old. I don't think he can do it either, but it did get me thinking about what's this guy's career going to look like? Because it feels like he's going to be 25 to 27 a game for the next 10 years. He's pretty durable.

He's going to have all MBAs. It was the first time, I don't know why I'd never thought about it before because he was awesome in the playoffs last year and he's been really good this year. But it was the first time I started thinking about him. Big picture is like, wow, this guy, I wonder if he's going to get to like 30,000 points. I wonder if he's going to get to like seven all NBA teams.

Like what is the ceiling for this dude? I hadn't thought about that before. Have you? No, because I mean, before prior to last year, I mean, he was he was kind of falling into that category of like good stats, bad team guy. 100%. I mean, he hadn't made the playoffs. Right.

And that's why I would always argue that I still think Donovan Mitchell, he was always very close. I always feel like I don't even like doing the Booker rant that we just did a couple of minutes ago because I like him so much. Yeah. But sometimes it's kind of that neighborhood thing I always bring up. We're going to start comparing you to Jokic, Embiid, and Giannis this season. Well, guess what?

You're going to lose the argument. It doesn't mean we don't like you. I think that's hard for a guard, too, unless it's like a Jordan-Kobe type. It's hard just to put a guard against three dominant centers like that, and I consider Giannis the center. Yeah, and some of the efficiency stuff is just hard because you're talking about guys shooting from different areas and that's why curry was so absurd winning it the way he did

with those two years but um now now i feel like you know whether it's paul being there some people would point to the bubble and two years ago before paul even showed up the franchise they built yeah i don't know i mean maybe they even referenced again in the broadcast today that something clicked for him well he was also he was really young when he came in the league. Do you think that he turned 25 in December? I would have just gut-checked thought he was like 27 because it feels like he's been around a few years. You look at his stuff this year.

I love that he doesn't have the ball a ton. He's 31.9 usage, which is right around where Jokic is, where it's not like, I feel like there's a world where he could average 30, 31 a game if it was a worse team that he just had the ball more, right? That's still pretty high.

I mean, it's top 10. Yeah, but it's not like he's, it's not like Harden during the Houston years. No, it's not Doncic. Yeah. But yeah, his turnovers are way down, which was the other thing I think is interesting about this year. He had a couple of four-plus turnover years,

or at least one of them. That's gone down. But just in general, I was thinking historically. I'm not going to do the whole list, but don't ask. I was watching the boring Kansas game today, and I made the two-guard title belt. I tried to figure out

who was the best two-guard for every year since Bill Russell came in the league. And who had it? What is wrong with you? I don't know. I just, it didn't take that long. I went through the all-NBA teams.

But I think Booker has the belt now, is the TLDR. I think he took it. I think he took it. Do you consider Doncic a traditional two-guard or no? Because I had him for the last two years. But I think Booker has it now.

Luka? I don't know what position he is. That's a problem with this bell, right? He's a point guard. He's a point? Okay. Right? I mean, he's got the ball as much as anybody in the league.

So Booker probably has it last year. Yeah, I don't. That's the problem with some of this position stuff. But anyway, it was fun to go through and try to figure out some of the Kobe years. Ray Allen has it for a year. Reggie Miller had it for a year. Who's the weirdest guy that has it? Ben Gordon?

I'll rip through these. Go through all 50. Well, some of them are like five years in a row. Right. I know. Bill Sharman, Richard Guerin, Jerry West, Hal Green for a year, Earl Monroe for a year, West for another four, Gail Goodrich, JoJo White, Paul West, Hal Green for a year, Earl Monroe for a year, West for another four, Gail Goodrich, JoJo White,

Paul Westfall for two, George Gervin for five, Sidney Moncrief for four, Jordan for eight straight, Sprewell 94, Jordan retires, Reggie Miller, Jordan again three more years. I had Iverson from 99 to

01. I have no idea if he's a two-guard or not. I got to work on this work. Kobe 02, McGrady 03, Kobe 04. Just to jump in for people that may go like, what the hell are you talking about, Simmons, that Iverson wasn't a point guard? They did have those stretches where it ran through. He really wasn't a point guard.

They used him like a shooting guard. I'm backing you up there on that one. Thank you. Kobe 04, Real 05, Kobe 06-10, Thank you. Kobe 0-4. Rialto 5. Kobe 0-6 to 10. Wade 11. Kobe 12-13. Harden 14-15. Klay Thompson 16.

Harden 0-7 to 19. I didn't know what to do with 2021. Booker 22. I did it in 15 minutes. Maybe I need to dive into it a little more. There's some tough ones. Like Kobe's 0-6. That was the year he had 35 a game.

But then Wade has the playoffs and he wins the finals against the Mavs. Who gets the belt that year? My point, Booker has it right now for the two guard. He is the all-time prototypical traditional two guard and the best version of it over

everyone else we have. Are you saying Mitchell's a two or a point guard? I think he's a... What is he? I don't know. He's not a... You don't think of him as like a two guard, do you?

He's like a guard. You would with Conley, but the great thing about Conley is that he could always kind of float himself a little bit there. Because there's some weird Jerry West seasons too

where he's like the all-time prototypical guard for the two spot, but really played point for like the last four years of his career because they had Gil Goodrich. Regardless, Booker has entered the chat. I think. I knew you would like this.

You have like a confused semi-annoyed smile. Should I mail this to you? No, it's not. There's no annoyance whatsoever. The funniest thing is figuring out was like, all right, I don't have to figure out the 87 through 93 seasons. I'm good there.

And then the 96 through 98, also good. Write those down. Oh, you know what it was? I think it was Latrell. So what was that, 94? Yeah, his first team all NBA. Yeah, I'm not, like, I don't remember off the top of my head, obviously,

but I'm, like, that was the one where I go, I want to look at who else. Who else was in the mix? Reggie Miller, Mitch Richmond. That's about it. Maybe Dan Marley. I don't remember what Dan Marley did that year. But Latrell was, like, you know.

The good thing is the All-NBA teams are a pretty good blueprint of who mattered. Yeah. You know, and where to rank them and stuff like that. If we want to go deep dive, the hardest to figure out is the 1977 to 83 stretch with Paul Westfall, Girvin, Dennis Johnson, Maravich is in there. Maravich is first team on the base, so it gets a little hairy. The big picture point, Devin Booker has arrived in a big way. He has people pining for him to win the MVP that he doesn't honestly deserve. And kicking ass, and by the way, completely outplayed Harden today, which is another piece we should talk about right now is the Harden piece of this. And just like this guy who Brooklyn traded all this stuff for, and then Philly traded all this stuff for. And sometimes you watch the Sixers against a good team and you think, Oh,

Max is their second best player, which is kind of how I felt during that son's game. I know that's not true every game, but there's games where Max is their second best player. And that's a fact. I was looking at a bunch of stuff. Philly still has some issues with the backup group and some very pro-Harden numbers where when he's on the court, the overall shooting is like a really

good number, I think, from three. And then when he's off, it falls apart. And they do stagger Embiid and Harden. So you can't just say, well, it's all because of Embiid as well. But I'll just tell you, there's two things. He doesn't move as well. You know how I know he doesn't move? There was a play in the game

today. I think it was in the first half. He did a pick and roll. He kicked out to Embiid on the three-point line. And then he circled under the hoop and ran a Ray Allen to pop in the corner. And Embiid was like, cool!, you moved and threw him the ball and Harden almost fell out of bounds.

He had to like, keep his, keep his balance. But it was like, whoa, James Harden moving out the ball. Like it's bad when I noticed that. Yeah. And when he first got to Philly, he looked like he had that. I just got traded energy, you know. Like new outfit guy in high school. He was kind of like, he was like January 1st, I went jogging today guy.

No, I'm not eating bread anymore. And then by January 10th, he's ordering her pizza. Or like your wife took you back and you're cleaning up around the house. Yeah, shave. When she comes home. Yeah, shave, clean up around the house, put the sweatpants away.

I'm not drinking, throw all the beer away.. Shave. Yeah. Shave, clean up around the house, put the sweatpants away. I'm not drinking, throw all the beer away. Well, no hard liquor. I dumped out three bottles of tequila. He looks, those first couple of games, I was like,

oh, this is going to be fun for Nets fans. Like, who's that guy? Super engaged, moving around. Then he became Brooklyn Harden again. Right. So in a weird, fucked up way,

that might be a positive that is it in there somewhere. But I mean, you know, look, we've been over the Harden part of this. The really alarming thing is that his finishing at the rim is atrocious again. He doesn't go by people

and he doesn't finish the same way. Doesn't get free throws the same way. He's still getting his free throws, man. I look at that stuff because I thought at the beginning of the year, I was like, this is amazing. We're back to this. I mean, look, with Philly, he's averaging 10 free throws a game. And he was getting eight with Brooklyn.

He actually is still getting his free throws. Yeah, that's fair. And in the playoffs, when you'll say, okay, it's not the same, there are games I'll notice where it seems like the officials get together going hey let's be on top of harden today and it'll feel noticeable it's like oh he's not getting the calls tonight maybe they're a little more tuned up playoff and all that kind of stuff because when you do that it's almost like you cut away 30 of his production um because he's the most propped up offensive player by officiating that I've ever seen in my entire life.

But when you look at his free throw attempts over his career regular season playoff, the gap isn't that much. So I know that's part of the plan, but look, they attack the shit out of him. And that Booker play, I'm so glad you brought it up because I thought it was like a significant. I never know how much these moments mean. What do they weigh? And that felt like a bit of a moment there for a Suns team that doesn't need. This isn't some young team on the come up here, but that was just a really important possession there.

I thought that meant a lot. You know, it's interesting. I don't know if this is worth Kyle turning the camera on. But we had that era last decade when it just seemed like everybody was too friendly and too buddy-buddy. And I was like, ah, this kind of sucks. All these guys like each other. And even when they're competing,

it doesn't seem, there's not like any underlying animosity. And these guys are all buddies. They're making commercials. They're on the Olympic team together. I feel like the animosity is back a little bit. I watched some of these games and it does feel like there's bad blood.

Like that Brooklyn Philly game. Exactly. And some of that stuff going on with Kyrie and KD and Harden. That was incredible. The game today, I really felt like the teams didn't like each other. I think when Boston goes at some of these teams now,

there's a little smart history because he's been in the league so long where he really dislikes the league so long where he just, he really dislikes the other team. You know, and you go on down the line, there's just some good ones. Luca doesn't seem like he likes anybody. Giannis doesn't want to be friends with anybody.

And Embiid talks more shit than anybody in the league, which we love. But just on down the line, I don't, I don't see the same reverence for each other that we saw five, six years ago. Durant and Embiid, remember that one? How many times have they gone at it when they play? Plus, when it was Blake. Because Blake would look at you like you would hit him and he would donk.

People hated Blake. And then he would just look at you and he had this stare that was like the biggest dick stare. And then Paul would do it. And then DeAndre wasn't as bad necessarily. But like when Austin was on the team too, it was just a bunch of complainers. So the Clippers had beef with like six different teams. The one you're leaving out, which is less significant now now but it was kind of interesting how it all played out was the westbrook airball and towns giving him shit look beverly gives a great one shit but you know for westbrook i know this is going to be

shocking which way i go on this one but westbrook who's been motherfucking everybody at every turn you know rocking a baby and putting in losing the series in Portland, by the way. All the stuff that Westbrook has done, the way he's carried himself. And then he gets a little bit back and he's going to start doing features about how his legacy is being tarnished. So it's like, wait, Russ, you can't do what you did over the years, the majority of your career, and then come out and start bricking it up left and right and be mad because other like that to me seeing other other players really want to give it back to him is because that tells us how bad it was when he was rolling and things were going well for him it's great but we didn't mention draymond who loves to get into it with pretty much everyone

in the league mentioned marcus smart before his another one. Then Beverly is just like a hockey player. He's like the 80s, 90s, just skating around, tripping people after the whistle and stuff. And then we have my new hero, Jose Alvarado on the Pelicans, who are only down... Oh, no, they just took the lead against the Lakers. Were they down 20? Yeah, they blew a 20-point lead.

Yeah, the animosity's back. All right, we're going to take a break. We got more to talk about. All right, so we buried the lead here. Ryan Rossella, now an official voter for MVP and everything else on the NBA awards ballot. It's a long time coming. I don't really know anybody

who watches more basketball than you. Now, when we talk about this, which we're going to do this Sunday, next Sunday, and then the final Sunday, we're just basically snapshotting all NBA MVPs, some of these other awards. It changes every week. Think about Miami last week

versus Miami this week. Things change week to week. We're going to try to snapshot it, but before we do, I want to poll LeBron and say I was telling people for years that Ryan deserved to vote. I was telling anybody who would listen for years that nobody deserved to vote. I was telling anybody who would listen for years

that nobody deserved to vote more than Ryan Russillo. Well, you know, it was like when I saw this guy when I was in seventh grade, I knew he was going to be a great voter. Yeah, I heard you on local radio in 2002. And I remember I turned the house and I said, someday Ryan Russell is going to have an NBA boat. Oh, man.

We love nothing more than LeBron compliments other players, but it somehow turns into a LeBron compliment that he's doing himself. It's one of my favorite things. But then people get mad. We're not allowed to make fun of LeBron anymore, though. Once you pay attention to it, though, you're like, wait, what did he just do?

You almost have somebody be like, hey, did you notice? But whatever. This isn't about LeBron. Will Smith wins the Oscars today. I told people forever Will Smith was going to get one. Hashtag Oscars. So, all NBA.

Markstein tweeted about this yesterday. I got to say, I've had a vote since like 2008 or 2009. I didn't know this was the rule that you can vote for whoever for first team. But like, if Jokic has 40 forward votes and 50 center votes, only the center votes count for that position for first team. So, if he has 40 forward votes and 50 center votes, only the center votes count for that position for first team.

So if he has 40 forward votes and 50 center votes and Embiid has 90 center votes, Embiid will be the center over Jokic. So basically, if we want Embiid and Jokic on the first team together, you have to bend the rules and make Jokic a forward. Making Embiid a forward would be idiotic. And I'm just not going to do that.

I haven't done that the last 13 years. I think there's a winner and a loser and I'm going to pick between them is where I've landed. What do you think of that? I still don't really know how, I mean, obviously it's my first year on this. Um, this is not an easy one. It's not entry level, all NBA voting in this fire. It's ridiculous how hard this is going to be, and you need to take it seriously. But I don't want to leave either of those guys off. So what are you doing? Are you going to bend the rules?

Because I know Zach Lowe was talking about, is it really even rule-breaking if you look at the Mark Stein tweet about how this works? You know, it sucks. It sucks the idea of Jokic or Embiid not being on first team. So in the past, I just would have put both of them on and put Jokic forward, but I didn't realize that I might actually be penalizing Jokic if I did that. Right. So I got to find out more about that. But like last year, Embiid and Jokic were two of the MVP candidates, right?

Embiid ended up being on second team. So it's going to come down basically to the last day of the season. What seed each team is in, where Philly lands, where Denver lands. The fact that Jokic played seven more games is going to matter. Like very small things are going to matter. Jokic wins the advanced metrics case across the board. It's not close. Embiid wins the, when I'm watching these games, he just seems like the most intimidating guy to try to play against Test, whatever Test that is. And I think Giannis is the most consistent two-way guy

at either of them. And I'm perfectlynis is the most consistent two-way guy at either of them. And I'm perfectly happy to take two more weeks. Guess what? We don't have to pick until after Game 82. It's okay if we don't have an answer now. I have it really close. And I think a lot of it's going to depend on the records. How about you?

On the MVP part of this? Yeah. Well, we went through it all. I know. Here's what I would say. The advanced stuff is Jokic, and there's no other argument. And I know Daryl, because it's his job as the head of basketball operations for the Sixers, he's going to be promoting his guy, and he did it with Harden all the time. And he would get incensed about Westbrook

being on a worse record team when Harden's on a much better team. But it was just people fell in love with the triple doubles because it was new. We didn't quite, I don't think any of us. Not me. Not this guy. No, you had it. No, you were right. I think you and Lowe, did Lowe vote Harden as well? No, he did Kawhi. I still feel like in the last second, he kind of went sideways a tiny bit. And I've never totally forgiven him. But both of us were aligned. We're not taking Westbrook.

Okay, that's fine, too. Because I don't know that we understand the usage rate thing that happened with Westbrook. We could look it up. People knew about usage rates. They didn't understand that. It was like DNA with the OJ trial. People understood it, but they didn't understand it. That's perfect.

I'm glad we're going to add to that. Appreciate it. Because then when you look back at those years, though, you're like, oh, wait, what was going on? You're like, yeah, that's kind of what we have now. We have these heliocentric offenses. So when I bring up the Darrell part, I get he's doing his job, right? But he's kind of a bully. He's like a semi bully with this stuff, with the voters.

I wonder if it backfires for him. Just a thought. He should stay out of it next two weeks. Don't text. He's not a semi-bully with this stuff, with the voters. I wonder if it backfires for him. Just a thought, throwing it out there. He should stay out of it next two weeks. Yeah. Don't do any texts. He's not going to. If you did a blind resume of all of the stats for Jokic next to all the stats for Embiid,

knowing Daryl Morey's background, the way we know, he would pick the Jokic resume 100 out of 100 times because the metrics are there. Now, the defensive metrics also favor Jokic resume 100 out of 100 times because the metrics are there. Now, the defensive metrics also favor Jokic, which is surprising because when I think about if you had the ball in your hands and you're driving or you're making a cut

and somebody's throwing it to you as you're going into the paint, there is a difference when somebody sees Embiid there versus Jokic. They make different decisions. Hell, and even though Philadelphia lost tonight, you saw it all game. But that's half court, though.

I think there's a full court deficiency with Embiid because I think you could beat him down to four. Because I was trying to figure out, I'm with you, it makes no sense. Why is Jokic dead even with Giannis and Embiid? Giannis makes sense just because his team, he hasn't had a full staff, but the Denver, at least they get back

on defense better than Philly does. So that's got to be part of it, right? I'd imagine. I mean, I don't want to bore everybody to death with the win shares and the win shares for 48. Do the net. Do Jokic's net for his net rating is out of control. Well, his total points added,

he's like a moon that we haven't discovered yet. Yeah, Goldsberry does that chart, and Jokic is in the far right corner. He almost looks like the mouse on your computer. It's like, what's that? Oh, that's Jokic. He's over in the top right. And then his net for offensive rating,

defensive rating, when he's on the court, they're 116.7 offensive rating. When he's off, they're 104.9. The defense is three points worse when he's on the court they're 116.7 offensive rating when he's off they're 104.9 the defense is three points worse when he's off

for net he's 14.3 Embiid's 10.6 Giannis is 10.5 the Embiid-Giannis numbers look very similar across the board but the Jokic

numbers do not and then you met the 58% field goal, 32.8 PR, which is going to be one of the all timers. His usage is lower than those guys. 31.4 usage and beats 37. Giannis is 35.

His wind shares. He's almost at three, which I don't know if I've seen before. Is that 0.299 wind shares per 48 and 14 total. And then the other thing. So I, this is another dumb thing I did today as I watch basketball. I tried to figure out how many guys have been in the top 10 in points per game, assists per game and rebounds per game in the same season. And I assume Larry Bird had

done it. Nope. Hadn't done it. Magic never did it. LeBron hasn't done it. The people who have done it are Elgin, Oscar, Wilt, Russ, and Jokic. And Jokic right now is going to be 10th in scoring, 9th in... Oh, last year he was 10th in scoring, 9th in rebounds, 6th in assists. This year he's way better than that. I think he's 2nd, 8th, and 10th.

But, you know, this is like this year he's way better than that. He's, I think he's second, eighth and 10th. But, you know, this is like to be in the top 10 in all three categories is bonkers. And we just like take it for granted. Nobody should be in the top. Like Westbrook did it, but Westbrook,

there was a piece of that, those two seasons where Westbrook was trying to put up stats, right? Which kudos to him, it helped his team, it gave those seasons a weird energy. But there was some stat chasing to it, and he had the ball all the time. Jokic doesn't have the ball all the time.

No, Westbrook has the single highest usage rate of any season in NBA history, and it's like 10 more points higher than what Jokic is actually doing right now. So I'm going to add two other things to this. I know the seeding thing would be like if Denver were to fall in the play-in game. I'm out.

I'm not voting for him if that happens. Okay, so they're a game and a half ahead of Minnesota, which is totally doable. I feel like if you've watched Denver closely, they barely got that one last night against an OKC team that's tanking. They got crushed by the schedule, though. They looked like they were running

on fumes. Yeah, and this has been going on a couple weeks. I thought they were kind of on fumes in the Golden State loss. Golden State looked like they were getting things going again. Again, I thought it was a good win for Golden State. But if you've watched Denver closely, they've played 17 games since the All-Star break. Maybe it's 18 now, I forget. But it was the most, and there was one other team that was there with

them, and they've looked a little flatter. His supporting cast is not what Embiid's supporting cast is. But I think there's going to be an argument, say if Philadelphia were to get to a one or two, then people that are going to be pro-Embiid are going to say, okay, but how could you guys have this guy who's one or two seed and then Jokic is on this other team that's a six or seven seed or whatever. The point is, though, it's like, again, in a better conference,

if you look at it right now, they're two, three, two and a half games behind Philadelphia's record. So it's not like this one team out east with Embiid is light years ahead of a team with a far worse seed. They're almost identical in record. So that's going to come into this last two-week stretch. Here's one question I'll just ask you. Two minutes left in the game, tied.

Two minutes left, one minute left, shot clock off, games tied. Who do you want to have the basketball in his hands? Jokic. I think that's the right answer. I think what he's doing has actually been incredible. We were texting about it over the weekend. When you look at his next best four teammates versus everyone else's next best four teammates and it's just outrageous all due respect

to those guys but it's aaron gordon monty morris jeff green barton rejuvenated jeff green though rejuvenated jeff green and i know look we don't need to go over your history with Jeff Green and how you've... I mean, one thing about Ryan, Ryan's always believed in Jeff Green. I remember telling somebody 20 years ago, when Ryan meets Jeff Green, he's going to love Jeff Green. But his next four guys,

for what they're doing, I actually think if you look at Denver's schedule, they have a chance to get to a four seed. They have a pretty easy rest of the way. They got through the hard part. And there's a roadmap. Utah and Dallas, watching this right now, it's 86-79 Dallas. So one of these teams is getting dropped to five, but Denver could easily catch one of these two teams get in the top five. If I'm Denver, I'm not upset about playing Golden State 3-6, but I would rather get into the 4-5 and play one of those two teams.

Okay, can we go back to something we said, though? And you're right. If you look at Denver's schedule, there's a lot of wins there. There should be a lot of wins there. It's a lot of tanking teams, a whole bunch of things. And it should get a little uglier here because it's the weird thing about the tanking season,

which usually is already started. Some of the teams that should be tanking, they just play too hard. Orlando has one of the most absurd defensive improvements that we've seen in league history. And we're also, if you want to do a different thing, which I'm not going to do right now, if you look at some of the March offensive numbers, like some of the scoring, like it's up six points per 100 or something right now. And March has been this explosion offensively. So some of that is messed with some of the defensive numbers

where like, oh, these teams are getting bad defensively. And you're like, everybody's just getting bad defensively because the offense has been off the charts. You know what? Part of that is I think no more COVID and just continuity of teams finally. I think it's up. I think guys stop trying

because I still think we're on year three. We're seeing good teams. How does Milwaukee get their ass kicked? How does Miami get their ass kicked? Did you watch that game? I watched that whole game this morning, Milwaukee- The Memphis game? Yeah.

I actually thought Milwaukee was trying. It was kind of alarming. If I'm Milwaukee, I'm like, fuck. It was a two-point game in the second quarter, and then all of a sudden they're down 18. And it was like, what's going on? Like they're,

it's not like they're in a coma. No, that's without jaw too. So I don't mean specific to Milwaukee there, but like, I, you know, I know we'll get to it a little bit later with Boston and everything,

but I keep kind of waiting on Milwaukee and then they'll have a game where I go, what the hell happened there. And then Miami who I don't, you know, we look at every time I look at the stands, we're like, wait,

Miami's still up there. And of course course we know that but then that happens against Brooklyn but um I just wanted to follow up so if in some weird world Nuggets drop a ton of these games somebody catches them if the Nuggets are a seven seed and Jokic's numbers are the same and Bede's numbers are the same and Giannis's numbers are the same you just wouldn't vote Jokic MVP because they're in the play-in game as opposed to being a six seed. Play-in's tough for me. I do have some rules, and maybe that's an annoying thing,

but for all NBA, if a guy's 10, 12 games under 500, it's really hard for me to throw you on one of my own NBA teams. I did this with Bradley Beal last year. I was like, Bradley Beal, what a season. I'm like, their team sucks. He's putting with Bradley Beal last year. I was like, Bradley Beal, what a season. I'm like, their team sucks. He's putting up stats on a bad

team. I'm not putting you in my top 15 for the season because you scored on a team that went whatever. Or maybe that was two years ago. I think we're in the same conundrum with LeBron. LeBron's about to lose to the Pelicans. They just blew a 20-point lead in this game. I don't

know how many points they ended up with. 40? They lost. That team could end up 15 games under 500. By the way, they might not make the playoffs. They might not make the playing game. San Antonio, I don't know if you saw them yesterday,

but Landale has really rejuvenated them in a whole bunch of ways. Yeah, I said free-Jacques months ago. You know what it is? It's Jacques O'Clock. That's what's going on right now. It's Jacques O'Clock. Set your watches. But the Spurs could absolutely catch the Lakers.

If Davis isn't able to come back in the next two weeks, so if LeBron doesn't even make the playing game, I'm not putting him at all on the NBA team. I'm just not. I don't think that's controversial. I can't do it. I got to look at all the forwards again as we get closer to it.

But I'm still going to have a hard time leaving him off third team. One more thing on the all-NBA. The guards got screwed up. It seemed like we knew who the guards were for a while there and it was going to be probably John Curry. And now Booker's definitely in there.

And then Ja, if he just doesn't come back, I'm not positive he's going to play enough games. He's already missed 19 and we have eight left. Curry's going to miss 18 total. Luka's missed 17 and I don't know what to do with the guards. And you could talk me into any scenario. Do you think Curry, let's take him out of time. Is Curry to you a first team O&BA guy if he misses 18 games and they finish like 15-32 and by his standards, it's like the seventh best season

he's ever had? Well, I wouldn't compare him to his own standards because that's totally unfair. Because, I mean, as much as Steph has struggled through that six-week stretch, you still look at those numbers

and everybody's like, what the hell's wrong with this guy? And it definitely wasn't as good. And if you look at those numbers, though, you're kind of like, wait. And again, it's kind of the eye-test-number thing, where the eye-test was telling you the truth more than the numbers were, but the numbers were better than the way he was being talked about. It's a lot like last year when we were doing the MVP,

the all-NBA stuff, where as soon as you start talking down another guy on how many games he's missed, it felt like 15 candidates of the 25 that were thrown around had all missed like 25% of the season. So I thought it was Ja, I thought it was Steph. Booker is on that first team, but why am I going to have Doncic ahead of Steph if they've missed the same number of games and Golden State still finishes with a better record. Right. So the problem for Ja is that his team does really well when he doesn't play,

which isn't his fault because I think Ja's been amazing and we've both talked about him multiple times. I think it's that team too. That team is really good. They have some Phoenix in them where it's like, we still expect to win this game.

What are you guys talking about? Right. So I think the guards are wide open, but the only decision there's only a couple of decisions I've 100% made. Booker has to be first team all NBA at this point. And I think

Tatum has to be in one of the top two teams. I think he has to. Whether you're putting him second team all NBA or first team, I think he has to be one of the 10 best guys. Okay, but when you get back to the first team, how do you do Giannis who's, if we're doing four, Giannis is ahead

of everybody else. Agreed? Alright. So Giannis' first team, no matter what, then you have the Jokic and Bede part of it, and now you're telling me Booker's in, so what the hell are you doing with Tatum? How do you get him on that first team? I don't know if you can. The only way you get him on... So if you decide I'm going full traditional,

Embiid or Jokic as my center, and the other goes to second team and is my second team on the NBA center, which, by the way, is how the history of this award goes, or this... Whatever you call it. This was Russell Chamberlain for an entire decade. This was Weber and Duncan and KG and Dirk Nowitzki.

We could only pick two. We couldn't squeeze three of them on. This is how it goes. So if we're going to do it that way, that means it's one of Embiid and Jokic. It's Giannis. There's a third forward spot open. Booker and either Ja or Curry.

And then for that forward spot, it's either DeRozan or Tatum. If you're doing a traditional and you're saying Embiid or Jokic, both of them cannot make it. You have to pick one. Then it's Tatum or DeRozan for that forward spot for first team. And I don't feel

great about that because I don't think those guys have been as good as Embiid and Jokic. But that's kind of how this goes. The whole Mark Stein tweet this week threw it all off. It did. Because everybody then was like, wait, we can do this? And then I think there was pushback to that being like, no, you're not supposed to. So I'm like, is there a pamphlet we can get? Well, what we could do is everybody

who has a vote, we could just all collude and just say we're all voting Jokic at forward. But I don't think that's the spirit of the award. We've never done that in the past. Yeah, I don't like that idea. Yeah? So I don't know. The other way to do this is you vote one for MVP and the other for first team all NBA. You just split it. You just go,

Jokic is my MVP, but Embiid is my first team all NBA center. But that seems ridiculous too. I don't know how you put DeRozan ahead of Tatum now, though. I don't think you can. I'm just trying not to be a homer. Well, I don't think that... Look, Chicago has not been a great basketball team now for a few months.

I will say that. A nice win yesterday against Cleveland. They did. But Cleveland hasn't been the same since Jared Allen's been out. No, but it just... They showed the little DeRozan-Levine double barrel down the stretch. And that's when I was like, oh, these guys aren't dead yet. So, Cerruti says, you guys need to set the world for the other voters so everyone's on the same page. Cerruti's asking us to be leaders.

I'm new here, so I'm going to pass. You know, so Rudy, I've been saying for years that Ryan was going to get a vote in this space and he was going to be a leader. I remember I told Dwayne Wade that once. A couple more questions for you. Towns, I think Towns has to be on. The guards are pretty easy. It's Booker and Ja and Curry and Luca and CP3 and Mitchell. I think we have the guards, right? In some order, maybe CP3 could even potentially jump up if you wanted to reward the Suns more. It gets weird with the forwards. And then levine is he eligible would you put him at forward

or is he guard what is he there's all these this is why i tweeted yesterday like i do think we might have to kind of grow out just guard forward center for this and and make it a little more flexible instead of forward have swing guys and well, just front court, back court, can't you? Yeah, or bigs. Two bigs, two guards, and then a fifth that's just like a wild card, I think could work. And people could say, why do you guys need to change it all? Well, that's what happened in the game.

The game changes. You used to have college basketball games where everybody checked in with a center. You just did. I mean, obviously you did at the NBA, but it would always be weird to be like, oh, what does Iowa do? They play with three forwards. That's weird. Like, you remember you see the graphics of his old games and you think it was so weird

when it wasn't just center forward, forward guard. And it's like Jokic is a center, but he's really their point guard. LeBron lines up as center for the Lakers. He's not a center, but he plays kind of point guard for them. If you look at Boston, the lineup they play the most are smart Tatum, Brown, Al Horford,

and Rob Williams. So who's the second guard in that lineup? Is it Brown or is it Tatum? They don't really have one. They just have one guard, three forwards and a center. That's why this is so stupid because you look across the board

and is Luka a forward or a guard? I don't even know. They play him. Watch him right now. He's out there with two guards. I feel better about Tatum being a, or excuse me, of Doncic being a point guard. I don't really struggle with that one all that much. But if you go on Basketball Reference Tatum being a bar excuse me of Donchik being a point guard like I don't I don't really yeah I

don't struggle with that one all that much but like if you go on basketball reference and you look up Tatum he's been a small forward his entire career except for one year where he technically lined up as a power forward and then if you look at Jalen he's been a shooting guard for the four years after his rookie year where he's a small forward, and then they list him at small forward again. Right. Jalen is technically a guard on this Celtics team. He is. Because Tatum was guarding Towns today for chunks of the game.

But that doesn't mean anything because Rob Williams is a center, and in this matchup against Minnesota, he's playing Jared Vanderbilt because the way they use Rob Williams, which is why Minnesota... Boston's a terrible matchup for the Tim why Minnesota, like it's a Minnesota, Boston's a terrible matchup for the Timberwolves because it's exactly what Boston tries to do defensively.

It's like, oh, so you have a non-guarded power forward in this group. Like it's actually, if Minnesota, if they play each other in the finals, I would expect an adjustment there. Just for the misses, KD's missed 27. He basically, I'm going to try to talk myself into him as second team all NBA,

but I don't feel like he can miss any more games because right now he'd be at 55, which is kind of the spiritual cutoff. 55 total if he plays the rest of the season, right? Yeah, 55, I'm fine with voting him second team with that. Curry, 18. LeBron, 19 missed. Luka, 17 missed.

Jaws, 19 and counting. CP3 missed 15. And Bam missed 25, which I want to talk about after this break. Heat culture. You talked about this at the top of your podcast when you went through Jimmy Butler's NBA situations and how all of them have ended badly

and now starting to wonder if it's going to happen with this Miami thing. I talked about it on my pod. You talked about it too after it happened on Thursday. I'm in the camp that you can't tell me it meant nothing. Then you think, all right, well, if it meant nothing, then that would have meant the heat came out and they were fine in the next couple of games. They weren't. They lost all four. They lost all their momentum. They lost the first spot. And part of me is thinking, are they tanking to get out of the one spot? Well, that's not heat culture, but it's really because Butler has had a lot of trouble staying on the court and staying healthy this year. And then when Hero is either not playing or hurt, they have a hard time scoring in the fourth quarters. And I think that's a bigger thing to me. Out of all the teams,

they kind of have the least flexibility for anything bad to happen with the way they're built. I don't know what happened to Duncan Robinson this year. I don't love their bench. But just in general, anytime you pull anything away even a little bit, the team looks a little flimsy. But you know, it's been interesting after that happened. And then everybody has to do the, oh, finally you guys are talking about Miami. Like Kuzma had a tweet. He, he, Kuzma did a tweet to a tweet that I did about just having fun with the SPO videos. Like, oh, you finally talking about Miami. It's like, we talk about Miami all year. What are you talking about? And also we should talk about this.

This is a pretty ugly on-court incident. I don't like how it shapes up for them, though. Big picture. Do you have them in your top three in the East of teams you're scared of? Because I do not. No. No. It's Boston, it's Milwaukee, and it's Brooklyn.

And then does it drop for you to Philly? I like Philly. Does it drop again to Miami, or would you put Philly and Miami in the same bracket? No, I'd put them in the same one. That's fine. But there's a gap. Would you go Boston, Milwaukee, slight drop Brooklyn,

or would you put Brooklyn right there with Boston, Milwaukee? Seeing what Katie did last year is enough for me to still be scared of them. And that's where, you know, I don't know when we're going to talk Boston, but there's still this KD thing that's lingering. And I don't care who you are. These teams, there's no other team. There's no other staff.

There's no other group going, ah, fuck it, Durant, first round, we don't care, bring it on. That's not what they're thinking at all. So Miami, since the All-Star break, they still defend like crazy. They're 18th in offense. I went through it. I always think it's a really good indicator. Your record against 500 teams are better.

500 are a better record. Miami's 22 and 21. Their development is better than almost everybody else, but the development of some of the bench guys, like when it comes to playoff time, how many of those guys are you really going to trust? You know, heroes turn things around.

That's terrific. Bam is one of my favorite players in the league. You know, Lowry still figures out a way, but I don't think there's a scare factor. It feels like one of these kind of max, they're like a way better vert. Now this is disrespectful.

I shouldn't compare them to the Knicks, but you know, the Knicks were like max effort, regular season kind of thing? Yeah, they had no action gear. But Miami's better than that. And Miami maybe could scare some teams. So I just...

If you were doing just totally neutral fear factor of teams, I don't know how Miami cracks anyone's top three. You? They do not. I actually think it's Boston, Milwaukee, slight drop off Brooklyn, slight drop off Philly, Miami. Because the thing with Brooklyn, not having Harris, and now it looks like at least not having Simmons, God only knows when we see him, I'm assuming we won't. But I think that's

going to be a real problem for them against Boston and Milwaukee with the Giannis piece of it. And people will say, well, they had, what about last year, KD, he does step on the line. But I don't know. I just feel like watching that Boston-Brooklyn game, I thought was really instructive. Tatum really genuinely believes he's one of the best players in the league now. He didn't before. There was like a little brother thing with him. That Scalabrini told a story on the telecast today in the Timberwolves game that he was talking to Drew Hanlon.

I'll wait for you to make a face. I like Drew. Okay. Yeah, he's an Embiid guy, so we're just going to hear about it. So, Drew is like with Embiid and Tatum was talking to Drew and this is Scalabrini's story. He said, Drew was with Embiid, and Tatum was talking to Drew. And this is Scalabrini's story.

He said, Tatum told him he really wants Embiid to get the MVP this year. He's rooting for him. But he's like, this is the last one because I'm winning it next year. This is Scalabrini telling this story. I was like, my baby's all grown up. I was like Vince Vaughn on the swinger's table. This was the guy who, remember how mad we would get? He would just get the shit kicked out of him.

He wouldn't say anything. And he was just, especially against the other good players, he's hugging Kyrie. I think there's a little attitude with him now. I think it's a significant thing. I really think, and I think it started at the All-Star game. You know I overvalued the All-Star game. I think he was with those guys. He's like, I'm as good as these guys. I think some weird light bulb went off and he's never been the same since that all-star game team was clicking. Anyway, they just made the white trade. But when you watch him now,

he has this Dane for his opponent, which he never had before. Like today, he had a couple where he just right down, dunk, sneer at the crowd. He's just not afraid of anybody. He's blocking shots. They're contesting everything. I don't know what the contested shot stat is for the Celtics, but they have to be leading the league right now.

But it all fuels through him. And I think he's a different guy. Yeah, agreed. I mean, this team, I don't know that I've ever seen anything like it. There was one note. If you look at the halfway

point of the season, under 500 finish over 600 winning percentage. It's happened two other times. Lakers in 02. And then Utah did it not that long ago. Interesting.

Lakers in 02? It must have been that team that had already won two. Remember? Yeah, and they were unhappy. Yeah, I remember that. It was that Lakers team that was already won two remember yeah and they were unhappy yeah right yeah i remember that it was that lakers team that was unhappy i don't know if you remember that one was that the shack oh no that was every yeah um all right so okay so you have that part of it gorman on the broadcast of a game a couple games ago you know is there i think was they were smoking

utah again and you change the channel you come back back, they're up 20. By the way, with today's Minnesota win, this is the sixth straight game. They've had a 20-point lead, which is the longest streak since they started tracking play-by-play data, which goes back 25 years. So it's the first time it's happened in 25 years, but it actually means it's the first time it's happened for even longer because we just don't have record of it.

But you buried the lead. It's been in the first half each time. That's insane. They're killing teams. Right. So then Gorman, because then, like, I get it. If I'm a big-time Celtics fan, it's like, oh, everybody doubted us.

I'm like, no shit. No, including us. Yeah, me too. When there was a tie for the third TV, the Celtics stopped getting the tie. And this is a team that I've watched every game for, you know, I don't know how many decades. Certainly not.

But there'd be other teams that are like, I want to get my eyes on this team. I haven't watched in a little while. Instead of the Celtics always being on, because I just, you know, whatever. What were you missing? You were missing guys settling for 25-footers and nobody moving.

Blowing leads. Awful clutch. E-May scowling at everybody and everybody was unhappy and nobody looked like they liked each other. This team now they fucking love each other. Their clutch stuff was so bad. Bill,

they're still 12 and 19. I know I saw their net rating and clutch is minus eight. So then when they don't, they don't play clutch games anymore. So the stats aren't going to change. They're up by 20 every game. It doesn't matter. And so,

you know, I still don't know that I've ever seen anything like it, which is why some of the projection stuff, I was like, you gotta be kidding me. anymore so the stats aren't going to change they're up by 20 every game it doesn't matter and so you know i still don't know that i've ever seen anything like it which is why some of the projection stuff i was like you're gonna be kidding me and now i'm like i i don't know like why would i put a ceiling on him i'll admit i'm probably not as wide open ceiling on him because i'm still so damaged from watching it for that long and you could say say, okay, Richardson's not there. Truder isn't there, but whatever, like it's still kind of the main guys and they unlock something with the way

they use their defensive alignments. Uh, I, I agree with you. The attitude seems to be different. I mean, when they threw it off the glass today and then they had the Derek white alley up to David Tice,

they are fucking punking teams. David, you just misnamed Daniel Tice. You called him David. Sound like me. Oh, yeah. There you go. I'm rubbing off on you.

Well, he's back. His second time through, I'm allowed to do it once. Daniel Tice. I'll give him... He's a father now, so... Well, he got hit in the face again today, so he kept his streak alive.

I'm going to give the listeners the TLDR for the Celtics because it is legit. Tatum, we already mentioned. Smart is playing for really two and a half months the best he's ever played. He actually almost seems like he's in slightly better shape, but it makes sense when you think about it because I guess he's a point guard. You think like going back to Isaiah Thomas, Kyrie, Kemba, even Schroeder this year, they never just were like, all right, fine. You have the car keys.

It's your team. They finally did it. And he's embraced it. He's been incredible. I can't believe that part of it because you're right. I think he fought it all the time. I think if you are informed, there were stretches were smart, didn't look at those other guys thinking that they were better than him.

Right. And I think that was part of the problem and maybe he now with tatum's just you know blossoming into a guy that you like you know that's why i kind of like oh all right you know for tatum for me became a little bit more frustrating because i expected so much of him you know when it was a jaylen brown turned out to be right right but the jaylen brown tatum thing was always like yeah that's great from jaylen and that's amazing i We turned out to be right. Right. But the Jalen Brown Tatum thing was always like, yeah, that's great from Jalen. And that's amazing. I'm not going to be as hard on him because my expectations are Jalen Brown

or not what they are for Tatum. And I wonder if Tatum taking this next step, which he's flirted with in the past, you know, there've been teases that we were going to get here sooner. And now that it feels like it's real sustainable and maybe now what it'll be like for the next 10 years, which is fucking awesome.

I wonder if smart kind of came to some realization because he seems to be playing a more accepting role, which is a big part of all of that. I mean, there's a million things that's going on with this team. They can defend, they can switch. They have the right closing group now. They're switching, but they got size. They have extra play make, like Tatum getting trapped

and then not knowing what to do. And then a non-shooter waiting as the outlet that nobody cared about. You don't see that anymore. And Dan Boy hasn't even hit shots for this team yet either. He made short in the rotation, which was smart. Pritchard got back out there just as an outlet shooter. Just give me a little more shooting.

They really, really boosted Pritchard to the point now he looks like 1997 Steve Kerr in every game. Smart loves him. His teammates love him. Scott Bernier was saying on the telecast today about how for whatever reason, when he does stuff, the team gets the most excited,

like the bench guys and stuff. Because they've really been trying to rebuild him, build and build him. Then the Rob Williams piece. Rob Williams is only 6'9". It seems like he's like 7'2". But he plays like he's one of those I play bigger than him guys. Got hurt at the end of the game today.

Hopefully it's not serious. Yeah, we don't know yet by the taping of this. To me, it comes back to the familiarity of Smart's been on the team since 14. Tatum and Brown have been together the last five. Three of them have been together the last five. Williams has been on the team for four. All these

guys, even Horford comes back. He's been on the team. Then they go get Tice, so it's even more familiar. Then they go get Derek White, who fits in with everybody. And it's just a team that feels like they've been together, whereas you watch the Philly team and they're trying to figure it out.

And it's game 74. They're trying to figure out who they are offensively. They're trying to figure out their bench on the fly. They got DeAndre Jordan's corpse playing 12, 13 minutes a game. And the Maxie Harden thing they're trying to figure out their bench on the fly. They got DeAndre Jordan's corpse playing 12, 13 minutes a game. And, you know, the Maxie Harden thing they're trying to navigate. And then same thing for Brooklyn.

Even with the Durant-Kyrie upside of the fact that those guys can score 80 points at any playoff game, they still have a lot of moving pieces that they're figuring out on the fly, what that's going to look like in a series. And by the way, if they don't have Ben Simmons, which they're not going to,

I really think they're going to have trouble defensively. If they play Boston in a series, who's going to look like in a series. And by the way, if they don't have Ben Simmons, which they're not going to, I really think they're going to have trouble defensively. If they play Boston in a series, who's going to guard Tatum the way he's playing? It's going to have to be Durant. Now I'm losing Durant on the other side if he actually has to defend Tatum. So they're really well positioned. I think it's Denver-Milwaukee right now,

and I'd have Brooklyn third. I want to add one more anecdote because you and I obviously grew up with Mike Gorman love the guy in that Utah game which I started saying and I just got off the rant because I have all these Boston numbers that I still can't believe but but Gorman in the broadcast as they're stopping Utah goes you know as they're just they can't believe it either like look at this turnaround and Gorman goes, you know, this is a group that didn't necessarily love each other in the locker room in January. The fact that Gorman even shared that with us tells you that is significant.

That is significant that all the stuff that we knew that we saw, we'd all, you know, we don't share anything we hear either. We're like, I don't know what to make of this team. Like, here we go again. And the rumblings are just like, you know, they, are they're gonna have to shake this up or whatever and to ask those questions by the way is doing the job it's to ask those questions didn't mean you had to go ahead and break them up like that's the other thing too this is turning into uh lamar jackson was supposed to play wide receiver because two guys said it and and now it's turning into like everybody wanted

tatum and Brown split up. And I'm like, no one was demanding. It was just that you had never heard that on this podcast. Okay. I would say I was open to the conversation this year, knowing you were still probably going to lose the trade. You know, like this is the first year of it that I went, maybe you do have to break it up because here we go.

It's January and these guys suck. It was the first time I, it was the first time I actually like unlocked the door for it, but I did not open it because at some point it had to be at least one more year because I want to see them with a point guard. That was the thing. And now somehow Marcus smart rack is to turn the point guard. The, uh, the other piece of this, which we didn't mention was they traded, they made these two trades that I think were really smart. It wasn't just that they traded Richardson for White, and White hasn't even been awesome.

No, he's been bad. White allowed them, well, but he still knows where to go. He's good defensively and stuff like that. But he allows them to play small ball. Richardson, they kind of needed to get rid of him and Schroeder. And especially Schroeder. I don't think the guys love Schroeder,

but just to get him out, replace his minutes with Pritchard, not have to worry about, oh, Schroeder only played 10 minutes today. So it was like the weird addition by subtraction. You look at that trade. They traded a guy that were playing like 25 minutes a game for a guy who plays 10, but it was a good trade, you know, because they got Tice. Tice is happy. He can put him in. Horford doesn't play today. Tice plays.

So a lot of good stuff. And I'll say the one last thing with them. They have an awesome home crowd. You saw it today in that Minnesota game. Like that crowd can dial it up. So going back to the one seed, and I think there's such a misconception about this one seed. People are like, you don't want the one seed this year.

It's play Brooklyn. It's like, no, actually you do want the one seed because Brooklyn's going to be in the seven, eight playoff game. The winner gets the seven seed. They're going to be playing probably Cleveland. They're going to beat Cleveland. Brooklyn's going to be the seven seed. The Celtics have the one seed.

They're playing the eight seed, which will probably be Cleveland. Might be Chicago, might be Toronto, but it's going to probably be Cleveland. I want the one seed if I'm the Celtics. Because here's the other thing that happens. You probably have Brooklyn, Brooklyn slash Milwaukee as the two seven, and then Philly in the three spot. So you might only have to play one of Brooklyn, Milwaukee, and Philly in the first two rounds if you get that one seed. So I think the Celtics, you saw it today, I think they're going for it. I think they've done the math and I think they want the one seed. Yeah, because it's also like, all right, well, maybe I'll just get to the three seed. I think that's part of the conversation because I agree with you that it's always been like,

oh, if you're the one, you're getting Brooklyn. It getting Brooklyn it's like well no you have a coin flip chance but again if you're paying attention to Cleveland who was a great story we love they're not as good without Jaron Allen it's a broken finger you'd have to imagine he's at least back for that if it ends up being in the playing game as they said but it'll be hurt but uh well it's a broken finger I mean he's he's going to be fine when he comes back uh you still expect, you're right, Brooklyn to win that game. But I think that part of the jockeying was what if we just drop down, screw the one or two,

and then you're playing in the 3-6 and that would be Toronto or maybe Chicago. The sneaky thing of the Chicago deal, the numbers continue to get worse. Like since the All-Star break, they're the worst team of the top 10 in the East statistically. And then they're now 0-16 against top three seeds.

It's rough. And that's probably the team, if I'm Philly, right now it's Boston and Miami, 47-28, Milwaukee and Philly are 46-20. If I'm Philly, I'm so happy to be the fourth seed. I get to play Chicago in round one, and I'm ready to go. Maybe, unless Toronto catches them. Right. I'd rather play Chicago in round one and I'm ready to go. Maybe unless Toronto catches them.

Right. I'd rather play. I'd rather play Chicago than Toronto. Toronto's 42 and 32. They're an absolute nightmare. They would not be fun to play in a playoff series. I think you would beat them in a playoff series if you're one of the Milwaukee, Boston, Brooklyn trio, but it'll be a really hard series and you'll be down potentially in a game six by five with five minutes left, but I still wonder about Toronto's shot making down the stretch, but that's a really good team.

It brings me to a really good frisky playing team. It brings me to rookie of the year. I think Barnes is... I think I'm going to pick Barnes. The way this season is going now, there's eight games left.

I could flip again, but what a victory lap for you. You were on Scotty, the draft. You were like, there's something about him. I'm telling you, you would love him.

You don't watch enough college basketball. You didn't say that as insulting. Cause I don't watch enough college basketball. You're like, if you watch college basketball at the time, this would have been your favorite player. Watching him, the way he's evolved over the course of this season and how much he means to Toronto. He's playing 36 minutes a game, right? I couldn't believe it. He's like a fucking 30-year-old. He's playing 36 minutes a game. He plays point guard kind of for

them. I don't know. They use him. He kind of roams around. I don't even know what position he is on defense. He's just kind of everywhere. He has all kinds of swagger. I think for, what is he, 19, 20 years old? The way he carries himself is nuts. He's going to be around a while. He's very Kawhi-ish at times,

which is ironic because they had Kawhi. But in general, they're going to have a better record than Cleveland. And to me, if they have a better record than Cleveland, he's the Rookie of the Year. I mention this because he's like 4-1 on FanDuel. Mobley's still like a 4-1 favorite and Barnes is still, I think, plus 390.

I think that's crazy. I think Barnes is going to win Rookie of the Year. The numbers are all very close between Barnes, Mobley, and Cade, which is kind of shocking because they all play the game differently. The metrics for Cade suck because the team is just... Cade, you can't win Rookie of the Year. And I think Cade's been awesome.

I've really enjoyed watching him. But the team sucks. And when we have two guys who are on two winning playoff teams that are important to them, they have to be the two choices. I'm going to push back on that a little bit. So you really think Rookie of, like winning matters that much? I do. I've always felt that way because usually the rookie of the year is always in such a bad team. It's not always part of the conversation. I think these guys are really unique. I think they are winning players right

away. And I think if Scotty Barnes was on a shitty team, I think he would have better stats than he does because he would have the ball more. The stuff that he's doing is really important for them. Same thing with Mobley. Could Mobley put up 20-10 on a bad team? Yes. I think he could. The team could go 20-62 and he's not that far off now.

He's 15-8. Yeah. So I don't know. I think it has to be one of those two. Okay. The only thing I'd back in defensive K would be, yes, Detroit sucks, but that actually makes his job harder. And he is more important to his team than Mobley is to Cleveland and Barnes is to Toronto.

Yeah, but he's more important to a bad team. So I don't know what to do with that. It's like, man, if we didn't have him, we'd go 12 and 70 instead of 19 and 63 sneaky headline is rookie of the year harder than mvp this year

coming up next defensive player of the year i think it's smart bridges and triple j i have rudy fourth and i don't know who I have for the top three yet. I feel like I've been leaning triple J and I was really excited about the Milwaukee game. And this continues to happen is the guy I want to watch defensively is not aligned. So yeah, Jackson was not assigned to Giannis, which is, you know, you'll see this stuff happen where they'll have deals where Towns isn't going up against the other big. And then even today, Rob Williams is guarding Vanderbilt and not guarding Towns.

Shit, Mobley doesn't guard Embiid. Marketing was that fucking guy. He's getting stuck in all these matchups without Allen. I know, it's rough. There are a lot of nights where I go, in was that fucking guy he's getting stuck in all these matchups without alan i know his rough there there are a lot of nights where i go i really want to see who's going up against who tonight and then i'm like oh the coach is kind of doing the thing to preserve a guy and yeah making sure it's not happening so i was i was kind of leaning triple j and the numbers for all defensive stuff kind of kind of can mess with you a little bit because all the Celtics

defensive stuff is nuts now because the team is so good. I think Tatum is number one in defensive win shares in the league or he was at one point. I'm sure it may have changed, but I don't think it got worse. I think those three are fair.

For the people listening who haven't watched a lot of the Celtics, I can't overstate how fucking incredible the Celtics defense has been. It looks like, remember when we were watching those, during the pandemic, we were watching all those Jordan games and we were kind of in awe of those early 90s Bulls teams with Grant and Pippen and Jordan. We were like, oh my God, that was insane watching those guys play defense.

I'm not saying they're on that level, but it does have that kind of young legs all over the place. Everything's contested. You get one shot, that's it. And they're just kind of everywhere. And it's a thing that's been happening for a while. It's not just one week.

No, but your point off my 20-point lead thing, I think teams are coming in like i'll i'll make this example i remember um i remember there was a couple teams that played manziel when he was at a&m and i asked the team after after they lost like what happened like we told our fucking guys we told them all week he's's way faster. He's like elite speed. Don't just think he's some little white guy running around and he's going to burn you. And then you play and you're like, shit. This was another level.

I think it's happening to these teams that are playing the Celtics where they go, okay, cool. They're good defensively. Here are the numbers. Here are their matchups. Here's how they guard this. This is what they do here. Their tendencies. And then they're getting on the court against the Celtics and going, holy shit. These guys are locked in. I did a ringer gambling show with House and John Jastrzemski on Friday morning. And near the end, we talked about defensive player of the year odds. And I was like, I'm flagging this for you guys. This is crazy.

Smart is 16 to 1 on FanDuel and Jaron Jackson is 16 to 1. I don't understand it. I thought those would be like my two picks. So we talked about in the pod, Smart is now plus 280. He went from 16 to 1 now plus 280 he went from 60-1 to plus 280 over the weekend Jackson stayed at 14-1

Bridges is at plus 320 Bam is the favorite at plus 260 which I don't get at all he's missed 25 games and they're going to be a four seed and last thing I'll say

about Marcus he might be my pick if he played the whole season yeah but he didn't you know he missed one third of the year. Marcus, I thought was getting older and slower. And I don't know whether he put on more weight because he had to play more two-guard because he wasn't playing point. And maybe he'd bulked

up a little bit for it. But he's the fastest he's looked since when they were with Isaiah and Bradley. Athletically, he is at the top that I can remember with him. And the way he's playing defense is fucking nuts. Like, I would be, if he won defense player of the year, I think he would be a worthy candidate. I think it's so hard to find a guard

who can do all the shit that he can do, who can switch on to bigger guys and just the intensity that he has. I'd have him. Coach of the year, I have no idea. It would be hard for me not to vote for Monte if they go like 67 and 15. I would vote Monte because they're just that much

further ahead of everybody else. Yeah. And it's real. And I think they look prepared. And part of it's the Chris Paul extension thing. Clearly not going to look the same way without Chris Paul. I mean, hell, if I really wanted to talk about what I think the most impressive single job is this year, it might be Ty Lue. But I can't vote for a team that's under 500 coaches a year, even though I would be tempted.

Because what that guy has done with that group and knowing that you just lost your two guys basically for the entire year. Yeah. That's incredible. I think Taylor with Memphis is in the mix. I think E-May to take this group. E-May has to be in there. It's so hard this year on all these different awards. E-May had the most rollercoaster ride coaching year

I've seen in my life. It actually was, I'm not comparing him. More so than Walter Matthau? I'm not comparing him to Bill Belichick. Oh. But Belichick had that first year with the Pats and he was 6-10 and everybody was like,

what the fuck is going on? He was challenging everybody and the vibe was weird and it was like, what's going on with this guy? And then the second year it all fell together. He made that first training camp, the first like what, 20, 25 games, the amount of times that he called those guys out, that they had closed door meetings, that he talked about how

they weren't tough. It worked. Guys are all tough now. He's like Norman Dale at Hoosiers. I can't believe it. He did it. Because I'm like, do young guys respond to this anymore? The answer's yes. Tatum's tough now.

It's like a legitimate, like, like kind of a badass. And Rob Williams, who they couldn't keep on the court, although I guess he got hurt again today,

but shit. Let's end with a new segment. More Celtics? No, let's end with a new segment I'd like to call This Is What I Heard. Okay. We're not reporting stuff. We're just kind of, we hear stuff.

We hear things. I like this already. I think there's some rumblings with the Clippers. Is that the end of the segment? I think some guys might be coming back. I mean, they might have Powell and Paul George back and then Kawhi, everybody's like, oh, nobody knows with Kawhi,

but I don't know, man. It's awfully quiet. And from what I've heard, I wouldn't be shocked if they just had a full team for round one. I guess it would have to be the playing game first, but it's just awfully quiet. That's all I'm going to say.

This is what I heard. There was a report three days ago that said Kawhi would be potentially ready after the playing game. So what does that mean? So I think they're going to have George back and Powell back in time for the playing game in some form. They only have to win one. And then maybe Kawhi can play in round one. Now, this would be hilarious if the Suns go 68-14 or 67-15 and

they get to round one and the Clippers are like, hey, here's our full team. We're back. Just throwing it out there. That's what I heard. What I heard is don't sleep on the quippers that have a default team. By the way, I can't wait to do this next Sunday to

I'll do some digging. For this is what I heard? No, on this specifically, this is what I heard. Great. And it doesn't mean anybody's going to tell me the truth either.

But it's almost like a homework assignment for the other person. I like this. We're close and strong. Give me a, yeah, this is what I heard or no? Yeah. You hear stuff. You've heard things. I'll give you something.

Yeah. It was from somebody that is very locked in on the draft who did in-person Chet, in-person Paolo, in-person Jabari. Yeah. And said, it's Paolo. Paolo's the guy. Yeah.

Dan Carroll's the guy. Interesting. And it's not just because of the Duke run. That's not how this guy operates. Okay. What do you think a house is theory that Chet should go back to school for one more year

and fill out a little bit I don't think anybody does that because they want their rookie extension in four years and not five that's what I told house

yeah but if we lived in a world where you just did the best thing for you as a basketball player and the evolution of what you want to be and the ceiling

you want to hit it's ceiling you want to hit. It's hard for me to believe him coming in and playing the Rockets next year is an awesome situation for him. No, but there's also people that have argued over the years, 20-something years of this now, including the high school guys beyond the one of Dunners, that why would you

be better prepped to play in the NBA by not working out with us and being around us every day and having it be your job and that kind of stuff now you can talk about and then James Wiseman goes hold my beer that's so sad it's I I'm uh yeah it's I'm bummed out I mean you know asking him to step into a playoff run for the Warriors they're gonna have lofty aspirations which I wouldn't totally write them off now at this point, but just from a depth standpoint alone, Golden State needs another big body.

And now the Wiseman news that some people are like, can he get 10 minutes, 15 minutes, five fouls? No, no. So, UNC Duke,

before we go, this is amazing that this is actually happening. It is. And St. Peter's did their job. They, of course they did. They knocked some teams off. I loved when they beat that big, clumsy Purdue team. You knew they were going to get smoked today.

You're not a Jaden. You're not a Jaden Ivey guy anymore. I'm not. Well, he can win me back, but I didn't like what I saw. I think the thing to remember, this is why I don't bet on college is these guys are just young guys and you just never know when the moment's going to get you when you're 19, 20 years old. It certainly would have gotten me at times, but, um, but St. Peter's did their job. North Carolina took care of business and we get this UNC Duke game, which I think will be probably the most hype Final Four game since when?

I mean, you have to go back to when I was living in Boston. When was the last time we had a Final Four game that everybody is going to give a shit about? Not just people who just like to watch the Final Four. This will be the biggest story of next weekend. UNC playing Duke

for the first time ever in the tournament and then they have a chance to send Coach K home, which would be in a lot of ways, like this is almost like Red Sox-Yankees 0-4.

Where it's like, I just want to beat the Yankees. It would be great to win the next game too, next round too, but just winning the ALCS was enough. The cards were like

the cherry on the sundae, but the Yankees were the sundae. If you're in the UNC, you beat Duke, you almost want to send Coach K out. His last game's a loss to you. It would be better than a title, kind of. I don't know that... I don't know that anything's better

than a title. But the K element of this, which now you look at it, though, and going now that you stomped them in his place in his last regular season game and thinking what a way to go out. Now you've got to up the ante in New Orleans against them. And Duke

is so clearly the best team. This team is so good. It's probably five first-rounders. It's five guys that would probably be leading scorers at other major programs. And I think sometimes they don't even execute all that well. They weren't very good defensively. And they got a hell of a scare against Texas Tech on top of everything else. And I think Ben Cara actually kind of fixed them and got them out.

And then they couldn't get him the ball back. And if Roach doesn't hit superhero shots, we might not even talk about this Final Four matchup. So, I mean, look, some of that Arizona-Illinois stuff I love, but it's not this. It's not Duke-UNC. There's nothing that's really going to match it as far as the best tradition in its sport. If I just started naming things like St. John's-Georgetown in the mid-80s when

it was three Big East teams and it was almost a fourth, except back when Memphis was Memphis State, they got in. That was a huge deal, but it's still not Duke-UNC. Everyone that I come up with, the only thing I can think of is Duke-UNLV, the rematch. Right. But that was my point. It has to go back

to when I was living in Boston for me to have been this interested in a Final Four game. Because this is really the only way you could bring the amount of history you'd need for something to matter. You're right. The UNLV-Duke rematch was really underrated as an awesome sporting event.

I really enjoyed that. I can't wait to watch. I really enjoyed the St. Peter's run. I think it's been a fun tournament. It's been a great tournament. Great tournament. I give it like an A+. The Elite Eight sucked.

Yeah. Well, you knew today was going to suck. It had all the makings. Kansas, Miami, UNC, St. Peter's. Well, the crazy thing is this isn't even like... It's not optimistic. You want to talk talented Bill Self Kansas teams? This wouldn't even be in the top 10.

What do you have for our top three right now? By the way, we're allowed to change. This is not set in stone. Just right now, gut check. I know Jabari can't dribble it great i did all my jabari paulo chat uh tapes and reports this week so i did i did it that at all three guys what this week and uh i know the warts with jabari like i get it like he starts to dribble in traffic it doesn't end all that great um he likes to hold it a little longer than maybe you'd want him to.

His guards sucked. It was like they resented him all season long. Yeah. And Paolo has this playmaking ability that when he gets you on his hip, there's nothing you can do with him. He's going to drive it at you, and then he can make these amazing passes. Jabari doesn't do that stuff. But to see

jabari shoot it the way that kid shoots it and he answers the moment too like i heard some other stuff about him like oh you know does he float most of these guys all float by the way hopefully not jay ivy in his last tournament game float but i'll just take the six nine guy that i know can defend already and i mean he hit 40 something percent of his threes bill and there are a ton of times with Auburn being like here you shoot it we screwed up the possession so I don't I heard you with Jay Kyle Mann is terrific on this stuff too where he felt he felt like the correction was going to come back around but Carroll was going to be the number one guy and I get what he's saying but I'm always kind of a movement a

shooting snob. I like that I know you're coming to the league and you're him. He hits these turnarounds, Bill, where they're contested. And look, he doesn't do a good enough job getting to the free throw line because he's actually trying to get the shot off. So in a way, I admire it, but it's like, oh, that's another spot where you could have drawn a foul, could have drawn a foul there, could have drawn a foul there. But here's another thing with jabari he is competitive his facial expression

does not share that somebody who's super intense because his face doesn't look that way i think people are making a mistake with him because there's stuff he did he had a south carolina game where they're blowing him out and the guy started fucking with him and he was like screw this he's like i want to iso this guy right now. There was a Florida game that was a ridiculous game. He saved him. He brought him back and the whole thing. I think they ended up losing that game. There was a guy that was pushing him.

They were trying to get position. Jabari was turning around, slapping his arms away. There was another play, too, where they were trying to come back. It was late, and Jabari hits a shot and he sees that nobody's on the baseline grabbing the basketball and the other team's like dragging ass because they're like whatever we don't want to start the clock we don't start the five second inbound clock count Jabari grabbed the ball and ran it to the ref to get the ref to start the count while the player wasn't set and I'm'm like, oh, okay.

He's this locked in in these big moments as a freshman. So I like all three guys a lot, but I would go Jabari, Paolo, Chet. Now that's where I'm at, knowing that Chet still has the best ceiling out of the three. That's where I'm at too, and I haven't done any of the deep dive stuff yet but just gut check

I want the surest thing possible if the three guys are close and it seems like Jabari's ability to shoot and score is the surest thing out of the three guys but that's what we love about the draft

somebody who gets the first pick could get enchanted by Chet's ceiling and start really thinking about it. And all of a sudden he's going first or whatever. Yeah, they did lose that Florida game. Sorry. Yeah.

And I might still change my mind. You know, I might come back around on it because there's stuff I like about all three of them. This is going to be an incredible storyline, man. It's going to be awesome. Like we're in March now, almost done. We're months away from this whole thing. As exciting as last year's draft class was and how great so many of these players are, the team thing may really decide this, where at least with

Cade, we kind of always knew he was going number one no matter what. Last thing, the Lakers. You couldn't help yourself. They're 31-43. San Antonio is 30-44. There's eight games to go. I wonder what the Laker fans want. Do you think deep down they just want them to miss the play-in

so it ends, so they don't have to watch this team anymore? Or do they talk themselves into that? If Davis gets back, look out. I don't know enough Laker fans to know what they think. I know the Laker fans I know cannot stand watching this team.

I can't believe San Antonio. I can't believe they're only a game back. Because when I said, when everybody, I'm going to be wrong. Because I was like, are you guys paying attention to the teams behind them? None of these teams are going to catch them. Not the Pelicans. I thought the Pelicans could. Just to think in this matchup, how much this

game would have meant met the standings. LeBron's out there. He gets 39. Um, but the Spurs have been feisty lately. The Spurs in the fourth quarter of the Pelicans game, which I eagerly watched, they had an all white frontline with like 10 minutes left.

They had, they went, they went Hoosiers on us. They went Landale, Weisskamp and caught in Zach Collins. They went with the three. I couldn't went Landale, Weiskamp, and Zach Collins. They went with the three. I couldn't believe it. I was like, I thought, I was like, are they trying to tank?

And then I went, I looked back at the box score. And then I was like, no, no, their starters played earlier. They're not trying to tank. This is, they pop things to have a chance. But yeah, I think San Antonio is going to pass the Lakers. Because the Lakers, they played Denver twice. Do you look at their schedule? They have some tough games left.

Played Denver twice. They played New Orleans again. Oh my God, yeah. It's Dallas, Utah, New Orleans, Denver, Phoenix, Golden State, Denver with Oklahoma City in there. I'm going to end up being wrong. I was like, nobody's going to catch the Lakers. As bad as it is, the rest of these teams aren't going to try to play well.

And then here's Pop making sure guys box out in the first quarter. The thing is, I don't really feel like there's a difference draft spot-wise between once you get to 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th. Whatever. You might as well go for the plant. Alright, before we go, Cerruti's going to tell us

about the USA team today. What happened, Cerruti? Was it a big blowout? Oh, wow, yeah. Well, they have not officially qualified for the World Cup, but, I mean, they basically have to lose like 6-0 at Costa Rica on Wednesday night. So with all, you know, basically they've qualified.

And early on, I think we were pretty nervous. Midway through, they get some results against Mexico. They get the result on Thursday night against Mexico no in a game they probably should have won yes and you know you come in tonight and you just go you have like PTSD from 2017 when they lose the game of Trinidad and Tobago all they do is get a result there and they don't so I think in normal circumstances you're like they have this thing wrapped up it's fine but you have that kind of in the back of your mind they just come out tonight absolutely destroy Panama 5-1. And Panama, they've been decent in qualifying,

but they have been pretty bad lately. Costa Rica's passed them, and they're now officially eliminated. So the U.S. is in. Everybody's excited. Pulisic hat trick. Dudes are excited. And as long as we avoid a disaster on Wednesday night, all things are good.

So a 6-0 or a 7-1 loss on Wednesday night, we don't get in. Otherwise, we're in. Well, if that actually happens, which is one in a million, basically. You never know. This is the US we're talking about. They go into what's called an intercontinental playoff, where they'll play like New Zealand.

So they actually still can get in. They would just have to make it harder for themselves. They play an extra game in June. So we're basically in. We're in. It's not going to happen. It's over. It is what it is.

They're in. It's whether or not they finish above Mexico. And they said all the right things. Berhalter, the coach, is like, we want to win in Costa Rica, a place that they've never won,

by the way. I don't even think they've had a result. They've never even drawn at Costa Rica. It's a sneaky, tough team, the Ticos. So Wednesday night,

for all the marbles, even though it's pretty much wrapped up. I can't tell you how bored Rossello looks right now. Yeah, couldn't care less. By all of us. We've skipped this on going abroad

for a few weeks now. This is the most unpatriotic you've ever looked in your life. Now, he'll send me a random text and be like, hey, I like this guy. I'll be like, oh, McKinney, he looks pretty good.

No, I'm an unbelievable soccer scout. Unbelievable. Like, I can watch guys for 30 seconds. I'm like, I bet you this guy's really good. And he'll be like, yeah, he's the best player in the team. It's true. It's true. You'll be I'm like, I bet you this guy's really good. And Sruti would be like, yeah. He's the best player on the team. It's true. You'd be like, hey, Pulisic. He's not terrible. No, not even him.

International guys. I'll be like, who's this call-up for Newcastle? And you'd be like, oh yeah, he's their big new guy. And I'd be like, figured it out. I watched the whole F1 race today, guys. Mercedes. What about it? Struggling, porpoising is the term in their practice round. By the way, a missile went off like 20 kilometers away from the track,

and they're like, get out there. Did you guys realize that during the practice? And so Verstappen, another win. Terrific race. Ferrari looks to have just a terrific set of cars this week. Riccardo doesn't finish again. I don't know. So Ferrari, who I've been circling as my favorite team, two and

three today. But I don't know if it's like a bandwagon jump. I got to figure it out. I'm half Italian. It just feels like that should be my team. I feel like you'd be jumping on like a downed blue blood team or something, right? You're getting on a historically great team that's had some rough years. I feel like the'd be jumping on a downed Blue Blood team or something. You're getting on a historically great team that's had some rough years. I feel like the gear would be good.

Probably a strong hoodie, sweatshirt, t-shirt cap game for them. I don't know. A lot of this stuff is really loud. Scuderia. Very Euro. Yeah. I can see you pulling that move. You feel like a fucking billboard.

And you're like, would you make this out of cardboard some of those so who's your who do you root for you just don't care i find myself rooting for verstappen because i think he's such a just a absolute freak mentally but big cat sent me a text today and he goes did you watch yet and i was behind i was like i'm 12 laps behind because i was i was trying to get out of the house knowing today was going to be another at the house day. And he's like, I hate him. He's like, I hate Verstappen. He bitches the whole time.

And he's right. I mean, Verstappen's about to win the race. And he was mad about a restart thing during yellow while he was ahead. And he complains. He complains a lot. So maybe that's just me and my Chris Paul Verstappen thing. Correct. Yeah.

But I don't like other complainers. He's like the Chris Paul of F1. This is good. Yeah, he kind of is. He's like the agitators. Except he's already had a better career, arguably, on the championship side of it. Because he's probably going to win another one this year.

Hamilton and Mercedes look like they're a mess. And then other than, you know, Ferrari's got a chance, it looks like, with their cars. But the crazy thing is the cars are drastically different. Haas went Sam Hinckley on this and they tanked last season as they started prepping

for all the changes for the 2022 car. I learned all this from Kevin Clark, by the way, so I'm a fraud a bit, but at least I know enough about it. But the first race was boring. Today I'm a fraud a bit, but at least I know enough about it. But the first race was boring. Today's race was a little bit more excited, but Mercedes is going to figure it out. They can figure out what's going on there

and they have the resource at least to do it. But man, that car is slippery to start the season. What a sports time. Are you into it? Are you into it though? You know what I love? I love when it comes on during the day. That Sunday morning, no NFL.

It's just like there's nothing going on. Even if you want a big golf tournament, even that's not really going yet by like 9 o'clock, 10 o'clock. Now, I know that's going to come on a lot earlier starting when it's off next week. I don't know, but that's when you really know. That's when you know you're like...

If I'm getting up at five in the morning, that's when something's going on. Yeah, at the end of last season, I'm in a dark room with the sun's gone, and I'm sitting there going, all right, time to get into this thing. All right, guys. All right.

That's it for the podcast. We're so good to see you. Saruti, thanks for the update. Thanks to producer Kyle Creighton. Thanks to Dylan Berkey, as always. Don't forget to listen to Rosilla's podcast. We're so good to see you. So really thanks for the update. Thanks to producer Kyle Creighton. Thanks to Dylan Berkey as always. Don't forget to listen to Rosilla's podcast. I'll be back on this one on Tuesday. New rewatchable is coming on Monday night.

We did Panic Room. Good one. Really a fun rewatch. It's one of your anniversaries. That's coming Monday night. See you then.