The Ringer NBA Show - Play-Ins to Playoffs With Haralabos "Bob" Voulgaris | Weekends With Wos

Episode Date: April 14, 2023

Wos returns for the last episode of ‘Weekends’ this season with all-star professional gambler and principal owner of Spanish soccer club CD Castellón, Haralabos "Bob" Voulgaris, to discuss all things happening in the play-in right now and leading up to the playoffs. Focusing mostly on the Western Conference, the two ponder the teams in the West, featuring the Denver Nuggets, Phoenix Suns, Los Angeles Lakers, and Golden State Warriors, and discuss an array of topics and predictions going into the playoffs. The two then talk Eastern Conference towards the end of episode, mainly discussing mainly the Boston Celtics. Host: Wosny Lambre Guest: Haralabos "Bob" Voulgaris Producer: Jade Whaley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Sean Fennessey, one of the hosts of the Prestige TV podcast. HBO's Barry is back for a fourth and final season. And that means I'll be back recapping the show with co-creator and star Bill Hader to dive deep on the themes, scenes, and major moments in the series. Bill will provide insight into how every episode was made and why it's ending. New Prestige TV Barry recaps will go live every Sunday night when the episode ends. So make sure you're subscribed to the Prestige TV podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to the latest.

edition of weekends, of course. I'm your host, Big Waz, aka Wazni Lambray, and I'm joined today by the one and only, man, the myth, the legend. Arolaba of Valgaris, what's going on, bro? Go, Waz, what's happening? I'm good, man. I'm really excited to have you on today. You know, it's been a lot of times in the past where I wanted to have you on, but Bill already

had you. So I was like, you know what? We can't just go back to back. This guy is a busy man. We can't just be asking them to just do every single ringer podcast in existence. But, you know, I've reached out to you, man, because playoffs are about to start. I know this is your favorite time of year. Obviously, people know you for having been an NBA.

What is your prefer moniker for that, not gambler? Is it better? I think gambler better. It's all the same thing, really. It just depends on how successful you are. Usually if you're not successful, they call you a gambler. Okay. They are. They call you a better. I think that's how it works.

Well, I ask this because I feel like I've heard you a couple of times take exception to the idea that you're just out there just gambling your money. It's like, no, like, you know, we actually, this stuff is well studied that we do. And it's not, these are more calculated risk than, you know, just a gamble, so to speak, like a roll of the dice, if you will. Yeah. I mean, to be perfectly fair, when I was betting or gambling for a living, there wasn't much gambling. involved, winning every year, very, very, very high return on investment. So you have a few losing weeks here and there, but for the most part, you're just grinding out a living edge by edge, I would say. It didn't feel like gambling, but. No, I love it. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't calling you by the pejorative of, you know, what it is that you didn't. Of course, people know that you

used to work in the Dallas Mavericks. You were a front office executive. But what I don't think people know Bob about you is that even though you're no longer sort of quote connected to the league, you're an NBA fanatic even still. Fanatic. I don't know about that. I love the NBA. I mean, I was obsessed with the NBA.

If you would have caught me like five, six, seven, eight years ago like obsessed with the NBA. I would say I'm a huge fan still. I went to the Lakers T. Wolves playing the other night. That was peak excitement. But yeah, no, definitely a huge fan of the game. I guess you could call me a fanatic. Yeah, this is Bob being very,

modest and just like, yeah, you know, I'm just casually. I'm just kind of watching paying attention. It is what it is. But listen, I want to get into it really quickly about the Western Conference because this is the weirdest, like, regular season of my life, just the jumble, right? Normally, you might have a team of two who end up winning like 60 games, right? Excellent teams, you know, they end up having point differential that's around like nine, eight. And it's like, oh, okay, this is obviously one of the best teams in the NBA. Point differential people usually point to as like, oh, that's very indicative of future playoff success.

Then you have like three or four, 50 win teams, you know, two to three in each conference. And then you have your 40 wins and you go on. But then this year, it's like, you know, like three or four teams win 50, low 50s. You know, the Bucks, I think, are the only team that cracked 55 at all. And in the West, you know, the entire season, it's like this jumble between, you know, seats four or five even through 12, right? Which is something I've never personally witnessed. What do you ascribe that to?

I don't know. I mean, I think last year also was a little bit, not maybe not so much in the regular season, but just the idea that the playoffs were kind of wide open. It hasn't really been that way. It's always been like a team has been the. the dominant team. You're going to have to get super lucky to beat them. There's maybe one team in the East, one team in the West who's kind of knew they were going to match up. I think a part of it is just the advent of the three-point shot has kind of randomized the game a little bit. I think

a lot of these teams are all doing similar things. There isn't a lot of variation in style of play as much as there used to be. And so because of that, you just have like, you know, like the West, Denver's got the best record in the West and they obviously, they finish off the season, not great. But They got 53 wins and the 10 seat has 42. Like, when have you ever remembered a situation like that where there's like an 11-game gap between the top team qualifying for the playoffs and then the bottom play-in team? So, yeah, I think the three-point shot, kind of like the speed of the game,

kind of randomizing things a little bit. There's a lot more skill across the board in the league. So you just have a lot of players who are able to shoot at a high level. So you can get by with mediocre talent as long as they can hit a three-point shot. those guys can be different difference makers as long as they're not complete zeros on defense. So I think that's part of it. I don't know.

It could also just be like a random fluky year. I mean, there just isn't, there's, the stars have kind of spread out a little bit, moved around and have like the real, real dominant guys like LeBron have kind of, they're obviously on the,

you know, the massive downward slope of their career. So there isn't really like a dominant guy that you're out there. Like, M. Beds probably, Janus, those two guys are probably the two dominant guys that you really feel like, okay, those two guys are problems. Everyone else is kind of like, yeah, Yokic is a problem.

He's good. But, you know, shut down his shooters and he can kind of neutralize him a little bit. Let's get into Denver. I'm somebody who was really, like, was super bullish on Denver because I just felt like, you know, they finally got their guys. They were able to shore a couple of their holes on the perimeter with Kenny, KCP, Bruce Brown. I thought those guys were, you know, perfect compliments to what Yokic does.

both in how they can defend guys at the point of attack and even certain kinds of wings, if not the, I always say, if not the Kauai's and the Paul Georges of the world, those bigger guys, like that next group of wing players, like they can do a decent enough job of that. And, you know, offensively, they can figure out how to, you know, move around, cut, movement off the ball,

sort of read and react stuff that Yolkish thrives around. I thought Denver would be really good this year. I think for most of the year, they kind of bore that out. What's your impression of Denver? Do you think they're just, you know, a week, number one, super easy to pick off? I've seen a bunch of people say that the representative of the West is going to come out of the four through seven seed. Are you one of those people that feels like Denver is super weak? I don't think they're super weak.

I think they're very top heavy. I mean, their record earlier in the season, the first half the season was quite good. Yolkitch started playing fewer minutes. down the stretch, you know, sat a bunch of games. They're on-off numbers with him are probably the most extreme of any player in the NBA in terms of how much he brings to their offense and how little his backups do. So in the playoffs, obviously he'll be able to play more minutes. He'll play every game.

But, you know, there isn't the issue with the West is like you talk about like the wing guys that Denver has to defend. That's the thing with the West. Aside from Durant, there really isn't a dominant wing that you really have to worry about. I think Kauai, obviously. Robo Jordan, you kind of have to. But LeBron's kind of definitely on the downward slope. There's really isn't that it's a lot of the play is coming from the guard play and just coming from like even distribution amongst the teams.

So like golden states like that, both their guards are the main guys. So I don't know if that necessarily helps Denver or hurts Denver. But it certainly makes the playoffs a little bit more random, I think, this year than they might be in other years. Yeah. I mean, I think of even. like KD. You were one of the first people to point this out last year.

It was just like, you know, he's mid-ranging himself to death. Yes, he's one of the greatest mid-range shooters of all time. But he's, you know, he's playing suboptimally. Even as beautiful as it looks when he crosses the shit out of somebody and pulls up from 20 feet for two and it splashes in, it's like, those aren't the best return. So for me, I don't think Denver's going to, like, shut Phoenix down if they play them. in the second round, but I don't know that Phoenix is some nightmarish matchup for them either.

I think they'll score just fine against these dudes. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, Durant's mid-range is probably better than most guys' three-point shots in general, especially in the playoffs. The thing with him is like he can also shoot the three so well that it's kind of like he's doing himself. Why? You do a bit of a bit of a disservice. But I get it.

Like, you know, I think when they signed those guys or when they traded for him, the team put up a T-shirt that said like mid-range master. or something like that, which that was the funniest, funniest shit I'd ever seen. But, you know, I think, like, Phoenix is the best team in the West. I think they're the team that you have to beat. That's my... I mean, I don't think they're particularly well coached

in the sense that I don't think that they have, like, they optimize their offensive strategy. The one thing they've done this year more is they've started to, like, they've started to emphasize crashing the offensive glass, which I think is nice, especially because they'll have one player who will be unguarded completely for the entirety of the possession for the most part.

And so that guy, if he's not going to crash a glass, and he might as well not even be out there. But I would say, yeah, Phoenix is the team that I would be not wanting to play and I would be trying to avoid them as much as possible. I think like it'll be interesting. I don't know. Like Phoenix matching up versus like a team like Memphis would be kind of cool too, just even though they won't match up unless they both make it to the finals,

just because of the sheer difference in athleticism on one side versus the other. Phoenix is a good team, but you can't really argue that they're that athletic. I think Denver is like another team that has athleticism, on some of the key, like, fringe players, but not necessarily their key players, like Murray and Yolka aren't that athletic, or, you know, them breaking you down in that manner. So, yeah, I don't know.

Shots fired at your fellow Canadian. I can't believe you just did that, bro. He's like one of my least favorite, like he's one of my favorite, least favorite players because, like, I feel like I watch him playing. He's so, like, everything that he embodies. Are you talking about Murray, right? Murray, of course.

Yeah. I feel like everything that he embodies is like what I embody in terms of like he's very stoic, he's unemotional, he played, doesn't get phased. But like four or five times a game, he'll pass up like a wide open three. So you can dribble. Yeah, to take a dribble to pump fake,

to like get into like a weird action or like he'll get to the layout, get to the room for a layup and he'll like dribble out and pass it to like Bruce Brown in the corner for like a contested three point shot. And I just feel like, yeah, he can be a vexing guy to watch in some ways. But he's obviously extremely skilled and he's a supreme talent. in terms of how good he is with the ball.

But a lot of these guys are still trying to live up to their bubble, their bubble efficiency where a lot of these guys just went off in the bubble and you never really seen anything like that since. And I think he's one of them. I'll say this, AD hasn't hit a three since the bubble. But Murray, before he got hurt, there was like a two or three months span where he was playing incredibly well, where he actually legitimately looked something close to that guy.

in the bubble because let's face it, there was times he was like a six foot two Michael Jordan out there like literally where I was just like, is this guy ever going to miss a shot again? It was crazy if people could go back and watch some of the stuff this dude was doing. Legitimately, I don't, you know, I think it's unfair to think that he could ever do that again, but I think he could get fairly close to being like, you know, if I create any space, I have a fairly decent enough chance of knocking this down. But I want to stay on Phoenix. It sounds like to me you think they are head and shoulders the class of the West.

Yeah. You think they're pretty. Yeah. I mean, Durant's just too tough. Like, he's like a one-man offense. Like he's just, and he's defending at a very, very good level. Yes, he is. And they still have Booker.

They still have Chris Paul. You know, they're very Aiton. Like they're, they're super, you know, they're very shallow. They don't have any depth. But like, I don't know, man. Like, he is, Durant is just such. problem. He's, he's so, I, he's like, he's a guy who's like he's defense independent. Like, no matter how good you're defending him, it doesn't make a difference. He's getting a shot off.

He's going to, it's going to have almost no impact on him whatsoever. And I think like in a playoff series, like especially if you watch some of these games down the stretch, like guys who are just shrill up and who are scared. He's not one of them. He's, yeah, they're, they've, they've, they've kind of been battle tested a little bit. You know, they made to the finals the one year. and made the conference finals last year before getting obliterated in game seven. But yeah, they're the team I would, like I watched the last day of the season

and I did like all of the spreadsheets, like all the scenarios for like what the clippers needed to do or what teams needed to do. The clippers actually had like such, and I tweeted about this and a lot of people didn't really, some people thought like, oh, what were they supposed to do? But it's like, that a pretty easy path. Like, okay.

You thought they should go out and lose? Yes. If Golden State was winning, which they were. And I forget the other game, the Lakers, which was winning, which they were. And there was one other game where it was, I guess it was the New Orleans game maybe. Yeah, Northern's Minnesota.

So all those results were going well. Now, the only game that was kind of up in the air was the Minnesota game, where Minnesota was up, I think, at one point before, and the Clippers were up where the game was tied. And there's lots of things they could have done. Like, they could have played, they could have, they could have, like, called a time out. They could have challenged a call.

They could have, like, called another time out. They could have, like, they could have taken some, I take a take file. Like there's lots of stuff you could really do. And people laugh and they think that teams aren't doing this. But I can promise you like first hand experience, teams are doing this. Like 100% they're doing this. They're looking to see what their matchup might be.

And the league did a good job by making sure all these games start at the same time. So avoid this kind of chicanery. But you could still game in a little bit. Like there's no like, okay. So what would have been the worst case scenario if they, let's say they didn't even know if Minnesota would have won or lost their game. So then you're just like, You just lose and now you're still like Minnesota was at home.

Like you're still like probably 45% to play the six seed. As be the six seed, excuse me, and play the three seed, which I think a lot of people, they'd rather play back from Minto than Phoenix. Yeah. And then you just get, get,

you just out of, out of Phoenix is part of the bracket until the fucking finals, until the Western Conference finals. And if you want to play Phoenix, you probably want to play them then just because the fact that, you know, Chris Paul's yet to go through a fucking entire season without getting hurt, it seems like.

Pretty much. Yeah. So I don't know. I thought that was interesting because it's such a huge thing. And then you also have the Paul George situation. Why would you want to play them when you're guaranteed not to have your best roster? Why not just wait a little bit and like maybe you play them the next round where Paul George is healthy? Like what?

Like it just seemed like such a organized, it seemed like almost like organizational malpractice in some ways. But I get it. People are like, oh, what were they supposed to do? Lose on purpose? Yeah. They lost on purpose two years ago to make sure they played the Mavericks. Yes. before.

It's like, believe me, maybe I'm a little better. It's almost as if you have a personal experience with this. For sure. Yeah, they've lost on purpose to play us. And now I can't wait to watch them play the Phoenix Suns. And it'll just be, it'll just be poetic. It'll be fun. Oh, my God.

I didn't even put that together because I'm clearly not smart enough. Because, you know, Bill talked about it on his show. And a lot of people was like, well, should they have done it? talked about it on hours. And for me, I guess like obviously mathematically everything you says, but you're saying makes sense. It's just for me, Paul George is out. And having watched, you know, KD just spraying his fucking ankle on a layup line. Right. And like, if you put yourself in a one game scenario where anything happening, you're just out of the playoffs, it's God forbid something happened to court. Why not realize? Where's the one game scenario where you're

out of the playoffs? I'm missing that part. Like, if they're in the plan, you mean? Yeah, if they're in the playing. You get two shots at home to win a fucking game. Let me tell you something. If you can't win one of two games versus the likes of the Minnesota Timberwolves and the fucking Oklahoma City Thunder or the Norlands Pelicans, you're not winning an NBA championship. It's not happening.

So if that's your worst case scenarios, you have two games at home of which you have to win one of those two versus like a team like Minnesota who basically like burped up shots for an entire entire quarter of basketball when the game was on the line because they were so shook. I don't know, man. I wouldn't worry about that too much. But that's just me. I don't know.

And that's the worst case scenario, by the way. You still have a chance of just being sixth because Minnesota beats New Orleans. That's just like a very, very likely possibility. And you could look at the score and see either up by five points or up by four points. It wasn't like it was, you know, you weren't allowed to look at the score. But yeah, it'll be interesting to see. I'm looking forward to seeing how they how they do against Phoenix because I do think that's a very, very tough matchup for them.

And, you know, Durant's lost like two of his last 28 games or something like that. Like, okay, good luck to you, bro. Good luck beating that guy. I'm not going to lie, Bob. I really enjoyed that rant just now. I love it. I can tell you wanted to get that off. That was beautiful.

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www.1-800 gambler.net in West Virginia. All right, we're back. Bob, you mentioned at the top of the show that you were at the Lakers playing game, which was instant classic to me. I get that it was a rock fight, but watching from home, I, you know, it felt like I could feel the tension.

Every single possession in the fourth quarter felt like these guys were trying to climb Olympians. every single time. What was your impression of that game? You know, I thought, I thought Minnesota didn't really play particularly smart down the stretch. I think, like,

you notice a lot of the stuff they were doing is they were calling up, they were calling up, you know, their bakes for a ball screen who were guarded by Anthony Davis. So I was like, you know, Anthony Everett's got the ball.

He's got, he's being guarded by Austin Reeves or Dennis Schrooter. And he's like calling up a screen and now he's guarded by, you know, he's being now being guarded by Anthony Davis. So she's like,

why would you ever want to be guarded by Anthony Davis versus? So I thought they just sort of flattened out and just tried to do little ISO stuff that might have worked. But it also looked like obviously Edwards was not ready for the, it was not having a good game. It looked like he wasn't ready for that particular moment.

I will say though that the probably one of, and I don't know if this was because I wasn't on social media during the game that much. But I don't know how this was viewed, but that probably one of the clutches things I've ever seen. The Mike Conley free throws? Yeah. Hitting those three free throws.

That was just like, I mean, the stakes don't get any higher. than that. You missed one free throw. Your team's done. You're losing. And for him to just calmly hit all three, I thought that was like probably one of the coolest things I've ever seen live. And I've been lucky. I've seen like at the block, you know, LeBron's block was like right, you know, 10 feet in front of me, fucking Ray Allen hit the three-pointer, like 50s. Yes, you was at the Rayallel. Then the photo show, I'm in the photo frame of the Rayallon. So like, but to me, like the, the Conley thing was even because it just seemed like it was just a lot more because there was just more focus.

there wasn't you could it wasn't like an instinctual thing he had to it was a mental thing I thought that was really cool he's one guy who obviously came to play for them and then I thought shrewder played really really well you know obviously that shot as well but he was pretty good before then and then you know like the lakers were just throwing the ball over on every inbound I mean it was it was a wild game like LeBron literally turned it over two or three times in the last it's at overtime the one where he threw it into the skybox well it's just like bro wait what is happening right now that that that was just that was just crazy it's a huge moment all of that what did you think about how lebron looked bumfoot and all i mean i was telling the person i went to the game with like i don't know

maybe i shouldn't say but like he's clearly washed but he's clearly washed at a level that's still better than anyone else like it doesn't matter because he's so good like he's not as good as he used to be but he's still good enough to be like the best or second best player on the court at all times and it's really impressive to watch like he's gassed clear he's got his hands on his shorts. He's picking and choosing his moment where the other I forget it. I think it was Reeves inbound of the ball

and then and then it went to the back court like on that end up play and LeBron like either fell and do for the ball or actually do for the ball. It was unclear to what he actually fell or if he dough for the ball. But either way he got it. Like it just like shows you how good this guy is. I mean he made the pass. He made the pass to Schrooter. He broke that one down.

But you know, they didn't they didn't put them in any screens. they put him in six screens the entire game. They scored 1.5 points per chance when he was a screen defender. I would be going after him on the other end every single time. And I think it's interesting because not a lot of people do that. And Memphis will probably possibly most certainly. I mean, he points switches a lot too. So it's not like you call him up and he'll just like have someone else go up and

fucking guard the screen. But I would try to put him in as many actions as possible because you're just going to, I mean, as much of a super, you know, kind of like cyborg that he is, he's still human, allegedly. And so he's probably going to wear down as the game goes on. And that's kind of what I would want to do. It's funny because the Dallas game that he got hurt initially, where they, you know, they came, they had that huge comeback to when he goes down and he comes back in the game and finishes it. That was the game that I noticed it because, you know, Luca, Luca's going to do it.

He's like, no, no, no, we want to put LeBron in the action. He just kept doing it. And they kept getting, you know, returns out of that, right? And I was like, goddamn, LeBron is so cooked on defense. I guess Minnesota, you know, like, aside from Mike Conley, God bless him, they don't really have a lot of high IQ guys who will understand, you know, sort of down in distance to borrow a football term. Like, they don't always understand what the situation is.

Carl Towns will file the shit out of people for no reason, even though he's the most dominant player on his team for that game. And there's no reason to be filing dudes for an offensive rebound. But yeah, I'm not surprised that you saw that. What do you think about their odds against Memphis? I don't like their odds particularly. The odds are super short. It's like almost a pick-um, not quite, but like it's kind of-

Do you see that series that way? I don't. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, like the one thing I noticed about the Lakers, Timberwolf series is, or not series, but game was just like how much quicker to every ball it seemed like Minnesota was. And that's going to be, you know, magnified in a Memphis series. Like Memphis can just rule different, you know, they've got, they're very deep, they've got two very good guards, they've got, you know, a couple guys who can play center, they've got,

the issue I have is, is just like, how will Memphis hide Morant? I mean, because Morant's really the big problem in the playoffs. His teams just go after him relentlessly, and he's, you know, he's like low-key, like, just a little bit better

than Tray Young defensively. Like, he'll make, like, some chase down blocks and he'll make some weird off the ball stuff. But, like, if you go at him one-on-one, or if you put him in a lot of screen actions, he,

you know, you can gain a lot of traction there versus him. And then the other thing is, like, Darren Jackson's foul trouble. Something obviously that would probably be like a huge factor, especially if he's in there with up versus AD A.D. And protect the rim versus LeBron.

But yeah, I mean, I think, People are describing a little bit too much the late season run of this new Lakers team, which is like everyone's all the guys. But they are much better. But it's like, you know, everyone's like, oh my God, like what, you know, what a series of moves by Polinka putting scrap in this.

It's just like, bro, you started with Anthony Davis and LeBron James. You should not be, you should not be like, you know, talked about how amazing you are when you can, you know, you can scrap together a roster with fucking, when you, when you start with LeBron James and Anthony Davis. Like, yeah, find a couple guys who can shoot and a couple guys who can defend and you're good to go. Yeah, it's not that complicated. And also, I'm not going to give a guy credit for, you know, using a fire hose on a house

that he burnt down. I'm sorry. I don't understand why we need to give him too much credit there. But it sounds like you think Memphis has the edge on them in that series. Yeah, I would, I would be surprised if the Lakers beat Memphis in the seven game series. I would be shocked. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. it's interesting.

Like, you know, LeBron still has that, like, mystique where, like, who the fuck wants to play LeBron in a seven-game series? But I don't know. Some of these young guys don't really care. It's interesting. Like, you know, it'll be interesting to see. To me, it's not about the young guys caring or not. Like, I don't, like, I think Memphis is too stupid to be scared of anybody anyway.

Like, I don't think that even a credible, LeBron, not that LeBron's not credible now, but you know what I mean? Like, even a great LeBron, I think they'd be too arrogant and cocky to, to, to feel. feel nervous against him anyway. I just think at his age and it's like, yeah, the guy probably needs foot surgery, they're going to be like, yo, LeBron, you got to beat us one-on-one. And I don't know if he can do that. Yeah, I don't know that he can either.

The other thing is Memphis is a very, very well-coached team. They're not, you know, you're not going to have a situation. Like, not that I think the Timbers are a poorly coached him, I just thought they coached that game, you know, they went about that game poorly. And so I think that Memphis will certainly figure out. a way to maximize their ability. I mean, you know, Memphis lost in the playoffs, but they lost a team that was pretty good.

It wasn't like last year. It wasn't like they lost to like a crappy team. They lost the Golden State. And I think that's a tough matchup for anyone. So yeah, I was shocked when the odds came out where they came out. I thought they'd be a little bit higher than that for sure, especially with the home court advantage and the Lakers just squeezing into the fucking seven speed. It has to be the shortest two versus seven ever.

Like, it's just reputational. It's not based on anything empirical at. all. This is just straight up, like, LeBron has been a playoff killer for 10, 11 years or whatever the hell has been, 13 years. This Memphis team is a little injured. They're very young.

We think, I'm just like, they suck. The Lakers sucked all year. I don't, whatever. I'm, I'm passing. I want to, because I do want to talk to you about Sacramento and the Warriors. I, you know, I think the Warriors will eventually prevail in this series, but I don't think they're going to blow the

doors off of this team, just because I don't think Golden State is capable of blowing the doors out off of anybody of any real quality. And I think Sacramento's offense, I think, is legitimate. I think they're going to be able to score on Golden State. You think the best offense in the history of the NBA is legitimate. Right. That's a bold take. No, I'm with you.

They're a very, yeah, man, they're a tough team to defend. I mean, both these teams are like mirror images of each other in terms of the staff as they play. You know, a lot of the same stuff split cuts off the ball. The one thing is they both get into their offense very, very quickly. So it'll be interesting to see if either one of these teams tries to pick up full court to try to slow down the other team to try to slow them down a little bit and make it a little bit longer to get into their sets.

I don't know. I'm like torn on Golden State because every time I think they're done, they're not. I definitely thought they were done last year and they clearly weren't. And, you know, they got Wiggins back now, although it'll be interesting to see how long it'll take for him to get back into full, you know, game shape. although it's not like he's coming off an injury, so he shouldn't be too, too long.

But I don't know, I don't really have an opinion on that series as of yet. I kind of just want to watch the first game and just kind of see how they match up, see like how shook Sacramento is, if at all. They may not be at all. But, you know, it just has to be very, very, very, very. This is also like a, you know, historically poor away team, like in Golden State, like in terms of like variance between their home and their away record. Like, let team won 11 games on the,

road all year. Yeah, I think the nine win Bobcats, I know it's mathematically impossible, might have won more road games than the Warriors did this year. I didn't, you know, Sacramento's kind of eight wins. It's just crazy. This Sacramento is super young, inexperienced, playoff-wise. Like that kind of thing. Golden State is so good in tight spots of just getting shit done, of executing. I just don't know how they're going to overcome that gap. You can't prepare for this. You have to go through it in order to know how to deal with this shit in those huge moments and the crowd is going crazy

and you just squandered a nine-point lead for no freaking reason and you can't get over it. And you're just messing up possessions. I'm done picking against Golden State. I'm certainly not gonna do it in favor of Sacramento, but I could see them taking Sacramento really lightly. I could see this easily going seven games, but I think, you know, when push comes to shove,

I can see that too. I mean, they kind of have done that in the past where they just kind of like sleepwalk through one of the first two games as the road team, you know, quite often the first game. It'll be interesting. Yeah, that might be a game,

that might be a series where it could be fun to go to a couple games. It's not that far. That might be a fun series to go. I would mind going to seeing some games in Sacramento just to see like how crazy that crowd is. I know you've heard about those kings prices, but I'm sure you could afford them.

Probably. This is a question of whether or not You can get access to the good seats. It's, like, tough. I'm, like, a snob when it comes, like, I won't sit in between. I have to be, like, in between the three-point lines. I'm going to sit. I don't want to sit, like, on the end.

You don't want to sit all the way on somebody's baseline? Never, yeah, I don't like that. And then it's just too hard to see the other side. I'd rather as watch on TV for the most part. I'm sitting there. Got you. And we don't need to do that. I feel like the Eastern Conference Finals.

I mean, excuse me, the Eastern first-round matchups are not quite as interesting. I think that shit's going to be all. chalk by a lot. I don't really think the Knicks are going to get even like, you know, I'm friends and family with a lot of Knicks fans and they're really, they're, oh, we're going to give these guys hell. And I don't actually see it. So I do, but I do want to get your perspective on the East playoffs because I still think

Boston is going to come out. I think they're the most well-rounded of the teams, top the bottom. I, you know, I still can't be sure about what their coach does. but I don't know. I'm not some, you know, me and Varya talked about this. Budenholzer was fired in 2021 playoffs. People had his damn pink slips ready, you know, and they were able to pull the finals out.

And now everybody sees the Bucks as some playoff world beaters. I just don't see them that way. And I think Boston is every bit as good as them, if not better. And I think Boston is going to come out of the east. I have no faith in James Hart. I have no faith in Tobias Harris. Obviously, Joellen Bede is, you know, he's probably the second best player in the conference, and he's a dominant force, like you said, but I don't like what's around him.

Doc Rivers, I'm not obsessed with either. And I just think, you know, I just think Boston, they got some approved. They did it last year. Their playoff tested. And they're going to go back again. Who do you like coming out of the Eastern Conference? Yeah, I think like Boston is kind of the choice everyone has. I think like they're very similar teams as they were last year.

Then they got more experience and they also added Brogden, which is big because I think that was a problem that they had, having guys who could just kind of reliably break down the defense a little bit and then hit open shots. I know Derek White played pretty good for them. But I think he was also at times someone you could just leave open and unguarded. Whereas you can't do that with Brognan. I don't know. I'm a bucks guy.

I think I do think Bullenholzer is like one of the best coaches in the NBA. I think, like, especially when it comes to innovative things. Like, he's the one who instituted five out spacing for the first time. He's the one who instituted drop, you know, really went with the drop coverage that everyone used for a while. I think he got a bad rap because they didn't adjust in the middle of a playoff series where, like, they didn't start switching when they should have once teams are coming after him. But, you know, I think I kind of like that a little bit because I think one of the things you see with some of these coaches is, is sure there's some stubbornness, but I'd rather I'd rather have a guy who believes in his principal.

and someone who's like complete wishy-washy, who abandons everything they've done just because of a bad variance. So I like what I think he's a very good coach. I think Mazzolo is probably a good coach too. I think maybe one of the underrated things about the Celtics last year, everyone was like keeping flowers on Yudoka.

But like you had Hardy, who's obviously a great coach in Utah and was obviously a good coach in Boston. Both those guys were assistants. So you kind of wonder how much was he responsible. He's very good. Yeah, he's a really good coach, really good year coach.

And there was talking about, with that even last year. People were talking about how Boston didn't lose him. But yeah, I don't know. Who do I have coming out of the East? I think those are the two teams. I'm with you.

I'm not a Philadelphia believer. I think that they are a tough matchup for sure with Embed, but I just think I'm not a huge Doc Rivers playoff fan. I don't think he's ever. I've never been in a playoff series.

I've never watched that one of his teams coached a playoff series and just been like, oh, wow. Wait a second. Not even during the UBU-2 Celtics? You didn't think he was a, I mean, that might have been it. That might have been it.

That might have been it. I don't know. It's tough. Like, he's, I think the thing with him is like he's very, very unwilling to adapt a little bit. And I think that he's also a little bit stubborn in the way that like some of his principles that he has like in terms of like, imagine having Joel Embed who's always guarded by at least two guys and just not like emphasizing crashing the offensive glass, which he just really is just a bad thing to do. it's like a bad thing that you give up. Get back on defense. Get back on defense and set your defense.

That's such a get off my lawn coaching philosophy. It's really interesting to see, especially in light of like the hawks playing the heat and outscoring them 20, was it 26 to zero or something like that? On a live ball. Also, Bob, people don't have to play against it and don't know how to deal with it when teams do it. Yeah.

Consistently. I think that's another part of it. It's like, teams don't know how to deal with this. People don't box out. Well, especially because there's a prevalence of switching. So teams switch at a much higher frequency now. So, like, what we used to do with the Mavericks, especially when we played like the Rockets or whatever,

it was just like when they were like one of the teams that switched every time, is we would just be like, like, okay, like, okay, great, get Capella on a switch, pull them out. Look, it takes along above the break three. And now you crash with the guy who's guarding your big. Now D'Andre is being guarded by like fucking James Hardin or whomever. And so, yeah, you, especially when the team is when the switching is very prevalent, if you have the big who's a big portion of your offensive or your defensive rebounding

and he's out on the perimeter guarding the action and you're not crashing, then you're just not a smart team. I don't know what to tell you. Like, there's just like you just are brain dead when it comes to that particular part of the game. And it's very easy to, it's very easy to analyze these things and look at it through the tracking data and see what the tradeoff is between crashing versus getting back on defense. and the point value you, by the way, some teams don't even push the ball in transition.

So like what exactly are you worried about there? Especially like in a playoff series in game seven of a playoff series, nobody's pushing the ball in transition. So like the Celtics in 08, as much as they were great in the 07, Ubuntu in the 08 playoff series versus the Lakers in game seven, you know, you had the Celtics take up, take a shot. And all five guys sprinting back on defense while the Lakers were taking 18 seconds to get into their offense. it was honestly, and then the Lakers just crushed them on the offensive glass. And they lost that game purely because of offensive rebounding and because of someone, so that type of stuff to me is always interesting, like situational stuff. Like the teams that are losing down five or six points in the fourth quarter with four three minutes left.

Why the fuck aren't you crashing there? Like what is the situation? And so you'll see teams like a Doc Rivers team where they just won't crash the ball, crash the glass that much. They crash a little bit more. They played one year versus Golden State when they were the dog. the Lou Williams mantra is Harold here and they just kind of luckily had some success

crashing the glass with Harold and a couple other guys and so they just kept on doing it and that was like oh I was like oh maybe he's kind of turned a corner here but no he's back to I mean yeah it's funny because you watch Memphis last year and by all you know rights they should have probably lost that damn series

but they just bludgeoned Minnesota on the boards like they just crush them on the offensive glass. Relentlessly would not stop game after game. And Minnesota knew it was coming and could do nothing. But, you know, I think a lot of people might see that and be like, well, they're young and super athletic. We, you know, we're a veteran-laden team. We don't do that.

And it's just like, well, no, it's just a numbers thing. You got more people to press that advantage because your one guy is drawing all of this attention. And whatever. Doc Rivers, nobody's favorite. I'm glad that we're on the same page in our complete and utter dismissal of Philadelphia's prospects. I guess so we have to talk a little bit about Memphis in light of the injuries to Clark and Adams. That's a pretty big blow to them, especially like what you talk about with Jackson's foul trouble not to jump back to the West. But that's something that I think maybe is part of the

reason why the odds are so short and the Lakers are kind of. Yeah, I think that the concept is that when AD has it rolling, he's kind of a foul drawing machine is going to be Jaron Jackson's job to do that in the best of in the best of times he's fouling the hell out of people so like if ad's actually cooking we can see him like you know fouling the hell out of every game and if he's not in there i don't know what they do to protect the paint otherwise you know that becomes a problem i understand that logic i just think they're just a better team than yeah we'll see it'll be interesting to watch for sure yeah so i want to get you out of here man i you know i'd be i'd be an idiot not to talk to you about what's going on with the maves to end the

season considering your history over there. And, you know, my man, Tim McMahon, just at the bottom of his freaking piece, he's just like, yeah, like, they should probably be worried when Luca gets to two years left on his deal that this guy would want to be here. I don't think there's any reading of the management under Mark Cuban during the Luca era as incredible. I don't think anybody could say Mark Cuban has managed the you know

the sort of stewardship of Lucas career. Nobody can say he's done a superb job. It's just that's just not possible. What did you, one, what did you think about the Kyrie deal? I thought it was an awful, awful decision.

Tell us why. I think like I don't even, I'm not even getting into the part of him being like an unreliable professional. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to say person because I don't know him personally. Professional. Yeah, the guy who gets paid to play basketball and somehow, you know, finds ways to not want to play and leave, et cetera, et cetera.

Everything I've heard, I still have some friends who work with the team and I talk to some people. Everything I've heard, he's been nothing but like a consummate professional and a great person to be around. Like, truly, I've heard that from several people. And so, but, you know, he's also an unrestricted free agent. It would be pretty bad for his business. It's an asshole here, right?

So I'm not saying that he's being disingenuous. I'm just saying that he's probably on his best behavior. But all that aside, forget about let's just forget about all that. You have a cap when you're building these teams. And can you really devote, like when you're devoting, you know, Luke is a supermax. They're going to have to max out Kyrie or close to it, I'm guessing. How are you going to build a roster around those two guys? Their style of play does not complement each other offensively.

Like you're not going to get the maximum ability out of both of them. Like ideally when you pair two high contract players together, you want their best to be able to complement the other players best. And it's just impossible to say that that's the case because both these guys are at their best when they have the ball in their hands. And your goal is to win an NBA championship, which means your two best players are probably going to play upwards of 35 to 37 minutes a game. So there's only going to be like around 10 minutes a game where one of them isn't on the court.

So you can stagger them like during the playoffs. So like what exactly are you hoping to accomplish with those two guys who clearly neither one of them is a good defender? And by the way, I think Kyrie is probably a better defender than Luca is as crazy as that is because at least Kyrie is a little bit more active in terms of getting, getting his hands on balls and Steve, you know, whatever, getting back on D. Luca has the ability to be a good defensive player and he certainly showed up. He did it against Phoenix after they laughed at him in the press conference. He absolutely played way better defense. After Devin Booking and Chris Paul started with snickering in the press conference. Yeah.

Yeah. And they put him in every ball screen. And he played, by the way, he played great in the bubble versus the Clippers too for a couple games. So he has the ability. But the issue is, is like, okay, now what, how are you going to fill out the rest of this roster? What are your goals? I just think, like, the other thing about Luca is he's not, no matter how good Kyrie is, Lucas just not maximized off the ball. Like, he's just not, he's not, not, he not have it in him.

Is he, is he just incapable of football? He's not a good catch and shoot three point shooter yet in his career. Not saying he can't. I would never say this guy can't do something because he, but, you know, the other thing is he's just so good with the ball. Why the fuck wouldn't you want this guy to have the ball in his hands? He's good. Like, he can break, he's the smartest player on the court nine times, 99, 99, 9% of

100. So give him the ball, make him make decisions, having him stand off the ball while Kyrie's cooking. I don't know what that really accomplishes. And then especially when you look at the defensive part of it, and the other thing is, it forces them to be so small. Having a diminutive guard like Kyrie. So the deal was bad, not just for what they got, but also what they gave up. They gave up, you know, their best perimeter defender by far, even though he made make some arguments that he's on, that he had a bad year. But like Dorian Finney Smith was super underrated for them. He guarded one through five, literally. And so now you're in a situation where you have Kyrie's forced to guard the other team.

worst offensive small player. Who does Luca guard? Luca's got to find someone that you've got to put him on someone, probably like a three or four. There's not very many lineups that you can play where you can hide both those guys defensively. And so you just, it's just a, I don't know, it just seemed like a panicked kind of what you talked about

with them worrying about Luca possibly wanting to, you know, making sure you build the team around Luca and making sure you get him another star. And yeah, like from just a pure value standpoint, that's a cheap price to pay for a. player of Kyrie's stature. But like, you already have a guy who plays that position, bro. Like, what are you trying to accomplish exactly? Like, it doesn't really make much sense. And so, yeah, I thought it was a brain dead move by people who were panicked and who thought

they were under the gun. Under the gun. And also just maybe just a little bit too, too sharp. Like, you know, like I heard their GM say like, oh, like, I didn't see the risk. I didn't see the risk in making this trade. There was no risk. I'm sorry, bro. Like, you're paid to look after it. Like, you're paid to look for, look, to, to, to evaluate risks. And if you're not seeing a risk in that trade, if you can't see a downside to bringing Kyrie and I don't know, I don't know how you say. That you might want to reevaluate your risk models. I'll say this.

The reason why I didn't hate the trade, I thought, I just think the idea that Luca would be your only ball dominant, nor not even dominant, somebody capable of shouldering the burden of creating offense on your team. I don't think that's tenable. It doesn't have to be, though, was, but you don't have to do it with a guy who's making $40 million a year. Another guy who's making $40. You know, you can have a, like they had Spencer Dindowdy and Jalen Bresden, two other ball handlers. You could go and get like someone like Schrooter who doesn't get paid a lot of money.

You could have, you know, you could have had like a Schrooter and Dinwiddie would probably with Dorian Finney Smith would probably, like I said this when the trade went down. I was like, would you rather have Kyrie or would you rather have Spencer Dinwiddie, Dorian, Finney Smith and Jakob Portal. and it's like, oh yeah, those other three. Yeah, like what, but that was that was out there. And so like, so while you're, well, yeah, two of those guys are like really like are good ass defenders in Pertil and. And it's a positional need that you have. You haven't seen.

You don't have a center. Like you don't have a center. That's what the team has been, you know, they thought they solved their center problems when they went out and gave Jabel McGee through your contract. But that was, wait. That's like, I don't know how you solve your center. problems with a guy who has asthma.

That doesn't make any sense. He can't play big minutes. Yeah. Even if we thought he could play, Bob, he can't play a lot. Well, they played him. They played his team in the playoffs the previous year. And the previous, like, and he couldn't even, you know, Bismack Beyondbo was playing him off the floor.

And it's just like, if you're getting Bismack Beyondbo's backup, he's probably not going to be your starter. So I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. Look, it's tough. These jobs are tough. A lot of pressure, obviously, in trying to build around like a preeminent star, like Luca and I think, you know, even the most experienced general managers will struggle

putting together teams and make some mistakes, et cetera. And who knows? Look, the jury's still out. I mean, who knows, they could sign Kyrie to a reasonable contract and they could fill up what would be reasonable to your mind? Three years, 75? I mean, that would be a super reasonable contract. I would be shocked if they got him for that. Yeah. But that would be like, yeah, that would be a reasonable contract. Like, think about Kyrie is like, he's 31 or 31 or 30, about to be 31, you don't want to sign him to a four-year contract. You don't necessarily want to sign him to a one-year contract because it's like you really want that guy holding your franchise hostage for a year.

It's tricky. And then there's cap space the next year, maybe the other teams that he might want to go to. So, yeah, three years, 75 would be great. I think they would be jumping up and down if they could sign him for three years. Or even if it was three years at 90 million or 100 or whatever the case. Probably closer to what it is, 100 or maybe more. Yeah, I don't know. I feel like if they, if they were more creative,

they could figure out how to get guys who, you know, could defend around what those two guys are doing. Jared Vanderbilt, for instance. Right, right, exactly. They couldn't pick up Jared Vanderbilt. They could have picked, I mean, there's just so many players like that that are just like floating around that nobody really, you know, those are, I mean, I personally, that's my belief on how you build a team around,

around Luca is you surround him with capable ball handlers who aren't going to, you know, you can find like a Tyos Jones, another guy who's not getting paid a lot of money, but who's a reliable ball handler who can who can drive and penetrate and kick and handle the ball. Like second, you know, second tier backup point guards who can handle the ball and score the ball effectively well. And then a bunch of really, really good dogged wing defenders who can hit three point shots. That's kind of the model, I think it's.

So you think there needs to be another pressure relief valve? it just doesn't have to be at this extreme high end, one-sided type of guy like a Kyrie? No, and you want to surround him with another star, but that other star has to complement his position. Like, it has to be a wing guy. Like, you want to surround him with like a guy, like a Tatum or a Jalen Brown or like a whatever?

Perfect. Have at it. Save your powder for that. Don't, you know, don't blow your load on Kyrie Irving, who's a definitive point guard who plays this, you know, whose strength is with the ball. and guess what, that's Luca's strength. That's my belief. So I would just hold, or like, you know,

someone like if you're going to get a guard, then make it be like a Drew Holiday type guard, who was always the guy that I was like, this is the guy we should be saving all of our assets for because he might become available one day. And that's the perfect compliment to Luca. So those would be, I think like this whole situation is, is,

it's tough because you have, you know, a star player who wants to be in the playoffs, he wants to be in the MVP candies. He wants to win. He clearly doesn't like losing. I mean, say what you want. about the guy off the court. He's a prince off the court. One of the nicest guys you'll ever meet off the court. He's a complete lunatic. I mean, the guy loses every 30 seconds. So he wants to win.

So that's a lot of pressure. And he's not happy when he loses. So yeah, I don't know. There's been a lot of, there's been like a sense of kind of impatience, I think, around him for maybe his whole, not him personally, but the people around him, like, you know, trying to like make a deal when he, in his rookie season to find a running mate. And he didn't even really know what type of player he was yet. All that stuff is just borne out of in patience, I think. Yeah, I just, you know, I wonder

what they could do. Like, people, like, can they just say, all right, Kyrie, walk away? I think that's untenable. They have to sign Kyrie, or it's a, then it's a disaster. Like, if they don't bring Kyrie back, he's got them under a barrel.

They could do a sign and trade and maybe to the Lakers, like maybe they could do a sign and trade to the Lakers and, I don't know. I think like there was like someone like, I mean, this would never happen, but someone like AD would be like that would be like a dream partnership for for Luca. Like a guy like AD or like even like someone like, you know, there's just lots of like an OG Ananobe would be like a great like someone like that or Siakum maybe, although maybe he's not

good enough defensively. But just yeah, those would be the guys who I think you'd want to pair him with. But who knows. We'll see. It could be wrong. I mean, I think this is this deal was kind of like, oh, we fucked up the jail and Brunson thing. How do we find another score? Boring guard to go along with him. We need a star. How many stars are available? We don't have any assets anymore. What about that guy who thinks the, you know, what about what about that guy in Brooklyn?

Yeah, let's give him, you know, and that's that's that. Yeah, why not? No risk. Zero risk. Zero risk move. Just went from the fourth, fourth place team in the West out of the playoffs. Oh, no risk. God, I, I feel bad for the Mavericks fans who just listened to this last segment.

No, their future is bright, bro. As much as people, whatever, want to shit on the Mavericks, like if you look at since 2000, they've had probably, I think, the best record in terms of, like, playoffs, et cetera. So, like, they've done a good job building a team. I think this shit's just hard, you know, and I think people are, yeah, people, people are in the moment and they judge you by your latest moves.

Like, let's not forget this team made the Western Conference finals a year. It was last year. Yeah, last year they made the Western Conference Finals. Now, it might have been a bit of smoke and mirrors, but they still did it, you know? So deserve some credit. There you have it, man. My man, Bob Volgaris, thank you for coming on today.

You're a freaking soccer franchise owner. You are just living your best life. I'm so happy for you. Hold on, yeah. I want to know what's it like being a goddamn sports. Football by the way. Excuse me. They don't call it soccer.

They call it football. He just footballed me. Wow. Oh, okay. What's it like to own a football club, bro? It's fun, man. Like, I don't know. I didn't really, I mean, I knew what I was getting into for sure, but I didn't, I underestimated

the level of fanaticism from these fans. Even if it's not La Liga. Even if it's not La Liga. Look, we're third division. We bought the team. They were flirting with bankruptcy a little while ago. Team finished 13th out of 20 teams last year. we were in first for most of the year

certainly second for most of the year when we weren't in first and we lost a game last week at home to the last place team in the league and our fans went absolutely fucking bananas like like almost stormed the field

and we're arguing with the players like on social media like what is wrong like I just think it's like interesting because like okay the sense of entitlement is just so strong because like look this team was 15th before I bought this team like we I bought like like we took over the team team didn't really have much future we we breathe some life into it we

you know we got them up to second you know I've already fired one coach they want me to fire the new coach it's just like it's just like they're even more rabid than NBA fans they're just they are they're passionate and they're passionate and they're yeah I said entitled and there is a sense of entitlement there which is just like kind of bananas because like I'll be honest, when we took over the team in July, we took over the team a month before the season started. I was like, okay, let's just make sure we don't get fucking relegated here. Because like that's the nightmare situation is relegation. Obviously, your goal is to be promoted, but like we're brand new owners. We're new to this brand new thing for me. It's a new

challenge. I'd been working on it for some time, but still, you know, I didn't know exactly how well our models would translate. That's what I was about to ask you. Are you bringing your analytical-based approach to this soccer squad, too. What do you think? I mean, obviously, but it's nice to hear that, though. No, it's just all, like, in terms of for player evaluation and players that we're selecting, it's all that. It's all data.

You know, we have some guys who watch video and give us their opinion, and we respect that. And we certainly have signed a couple players that the data was, like, kind of murky on, but the video and the scout thought was good. But that's the exception. not the rule. I would say, especially the first summer signings that we made, some of them, we never even watched video of those players. We just had, we just had some, we just had a very, very, very good understanding for what their value was. And I think it turned out to be, like,

we've had a lot of injuries. Like, we've, we've probably, we've been playing strikerless now for six of the last eight weeks almost because we've had our strikers have been injured. And so I think that's a big part of it. But we've had some bad injury luck, not to the complain about injury luck. But I don't know, I think we've, we've established that I think our method works and we just have to keep getting better at it. It's not, we're not guaranteed to get promoted. And now at this point where we were in second, now we're in third, and we could be sixth and second through fifth play a playoff for versus second through fifth from the other group or two spots make the playoffs. Or make the, excuse me, two spots get promoted. So we really,

you know, we first place automatically gets promoted. It seems like we've got seven games left. It seems like first is going to be very after our loss last week. It seems like first is going to be very tough for us to achieve. But we can still finish second. And that gives us a pretty big advantage in the playoff. So it's fun, man. I don't know. It's exciting. The fans are very passionate. They're very into it. They live, breathe, die. They love the team. I would say every time I've gone to games and been around, the response has been nothing but positive. I'm not sure what would happen if I was around last week when the fans lost their shit. but I wasn't so I don't know exactly.

But, you know, we've got a rabbit fan base. It's interesting. They're called fanatics for a reason. You know, so fans like short for fanatic for a reason. I love that. And the goal is to make second division and to eventually, hopefully maybe one day make La Liga. Is that what I'm hearing?

No, the goal is to make La Liga for sure. It's just you can't go directly to the Liga. You got to do it step by step. So we gave ourselves like a six-year plan, I think, to get to La Lalea. We're, you know, if we managed to get promoted, this year, which I think even right now, we're about 40% to get promoted based on our evaluation. So, yeah, we get promoted this year.

Then we got five years to get up to La Liga. We're one step away. And it's a real big difference. Like the monetary value between three and Division II is pretty like, it's a pretty big financial swing for us to get promoted. So we're all hands on deck there trying to make it happen. So we'll see, root for us. Hopefully it'll.

Did you get your hat, by the way? I sent you a hat. No, I told you, you told me you was going to save that. I did, okay. So I didn't send you on. I'm going to come pick it up. I got you. I got you. I got you. I'm going to come pick it up. Come see you now that you're not in Mexico or Spain or, you know, you're freaking island hopping. Summertown's about to come. I know you gasing up the yacht right now.

Definitely. Definitely. Really, really happy for you, man. I mean, what's going on with you, your new endeavor with the team, the football club out there in Spain. And, you know, the stuff with the Mavericks was so stupid and annoying how that sort of fell out. But obviously, you landed on your feet. You seem pretty happy, looking healthy, looking good. Thank you, bro. Thank you for coming on the show, man. Appreciate you, man.

Thanks for having me on. It was a lot of fun. Of course. And I just want to give a quick programming note to everybody listening to this. This is actually the last episode of Weekends with Was this season. We're going to be going to two times a week on group chat with me, Justin Varyer and Rob Mahoney. This show will be back next year.

It's going to be doing some, you know, some different kinds of things. Hopefully, I'll have some stuff to announce for you guys at some point in the near future. But yeah, this is our last episode of weekends. I want to give a big, big shout out to Jade Whaley, who is just an incredible, consummate, professional. She's a killer.

She does great things for us on this. And shout to my man Ben Cruz for also being somebody. who helps get things done for the show. So I'll see you guys on group chat, on Sundays and Wednesdays, of course. Stay locked to the ringer NBA for all our other offerings. Peace out, y'all.