The Ringer NBA Show - Narrowing Down the West, the Wide-Open East, and Sixers, Sixers, Sixers | Heat Check (Ep. 244)

Episode Date: April 9, 2018

The Ringer’s John Gonzalez is joined by Shea Serrano to debate how the Western Conference playoffs will shake out (1:49). Then, Kevin O’Connor and Justin Verrier come on to discuss which teams could rise above the fray in the Eastern Conference (25:52) and which players belong on the All-NBA teams (39:21). Finally, Michael Baumann and The Rights To Ricky Sanchez’s Mike Levin join to talk all things Philadelphia 76ers (48:27). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Heat Check. You knew that was coming. It's Heat Check Time. Welcome to the Heat Check podcast. I'm your host John Gonzalez, joined per usual by our producer, Isaac. Hello, hello. What's going on, Isaac? Lots of things happening at the Ringer that we're very excited about. The Andre the Giant documentary. It is here, folks. It comes out tomorrow, Tuesday, April 10th. It's going to be on HBO at 10 p.m. Eastern, produced by Ringer films and HBO Sports. Another Bill Simmons joint, David Shoemaker, the mass man is all over it. Guys, it's fan. Fantastic. Even if you don't like pro wrestling, you're going to love it. If you like pro wrestling, you're really going to love it. I highly recommend it. I also recommend checking out the ringer.com. We've got a lot of good NBA content on there right now, including why James Hardin is the MVP and the all NBA teams from one Kevin O'Connor, who's going to be on the program a little bit later with senior editor Justin Varyer to break down the Eastern Conference playoff race and some fun awards. And then after that, first time ever, Isaac, from the Ringer MLB show. baseball. Michael Bowman will be on the program. We're not going to talk about baseball, though. You can probably guess what we're going to talk about. But I'm saving that for the very end. It's going to be me and Michael Baumann and another very special guest that I'm saving for the end. Isaac doesn't even know who it is. Yeah, who is it, man. You don't even know, and I'm going to save it for the end because you can probably guess what we're going to talk about, but there's going to be a lot of it at the very end of the program. But first, a lot of things happening in the Western Conference. It has been absolutely wild. And for that, we need a straight shooter to break it all down for us. Isaac, let's hit it. All right, joining me on the phone right now. He's been on the New York Times best solo list so many times. It's basically just his name on the list now. He's America's most important journalist.

He's got a new story out on The ringer.com right now. The Atlantic wanted it. He said no. The New Yorker wanted it. He said, nah, because he's so loyal to the ringer. He wrote it for us. It's the most impressive feats of Benny the Jet Rodriguez and the Sandlot ranked. It's the most important thing he's ever written.

It's Chey Serrano. What's going on, Shea? Killer story. I love these ideas that you have, and I wish that I could come up with them. That was a fun story. Thank you. I enjoyed that one a whole whole bunch, mostly because we finally realized that Benny is a Mexican. I'd always wondered what exactly he was, and then we finally figured it out.

You got to the bottom of it. Questions and answers. I love it. I have a quick question for you before we go through the Western Conference, because I have a lot of things that I want to get into about that. But I was watching TV the other night, and I had a crisis of basketball movie. and I wanted to see which way you would go. At the exact same time, white men can't jump and blue chips was on. And I just flipped back and forth, but I love them both so much and I couldn't pick.

Did I do the right thing or should I have picked one? No, you pick one. You pick white men can jump over every, not only over every basketball movie, but over every sports movie. It's the best sports movie of all time. It's also secretly the best movie about race of all time. You've said that, and I think you're on to something there. It's a really amazing movie.

My problem is I can't get enough of the really, cheesy athlete performances in Blue Chips. Plus, the Nick Nolte monologue at the very end where he talks about the nuclear surfboard, really fantastic. That's a great, great scene. And you know what? Shack is like surprisingly not terrible.

Surprisingly not terrible. And Anthony Hardaway is like kind of a sweetheart. It's not a bad movie. All right. So also not bad right now. The Western Conference is absolutely crazy. Every time you look up, something else is happening. I was at the Utah Jazz Lakers game last night.

The Jazz beat the Lakers. They clinched a playoff spot. They're on an absolutely ridiculous run right now, Shea. Since January and mid-January, when Gobert came back from his second injury, they lost to the Hawks on this road trip, and then they got their shit together. And since then, they're 28 and 5. Donovan Mitchell went absolutely nuts. He won't nuts last night.

Are you surprised by what the jazz are doing? Everybody is surprised about what the Jazz is doing. Maybe the only one who's not is Rudy Gobert. Yes. But I think that even, like, deep down, he's surprised. how well so has been unbelievable

he just has all the confidence in the world like I'm just going to go out here and I'm put up 46 tonight is what it seems like he's thinking every time he gets on the court incredible

yo he had 28 9 and 8 against the Lakers last night and was just like yeah and I talked to him in the locker room afterwards and it's very rare for a team especially a team

that was floundering and was trying to get itself back together to just hand over one side of the floor to a rookie it generally doesn't work out very well. And Quinn Seider was like, yeah, man, it's Donovan Mitchell. He's clearly our best

offensive player. We're going to run with it and see how it goes. And it's worked out great for them. And Donovan Mitchell was like, yeah, it's credit to Quinn for letting me do it. And he's made me realize that, like, I'm not a rookie now. You know, it's April. It can't be like I was thinking about in October. I'm shocked by how good he's been. Yeah, how good you not be. Nobody saw that coming. Nobody. I think my favorite part of watching Donovan Mitchell play is, is the look that a defender gets when he realizes. Like, you can always sort of tell when Donovan's about to do something really impressive. And I think the defenders have picked up on that, too.

So you're watching the game, the Laker game, and, you know, the guys in defensive stance, and you see his face, like, realize shit. And then it just falls apart in front of him. And it's so much fun. Like, you don't see a lot of rookies who are able to put that face on defenders. you know, LeBron, of course, was able to do it. He came in as a... Kobe didn't do that.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Like, a bunch of guys have never been able to do that as rookies. And Donovan is doing that every night at the team. This is how Bananasa says, you're absolutely right about, like, rookies who come in and lead their team in scoring, like, what happens? Like, I think, I'm pretty sure I have to go back and check this. When LeBron led his team in scoring, they ended up with, like, 32 wins. Kare did it.

and they had 21 wins. Donovan Mitchell, as a rookie leading his team in scoring, has the fifth most wins in NBA history. The rest of the list is insane. It's like Larry Bird, Will Chamberlain, and like guys that are just all-timers. I mean, it's really crazy to see what he's done. I love him.

I love what they're doing in Utah. I stop at the rookie of the year argument. Where are you on the rookie of the year? And keep in mind what podcast you're on and your friend who's hosting it. No, I'm, you're arguing in between. Yeah, that's the only two. Those are the only two that you can pick.

I think either one of those you pick, you're going to be right, and you're going to be wrong. I would lean toward giving it to Donovan Mitchell, mainly because, that's my heart. Mainly because Quinn Snyder looks like the bad European villain in, like, an early 90s movie. He has amazing hair. Like, up close, it's even better. It's really impressive hair. Is it?

It looks extremely greasy. It's not as greasy in person. It's, I mean, he's got some product in there for sure, but it's that kind of hair that you've got to keep brushing back because if you don't, it'll fall on your face. And I'm like, I mean, I don't know how old he is. He's probably, like, in his 50s. Doing great. Yeah. What was the, oh, you remember the movie, Double Impact?

Of course. John Claude Van Damme. Do I? And he's like a, you know, the good brother, bad brother and the bad brother has a slick back hair. Yeah. That's what I think of when I. be Quinn Steiner. He has to be in the remake of that. I'm going to advocate for that next time I see him. In terms of other awards, he's getting a lot of buzz for Coach of the Year because I think he had

to navigate a lot of things. As I said, you know, Donovan Mitchell being, it's one thing for all of us to go, yo, Donovan Mitchell's a killer. This kid's going to be amazing. He already is amazing. It's quite another for you to be like, I'm going to give him the keys to the offense and we're going to ride or die with him. And then on top of that, you had to figure out like what you're doing with your rotations when Gobert went down the first time. And, then the second time. And then you had Rodney Hood and Joe Johnson, who thought that they were going to be the guys offensively. And, you know, they, you had to deal with that. And then Ricky Rubio wasn't playing well. And to be able to figure out all of that and put the puzzle together and get them

into the playoffs, I think he should be in the coach of the year conversation. Yeah, I want to vote. When you think about it like that, like that on the outside, everybody's going, yeah, just let Donovan do it. Like, that's easy for us to say. Yeah. But if Quinstiner doesn't and it doesn't work out, Yep. Like, you lose your job and your whole life is uprooted. If this rookie, if this rookie doesn't do a thing that only five other players in the history of the NBA have done, then your life is over, basically. So good luck. Like, that's incredible to me.

So, yeah, give it a Quinn. I want to be clear here. I'm not giving it to Quinn. I'd probably still go with, I'd probably still go with Dwayne Casey. But I have Quinn on that second line with Brett Brown, like in that tier of, wow, shit, they really did a great. job this year, and I don't think a lot of people were expecting these kind of returns this soon. So you've got Dwayne Casey, Brett Brown, Quinn Snyder, but no Mike Dantone? Mike Dantone is in the conversation for sure. Here's the problem with Mike Dantone.

He won it last year, and I think it's like it's just easy to go. Best team in the league, just give it to the coach who was doing it. Although I give him full, full marks for figuring out a way to get crazy Chris Paul to play second banana to anybody, let alone James Harder. I don't know what kind of jetty mind tricks he used, but kudos. Right, right, right. Why, you have Mike Dantonie first? You just said you were voting for Quinn Snyder. How many coaches of the year are you voted for?

I've got Quinn first, and I've got Dan Tony second. But I feel like Dan Tony should probably get it. I'm super suspicious, so I'm like give it to Dan Tony so they can lose to this first again in the playoffs like last year. I like that you're using the reverse, the preemptive reverse curse. Last couple of things on the jazz, Quinn Snyder said that they don't, they're not really focused on seeding. It's what you would expect because nobody says that right now.

And also, how could you know? But they've got two tough games to close it out. They got Golden State on Tuesday at home. And then they're on the road at Portland, which could really determine who's in that third seed. What kind of chance do you give them to move up to the three? And then beyond that, like, is this a team that's built to make a run in the playoffs? This is a team that's built to get the third seed.

And then it's a team that's built to be upset in the first round when they end up against like OKC or somebody like that. somebody to upend them potentially. Yeah, that's what's going to happen. They're going to, they're going to tell you that they don't, they're not worried about the city, and of course they are. That's just, you know, that's what young team to do. Sure.

But then they get it and then they play an older team. You end up against San Antonio in the sixth spot, and you're like, well, fuck. We know that they can win one in Utah. It's weird that you pulled out San Antonio from that group. I wouldn't have anticipated that. I have to get your thoughts on one other jazz player. This is the longest ever jazz conversation on He-check.

Or I think on the ringer, So I don't want to hear it from Utah ever again. You guys should be applauding us. I saw Ricky Rubio in person last night. Speaking of hair, I've always been a big Ricky Rubio fan. I need your thoughts on his samurai top knot. I love it. Me too.

I'm very pro-Ricky Rubio. You know what? When my sons were, I think, six years old, one of the dads of one of the other kids on the team looked exactly like Ricky Rubio. He had two kids as well, two younger sons. and my boys and his boys were on the same soccer team and the same basketball team a couple years in a row. And the guy was incredibly charming.

He was like a doctor. Of course he was. He was young and very handsome. And he played basketball all the time too, so he's really good. And I sort of became smitten with him. So now every time I see Ricker Rubio, I think of that guy. I think we need to track him down. You need to set up a play date, but it's really for you.

I wouldn't love that. That has to happen. All right. So that's enough jazz talk. Let's blow through the rest of the Western Conference. The Rockets, they lost to the, we'll do Rockets and Thunder together. Thunder beat the Rockets. Did you watch that game?

I know. He got the Small Ball Musical. Oh, that's right. Yes, you did tell me that while we were doing the pre-show. Well, what you missed was quite a game. James Hardin was pretty pissed off throughout the entire game. He has perfected, by the way, the offensive armhook where he's driving and he throws his non-ball hand into a defender and gets a call.

He got that call about a thousand times. Didn't work out for them, though. They lost at home. The Thunder, five and five over the last 10, still in it. Russ went and did Rust stuff. Mello made some shots finally. PG was good at D. If they went out, they're in, but still it's up in the air.

How do you feel about the Thunder? How do you feel about the Rockets? I think, well, I know the Rockets are the odds on favor right now to win the championship. They are. So I'm excited about that. I'm excited to watch them play the Warriors and the conference finals. I think that's the match of everybody's been waiting for since, like, December when everybody realized.

as that's as a team. So that is going to be, you know, that'll be the big showdown. That's going to be very three days left in the season at this point. And I still don't know if they're good or not, which is a good for a team that has Paul George and Russell Westbrook. But I'm not going to say Carmelo, Anthony. You're not that. No. Are you out on him?

Yes. I've been out on Carmelo since the Knicks. I think it's a very fun conversation to have to ask if Carmelo is actually good at basketball or not. So I don't know if you saw the fake awards that we handed out as a group post on Friday, but we did like a bunch of things like, you know, skeleton key player who unlocks whatever and the guy who did the most with the least.

One of the ones we did was most washed player. Paulo Esco blog, picture guy, Carmelo Anthony. As he should have, Pablo's a genius. I've been saying this for a long time. And I'm so young.

He's got his whole life ahead of him. I'm really jealous. I am less sour on Mello. I like him just fine as a third option. I never thought we'd get to the point where he'd allow himself to be. But I think it's really interesting that when you have

Russell Westbrook and Paul George and Carmelo Anthony on the same team, three guys who are three of the best of their generation, they're still in danger of missing the playoffs. That's not good. No, that's terrible. That is extremely terrible. You know what it is with Carmelo Anthony? He's

extremely good at like one thing, but that's the thing that you don't ever need. If it gets down to the end of the playoff game, you need somebody. But that's not what he's going to do. That's not what he's ever done for his career. Carmelo is like, if you make a really good seven-layer dip, and then you show up to, that's not the food you're supposed to have. And you're like, but this thing is so good. Look at how good it is that I've made it. And everybody goes,

well, we don't need that. That's not what we need. I love your analogies and metaphors. I take my leave here. What do you mean? Seven-layer dip is good for all occasions. It's amazing. seven layer dip is delicious and I have eaten it several times as a dinner meal but it's not appropriate for all situations listen I've heard you talking about your parenting skills please tell me that you're feeding the kids and yourself when left to your own devices just seven layer dip yes that is a true it's a meal and a real thing you can you can call my wife and you can ask her it has all of this stuff in there that you would eat otherwise it has beads it has meat it has cheese it has sour cream It has everything you need.

Like, it's a taco, essentially, and my kid's these tacos all the time. So, yeah, if she's going to go somewhere, I'm like, hey, can you make us a dip? And we'll just eat that for the whole day. And that's what we do. We're going to have, here's what we're going to do. I'm going to come for the playoffs to Texas, and we're going to have seven-layer dip with that dude that you mentioned. And it's going to be great and not weird at all. We're just going to show up at his house.

It's going to be fantastic. All right, more stuff here in the Western Conference. The Warriors beat the Suns, which, you know, great shakes. They did lose to the Pelicans over the weekend. They're five and five over the last 10. Are you worried it all about the warrior? Steve Kirk kind of called them out. He said, it's tough to win when no one tries.

And he said that caring in general has been the main problem, which I thought was really amazing that he would say that. He said, just in general, it's hard to win an NBA game if you don't put forth an effort at all. At which point, the reporters, being intrepid reporters, what you do is you bring that quote to one of the players and you say, what do you think about what your coach said? So they brought it to KD, and KD was like, nah, I thought we cared. Right. Do they care? No, they don't care right now. Why would they care right now?

Any team in the history of NBA over any three-year stretch, I think. Why do they care right now about playing the fucking sun on a Sunday night? Who cares? Get to the playoffs. They're going to blow through whoever they play in the first round. And, you know, then they probably get, and that's when it gets serious. Yeah. They'll be fine. They'll win the championship this year. I'm with you. I'm less certain about the championship prospect. I think they will be fine in terms of they'll get it together and they're going to make the Western Conference Finals and then we'll see what happens. But this has been their thing all year. I wrote about this earlier. Like literally all year they've been trying to figure out ways to keep themselves interested.

Like remember when Steve Kerr was doing the thing with the slinky and the nail clippers and whatever? He was the most bored. And now he's like, hey, everybody's bored over here. But they'll be fun. They did lose to the Pelicans. I wanted to bring the Pelicans up to you. They won three straight, they're six and four over the last 10. We did that group post that I mentioned where we handed out the other awards. I gave Anthony Davis my Moore with Wes award because aside from Drew Holiday, that roster is garbage. I mean, Rayjon Rondo is getting actual minutes.

He's still in the league. Right about basketball for a living that's my money and pay for my family to have food and they're built. And I can't name four players on the roster who is in Rondo. I don't know who else there is. I think that's it. I think that's the, they actually only play with four dudes.

They just, and Boogie, Boogie just limps out there with his ruptured Achilles. It's really, it's really strange. So you're not buying their prospects in the playoffs, right? Are you think they're one and done? No. Yeah, if they get in, they're out of there.

In and out, that's all they get. What if it's right now, it's the 4-5 matchup would be very interesting? It would be Jazz Pelicans. What if it's Jazz Pelicans? One of those has to advance. No, they both just get canceled. It's the first time ever. The whatever team that they would face next round gets a buy.

I have to ask you one more Pelicans thing, too. Did you see Jordan Crawford's shoe selection over the weekend? No, I did not. You're going to love this. This is perfect for you. Jordan Crawford became the first non-ball family member to wear the Triple B brand. He put on the big baller brand shoes and rocked him in an NBA game. Yeah.

What was his stateline that game? He had like 13 points in nine minutes. Perfect. That's a perfect big ball. That's the biggest. He said initially when the shoes first came out that he was rocked. riding with LeVar. He's like the only person

that's lobbying LeVar for like a triple B endorsement. Well, you know, go get it where you can get it. I'll wear, I'll wear some big ball of brand shoes for, I don't know, give me $1,000 and I'll wear them for six months.

Go get it. All right, wolves five and five over their last 10, they beat the Lakers. Jimmy Butler came back from his knee injury, scored 18. Does any team need a player like Jimmy more than the wolves? Like, they're such a different team with him.

Yeah, I don't even know how that works. Like, I've seen teams that are, that look like not themselves when they're missing their best. You know, I've been watching Kauai all season, not play for, my beloved. Just so much more dangerous when he's short of that. I think it's Jimmy Butler after that with the wolves. They show up, they don't have Jimmy Butler, and it's like, well, you're going to get shit kicked out of you in this fight. But Jimmy's there, and you go, like, you know what, never mind. I don't want any part of this trouble.

I've made this point before, like, Wiggins wants to be the guy. and he is not the guy. Like, Jimmy Butler is very much the guy, and without him, the wolves are pretty ordinary. By the way, the wolves and the nuggets face off against each other this week to finish things out. Tibbs versus Mike Malone on Wednesday.

Charks put this in our Slack. He was wondering if it's going to be a pink slip game for whichever team loses it because right now, they have the exact same record, they're tied for that eighth spot in the Western Conference playoffs. Does the loser go home? Does the loser lose his job?

I hope so. I hope that they make them like an official thing, though. Like, they should announce it before the game starts. Guys, guess what? Whoever lose this game, you're out. And that would be fantastic. Loser leaves town match. Luser leaves town match.

They should incorporate that during the season. That should be like a thing. I love it. I think that this needs to, Adam Silver needs to get on that. Chase Serrano has good ideas. All right, last one for you because how could I possibly have you on the heat check podcast without talking about your beloved team?

The Spurs beat the Blazers. Blazers lost three in a row. by the way. Now they're sort of in danger of losing the three-seat. As I mentioned, they're going to play the jazz on Wednesday at home. That could have major seating implications. But in the interim, the Spurs look like they're going to make the playoffs of six and

four over their last 10. How do you feel about them? Kauai is, I don't know, I guess he's in New York now still. Nobody knows where he is. Lamarcus is your main guy. I personally am not, I wouldn't be thrilled or very confident about going to the playoffs with Lamarcus is my main guy. What's your mindset right now? How do you feel? My

mindset is that Lamarcus is the best center in the NBA, as Kevin O'Connor stated publicly for the record, and we're going to be fine. We're going to be okay. My fingers are extremely crossed that we end up in eight spot, and we get a rocket. I'm going to win the championship this year. Everybody knew that going in. So you said sort of same as you would if you're at shooting practice and you know, I'm going to shoot 100 shots. I know I'm not going to make 100. But if I can hit 62 of them, that's successful for me. I think that's what the spurs are doing. I know that's what I'm doing. as a Spurs fan. So my only goal this year is just to beat the rockets in the playoffs. And if we do that,

win, win for you. I'm rooting for you. You mentioned your boy, KOC. He's actually coming up next on the program. He was on, he checked last week. He's telling a heat check all the time now. Like, he's on every podcast everywhere. He's on every show. He was on NBA desktop. And in both desktop and he checked last week, he basically lobbied you to forgive him. He is quite distraught that you're angry at him and his spurs takes. And I think he just wrote a story on the ringer.com today with his all NBA teams. He might be the only person in anywhere who has Lamarcus Aldridge, first team all NBA. I think he did that to Curry favor with you. Would you like to right now before Kevin comes on, forgive him? Now, I'm 100% certain he only put that

in there so that I would be nice to him. And I'm also 100% certain that I would never forgive him and that we will forever be enemies. And I wish that this was real life so that I I could knock my chair over on the floor when I leave the room and then he has to walk in and pick the chair up before he can sit down. That's the kind of stuff I'm going to do to Kevin O'Connor for the rest of my life. I thought that I could broker a summit between you two, but not this week, maybe next week. He's Shea Serrano. He is very famous and talented. Read all his stuff.

Shee, thanks so much for doing this, man. All right, Bob, I take it either. All right, homie. All right, we're going to get to KOC and Verrier and talk a little Eastern Conference playoff picture. But first, before we do, a word from our sponsor. Today's heat check is brought to you by the Google Assistant. With the Google Assistant, you can complete over a million actions on your phone and your car around your house. Do you ever forget where you parked at the game?

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our senior editor and senior know-it-all, we've got Justin Verrier and Kevin O'Connor to break down the Eastern Conference. He's the senior know-it-all. You're the senior-no-ass. Yeah, I'm separating those two things out. You know all these things about basketball. That was a compliment.

She just busted me for him being all about nuance. You're here. She was not, I try, look, I tried to broker a reconciliation between the two of you. Clearly not going to happen. Maybe on another podcast. But that's okay, because it's kumbaya here to talk about the Eastern Conference.

I don't want to, this is going to surprise the two of you, I don't want to spend a lot of time on the Philadelphia 76ers because we've got a whole segment coming up in the third block of the show. However, are they doing okay? If the two of you would like to laud them while we're here, please have that. 50 wins for the first time since 2001, 14 game winning streak ties a franchise record.

Got some good players. You guys look very excited. Yeah. No, I just told your upcoming guest that I, I have a Fultz take just brewing. You just broke news. Oh, did I? Yeah.

It's definitely not on the pod, uh, breakdown or, right up. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm, uh, I think I've had it with Markell Foltz. Uh, I'm done. I just don't want to hear about him ever again. You've had enough? We've condensed all of, all of the goodwill towards Folt into, like, a two-week span.

And it's now just getting to the point where every time he makes a poopie, like, Philadelphia just like freaks out like it's the biggest thing in the world. I'm necessarily not freaking out. That's also true. I, like I said, I don't want. I don't want to get into the Sixers right now because I have a lot of Sixers stuff that I'm saving for our two guests at the end of the show. But I am excited. And I think it's interesting.

And I think they're very good. And that Cavs game was a hell of a lot of fun to watch. And Fultz, we'll see what happens with Fultz. Right. I think just the more interesting question is with the East wide open as it is, as we're going to discuss presumably right now. Like how much of a chance do they have? Because if they were to make the finals, let's just say, that'd be pretty unprecedented. just considering that their two best players are a rookie and ostensibly like a rookie and a quarter, you know?

Yeah. Well, I think with Philadelphia, clearly, I mean, I have two guys on my All-N-B-A team with them. They have Joe L-L-N-Bade, second team, Ben Simmons' third team. I think that says everything you need to know about where this team is. They are so far ahead of where anybody could have expected. Even the most optimistic Sixers fan couldn't have expected to have them and will they make the finals conversation already? It's remarkable. It is.

And we're going to get into your All-N-B-A team. team a little bit later. You had some interesting selections on there. As I noted was Shea Serrano, who was completely convinced that you put Lamarcus Aldridge on your first team to curry favor with them. It didn't work. It didn't work, but I like the idea. We'll get into that in a second. Let's talk about how wide open the East is. Let's go with the Raptors first. They won three in a row. They beat the Magic. They've been one of the most consistent teams in the NBA all season, certainly the most consistent team in the Eastern Conference this year. Is this the year for the Raptors? I don't know. Shoulder shrug and maybe. Probably. I've just never been

truly inspired by what they've been doing. No, and it's just like, I always feel reductive talking about the East in general, but also specifically about the Raptors, because the biggest question about them is the one that's been lingering over them for the past three season, which is the playoff question. And you wonder if, yes, DeMarter Rosen has made improvements,

some of the other star players have made improvements. And they're playing differently? Playing a little differently. But it's still like they're going to have a shorter rotation in the playoffs, and guys like Fred Van Lee might, I can't even say that. Hard to say. Hard to say. Double V. Who has a double V? You're giving me a double V? I have a single V. I just keep it simple.

Yes, one V. But some of these guys that are making a big difference for them, I wonder how much they're going to play in the playoffs. And so it trickles down that way. It's going to be fascinating. I'm more interested in seeing how their game translates to the playoffs. Probably more than any East Team Philly as well will be interesting to watch. But Toronto, obviously, based on the last four playoffs series, they're different this time around. Their defense is better. Granted, it's really slipped the last month. and a half, but their offense plays differently. I wonder how much it translates or if they slip back into those, you know, really ball-stopping habits. I don't think that's going to happen. I don't think so either. I mean, like they're, and this is why I've got, uh, Dwayne Casey for Coach of the Year because, you know, I was done with Dwayne Casey.

I couldn't figure out why they're bringing back a ostensibly like the exact same team with the same coach and the same philosophy. And they went, no, well, Duane's going to have them play differently this year. And they committed to it and it's worked for them. I had Casey as coach of the year probably around a month ago. And I don't have them number of. one anymore. It's a crazy race. Someone put it, brought up the point. Are we really going to award

Dwayne Casey for installing an offensive shoot threes of news the ball? They should have done three years ago. Whoa! Over Greg Popovich, who has still managed to win almost 50 games without Kauai Leonard, right, with really an average roster or over Brad Stevens who had his star player for five minutes,

and then his other superstar has only played around 60 games, and he's maximized that roster to win 55 plus games. You're really going to give Casey the award just for ball moving? It's shooting. Yes. I actually am because I didn't think it was possible for him to change.

You didn't mention the two guys that I have right behind Dwayne Casey, too, which is Quinn Snyder and Brett Brown. Quintziner. I think that they've done really fantastic jobs with difficult circumstances. But yes, Dwayne Casey for me was get rid of it. Before the year started, I was like, I don't get this. I don't understand.

Like, you got to change something. They're not really changing the players because they ended up bringing back back out. Right. And I felt like you. And I was like, if you're not going to do that, then at least get a new coach to bring. in a new philosophy, you can teach old dogs new tricks,

different spots on the leopard, whatever you want to come up with. Dwayne Casey did it. Right. For sure. And I think the Grizzlies might be kind of a good counter example of what you could do incorrectly, whereas they brought back their core, which is aging. And now there's some differences that are really specific and important here, where Markets Hole has the foot injury.

Conley has been battling injuries throughout. And DeMar and Kyle have been pretty consistent in terms of just not getting injured. But they kind of kept what they had. almost added to it and just augmented, which is almost more difficult than just building from the ground up and being able to stack decisions on top of decisions, whereas you're kind of doing this on the fly, and they've really just nailed some of those ancillary moves

that have made all the difference for them. Also in the Eastern Conference, the Celtics had sort of a, they were really good at the beginning, and they lost some players, and now they're seven and three over their last 10. They're still plugging along. However, you're only as good as your last game, gang. They lost to the Hawks at home yesterday. They didn't play a lot of their guys down the street.

stretch, fine, whatever, but they lost to the Hawks at home yesterday, made me smile. They're locked into that two seed. How do we feel about the South Dix resident, Boston enthusiast, Kevin O'Connor? I'd be more looking back. Forget that Hawks game. Tossed out. Nobody plays. It's really last week against Toronto.

But still, they did lose. I don't know if I mentioned that they lost to the Hawks. It's last week against Toronto really got to look at where in a playoff situation, Toronto's defense is elevated. Jason Tadem was being leaned on. Tatum didn't really have his best game. That's what Boston's going to need to have. They need Tatum to be in his prime when he's only 20.

And you're not going to get that. It's going to be extremely difficult for Boston to make an extended run of the playoffs when Tatum, Horford are playing without Kyrie Irving. Kyrie Irving coming back was really, I think, what would have given them the push. You can't rely on Terry Rosier to do it every night. They're going to be scrappy. They're going to be tough, just like they have been the last two playoffs. But without Kyrie, I can't take them seriously as really making a push in the East anymore.

Potential first round matchups for them, Justin Vary, or Heat Bucks and Wizards. Any danger there? Who's the most dangerous for them? You'd want to say the wizard simply because they have the type of talent where they should be a top four seat in the east at this point. But they can never get anything right.

Marston Gortat is either sub-tweeting or just straight up calling them out in the middle of them. Can we get Gortat on the phone? Yeah, I would love to. I would love the chat with him about that team. I mean, around Christmas, when they took it to the Celtics

in that Christmas Day game, I was thinking about them as a type of team that could break through in the second half of the season. They just have all these pieces they have the top tier talent, which is what you need in the playoffs,

as we so often hear. I just, I can't buy them seriously. I do look at the bucks, though. You have the box. You'd have the best player on the floor. And if I'm one of those teams,

either the heat bucks or wizards, I'd be tanking or trying to get up to that seven seed just to make sure I'm playing the Celtics. Yeah, I actually, I mean, if you're the wizards, you'd have the best player on the floor too

and John Wall, but I think the bucks is really interesting. John Wall, the best player on the Wizards? Are you going to, I mean, are you actually, I'm playing devil's advocate.

I love when you do this. I mean, if Terry Rozier is also on the floor, it's tough. Is it Brad Biel or, I mean, is it? I'm just playing devil's advocate. I think it's John Wall. I think it's John Wall. I agree. I really like Brad Biel, but I think it's John Wals.

Either way, though, I think you'd have the two best players on the floor of you're the Wizards. I really like, yeah, I mean, I think. Just not in Crunch Time. I think Crunch Time is a completely different situation because as we saw the other night, John Wall, still trying to figure things out. Yeah, still trying to figure things out. That's a weird game.

It doesn't. The Wizards mix is. been weird for a long time. And I wonder what happens if they are first round out this year, if they finally shake it up. The bucks would be interesting. The heat generally give the Celtics problems.

Are we now all of a sudden worried about the Celtics in the first round? Because I think we've talked to each other into it. For sure. I think you have to be. If you're a Celtics fan, it's like, well, you know, got bit by the injury bug. It's too bad.

All the walk around out this particular season. Miami's tough. And they have the ability to play different ways. They have upside. Guys like Drodurch can step up. They can play big. They can play small. they're going to be a tough out regardless of who they face.

So I think there's certainly a potential team that could upset a favorite in the first round, whether that's Boston or even Indiana. Miami 6 and 4 over their last 10. They host the Thunder tonight. That's an interesting game for both teams. They both have to win. It turns out only one of them can.

Right. Yeah. And I think the Thunder are a good example of something we're going to see both in the West and the East going into the playoffs. Just like the difference between a team as a regular season team and a playoff team. It's obviously glaring with the thunder where they built their entire team on a top end, hoping that they can get to the playoffs and turn it on in that regard.

But I do wonder with some of the teams in the east whether an Ola Depot can make enough of a difference where they could make some noise, maybe make to the conference finals even. Yeah, you know, I was going to kind of just gloss over the cabs and the Pacers because we spent so much time talking about the Cavs and then the Pacers. I wrote about them last week. That was a long story. It felt like a good amount of Indiana talk. Are you buying Pacer stock?

How do you feel about the Cavs? Let's get real quick with those two teams. I'm shoulder shrug on both right now. With Indiana, I wish they had made a move at the deadline, which sounds weird because this is kind of found money at this point. No one expected them to be even in the playoffs, let alone. Yeah, they've been great. But if they hadn't made a move, the East is wide open, as we said,

and they could have potentially done some damage. With the Cavs, it's more like who else is there. And so you're almost resigned to the fact that we played all these games, 82, everyone, like six months of battle. basketball and we're basically just saying, hey, LeBron's the best player. That's all the manners. I think the good part of your Indiana story guns was it's not just Olipipo. They have a lot of talent on that team.

Miles Turner has been better. Granted, he struggled the last game. He's changed his game since the All-Star break. He's really stopped shooting those easy mid-rangers that they'll give you and trying to get to the rim when he's not shooting theories. No more of a weird butt. Remember he was a weird butt guy in the dress? They have a lot of good players on that team.

It's a good mix. But ultimately, Victor Oladipo still needs to be the guy that elevates his game to an even higher level. He's been a killer. How much higher can he go? He's, he has been an absolute monster. There's still room. There's always room for a lot of players in the league. And Oladipo can get better as well. His shot needs to be like what it was early in the season, not what it's been in the last two months or so. And he's been great this month. He's getting back on track. And he's facilitating to it. For sure. In that game where they came back against the clippers when they were down double digits and like it looked like they were going to

cough one up on the road, all of a sudden he was, he was already scoring and he got everybody involved. He had, I think, season high, might have even been a career high 12 assists. I mean, he looked fantastic. That's why I'm wondering how much more he could possibly do for them. That's what I mean. Like, all season long, he's been the 23, 5, and 5 guy. He's been unbelievable.

I don't know my second team all-MBA. I think he deserves even some first team all consideration. He's also an unbelievable defender. So how can you ask for more like you said? But you can't. Like the shot being more consistent in the playoffs, or at least him being hot on a high end of streakiness. Playmaking can also

be elevated as well. Look, Oladipo, I loved him in his draft, and then he plateaued for four years, and I completely soured. But now you're back in? All the way in, John, all the way in. I like that you called me, John. I know. Sometimes, I've always been a first name kind of guy. I've always been a first name type of guy. I think names are hard for me. But, but like, there's room for improvement in Indiana needs that to really, I think, make it pushing the playoffs. Real quick, as we record this, four verse five matchup Eastern Conference

would be Cavaliers and Pacers, what percentage chance would you give the Pacers to upend the Cavaliers? 10. And that's the problem

with the Pacers. One out of 10 shot. Probably. I think that's about right. I get 30 or something like that. You'd go higher. Okay. I mean, look,

the Pacers have been fantastic. Those aren't great odds. 30. It's almost one and three. It's pretty close. I mean, look, it's probably higher than I'd go. I think at most I'd go

one in five at most. Just because you have LeBron, right? And like playoff LeBron is a different LeBron, and the Pacers have been an excellent story, but Pacers in the playoffs when it's beat us with mid-range jumpers. I'm not so sure about that. You mentioned your all NBA team. I wanted to do that with you before you guys get out of here.

It's up on the ringer right now. Why James Hardin is the MVP of the league. Great headline on that one. I wonder who wrote that senior editor. Very well done. But then also you put together your all NBA team. You edited the piece. Sure.

Right? Did you not? I pretended to, yeah. I just passed it along to the copy dust. So as you were going through his all-N-B-A team, his first team right here, we have Lamarcus Aldridge, LeBron James, and Anthony Davis in the front court,

and then James Hardin and Russell Westbrook in the back court. Take umbrage with any of those? No, I think the issue with this entire awards exercise and the award season is just there's so many guys with so many missed games. And, like, my initial reaction was, whoa, Lamarcus Aldridge at the center. Like, that's such a weird thing to do.

But, I mean, JL. but when you look into it and Joelle Ambide has only played 60 some odd games like how do you reward him with the first team? But it's not that. It's if Aldridge isn't first team center, I'm bumping Davis up there,

then Janus is going to the second team as a forward. Embed is behind Yanis still. That's the other difficulty with the positions and like some people being eligible for some. Was Davis eligible as a center? Yes. Okay. So he could have moved Davis to center and put Janus at forward.

Order. Or even Durant's. I'd put Durant to have moved to Lamarcus Aldridge down and put Joel Embed in there. I would have been fine with any of... You would have been okay with that. I would have been fine with either of those. I got to be honest with you, Kevin. I'm kind of surprised that you didn't have Al Horford first team.

Like, how hard was it for you not to put Al Horford on your first team? He might drop off entirely because now that we can... The NBA changed it so Jimmy Butler is not just a guard anymore. He can also be put his Ford. Which seems silly. Why can we put Ben Simmons and Jimmy Butler at Garden Forward? but not LeBron James, who is a point guard, essentially. The other thing that I was kind of caught by was just Russell Westbrook being on the first team.

This is a guy that we talked about a couple months ago is like, would he even make an all-MBA team? He's made a push and he's really carried this Thunder team over the past couple weeks when Paul George has been struggling. Yeah. Mello just has looked somehow worse. But we've seen, too, like with Russell, yes, there are times when he carries a team, but there are also times when his rustness is a detriment, right? Like there's a stat where if he takes 17 shots or fewer, they're 19 and 2. And when he takes 18 shots or more, they have a losing record. So like sometimes he isn't facilitating as much.

Sometimes even in the Rockets game the other day that they won at Houston, which was a big and necessary win for them, there were moments when he would just come down the floor and jack up a three super early in the shot clock before they've done anything to set up. And it's like, oh, that's the rust that you don't need. You need the good Russ who can get everybody involved. Well, I think that's just the Russ experience, right? Yeah, it all goes to there. Bill has talked about the 90-10 rule.

And, I mean, that's what you kind of have to deal with because the 90 often is pretty brilliant. And the way he's been running the pick and roll with Stephen Adams, I remember that game against the Raptors where they just chewed them up, running that play over and over and over again. And that's what you can get out of him. Would you, because I was with you, I wouldn't have Russ on my first team. Would you, if you didn't have Russ on your first team,

Depot, Lillard. That's the question. Who would have been? really screw things up. I've always been the type of guy where if they played enough, that I might just prioritize that. And Steph has been so good, especially at the way that the wars have played of late, where it's like, yeah, they've been okay, but they haven't been excelling. I might just reward him based on that. All of his advanced numbers are insane. Yeah, I know. And as I say it out loud, it sounds kind of ridiculous.

He just, you can't see this because it's a podcast. But he did, uh, Kevin O'Connor, as you said that, did an eyebrow shrug at you. Very aggressive eye like Kevin O'Connor. Second team, right, because you have Steph Curry on your third team, but let's get to the second team first. Second team you've got Ambide, Janice, Durant, Depot, and Lillard.

That's a damn good team. Some of those guys, a lot of those guys, you can make a first team case for. Yeah, Lillard. Maybe all five of them? Yeah. All five of them? You really could. I mean, Oladipo, one of the best two-way players in basketball this league. Lillard, unbelievable, really surging Portland to the three-seed. Yannis is Janus.

Katie, granted, the Warriors have slipped. he's still outstanding two-way player and Bede one of the best centers in basketball. Case can be made for all five. What did you say? That last part about M. Bid? Embed one of the best centers in basketball. It's amazing.

And you know what's also amazing? As I mentioned, you've got Embed on the second team. We get to your third team. You have on your third team, Al Horford. I think that this was a typo. How did you not have him higher? You got Horford, Simmons, Yokic,

DeMard de Rosen, and stuff. I feel like Ben Simmons isn't going to make it. He made my third team. I wish I could put him on second team, but I have a family he's not going to make it. You don't think he's going to get any knots. People hate rookies. Yeah, they just want them to earn it, which is always a stupid thing.

They're going to put Paul George there, which blows my mind, to be honest with you. Paul George said a really good season, but his scoring is falling off a cliff. Ever since Roberson got hurt. If they've put him in that role, they had assigned Corey Brewer to put George back in to really his off-ball free safety role, which he does out. He's incredibly. But I have a hard time putting him over Ben Simmons, who is maybe the best Sixers player, maybe. You can argue it. I probably wouldn't make that argument just yet. But it's an interesting

conversation. It's certainly a debate. And then over Horford, who I know you're going to make fun of me for, but even Jimmy, I put Jimmy Butler ahead as well. Horford has been really the foundation of any success of Celtics have had this season on the court. It's already too much Celtics and Hartford talk. Before I let you guys go, you had mentioned that people hate rookies. The rookie of the year conversation has gotten interesting. This might surprise you guys. I might be a little biased I've heard a lot of With Fultz, yeah, Fultz should win. With Fultz, right, he's back, that he came back,

I think he'd just give him the award. But any listener to the Heat Check podcast knows how much I love Donovan Mitchell, I love him so much. I call him Don, I saw him last night, he was fucking killer. I talked to him afterwards, I love him. He's a really nice kid.

He's really thoughtful about the season that he's had and that the jazz has had. I'm surprised, frankly, by how much push he's gotten on this Rookie of the Year conversation. Really? Look, it's a conversation, but how much of one? I think it's more of a conversation as we're recording this

because of what Ben Simmons said about the race, which to be honest, makes me want to vote for Ben even more because his fuck you attitude is amazing. The way that he just like assumes that he's going to be great

is honestly one of the... Not going to be. He thinks he is great. He is great right now. Yeah, and that's like the most interesting thing about him as a personality. It's just like he just

expects it to be almost like ascending to the throne. I think all of the arguments though for Donovan Mitchell about his scoring and the way he's marshaled the jazz when they needed it most. And everything that he does for that team could be made and one-uped with the Sixers and Ben Simmons, right? Like, yes, he doesn't shoot the ball and score at that clip, but he does so many other things.

And we've seen what he was able to do with Joel Embed out and keeping that winning streak alive and the fucking endless triple doubles. And look, I love Donovan Mitchell. I just don't think it's the same comparison. Ben also has Joel, though. Fair, fair, but hasn't for the entire year. There's some freak injury with Fultz's shoulder in his face. I hadn't heard about that. Yeah, it was unfortunate.

So the way I heard it, you're both going, Ben Simmons. Yeah, it's not even close. It shouldn't even be much of a conversation at all. That's the best thing you've ever said on the Heat Check podcast. I think that's the perfect place to end. It's Kevin O'Connor. Make sure you read him on the ringer. Justin Verrier, make sure you read him on the ringer.

Also, they'll be back later on the week. They both do multiple podcasts. Kevin will be back tomorrow with Chris Vernon, and Justin will be back on Thursday with group chat gang. Thank you so much. doing this. Thanks, buddy. Thank you, Gons. All right, before we do all sixers all the time here at the heat check podcast, one more word from our sponsors. Hecheck is brought to you by ADT. Is your home an ADT home? If not, get ADT and help protect against break-ins, fire, and carbon monoxide. For a limited

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All right, I'm very excited about this segment. Joining me on the phone right now from the Ringer MLB show, he's South Jersey's favorite son, never been on the He Check podcast. He's a first-timer. Michael Bowman is here. What's up, Mike? Hey. And also our surprise guest from the greatest Sixers podcast ever, which is a very long list. There's many podcasts that we could have put it on it. He's one half, the better half of the rights to Ricky Sanchez podcast. Let's welcome in, Michael Vint. There he is. He's got the music. He's sitting across from me in the spot previously occupied by antagonists of the process, Kevin O'Connor.

That's right. Michael Vin, we brought you in. I didn't want to tell anybody because this one. wasn't sanctioned. This is totally off books. Sure. I have hijacked this podcast with the two of you. Just so normally Chris Ryan would be joining us as well. He has returned to the motherland. He heard the siren song, the call. He's gone back to Philadelphia this week.

So I had to bring in my two favorite Philadelphians to talk about the Sixers guys who 14 straight wins, tied a franchise record. 50 wins for the first time since 2001. How excited are we? Fired up. All the time. You see it. People have started to reach out to me saying,

I'm worried about what's going to happen to you during the playoffs. Like, I'm worried about what if it goes south. A little bit too. But I'm still, I think I'm still in everything is gravy mode. I think no matter what, we didn't expect this. 50 wins right now, probably 52 to finish it off. That's unreal. We're very happy.

We're mostly healthy. Everything's gravy no matter what. That's the attitude I'm going to keep. I am turgid and waxing with civic pride right now. Between the Sixers and we're going to get a Flyers, Penguins first round playoff matchup at the same time. I deeply regret that this is happening at the same time. I actually have to cover baseball because I don't know if I'm going to survive the next couple weeks. That's a lot of baseball, but don't worry about baseball right now. We're worried about

the Sixers. Tell my editors that. Yeah, God said I don't have to worry about baseball. So I can just watch basketball for the next two weeks. I went on the heat check podcast and he gave me a free pass. Yeah. Mike had mentioned the 50 wins, possibly as many as 52. What did you guys have preseason? I had, I think, 40. That's about where I was. I didn't think Embed would play this many games. Like, I'm still sort of being cautious with my emotions regarding how healthy he's going to be. And I was not prepared for how good Ben Simmons was going to be. I said this during the first half of the Cavs game, like, this looks like a soccer game.

Like, this is like just being blitz, just total one-way action. And I was, nothing like this was in my head in September, October last year. No, not even in my wildest fantasies. I will tell you whose fantasy actually did come. true. As you were talking, Levin went and grabbed his phone and handed it over to me. And he had a tweet prepared on his phone from February of last year. That's right. Not this year. Of 17. And the tweet says, BRB got to buy 52 cats to raise next season. He predicted this over a year ago. Well, there's a man with wild fantasies, right? That's right. That's true. Always have. It's almost like

you're writing your own fan fiction. You mentioned Ben Simmons, who has played out of his head all season long. and has played even better with Joe Ellen Bede out of the lineup. He was recently asked who the rookie of the year is, and he said 100% me. Earlier in the year, he was saying, I'm doing things that haven't been done in a long time. I really like Ben Simmons. You know who else likes Ben Simmons?

Ben Simmons. Yeah, big fan of himself. I think rightfully so. He's really good. He knows he's really good. He came up in the LeBron school of really everything, and hopefully not hairlines. But he's got it all, man,

except for the jump shot, which I have said in the past would be really nice if he had but even without it unbelievable player has every right to be feeling himself the way it is. All right but I want to mention this because you mentioned the the jump shot part. Look, he's I think

the obvious pick for Rookie of the year. I just talked about this with Verrier and Kevin O'Connor in the previous segment. I don't think anybody that's on the show right now is picking Donovan Mitchell. Well, actually the bit that I have on the rookie is that I, in the same way that I didn't want Ben Simmons to be an all-star because it would motivate him to get a jump shot

and play better the rest of the season, which it has, I am using my non-vote on Donovan Mitchell to win rookie the year. So Ben Simmons, again, takes the off-season, gets a jump shot, comes back even better. I like this. I like that you're using the psychology on it. But the jump-shot component is not a nothing conversation for the playoffs, right? Because we know what happens in the playoffs.

And also with Foltz, Bauman, like, what's your level of concern with both of those two? We know Simmons is going to get heavy minutes. We don't know what kind of minutes load. They're going to give to Fultz. but you've got a different entity in the playoffs where defenses are going to sagged. You're going to pack the paint. And they know what Simmons is going to do. And I'm not, I think he's still going to be really, really good.

But there is some level of concern with me there. Yeah, I am legitimately worried about the first round until Embedde comes back. Because, I mean, we've seen defenders sagging off of Fultz. And Simmons can get to the rim no matter what, but I don't know if that's going to change. I'm sort of hoping for like a Pacers or Buck's first round. opponent because I, I guess, have less confidence in those coaches' ability to make some sort of creative adjustment to expose the Sixers on the offensive end, because I don't know what their other option is, apart from playing Ilyosov and Bellanelli and Redick. And when they did

those all together against the Cavs over the weekend, they got torched defensively. So I just hope they hold on. It's weird because, like, this is so Sixers, this supreme confidence in the team, this huge puffy chestedness about what they've done over the past month or so. And also, I don't know if they're not going to get swept in the first round against some crappy heat team or something. So, yeah, I am a little nervous about the jump shot, at least until Embedd comes back. And he's somebody who can get his own on the offensive end and cover up a lot of those mistakes. Yeah, I agree with that and that I can literally have every opinion at once about the six years. Yes, this is totally true. I am both supremely confident and a little concerned.

All the time. All the time. It's actually, a very Philadelphia state of being for us. Like, even I went to the Super Bowl. Yeah. I'm like, they're in the Super Bowl. And I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. They got to the last game.

I don't know. It's really very dangerous. Because if we're talking to Philadelphia fans, it's like, I don't know, I don't know. But if we're talking to other people, then it's like, fuck you. We're going to win. Philadelphia is to be champions. We were right all along. You were not right.

About being right, by the way. I find it fucking fascinating that there's still a strain, like this, this resistance strain in Philadelphia that, no, they haven't done anything yet. I'm like, what world do you live? I went on, for those of you who aren't Philadelphians, NBC Sports Philadelphia, I went on NBC Sports Philadelphia their talk show about a week ago. You tell me this. And one of the columnists for the Philadelphia Daily News, John Smallwood, was like, they haven't

done anything. They're not any good. Like, where's the parade? And I'm like, if you're using it by that metric, then like this stretch of Houston Rockets basketball that's been the most successful in franchise history means absolutely nothing over the last decade plus because they haven't won a title. That's absurd. And they would probably say that.

That's absurd, right? I mean, like, only one team wins a championship every year. How close can you get? Have you maximized your chances? Are you making smart decisions? It's not a zero-sum game. So I just find it fascinating that there's still people out there trying to argue somehow that the process didn't work. So I had to explain this to Ryan O'Hanlon over the weekend. Like, process people get so up for this. And I had sort of had to explain them, part of the reason why is that there are strains of local Philadelphia media that, to use more polite terms, have almost there's like a fanatical reductiveness to their strain of analysis that there's just an unwillingness to understand. And like, that's so frustrating. If you listen to Mike and Spike over the past five years, like, it's just the tone is just this aggrievedness at having to explain this pretty simple

concept. So like, there are legitimate critiques of what the Sixers had to do to get to where they are. But it's so normative that it's very difficult for people who took this big emotional objection to the process to sort of come back around. It might literally take a championship. And, you know, as somebody who went through that and was bored to tears by the Sixers for the better part of a decade, like, this is entirely worth it. At least it's been interesting. And now they're interesting and good. So I'll take it. Yeah, the conversation went pretty quickly from their stupid, hinky's dumb. Everybody who follows these people are just asset-humping morons. And then when Ambide and Simmons started playing healthy and playing the way they have,

it's, well, when are you going to get over it? Okay. When are you just going to let us off the hook and just like, why can't, why do you have to keep rubbing in our faces? And it's because, now that I have a national audience listening to this podcast, it's because we've had to absorb. God said you were coming on. I was like, are you sure that's a good idea? That's right. That's right. It's time. We had to absorb so much shit from so many different people. And within our own ranks in Philadelphia, the, what did you call them, Bowman? Because it was so good.

Reductive. Reductive. Impressively reductive. Like, almost you just marvel at how dumb some of these people are, willfully. Anti-intellectual strain when it comes to the anti-process arguments. But, Bauman, you're absolutely right. Like, I literally didn't tell the bosses that Mike was coming on because I was afraid of what the answer would be.

So I was like, that's it. I'm just going to hijack my own podcast. You didn't even tell me. I'm your producer. Well, I was trying to save you because if the Boston bosses come down from on high and fire me, I want you to be inoculated from that. Wow. I mean, I appreciate it, but I also would have liked to know which guests that we were having on for the podcast that I produced. Fair point.

Fair point. So you guys mentioned how fun they are to watch after we've gone through all of this, right? And how right we all were by seeing. We were. We were so right. Well, I think, like, those of us who's thought about basketball in the same way that Sam Hinky thought about basketball that Ben Falk and Sachin Gupta thought about basketball, where it was just like, okay, like, how do we maximize our odds? Like, what are smart decisions? And then, like, we'll set ourselves up for the future.

And they accept from an academic standpoint, right? But now it's happened, I think we would all agree, much, much quicker than anticipated. And I want to get into the Cabs game over the weekend because it was, you mentioned it on the Rookie. That's a game that the Sixers lost forever. Oh, yeah. And they won that game. And it made me think two things. One, I thought, holy shit, this is happening way quicker than I could have anticipated.

And then I thought it's happening without them going and getting another major superstar. This is homegrown. Do we, I mean, like, if you can get a LeBron, you want a LeBron, but did it make you think about like maybe they're good without doing something major like that? I go back and forth. Yeah. Every day. Again, holding all opinions at once, I do go back and forth because part of me says,

look at all these guys. they're having so much fun together. It's homegrown guys. They know what they are. There's the culture that Brett Brown has really harvested for now five years that he's been here, which is one of the longest tenured coaches in the league, which is crazy after what he's been through, to then say, hey, we're going to add this guy who has taken over franchises, who has determined draft picks and usually are poor choices, and gotten coaches fired,

and really the whole media storm, it becomes him. He's the whole team. He's everything. And I say, like, well, why do we want to ruin what's really, really good? On the other hand, he's LeBron. He's LeBron James. And to just go to people's houses who said that the process wouldn't work and say, hey, LeBron chose to sign with us. And I shove my face in their face and I kiss them and I say, you were wrong.

Here's a kiss. And then I keep going from house to house to do that forever. It's a long time. It would be really nice. And that's a really nice victory lap throughout the country and the world. So I go back and forth. I do hold both those. Bowman, where are you?

The first half of that, like the we don't want LeBron. is it's such a particular brand of horse shit that is so predictable. Because the Sixers have a couple other pieces to add. They're going to have cap space. They're going to have at least one other lottery pick to make. Do you want to add the best basketball player ever to that? Yeah, I think so. And yes, I'm terrified of what LeBron as de facto GM might do.

But it doesn't have to be him. It's hilarious how confident we are that he would want to sign in Philadelphia or that it's a possibility. It just seems like a remote one. maybe not a trivial remote possibility, but like it doesn't have to be LeBron. It could be another free agent. It can be another lottery pick who becomes that last piece. So I don't really care about whether they win in a way that particularly vindicates the process. Like, I just care about beating the Celtics, really.

It's not so much about the vindication of the process for me as just the storylines, the story arc, right? And it's a really amazing story to see what they've been able to do with a largely homegrown core, right? As opposed to, like, that changes. It just, and it doesn't, like you mentioned, it doesn't have to be LeBron. This would change if you went out and got, you know, like KD or like Kauai or anybody. If you added automatically an established name brand superstar into that mix, and they, they vaulted from a team that was terrible to a team that was really good to a team that was the favorite. Like, it just changes the story arc as opposed to look at this. Like, look what happened. We were right all along. Like, did it on their own. Like, that's a fun story.

storyline. I think this season sort of inoculates them against that. I think getting a top four seed, winning 50 games, like, this is so clearly in Bede's team right now. Yeah. And you think back to, like, at no point was that when the Phillies won the five straight division titles, like that was always the Utley Howard

Rollins-Hamels team. Like, as much as everybody loved Cliff Lee and Roy Halliday, they were very clearly the piece to get them over the top. And I think that whoever that import or server be, that's the kind of role that they would play. Clearly in Bid's team. And I think for all of the people who constantly knocked him and said,

he doesn't play enough games and he doesn't do this or that. Like, he would have played more games if not for a freak accident with Markell Fultz's shoulder. Like, all of that would have gotten shut down. I mean, like, you can't go,

oh, well, he's injury prone because that could have happened to anybody and it was just weird. People still claim that he's on a minute's restriction and he doesn't play back to back, which is wrong. I don't understand how there's so much just wrong truth. If it's valid to criticize Embed for only playing 75% of the games,

then I think it's valid to criticize Al Horford. for instance, for only occupying 75% of the vertical space that you'd expect an NBA center to occupy. Wow. We just had Kevin O'Connor on. This whole podcast has been one big, let's make fun of Kevin. I haven't spoken to O'Connor in months. It's great.

That's it. You've ruled it out. You're the new Shea Serrano on this podcast. I want to blow through a couple of the supporting cast that I think, like, I had, I don't know what kind of expectations for that have just been better. Dario has had an amazing season. $23 million man and my colleague here at the ringer, J. Reddick. Who shouted you out by name.

He shouted me up, but he said I didn't give him enough love because we're co-workers. He's right about that. He needs more love. Are we surprised by how good the supporting cast has been? I'm surprised by Ballin mentioned earlier how fast they play and how sort of in sync with each other. The defense is great. And that's why, that's why like

if they had one more two-way guy, if Luwahu had picked it up this year and was able to hit shots on offense and dribble a little bit and cover like three, four positions on defense, then they have switchability. But it's tough when you have Redick and Bellinelli out there because one of them is going to be a mismatch on defense. But you need one or both of them a lot of the time. That's why Covington's so valuable, even when he's not hitting three, is that he can just, he's such a beast on defense.

And he's paces the floor just by being there. So the supporting cast, I'm impressed by how they've gelled and how even the Bellanelli, Ili, Yalosova signings have opened things up. Bowman, any of the supporting cast guys, jump out to you? He's going to say one of the Euro guys. I mean, I've been a Dario guy since the year before. And Ilyosova has been one of my favorite NBA players for the past, since he's been in the league pretty much. So predictably, I picked the two Euro forwards. I'm surprised that Dario is shooting as well as he has.

Yeah, me too. I thought that he could develop into being a competent three-point shooter, but he's just been lights out. And that I did not see coming. He's been amazing. And I was all over Dario from before they drafted him. And then when they drafted him, I got a lot of pushback from the aforementioned Rekalcitrant anti-prosestrian. as people who are like, he's never coming over. How do you know if he's any good?

I'm like, I don't know. I watched his games. He seems like he's pretty good to me. And why couldn't he help a team that could use, you know, good passing and smart decisions and, you know, if he could ever shoot better. And now he's shooting better. I think he's everything we ever hoped he could be and more already. Unbelievable.

Yeah. There's a lot of fun things going on with the Sixers. We mentioned some of the rotations and like what it might look like in the playoffs. I think it's pretty well established. You can't play Simmons and Fultz at the same time. I was just wondering, like, how many, minutes you would give him per, like for May, like 15-ish somewhere in that neighborhood. For you.

I think that's fine. Yeah, I think that's fine. The question, though, for Michael Vinn, resident, maniac, writes to Ricky Sanchez, listener, and also best friend of T.J. McConnell. That's right. Who's getting run when it really comes down to crunch time? Are you going with T.J. and you need a couple minutes, or are you going with Foltz? Well, I think they have established Foltz's minutes as like, he'll bridge the gap from like the last

few minutes of the first quarter into the early second quarter, and then he sits until he does the same thing for the last few minutes of the third quarter into the fourth quarter. And that's pretty much when Ben sits. And they've overlapped very little, and I think that in the playoffs especially, you just can't play them together. And Fultz, I would say, over the course of a seven-game series, becomes really predictable without a jump shot. You can see guys, he sort of gets stood up by guys while they're standing in front of him. He's not crazy fast or crazy athletic. He's sort of more glides. And if there's not the threat of a jump shot, then his like herky-jerkie-jerkie sort of off-balance thing, like just doesn't work as well.

I could see that over the course of a seven-game series, his minutes sort of going down and T.J. getting those minutes because at least he can play under control. You know what you're getting with T.J. You know what you're getting. It's a lower, it's a lower ceiling for sure, but it's a higher. You sure do not what you're getting with T. Okay, Baumann, you've had this anti-t. If T.J. If T.J. was from Estonia, he wouldn't have made it out of Summer League. I love the heat between you two on T. I'm pro T. T.J. Real quick, before we finish this up, Michael Levin and Michael Bauman, as everybody who listens to this podcast, but certainly to the Wrights to Ricky Sanchez podcast, knows there's been a little heat between the Wrights to Ricky Sanchez

podcast and Kevin O'Connor. I'm a little behind enemy lines. Kevin O'Connor has a lot of enemies. Shea Serrano, Michael Bauman, the Wrights to Ricky Sanchez podcast, but the Wrights to Rikis podcast banned him for his really bad Al Horford take. That's right. You just saw him in person. I did. Gave him a hug. You gave him a hug. I would like to right now give you the opportunity to unband him As you sit in Ringer Studio H.Q. After hugging Kevin O'Connor, is he unbanned from the Wrights to Riki Sanchez podcast? And I'm sitting in this seat and using the microphone that he just used. Just used it.

I can smell his saliva. You can smell him on it. And the saliva smells banned. Very banned. Incredibly bland. He just put his first team all NBA out. Yeah. Where he put Lamarcus Aldridge as a starting center.

Reband? Double band. Double band. Double secret band. Extra band. I got a first team all NBA for you. Yeah. It's the best starting lineup in the league.

It's Ben Simmons, JJ Reddick, Robert Covington, Dario Sarich, Joel Embed. There's your first team NBA. Bowman, I think you might have been right. I think I might have been a mistake by bringing them on. Yeah, he's just so exhausting. I can keep going. That's a little bit much. Please don't.

That's enough from you and from the Sixers. Sorry, Kevin, I tried to get you on band. I want to thank everybody who was on the program today. Shea, KOC, Justin Verrier. Michael Bowman from the MLB podcast. Make sure to listen to him. Mike Levin from the rights to Ricky Sanchez podcast. Say the name.

Isaac Iceman Lee. Is that what we're going with now? Isaac Iceman Lee, you are the best. Thank you so much for producing this. Make sure to listen to all of the Ringer podcast, KOC Inverno on Tuesday. Sources say on Wednesday. Group chat on Thursday. Draft class on Friday.

My God, gang, there's so much basketball. It is a very exciting time. I will be back next week from the road. Thanks for listening to the Heat Check podcast. See ya.