The Bill Simmons Podcast - Worst NBA GM Jobs, MJ's RewatchaBulls Vol. 1, and NBA Playoff Saves With Ryen Russillo | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: April 13, 2020

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss bringing back sports and strategies for navigating the workplace. Then they sift through the worst NBA GM jobs. Finally, they revisit Game 3 of the 1991 Finals, Bulls vs. Lakers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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awareness. And we figured out something. They're going to do a podcast that is going to talk about coaching and leadership. They might have some guests on. I'm not sure how. They're going to do a podcast that is going to talk about coaching and leadership. They might have some guests on. I'm not sure how many we're going to do, but we're going to do a few of them. And we donated $100,000 to the Warriors Community Foundation that they're going to disperse to a bunch of different COVID-19 different charities, funds, things like that. And then we also donated $100,000 to the Seahawks Charitable Foundation. And they're going to do the same thing in that area.

So we're off to a good start with the pod. Very excited about it. It's for an awesome cause. And it's something they're very passionate about. I think the most shocking thing for us was that it turned out Pete handled the technology better than Steve was. I had Steve as a minus 250 favorite to be able to figure out the recording equipment

and the Zoom, all that stuff. Pete nailed it. Steve struggled. I'll be honest. There were some struggles on the Steve Kerr side. So we learned that one. But we are running the first podcast. It's going to run on the Ringer NBA and the Ringer NFL podcast.

So stay tuned for that. It will run on Monday and then we're going to have, uh, the flying coach feed. You'll be able to subscribe. You'll be able to get all the ones we're going to do another one later in the week with them just about their whole draft process. But this first one's about why they did it mentors, all that stuff. And, uh, and I'm really excited about it. It was really good. I was really psyched. So we have that one. We also, the other podcasts we have coming the wire way down in the hole, which is available right now to subscribe on Spotify and Apple, wherever you get your podcast, Van Lathan, Jamel Hill, they're breaking down every single wire episode, starting with the first one where you're launching two podcasts on April 15th, a big overview podcast, why we're doing this,

history of the show, all that stuff, and then a breakdown of the first episode, which will be a little bit like the rewatchables, but totally different too, obviously. Some categories, some awards, some really fun stuff. And that podcast is going to be really, really good. You can check out The Wire. It's on HBO Go for free.

It is on Amazon Prime if you have that one. So if you want to start watching season one so you can time it with them, knock yourself out. Do it. Don't forget to check out TheRinger.com and all of our other awesome Ringer podcasts. So coming up, Ryan, Rossella, and I, we're going to do a whole bunch of things.

And then we're going to start a little series near the end called The Rewatch of Bow bowls, six of our favorite Michael Jordan games. That's all coming up first, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, happy Easter, everybody. Ryan Masillo is here, as he is every Sunday. Normally, we would be talking about the 2020 Masters. We would be doing NBA award stuff, getting getting ready for the playoffs i would be throwing playoff matchups at you you would pretend to be interested in some 1-8 matchup that you weren't really that interested in uh we would have some sort of straw man argument about somebody in the

all nba team this would have been one of our better pods is it that obvious when it's like three weeks in a row and you're like all right, so the 1A in the East and I go, have we talked about this openly that you can read on my face? And I'm like, yeah, I don't really, I just don't have a ton on it again this week. I'm sorry, Bill. I could tell when, you know, much like

a wrestler who's not on a pay-per-view but is just doing like a house show, you're just going to devote a certain level of intensity, not get hurt, just try to get in and out of the match. That's what you're doing on those. Yeah, you know, so CBS is running the Masters. Jacko and House and I, we talked about the 86 one

on Thursday's pod. They ran a couple more this weekend. And it was weirdly soothing to have the Masters on CBS. The only problem was they weren't from this year and house and Sal and I were texting this morning about like, yeah, I'm flipping. I've been so pessimistic on this pod. Now I'm like weirdly getting more optimistic trying to think like how hard would it have been to have the masters this weekend?

Like honestly, it would have been 96 golfers, 96 caddies, 50 people from CBS, uh, maybe a hundred people work in the course. So 400 under 400, everybody is quarantined in some way. Could we have actually done it? I, part of me thinks we actually could have done it. It's so remote over there. They could have closed everything down. And, and yeah, and then I'm thinking like, ultimately like, why, what's the point? everybody should be staying safe staying indoors why are you being selfish but i'm at that point now that we're heading into week five i'm just being selfish riscilla i thought about it too though because

you know you and i've both been lucky enough to go and you think okay well if you don't have any gallery and you don't have any concessions and you don't like is there a way with four guys standing next to each other in a tee box to pull that off? And then the bigger thing is like, it would have to be, and I don't understand it enough, but from a production standpoint, could you isolate enough people? So there's not 12 guys crushing cheese steaks, you know, running all the different cameras and directors and producers and all that kind of stuff. I don't know the answer to that, but I'd imagine if you're the masters, you're looking at this and

saying okay maybe we could but it would have been popular that's the other thing too is you're just going to get dragged for trying to do anything and it's like you know people are actually still standing next to each other you know like i got kicked out of a c i got kicked out of a cvs today because i didn't realize like it was a law that you had to have a mask to go into a pharmacy i was like oh you were that guy i just didn't i look i turned right around like the guy was like hey you can't come in without a mask i was like oh wow yeah i didn't think about it my bad so you know i went back to the car and uh you know humbling it was humbling it was you know there was a one there was about a 1.5 second mass hole in me where i'm like and then i went relax

it's a quarantine but i think the bigger point if you're augusta if you're the masters is you're probably going hey if we can pull this off in november and we're you know let's say a positive version of this because you know i'm with you i'm i'm more open-minded which has made me positive but if say things have normalized the start of september october and then everybody's good to go i'm sure they look at it as like we can still charge to get people in here and then everybody's good to go, I'm sure they look at it as like, we can still charge to get people in here. And then the economy, because the economy to hold that without anyone attending destroys the economy of that entire area. If they never have anybody showing up. Cause, cause you know, like you said, when, when you go, it's, it's almost like spring break in some third world country where they make all of their money in that very short window of the calendar.

Right. Well, I think we're probably two weeks away from having maybe the instant tests where they could just prick somebody's finger, make sure you don't have it. Um, I think we're also going to have those tests fairly soon where you can, it can tell you if you've already had it. So I think four weeks from now, it's probably a little more realistic. We were talking last week about, uh, what the NBA could do. And I've been thinking about it a lot because I was so much more pessimistic than you last week, but we, we stumbled on a couple of things, talked about it with Zach Lowe a little bit when we did our book of basketball pod about the possibility. Cause I got some feedback from

NBA people that if they do come back this summer, it's not going to be an arena. So it's not going to be at the Staples center. It's not going to be at a Madison square garden. They'll do it in practice facilities and they'll do it in a way where they can control as much of the environment as possible. And I've been thinking about this a lot because there's nothing else to think about because we don't have any sports or really anything going on. I really do think LA could do it. Because you'd have the Lakers practice facility and you'd have the Clippers practice facility and you could lock down both of those.

So you would be able to have games going on in two different places. You could basically clear out two hotels here, make them quarantine proof, basically only certain people get in and out. You'd have to have crazy passes, stuff like that, and make it so that it actually is really safe in these two places. Then you're able to test the players. Are we sure this guy doesn't have that guy, everybody in the teams. And I do think there's a world in which it could happen. I think they would have to limit the amount of teams. I think they would have to maybe go eight.

I don't think they could do 16. I don't think it could drag on too long. I don't think people are going to want to be quarantined from their families for, you know, three months, something like that. But if you're just talking about a sprint and just trying to get the playoffs done. Whether it's 12 teams, the top four get buys in round one. Everything else is like best of three. And then it goes best of five for the second round. And you kind of move through and you try to get it done in seven weeks. And everybody is either hotel or in one of those two quarantine places at the practice centers.

TV cameras put everywhere. You limit the production. It's not, it's not crazy. I feel like that could happen. What I just laid out. Does that seem at all realistic to you? This whole time, Bill, I mean, these proposals are happening, right? You've talked to enough people that you, we both know that it's, it's like, it's almost like that joke about the writer's room, right? That there's no bad ideas in the writer's room. You're trying to figure out how do we describe it? And that's what I think these guys are doing is they're throwing a million plans out there instead of saying, this sucks,

this sucks, this sucks. Okay, look, we're still trying to figure out a way to get any kind of product on TV. I watched the horse thing today. Was it good? No, but I'm not going to rip it because they're trying. They're trying to figure out something to put on TV. And some guys, you know, from their home courts were out there competing against each other and trying to do something to put something entertaining on television. So whatever version of this is like to get in the way of like, oh, well, that's not good enough. I don't know if the start time you can start right back in the playoffs.

It always has felt like the consistent thing is these guys need more time. I read that Baxter Holmes piece on espn where he had a lot of really good quotes from people that work in the league gms and trainers but some of the stuff on the cautious side of it i just thought was was ridiculous like hey one trainer was quoted as we need at least a month of training camp to kind of get ready again and they're like look man like you're not going to get the month he said one of the quotes was i need at least 30 days I'm thinking, so what does that mean? You think it takes 45 days? Because it doesn't. I mean, most of these guys don't even want to practice anymore anyway. They can't stand the preseason. So yes, some guys are going to be out of shape. Some guys are not going to be getting

shots up. Yes, we know we're dealing with something entirely different. But I would think that NBA players, if you could find a way to get shots up, you could go get shots up. So if guys just decide, I don't want to get any shots up because i live in an apartment and i'm not going to find anywhere to go do anything that's kind of on that guy it's kind of on the people like we've seen in lockouts when we were younger where some guys just came back out of shape and it's like okay well whose fault was that like yes this has gotten delayed yes this is uncertainty every single week but i would still think if there's a chance you think you're going to come back and play you're not just going to let your game well not your game because it's

still having to play against other players but doing whatever you can maintenance wise to try to be ready to go like i don't understand like i'll just use the celtics as an example because it's like the only one you know only facility that i've been in because they have the new facility right off the pike before you get into the city so the rule is okay no one can go and practice why wouldn't there be some way for the younger players that do live in apartments that don't have a backyard all the courts are outside closed like why couldn't the nba once we go hey look we're trying to figure out a way to get this thing going again why can't you have an hour designated to a player by himself with like one guy opening

the door who doesn't get near him and then that player goes in and gets shots up and then gets a sweat and then the next guy comes in like why couldn't you do that for 12 to 15 hours a day and have all the facilities do that at the very least so they have access to a gym for the complaints about some of the players that don't have access yeah i uh i'm i'm optimistic that they're trying to figure out solutions and that yes they're not just going, eh, fuck it, let's just roll it over because there's three different groups of people that have real money at stake.

First, the players. They don't want to lose the money. But then you go to the owners. They don't want to lose the TV money. And then you go to the TV networks. They don't want to lose the ad money. So you have basically everybody who's involved in this is incentivized to salvage money, you know, and that's all I've been saying the whole time. Like those people, none of them want

to lose any money. It's not about owners. They're going to lose the attendance gate. They're going to lose by not having nearly as many playoff games as I think they would have had normally. But I think for sure that once I think the big things will be the tests, the two tests of, do you have it right now? Here's a T in 10 minutes, we'll be able to tell you. And did you have it before? And if you did, do you have any bodies that mean you can't get again?

If they can figure that out, at least in the next three, four weeks, we might have momentum, but I mean, they're, they're moving the NBA draft. The NBA drafts go into August. Like that's, you can lock that one down now because these teams know like, well, what if we're in the playoffs? We have to worry about an NBA draft. Like, so they're going to move that back. I think that's near certainty. So they'll figure out something, is my guess, unless from a health standpoint over these next three weeks, things get worse.

If things get worse, not better, we're fucked. Yeah, everything we just said is off the table if things get worse. As far as the draft, I can understand just wanting to move it back because of the uncertainty of what the actual game schedule will be. And if that's supposed to be, you know, it's normally the week after the finals or before free agency and all that stuff. But I do think that these staffs,

not every staff is the same. Not all 30 teams are equal in the amount of resources they put into it or the amount of work they put in. But look, if you talk to these guys around, like a lot of these guys have already done their work. They, they know there's no more data.

Like they know who the players are and how they have them ranked. I mean, they've been doing this since last fall. So, I mean, you can have the draft whenever you want to have the draft. The only thing would be that everybody's focused on at the same time and the draft's not happening, as you said, while there's a playoff game going on. And then maybe the coach who's getting ready to prepare for game three

isn't putting as much time with his scouts and his front office and going like, hey, who do you like? Even though the owners always get annoyed, but actually I think sometimes when the coaches have too much input. Right. Well, wouldn't it be funny if people got better at drafting

in the NFL and basketball this year? Where like the NFL draft, they're all freaking out. They don't get FaceTime and interview time and they don't get to work out the guys last minute, all that stuff. It would be funny if, A, it was exactly the same hit or miss rate, which would be my guess how it's going to work out the guys last minute, all that stuff. It would be funny if a, it was exactly the same

hit or miss rate, which would be my guess how it's going to work out. But there also is, there's a world in which they actually get better at this because the close exposure to all these guys, you end up seeing things that maybe you shouldn't be seeing. Maybe they should just be looking at stuff like, Oh, how'd you play in games? Hey's that game tape what was it like when you were in stadiums playing against the best possible people for 12 straight weeks i it would be funny if that stuff ended up mattering more and then it bore out like yeah maybe that's how we should do this maybe a zoom interview is just as as as good as flying somebody in and seeing them in person okay i can't believe you just brought this up because did you read gladwell's new book is just as good as flying somebody in and seeing them in person.

Okay. I can't believe you just brought this up because did you read Gladwell's new book, The Talking to Strangers Thing? Yeah. Because this is one of his, yeah, right. One of his arguments is that we do this default believing people thing. Like we default to truth. And one of the examples he uses is Nevin Chamberlain going to meet Hitler. And he goes back.

He's like, he's fine. He's like, we're good. And Churchill's like, no way. He's like he's fine he's like we're good and Churchill's like no way he's like not even close this guy sucks he's like no I shook his hand he looked me in the eye he goes we'll be fine he goes you know he's just just he's just real pro Germany that's all and like what you're saying is it's kind of you know some of the guys that we would meet before the draft process and I don't Van Pelt and I would argue about it. I'd be like, why, why do you think he's going to be good?

Because he had a nice suit on and shook our hand. Well, I remember Jalen and I did, we did this job interview series in 2013. It was the last year where they made all these guys available. And we interviewed all the lottery guys with the exception of, I think New Orleans, Noel and like one other one. But it's funny. Like the guys that impressed us the most were Victor Oladipo and CJ McCollum. And we interviewed.

So you're good at it is what you're saying. No, no, no. I'm just saying. So my one experience doing this, my takeaway actually would have been the right takeaway because both of those guys were so impressive.

Victor El Depot. We were just like, that guy's a fucking badass, like all in on that guy. And I went on the draft that year and I was like, he's my number one pick his. I think he translates as an NBA player. I was really impressed when I spent some time with him. I got to use the spent, spent some time card. And then CJ McCollum is just, was lights out.

That guy was like a future media guy. Um, and then there were a couple other ones that I want to throw under the bus that we were just like, wow, wouldn't touch that guy with a 10 foot pole, you know, trying to be nice.

But after they leave, we look at each other like, Oh man, that's a stay. Yeah. I would imagine if you did it more though, that it would, it would kind of flatten it out. out yeah it just it just would and this is like a long standing thing like

michael lewis has written about this like people have talked about how that that personal interaction can mess up your whole evaluation what so i don't know if it's going to be better i'd imagine it's probably the same what i can't wait for though is the guys that really screw up in the end, especially in the NFL draft, because then they're just going to blame this. I think in general interviews can be really overrated. Like I remember I'd written a couple of pieces for ESPN in 2001 and I had this offer from the Boston Herald. I was actually going to take it. And I told my ESPN guys, Jay Lovinger and Kevin Jackson, like, I might do this Harold thing. If I do it, I won't be able to write for you guys anymore. And they were like, hold on, hold on.

And, and they decided to make me a real offer. And they were like, you gotta, you gotta drive down. You're going to meet John Walsh. He's, he's kind of, you know, he's the guy he, we're going to hire you for the website. And for page two, like you got to meet John Walsh. Yeah. It was like a kingmaker back then. Yeah. And I'm really excited. Cause I'm like, John Walsh, like legend, the guy created sports center, but more importantly was the guy for me who created inside sports, which was my favorite sports magazine. When I was a kid, it was like, it was a sports illustrated competitor that I just loved. It had a gambling column from Pete

Axton. That was like, I was like, as soon as I'm old enough, I'm going to gamble like Pete Axton. Like it was very for me. Yeah. And it was great, Mac. Look, I subscribed to it too. It was, it was awesome. I don't know what, like I had more inserts. Did it feel like it was a little bit more like that back then? I mean, I used to love the sporting news because the batting average stuff, but go ahead. Yeah. So I go in and meet Walsh and my buddy Gus tells me, you know, he's pretty intimidating. Like, first of all, he's, he's an albino, like, just be ready. Like he's looks like Santa Claus. Like, don't, you know, don't be like, Oh my God, you look like Santa Claus. Like, just act like you've been there

before with knowing what John Walsh looks like. and he can't really see. So just be prepared for those two things. Ride it out. He's a huge sports fan. I'm like, I'm fine. I got this. We're going to small talk for five minutes and then I'm going all in on inside sports because I really love the magazine. I'd say all I want to do is I just asked this guy questions about inside sports.

So we go hit it off. Gus had warned me like he would do. Walsh would do these strategic silences where he just kind of all of a sudden is just staring at you and then you got to fumble for something to say because you know what's going on. But he let it was like this weird way he would test people. So I'm ready for everything. I push it to inside sports. And we have this awesome like 45 minute inside sports thing.

So by the end of it, Walsh is like, I fucking love this guy. They gave me a contract offer. The rest is history. But basically he liked me just because I raved about inside sports, right? That's not like a real reason to like me. I could have been the biggest asshole in the world. Just pretending I was a nice guy for an hour. As it turned out, I did have some, some issues when I was there, but I don't think it's, my point is, I don't think it's hard to impress somebody for 45 minutes. Is it? Oh my God.

I know you're speaking my language right now because that was my thing when all of the draft prospects pro or excuse me, NFL or NBA, and everybody would fall in love with these guys. And I go, do you know how hard, you know, stupid you have to be to fuck up seven minutes. Like you really got to try to fuck up seven minutes like you really gotta try to fuck up seven minutes like in the handful of what would say hundreds of guys we've come through there less than a handful of them we ever left we're like oh like when t.o came by he he didn't even want to do it he asked me to turn up the audio on sports center that he just done because he wanted to watch him on sports center and we're about to

go live on the radio we We're coming back from commercial. I'm driving. And I was like, hey, T.O., can you sit down? Can we start the interview? And he's like, uh, ignoring me. And I was like, fine. I got to turn the audio off. I can't have SportsCenter audio in the background while I'm doing this thing.

So look, he sat down. He was fine. But you could just see he just, I don't know. And look, some people love T.O. Something was missing. um so look he sat down he was fine but you could just see like he just i don't know and look some people love to you something was missing but that in that moment um trying to think i don't want to just i don't know maybe i shouldn't do too many names like we had one draft pick sat down with scott and i and he had two phones going the whole time was watching both of his phones like this texting doing whatever while we were doing the interview and we were kind of like hey you know

we're gonna go now and then after we asked equate he didn't do anything different we're like yeah you know we're taping like we're doing this he's like we're and you're just like okay so i would agree that you really have to be special to screw that whole thing up but i yeah i know it would be funny i don't i don't see how it's gonna be better. We did this. I will say it was in the last 10 years. So it could be Grant Land or Ringer. We interviewed somebody once. And at some point you ask the person, what do you think of Grant Land, the Ringer, wherever I was at the time? And you expect them to say, I like this. I like this. I like this. I like this. You know, one thing I think you guys could do better is this, this person just, he basically had a laundry list of like, well, you guys aren't doing this well and this, and you know, this could obviously be better. And by the end of it,

we were like, what the fuck? fuck like does it sound like you you really like our place that much and uh and that was it so you can fuck it up too is my point so you can make it so you was this like an entry-level deal though with this person or were they going to be more in charge of some stuff because that's that's what i think is really interesting it was somebody we're thinking of hiring to write for us. So just to be a writer. Okay, because I've heard examples of guys where they go, how'd you get this job? Like I walked right in and told them everything they did wrong.

They're like, wow. Like that's the thing is you can get advice from like one guy that's zagging and is like, hey, I did this. Like, oh, that's really successful. So you sit down and be like, all right, here's how you guys are screwing up. And then, you know, he gets advice from somebody else that he thinks that's what you're

going to do. Just go in there and set them straight. People have these weird ideas for how to handle situations. Cause like Connor, the guy I created 30 for 30 with who runs content out for ESPN, he had this kind of self-imposed rule that anytime we were in a meeting with a bunch of people and it could be anybody, he wanted to disagree with somebody once during the meeting. So we could have been with like Bob Iger, Obama, you know, Lorne Michaels, Michael Bay. You just list all these heavy hitters. And he was like, at some point in that hour, I'm going to push back at somebody because otherwise, why are we there? We're just sitting there nodding to everybody. And I was respecting it. So every time he's going to get mad that I brought this up, every time he would do it, I would like start

trying to not laugh. Cause I was like, oh, he's doing the move. And then Skipper had it. So this is a different move. Skipper had a move. Skipper was the guy that ran ESPN. He would have these dinners and he would have, you know, like 12 people, like you're taking out all the Grantland people and you got these long tables. And when you're, when you sit at those dinners, you kind of sit down and you're stuck at the table, right? You're stuck in your seat. You're kind of wherever you landed that you're next to the person on your left person, on your right person across from you. Skipper would do this move that Jacoby just loved. He would call it the skipper. He would get up, somebody go to the bathroom and skipper would

get up and switch seats so he could work different parts of the table. It was like watching a politician. So he'd be like, oh, and then, and Jacoby, look, look, he pulled the skipper and he would move to another side of the table, win that side over for like 30 minutes and then drift over to another seat. And it was like the skipper. But it's funny, all these little, little tricks people have. My point is in an interview, you could pull a couple of those tricks. It would work.

I could do two hours on this. Okay. Because you and I have talked to, no, why can't we, you and I have talked to enough decision makers. Then look, you've been far more on the hiring side than, than look, I I'm just, I'm not even eligible for that part of the discussion, but sitting with so many different managers, you know, specifically ESPN and all the different styles. And you're like, you're just reading these John C. Maxwell books. Like every one of you have come up with a

different tactic. Like I had one manager who just decided he's never going to talk, never going to say anything. And you just be like, Oh, okay. So like everything is as close to the vest i'd be like hey what's going on with the studios are we moving those around like we just need to know like which studios cowherd going to be in which studio am i going to be in starting in the fall you know still a decision to be made be like no no this isn't the tactic time now this is the part where you just go hey you're in a collins and b all right cool yeah because you just want to set up our stuff we want to be able to know where guys are going um skipper was always really good in a room though like when you'd, cool. Yeah. Cause you just want to set up our stuff. We want to be able to know where guys are going. Um, Skipper was always really good in a room though. Like when you'd sit down with him, you'd go, all right. You know, when I didn't know, I'm like, okay, this guy's running ESPN. And then there's a part of the beginning of my ESPN career.

Well, finally, when I was like, I guess I got to make some sort of connection with some of these people that are making big decisions. Cause none of them are going my way. And I sat down with him and within 10 minutes, I'm like, oh, okay, like I get it. Now I know why this guy's here. But there's all of these guys that pull these tactics. Like we had somebody who worked on my staff once, whenever we had like a Rosillo show or SVP Rosillo, whatever version of it,

because a lot of the carryover of the staff, I had somebody on my staff that used to, in every single meeting propose an idea and it was it was you always knew it was coming at like minute 40 right if it were you know our meeting 40 he'd bring it in at like 25 it was a 30 minute shooting his shot and that was the thing and the thing like it was it was never going to go anywhere else for this person but they couldn't stop doing this so scott and i'd look at each other then canel and i would look at each other we'd just be like what are we doing here and if we were meeting with the sponsor his big thing was he planned something out where he was gonna say like hey

have you guys ever thought about an app maybe that did this and be like oh this is where you're trying to impress the room with some invention on the fly when i'm just trying to figure out like how do you want us to read the flower ads and it was it's so perfect because when you're around it enough and that's what i would say to any manager like if you have your tactics and you have your planning just remember if your staff knows you long enough it becomes less effective because everybody knows it's coming the The Cotter thing's hilarious, though. No matter who it is, he would just be like, what's up? No, he'd have to have one. He just wouldn't let it be a shutout win for everybody else. He would have to push back on something.

I always suspected it, but it was always from a genuine place. Because if you're in a meeting for an hour, there's going to be one thing that you can kind of go, hey, well, wait a second. What about this? It makes you seem engaged, though, which is a win. You're disagreeing with the person. So that's the thing. Look, anyone listening out there, if we ever get to work and be in the same room ever again in our lives, like if you're, if you're at a, at some meeting with

like 10, 12 people and you're there, it's basically like pick up basketball. If you're just running up and down the court and you don't touch the ball and you don't do anything, and then you leave the meeting and nobody could remember one thing that you did in the meeting, that's a loss. You know, I remember we were, when we had Grantland early on, we were doing the quarterlies. Remember those books we used to do? That was like the best pieces. Not that, not always the best, but always like we were trying to make it like the best kind of representation of what happened for those three months of Grantland. And the person who was doing the quarterlies for us for McSweeney's, cause that's who we're doing with was Juliet. And she was working for McSweeney's and we'd have these meetings and she

was like 25 and we'd have these big meetings and she would always like chime in and have ideas. And I was like, Whoa, who's this? I'm hiring her. And so we ended up, we hired her and now, now we've worked together for 10 years, but it was all because in those meetings, she wasn't like the 25 year old. Who's just like mealy mouth, just kind of taking notes and not contributing people notice that stuff. So if you're ever in those, if you're in those things, if you're not saying anything, that's not necessarily good. Now, if you're saying something, but it's idiotic, that's bad too. So you got to, uh, you got to pick your spots. I don't know how we got on this, but Hey,

speaking of being in charge, by the way, just real quick, this is fuel for you. I love it too much. Yeah, I i know but i did meet with john walsh i was like i've heard this guy's really you know if you can get it on the good side with this guy i went in went nowhere gave me a good book recommendation never talked to him again oh you should brought up inside sports that was it he just told me how stupid radio was i was like oh okay for like 20 minutes and then he goes do you read i was like yeah all the time he goes check out game change i was like okay and then i think i followed up was a great book he's like glad you liked it it's been about 12 years i think he likes you now came around late late bloomer with wash uh speaking of being in charge

actually let's let's take a quick break and then we'll come back. We're going to do top five worst NBA GM jobs, but let's take a break. Let's take a break to talk about WHOOP. At home fitness is on everybody's mind right now, whether you're tuning into a friend's Instagram live fitness class

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Simmons at checkout. Go to whoop.com, W-H-O-O-P.com. Enter Simmons at checkout to save 15%, sleep better, recover faster, train smarter, optimize your performance with Whoop. Okay, so on Russillo's last podcast, he came up, as usual, the guy will come up with good ideas from time to time, came up with a thing. What are the top five NBA GM jobs you'd want? What's the list? What's the ranking?

And you did this whole thing. You laid it on your pod. You went through every team quickly, crossed everybody off and got to your top five. Your top five was? In no order, but I did Clippers. I did Dallas. Well, go through one at a time.

Clippers, why? Okay, well, really, I kind of came down to four things, but I'm malleable on this, okay? I'm not stern. I'm malleable on this deal. And what I not stern. I'm malleable on this deal. And what I felt was important is I still think ownership may be the single most important thing, but I looked at it this way.

Like in college basketball, you have destination jobs. It's Duke. It's North Carolina. You know, back in the day, we probably would have argued UCLA, Indiana. Not at all, at all anymore. Kansas, yes. You know, we know who they are.

We know who they are now. In the NBA, the destination job wouldn't be tradition. It wouldn't be Celtics-Lakers just because of tradition. It would be because of the owner. It would be the current roster situation because if you could be a GM of any of these 30 teams, you probably want to be like, where can I win right now and not rebuild with cap space and draft picks coming? Location is part of it as well. And then I included coach. So I really think it's owner, current roster, maybe location, coach, or a tie. Some places scored a lot higher because of coach. Other places, it was sort of a neutral thing. So I looked at the

Lakers and Clippers, Brooklyn, Dallas, and Golden State were my five. I am open to debate on a few of those, but the reason I went Clippers is that ownership group is so strong, they will spend any amount of money, the resources they put into that front office, which is an amazing front office, and Doc Rivers. And, you know, look,

I know that the Clippers could be looking at a disastrous situation with the draft picks, but I guess even with Kawhi and Paul George being able to opt out after next year and the uncertainty of what's happening this year, like how weird would that be if the season were canceled? And then you're on the fly, both of those guys, in a decision year. Yes, it could be disastrous, but I still think I have a hard time believing

like Kawhi and Paul George are both just going to opt out and bounce after two years. So I'm taking that risk, but a lot of that has to do with ownership because I don't know that even the media and certainly fans appreciate enough how many times an owner is really making the last call. You can have a GM, you can have a president of basketball operation, you can have all of these guys with big titles, but especially now with so many GMs not being former players and somebody that the owner almost still kind of looks up to in a worshiping fashion. There's some guys that have these gigs and it's like the owners are just huge fans of that guy

when he used to play. Well, there's less of those guys now. And the owner has the final call on so much more of this stuff. So that's part of it there. Well, let me interrupt you one second on that. The one thing with the owner that I've heard over and over again is if he has the one person he trusts, he'll still overrule that person. he feels strongly about something. The best situation seems to be if there's like an inner circle of maybe three others. And if the three or the four, however, if they're all aligned on something and the owner disagrees and it's a good owner, I think it's a lot less likely he just goes against this entire inner circle. I think if it's like a one, one V

one, even a one V two, it's one thing, but like you look at how the Clippers are, are set up, right. But it's bomber. But then there's Lawrence Frank, doc rivers, Michael and Jerry West, maybe. So three and a half, if all four of those guys are like locked in on like, look, we can't put SGA in this Paul George trade. That's crazy. I just don't think bomber is going to just plow over them and overrule them. James Dolan might Robert Sarver might. Um, but, uh, I think the good owners, like, I don't think wick, he's not overruling Danny age, Austinin age brad stevens and mike zarin if all four of them are like we can't do this he's not gonna be like well that's fine but we're still doing it the crazy bad owners would but um well see i think age i think age has that equity not only because

the accomplishments as a gm with this team but he had the equity being part of that celtics team in the 80s and i think that's a big part of why he got the job in the first place. And he's had some wins. Well, that's what I mean. It's not that he just got the job and he still has the job because of the resume as a player. He's been a really good GM. It's not even debatable. So this guy who took the Chicago job,

who's gotten more coverage over the last few days than maybe any GM hire ever, just because there's nothing to write about. I mean, Arturis, whatever his name is, I can't, please stop writing articles about this guy. We're good. Well, there's nothing else going on. Yeah, we're good.

We are in a pandemic. Great. I've heard good things about him, by the way. Yeah, me too. And I don't think it's just a straight up like media. The media loves the analytic guys that get hired because I think the media loves the idea that, hey, I like stats.

Maybe I could be a GM as well. So the analytics guys get all sorts of passes all the time by the media. But this is not what this... He's an incredibly hard worker. I was talking to somebody who used to work on a staff with him. And he goes, this guy, it's just grinds, grinds with the player evaluations. And he himself, he played with Sabonis and he still works out like a madman like just is super like focused driven that kind of stuff like this is some of these guys get jobs and they'll get it because of the resume and like nothing worse than when you get the guy to run your team it's like the Phil Jackson like Phil Jackson's resume is incredible but when you have to keep overpaying Phil Jackson to take a job that he doesn't want, you're probably not getting a plus effort the entire time.

That guy, Arturis, Reinstorf will overrule him if they disagree. Well, it's the son more than, it's the son more than Jerry. Michael, I mean. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ultimately, they're going to do what Michael Reinstorf does. If Arturis can build up the equity and build a little coalition. That's when he can swing it. But for now, it'll be a group thing.

But back to your original point, the decision maker is usually going to be the owner unless it's an awesome organization. So you had the Clippers. You had Dallas. I had the Clippers. I have Dallas. Cuban is years removed from new owner phase.

Cuban was not good in the beginning, like almost every single new nba owner but i think he just gets it you know i i can't i'm not going to make it more complicated than that and you've got luca and you've got carlisle and yes even though dallas for years had had these plans of being this cap space destination and it didn't happen they're not a negative nba location so and they got Haral Bob. Right. My guy. That's right.

Your dude. I mean, look, they pulled off the Luka trade, and it's the best move anyone's done in the last five years. There's a lot of teams that could have done it, could have moved into that spot, could have moved into two or three. They pulled it off. Better than Tatum?

Better than Tatum? Luka's the better player. Here's the thing. The Celtics could have just taken Tatum. They could have taken him at one. They move back. They get this awesome Kings pick

that ends up being the 14th pick. Wasn't that awesome? It was a shrewd move to take the red guy, but that Luka trade, it's like they weren't going to it was a shrewd move to take the right guy but that luka trade it's like they weren't gonna get him they had to move up they gave an unprotected lottery pick the following year they put you know they paid a pretty premium price it was smart fultz was such

a definitive number one um that it was i mean i loved it because I was a Tatum guy, but. Shocking. All right, so you have Dallas Clippers. Yeah, right, Clippers. Brooklyn, okay, I understand that Joseph Thigh. Boo, boo, thumbs down, boo. Okay, I think the NBA world is sleeping on this Kevin Durant guy a little bit, and then I'm going to trade Kyrie. Good luck. I'll get'm going to trade Kyrie. Good luck.

I'll get some pieces back from Kyrie. I also think it's a cool location. And yes, it's still TBD on this ownership change. And I think the Atkinson firing was a bit of a new owner syndrome there. But I'm thinking location. I'm thinking Durant. And yeah, the coach right at this point is, is TBD because we don't know. Um, I got some serious pushback from some people when I said

this in my podcast. So this one is you're shaking your head in disgust. Well, Kyrie a B nobody in New York cares about the Brooklyn nets. They just don't. It's even worse than the quipper situation it's a next time it is who are the other two teams uh golden state you're gonna have the best blackboard in nba history coming back terrific coach and best organization i've heard that lake can be tough at times but uh they're not they're not going to spare any expenses out there. And you're in this awesome market. You're in this unbelievable situation. And I just think that kind of like the Durant thing, where it'd be really easy in the moment to leave Golden State off your list. If those guys were healthy, no one would ever leave them off. And I'm looking at, hey, I'm taking the job this summer,

and I'm starting up for 2021. And then the last one, this was tough because I was considering Miami and coach is great. NBA location, good ownership there. The roster, unless Bam turns into like a real superstar other than Jimmy Butler, it's behind some of these other rosters. Philly is still, I think an underrated pro athlete city. Every guy that plays there loves that city, man. They just love playing in Philadelphia. So there's that. Ownership is fine. You're probably going to have to get a new coach, but you still have real assets on that team roster-wise. So I was willing to listen to Philly.

And then really what it came down to, do I want Anthony Davis in a year with LeBron still around in Los Angeles, even with ownership that's probably considered better because everyone in the media absolutely loves Jeannie Buss so much. So it's not me knocking ownership there. It's just that I think there's so many people in the media that just, I don't know, they seem to think it's like perfect ownership. But I would say it's been far from perfect ownership stuff over the last couple of years, but it's gotten better, obviously, because the players got better. But I'd rather be in LA with those two guys

than Milwaukee, than be the GM in Milwaukee with Giannis and Giannis Uncertainty. So those are the five. I really think that, you know, those are maybe the eight. You had the Celtics in there, right? So I didn't put the Celtics in because of some of the BS about it being, you know,

a place players don't want to go. You and I are, no one ever wants to hear from us, right? Cause they just think we're incredibly biased, but the Nets over the Celtics, I'm wrong. I'm wrong.

I'm telling you right now, I should have had the Celtics in there instead of the Nets. All right. Cause I thought, I thought there were four no brainers. And then that fifth spot, you could have had like five choices. I thought Celtics, All right. those four, I think you missed one piece in your rankings that you, you, I understand why you use it, why you zigged on it, but I'm going to zag. I was looking at the Knicks and the Bulls simply for the Theo Epstein Cubs savior thing that if you do pull it off, it's the same, it's the same chain of events that led to Affleck taking Batman. If, if you do pull it off, it's the same, it's the same chain of events that led to Affleck taking Batman.

If, if you do pull it off, it's legendary. If you're the guy who saved it, you, you, you're eternal Theo hero in Chicago forever. Um, and in Boston too, he did in two places. So I keep looking at the Knicks and the Bulls thinking like, man, the Bulls situation is probably a little bit better than the Knicks situation from a roster ownership standpoint. A lot of the same resources you would get in a big city. The Knicks thing is still the highest upside of any NBA team, though. If you win a title for the Knicks, that's the single hardest thing to do in any sport right now other than maybe win a super bowl for the browns okay probably the top two right but if i trained and put on a ton of weight and beat up brock lesnar in a fight i would also be a hero wouldn't i but it doesn't mean i want to fucking fight him okay and yes I get what you're saying

but I'd rather just go somewhere else where ownership is great like I can't believe you're actually when you sent the text back and I sent my five and I do want to clean that up Boston should be in there in Brooklyn now that I've thought about it more I was building Brooklyn up too much as a destination I was holding Boston too far back because you know one of the other unknowns of whatever happens this season, but it sucks that we don't get to see like the playoff version of Tatum because then he was going to take

this other level. And now it's like, oh no, is this going to get interrupted? But if he's going to be a great player, he's going to be a great player. He's going to figure out. Celtics are great owner. Stevens, we get a really good coach.

The roster, even with some of the stuff they have coming due with the money, if it's the best version of it, it's up there with, you you know i don't know that there'll be five better rosters than it but i just overrated because i'm just so sick of hearing about all the times how no one ever wants to go there and then when guys actually play in boston you're like you know what it's actually great here like you get treated like a hero um but if you know look you just don't like the boston isn't for everyone um doesn't matter you know who you are like some people just aren't gonna like that two big free agents this decade though yeah after not getting any for decades um you know they got

gordon they got horford and they got gordon got xavier mcdaniel that was it like seriously had it been dominique wilkins got neek dana barrows so so um here's here's what i would ask you like you actually do you think becoming the opportunity to become a hero in new york would be enough to outweigh dolan as an owner and i still think that dolan from what i've heard he doesn't want to overrule anybody in the basketball thing he's sick of getting made fun of all the time like it drives him crazy but his inner circle was a group that wasn't making it work either. But I just don't know if you're running through 30 teams

how you can put the Knicks in a group of five knowing what the track record has been there at ownership. The case for the Knicks would be Dolan has hired these people over and over again and just kind of let them do it. He just hires the wrong people. The case against them is the atmosphere there is so toxic in so many different terrible ways. Like it just seems like the worst place to work. And well, even if you had all the power in the

world, it just seems like everybody's bummed out there. There's a ton of turnover. They've ripped through a lot of good people. So I would probably play it. I would probably go Celtics, Warriors, Mavs, Clippers, and then Bulls is my fifth. I think that's a good job. Chicago has great fans. They have a lot of winning tradition and generations, and it's a top three city.

I don't know. It's a great city in the summer. Can't say enough. If it's a city ranking, hey, look, if we're going fans and city, then Chicago's easily in the top five. But I mean, the one thing with the Reinsdorf family is you don't get fired. Like you actually don't get fired there. So that's even better.

Like that's a positive for it. If you're running it, I don't like that roster. I couldn't, I couldn't look at the city of Chicago enough and say, this is awesome. Because what happens is, is whenever I do this games, guys start cannelling it. And that's a shout out to my former cohost, Andy Cannell. Whenever we come up with these games, we just break all whatever the rules were. And then it turns into where do you want to golf and what's close to the water. And you're like, okay, but Zach Levine's your max player, right? Like it's, it's not about the lake in June. It's about, you know, well, let's,

let's get to the really important stuff. Insulting, uh, insulting the fans out there who are going to be really upset if their team makes the top five, but we're gonna take a quick break first and then come back. The worst GM locations coming up in one second. Hey, as the novel coronavirus pandemic escalates in the U.S., public health officials are encouraging those who are experiencing signs or symptoms of COVID-19, such as coughing or fever, to seek medical guidance remotely. If you or a loved one is feeling sick or you're just feeling worried, there is a way to help without leaving home.

Rowe is offering free telehealth services for people seeking guidance and information on COVID-19. The service is available free of charge in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. Rho's free online assessment will help determine if you are at risk. And if appropriate, Rho will connect you with a medical provider for a free consultation. The assessment was designed by doctors and infectious disease experts and is based on guidelines from the CDC and WHO. Visit ro.co slash coronavirus on your phone or laptop to complete a free online assessment or just learn more. If you're worried that you may be experiencing symptoms, go to ro.co slash coronavirus to start your free assessment today. ro.co slash coronavirus. All right. So I made my list of the five franchises,

just for lack of a better word, bottom five NBA GM jobs. And how do you want to do this? Because we haven't gone over our list. How do you want to do this? I want you to go first. I took too much time on that and I feel like the Celtics omission of my pod and now that I've had days to think about it. Maybe I didn't put them in there

because of you. It wasn't like I was trying to stir the pot. I needed to think about it a couple days. That's fine. Listen. It's a fucking quarantine. It's a quarantine. Nobody's holding it against you. I don't know.

I'm rarely uncertain on that kind of thing. Like I said, I was malleable on this whole segment. I'm going to give you my one honorable mention team, and then I'm going to go bottom five from five to one. And I'll stop after each one. If you just want to jump in with a quick bit,

my honorable mention couldn't crack the top five Sacramento. No playoffs are winning seasons since Oh five Oh six, 14 year drought. Um, the reason I couldn't put them in... Marvin Bagley? I think Vivek's a nice guy. I'm not sure he's a good NBA owner,

but I do think he's a nice guy. I do like their assets. I like Fox. I believe in Bagley. I just think he got hurt last year. I don't think he's a bust. I think he has a lot of potential. I like Bogdanovich. I know they're going to resign bust. I think he has a lot of potential. I like Bogdanovich.

I know they're going to resign him. I think Buddy Heald is a trade piece. They're going to have another lottery pick. Like I don't mind the assets they have. And when you're following Vlade, it's like following the shitty boyfriend. You know, you're when you're the next person dating the girl after they had the shitty boyfriend, you look fantastic. So I couldn't put them in. So here's my fifth worst bottom five NBA GM. People are gonna be surprised. San Antonio. Couple reasons. They've already peaked. It's already the, you know, they're already the guy who was awesome in high school and won three state championships at QB and point guard and dated the best looking cheerleader. And now he's still living in the cities. He's 32. He's

about 75 pounds heavier. It's kind of off and on golf pro at the local club. It's just not, it's not cool anymore. That's unfortunately, I think where the Spurs are at, they had this amazing Duncan Popovich run, but now we're at the end and it's over. They have 112 million on the books next year. Their two best players are Aldridge and DeRozan who are in, you know, I think at the tail end of their primes and maybe even past their primes, they're both expiring their best future assets are Murray who they're paying 15 million a year somehow. And I don't even know if he's an above average starting point guard, Lonnie Walker, Derek white. That's really about it.

It's bleak. And they don't even really have a lottery pick this year, small market and just the fumes of we used to be great now or not. So is that fair to put them in the top five? No, cause ownership is really strong. And I don't think the way most people think. The way you're thinking is how most people think, where I don't want to follow this pop RC Buford thing for 20 years.

If I were the head coach at La Tech and Saban retires and I'm the new hottest thing in college football and Tuscaloosa comes calling and offers me the Alabama job, I'm not going to say no, because it's going to suck to follow Saban and it's going to suck to follow Saban. You can't, you can't, that's not a good analogy though, because that Alabama, you know, but you're still getting awesome talent at Alabama with San Antonio. They, they hit the lottery. They had Duncan, they got Ginobili, they got Kawhi, they got Parker. That's never happening again. No, that's not happening again, but I wouldn't like part of your thing was it's over. So like the roster, when I was going through the 30 and I had 20 automatic no's, San Antonio

was an automatic no, but it's not a no to the level. It's one of the five worst GM jobs you get. Again, the rule is if you could be a GM of any 30 team, you have them ranked 26th. Yeah, I do. There's too many other bad owners that you wouldn't want to be a GM for. Well, Peter Holt's not their owner anymore. I think their whole situation's a lot different

than it was 10 years ago. You know, I just feel like it's on the tail end of everything. And I haven't liked what they've done the last two years either. I think it's a past performance situation. Every piece of the San Antonio situation is, you know,

Oh, remember back when blank, well too bad it's 2021 next year and they're going nowhere. So I have them fifth. I have Charlotte fourth staggering era for the Bobcats, 16 years, two winning seasons, two round one losses. They have not won a playoff series for the Bobcats, 16 years, two winning seasons, two round one losses.

They have not won a playoff series as the Bobcats. They have the third worst owner of the 21st century or the Hornets. Their salary cap situation isn't great. It clears up in about a year. Their best assets, Devante Graham, who I enjoyed PJ Washington look pretty good. Mikhail bridges. That's a feisty group. Oh, I'm sorry. PJ Washington looked pretty good. Mikael Bridges.

That's a feisty group. Oh, I'm sorry. Miles Bridges. Yeah, Miles. And then Monk, who I'll never give up on. They've made some bad moves. I was looking backwards. Do you know that they picked SGA 11th

and then traded backwards one spot and picked up Bridges in two seconds? I totally forgot that happened. That's a disaster. They took Monk over Mitchell the year before. Two years for that, they turned down four first from Boston, pick Frank Kaminsky in 2012. They didn't get Anthony Davis to kid Gilchrist over Beal. It's been a really rough run and their owner isn't very good. And, uh, and I guess the only thing you could say about what would be fun to take

them over is just, they've been so bad. If you did a good job, people would be fired up. But man, it's grim, not to mention small market. Were they in your top five? They were, and then I crossed them off because there's actually no tragic things going on in the spreadsheet. So I wouldn't say it's good ownership. I think Borrego is a really good coach. And that team, I thought thought was going to be the

least talented least interesting team in the entire nba and the fact that they play as hard as they do but there's nothing i wouldn't say there's anything necessarily on the roster you go hey in three years like this guy's gonna be but there's other teams where i go well look at what detroit's gonna be doing you know and who they're gonna have to pay, they're coming up. I have them in a second. My third worst team is Cleveland. I just don't like their roster at all. I don't like the Sexton Garland backcourt. 91 million in Kevin Love next three years. Yikes.

40 million in Drummond and Nance next year. They've had seven coaches last eight years. They've already peaked. The post-LeBron hangover. Cleveland. Wouldn't love living there. Not a lot going on. Not a lot of positives.

But that situation is not as bad as my number two. The Detroit Pistons. I'll just give you two facts with the Pistons. One is that Griffin has $75.7 million due next two seasons. So that's one. He's probably going to opt in. Yeah.

You think he'll opt in a year from now? I do. I have him penciled in for the opt-in. Then, their best assets on their roster are Luke Kennard and Sekou Domboya. Is that how you say his name?

What's the first pick? It's about right. Yeah, he was their lottery pick this year. Domboya. Domboya. Those are their best two assets on the roster right now. That is a disaster. I had no idea it was that bleak.

I don't know what they've been doing. Stan went for it right there at the end, and it didn't work out. So my number one is controversial. I have Minnesota. I don't have any real roster flexibility at all. Towns, Russell, Culver, that's my foundation. Not really moving off that unless Towns forces me to trade him

and I gotta trade him for 52 cents on the dollar which would suck I'm fucked either way I don't think Towns can lead me to a title and if I trade him I'm not getting anything more than 50 cents on the dollar so either way I'm fucked I don't have a 2021 first rounder unless it falls in the top three

so that's just gone, goodbye I have the second worst 21st century owner, Glenn Taylor, other than James Dolan, Glenn Taylor, just a horrific owner. And I remember writing about this a couple of times. And then somebody said to me, you should be easy on Glenn Taylor. I'm like, why? And he's like, cause he's such a nice guy. I'm like, but he's a bad owner. It's like, yeah, but he's a nice guy. It's like, well, he's a bad owner. Like, what do you want from me? Uh, they've had three full decades of losing now, save for 2004, three full decades, 31 seasons, nine playoff appearances, eight first round exits, 31 seasons. They've won two playoff series. They're both in the same year. They've had one winning season

since 2005. Their career record as a franchise is 980 and 1486. They have a 396 winning percentage as a franchise. Their greatest franchise player ever is their only good franchise player ever. Kevin Garnett refuses to come back. Torched the owner last week. Called him a snake. Said, I'm never going back to Minnesota. Don't retire my number.

Can you name career games played for the Timberwolves? KG is one. Can you name two, three, and four career games, Timberwolves history, 31 years? Who played the most games for the Timberwolves? Trenton Hassel? Nope. Troy Hudson?

No. I'm just naming all those. Troy Hudson No So Number two is Sam Mitchell Oh yeah Number three is Doug West Never was gonna get that And number four is Gorgie Dang Yeah that makes sense

Your top four career Timberwolves guys KG and those three guys they've only had eight all-stars ever and I don't see it getting better and you're in Minnesota

small market I like their signing free agents that job is that is like it checks every box where I would not want to run that team

so I had Minnesota in mind as well and it starts with the owner but you know where you could look at some of the rosters and say okay there's not enough talent that's why it's a no or it's not even in consideration for the top five even though they've got two maybe even three talented guys because we don't know what culver is right now i mean if he's lottery pick that's a role play

right uh it's it's still unknown but if you watched him you know i don't i don't think culver's ever going to be a star. The problem is that Russell thinks he's a star. He's paid like a star. Towns is statistically a star and is paid like one. And now you're locked into these two guys who I think, at least early on, I don't know that they fully get it. And I think they're big stat guys not a lot of

winning stuff in there and you're just going to keep losing games even though you think you have two guys that totally get along or on the same page and you're locked into them and then you're right and then towns will just probably ask for trade because it's not going to work and how many times have we seen it in the in nba history the towns type of guy where it's like, well, this guy's good. I mean, he missed 13 all NBA ones. He's, you know, statistically he's amazed 24 and 12. And it's like, yeah, but they just lost 18 games in a row. You know, it's like Pau Gasol is a good example of this, right? I love Pau Gasol. I think he's gonna be a hall of famer or couldn't be the best guy on Memphis. They, He was the best guy in a Memphis

team that actually had some talent. They went like 22 and 60. And you have these guys. Bosh was like this in Toronto. You have these guys. They're quote unquote franchise guys. They're just good enough to be in charge of the franchise but not good enough to actually lead it.

And you're just kind of fucked until they leave. And then when they leave, they could go to a situation and be awesome. And then it's like, oh man, they traded Carl Towns. Why'd they do that? Guys in the finals, dumb asses. It's like, well, did you go look and watch their last three years?

Like this is kind of what happened with Anthony Davis in New Orleans to some degree. I mean, he's much more talented than all the other guys I mentioned, but they also, they couldn't win when he was their best guy. Towns is the poor man's homeless man's version of that, where they just can't win with them. And it's not going to change.

Yeah. I mean, when you said, can he lead you to a championship? I mean, just get me to the second round and I'd be happy if I had this gig right now. But that's, that's the fear of that. It's owner, it's location, but it's also, I might have a one and two max guys that are on the books for a long time that i can't do anything i will win nothing they need to find those winning plays in between all the three-point attempts like they have to find those things that you know we are reminded of that exists when you go back and

watch some of these old playoff games that we were watching where there's just... I've never felt strong about this before, but this league, as great as it is in the depth of the stars at the top, there are just so many dudes putting up big numbers, even big efficiency numbers. Some advanced metrics where you go, wow, look how great this guy is. And you go, is he? Is he? I don't think it's ever been deeper with more misleading stack guys than it is right now. So Minnesota's in there for me. Totally agree on Cleveland. Detroit replaced. I took Charlotte out of there because I just don't think Charlotte's necessarily. Look, we're talking about the bottom rosters right now. So there's not a ton of like I like their coach a lot. Cleveland, yes. Minnesota, yes. I sacramento in there because of the ownership thing even though yes you know what like they've been that's the other thing of this all the lost stories of the

season their resurgence modest resurgence heading into this last stretch yeah right before all this happened was completely it's like nobody ever seemed to be bringing it up. But how did you not have Sarver and Phoenix there? Even if I probably like Aiton and Booker more than you do. I just think they have real assets. Okay. That Sarver situation is a nightmare, but they just have talent. You can make moves.

You could figure that thing out. The question is if Devin Booker this summer is like, get me the fuck out of here. But if you have Booker and eight and some of the other guys that they have, I can work with that. I can, I can work with the crazy owner. I mean, you think they had that crazy owner all through the two thousands. They almost made the 2010 finals. They almost made the finals a bunch of times with Nash in that 05 to 07 range. So if you have talent, you can survive the crazy owner. And for whatever reason, they keep stumbling into talent.

They've gotten lucky a couple of times. By the way, you're right on that whole situation. It's dicey. There's a divorce. So the Spurs thing, I just was looking it up on the fly as you were going, hey, that Spurs ownership thing isn't what you think it is. You're right. I just wanted to share that with everybody.

I think that ship has kind of sailed in San Antonio in general. I don't think Pop's going to be there much longer. I just think the league caught up to them in a lot of ways. And they won the lottery with Tim Duncan. They won the lottery with David Robinson. It's unbelievable. Yeah, but they still extended it. They still extended it like 12 years longer

than any of us thought. They did. It was amazing. It's over, right? Them even making the playoffs last year with that team, the defense was slipping. They still gave the Nuggets something where you watch that series, you're like,

is San Antonio going to win this series? I didn't even want to pick a winner in that thing we were going into it but i'm i don't know if we're about to have a disagreement here but like yes it's over and there's still some people in position with rc and pop there but the roster things like they're two best players lamarcus is 34 and expensive into rosen's 30 and nobody wants to pay him in the league um but it also like if belichick doesn't make the playoffs this year will people say i finally caught up to that patriot way it also like if Belichick doesn't make the playoffs this year, will people say, ah, they finally caught up to that Patriot way? It's like, no, they were kind of due. They were kind of due to fall apart at some point here after 20 years.

Yeah. But I think there's a similarity with Belichick that we've seen with the Spurs where Belichick, what was his last like really good draft? You know, like ultimately it's the drafts that make it it's 2011. The Spurs are in this situation with grand Hill and Tony Parker, where Tony Parker, there's some off court stuff. They have George Hill. He's kind of ready to be a point guard and they're shopping both of them and trying to figure out we could either cut ties with Tony right now and try to get a lottery pick, which they tried to do, or we could trade George Hill. They ended up doing the George Hill trade. Kawhi falls miraculously to the 14th pick and ends up, sets up this Indiana trade where they, which Zach Lowe wrote a whole long piece about that in Grantland many years ago, laying out like all the flukes

that led to that trade actually happening. They keep Parker and Parker is really, really great in 12, 13, 14. Kawhi becomes this guy that he becomes and it all works out. But you know, since 14, what's really happened for them? You know, and I look at the same within the Patriots. There was some stat that was going around the other day about they haven't drafted a pro bowler in the last six drafts. I looked at the same within the Patriots. There was some stat that was going around the other day about they haven't drafted a pro bowler in the last six drafts. I looked at it and I'm like, oh my god. They haven't had one pro bowler?

Was that in Cincinnati? Jamie Collins was the last one. And honestly, he was kind of a weird fit at times too. And then it's like, okay, was he awesome? They actually were fine with him bouncing and then did bring him back a little bit later. You're right. I mean, the draft has been... You're talking about the Tony Parker deal.

He was going to be sent to Toronto for the Valanciunas pick. Yeah. Right? Is that what you're talking about? Yeah. It's crazy. All this stuff that happens in life

where you're like, if one of these things had happened differently, none of this other stuff happened. You could have been at the Herald right now. I could have been having you on my world-famous podcast. I'd be like, let's check in with local beat guy.

Hey, Bill, when do you think? When do you think the bees are going to get started again? Seriously? I've been talking about the high school championships. Um, now it's, there's fork in the road moments,

right? We see that with sports over anything else. Like the whole Tom Brady falls to the paths in the sixth round. And it's like, man, they were smart to take them. Well, they passed them up in the third, fourth, and fifth round. You know?

You need luck. You need skill. The whole thing. So you had, who was your number one team? Number one worst job? I think the Minnesota one's the most problematic one. And it's not the lack of talent that other ones have. It's that i i i think

you're digging yourself out not even digging i think you have some real problems coming and and we already know what's happening like this donovan mitchell stuff in utah like i love when this happens because what i oh i say it i go this job is about having any kind of assets for the next guy that's pissed off in six months because that's what the league has become who for the next guy that's pissed off in six months. Cause that's what the league has become. Who's the next guy to be pissed off. And you'll think, okay, we finally,

all the pissed off guys have finally, they finally settled somewhere else. Like Jimmy Butler was the last mad guy. Okay. Now he's in Miami after getting out of Minnesota, Philly. I mean like Jimmy was like Chicago peace, Minnesota,

you're soft. And Jimmy was right about that stuff. Philly at good. I'm going Jimmy was like, Chicago, peace. Minnesota, you're soft. And Jimmy was right about that stuff. Philly, good. I'm going to go Miami, do my thing. It's like, okay, it's settled. No, it never settles. It never settles. And I'm not saying Donovan Mitchell's going to.

But what's more surprising? Somebody, like the league settling for a year or two where some guy doesn't call his shot and forces his way out? Or the unexpected name like if kawaii can shut it down for a year and demand out of san antonio then anybody can do it and that's why i look at minnesota as one where you go you know hell there's even people saying would he be the first dude to do a five-year extension and then be mad after a year and look who knows they're not in. However, this thing gets started up again. I don't even know if they play any other games.

It gives everybody a delay of hoping they don't have to face their problems for another year. But if they're a 30, you know, sub-30 win team next year, I just think that job is really, really tough. And yeah, maybe right after Garnett just smashing the owner publicly, because it sounds like Garnett thought he was going to get a piece of ownership at some point. He called them snakes. They definitely, they swerved on it. he was going to get a piece of ownership at some point. You call them.

They definitely, they swear there was something. Yeah. There's something went on there. So I think all the Depot, all the Depot is very possible for the get me out of here. Lottery. He's going to be one of the Philly guys.

Definitely. If we're just talking about, and I think Tobias Harris, Dev. Yeah, not Tobias. And I think Devin booker has got to be considered possible too next week's pod we try to gather intel and get people to give us their top

five get me the fuck out of here guys yeah what's the acronym of get gm tfo guys gmtfos towns is one i mean towns they're trading for D'Angelo Russell that was almost like a let's have a kid to save the marriage type of trade right yeah no no let's have a kid a kid will make it better let's do that that was the D'Angelo Russell trade but this is the most expensive kid ever

it's you know it's different yeah and you know by the way they got rid of Wiggins deal who you know look Wiggins if you're a T-Wolves fan you're going alright wait a minute all you guys did was beat up on Wiggins deal who, you know, look, Wiggins, if you're a T-Wolves fan, you're going, all right, wait a minute. All you guys did was beat up on Wiggins the whole time and how he was the most immovable contract. And we got somebody in here who's got a pulse. And now this thing sucks too.

So this was a tough listen if you're a T-Wolves fan. And honestly, I would side with the T-Wolves fans that would be like, oh, wait, Wiggins is good now. Like, are you serious, guys? That hasn't been fair. It doesn't feel good to hear. But you know, it's funny, though, that sometimes the fans get mad at us. Like we're on your side fans. We feel bad for you. That's why we're defending you right now. This is being a Timberwolves fan

sucks. You've had 31 years of shit. You've no good memories. Like we're sticking up for you. If I were in whatever make believebelieve world we're in, if I go, Bill, you got to be a GM of one, you got two options, the Pistons or the T-Wolves, you would take the T-Wolves? No, I would rather have the Detroit job. At least I would be able to kind of mold the roster. See, I would rather have a roster with no assets, no assets in cap space.

And I would want to do the thing for two years where I'm just like, I'm your way station. If you want to dump contracts, I'll take your picks. I'm just going to be grab bag guy for a year and a half. I felt like this is what the Knicks could have done last year. Like, Oh, you can't get rid of Russell Westbrook. I'll take them. Oh, you need, you need Chris Paul. You'll, you'll give me first round picks and Chris Paul. And I give you nothing. Great. I would be that guy for two years. That's what Detroit should be until they can build their team back up. Okay. I got to push back a little bit though, because on the Russ Paul thing, that was more of a switch, but I don't feel like they were necessarily as bad

as the Westbrook contract projects to be in the numbers on Chris Paul's last year at like 45 million almost. Scary stuff. I don't know that... I mean, Houston did a deal because Harden wanted to play with Westbrook and he got the owner to sign off on it. Yeah, but there's a scenario though. There's a scenario where

if the Paul George thing gets pushed through and Westbrook is now stuck on OKC and he did go and he said get me the fuck out of here basically and at that point if I'm OKC I have to trade him if I don't have that

Chris Paul option where was he going who was trading for him I'm saying like I would want to be the team ready to be able to steal a guy like that and maybe even get a pick because I'm taking that kind of salary off, off your hands, saving you luxury tax, all that stuff. Same thing for Chris Paul last year. They couldn't trade Chris Paul last year that went okay. Remember they couldn't trade him. Basically this was a much more talented

version of the gilbert arenas richard lewis thing right so it was these numbers are massive like even if you wanted him you can't even add up enough to even make this thing work out uh i i just i guess there was a little pushback on like it didn't feel like they were necessarily salary dumps like we don't want these guys but it was a matchup for all the chaotic stuff that was going on with OKC. And that look, I'd want to be ready. They want to break those guys up. Yeah,

I like, I like what you're saying there. I think the next deals were a little shorter though. Like I've heard you rip them for that. They did do shorter deals. And that's actually what I think you would do on top of that. You say, I'm going to take all your bad deals and I'm going to,

I'm going to give you a Jabari Parker at 20 million like the bulls did, which was one of my favorite contracts. Cause then was like it's a two-year deal. You're like, no fucking way it's a two-year deal when it was first reported. And you're like, they didn't give him two years and $40 million. It was two years and option at $20 million. And you're like, can we already report that the Bulls are going to turn down that teen option at $20 million? I would think that's going to happen more where, like you're saying,

in a 24-month stretch, go, I'm going to give you a stupid number for a year because I don't want you on my sheet. Caps is overrated though. I would never be the GM that gave Larry Nance $13 million a year. I would never pay somebody who wasn't an all-star or a potential all-star double figures ever. That would be one of my moves. And I, and I just think it's an unassailable approach. I can always find somebody who can do 80% of Larry Nance, the stats and whatever he gave me. I can find that guy every year. I can find, I can grab that guy in the G league. I'm just never paying for non-impact guys. And I'm just leaving roster and flexibility, all that stuff. Can I, I forgot to tell you this one thing I've been thinking about, you know, we always joke about the aggregators,

aggregating things we said in pods and getting blog posts out of them. Cause I feel like this could happen with the Timberwolves be like, we're Sillow and Simmons named Timberwolves worst situation or like the turn it in some way. We call them the aggregators. Can we call them the agro gators? Cause they're a little agro, the agro gators. I feel like the agro gators are gonna come at us a little bit for the temporal of stuff. I don't,

I don't, what, what's the counter? What's the count? I don't know. I'm just, I'm trying to read the future. Like if somebody is going to tell me Phoenix, that situation situation is worse it's a better destination i mean booker's probably

phoenix has booker and ayton are like top 25 top 30 trade assets right now ayton ayton look i i'm not a huge fan but that guy looked good and i think he came back. Yeah. No, his numbers were really good when he came back. He was impressive. He was a problem. And it wasn't just the raw stuff. If you looked at his on-court, off-court, it was like, hey, guess what? They're just better when this guy's on the floor at both ends. And the guy was the number one pick last year, and then he missed time at the beginning of

this year, and it shortened season. So anybody that's going out, turn to the page, okay, fine. He's not going to be Luka. If you're holding it to that standard. Yes. But even in this weird, small as a center, even matter anymore, I'd be trying to find a guy that I could play. That's that size that can run around with all the small guys. And I kind of think that's what Aiden might be at the beginning of it. So, um, Cleveland, I think is a no brainer. Detroit's got all that stuff coming up. Sacramento, I think, is still in the mix.

Charlotte's a fair one to bring up here. But, yeah, a lot of it's on Taylor. And I don't know why a Timberwolves fan would argue against their own owner. That's always kind of weird, too. It's like, hey, we're the 28th worst job, not the 30th. Fuck you guys. Well, people take it personally because it's like, only I can tell you that my family sucks.

You can't tell me. It's like, all right. All right. We're gonna take a break. When we come back, the first of a limited edition series called the rewatch of bowls. Yeah. See what I did there. That's coming up. All right. I'm really excited to do this one because Miller light's going to come up later in the rewatch of bowls. But during this time of social distancing, connecting with friends over a beer today, it looks pretty different. It's the original light beer and my official beer in college. Miller Lite has always been there to bring people together in real time to connect over a few beers. But here's the thing, have Miller time. It's a little tough when you can't be with your people. I know I'm excited just to have drinks with my

friends again. Right now we're doing it on Zoom. Guess what? You can have Miller Lite with your friend on Zoom. You can have Miller Lite with a bunch of your friends on Zoom. It's the beer that makes Miller time possible. It's the original light beer that tastes great. It's less filling, which means it won't get in the way of enjoying time with your people. It's the beer I have gravitated toward really since I was legally allowed to drink beer. Just liked it. Makes me happy holding it. Miller Lite, the original light beer. When you're home, enjoy a classic available for delivery today. Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces. And since we're here,

don't forget two new Ringer podcasts this week. The Wire Way Down in the Hole is launching April 15th, but you can subscribe now on Spotify or Apple. Jamel Hill and Van Lathan are the hosts. And then Flying Coach with Steve Kerr and Pete Carroll, limited edition series that is launching on the Ringer NBA and Ringer NFL feeds. But we will have a feed for that as well that you can subscribe to this week. But check out the first one is dropping on Monday. Very excited about that. Okay, back to the pod.

All right, we're actually on pace. I'm really proud of us. This is, I was trying to get all this in two hours and I feel like we're on pace. So the Michael Jordan documentary, my friend Jason hair is doing for ESPN. It launches next Sunday. It's 10 parts. It is two parts, um, per night for five straight Sunday nights.

First episode on Sunday night is kind of an overview. It's all based in this 97, 98, his last dance, his last season on the bulls. And then it goes backwards, jumps around, does a whole bunch of things. Second episode, um, dives into that season more and does a lot of Scotty Pippen stuff. So be ready for that. But, um, look, even though it's 10 hours, the Jordan story, like there's some real basketball nerd stuff I think we can have fun with here. I thought that over the next six podcasts, starting with tonight, we could pick an MJ game each Sunday and kind of dive into it and explain why we think this was a formative MJ experience game.

So the first one we did, which I asked you if we could do, because I felt pretty strongly about it is game three of the 91 finals. And I think when people talk about the formative first seven years of Jordan's career, first eight years, they always go to the 63-point game against the Celtics. That was his arrival game. The shot against Cleveland, they go to when they finally beat Detroit. And then it kind of just fast-forwards to game five in 91, and it's like,

and Phil told Michael he's got to trust his teammates. Who's open? Pax is open. The famous story. He starts throwing it to Pax, and Pax makes some jumpers. They win the title. He's creating the open. Pax is open. The famous story. He starts throwing it to Pax and Pax and make some jumpers. They win the title.

He's creating the trophy. Game three has been lost in the annals of NBA history. And I'm not exactly sure why. So when I texted you, I want to do this game. What was your reaction? I was surprised, but I'm glad because I hadn't thought about it forever. And it's coming off of a game two where Jordan was basically perfect in the game. He was 15-18, hit 13 straight, and they left Chicago.

And he made the, oh, a spectacular move by Jordan, the bar of Albuquerque. Thank you. And so they win that one 107-86. And you're headed back to LA. Split. And I think. Let's go back further though.

So previous year, 1990. Blazers Pistons final. Good series. People are kind of bummed out. It was the first time we had not had Magic or Bird in a finals, basically since 1980. And, you know, nobody really liked the bad boy Pistons. I know there's been a turn, you know, recently.

I think people have warmed up to them, but back then people were like, fuck those guys. Those guys, we, we just want to see the Celtics and the Lakers or the bulls of the Lakers or whatever. The Pistons were kind of in the way blazers knocked the Lakers out in 90, the 91 season. Can I just jump in on that Pistons thing? Like Isaiah Thomas is one of the most underrated players I think in NBA history yeah he was just filthy and think about that team like the way it was constructed and look Vinny got it going and Dumars had some big games but there were so many times Isaiah had to kind of bail them out sometimes offensively especially in a more physical era as a smaller

player how small he was but Isaiah does this thing where it's like, well, nobody likes us because we beat Bird, we beat Magic, and we beat MJ, and no one likes us, and that's why we're not remembered as much. No, the problem is that you're swimming in this neighborhood that's absurd. The 80s Celtics and Lakers, and then Jordan, six and eight years. And you're back-to-back in that little window.

It's only two. When Magic's in nine of 12 finals, Bird's got his three, MJ's got his six. That's just the way it works. Sometimes we're as basic as counters, and it's not even an anti-Detroit thing, which there's plenty of anti-Detroit out there, but it's not like putting you fourth in those 20 years

is exactly where you belong. Right. They had a little Larry Holmes syndrome. Yes. What about me? What about me? And it's like, well, you're following Muhammad belong. Right. They had a little Larry Holmes syndrome. Yes. What about me? What about me? And it's like, well, you're following Muhammad Ali. Sorry.

We're not going to get excited about you. We're just not. So we have this 91 finals and it just works out. All of a sudden it's Bulls Lakers. Magic is still throwing a hundred miles an hour. He's still fucking awesome. MJ, we were so fired up to finally get him in the finals and he gets there. As it turns out,

it is, uh, it's the only Lakers finals of the 1990s. It's the last one ever at the forum. It's the last game. Three is the last great magic Johnson game that he was involved in. Like the last, the last game you would see in a hardwood classic game five wasn't even though the bulls won the title, that wasn't

a great game. Um, this was year one of NBA on NBC where the halftime show, I don't know if you watch, but it was Bob Costas and Pat Riley. Pat Riley is like the best person who's ever done studio in an NBA game. He was unbelievable. It was such a loss when he went back to coaching. He was lights out. Marv and Nazar were great.

Marv's thrown 130 miles an hour this year. Ahmad, this is his first year as a sideline reporter. John Tesh. And then on top of all this. Don't forget Steve Snapper Jones. Yeah, and the Snapper. You also had really awesome season. So 1991, it's the last year where Bird and Magic

both had legit chances to win the title. It was the year Jordan became the man. You had a really dramatic Final Four because Pistons-Bulls, even though it was only a four-game sweep, that was the trilogy. People were fired up for that. LA-Portland Round 2 was also great.

There were some great earlier series. Celticsers bird bird against person, Reggie Miller Celtics Pistons was great that year. 76 years versus the bowls. It was Barkley apex Barkley, uh, warriors LA, the TMC warriors. That was really fun too. And then I just wrote down all the great people that were playing this season. So for hall of famers, MJ magic, Larry, Isaiah, Hakeem, Drexler, Barkley, Malone, Stockton, McHale, parish, Robinson, Ewing, worthy Dumars and Rodman. But then you have ascending on the green hour, pointing up Pippen, Gary Payton, and Sean Kemp, Reggie Miller, the TMC warriors, KGA, K KJ and Hornacek.

All those guys are in the playoffs. Like the league's fucking loaded. This was before expansion. It's tight and it's just an awesome season and everything crests with this Bulls Lakers series. You must remember this back when, right? Yeah. And you know, I meant to ask you though, because you, I don't want to put you on the spot here because I was looking up everybody's seedings and it's funny that we were on the same

exact page. Cause you thought I was going to like get right into it. And I wrote everybody's playoff down, like in what they had done the year before. Cause I was like, wait a minute. Cause the bulls ran through everybody in this playoff year, which I think is important to bring up three Oh sweep against the Knicks. And that Knicks team wasn't fully constructed. Like Ewing had a bad series for one against Philly. They swept Detroit. That Detroit team had nine fewer wins in the previous year. And so when you go back to that previous year, you know, they had lost in seven, the bulls had in 1990 to a Detroit team that won 59 games. You're like, okay, Detroit's taking a pretty big step back. Um, and this bulls team won 61 games. So I'm like, okay, so where were the Lakers going in all this? You know, they win in seven against Detroit.

They get swept by Detroit. And Detroit felt like they had lost that one. Like 88 should have been theirs. It all evened out. Yeah, and it evens out. But I mean, it just, I think even a Lakers fan, if you're being honest, in 88, it's like, we got one here that maybe we shouldn't have. And Detroit was so pissed off about it the entire year

that that's probably Detroit thinking they should have had a third one. What the hell happened in 90 when the Lakers were 63 and 19 and got blasted in the second round by the Phoenix Suns?

Because I went back and looked at it and there weren't. Go ahead. One of the great underrated playoff upsets that is never brought up or mentioned ever.

Phoenix was a five seat. It was just KJ and Hornacek and chambers in this weird Phoenix team. And it was just a bad matchup for the Lakers and the Lakers. I think had Riley either. Right. Was Riley gone? I think he was. And they had Randy.

That's what I'm wondering. Coach. Yeah. So that weird coach thing, magic was the MVP that season. Um, it was just a bad matchup, but all of a sudden they lost the series. So, um, at that point people thought, Oh, or the Lakers done. Then they just retool, they get Perkins, they get Vlade Divac and all of a sudden have this, uh, really kind of funky, unconventional physical team that

when you're watching the series, like this game three, the amount of low post stuff was bonkers. But a couple other things. It was still Riley, by the way. Fun was on the staff. Yeah, I mean, they went 63 and 19. And I was looking at the stats because I was like, wait a minute. Is there an injury that I'm missing here?

They lost to Phoenix in five games. KJ went off. Yeah, was looking at the stats. I was like, wait a minute. Is there an injury that I'm missing here? They lost to Phoenix in five games. KJ went off. Yeah, he went nuts. He just absolutely went off. But yeah, that is a very... I mean, the grand scheme of things. Who cares about this stuff? That was the secret.

Achilles heel of that Lakers team was stopping point guards. Because even the Sleepy Floyd game, the famous game when he just went completely out of his mind in the 87 series, but Tim Hardaway, KJ, Isaiah, these guys would let go off. They didn't really have, it would be basically Byron Scott

or Cooper trying to guard these guys. You mentioned the 91 Bulls, how they ripped through people. So their last 37 games, they were 30 and seven. They were 61 team that year, but they're 30 and seven. They really kind of came together the second half of the year, 15 and two in the playoffs, nine double digit wins. They only lost two games in the playoffs. One was an overtime game three against Barkley and the Sixers.

The other was game one of the finals, which was the last second three by Sam Perkins. And MJ missed wide open jumpers to win both of those games. So they legitimately could have gone undefeated in the playoffs. They also, they swept the back-to-back champs, the Pistons, and murdered that team. They killed that team. That team was done.

Then they basically swept the Lakers because they lost game one. They won the next four and that ended showtime. Magic retired a few months later. I should also mention I lost money on this game. I'd started gambling a year before and we thought for sure Lakers at home.

I think they were favored by like two and a half, something like that. We're like, oh yeah. And got kicked in the nuts by the MJ era. But game one, Lakers win. Huge perk of 3MJ missed the game winner. Game two, he atones. Awesome. But they also put Pippen on magic that game.

Pippen's hounding them. They're tag teaming magic all the way up the court. MJ, but then a lot of Pippen. And they're just trying to wear him down and it's working. When you were watching this in game three, did it make you wonder why every team didn't do this to Magic or was this an older Magic? Well, it

isn't an older Magic though. He's 31. So we can talk about the tread. I left this game going good Magic is the best. It's so much fun. Oh my God, I thought the same way. It's so funny.

It's not that I've ever had a moment where I'm driving around going, hey, do you underrate magic? And I'm thinking, no, I've never. Like, I've always been very pro magic. No, I think we do. I think he's underrated. But then again, I see these things and you go, it's just so stupid. Like, no one does what he does because even LeBron at his size, right?

LeBron being this big point guard for really long stretches, the way Magic would just back you down and his post moves are as good as anyone. I'm not talking like Magic's post moves, what he could have done. Like Magic could have been so many different players. So if we're just going to do the Magic thing here now because we can't help ourselves, I'm all for it. Because in my craziest phases, look, MJ is the best ever, okay? The oddity of these insecure Jordan fans, it's like, you know, most people actually just concede that he's the best. Like, you're arguing this position that almost no one else wants to argue. And there's moments with MJ

in this game that will bring up where you're like, this is kind of why people look at him and say he's on a different level. But what I would do when I was younger and try to challenge this stuff all the time, I go, you know, if you really wanted to break it down, what if you said you could have five of any players, five on five, so five cloned guys against any other five. And I would take in the clone conversation, which is obviously totally made up five magics because magic really could have done anything he wanted. He's a six, nine point guard. That's overpowering everybody. And he's backing you down with this dribble where his ass is right on you the whole time. And you can't do anything. And if he gets you deep enough for the post, he ate up Jordan.

Every time he had Jordan single in the post, he, he killed them. And you know, look, that's just a size difference. And that was something that actually the Lakers are doing throughout this game. His passing out of the post, his reading of the double, all of the stuff that he did. Obviously, this goes back to when Kareem was hurt in the Sixers when he was a rookie and goes crazy in Game 6. But Magic could have done anything

he wanted at any time. And it just happened to be that he always had these other good players. It's like, so you don't need to shoot as much. We need you to initiate the offense. But this game is like an awesome, except late. It gets a little frustrating, but there's so many moments in this game where you just sit back and I was howling watching magic play again.

Cause it was just fun to watch magic Johnson. I'm with you. I had him in my book. I had him fourth. It's too low. No. And then LeBron, he kept going when LeBron won in 16 and you're like, okay, now it's probably Jordan one, LeBron two, Russell three, something like that. But after watching, I hadn't really sat down and watched a vintage magic game in a while. And I'm just thinking like, honestly, to argue magic versus LeBron is

ludicrous. Both of those magic was fucking unbelievable. He was every bit as good as LeBron. He just didn't play as long. His career. And it was, it was a 12 year career instead of an 18 year career or whatever LeBron's going to end up with. But God damn magic was unstoppable. Unstoppable. So magic's post moves like his spin baseline. Either way that was, I mean, he could bring you hook shots across the middle. And one of the things that was kind of the key theme in this game, if we go basketball,

nerdish is that Chicago was big on doubling on the catch, you know, different teams do different things. They double. Like, rarely are you going to see an NBA team just straight up double somebody in the post the whole time. But they double on the catch. And they'd send, like, Jordan loved that stuff.

The stuff where he, you know, years later swipes Carl Malone because he comes baseline because Malone takes too long. And you should have seen that because that's something MJ loved to do. He'd sneak off you and come baseline. But the third guy needs to pay attention to what that rotation is off the double and the bulls as impressive as they were defensively because they have moments in this game you're like this group man swarming fourth quarter overtime yeah just stupid like the bulls intensity defensively this is something you should be showing kids right if you're a high school coach

how special that was but they sucked off the double with the third guy and magic ate him up. And even Divots who you're reminded like, holy shit, like that guy was so skilled. They, when late, when the Lakers would get it rolling, Chicago was stuck in this doubling the post catch where they were constantly getting burned on it because magic was seeing everything. And then magic would add his little flair to it. But yeah, there are really long stretches here and they get up. I mean, I don't want to get too far ahead. Cause I know how you're kind of running this. Can I do one thing on that though? Yeah. The thing that jumped

out at me, cause I hadn't really watched a magic game intently in a while. He, by, by like 87, he adds this low post element in this back down thing and just gets better at every year. And he wins the MVP in 87 and 89 and 90 and is every bit as good as, as Jordan offensively, Jordan, I think was a better all around player, but you watch the spacing, knowing what we know now watching this game and you have this completely

unstoppable magic backing down guys where it's like, there's no answer to this because if you double team them, he will, he will find the right guy to pass to. If you have cutters, you're getting a layup or a dunk. And yet the Lakers didn't understand the spacing part. So they have like, first of all, they didn't make a three pointer in this game. There's only one, one for 11 total in these three pointers. Like now, if you took this Laker team, you'd been like, okay,

like if we went in a time machine after game three and, and just were able to talk to Mike Dunleavy, be like, okay, here's what we do. Put Byron Scott in the corner. Just keep them there. Just trust me.

Just keep them there and tell them all he does to shoot corner threes, put Sam Perkins at the top, just put them there and then put any shooter in the other corner and just let Magic cook. Just let him do his thing. He'll find guys. Just trust me. But they didn't know how to do that.

And it's like so cluttered. And in that fourth quarter in the OT, the Bulls were just so fantastic defensively. They were just able to swarm. Everybody's within 15 feet of each other. There's no spacing at all but i'm with you i the magic spin moves to both sides it's unbelievable he's so good i urge everybody to watch this i really enjoyed it god i fucking loved watching that guy uh i i was

like i got up and kind of it was weird like i watched the first quarter and got up was like this is awesome. I'm just so glad. Like I took a break because I was having almost too much fun and I wasn't paying enough attention. And by the way, we should mention, he doesn't have like, it's not like he's, you know, incredible in this game.

Like this is, what did he, oh, he had those like, he had like one of those on his way to a big triple double first halves but then they really from the third late third quarter on they they fell apart in this one can we go to back to one thing though like 22 22 10 and 6 typical magic stats but it wasn't like an awesome game or anything anyway god i think one of the most important things when you go into this game though is trying to watch it through the prism of what we're talking about. MJ's in his seventh year, okay? And I've said this often, but if MJ were a player today,

putting up the numbers he put up, he would get trashed by 50% of the media because he hadn't won yet. You thought LeBron had it bad. If MJ had his numbers and losing in the playoffs it would have been hey you know year six oh mj but he was he was getting it though but he was getting it he was we had less ways to get it right we didn't have the same we didn't have first take back then if we had first take it would have been the topic every day. Absolutely. And you know what? We know our dads were like, probably specifically your dad and my dad,

were like, yeah, you know, whatever, 63 points and a loss, you know, probably doing that kind of stuff. Oh, yeah. I was doing that too. So you have to, you can't watch this stuff. Oh, hey, this is the guy who's got six rings. This is the guy with zero rings. And this is a Lakers team that's been in the finals

basically for a decade straight. And yes, it's starting to leak a little bit here but magic is still you know arguably the the second best player to jordan being the best player in the league at this time and they play on this theme a lot with marv albert who you're right is throwing absolute 99 on the paint in this so. So good. Where there was a moment where Jordan doesn't miss a shot for 13 attempts in game two. He hits 13 straight shots. And there was this thing where he had looked to the Lakers bench and Byron Scott got all upset about it, right?

Byron Scott's like, he's taunting us. And I thought he kind of was taunting them. And then MJ sat down and was like, I wasn't taunting anybody. Of course, NBC never shows a replay of it ever. The lack of replays in this finals, it was tough. And you could kind of tell it was NBC's first year with it. There was also another moment in this game where they missed a block.

They just missed the play in the commercial altogether. And then Marv's like, Hey, there was a block and Terry Teagle's at the free throw line. So you didn't miss. Sorry. Yeah. Right.

And then the guy who made that directing decision went on to do Nesson games for the Red Sox for a decade. Right. Right. Because it's like. Yeah, that guy got shut out. Well, I'm just saying, like, Nesson does this thing. It's like, walk off home run. All right.

First, this place that supplies paper brings you coffee. And we'll get to the walk offoff home run right after tom karen you know and you're like jesus like every red sox game i watch like every big play it's like we're seriously going to commercial already um the point and i'll make i'm gonna finish here on this point because i'm dragging it out but byron scott's looking at when he looks in the mirror he's thinking a handful of rings we're in the finals we're the freaking lakers and this is mj who hasn't won shit who yeah you made a bunch of shots but like don't talk to us that way that seems inconceivable that an opponent would be saying mj shouldn't

be taunting us on the bench after making 13 straight but it's still so early like this is the stage two or act two whatever whatever of Jordan's NBA career, where I thought that storyline that they kept revisiting in the broadcast was just really funny to think about because that's not the way we've ever consumed Jordan. But at that time, Byron Scott thinks he's right. And he,

you know, cause he's like, who is this guy? I think he is looking at us. Like we're one, one in the finals going back to LA. We just split. Like we're going to beat you guys.

Yeah. There was some institutional arrogance from the eighties and I'd kind of forgotten a lot of it where people just love the Celtics and Lakers and that whole thing. And it was like, it saved basketball in a lot of ways. Magic and bird, I think were two of the most likable players for other fans from other teams who were just like, wow, I just really enjoy watching these guys. They go at it in the 84, 85, 87 finals. They're widely credited as basically saving the NBA and pushing it to another level. So I went back and I read Jack McCallum's piece after game four, the next game. So sports illustrated is closing on a Sunday

game four was on a Sunday. So he's writing that piece and he kind of goes into this whole thing about like, Oh man, this MJ thing. And this is a paragraph. He writes the flip side to Jordan's great gift of inspiring wonder is that he invariably inspires jealousy and resentment too. And champion or not, he cannot match the Pied Piper popularity of magic. There's a little bit of an anti Jordan undertone to this traceable to some Laker players and to some members of the media, almost as if Jordan must be torn down so that magic can remain on top. It shouldn't be that way.

There's room for both. So I, we're trying to make this point here, but this is, this is how everyone felt at the time. It was kind of like, fuck this guy. This is still magic and birds league. And we had bird on the Celtics. We're in the fucking back brace, trying to make it to the finals again, almost doing it. And then you have magic, like with these new teammates, all this stuff still unbelievable to watch and he has a chance to win another finals and and jordan and pippen are like the bad guys and now and they're young years it flips if all those guys right they're so young too like when

they're being introduced you go okay jordan's in his seventh year like he's pippen's only a few years into the league baby in this game yeah hor baby in this game, yeah. Horace Grant, you know, is young. And those are their three best guys. Like, that's actually kind of back, you know, growing up when we were watching these games. That's a young group to win an NBA title, even though Jordan's been in the league for seven years. Really, really crazy athletic.

And so, you know, that Pistons team, when they started coming up in the late 80s and they were able to throw, you know, Rodman out there with Isaiah and do Mars. And I remember when Rodman really started guarding bird, you know, my favorite player of all time and just being like, kind of nervous. Like,

Oh man, what's this? This guy, bird, bird, like can't go by this guy. What's going on? He was just at a whole other level of athleticism.

And then you see like Pippen and Grant and then even like guys off the bench, like Cliff Levingston's a beast in this game. But, uh, I, this Bulls team was really good. The 92 version was probably, you know, they had a little more confidence. I think Pippen was better. Um, but I think this run they had was probably the best of all those three first title seasons. Pretty unstoppable. The weird thing about this game is that once he's want to talk about spacing and stuff like what

every time I see Bill Cartwright get a touch in this game, I'm like, okay, it's just a waste of possession because it's never really set up. It's just, hey, it's Bill's turn to shoot. It's the old inside out thing, but nobody's never really set up. It's just, hey, it's Bill's turn to shoot. It's the old inside-out thing. But nobody's shooting. The Lakers have no shooting, by the way. They get destroyed on the boards because of that athleticism you're talking about. They played a bunch of different centers.

Even the Bulls. I mean, Stacey King comes in, and Marv's like, there's talk about weight issues. And, you know, he's not happy telling Phil Jackson. He's not happy about his minutes. Out of shape to end it. I mean, Marv has a heater in this game where they're talking Vladi,

and he goes to Fratello, and he says, well, you see magic, talking to Vladi. And Vladi encourages that. He says he keeps him straight. He goes, but some would argue part of that European mentality floating from game to game, not a ton of intensity. Coach, czar, is that fair? Like, he just straight up in the middle of a finals game is like,

people say the Euros are soft and flighty, Zara. Your thoughts? And Zara's like, yes, it is true. Fratello agreed with him. I know. Imagine that happening in a broadcast now. Fratello's like, well, you know, they don't have to go this hard over there.

And then he went language to fully tell the story. Fratello's like, you know, there's a language barrier. You wonder at times if they know the plays. And look, Dirk got shit on forever. I mean, he was just another big soft hero. So in the few years of everyone being like a heightened sensitivity about any way we talk about anything,

just to go back 30 years and Marv in the middle. And by the way, Vladi was awesome in this game. He was unbelievable. He's 22 years old. He was fantastic, but it was funny. They were making it seem like he had like a translator in the sidelines.

I'm pretty sure he could speak English back then. Yeah, guys were talking to him. He's bringing the ball up and he goes, Czar, there are the Euros. I love that part too. So the quick recap of this game, the Lakers went up 13 midway through the third quarter. They're pounding Chicago down

low. Chicago's doing some weird things. Phil Jackson, he's got Jordan on Divac. I didn't really totally understand that one. And he got eaten up. He got eaten up, by the way. Divac was great against it. And weren't you thinking I'm going to let you finish, but this is

the moment where if you were watching this live in 1991, you're like, finish, but this is the moment where if you were watching this live in 1991, you're like, okay, this series is over. Or if you bet on the Lakers in game three, you're like, okay, I hit this one. No, you didn't. But they have an 18-2 run. Phil calls three timeouts during the run, and they can't stop it. 67-54, five minutes left.

Jordan's just bad up to this point. Marv even says, Michael Jordan has been off his game to this point. Uh, D Vatch had 21 through the third quarter. Bulls come back a little bit. They're down six after three. And it's like, for some reason, Jordan or, or Magic are just not coming out. The guys are just leaving them. They both play over 50 minutes in this game. Phil finally takes out Jordan with like six minutes left, brings in Cliff Levingston. No, it's four.

But this is insane. Or five minutes left. You're talking about the fourth quarter, right? Yeah. They don't have the graphic in this broadcast, so it was hard to take notes and be like, but about four plus minutes, he sat MJ in game three of a possession game.

He sits him down at four plus and puts him back in like a minute and a half, two minutes later. Yeah, because he missed like two in traffic layups that he would make every time. He just had no legs. He had one field goal made over 20 minutes. So if you go back to watch this thing,

thinking you're getting some 40 point MJ masterpiece, that's not what this is. So, all right. So why do we pick this game as one of the six important MJ games? So the bulls are up three, two minutes left. Grant loses it. Magic does a fucking unbelievable lefty spin move. I wrote magic, fucking unbelievable,

lifty spin move in my notes. I have the same notes. Three bulls offensive rebounds. Grant put back. They run the graphic. 40 to 25 bulls rebounds. Perkins makes a driving hook. Lakers are now down one with a minute left.

Comes down to MJ. Bricks a jumper. Bricks it like it's like a backboard. It just comes flying off. Lakers come back down. They're really swarming Magic from far away, trying to not let him do anything. He throws a D-bot.

You kind of lose it. Picks it up. Stumbles in. Makes this amazing layup and gets fouled and does the famous thing where he runs over to Magic with his hands down and jumps into Magic. It was really funny. It was so idolized magic.

You just tell magic hugs him. It's a bad pass by magic, by the way. It was sloppy. Yeah, the whole thing got messed up. Lakers up to 11 seconds left. NBC gives Vlade Divac the Miller Lite player of the game. Do you notice that? I had a distant broadcast. You come out of a timeout.

Marv's like, the Miller Lite player of the game is Vlade Divac. 24 and 6. And I'm like, the Bulls are really down too. Not bad for a Euro that lacks intensity and focus. He'll drink these beers lackadaisically like he does everything else. Someone may have to tell him it's a beer and not milk. The language barrier being what it is. So the Bulls take it out from under the Lakers basket.

MJ goes coast to coast, beats two guys. Divac comes over, little jumper, makes it with four seconds left. And I think, honestly, up to that point of his career, this is the biggest shot of his career. People would go the, the quote unquote, the shot over Cleveland. Fine. They want a best of five series against Cleveland. They lost the next round, the 63 point game. They lost. They, they, the Celtics beat them like a drum in 86, 87. Uh, anything else you want to give me an 89, 90 didn't really matter. They didn't go anywhere. This game, if he misses that shot, they're playing two days later on a Sunday.

He's he's just had a shitty game. Everybody's like, wow, Michael Jordan doesn't have it. Not tough enough. Doesn't choked, choked stage a little too big for him. It's still magic and birds league. Now there's all this pressure on that game four. And there was a possibility where he could have like kind of gone to the dark side. It doesn't like a Kobe 2010 game seven. Like I'm winning this game. I don't need teammates anymore.

The fact that this shot went in sets everything up that happens for the rest of the decade for him. Now, would it have happened anyway? Probably. Yes. But maybe even definitely. happens for the rest of the decade for him. Now, would it have happened anyway? Probably. Yes. But maybe even definitely, but I don't know if it would have happened in this series. I do think this series could have flipped if the Lakers win this game. I think it could have been

very similar to that 88 finals where the Pistons lose the series. And you're just like, what the fuck just happened? Pistons were better. How did they not win that? It did have the potential because they blew game one, too. He makes it. Lakers blow the out-of-bounds pass, goes to OT. The rest is history. So on that play, and you're right, there's this really long stretch.

As I said, one field goal over 20 minutes. Marv's letting MJ have it. This is before MJ got status on NBC. Marv is constantly reminding you how bad MG's been playing and that third quarter is just so weird because it looks like Magic and the Lakers are going to run them out of the building the forum was oddly quiet for a game that went into the night I thought it had like real lulls throughout the broadcast and then you're like okay you know the Chicago team probably too young their first year in the finals you know

all the stuff people thought ahead of time and I do think the Lakers were favored in Vegas to win this series from what I was able to. OK, so that shot after Vlade's got this absurd and won and Chicago grinded to get this thing even. It wasn't some awesome run. Like, you just keep looking down and you're like, wait, they're down eight. Oh, they're down six. They cut this thing to four. Like, how did this team cut it to four at the end of the third quarter and put together this run? And a lot of it was rebounding. And despite what I didn't like about their double teams and some of the weird ISOs where Vladi got MJ in the post

single covered the way you mentioned, they would not only attack magic, but they started full court pressing. They were running traps magic at six,9 dribbled through a trap where it looked like he was going to get stuck back court on a violation. And just seeing him get through that trap, I'm like, I can't believe a 6'9 guy just dribbled through this trap. But what Chicago was doing a lot like what we see in so many playoff teams in recent basketball is they blitz the point guard off the screen. So bring the two up.

And it's not that we think we stopped everything, but we're delaying you getting into your 24 second shot clock, eight seconds over another five or six seconds. You know, now maybe you're actually face facing the basket and ready to go, but you only get eight seconds left on the shot clock. And Chicago was doing that a lot. And it was just so impressive. And then you think of like how you'd want to build a team. You'd want really good offensive players that are long. They also multiple on defense i just went canadian pronunciation because i'm so excited about this but to see pippen and jordan running around and just jumping into all these passing lanes and you're right like levingston has great moments off of the bench here so grant grants the other grant grants so yeah grant's probably just

criminally underrated too but then it's like well what is he a superstar like no he isn't because that's the other thing is where when I'm looking at these rosters, I go, who's the third guy for LA? Because Worthy has overall decent numbers, and he has some big shots, but then you look at it and you're like, oh, well, he was hurt. Like, okay, how hurt was he? He had started to move into a different phase of his career right around here. He had all the North Carolina years

and then all those Laker years where they're just playing 95 game seasons every year. And I think his career and the Riley practices were legendary, these three-hour practices. And you look at his career and you think like, why didn't that guy play for 18 years? I think he played- He's done early. Yeah, he was done within 10. Back then when you were like 31, did you go, okay, you're probably going to be done at 33

and that's kind of the way it works. No trainers, any of that stuff. I just think in the game, you're going, there's this level of intensity that Chicago's bringing where the athleticism is an advantage and the Lakers have no shooting.

They have none. Byron Scott's terrible in this game. He misses every single shot that he takes he takes yeah so on that last play I've also seen people like hey you got to double him and you're like okay you could have doubled him in a way where you don't let him bring up the ball but that is taking all the credit away from how tough that shot was that he hits because Byron does a really good job on him late on a couple of those possessions when MJ still missing shots. He stays in front of him, gets him to take kind of a tough angle, elbow,

not even elbow, more at the 45-degree angle where it's just like that's a tough shot and MJ misses it. This is a full-court, time-running-down floater that he also gets up over Divas. Who comes flying at him. And when you watch the replay from like the baseline on it, that's an insane shot. And you're right. It never gets replayed.

And he was having a shitty game. Nothing was going good for him the whole game. That was the other thing. So I don't know. It just got lost in history. And then he strips Divas, sends it to OT. By the way, OT, did you notice? Did you see who was inbounding with three seconds

left of the Lakers, the ball on their side? Magic's inbounding. So now you're inbounding to Divac, Perkins, and you had three seconds left. And then obviously after they screw up that position, it goes to OT. So go ahead. I would have had Magic trying to post up, right? From

trying to do a lob past him, spread the floor for him or something. Anyway, OT, uh, it's tied with three minutes left. Scott misses a three. They get the rebound.

Magic misses a wide open three. And, and probably cause he was, he was tired. MJ comes down and makes just a fucking insane driving reverse layup, which, you know, the baseline it's him. Yeah. Yeah. Baseline. It's him. Kobe, like a handful of guys who do that as guards. just a fucking insane driving reverse layup, which, you know. The baseline?

Yeah, baseline. It's him, Kobe, like a handful of guys who do that as guards. It's like the Dr. J deal, almost. Right. I mean, it's not as absurd as that, but it's in that class. It's coming back because he does it again. Pippen fouls out.

Perkins makes two free throws. It's still tied. There's like a little over two minutes left. Same play with MJ. They double team him. He breaks it. Does the same reverse baseline Dr. J move, which was, I just love, cause he couldn't make an outside shot. And he's just like, I'm just getting to the basket. Next play, they get a stop. MJ drives down again, does a little lob pass for grant layup. All of a sudden they're up for Perkins, Mrs. Levingston, big lead rebound. Uh, Jordan gets again, post up bullies into the

lane, gets fouled. They're up six. They end up winning it. He basically, I, I, this is one of the reasons I think this is one of the five most important games of his career. He solves a situation where he's not making shots and he's just like, Hey, I got to win this game. How do I do it? The one time they needed to make a little shot, he makes it.

He just starts going to the line, making plays on D and just kind of solves the Lakers in real time. And by the end of that game, you're like, Oh fuck, they're going to win the series. Like you just kind of knew, whereas a half hour earlier, like, Oh, the Lakers areakers are gonna win this series the bulls aren't ready yet that's why this

is a crazy game and i can't play i can't believe nobody ever talks about it so on the mj stuff because he's still on fire in the first half like he's he's hitting some shots and then you're like okay he's gonna figure this out we talked about him being subbed out at that point both he and magic are both over 50 minutes you know how we always look at the start of overtime guys are so tired they started eldon campbell at the start of overtime which is weird because they're just used to everybody like who are your five and pippen had fouled out by the way at the end of regulation so mj did this in overtime without pippen i don't know if you already said that i'm sorry if i'm repeating i think he fouled out with like three minutes left in a OT.

Was when, when he did, that's what I had in my notes. Really? No. Yeah. Uh, let's agree to disagree.

We're at the two hour mark. I know. I just have, I have 92, 92 overtime and then Pippen fouled out. And then I have Paxson's two to make it 94, 92. So I,

I thought he was out. Uh, by the way, didn't you think, didn't you think John Paxson was this like Steve Kerr three point shooter type? Like he didn't shoot any threes in this game. Basically he made one. And in general, this team didn't really shoot threes at all.

And at the end of the game and regulation, they're coming out of the timeout right before MJ makes that big shot for tell us like, I like it. They have Hodges out there and packs. I like it. Go for three, go for the win. And it's like, oh,

that's why you've never won a title. Mike Fratello. That's the worst idea of all time. How about getting Michael Jordan? Um, what I, what I loved in, in seeing what was happening here was guys were really tired.

Yeah. Like noticeably spent. and that was a big difference between a younger bulls team that was more athletic and it just an exhausted lakers team that was so big and when they got it going it was just big guys making all these buckets right around the basket and whenever you hear people if you're younger listening to this right now you didn't grow up with mj and you hear about like this other gear that he had and if the only guy you think that had it was kobe like this is the kind of game where guys are like now this is where mj just goes all right like i can only do this on my own i'm exhausted everybody's you know tired mj would have to be to miss like two minutes towards the end of a fourth quarter

game three of the finals that's how tired this guy was and he finds a way to make those reverse layups in the baseline and not that you or i need reminders but just you know how when you watch like a jungle cat walk and it's this body control that it's just so smooth and right there's just nothing like jordan in that his athleticism jumps out in this game that he's he's a guy that's like sort of in another tier like early Randy Moss you're like this guy there should be another league that he should play in above the NFL or Pedro when he was at his peak we're like there should be another league above the majors that he's pitching in that MJ and we're talking about the greatest player ever so this should be too surprising, but this unbelievable coil and body control and explosion,

but then to stay aggressive when the other nine guys are too tired to be as aggressive as he is, this was a willed win. That can be a cliche. It could be used inaccurately. This is just a perfect example of him doing this stuff where it's just, okay, like I'm, I'm just going to find a way. And you know, it's, it's his first title. So we're still talking about him being in

his prime athletically too. I think of those first three title seasons, the two most important games are this game and the Charles Smith game where that, where those performances were just, there's, there's more going on than just the basketball. This game he's, he's exhausted. He can't make a shot. He still figures it out. The Charles Smith game was really a terrifying situation because if they don't cut that out, now they're down three, two, but game seven's in New York. It's just a bad matchup. They're kind of tired anyway. That's the, it's the third straight. They played a lot of games. The media is just descended on Jordan at that point. And you feel like there's a chance they actually might break. And then that

whole sequence is just unbelievable. The four blocks, poor Charles Smith. Like you're talking about probably the greatest athletic team of that decade. Just wouldn't let him score. Like, yeah, you blame Charles Smith a little bit, but you also have, you have Jordan and Pippen to transcendent athletes with Horace Grant. And they're just like, you're not scoring. We're not letting you have this. Um, I would show those two games first. If I were like, what were those early bulls teams? Like, cause it's like, not about the highlights. It's it's the other stuff that made it special like you could go oh yeah he made six threes in the first half against Drexler um oh he put up 54 against the Knicks when everybody was bitching that he was at Atlantic City like you could hit

all those things but I just the sheer will games are my favorites yeah and that's what this one is and you could you know even though I still can't understand why they would let him get stuck in the post with Divac so much and Magic was just so good in the post at this point in his career, like Jordan couldn't really do anything with him because the size difference is significant when you see those two guys standing next to each other in the post. But beyond the layups and winning this thing in overtime, just being like, hey,

everybody, it's over. What this Bulls team could do defensively when they cranked it up and to see MJ pick up Magic the whole time and then run doubles at him and then the full court press at certain times and then every time somebody would get kind of caught up with the ball right as they got over half court the Lakers are trying to get some sort of the Lakers have so many bad offensive possessions in overtime there's at one point like a 14 foot Sam Perkins runner where it looks like he's falling down and you're going you know this is sort of that Daryl Morey thing where I agree with him it's like why would I even

allow these guys to have the ball in their hands during these major possessions? Like, we can do better than a Sam Perkins runner at 14 feet with him off of the dribble. But that was because the Bulls' defense was clogging these guys up and it felt like every time that somebody would get close to being trapped, even after they crossed half court, or you've got these guys waving their arms.

I mean, MJ sitting there is the best player in the world and he's waving his arms like a kid on the Hoyas in the early 80s. You know, like never conceding anything. And every time the pass would be to the sideline, because it would just be like, Jesus, somebody else take it so we can settle down and get set up on offense. Then Jordan Pippen would be just flying and deflecting the ball then too. Like how many times do you see in this game where it's a pass to the bench to a laker and then a bulls player would just come running over slash

it down and they would start getting something going the other way and pace wise like the lakers this was not some showtime performance they wanted to beat you in a submission no they wanted to they want to go super slow yeah magic back down they were playing chess in this one. So you're saying more Terry Teagle. That's the other thing. He would let Terry Teagle loose in this game. When they showed the game,

it was game one and two bench numbers. You're like, okay, this Lakers bench didn't have much. A.C. Green, Terry Teagle, Drew, Eldon Campbell at this point, Michael Thompson, he never even gets into game three. The thing was AC green was good. They just had too many forwards because they had AC green and D botch. They'd Eldon Campbell and then they had Perkins worthy. And it's like, you can only play two of those guys at a time. I'm surprised they weren't

able to figure out like another shooter, but Byron Scott, Byron Scott, not hitting two jumpers in this game may have been the difference to like to keep, keep them honest. And then towards the end, Byron's trying to get one to go down and they're not even good shots. Like I understand he's frustrated, you know, Byron Scott still scoring like 14 a game.

So, and then he got hurt. He got hurt at the end of game four. So to where they, and then the series is over. Well, that was fun. The first episode of the rewatch of Bulls. We haven't decided which one to do for game two yet,

for next week yet, but we'll have a good one. This is my last thought. There were no flagrant fouls in this. There's only one sort of collision with Perkins. People made layups. No one was beheaded. There were no deaths. No one retired after because it was too tough

um but there was an amazing moment in the second half when uh they called MJ for a push off on a layup it was a terrible call

and he didn't yeah and all he did was stare it was a bad call it was a terrible call and Fratello liked the call he said it was a good call one of the other officials

was calling in and one it was a driver he just sort of was up and his arms were up and the other guy's head hit his arm and then the were up and the other guy's head hit his arm and then the guy underneath

changed the call and MJ didn't even argue. He stared at him, gave him one of these. There's very little arguing. It's so beautiful to watch. You can actually play a 48-minute NBA game

and not have to have everybody argue the entire time. But I cannot hamper. I'm going to say this. Every time we go back and watch these games, I'm not saying the defense is overrated the defense of this era is overstated it's basic it's guarding less area but guys actually made layups without broken limbs and

just remember that next time you say that a guy in today's era couldn't handle the physical nature of that game because honestly they'd pull up from so far away they would test him for whether or not he's a witch we didn't uh we didn't talk about scotty pippen enough but we can hit him at another game because he was awesome in this game too and one of my favorites you barkley you loved i love pippen i need to do a big pippen where i don't say anything the whole time because i'm always i never can tell if i've under or overrated Pippen. So I need you to do a full Pippen 20 minutes. Maybe we do that next week because I think the second episode of the MJ thing, there's, there's definitely a pick a Pippen run in that episode. So we could, uh, we could do some then this was fun. The rewatchables. I think this worked. Uh, Rosillo.

Well, we can listen to your podcast, the Ryan Rosillo podcast. Uh, well, you'll have multiple guests. How many do in one or two this week? Oh, I think I'm going to do two again.

You know, I, whatever I, I, people seem to like them. Um, I, you know,

obviously I have a lot of other projects that are, you know, flying around, but yeah, we're going to have Trent Dilfer on and we talked to him about whether or not he really said two is better than Dan Marino. So I sent him the text and be like, do you want to clear this up? And so he's going to come on and also some more NFL draft stuff. We'll have Todd McShane at some point and you never know big,

big musician guy now. So, you know, we're just doing some different stuff, but we'll do a lot of NFL draft coming to the next couple of weeks. So we're good. All right. Good to see you as always. See you next week. Okay. Thanks to world central kitchen.

Don't forget. We're trying to raise some money for them. Go to the ringer.com slash WCK. If you want to help, uh, from my standpoint, we have a rewatchables podcast, basic instinct, NC 17. Just be careful.

Just be careful with your kids in the car. Listen to this one. Uh, there is a disclaimer before it, now the ribbon just, wow. I don't know what else to say, but, uh, this is everything you wanted from a completely over the top basic instinct pod. So that's happening. A couple of book of basketball podcasts this week as well. We did the 2002 draft and we're going to do the 2003 draft with Chad, Chad Ford, my old friend, my old friend from ESPN, my old colleague. I'm on his podcast this week as well. You can check that out. So that's all coming up and we'll do at least one more BS pod until then. Don't forget to check out the ringer.com slash WCK.

Stay safe. Listen to the doctors. Listen to the scientists. Happy holidays. Talk to you soon. I don't have.