The Bill Simmons Podcast - Zach Lowe on Westbrook's Houston Reinvention, CP3 Trades, MVP Sleepers, and Dumbest NBA Teams | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: July 15, 2019

HBO and The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by ESPN’s Zach Lowe to discuss Russell Westbrook's trade to the Rockets, Chris Paul's future on the Thunder, NBA pre-agency, the top 10 NBA players, specialization vs. generalization, 2019-20 MVP speculation, a Western Conference preview, consequences of trading future draft picks, and more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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And then last week, we did When Harry Met Sally, if you missed that, if you love that movie. So check all that out. Coming up, my old friend Zach Lowe first. Our friends from pearl jam all right we're taping this early Monday afternoon West Coast time. He's on the East Coast. He's my old Grantland teammate. He's at ESPN now.

He hosts the Low Post on the ESPN podcast network, and he writes for ESPN.com, and you've seen him on ESPN shows. He's Zach Lowe. How are you? What's up, my friend? How are you? What a perfect time for us to get back together for a pod after one of our favorites, Russell Westbrook,

traded in one of the most controversial trades that we've had. I came on immediately after and did just like my off the cuff reaction. And then I've been thinking about it all weekend. And I think what's the most staggering thing about this trade is the reaction within the league afterwards and how polarizing even the trade was, which was considering Westbrook was involved, kind of the perfect way for this to play out. What are you hearing? And has your reaction changed since you first heard around about the trade? It reminded me, so I was in the arena when it happened. And I actually, I got to the arena about 20 minutes before it happened. And I went into

the media room because my phone was dying. And I put my phone to charge. And I texted a couple of guys I wanted to see because it was my last night in Vegas. I said, hey, I'm leaving my phone in the media room. I'm going to go over to the media mosh pit behind the baseline. Find me there. Let's catch up. I think I got a nice, calm night ahead of me in vegas i don't even have my phone on me and all of a sudden there's this murmuring and somebody comes up to me and i was actually with hollinger so you guys believe this trade i said you guys like i put my phone down for one minute right and someone gets russell westbrook but it reminded me of d'angelo russell and that there was an initial like what like Houston like two picks and two pick swaps and the fit is weird and like that's this doesn't seem right like what and then like after a few

hours you begin to understand Houston's thinking I think I actually listened to your pod on it your off-the-cuff remarks I think you actually articulated their thinking very well by saying okay I just sat down and ranked the 40 best players in the NBA. And Russ was somewhere from, I think you said like 12 to 18 and you had CP around 40, which I think is a little low for CP, but I mean, that's it. That's the whole trade right there. That's all that's going on here, I think, right? I think that, and I think probably some hero thinking on Houston's side that maybe they can tap into a better version of Westbrook than we've seen in the last few years.

And then I think the other thing is, we all kind of underestimated how untradeable Chris Paul is. Because even now we're going through, we just went through the weekend and waiting to hear all the rumors and all the teams jockeying and go get Chris Paul, and there are no teams. And I'm actually, I think it's realistic that he doesn't get traded before the season, which is, I think OKC wants to trade him

before the season, but if I'm Miami, I'm not trading Justice Winslow in a Chris Paul package. Like, F off. Like, you can take my three worst contracts and I'll take them, but I'm not, I'm not giving you anything. And if I'm OKC at that point, why wouldn't I just keep Chris Paul, especially when, you know, I have some good pieces on my team and hope the market gets better for him in six months. The only other team I can see is Minnesota. And you could really make a pretty good Minnesota case pretty quickly. And I didn't

think of it when I did the emergency pod, but Teague's an expiring. Dang has this year and next year left. And maybe that's just the trade. And Minnesota says, we'll take them. And it's a double play of Towns has never played with somebody who would actually make him better before, and could this be the guy who saves Andrew Wiggins? And then if you're Chris Paul, or if you're getting Chris Paul, you're hoping he just has a chip on his shoulder from the moment that trade happens. Does that sound remotely realistic to you?

Well, I'm glad your Minnesota deal does not involve Wiggins because I said this on my podcast a couple weeks ago or whenever the hell it was. I don't remember anymore. I'm not 100% convinced Minnesota would have done Wiggins for Westbrook straight up. And that sounds crazy to people, but I think as hungry as the Wolves are to get a start. Now, maybe at the end they would have talked themselves into it. Westbrook is way better than Wiggins. He's only 30 or whatever.

It's not like he's ancient. He doesn't align with their timetable. But, you know, at some point you say we're getting off Wiggins. Who cares if it's a perfect alignment? So who knows what would have happened there. But that deal you mentioned, yeah, sure. I mean, I think Oklahoma City would maybe settle for expirings. And, you know, ironically, they may make the trade with Chris Paul for like Dragic and a couple of Miami expirings

or things with one year left after this one that maybe was somewhat realistic for Russ, except that they made this first Russ trade that brought them back stuff. And now they're going to make that trade with Chris Paul, which would just be like a killing for Oklahoma city to make two trades instead of one. True.

Yeah. The Teague one. I wonder, I just, I do wonder if Chris Paul at 34 just makes so little sense for their timeline that I, I'm not sure Minnesota will be in on that, but,

and I wonder if they're trying to save Teague's expiring just in case something better comes along for them. Like, you know, they really wanted to say they really wanted, yeah, I was going to say, they really wanted Russell, right? My question is, could they get Russell without giving up that Teague expiring?

Could they package other things together to potentially get there? Because what is the Russell thing is like 27? Yes, it starts at 27. Yeah, they really don't. Like Covington, yeah, they don't have enough contracts. So yeah, they would be, they'd basically shoot in their wad with this one.

My thinking was, as we have ushered in the new era of NBA pre-agency, which now seems to, anybody who even just signed a contract as a pre-agent at this point after Paul George, they're on the clock with Towns already. At any point over the next nine months, Towns could just have two people in his life be like, hey man, you should force a trade from Minnesota.

Just tell them you want to get out. It's worked for everybody else. Now you should do it. Just follow what Anthony Davis did in New Orleans. You do your version of that. I'm not saying he would do that. I'm not saying he's wired the same way, but at the very least, we've seen it work now with basically every star player who's done it. So if I'm Minnesota and I could get Chris Paul for free, basically, and put him

with Towns and hope he has a chip on his shoulder, he's there three years, but you have Towns for three years too. You're never getting a free agent as we just found out with Russell. Maybe that, maybe that is a circumstance. I don't know. So, so I agree with you. You're, you're never getting a free agent as we just found out with russell maybe that maybe that is a circumstance i don't know so so i agree with you you're oh you're almost always on the clock right and like no fans just never want to hear that like the clippers do not want to hear that they're already on the clock it started it's already like these guys signed two-year deals the clock is starting that's it you have two years to try to do something special and then all hell might break loose and by the way if like paul george turns his ankle in may like

year one's gone that's it you lost year one and then you're too like that's how fast it can happen then you're on expiring deals but if i like carl towns is under contract through 2024 so if carl towns came into my office i'm gerson rosas say yo i want out like all these other dudes flex their muscle like i want out i would just be like just come talk to me in 2022, man. Like, we got a lot of time here. I'm not really going to have this conversation with you. I have you for five more years. A lot can happen in five years.

Like, think of everything that just happened in the last two weeks. So I'm not entertaining this conversation until literally 2022 in Carl Towns' case. And like, what are you going to do? You're going to loaf for three years? You're not going to do that. Come play. Yeah, but here's the flip side of that. Why didn't New Orleans just do that with Davis last February

or January, whenever Davis is on one out? Because they had a year and a half left. They didn't have five years. But they could have waited until June to put the clock on them. They just immediately caved and got freaked out and tried to shop them and then shut down for the season. Now it worked. It ended up they stumbled into the number one pick and, you know, one of the greatest trade halls we've ever seen.

But it also could have gone terribly. I guess the thing I'm shocked by is how the teams capitulate pretty much immediately now to, oh, the star's unhappy. He wants out. I better figure out how to whatever. Like what if Ben Simmons does this in December? What if the, what if the first couple months of Philly doesn't go well, he signed the extension hasn't even kicked in yet. You say the same thing. You said, dude, you can't even make a jump shot. Like at least, like let's wait until 2021 and you make a three before you start demanding a trade. That's it. That's all you say. Listen, you're making great sense on paper, but I can't believe Paul George had the power

to ask for a trade. Now, I think you and I are probably on the end of people who think Sam Presti was secretly fist pumping when he got that call. And I think it'll probably come out at some point. But it was the all-time get outout-of-jail-free card that he ever could have had for the Westbrook-Paul George alliance that was first rounding out every year

for basically the rest of our lives. If it's somebody like Ben Simmons in Philly is really invested in hoping that he's going to become a guy, that'd be one thing. But I wonder if there would be some secret fist pumping with them too. Look, until he shoots any kind of jump shot, I think the fit with Embiid is just not as clean as you would like your one and two player to be.

That's just a real thing. It's undeniable. But my thing with Philly and all, I've written this so many times I'm sick of writing it, with all the, oh you gotta get Simmons for shooters and Simmons and Embiid don't fit

it's like you could not bet the franchise on Joel Embiid he has a terrifying injury history he has never been in shape ever in the NBA we just had the whole

like remember he was a game time decision for like the entire Nets series and then part of the then he had a respiratory infection like no one knew really what was happening

like you just can't bet the franchise on that guy yet. You can't. Yeah. I feel the same way. And I think this is, he's never felt this good. And he quit drinking milkshakes and 19 other things that I want to hear. To me, the Victor Oladipo summer is the model.

After that OKC trade, when OKC didn't even realize that Oladipo was remodeling his body. And then you get to, you see the bodybuilder photos. Giannis had that last summer. There was that one Giannis photo. It was like, uh-oh, what's going on here? We haven't had that moment yet with Embiid. I want to have the what's going on here moment with Joe Embiid. Like, holy fucking shit.

Did you see Embiid? Jesus. Remember the Kyle Lowry one? When skinny Kyle Lowry appeared and everyone was like, is that Photoshop? Like, is that a real guy? What is going on there? So I think there are, I mean, we could sit here and name them, but off the top of my head, I was talking about this with people in Vegas. like is that photoshopped like is that a real guy what is going on there so i think you're i think they're i mean we could sit here and name them but off the top of my head i was talking about

this with people in vegas there are three foundational stars in the nba right now where the number one question about them is like so can they get can they lose some weight and get in shape zion uh who did not look great in summer league but i I don't really care, Embiid and Doncic. Like, how good is... Like, everyone's skeptical. The people who are on the low side of Doncic were, well, you know, we think he's going to come into the NBA

pretty close to a finished product, and we know he's so skilled and crafty that that finished product is going to be amazing, but, like, we're not sure if he's going to get 10% or 20% better. Like, what's the ceiling? Well, to me, the ceiling is like, let's see if he loses 15 pounds or whatever he needs to lose, or he changes his body,

changes his diet. Like maybe that's, maybe that unlocks an extra ceiling that we didn't know exists. Yeah. And he's, you know, his background, who knows he's, what is he going to be 20 this year? When I was 20, I was in college and we were getting pepperoni pizza at 2.30 in the morning. Basically what Kyle's doing right now. I don't know if you're Kyle over there. But I just assume that kind of light bulb isn't realistic for it to go off before 23, 24. At that, you're just kind of hoping the guy's not going to smoke cigarettes like Vlade Divac. And just like, stay away. No juuling, please. Luka Doncic, please.

Stay away from the juul. Try not to overeat too much. But the thing with Embiid is he's 25. We all saw the clip of him crying after that Toronto series. And it actually made me really like him more. I love seeing when guys care like that. But at the same time, I think they would have beaten Toronto if he was in shape.

I really do. I think his conditioning was the biggest thing that held that team back last year, other than Ben Simmons. Well, I guess we'll see how they all look in the fall. Let's pivot back to Westbrook for a second. No, that was a great tangent. We had seven tangents within. We didn't even circle back to the Westbrook for a second. Yeah, sorry. No, that was a great tangent. We had seven tangents within. We didn't even circle back to the Westbrook-Houston part of this.

Am I wrong to think Westbrook is becoming just a wee bit underrated? I voted him second team all-NBA last year. Now people are talking about him like he doesn't bring stuff to the table. That dude brings stuff to the table. First of all, he's going to get 10 rebounds a game. He'll tell Capella really early, like, hey, Capella, every free throw rebound is mine. Just back off, especially on the defensive end.

You don't get those anymore. Just back off. I'll fight you during the game. But he just puts up numbers. And at some point, numbers matter, especially when Chris Paul was 16 and 8 playing 55 to 64 games a year. Westbrook's going to play 78 to 80.

He's going to play really hard in every game. And he's going to have the nights when the crowd's dead and Harden doesn't have it. And Westbrook's like, I got this, and just takes over. Am I wrong to think that he's become a little underrated? and Harden doesn't have it, and Westbrook's like, I got this, and just takes over. Am I wrong to think that he's become a little underrated? I love that you have now come to the point where you're saying Westbrook is underrated. I think you participated in making him underrated. So I think this is a circle of life here.

It's my creation. And then I was going to say, boy, Westbrook on the second team. I put him on third team. By the way, everyone thinks I hate Westbrook. I voted him all NBA. I voted him one of the six best guards in the NBA. But I thought it was tight to get him on third team. And if you didn't have him on any of your all NBA teams, I wouldn't hold it.

And I was like, boy, who did Bill not have on one of the first two all NBA teams that I had? Oh, Kyrie. I just, look, I knew too much. And you knew a lot of it too. And now I'm sure we'll find out more as the summer goes on. But I just couldn't do it. I couldn't reward that as a top 10 NBA performance. I love it.

When you have everybody in the organization being like, this is the worst season I've ever had with this team. And they win 50 games. And all the fingers are pointed to one person. It's like, I just can't do it. I mean, how many stories have you heard that you haven't talked about on a podcast or written about?

Is it double figures? I don't know if it's double figures, but it's a few. And there are more. It's a few. It's a few. Well, more will be coming out. There's a reason I haven't said them.

There's just a few. Westbrook, underrated. I think that's fair. I think what has people fascinated about how this is going to work in Houston is you have this image of like, okay, so what is Russ going to do when James Harden is on dribble number 23 at the top of the arc and no one is moving? Like, what is the point of Russ? And I think part of Houston making that trade is, well, we think that everyone is going to have to adjust a little bit

and there just aren't going to be that many possessions where James Harden is on dribble number 23 and Russ is standing there and no one was in 30 feet of him, so Harden can't go anywhere that everyone is going to have to make nice with each other and find different ways. Like maybe Russ is finally going to cut. And we've been saying this for a year, like seven. Now, maybe he's going to do some. Maybe James is going to be more dynamic getting off of it early. Who knows? Who knows what it's going to look like? But I think that's where like it's very obvious and basic, like Chris Paul can shoot threes. Russell Westbrook can't.

Therefore, Chris Paul is a better fit next to dribbling James Harden than Russell Westbrook. Like, that's obvious. Anybody can make that argument. Like, that's not, like, anyone who's watched five minutes of the Rockets can make that argument. But, like, Houston is betting that there is not only on the age and the talent being in Westbrook's favor over CP,

but that you just can't plug A into B and think it's going to look exactly the same, that there's different ways for it to look, and they're going to figure that stuff out. And they're probably thinking, I thought Chris Paul had lost at least some of his ability to, if you spread the floor for him, him beating guys off the dribble. It just didn't look the same to me

and the numbers all backed it up. With Westbrook, if you had a really smart offensive system and the type of people that Houston has, and by the way, Harden's one of those people. If Harden's just spotting up and everything's split out for Westbrook to just go downhill on people.

Look, I watched basketball last year. Westbrook is still really hard to stay in front of. Now, whether he's taking shots that people like, whether he's going into traffic, whether he's taking a 28 footer that he shouldn't be taking, I get it. Nobody probably hates that stuff more than I do, but I still think he can go by people. And Houston will figure out ways to have him going buy people. Well, like, I wrote this in my trade write-up at 1 in the morning in Vegas, which I really did not want to write. But, you know, whatever.

You got to do it sometimes. Like, whenever Russ got to run spread pick and roll in Oklahoma City, and I mean proper spread pick and roll, Russ, Adams, and three shooters, like not three fake shooters, three real dudes who could actually shoot threes. There was nothing anybody could do about that. Nothing. It was unstoppable. It was an open three. It was like the times when Steven Adams suddenly became Tyson Chandler for two weeks, just dunking everything in sight. The only thing you do is go under on Russ and he's fast enough that if you go under on him, he just beats you

anyway. He beats you to the other side of the pick. Like there was nothing you could do about it. And so part of the bet Houston is making here is like, yeah, that's our ecosystem. We didn't run it as much because people started switching on James and that led us into Isoville and all of this. But like, if we can get back to it, if we can spread the floor for Russ and James playing a little bit more off the ball as part of that, then that can work.

Now the counter argument to that is you have two guys who dominate the ball and one guy is just better than the other one. Does it make sense to take the ball from the better one and give it to the worst one? Like, I don't know. And also, people like the Rockets with CP and Harden kind of taking my turn, your turn. They were awesome.

Like, it worked. It might have not been fun to watch, but it worked. I agree. I also think if we learned anything about Houston last year was that the kind of workload that Harden had was absurd and unsustainable, in my opinion. It's not like he broke down

in the playoffs, but when it's just one guy doing the same thing over and over and over again, and I talked about it in this space. You talked about it in your podcast. When you get into a seven-game series, I think it just becomes easier to defend. If you have five guys trying to figure out what the other five guys are doing, but those other five guys are basically doing the same thing over and over again,

after two weeks, you kind of have a feel for it. And I think with Westbrook, he's just more unpredictable than Chris Paul is, especially in transition and grabbing a rebound and taking off and doing all the Westbrook stuff. You mentioned the supporting cast he had. And this is where I don't think Presti gets enough criticism. The kind of people that he had, not just the last couple of years,

but even when Durant was there, it never really felt like they had the right team around those guys. They never surrounded them just with shooters. It was always kind of like guys who clogged the middle and if anything, they were more prone to go for, how do we get Enos Cantor versus how do we get, you know, JJ Redick? And I'm actually kind of intrigued to see what he's like just with shooters around him.

We've never really actually seen it, have we? Brief, there would be periods where they would run more of that and more spread pick and roll with like, it would have to be Durant, Abrinas, you know, Waiters. I don't know who the, you know, what the exact lineups were.

I can't recall right now, but they did it and they just couldn't stick with it because they didn't have guys who could shoot. Can I throw two things I'm wondering at you? Yeah. Number one thing I'm wondering is,

I wonder what the Rockets offseason is like if they just, if Durant doesn't get hurt and they just lose to the unbeatable regular Warriors. I just wonder how demoralizing it was for them to lose five straight quarters the way they did. Not that they lost every quarter, but you know what I mean. You mean how it ended?

Yeah, that they couldn't beat them without Durant. I just wonder how, like, that they couldn't beat them without Durant. I just wonder, like, how demoralizing that was and that it just, it was like, it, like, accelerated the, I wonder if it just accelerated the whole, like,

we hate each other, we need to fire all of our entire coaching staff, blah, blah, blah, like, conversation. That's a curious one to me. What do you think about that? I mean, we can't know, but it's interesting, right?

Yeah. I think it's interesting, right? Yeah. I think it's a combo of that and also how that series started. And the fact that they didn't play well, got really caught up in the whole refs thing, still had a chance to steal game one and didn't. And then the way they reacted

after that, which I thought was a real low point for them as an organization, that they got so caught up in the whole officiating part of it and not just like, all right, we lost game one, let's get back on the horse. It just didn't seem like a team that had been there before. And they had to stay one of those first two games they didn't. So that was bad. And then on top of it, to not take care of business in a game six, to me, just said that they didn't have as strong of a team

as they did a year before. I think that game five that they won a year ago, the first season with Chris Paul, the game he got hurt, that was like a real character game. If you go back and watch that game, that team was pretty tight and really, really tough mentally, I felt like. They were hungry. That was what's so weird about how fast it's all,

not come apart because it hasn't all come apart, but like that was a hungry, they were hungrier than the Warriors, I think. Yeah. That's what made them, part of what made them such a fun opponent for Golden State. Yeah, they were so mentally tough and so physical for how undersized they were that, you know, I really think they would have won that series.

And I hate doing that with injuries because you could do that. You could basically go through every year and do that with at least one series. But in that case, I just think it would have been tough for them to lose those last two. I think that Warriors team had had a pretty weird season and could have gone either way. Instead, it brought them together and they ended up winning their last six games of the year. But I think they were kind of ready at that point, maybe to get taken out in the right way. What was the other question you had for me? You mentioned that, it's not a question so much, but you mentioned like Oklahoma City with Durant just could never find the right team. And the games I want to go back and watch are games three and four against Golden State in the 2016 conference finals.

Like we all remember Clay in game six and that they won game seven at home and rallied from three, one down. Games three and four, I need to go back and watch those again because they just obliterated Golden State. They won by like 55 points combined and Golden State looked like, looked helpless and afraid of how big and athletic and just like rolling

the Thunder were. And like, that's the team. That was the team that they tried to build. That was like the vision of like, let's just be longer and more athletic and more tenacious and faster than everyone else. Like, that's the stuff that they tried to build. That was like the vision of like, let's just be longer and more athletic and more tenacious and faster than everyone else.

Like that's the stuff that always kind of annoyed, like annoyed the Spurs a little bit. Like it was always kind of a tough matchup for San Antonio, even when they were in the finals those two years. Those are the games I want to go back and watch because like for a fleeting second, but you remember what it felt like after game four of that series?

It felt like, oh my God, they figured it out and the Warriors are dead. And like, what in the hell just happened? Right. So they, I'm looking at the box scores you're talking. They won game three, 133 to 105 in OKC. And Duran and Westbrook went to the line 23 times. And they didn't even really make a lot of, they only made 8 threes in that game. And then

the next one was 118-94. And Draymond was just horrific in both of those games. But in that one, they went they only made 9 threes that game. But Durant and Westbrook were getting to the line. Adams and Ibaka, they just seemed

longer and bigger. Remember Draymond was really bad? I went to game five and I really thought OKC was going to win. I thought this is you know, this was when we were talking about the 73 win streak take too much out of

the Warriors and all that stuff. And they just didn't play well. And the dirty secret of those last three games was that Durant and Westbrook didn't play well. And the dirty secret of those last three games was that Durant and Westbrook didn't play well. If they had played even, you know, B-minus games for them, I think they'd probably win that series, especially game six.

Game six, the Warriors were ready to roll over. I did a Rewatchables podcast on this feed about that. There was four points in that game where it was like the Warriors were going to roll over, and the Thunder just couldn't finish them off. So I don't know. But that was also, don't you think 2016 versus 2020? The 2016 was like the last vestige of how when basketball was shifting from how it was

played at the beginning of this decade to how it is now. Like nowadays, you would never play Ibaka and Adams together unless Ibaka could make threes, which he couldn't totally back then. Yeah. And I mean, but then this summer, there have been a couple of teams that seem to be kind of going back to maybe we can play a little bigger and a little beefier. Oh, like the Knicks.

The Knicks have five power forwards. This is great. No, Marcus Morris is going to play the two. Or maybe the one. The two. I made a joke on Twitter about how they signed four power forwards. And then the Knicks fans I know are coming back and be like, hey, Portis played center in the Wizards, man. I'm like, okay.

Sure. All right. Portis is the center now. So Marcus Morris is a small forward now. Wait, wait. Let's go with that. Julius Randall's kind of a point center, but just play him a point guard.

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What did you think of this? I love them. You know, I left mine in an Uber, my other brand in an Uber back in the day, and I just was going to be done. And I got it. There you go. You're back. Super happy, raving about them.

Go to buyraycon.com slash BS to get 15% off your order. That is buyraycon, R-A-Y-C-O-N dot com slash BS for 15% off Raycon wireless earbuds. If you've been eyeing a pair, now's the time to get an amazing deal. Buy Raycon dot com slash BS. Hey, one last thing about Westbrook that I didn't mention when I did the pod the other day, and I meant to mention it and I forgot, and it was such a key point. And I haven't heard a lot of people mention this, and I just think it's important for us to mention. This Westbrook thing, if it

doesn't work out, I feel like we'll know within the first couple months. And at that point, Daryl can flip the asset. I don't think he could have flipped the Chris Paul asset, as we're finding out right now. So the reason, I liked the trade for Houston last week. I felt like they kind of had to do it. And if it doesn't work out, Darrell's probably not going to be there four years from now anyway when these first-round picks come in. But I think it's a key point to mention that

they'll know by mid-December whether this makes sense or not. And if it doesn't make sense, you could flip them to Miami at that point and maybe get something. I think that the crucial point for why they had to do this trade was they obviously felt like they had to get rid of Chris Paul. There was no way to get rid of that asset unless you got another asset that would help you continue to contend. And there was nobody else. I don't know, other than Westbrook, what other asset was out there that would have still allowed them to contend. That was, I think, why they had to do this more than anything. Yeah, and it would be interesting to see if that does come to pass.

Do they get fewer draft assets than they gave up to get Russ? And I would bet that they do get fewer. And which speaks to, I think, really, when you come down to it, you can yell and scream about the fit and the fit. Yeah, there are fit questions for sure. All that's obvious. I think the basic initial shock objection that people had to the deal was, where was the market that you had to put in two picks and two swaps? Who were they bidding against that was going to approach that? And maybe all they were bidding against was Miami with expiring and semi-expiring contracts versus the CP contract. And maybe the CP's contract just cost you that much to get off of of i don't know but like that's i'm not i'm surprised by how much draft equity

they had to give up and i'm surprised that the thunder to their credit pushed it out as far as possible um so that you know harden is 35 when these picks start to convey well and there's another piece to this. Actually, there's two pieces. One is that, and I totally forgot this last week, and I'm just, I didn't even realize it until right now

since you were talking about the trade. This was the Harden trade GMs. Yeah, of course. This is Presti and Maury. So that piece of that, like, holy shit, that Presti even did a trade

with Maury again is kind of amazing. I thought we were really going to get through the whole Russ trade without the Harden trade being brought up. I thought we were going to get there, and we didn't get there. What's going to happen? I think we wrote a combined four pieces about it in a year

at Grantland. But yeah, because I'd always heard, and I'm sure you had too, that OKC really bristled that they felt like Darryl was kind of dining on that Harden trade a little bit. Whether he was not talking about it publicly or not, but that it really bugged them that this became the big part of the Harden, I mean, the Maury legacy was this Harden trade where he pulled one over on Sam. And Sam had done all these great things, but here's the one trade he lost that ends up being the most important trade of this decade. And then those guys end up trading together. So that's crazy. But then the other thing is, I think Sam was able to do this twice with the Paul George trade and the Westbrook trade where he had this straw man, other team

that was allegedly in it and there was nobody else in it. It became clear pretty quickly Miami wasn't going to really give up that much for Westbrook, and they certainly weren't going to give up picks. And it was like, how about Winslow and some contracts? If that's not good enough, sorry. Not thinking that they had any other offers. And the same thing with the Paul George. It's becoming clearer and clearer that Toronto was never a viable Paul George trade candidate.

And if anything, Masai has been putting that out there pretty quickly because I think I personally think the reason is he probably thinks the Clippers were tampering with Kawhi that whole season. So he had no problem screwing them over and kind of being the straw man in the fake trade that allowed OKC to get as many picks as possible from the Clippers. But I really don't think there was a second Paul George suitor, and I really don't think there was a second Westbrook suitor. What have you heard about that? Well, I mean, to your point, I would love to have been in the Clippers' war room when they were discussing how much Presti was demanding for Paul George

because it's not just the teams that are at that point leveraging. It's Kawhi leveraging. And I just wonder who within the Clippers' group, because it had to have been someone, raised the question of like, is he really going to the Lakers if we don't get PG? Is he really going back to the Raptors if we don't pay this price for PG? Is he really going to do those?

Because we don't think he wants to do either one. We think he wants to come here, but Sam is taking an unprecedented amount of our draft equity, and it turns out these dudes are signing, you know, Kawhi's going to sign a two-year deal i i just wonder if if part of them felt like they were being bluffed on all sides almost but they ended up they ended up saying we gotta do it like we just have to do we have at least two years now where we're gonna be if not the favorite one of the favorites that's what you

play for that's what you get all these picks for we didn't even really have this miami pick it was like a we were a way station for it yeah Yeah. But it would have been fascinating to see, you know, the sort of poker game being played between like four different parties at the same time. It's funny that this is the most positive you and I

have ever discussed Westbrook probably in the last couple years. I just think it's funny that he's gone from, you know, whether you thought he should have won the MVP or not, it became the

lightning rod discussion of this decade, I feel like, for NBA people where everybody had to have a stance. It was almost like in the political debates where whatever the three biggest issues are, you kind of have to come in and with your stance on it. And that was what the 2017 MVP thing became. It was like basically, what type of basketball do you stand for? How important is team success? If you support Westbrook's MVP candidacy, what does that say about you? It really went to some fascinating places.

And now it's like, look, I still feel like he's one of the 20 basketball players that matter. I don't think physically, yeah, there might be a fall at some point that might resemble Iverson in the 07, 08 range where a smaller guy who just took a big pounding, had some surgery, stuff like that, it could go. But he's still a meaningful player. And I think if you talk to the other players in the league who matter and you ask him who the best 15 players in the league are, they're all going to say Westbrook.

Now, that doesn't necessarily mean they're right because if you had asked those same players four years ago, the top 15, they would have said Carmelo. So sometimes the players can be off, but I still think he matters and it's still an upgrade for the Rockets and that's where i sit these days but this is how some portion of discourse about the nba is like i voted russell

westbrook third in mvp that year so i thought like of all the human beings in the world i voted him third and that and and in a certain segment of the dark part of the internet, that means you think he's a bum and you hate him and he's trash. No, I just voted him third. Like, third best dude in the whole league. Sorry that I thought he was a little overrated voting him first. That's all. And since then, he has taken a step back. Like, his playoff shooting percentage is the last three years,

39%, 39%, 39.8% actually, 36%. has taken a step back like he is here his playoff shooting percentage is the last three years 39 percent 39 percent 39.8 actually 36 percent limited number of games every year because they lose in the first round still and then last year he shot i think 42 something from the field overall the year before 45 the year before 42.5 like he has taken i think a small step back like the shooting has reached the point where it's kind of um a problem but yeah there was no like again I voted him third team all NBA I just thought the idea you know I thought you outlined um that on your last pod that there's a very clear top 10 in the NBA and I think you nailed it like before last season there was a very clear top seven in the

NBA and the three guys that have joined that to make it a top 10 are yokich and bead and pg i think and like russ isn't in that group and if you like saying that out loud even a year ago or two years ago if you didn't have russ in the top 10 it was like this outrageous claim and you just want to say i'm sorry the guy shot 42 and 30 something in the playoffs and doesn't play defense. Like, I understand all the other stuff he's doing. I just think he's number 12 instead of number 4 or number 15 instead of number 8. Like, it's not this huge condemnation. It's just when so much of the discourse around him is that he's a hero and he's the MVP and he's the very best.

And you're like, I kind of think he's number 14 in the NBA. It just seems in comparison, like you quote unquote hate him or think he's quote unquote trash. It's like, no, I just, this is my view of Russell Westbrook. I'm sorry that we don't agree. Yeah. And you and I also like when basketball players affect their teammates positively. And it was really ambiguous with him,

especially the last couple of years with OKC. I think the best case scenario for him is what we saw in the 2012, 14, and 16 playoffs. I guess he wasn't, was he back in 14? I can't remember. Let's go with 2012 and 16, where he's the second best guy on a team that really has a chance to win the title.

He's going to go 11 for 25 and 9 for 24 and 10 for 23. He's going to get to the free throw line 10 times. He's going to have 9 assists and 12 rebounds. He's going to play his fucking ass off. And he's going to make unbelievable plays. Remember that Memphis series where it was a playoff game and they're down and he picked Mike Conley

and then went down and scored the game-tying layup. Do you remember that play? Who else could have done that in the league? Also, didn't he make the crazy offensive rebound and save leading to the Durant corner three in that same series? And I've always said this about Russ. Always. You can go back and listen to all my podcasts.

Like, I really do truly believe that some of the plays he makes, well, first of all, he's just a force of nature. And that's been my number one defense of Russ, putting him on all NBA when people didn't. Like, it's just unpleasant to play against that dude. It's just, it's a chore. It's physical.

He just keeps on coming at you. But the other thing is, I've said a million times, when that dude. It's just, it's a chore. It's physical. He just keeps on coming at you. But the other thing is, I've said a million times, when that dude flies in from nowhere and gets an offensive rebound and it becomes a three or like his offensive rebounds, his hustle plays like that,

they have a real spiritual effect on the thunder, on the crowd, on the opponent that I really do think is not quantifiable, but I also believe that it's a real thing. And there are only like nine guys in the league

who make, let's say, two plays like that every game. And he's one of them, and that matters. Yeah, and for Houston, I think they needed another guy on the team who could make those plays. And I just don't feel Chris Paul, at this point of his career could have that kind of impact.

And there was a little bit of a redundancy with him and Harden as Harden became more of a point guard. They were able to figure it out that first year. Second year, not as much. I think what's cool about Westbrook in this situation is some of the things he does is just different than anything anybody else does in that team. I would argue that he would have the best chance of getting a huge rebound in traffic

over anyone else they have. They're down one with 11 seconds left and somebody misses a free throw and say, we got to get that rebound. I actually think he's the best person on the team now to go get that rebound. So look, I have no idea what's going to happen. I honestly think it's a coin flip. Maybe even a coin flip where 60% heads, it's not going to work out. 40% tails, it might. But I think it gives them a better chance than obviously where they thought Chris Paul was as a player.

And just what the history is for small guys who hit their mid thirties. It's bad. Unless it's John Stockton with Jerry Sloan playing him 29 minutes a game or however that was playing out. The small guys don't age well. They never have. And they, and it doesn't seem like they ever will.

They're definitely one of my opening night watches. Cause I just, I just need to see how it's going to work. Because look, it worked when they were together. And then they separated. And they became literally the two most ball-dominant players in the NBA. Right. Ever. They have the two highest usage rates ever recorded in the NBA. And now they have to play together again.

I'm fascinated to see how that works. And you said something else about Russ that now I can't remember what it was. But anyway, it's going to be interesting. So that best 10 players list said something else about Russ that I, now I can't remember what it was, but anyway, it's, it's going to be a, it's going to be interesting. So that best, the best 10 players list I had, here's that list again. There was a top seven of Kawhi,

Giannis, Harden, Curry, Davis, Jokic, and LeBron. See, and I think Jokic,

like you, before the season, the top seven was like, Durant is obviously got to be in that top seven, but now he's sort of on the sidelines. But yeah. And then a three right underneath, all ready to move into that top seven of Embiid, George, and Durant. Embiid,

I want to see the Instagram picture of him looking like the rock. Paul George, I'm really concerned about the shoulders. And I think the Clippers should be too. The guy had surgeries on both shoulders and I'm just not 100% on him being 100% healthy. So I'm putting him ninth. And then Durant's not playing for a year. And then after that, it drops off. But I think the most interesting case for me or most interesting name out of those seven is LeBron.

And here's another case where if you question anything about LeBron, you're a LeBron hater. You hate LeBron. Why do you have to diss LeBron? And here's another case where if you question anything about LeBron, you're a LeBron hater. You hate LeBron. Why do you have to dis LeBron? He's the best ever. I just want to point out math. He came to the league in 2003. There's nobody left from that draft in the league. He is attempting to be a top 10 guy at a point in his career where nobody else has ever done it. I don't even think Kobe Bryant, even Kareem who came into the league when he was, I think it was the 1970 draft. He won finals MVP in his 17 or not finals MVP. He was the best player on a finals team in 1987. But he certainly couldn't keep up in a top seven kind of player way.

Why are people not more concerned about LeBron's mortality as a superstar right now? I think last season should have concerned them, but I think part of the reason is he was still 28-8 last season on a team that was, let's say, in some form of turmoil for most of the season. And theoretically, his effort level on defense, where he was not very good last year, should improve on a team in less turmoil, a better team. And number two, now this is the first time he's ever coming into an NBA season

having not played through June in a million years and maybe that that helps him but I like I this was my favorite stat that I sort of just researching around about LeBron after it became clear the Lakers gonna miss the playoffs that put it in stark terms for me by the by either the midpoint or the end of this coming season he's gonna be third all-time in minutes played playoffs plus regular season combined behind only kareem and carl malone like third that's it yeah and like like so he's now officially at reach the point because he's like in regular season minutes he's some unremarkable number like 11th but then you add in the playoffs and all the extra you know everything's a seven game series now he's gonna be number three so that means you're now reaching a point now you can tell me he came into

the league at a young age and blah blah blah but he's he's now reaching a point. Now you can tell me he came into the league at a young age and blah, blah, blah. But he's, he's now reaching the point at which humans before him have stopped playing NBA basketball. Like it's just going to be really interesting to see how, because I've said before, I hope and think he's got at least one other FU. You forgot about me season in him, but I don't think it's a done deal that he does just because look, the math is the math.

Like he's reaching a minute total that almost no one in human history has reached. Yeah, he has a chance to hit 60,000 minutes this year if it was like a 100-game season and he played almost all of those games. And 60,000 minutes, playoffs, regular season combined, is Kareem Carmelone, and that's it. So I think the natural inclination is to compare him to Kobe and say, well, Kobe played for that long, but Kobe really, he blew out his Achilles,

I think in the 2012 season or the 2013 season, one of those that was right around this time. So this is why I asked, I texted you earlier, asked if you had read that Baxter Holmes piece about AAU and about the workload of young players, which was on ESPN last week. It was two parts. And it was eye-opening on a number of levels. It made me rethink one thing that I just had never thought before.

And I think it's worth talking about, especially like with Zion and all these young guys coming in and we get all excited about them, but just the amount of minutes these guys are playing in AU and what it's potentially doing in those bodies. LeBron is really, that's the first generation of the kind of workload that we've seen with this was probably the mid nineties. And I think it's interesting that Kobe is the only guy who, out of the perimeter guys, really, really had a long career. And we always thought like, well, Kobe took care of his body and he came into the league in high school, all this stuff. But then in that article, he's interviewed and he's talking about how he lived in Italy during most of the time where he

would have been just getting ground down on this AU scene. And I'm starting to think about all these guys that we've seen get injured over the last decade. And even somebody like Durant, who seems like he's durable, but has had his foot operated on three times and blew out his Achilles. You go on down the line, do you think teams will start factoring in this AU part of it and maybe worrying about when these guys are going to peak? Because when I read that article, that was the first time I thought, oh shit, maybe Zion

isn't a sure thing. Maybe we should be factoring in all of it. He's been playing AAU since he's eight. Maybe we should be factoring that in our heads. What was your take on that piece? Well, and also the other interesting thing that's connected is is the piece raised the question of you know whenever you mention lebron's minute totals you get well he came into the league when he was 18 like he he didn't come in with the league when he was 22 that means he has more time left

than the typical guy 20 years ago that came into the league at 22 but baxter's piece raised the question of like so he plays aAU and there's a gazillion games, four games a week and all that. Then he has doctors quoted in the piece about how you get to the NBA at 18 and now it's like super AAU. It's 82 games against like big physical dudes who want to beat you up. And your 18-year-old body has both worn down from playing AAU and is also not ready

for the physical pounding of an NBA schedule. So is it really beneficial in the long term that guys are coming to the league as teenagers? Is it physically beneficial? Does it actually guarantee you a longer trajectory at the end? Or that, I don't know that there's a definitive answer to that yet,

but it raised an interesting question about that specific thing that applies to LeBron, it applies to Zion, who is either 19 or 18, whatever he is. It's interesting, right? Yeah, and you think, all right, Vince Carter, who's been playing forever, but also kind of peaked athletically, I would say, the first five years.

But he probably was going through that AAU thing, right? And he shifted into a different part of his career. He's been pretty banged up really since I would say year four, year five. He's been durable from a sticking around the league standpoint. But I think the Vince that came into the league those first couple of years didn't really resemble any other version of Vince. Dwayne Wade's another one. Why did Dwayne Wade's career end so early? You think like, if you were just looking at him after the first Miami Heat season with LeBron, when they were two of the three best players in the league, and at that

point, Wade was in the league in 2003. He'd been in the league eight years, and you would have said he was actually probably a better bet to have a Kobe Bryant type career than Kobe Bryant was you know and then the second half of his career his body started to break down he started to have knee issues just that piece made me rethink

I wonder if all of that game mileage that they're putting on from age eight on is actually really bad. And is it less likely we see American players play for, could LeBron be the last one we see who is even able to do this? Well, there's like the idea that specializing at a young age is bad is not a new thing. Like there's been lots and lots of research that specializing too early is bad on many, many different levels, emotional, physical levels emotional physical all of that and yet and i feel this now more as a

parent and it's way too early for my daughter to be doing really any sports seriously she's four but um eventually we're going to get there like you just it's so easy to say like oh specialization is stupid and you know caring about sat prep and like pushing your kids so hard is stupid when you don't have any kids. But then you get kids and you start to see people around you doing these things and you're like, am I crazy? Maybe I do have to do all these things.

And I think, I'm just curious from your perspective as a parent of a soccer player, how specialized is she? Does she play too much? Because she's serious, right? She's a serious soccer player. Yeah, she's serious. We take breaks though, at least during the summers and stuff.

But yeah, it's been something that really bothered me the last few years because I wanted her to play multiple sports. And if you're really going to be at a certain level in one of the sports, it becomes almost impossible to play other sports, right? Like you can't, she couldn't play basketball on the weekends when she's on a soccer team that plays on the weekends.

And then you can't be in a situation where she's playing a basketball game at nine o'clock in the morning and then three hours later, she's playing soccer on turf. Like that's how you ruin your kids. So I think it's just from the individual sports have gotten so intense that it's hard to say, well, we're also going to do this other sport too. You can try to find a team that is a little

more cautious of it, which is what I think we did. But I can't imagine how she would play two sports. She wants to play volleyball and soccer in high school, but the volleyball would have to be simultaneous with the club soccer. It's a lot. And then you're sacrificing other stuff. So I get it. I don't think anybody should really be forced to make decisions like that until the kid's 14 or 15, personally.

I think that playing AAU four times on the weekend when your kid's nine, to me, is nuts. I don't understand it. It seems like a lot. It just does. But this is the age of privates and everybody looking for an edge and everybody convinced that their kid's going to be on the World Cup team in eight years. And that's just who we are. It's weird that we've all agreed that this is a bad idea. And yet your response when you say it's a bad idea is now just, well, that's just the way it is now. But I don't know.

Why are both of those things true? Why is it obviously bad and everyone knows it's bad, but also that's just the way it is now? I don't know. It's just, it's strange to me. We definitely need more off seasons with all of this stuff. You know, like if you're playing basketball for your ninth grade team and you're also on an AU team and the moment your high school team ends, now you're playing AU on the weekends

and you're playing for teams that are just trying to get out there and be in as many tournaments, it becomes profitable for the coaches at this point. It just seems dangerous to me. I think Zion and his generation will be a pretty good test case for it because it actually seems like the AU

has gotten more intense in the last 10 years and more people have figured out how to monetize it better and put together better clubs and things like that. But I do wonder, I'll be interested to see how LeBron handles his kid the next three years. Because LeBron, ironically, is in the parent situation here too, right? His kid's going to Sierra Canyon, which is one of the best California schools.

And at the same time is also playing in all these AU games. And if anybody would have a feel for this is too much, it would be LeBron. And he clearly doesn't think it is. So that makes me wonder, you know, do we overthink this stuff? But the whole concept of playing four basketball games in a day to me is nuts. I really think that is crazy

because that's how you get hurt. You, oh, my knee hurts a little, but we only have one more game. That's when you blow out your knee. I also think there's such a thing, like you talk to all the best sports scientists in the NBA and they'll tell you, you know, what we do you blow out your neck. I also think there's such a thing, like you talk to all the best sports scientists in the NBA and they'll tell you, you know, what we do is more art than science. It's totally, it's not totally unscientific, but there's no way you can perfect

it. There's no way you can break all this stuff. I do think there is such a thing as like someone who's just injury prone and someone who's just not. Like David Epstein's first book, I'm blanking on the title, got into a lot of this and like just the biomechanics of certain people versus others. Some guys are just going to be prone to injuries, I think. And some guys are not like, you know,

Andre Miller is always held up as like, how come Andre, like literally never got hurt, never did anything in the off season and people correlate. Well, he never did anything in the off season. Well, that must be why he never got hurt.

Could just be, he's, he's just not injury prone. I don't like, or, you know, why was Andrew Bogut always injured? It could be, he's just injury prone. i don't like or you know why was andrew bogut always injured could be he's just injury i don't know like it's it there's a lot of i don't know but i do really think and i and i'd have to go i wish i had gone back and at least skim david's book before mentioning it like this but i i really came away from that and a

couple other things i read believing more and like some people are just going to be injury prone and it's not just seven footers because of their feet it's just some people are a little bit more prone to injury than others i 1000 agree as nephew kyle can attest my son ben simmons the less wealthy ben simmons not the one who just signed for 170 um he's just one of those kids from day one who just didn't get hurt knock on i'm gonna knock on wood now i'm probably jinxing him. But some kids are just durable from the get-go, and they can fall down the stairs and they just get up. And other kids fall down the stairs, they break their arm.

So I do think there is something to that. And then you throw in like bone density and how flexible kids are and things like that. One of the things with girls that I've always found kind of fascinating, especially with soccer, is dance is weirdly helpful with soccer. And I think with basketball too,

because it's footwork and it's being light on your feet and learning how to be kind of flexible and whatever. So it would almost make more sense for, if you're trying to raise, like your daughter, I don't know know is she out there banging bodies yet? No. AYSO

when's that next year? Age five? In what? Soccer. Oh she's in a soccer class. She did not take to it very well but she's in a little

like they just kind of kick the ball around and dribble through. If you get serious about it I would balance it with dance. Alright that's enough for parenting. We're going to take one more break. Let's take a break talk about it, I would balance it with dense. All right, that's enough for parenting. We're going to take one more break.

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We just went on a great parenting tangent. Hey, Anthony Davis was making the media rounds and trying to do this whole I'm a personality thing living in LA and all that stuff. I think he's more in the Tim Duncan kind of quiet assassin type personality side personally. We talked last week on this pod with Cousin Sal about MVP futures, which we're not allowed to bet on because we have votes. Trying to figure out who would be a good MVP odd if you weren't just going to do the MVP bet

if you weren't just going to do the generic, I'll bet on Giannis. He wasn't even 100% of who he's going to be as a player. He won it last year, he'll win it again. Make the case for Davis for me, for the MVP. What kind of check marks would you need him to hit? How do you think that

plays out? Because I think there's a case for it. I'll make mine after yours. The case is LeBron defers the way he reportedly was going to for Kawhi. And he can't quite do that for AD in the same way because AD is not a ball handler like Kawhi is.

But AD becomes the number one scorer on the Lakers. He leads the Lakers in scoring. He kills it when LeBron is on the bench and makes it to the degree that maybe they can load manage LeBron. And the plus minus with LeBron on the bench is astoundingly good. The Lakers win 55 or more games and he is in the conversation for defensive player of the year has his best defensive season ever his most sustained excellence on defense that's that's I think your your recipe now there

are other guys I might vote it I would pick maybe are more likely to be the surprise MVP because Giannis is going to be a heavy favorite but But I think that's a pretty simple recipe, and I think that's attainable. I don't think any of that is crazy. Now, LeBron is so comfortable at the controls of the offense and so good at it that maybe it's just not possible for anybody to win an MVP playing with LeBron still until he really, really, really defers.

But that's the recipe, right? That's the recipe. You left out one thing. Uh-oh. LeBron in mid-September planting the seed and putting it out there. Okay. Much like he does at

all-star games sometimes. So they start doing that first week of practices, press conferences, and LeBron's like, I think Anthony Davis is the best player in the league, and he's going to win the MVP this year. By the way, LeBron's like, I think Anthony Davis is the best player in the league and he's going to win the MVP this year. Don't put it, by the way,

LeBron could say that and not actually believe it, but I feel like if he starts pushing that narrative and then you have like the big feature on SI or somewhere where it's like the next MVP, Anthony Davis, if the whole clutch machine, if they all get behind that narrative, then I think it could happen. And I think he'd have to go like 30 and 13

would be my guess. You don't think that's realistic? Right now, he's 8-1 to win the MVP. Dude, 8-1's not a bad bet? Give me two more of your favorites, just out of curiosity. Well, aside from the Kawhii and stuff i think are obvious ones do we just have one super sensational crazy damien lillard year ever like like like he's had he's been i think on the five-man ballot the last two years is there just one year where he randomly averages like 32 a game? Yeah. And the other one is,

what are the Jokic odds? So, obviously, you love Jokic the most, but the playoffs, I at least was able to wrestle my way into the bandwagon. He's 15 to one.

It's a great bet. And yeah. And the case for that is, the MVP, if everything's even and you have a bunch of good candidates, usually people are going to gravitate toward who's the one seed. I think you and I are higher on Denver as a one seed in the West than a lot of other people. And I've seen Utah get thrown around that. And weirdly we're aligned on Utah too. They're fine. I think they're better than they were last year.

But I also don't feel like they're a championship contender in the purest form. They're kind of soft. I feel like they're still a trade away. And I think you could kind of bang them around in a playoff series. Would you say Denver is the safest bet for the one seed right now? No. And actually, that reminded me of the thing.

Remember, I forgot something I was going to say. I was surprised to hear you say on your podcast that you might have picked Houston with Chris Paul as the favorite to win the West next year. I think the Clippers walk into next season as the favorites to win the whole thing and the favorites to win the West. So they would be that. To get a one seed?

Well, I just, you know, everyone's going to assume Kawhi's going to miss 20 games and all this. And maybe that, maybe that sabotages their ability to get the one seed.

But, you know, it only took 55 wins to get the one seed last season. Like, you could, Toronto, again, playing in the East, won 58,

load managing Kawhi with, I't know compare the supporting cast I'd prefer whoever you want I I don't know I haven't thought far enough ahead to think yet then I don't care as much about the one seed maybe I just don't think of it like that so I haven't really thought about who is the best regular season win total piling up team I just qualitatively the Clippers are the best team to me so that is the best regular season win total piling up team. I just, qualitatively, the Clippers are the best team to me. So that is the first team that pops into my head is like better than Denver, but maybe you're right. Maybe in terms of just piling up regular season wins, maybe it is Denver. I don't know. I think it's two separate arguments. Agreed. MVP, which everyone forgets this year after year is a regular season award. And that's it.

It's for the regular season. I hate when we get in the playoffs and then people are like, oh, LeBron's the MVP for the last eight years. It's like, yeah, that wasn't the point of the award. We're supposed to vote on the 82 games. Yeah, he sulked the entire last first half of the season in Cleveland

until they traded his entire team. Sorry, I'm not voting for him as the MVP of this particular 82 game period. Yeah, sorry. He mailed in a month of traded his entire team. Sorry, I'm not voting for him as the MVP of this particular 82-game period. Yeah, sorry. He mailed in a month of his last Cleveland season. He does not get my vote. My bad. Call me crazy.

I like my guy to play hard every game. But yeah, Denver, they went 54 games last year. Jokic will be better. I still feel like he has another 20% to go. And he tapped into the playoffs in a significant way, I felt like. Murray is the swing guy where if he goes up a level, which I think is realistic, that helps too. And then, you know, the Jeremy Grant trade. They just kind of took them. I really like Jeremy Grant. I like their team. I really think that's a 60-win team. To me, that is the only team in the West

that I feel I could go to 56 to 60 easily. I'm the same guy who told you the Celtics were going to win 67 last year, so I know what I'm talking about. Take me seriously, America. But I do think that's a 60-win team. It was a rough year for Boston. Look, I was super...

I didn't say 67, but I was super... I picked Boston to make the finals. I thought they were going to be... I've eaten crow on Boston enough times on my own podcast that I'm not going to do it here. Me too. Yeah, yeah I think you know how

old Jamal Murray is he's like he's like 15 he's 22 like yes you should level up again Gary Harris should keep leveling up a little bit I love the grant edition now Porter

they're super high on all the time except he never plays so yeah I'm sick of hearing about how awesome Michael Porter is in practice I just got at this point I just got to see it in a game.

It's like Kedrick Brown. He's the Kedrick Brown of this generation. Like there there's, if he, if he's good, they're super duper deep. I also think they're my dream Bradley Beal team. If Bradley Beal ever becomes available,

if the Wizards ever get religion and are like, we have a D league team and Bradley Beal, this is stupid. Why don't we see, why are we going to abuse? Like, if Bradley Beal has to play 3,000 minutes again, he led the league in minutes last season. If he has to play 3,000 more for that team, it's almost like, it's almost like a crime. Like, there should be a court of law where they're convicted of a crime against Bradley Beal.

So, I think Denver is going to be really good next year. And Jokic at 15 to 1, if it were allowed, that would be a good one to put money on. I thought Portland would be a good Bradley Beal team too. I hate talking about Bradley Beal trades because I think we're six months away from it becoming realistic. That's not that long. No, it's not. That's trade deadline.

It's not. But I think I do like Portland's assets more than Denver's assets because Jamal Murray can't be in the trade. So at that point, who's my frontliner? Whereas Portland, everybody likes Simons. He's another one who's getting buzzed, but he's somebody that has actually stayed healthy. And then Collins and, you know, there's Nassir Little they took,

who I think was, I really liked him in summer league. I watched a weird amount of summer league. I liked him. I thought he looked good. So am I putting McCollum in that deal or are we rolling with three guards? Well, that's the thing. I think you can't put McCollum in that deal. The move would be Lillard, McCollum, and Beal.

Okay. I just want to be, okay. Yeah. All right. It'd be like, here we go. We're off. I guess the big thing for them is whenever Nurkic comes back, but yeah, I, I would, in terms of teams, I like in the West discounting the two LA teams, I would have Denver, then Portland, then Utah.

That'd be me personally. I even, we know the white side thing will probably be. I like Utah a little better than Portland. Well, I'm with you on the Dame thing. You're right. Dame has, there's one last probably level for him to go up. Right? And it's not even, it's a small one, but it's like, what's his version of a career year?

Because he's basically had a career year for the last three years, but is there one last tiny level he can go? It's going to take a crazy shooting and scoring season because he's not an elite playmaker. Like his assist numbers are never going to reach that kind of level. And he's not going to impact the game on defense or with his size. So it's just going to take, oh my God, Dame Lillard just averaged 32 points a game for an entire season

and shot 45% from three. And now out Steph, Steph, out Steph, Steph. Right. Like he's a 50, 50, 90 guy through the first two months of the season or something.

And we're like, what the hell is going on? He has eliminated two teams on walk-off buzzer beaters. So I'm not really handing out for Damian Lillard. I'm with you on the Clippers though. As I keep looking at this and thinking about it, I just like their playoff team the most. If they can keep everybody in it and healthy. The part that

we haven't really thought about that much but I've been thinking about a lot lately is what they're going to look like defensively in a playoff series when Beverly's out there with George and Kawhi if those guys are healthy. That's pretty freaking terrifying.

Yes. Can you imagine if they got Iguodala, who they want, and they could throw Iguodala, Kawhi, and Paul George at LeBron for 48 minutes? It's the best you can do. It's like the three best guys to guard LeBron in the entire league you have on one team. It's unbelievable. I told them I'd chip in. We want Iguodala for a podcast.

So I'm in for if there's any way to help that trade, The Ringer. The Ringer would love to be involved, make it a three-teamer. The Iguodala podcast would be great. He'll have weird tech guys on it and actors. I'm still hoping that happens. My guess is that's where he ends up.

And I think it's an important question because I do think he has two years left as the sage, kind of Robert Horry circa 0405 kind of guy who's done there, who's been in every big moment but still has just a tiny bit left in the tank. I could

see it. He's good. Andre's a good player. It's a save yourself for when it matters player, but he's good. He's a good player. Give me your most realistic Warriors, how it plays out next eight months. Most realistic? Yeah. Like, what do I expect?

What do you expect? Low-end playoff seed that can easily win a round or even two if Klay is back in 100%, which is maybe unrealistic. But with Klay, Steph, and Draymond, that team is still awesome. And now they got to figure out Russell's stuff. They got to figure out their depth, which is really bad. So maybe I'm overshooting it, and a round or two is strong.

But I think that they're, particularly with Oklahoma City, perhaps going to the tank here I think they're probably a playoff team um so although if you told me they weren't I wouldn't be like shocked but I'd pick them in to make the playoffs and if Klay ever came back like I really thought I before when Klay got hurt in game six I thought they were going to come back and win the whole finals like it just it just had that vibe where Clay's having another game. They're at home. I think they were behind by a couple points,

but they're just going to find a way to win this game at home. You know they are. And you put that team in a game seven where they're confident and are coming in off a win like that. I kind of thought they might come back and win. They're really good. Do you think Milwaukee is better or worse next season um or the same about just different about the same i i you know i think they're on paper a

little bit worse without brogdon but they'll find ways to to either change the way they play or or they'll they'll find other ways to at least on paper be as good i do wonder in the playoffs when it's really go time if they've lost a little bit of shot creation. The biggest question to me for them is if Eric Bledsoe, if this is just going to happen to him in the playoffs every year, then I don't think they can win the championship.

If that's just what happens, then I don't know that any cute strategic tweaks or roster moves are going to make up for the fact that your starting point guard, who was an all-star candidate last year becomes unplayable in the conference final i just you know i don't know what else to say do you think they could if they could they could go they would go back in time and not get through that extension during the season yes i do i did too i mean and by the way to to be clear that's not sourced i'm not sourcing that i'm not reporting that i'm just saying that yeah that that would be my gut is that what happened in the playoffs i mean i i think there

when he signed that extension the reaction was almost the opposite like wow kind of surprised eric bledsoe riding high right now is going to sign this extension then you started to hear from people like well you know it's it is a smart hedge against another scary terry playoff meltdown. And like, that's what happened. I love when you do podcasts, I love how the aggregators are always in the back of your head. Like you're saying the Puzo extension, but you're worried Brew Hoop is going to turn into a headline.

So you're like, this is not, I do not have inside info on this. This is not sourced. I learned from Wynne Horst. Yeah, well, God, Wynne Horst. What was your reaction to Rozier 58 million, three years? What was your first, what were the first 10 seconds in the Zach Lowe house

when you heard about that? I honestly, silence, like mouth agape silence, or just not laughing. Just, I don't know any Charlotte Hornets fans. I really don't. Yeah. If I did, I would have called and said,

it might be, it might be time to consider even within the Atlanta or what, what's their division, the Southeast division. Yeah. Maybe, maybe the Hawks, maybe get in on the Hawks on the ground floor here.

Flip it. Well, that's why the Knicks fans are in that position now at the Nets. Because I don't know any Nets fans. You might know a Nets fan because you live in New York. You know Nets fans? Oh, yeah. I know some real Nets fans. I taught high school in New Jersey, man. I know some legit

like real Nets fans. That followed them to Brooklyn? Yeah. What else are you going to do? Embrace the Knicks? Obviously not. Obviously not. Obviously not. Yeah, the Nets fan count is low. It is funny, though. I'm sure you've heard the same.

It really does seem like those guys were going to the Knicks in February, March, and then something flipped. And I've heard various reasons why it flipped, and I think we can all agree that there was various reasons why it flipped and I think we can all agree that there was one definite reason it flipped

or what we collectively know about the intentions of superstar players is perhaps less than we might hope to know

or that it changes so fluidly that what you knew seven days ago is really not worth anything seven days later like i i don't i i i don't know i did we all did we did ever did the media talk itself into that the knicks were the number one destination all along because they're the knicks and because they had cap space and because of rich climbing's one tweet about how he's going to run the knicks one day and

blah blah did we just speak that into existence like lavar ball or was it ever actually real i don't i don't really know but once the Nets made the playoffs and cleared once they traded Alan Crabb at that time of the year in the middle of the finals they must have known they knew I just don't see any other I mean they dumped they attached two picks to him they got Torian Prince who's good was all right but that trade telegraph like I was done they know. I think what they did is not a lot different than what the Clippers did, where really smart, well-handled behind the scenes, but then also understanding what mattered to those two guys. You know, the Clippers, it was a lot easier.

They knew Kawhi wanted to come home, and that's the best built-in advantage you have. They knew Paul George also wanted to live in California at some point in his life. So those are just lifestyle things I think the Nets really put a lot of time, thought, and energy into what those

guys cared about that wasn't basketball and that goes back to the Alibaba stuff and the ability to mobilize a gigantic 50 million fan Chinese audience behind aette's team and putting those guys in business contacts and all the stuff that isn't basketball that, by the way,

James Dolan would never, ever consider even thinking that way. He's not looking at those guys and thinking, here are all the ways me, James Dolan, is going to help you, Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, in ways beyond basketball. He doesn't think that way. His attitude is, we're the Knicks. I have MSG. We have a lot of fans. You should play here.

We won a playoff series with Carmelo one time. It was awesome. Then Roy Hibbert destroyed our whole franchise, apparently. So I think the Nets, the most impressive thing they were able to do was how they are able to now play this new game that we're in, where all of these guys want to be more than a basketball player. And the Nets realized that the next day. Do you think Sean Marks took a course in preparation for meeting with Kyrie, in how to speak in sentences and paragraphs that sound really profound, but actually don't make any sense. Do you think there's like, is there a course available for that?

And do you think he took it? I think he rode the subway for 16 hours a day just talking to deranged people and figuring it out. I didn't say the word deranged. That wasn't me. I didn't say Kyrie was deranged people and figuring it out. I didn't say the word deranged. That wasn't me. I didn't say Kyrie was deranged. I just said he probably had a lot of weird conversations on subways about whether men ever went to the moon and all kinds of stuff and was just prepared emotionally.

The thing with Kyrie is he can turn it on, though, and be normal. I put him second team All-NBA even in this dysfunctional season because the stats were so overwhelming and and i he's he has a major playoff resume now you can say that's all because of lebron dragging the team there but he was up for it particularly in the 2016 finals games five six and seven he was up for it um you know but this is this is a big now i get you could say it's a holding pattern year. Cause Durant is most likely going to miss the whole season.

I guess that would assume based on the typical timetable, but it's, it's like, you know, people said it at the time, like, you know, you leave Cleveland cause you're unhappy. You leave Boston cause you're unhappy. And you, you, like you gotta, the locker room vibes in Brooklyn better be different. Cause you're not, you don't get, he's gonna get infinite chances because of his talent, but you don't get to keep having situations end like this and be

one of the absolute all-time great players in the history of the league. His performance in the Milwaukee series was indefensible. It was unbelievable. I was sitting there watching. It was indefensible. I was at, I think, three of the games in that series. I was sitting on press row just being like, he missed again. Oh, my God.

He took 17 more dribbles into a fadeaway 18-footer, and he got the net. What's happening here? I'll never forget being, I think it was at game four, when he's going back on defense, and I'm looking at, I'm sitting baseline, looking at the court, and he's like barking out like how he's got Giannis. He's got Middleton and pointing for dudes to get out of the way. And I'm sitting there like, am I really watching this? Like, what is he doing?

Has he been possessed? And of course, Giannis mows him over and Middleton mows him over. Like, oh, that didn't work. It was a very strange series. It was. I mean, he was just bad offensively defensively he was

indescribable there's a couple YouTube clips on on some of the stuff he was doing defensively in that series that you

it's you can't even figure it out you bailed you bailed on it you didn't come to Boston for those games did you no and I couldn't believe

after they won game one, people thought they were, it was like, oh, it's come together. It's like, no, no. Especially after game four, it was like, there's never been a Celtics team more likely to roll over in a deciding game than this team. Also weak, by the way, your performance

in Las Vegas, Nevada this year. Well, it's been discussed. Just tired of the losing. Hold on. I have a couple more burning questions. First, let's talk about SimpliSafe. Did you know that only one in five homes have home security?

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they know our show sent you. SimpliSafe with two I's. SimpliSafe.com slash BS. I had one more topic to throw at you really quick and then we get to go. Because we talked about this in Vegas with Daryl Morey. We were talking about what's the new inefficiency. Daryl did it a couple of times, zigging when the rest of the league is zagging. And we're asking him, you know, what's the next thing? What's the next kind of place that teams are looking at? Like, let's go there. This is the new inefficiency.

And Darrell was extremely feisty. Little do we know. I got to see a video of this. I keep hearing how feisty it was. He was incredible. A lot of feistiness. And so he's like, well, why would I tell you the inefficiency? We'd be trying to exploit it right now.

So then I flipped it on him and I was like, what about these trades where people are just giving away tons of draft picks? They're just not valuing all of these future assets anymore. Could this be the new inefficiency that people are exploiting? And he's like, oh, that's a good guy. And he was totally in on that. So I'm going to ask you, is this the new era of who gives a fuck about draft picks

as long as we get a good player? I don't care. I don't care what's going to happen six years from now because I'll get fired anyway if this doesn't work out. I don't think so, but it's funny. We saw the clippers and the lakers give up whatever first round picks between them right to get to get legit supers three legit superstar players and um and those are those are big market destinations that

can play that kind of free agency virtual free free agency game, in a way that I don't think two-thirds of the league really can. And so for that other two-thirds, the picks remain essential to how they're going to build their team. Now, Daryl, the way Daryl has valued first-round picks is very interesting

because when they were building up to Harden, he really cared about first-round picks. He accumulated them. He played it right. And then as soon as they got Harden, it was all about first-round picks. He accumulated them. He played it right. And then as soon as they got Harden, it was all about now. And when you're all about now and you're a big market team and you have a star and you think you can get a second star, he's been trading first.

He traded a first-round pick to get off Jeremy Lin, and they didn't end up getting Chris Bosh, which was the whole point of that. He hasn't cared about first-round picks in a long time. I think Capella is the only, it's like the most recent one that's actually on their roster. Yeah. And now the other teams with stars in big markets

are doing that, but I don't necessarily think that's a blueprint for the rest of the league. I also think it's somewhat a result of the Warriors now being vulnerable and a bunch of teams thinking, okay, we can, you know, Utah traded two firsts and Grayson Allen, who's essentially three firsts.

Something feels different. I think there was, remember like when Utah gave away, oh no, Golden State gave two first round picks to create the cap space to sign Iguodala. And then the KG Paul Pierce trade happened, et cetera, et cetera. People were paying, and then the KG Paul Pierce trade happened, et cetera, et cetera. People were paying,

it really started with Kurt Thomas at the end of the last decade when Phoenix paid two first round picks to get rid of Kurt Thomas to get on the luxury tax. And we entered this like five, six year era where it just became, all right, if you got to get rid of a contract or if you want to whatever,

first round picks, we'll pay them. And then I think the backlash to the Nets trade made people a little more afraid to trade the first round picks, it felt like. And it was really hard to get them. Now it feels easy to get them again. That's my only point. Yeah.

So, I mean, even Dallas traded two firsts for Porzingis. But again, they're a team that had one star and saw a chance to get another. But, you know, Utah trading two firsts for Conley is different than that it's not a big market team with any history of getting free agents or stars so it is shocking

after how many years teams clung to firsts like gold that they're now flinging them around but I wonder how much of it is just random and how much of it is going to be a real thing. But Daryl was doing this, was sort of on both sides of this already in valuing picks.

Well, I'll just leave you with this. I got an email about Tillman Fertitta's new book. Did you know about this? I did not. It's called Shut Up and Listen. It's got his face on the cover and it's all about him telling you life advice. So I'm, I was going to say, I assume I'm the person who's supposed to shut up and listen. Me, the reader. It's not, it's not advising you. It's not,

it's not like he doesn't conduct his life. No, he wants, he wants you to shut up and listen. And he also wants me to shut up and listen. And nephew Kyle, we're all going to shut up and listen, and he also wants me to shut up and listen, and nephew Kyle. We're all going to shut up and listen because he wrote a book. My question is, would you want to work for an owner who has a new book coming out called Shut Up and Listen? I'm going to say no. I'm not sure that's going to make my European vacation reading list this year. You're not diving into Shut Up and Listen? Don't think that's going to make the emergency Amazon order where like, oh, okay, I need some books to read

for the next month. I don't think that's, don't think that's going to make it. Maybe I'll wait for paperback. My last question, you and I both love when front offices aren't very competent,

although I'm more open about it than you are. Who has replaced the Kings now? Who's now the, who's now the MVP of bad franchises that everybody is kind of whispering and asking and being like what the fuck are basically who is our what the fuck are those guys doing team

right now because i think it's phoenix as you said it has to be phoenix i mean it just has to i mean you're talking to someone who wrote in his free agency winners and losers column an entire fake dialogue of the goat from ryan mcdonough's office calling in the Memphis Grizzlies trade and just mashing the phone with his hooves. So I think it's Phoenix. And that trade, like, I was about to go on one of our shows. I was in the green room, so I didn't have really time to process it. But I'm looking at the trade terms.

I'm like, okay, Josh Jackson. Oh, boy, two seconds? For what now? And I texted, like, a bunch of my buddies in the league. I'm like, can anyone explain this to me other than they're trying to cut money because they screwed up their cap space? And the response was just,

is there a clerical error here? What's happened? What are the Suns doing? I think it has to be the Suns. Yeah, it hurts not to give it to the Knicks, but I just feel like Sarver is Dolan with not as strong of a PR team, or not a PR team, but just like reputation, I guess.

He's not in New York. Yeah, he's Dolan if Dolan was just in Arizona surrounded by 70-year-old senior citizen living people and Cougars. And Phil Mickelson and Chris Bianco. Yeah, I don't think he gets enough credit, unfortunately, for him. You just got to do better, Robert Sarver. Well, years ago on one of these podcasts, we batted around what team would we most like to take over.

And I believe we chose Phoenix just because the bar is so low. It's a big market. Great market. People people want to play there they get meetings with free agents until those free agents cancel at the last minute but whatever like it is and it has a great history until the last eight nine years it's it's they haven't won a championship but they have a great history of consistent winning and innovation like it's just sitting there waiting to be now and they have booker and Aiton, and, you know, they got some, they're probably going to be better next year,

even though I think they screwed up some of those trades. They're probably going to be better. They needed to dump Jackson and Warren and all that. I don't know if they needed to dump Warren, but whatever. You know, they have a point guard who's actually, they have a point guard. Who's played the position before. Who knew?

They have one now. I don't think he's a particularly great fit with Devin Booker and they may have overplayed his market a little bit, but they're going to win more games than, I mean, they won 19 last year. They were 14 games back

in the Western Conference. That is, I'd like to see if that, that's got to be close to their record, although there have been some truly abysmal teams. Wait, 14 games from the 8th spot?

No, 14 games back from 14th oh what yeah that's unbelievable it's got to be it's got to be close to the record yeah remember when i wrote that the the warriors piece before they got good about like the 60 60 ways it's terrible to be a warriors fan or whatever it's called a landmark piece yeah you could definitely, the sequel to that would probably be The Suns, I would think. Because really since day one, their fans have been getting kicked in the balls.

Their franchise basically starts with the Lew Alcindor coin flip and they lose. And they get Neil Walk. And that's just like, welcome to life as a Suns fan. Here's your new expansion team. Here we go. That's like two years in.

They're already getting kicked in the nuts. But non-lock after that, they're battling Boston in the finals. Yeah, they're in the finals. They have a consistent 50-win team. And then you flash forward, D'Antoni reinvents them. They're good in the 90s with Barkley. They're a really good team most of the time. They were,

they were in the finals in the seventies, in the nineties. They were probably our most fun team of the two thousands. Tom Chambers is dunking all over everybody. The, the, the KJ Hornacek era. They had a lot of eras for a team that never made the,

never won a title. But, but this decade it's, it's kind of gone south. The other one is Charlotte, but they just don't have enough fans. But that team, I don't know. You wrote about that in your piece,

and I still haven't heard a good answer on why you wouldn't shop Kemba in February. I refuse to believe the All-Star game would have shut down if Kemba Walker was not on the Hornets. That's what I keep hearing. and if that's the answer just it's it's time it's time for something new if that's the answer let's let's it's time for something more dramatic to happen to like that can't be the answer by the way it can't be you can't run a team that way it's like the teams are like well

we couldn't trade them inside our division you couldn't? If that was the best deal on the table, you really wouldn't have traded a guy? It just makes no sense. And FYI, I think the Celtics probably would pick that eventually became Sexton and some salary for him? I think I'd have to go back and Google, but I think that was reportedly discussed. I mean, that's a year ahead of it, which is, by the way, when you need to start making these decisions, but still. What a summer Zach Lowe we did it now you're going on vacation

you'll come back there'll probably be five more trades no Bradley Beal will get traded CJ McCollum will get stunningly traded there'll be just a whole

bunch of trades I got nine more days before I go on vacation but I will say it was a bad look for me in the summer of Kyrie to be in the lobby of hotels in Europe. Sorry, honey, I gotta go send some text messages on this Kyrie thing. It's getting a little weird. So get everything done in the next nine days. I remember you weren't

working for us at Grantland yet. I was at the Olympics and I had worked the whole time and I was at the tail end and I had this whole mailbag ready. And it was like, I think it was a Friday and it was like, all right, I'm done. We're good to go. It's family time. Here we go. And then, uh, went to bed, woke up in the morning and I had 700,000 text messages and emails and Dwight Howard was going to the Lakers. And we didn't have you at that point, so I had to write. And boy,

boy, does the family get disappointed. And boy, do they not like that at all. Boy, did Dwight Howard's career take some turns since then. It's unbelievable. Do you know he was like 26 when the Lakers traded for him? Think about that. He's 26.

He was a year older than Joel Embiid. It seemed like he was like 35 when you think back to it. His free age, his eventual signing will not interrupt my vacation. He does not raise the bar. That doesn't leap over that bar. All right, Zach Zach thanks for doing this and then I'm popping on your pod

at some point next month when we go back we'll have to come up with a good gimmick pre-season we'll do some fun pre's now with don't you feel like

I need like 48 hours to just do nothing but look and think about look at and think about rosters like I just need like I need cause it's like I think this team is really good

but I need to remember oh yeah Myers Leonard is on the heat. I just need some time. So once we've all done that, we'll reconvene. I'm almost ready to talk myself into OKC's team,

however it plays out. I think there's some major Ewing theory potential, and I kind of like some of the guys in their team. So that's one that could go. And I'm ready to talk myself into the Luka being just awesome

this season narrative. So I'm going to work on that. We're previewing the August podcast. Yeah, we're previewing it. Zach Lowe, thank you. My pleasure. That was fun. Yeah, that was great. Long overdue. Thanks for doing that. No problem. I'll talk to you before you leave, but enjoy the vacation if I don't talk to you.

Thank you. I'll see you. Alright, thanks so much to my man Zach. Thanks to ZipRecruiter. Don't forget to go to ZipRecruiter.com slash BS. Thanks to SimpliSafe, my top choice for home security, around the clock professional monitoring, $15 a month, no contracts, no hidden fees. Prices are always fair and honest.

Their video verification technology allows them to visually confirm their break-in is happening so the police can get to the scene three and a half times faster. Visit simplisafe.com slash BS to get free shipping and a 60-day risk-free trial. SimpliSafe with two I's, simplisafe.com slash BS. I have one more podcast coming later in the week with a famous actor that you like. I'm just going to leave it there. We'll do some sports at the top too. Then the rewatchables, don't forget Inglorious Bastards.

Inglorious or Inglorious? Spelled Inglorious. Is it really? It's got a weird spelling. Inglorious Bastards. That's this week. Reservoir Dogs next week. Then we might break out a Twitter poll for the July 30th rewatchables.

Cause I have some possibilities for that one. And then we have an incredible, a special guest celebrity surprise a little bit later in the summer that I'm really fired up about. So, all right, enjoy the, enjoy the rest of your Monday.

We'll be back. I don't have I don't have I don't have