The Ringer NBA Show - Wemby Wows in the Spurs' Win Over the Pistons | Real Ones

Episode Date: February 25, 2026

Logan Murdock, Raja Bell, and Howard Beck are back with another edition of Real Ones and get into the possible Finals preview from Monday night between the Spurs and Pistons. What did it mean for the Spurs to go into Detroit and essentially shut down MVP candidate Cade Cunningham? How did both the Spurs and the Pistons become title contenders after some dreadful prior seasons? Who’s the face of the league? Plus, the mailbag!(0:00:00) Intro (2:09)Spurs-Pistons reaction  (18:14) How the Spurs and Pistons became contenders  (31:36) Who’s the face of the league?  (38:20) Mailbag! Hit the mailbag! [e-mail]: Logan Murdock, Raja Bell, and Howard BeckProducers: Victoria Valencia and Clifford AugustinAdditional Production Support: Ben Cruz and Conor Nevins The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out ⁠rg-help.com⁠ to find out more, or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's good? What's popping? Logan Murdoch here for four ones. Myself, Howard Beck, getting into a great discussion about spurs and pistons and what that means for the league. A great conversation on team building and facing a league talk, tanking talk. It's all there. Then we get in the mailbag where we talk about other stuff that was really also very,

very exciting, talk about questions about the draft, talked about some other stuff. Ward season. It was great. It was awesome. We vibed. Just an old school of real ones with Howard motherfucking Beck and Rajabel.

My dudes. I have nothing else. Cliff, play the theme music. What's popping? Real ones. Logan Murdoch here. Roger Bell there. Howard Beck is also here.

We are here to talk about real basketball. Raja, are your brain cells back from days after talking about Get Off My Dickerson? Have you repaired? Come on. Come on. The hell of that missed on Friday.

Don't do that. Don't start. Come on. I'm out for one show. I'm trying to make sure you were covered. I'm good. I don't want to know. I'm good.

I appreciate that. Cool. We had a bit of an animated discussion, Howard. That conversation did fry me, man. I found very few times do I find myself after the, pod thinking about what I said on the pod or the conversation on the pod like it's usually just a little part of my day and I keep it moving I was on that almost all day so yeah I'm good now though yeah before we get into piston spurs reaction Howard do you have any final thoughts on get off my

dickerson and burner accounts um no I think we can move on thank you okay okay okay let's talk about the Pistons and the Spurs Monday night match up a finals preview maybe huh maybe maybe not who we'll see um where the spurs won 114 113 in pretty convincing fashion um down the stretch they end of their ending the five game win streak uh that the Pistons had coming into the game I think the spurs have won nine straight this is one of the games that are really fun late in the season when you get two teams like this from opposite conferences that don't necessarily play against each other a lot, but they both have finals aspirations, and they're actually playing for something down the stretch in a time where we have tried to disincentivize that.

We'll get you back to that in the moment. But what did this mean for both teams? I'm going to start with Howard. What did you think this game meant for both teams? And by extension, what did it mean for the Spurs who won it? I think it probably meant more for Detroit, kind of coming to grips. with where their potential weaknesses are than it did for San Antonio in terms of affirming anything, right? Like the Spurs, once they like kicked around the thunder a few times back in December,

we're like, all right, we're here, we're good, we're in this thing. And we all took notice. And we all said, yeah, they're in this thing. And they're an actual contender. Their record says it. Their net rating suggested. Every stat suggests it. Their personnel suggests it. So we already knew San Antonio's in this. And we already knew like Detroit is the leading team in Eastern Conference and on track for potential. their first conference finals appearance in, you know, over a decade, and should be the favorites to win the East with some caveats, right? So it was Detroit that went into that game that I think it was the Pistons who needed

it more in terms of gauging themselves. And which is a weird thing to say, right? Neither of these teams has won a playoff series in forever. They're both kind of just now arriving. They're both really young. But it feels like the spurs are more established in, stable at this level. And look, part of that is because of who they've beaten. And part of it is because they've been dominant in a really tough Western conference,

whereas the Pistons are leading an Eastern conference that we've been saying since the off season was, you know, either wide open or just kind of a jumble. And it's still kind of a jumble. And the spurs just also feel closer to a finished product. We can get into that. Like I think the Pistons in seeing in the way they got manhandled last night, and granted Isaiah Stewart's not playing, you know, who knows what difference he might have made. But two weaknesses we knew about the Pistons, not a great three-point shooting team. That was a huge part of last night's loss. No secondary shot creator to help out Kate Cunningham. That was a big part of last night's loss. And, you know, I think they probably walk away feeling like, all right, we know where we

have to improve now, but those might be things you have to address in the offseason. You're not, you're not fixing those personnel issues in late February. Roger, when the biggest thing that we've, you know, talked about with the Pistons is their physicality. And they were trying to be physical very, very early on with Wimby. And I think that that's kind of a young player anointment type of thing, right? Where whenever there's a young star, you know, either established teams or teams in general just try to get physical with them and take them out of their game.

Wimby is the rare player that is just like taking it on their team. chin and it's like, I'm not, you can't punk me because I am not a punk, right? And he seemed to kind of take on the challenge one and then two, just really take it to the Pistons down the stretch. My question to you is when you talk, and we alluded to this earlier, when you talk about a Pistons teams that's really reliant on, you know, guard play and getting downhill, how instructive is a game like this against a Spurs team? who has so much athleticism, has so much length, and has a generational rep protector in Wembe,

who by the way, had six blocks, including some of the greatest blocks I've ever seen last night, and that tends to be what Wembe does on a nightly basis. But how instructive adding to what Beck said, how instructive is that to what they need, the pistons need to do in the interim right now to kind of mitigate those things? Because if you get to the Western Conference,

There's so many other teams like the Spurs with length and athleticism. Yeah, well, I mean, to Howard's point, I mean, it highlights for sure if you're sitting around this morning, you know, in the Detroit offices, you certainly understand where you're flawed and a team like the Spurs will highlight that. How you can go about changing that at this point in the season, I don't know. You either have the personnel and the players or you don't. A team that lives in the paint, like Detroit likes to live in the paint, the way they want to play, is a terrible matchup for a team like the Spurs or against a team like the Spurs. If you need to be in there and have a certain amount of productivity and shooting percentage in and around that rim from a night to night basis, if you have to live off of that, it's going to be harder and harder and harder to do that against teams like. like OKC and especially the Spurs who really command that paint defensively. What you want to do to them is what San Antonio did to Detroit to start the game,

which is attack that paint because, you know, that's what you do and get two feet in and then spray it. But, you know, the Spurs had capable three-point shooting that made Detroit pay for collapsing defensively. And Detroit just doesn't have that personnel right now. That would be, you know, the instructive, hey, this is what we need. to be able to do against teams with that type of length and defensive presence, but you have to have the personnel to do that.

And maybe it's a mind shift change for some of them, but like that's what we need to do. We need to look to get into the paint. And when we are in there and they are collapsing, not look to finish everything in the paint, but look to like kick it back out, start rotations, and then find wide open shooters. And then we got to be able to convert. And that is just personnel or we either have it or we don't. I want to stand the Spurs real quick and back to you, Rajah. Michael Grady of NBC, who has done a really great job as a play-by-play guy,

ended the game saying that the Spurs, some say the Spurs are ahead of schedule, but they try to be right on time. And we talk about ahead of schedule and trying to be in a team like the Spurs who are probably playing with House Money at this point. But what is the biggest difference you've seen from them in the beginning of the season? to right now where they're winning nine straight and are kind of peaking at just the right time, how dangerous can they be?

Well, I mean, they could be really, really dangerous. They are really, really dangerous. They've knocked off the best team in the league multiple times this year. They seem to have their number. They just went to the best team in the East. And I think for me, I mean, we already knew that the East was a little lighter, if you will,

in terms of overall upper end talent. teams or opportunity to win championship teams than the West, but I think last night highlighted that even more, right? Like the best couple teams are out in the Western Conference. They look like they've fallen into a belief that only comes with having played X amount of games and haven't had this success that they had. Like I think when they came out earlier this year, you know, there were some injuries. They were trying to figure some things out. They were in belief mode, but maybe not sure that you believe yet. Like that typically happens with teams. It's weird. You come out and everybody says, hey, we believe championship. Like one, two, three, let's go.

You know, everyone believes, but you're not sure you believe until you actually put that on wax, right? Until you played 20, 30 games. You've seen the results. You've knocked off the better teams. You've had those trials and tribulations. And now you're sitting there after the All-Star break saying, hey, bro, like we come into your building. You know, we really believe. And so I think the seasoning that you want to see from a team that you think has a chance to win a championship is starting to develop for San Antonio in that way. Now, you know, postseason is a different animal, but I think you see a much more seasoned team that believes and knows that they can get it done in a way that they may not have earlier in the season. Howard, I think about like this, I see them on the trajectory

of right now where OKC was and maybe like 2024, right, where they're playing really well as a regular season team, but they still need to go through the trials and tribulations of a postseason, like Raj just said. But that may mean that they, you know, maybe lose maybe a round earlier than we expect. What do you think about their, the spurs? What do you think about how they set up going into this postseason where when you get to this level, you think that, you know, you can't be invisible getting all the way through? How do they learn on the fly and how confident are you that they can learn on the fly in a postseason setting? And how is that maybe different or the same as OKC of yesteryear or what we've seen with teams that have pushed the button and have had a chance at a title?

It's a really young core. And based on like decades of NBA precedent, we would normally say the spurs need to take their lumps first, right? They haven't been in the playoffs with this group. Wembe hasn't been in the NBA playoffs. Castle, Harper, Vassell, Keldon Johnson. But Deering Fox obviously is a really important part of this team, and he's got at least some postseason experience from Sacramento. And Harrison Barnes has been around, and Luke Cornett has been around.

Like, there are some veterans around the young guys, but of those guys, Fox is really the only one with, you know, a lot of just notches on his belt. But again, not in the postseason, but he's at least been around. I don't know that that axiom matters anymore. The whole, like, youth can't win thing. You've got to take your lumps. Like, the Thunder were the youngest team in, like, modern NBA history. But they took their lumps, though, to your point, though.

Like, they took their lumps. The Thunder had one, they had one playoff victory, one playoff series victory prior to winning the championship, right? Like, they had done. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. They took their lumps going into this, even this championship run, right? They went to the playing, and then they went into, you know, a postseason where they,

maybe didn't get as far as we thought they could go. But if you go back 10 years and 15, 20, 25, 30, it was always like, make the playoffs, get your ass kicked. You know, eventually went around. Get your ass kicked. Come back, make the conference. It wasn't literally round by round, but you usually had to have like two or three postseason runs

before you finally broke through and got to the finals, much less won a championship. The Thunder skipped 50 steps because they're just so damn talented. and because we were in a time of just unprecedented parity. So I don't think we should apply any of the past, you know, rules to the Spurs at this stage. I think they could go all the way.

I think they can go to the finals. I think they can win the championship. I think whoever comes out of the West is winning the championship anyway. So if it's the Spurs, it's almost by definition winning it all. I don't think it's impossible. I mean, we're sitting here in late February. Shegilders Alexander and Jaylon Williams are both banged up and not playing. The Thunder are looking much more vulnerable just in,

general even before those guys got hurt, then they were earlier in the season. Winning a championship takes a toll, all the miles, all that stuff. The nuggets have been kind of meh since Yokic got back, and they're still waiting on Aaron Gordon. So they've got injury and health concerns. Timberwolves, do we believe? Do we not believe? I think they're in this, but I think on talent, they're a little notch behind the other

three that I just mentioned. And that's pretty much the four in the West. I don't think it's crazy to think the Spurs can come out of the West. And I think if they do, then whoever they're facing, they are better then because the West is better than the East. And so, yeah, they are ahead of schedule by any standards, historic or otherwise. But like, I don't think there's any ceiling on this team right now. They've just got so many weapons. You know, we like, we talk all the time about Wem and Yama, but like, dear, that guard tree of Fox and Castle and Harper make it a, you know, a quartet, right?

Vassell had as many threes last night as the entire pistons. They're really talented. And Kelton Johnson comes off the bench and is super explosive and physical and attacking the basket. They've just got a lot of different ways to beat you at both ends. I don't look at the spurs and think there's anything in particular missing other than experience, which might not matter. Yeah. Let's get to, I'll go ahead.

I just want to follow up because I. I would agree with you, Howard, and that's kind of, to some degree, what I was trying to say about believing, right? Like the lumps that you talk about, Logan, and the lumps that I typically would talk about with teams that they would, and the dues that they have to pay in the playoffs, you know, at least historically, you got to get over some trials and tribulations, like you said,

and then we've lost a series. That's all belief, right? Like, until you get over the hump of believing that you can get that done. And I see them in a light now where, having knocked off who they've knocked off, especially the way they have knocked off, okay, C. I don't think that could you have some situational issues

pop up in the playoffs with the pressure? 100%. But overall, I don't think they're going to have an issue either in terms of having to get over Humps in the playoffs. I think they believe in that way. Yeah, I mean, adding to that, I agree with you guys, because I just saw Denver the other night

and they're dealing with injuries right and the two teams that match up with San Antonio the best right now in the Western Conference that theoretically should give them problems right now is Denver and OKC we saw what they did with okayC and I'm not sure at this point that Denver is going to be healthy enough at this point and also if they are healthy trying to find that continuity you see what I did there in time during a stretch run and figured themselves out in this new version right but also I can't bet against Yokic that's I think the bigger wild card to me for San Antonio is playing against Denver more than it is playing against OKC at this particular point.

Because I just don't know what, I just haven't seen it yet. I don't know what Wimby's going to do with Yokic over a seven game series. As opposed to OKC, San Antonio matches up so well with them. And OKC's best player is a guard, which means that he is going to be, SGA is going to be in the same. same position that Cade was last night to where he's going downhill, he's going to have to play against lengthen athleticism that's been really, really hard for him. I think that if San Antonio gets the right side of the bracket, I think they can cruise if that's the case.

We'll see what happens. But one of the other, let's take a quick break. And I want to talk about what this matchup means for team building as a whole in the NBA and how that should be a blueprint for the rest of the league. All right, and we are back. I'm going to stick on the spurs and the pistons. Two years ago, these teams were lottery teams, Howard, and now they are competing for titles.

What does this say about the NBA, as we know it now, in this current apron era, and what blueprint is this setting for the rest of the league? Don't hate me, people, for what I'm about to say. Don't hate me. Uh-oh, famous last words. What this is telling us, us clearly is that tanking works.

I'm sorry. I knew. I hate you. I mean, this is why teams tank. Do we have plenty of examples of tanking also not working? Sure. In fact, for most of the last 15 years for the pistons, tanking has not worked. But tanking works.

And these two teams are emblematic of it. And this is why teams are still doing it. And it's why at the Board of Governors meetings, they're always hesitant, especially in smaller markets or non-glamour markets. They're hesitant to scrap the draft or scrap the lottery or scrap the system because if you can just be bad for a few years and draft well, you can do this. So the Spurs have been a lottery team for six straight years. The Pistons were a lottery team prior to last year for five straight seasons, but also notably for 13 out of 16 years. So they were there a long time. but it's the last five that mattered, right?

So here's how the pistons were built. Cade Cuttingham, number one pick in 2021. Sir Thompson, number five pick in 2023. Ron Holland, fifth pick in 2024. So there's three top five picks. Jalen Duren was the 13th pick in 2022 and was not their pick. It was actually a Hornets pick that was traded to the Knicks, who then traded it to the Pistons.

The Knicks and their defense were clearing cap room. They kind of lucked up on that one, baby. They kind of looked up on that one. The Knicks should have found a different way to clear cap room because Jalen Duren turned out to be really good. clearly and would be awesome in New York if he were there. But it was part of their cap clearing to Chase Brunson. So things turned out okay for the Knicks.

They were justified. Isaiah Stewart 16th in the 2020 draft. That was actually a Portland pick that went to Houston and then to Detroit. That was a Christian Wood trade, by the way. That's fun. And then there's like a bunch of guys free agency, right? Tobias Harris, Karras Levert, Javante Green. Paul Reed was a waiver claim from the Sixers.

They get Duncan Robinson in a minor trade. with Miami. Danis Jenkins, two-way player. So, like, the pistons, like, there's some good victories here along the way, too, right? Lower picks, mid-round picks, a two-way player and Jenkins. But the core of this is, like, getting Kate, like, if, Cain is an MVP candidate right now, a strong one. And he was the number one overall pick.

So there's your tanking case. And again, Assar Thompson and Ron Holland, both fifth overall picks. Spurs, Wembe, number one in 20203. Stefan Castle, number four in 2024. Dylan Harper, second overall pick in 2025. They get Deer and Fox in a trade with the Kings because the Kings are stupid. Devin Vassell was the 11th overall pick in 2020, Keldon Johnson, 29th in 2019. Cornette was a free agent. Champany.

Waiver claim again from the Sixers. Sixers keep popping up in here. So did the Kings and Bulls in three-way trades, Harrison Barnes, the other one. So, like, yes, a bunch of smart deals along the way, good free agent signing, some minor things. like around the edges, like good smart front-officing by both of these teams. But at the core of it, it's because the spurs have Wemby Castle, Harper. So like, you can't get away from the fact that these teams tanked to success. You can't.

I will say this, though, Howard. And I knew you were going to do this. I knew you were going to say this about tanking and how it works. It's not. And we've obviously talked about a lot about this. And I, and I've, which has made me think about the subject even more. I watched, I remember watching the 22, 23 spurs. And that was when they traded a DeJante Murray before that season.

They were clearly trying to regroup. But they weren't being the Utah Jazz. They weren't throwing games. There are levels. Out of night to night, on a night basis. They were, they were actually playing hard and not like getting up 17 points, right? And doing that. I think it's more of a mind.

set of what we're talking about too as well of on a night tonight and same with the pistons right when they were going into that that cave drive i'm not mistaken they were on the back heels of you know the blake griffin deal which didn't really work out it wasn't like they were trying to lose on a year and year out basis right pistons was a little bit more hubris they had terrible just decision making from a front office level and a coaching staff level right and uh they get trades Lankton in who gets credit, I would say, for the quick turnaround, but Troy Reaver Weaver made a lot of those picks as well. I think he should get credit for what he did.

But I think the pistons, the pistons and the spurs, the problem that we have right now is just the blatancy of it, right? And it's coming on the heels of what's going on with gambling right now. And it makes it look like it's way too blatant is what I would say. But the taking that you described a couple of years ago is way different than what we're seeing right now in terms of just on a night-to-night basis where you're just, you're taking out starters. The Spurs, they were still building something. And you could see that they were building a mindset would pop there. They were building an identity.

I'm not sure what Utah is building in terms of good habits. And I think that's the difference here. It's not like you're not chasing picks and stuff. It's also how you do it that's important as well. Roger, you got a point. I really appreciate what you just said. I've never clearly said that because I'm always railing against tanking because I think tanking is a terrible word.

If you are building and you have a bunch of young players that aren't equipped to win yet and you as a front office have elected not to go out and bring in capable pieces around them that give you the chance to win and therefore you find yourself in the lottery over and over again. I'm okay with that. I don't necessarily consider that tanking. You're choosing to build a certain way that gives you a better chance at a draft pick. Tanking to me is when you have the pieces and you could be winning games and you elect in one, whether you're not playing them night after night after night for bogus injuries or in the Utah case actually are pulling them out of live games to secure a loss. That for me is where I draw the line and it becomes really

tacky and I start to have these conversations about what are we what are we teaching you know the younger generations about competitiveness and so on and so forth but you know in terms of securing young talent letting it go out there and lose games as it learns how to win games i don't necessarily have a problem with that the other one to to logan's point how you go about it once we start using the t word and tanking and we're making conscious efforts with teams they could win games to lose games, I have a problem with that. I mean, also like we got also, let's not have a revisionist history. Like it wasn't like the, the pistons were just like actively, over the last couple of years,

were just like we're going to lose games. They just make terrible decisions, like signing Monty Williams when they did, right? They were actually trying to win and put pieces in there to actually win. It was just terrible decision making that led to continual, continual lotteries. Remember, we had questions about if Cade was the guy three years ago, if he was the right choice to lead this franchise. Like, I think we're looking at it like, oh, Cade is an MVP candidate now. It wasn't always like that for the Pistons. And I think that we should acknowledge that when we do the totality of tanking is good for, you know, whatever the league is trying to do.

So just a couple of definitional things here then just to kind of reset this. one is when I say tanking works and I hate to say it, whether these two teams tanked or not, and there's a lot of nuance in both of these cases, but at San Antonio definitely, definitely, definitely did some shit along the way. They absolutely did. The pistons were more case of it.

No, I just mean, I'm even in the more recent one. Like, go back to the Wemby draft year. Like the Spurs were fucking around. Don't they, there's no way around this. The Spurs as honorable and wonderful and amazing. as the spurs are as an organization, they did some shit. Let's not be, let's not get cute about it. The pistons were more a case of incompetence, right?

And I've always said, if I were an NBA team, whether I'm owner for an office or a fan of that team, I would much rather be bad through design intention or tanking than through incompetence because I, you know, I watched for years as the Clippers during my years in LA, the clippers were just like, they were in the lottery every year, but they were shitty every year because they were just incompetent. They drafted poorly. They traded poorly. They did everything poorly and they didn't spend the wizards for years and years and years, just bad through incompetence. But you also have some selective tanking along the way for some of these franchises. And the point of me saying tanking works is both of these teams are built around what will be perennial MVP candidates who

were taken number one overall. And that provides the incentive for others to tank. That whether these teams did or not is irrelevant. Tanking works because, If you get a bunch of top five picks and if you draft well, yeah, there are busts. But if you drafted well, after multiple bites at the Apple, you're in business. And these teams are. I do think there's a distinction between these two franchises. To your point, Logan, I think the pistons were more just stumbling around trying to win and not really winning. There is some stuff in their past two.

But like, the spurs for sure, without a doubt, during some of this stretch, during some of their long draft. out after Kauai left, some of that was some intentional stuff. And tanking does exist on two different levels, right? Organizationally, you can do it by just destroying your roster, making it impossible for the coach to win, or you can do what the Jazz were most recently fined a half million for doing, which was pulling the plug on guys in the middle of a game in order to lose. That is the most egregious version. That's why Adam Silver came down so hard on them.

That's why the league is moving so aggressively right now to try to fix this this issue once again, but you're right. That's why I said there's levels to this, right? What the Spurs or Pistons did is not anywhere near what the Jazz were guilty of a couple weeks ago. But there's all different ways to get yourself higher in the lottery. I mean, we said this on the last podcast, too. I mean, I think the league also is speaking out of both sides of its mouth. And it's not necessarily just the league, but it's the CBA, right? Like the CBA makes it, it's so hard to build a sustained team, right? And it's not going to, what I mean by that is you're, you're always, I was talking to GM the other day.

Like building a team at this time, you're constantly pivoting. If your team is perpetually in the first round, it's just way too expensive to continue that on with the aprons and all of the things and the mechanisms that are put in place for. you know, team building and players just circling around the league, right? And then, so either you go, you have to build up through the draft. You can't build with a mid-level exception or a biannual. Those, it's just not enough for top-in talent. So you have to build through the draft and then, or you have to pay your, you know, top-line talent and players.

So there's a real, it's really hard to be able to just sustain, throughout a 10-year path. So it's, on one hand, you have a CBA that incentivize tanking, and on the other end, you have a commissioner that wants to, at least on the face of it, end it. There's no way you're actually going to be able to do that. Unless you just, I don't know. I don't know.

I don't have an answer for that. I do not have an answer for that. But all I'm making is the point that the CBA is incentivizing it. And it's on the commissioner to try to use some sort of mechanisms to at least on the face save the league from itself. But I think we're going to continue to see it throughout because this is really the only way that you can build with young talent because it's so expensive to try to outsource it through trades and other mechanisms of that sort. So I just don't know what they do. And I feel like we have this conversation all the time. But you're right, Howard.

This is a manifestation of a good ethical, sometimes ethical tank. That's all I got. That's all I got. What do you think about the face of the league conversation with this matchup, right? Because we have Cade who seems to be on his way to anointment, right? He's about to have the Nike signature shoe. And then you have Wimby, who's Wimby. Where are we at with that?

How do you see these two, I would say, Roger, where do you see these two guys fitting into that impossible mythical conversation? It's pretty easy for me. I don't want to oversimplify it. But like, Wemby is the face of, Wembe is the face of the league moving forward. Thank you. Yeah. Cade and a bunch of, not a bunch of, but a few, a handful of other guys are in a subcategory right below him. And they can compete and be, you know, I don't know who you. want to call to, you know, whatever that level of player was to the MJ or or, or, or, or, Braun when he was the face. But like, Wembe is the face of the league moving forward. There's no

if, answer buts about that. When he's healthy, this and he's doing what he does, the spurs are good. Like, I don't see them as being on the same level in that regard. I do think Cade continues to level up in the conversation of category just beneath that, though. We had this discussion last week or a couple weeks ago, Roger, when we were at All-Star. So Logan and Tyler Parker and I had this conversation about like, what do you need to be faced of the league? And what does that even mean in all this? And so I said Wemby as well. And it's because it's not just the dominance of the player. There's a certain charisma to his game. And I even think to his personality, they scoffed at me. But I think that at Wemby is. Tyler, Tyler in particular scoffed at you.

Tyler in particular, he scoffed much more than me and him. Both would rather have a beer with Anthony Edwards than Victor Women. That was the argument. Yeah, you know what's, you know what's, you know what's interesting about that? Sorry, Howard, because I don't lose your thought. But like, Ant speaks to one demo more than Wembe does, if that makes sense. And you know what I'm talking about. Like, you know, you know a certain, yeah, like, I think Wemby might cross over to more people, if you will, than Aunt does.

Now, Ann, Ann is, I love Ant's personality. Ant is like my boys, their generation of kid. Like they, Aunt is the dude. But I would agree with you in terms of when because sneakily, right, as a French national who comes over and like Boris was actually at the crib the other day. He came to watch Thai play. Boris has a great personality. Because of the language barrier sometimes when the camera gets in front of them, like you don't always get it. Wemby's got a really, he's got a real cool personality too.

I would agree with you on that. And it's, look, just to say this, like, part of the face of the league thing is like appealing to the broadest possible, uh, cross section of, of the public, right? And especially the, the North American public. So, um, and I think Wemby has that already. But it's also going to be like, like, nobody can get that mythical title unless they win a shit ton of games and some championships. And I think Wembe and the Spurs have more of a chance of doing that than Anthony Edwards. So that's part of it too. Shea's already got the title. But Shea is like so. reserved as we discussed a couple weeks ago that Shay kind of doesn't even even enter the discussion because he doesn't want it. And Yokic and Luka don't seem to really want it. They're so guarded. They're so withdrawn. And I think there's a language barrier too with Luca and

No, there is. No, there may hide by. There was early. The reason why I say that, the reason why I say that is like they English is their second language and they don't necessarily speak as they would maybe back in the homeland as they do here. Like it's just a difference. Like a comfortable.

Huh? Like a comfort level. Like a comfort level. Yeah. They get more of themselves to where they're at, right? That's more of what I'm saying. Like you see, like, part of the example, when you see Yokic and you see Luca together talking and conversing, they're way more open than they are with us American media, right?

Like even when I think Luca tried to do it, he just didn't. have that in him because it felt like there wasn't a comfort level with us in terms of our American media as opposed to how it is when he's back in his native country. I think it's more just that they just they've just chosen not to. Like they're both very comfortable with their English now. And you're right that maybe psychologically there's a different comfort of how you express yourself in your own language or even in your own country. But like they have enough of a command of the English language and both of them you've had you can see it at times. do have a sense of humor and everything. They just don't say a lot. They're a little more conservative

in the way they present themselves. And because of that, I think they're less relatable. Whereas Wembe seems to like really just give an earnest answer to just about everything. And not for nothing, Wembe of I think all the players in the NBA, it took a non-native, you know, not American-born player to have the strongest statement about what happened in Minnesota. Like, like, those kinds of things put you out front in a way that your play alone does not. And so, like, you, you have to want it. And adding to that, like, you see that Wimby is taking that seriously in a way that I don't even think Ant does, right? Ant is just sheer force of personality, right?

I mean, you even juxtapose what Ant said about what happened in Minneapolis versus what, versus what Wemby said about what happened in Minneapolis. But more even than that, Wimby is playing hard. He's doing all of the things that you would want from a player to market your league. He gets mad about losing an All-Star game. He gets mad about losing an All-Star game, which is what the fans have been wanting players to do at least for at least 10 years, right? Yeah. And all the fans are like, thank you.

And like he has little shit about him where like he like, like, We saw this in LA. Like he just has a little undercurrent of like shit talking that he has. Like he wants to win at all costs. The corny like want to win at all costs that everybody loves. He has that now. And I think that that, back to the point about what we were talking about with the All Star game. And what we were talking about during All Star weekend, it's so many different types of factors.

Right. You have to have a perfect balance of, you know, corporate viability. You have to have just something that we've never seen before. and you have to be able to have the game to back it all the way up and Wimby has all those things. And we'll see what happens. Let's get to Mailbag. We have a guy that we haven't seen in a while coming on.

Cliff, what's going on, buddy? Oh, the young bull. What up, Cliff? The bull Cliff is here. It's good, man. What's so much you, man. I miss Joe, man. It's good to be back with you.

Raj, good to see you, son is glistening on you, Howard. I know the weather is going crazy right now in New York. Logan, my dog, you know, appreciate y'all, man. So I got two good questions. Let me start off with this one here. This is from Reza Tahiri. For decades, NBA media has told us that regular season awards are for players who have the best regular seasons. Would any of you honestly give Wemby, Yokic, SGA, the MVP for 63 games over Cade, Brunton, Brown for 75 games? These decisions always come down to the margins. When most voters give the nod to the player who played 80% of the regular season for a regular season award.

Riza. Thank you for the question, Riza. I'm questioning the math here. We don't really know how many games any of these guys are going to finish with. Let's just start there. As of right now, Yokic has missed 16 games, so he can only miss one more and still even be eligible. So the NBA does have this 65 game rule.

And if you miss, if you play fewer than 65, 64 or less, you're just done. You're not even on the ballot. We, the media, cannot even vote for you. if we wanted to. So when he says 63, by definition that those guys aren't even going to be on the ballot. Yokic has missed 16 games so far. Wembe has missed 14. So he's got a little more wiggle room, but it's, you know, he can't get hurt again, basically. SGA's missed nine games. He's got definitely some wiggle room still, but like he's still out. Like it's ongoing. And the abdominals are no joke. Jalen Brown's missed five of the other guys that he mentioned. Jalen Brown's missed five.

Brunz's missed five. Brunz's missed five. Kate's missed six. So yeah, the guys who are our listeners is saying should be elevated, Jalen Brown, Brunson, Cade, have played more games than the other three. But this is like a sliding scale thing. And when we get to the end of the regular season and those of us who have ballots are filling them out, you are always weighing how great was the guy's season statistically, leadership, defensively, how often were they available, all that stuff against everything else, right? How many games did their team win? You're just baking it all in. And everybody's got their own kind of combination. There's 100 voters.

Everyone has a little bit different way of weighing all these things. And that's the way it's supposed to be. There's no one way to do this. But games played have always been a factor. Even before there was a 65 game rule, we, the media, the voters have always had that as a huge factor. And you can go back through the history of MVP. You're not going to find a bunch of guys winning MVP with fewer than 65 games played in a full 82 game season. So, you know, look, if Shea ends up playing 68 games and Cade plays 75, would I still vote for Shea?

Maybe, probably. Like, She's just, his statistically off the charts. And he's better overall impact than Cade. So, but where's the, where's the breaking point? Is, is a seven game difference enough to slip the other way? Is a 10 game difference enough to, to lean the other way? I won't know until we get there, really. And the fact is, if Wembe, let's say Wembe and Yokic, if those two guys end up at exactly 65 games,

they've played exactly enough to qualify, their 65, I think, is stronger on balance than say Jalen Brunson's 75. That's not a shot of Jalen Brunson. It just is. And, you know, so where is the breaking point for games played? Like, you know, again, I have the beholder stuff. Every voter will consider it differently. But anyway, that's how I see. Yeah, I mean, I would agree with almost everything you said there.

And then right at the end, and this is just personal. I feel like Jalen Brunson, I mean, Jalen Brunson, I'm sorry. Jalen Brown is really, really being disrespected in this MVP conversation. I, it snuck up on. me like I didn't see it coming but he would and I give I would just say this if I had a vote he would get extra points if I was doing that exercise that that you just spoke about with him who were the two other players that you said it was wemby and yokech Howard so the right and I'm doing this based off what the listener wrote in he had yokech wedby and sGA he wanted to kind of knock

him down a notch based on games missed fair um and the guys he was promoting instead were jalen brown jalen brunson and kate and so he wasn't distinguishing between those but those are the two groups Right, right, right. Well, I guess my point would be Jalen Brown, I think, would get, well, I do all the math. I do all the brainstorming. And I would give him extra points for, because he's lifted a team that we had no expectations for really coming into this season,

outside of maybe the people in the building there in Boston and maybe the fan base. And this is not a discredit to all the people that are playing great on that team, Prate and Pritchard, Derek White. Like all of them are playing fantastic. So it's not like he's doing it without any help, but he's doing it without his, his, his Batman to Robin or Robin to Batman. I would just notch him up.

I give him a couple extra credit points, I guess is what I'm saying. I would too. But all right, so let me ask you the question, Raj. If you had to fill out a ballot right now, forget the rest of the season. The season ended today, who's your one through five and where is Jalen Brown on that ballot?

Oh, but you know, I hate that. He's probably like, oh, meaning you have to actually like, it's great to put to put up to five. About how great Jaila Brown is, but when it comes to that out, you got to rank him. I think he's, I would, I would put him right now. I don't, well, I don't know how many, how many games has everyone played? Like, where are we at right now with everybody?

So, like, the teams have played some wildly different amounts. So I'm only, so here's the game's missed. Yokos has missed 16, Wembe's missed 14, Shea's missed nine. Brown and Brunson missed five each. Cade's missed six. It's tough. No, it's tough. It's tougher than I.

So, he's top five. top. Yeah, he would not get it right now. I'm not saying I'd give it to him. I'm not, that wasn't my argument. What I'm saying is I think he gets disrespected in the conversation. Like, what are the odds? Let me look at the odds. So just while you're looking it up. So Timbontems did his, uh, straw poll for ESPN a couple weeks ago. I was one of the people who responded to it. My top five. And you can have at it, uh, all you want, Raja. Here we go. I went Shay first, Yokic second, Cade third. I had Jalen Brown fourth. Now, Brown did not finish in the top five of his straw poll. I think he finished sixth, maybe

seventh. So I'm one of the ones who actually had him in my top five. I had him fourth. And I had Wembe fifth. And the reason I had Wembe fifth to the point of this discussion in the listener's email was because Wembe had played so many fewer games. And yeah, Yokich's missed a ton too. But Yokch's season is off the fucking charts. Like, it's just ridiculous what he's doing. And so you have to like try to like balance these things out. And at the end of it all, Yokic either may not qualify or I may just decide when the real ballots are due, because these are a rough draft. But when the real ballots are due, I might downgrade Yokic more for all the games missed. Who knows? But as of right now, that was my list. And I had Jalen Ford. Yeah, I like it. I'm not advocating for it either.

I'm not saying that I would have him as my MVP. I guess it's just, I feel like he's being disrespect to the conversation. Like I give him the extra credit and he still might not make the grade, right? Like, you get the extra credit. It might not bump you up to that A. You still might be at a B plus. But I just feel like that. And I like him at four. I'd even be fine with if you had Wemby at four and him at five because people are having phenomenal seasons. But yeah, I just feel like he's being disrespectful for what he's doing out there in Boston. It's hard. It's hard is the thing. Wemby fifth feels like an insult. And yet I did. This is great. It's, it's a really hard thing to discuss, right? Because on one hand, you know,

I think of the MVP and all the awards basically is like people who define the season in the different ways that they define the season. Right. And then also specifically with the MVP, they have defined a season at a level bigger than anyone. And that means like in 15 years when I got my little one and I'm like, yo back in daddy's day, this dude defined. You seen yoke into the 25, 26 season, man, he just defined it. But then you look at historical president and the plan. Players that have won MVP have all played for the most part over 65 games, right, when it's all set and done. I think I'm looking at the, I'm looking at the internet right now.

And Shay had 76. I can do that. Shea had 76. Nicola had 79. Joel Embedit had 66 games played. Damn there, broke him when he had it in 23. Sorry, Cliff. Nicola Yolkid 74.

DeKola 72. where he played all of the games in the 2021 season, which was a COVID shortened season. Year before that, Yonis Adetakumbo had 63, but that was also the other COVID shortened season. He played 87% of the games, right? Since 1979,

Alan Iverson has played the shortest amount of games to win an MVP, and that was 71, right? Like these games are, I think, the rule is a little walky because in my mind it just is another excuse for you know to claw back money the owners to claw back money in case um just for award season how much money is now tied to awards i think that's the bigger conversation um but this isn't like a new thing you have to play games in order to you know be considered for awards and that's not just what the league is saying that's what us as the media says as boaters based on the history of the league that if you're

available, then you can be considered for awards. I think we're still trying to figure out that balance in this new stage, but I do think that history suggests that we have done this before, and this is just how the way it goes in general. If you play, you are eligible for awards. Now, I don't necessarily like any excuse to claw back money from people, but that's just where we're all right now. And I think that that has taken on, the rule itself has taken on a more polarizing life of its own. But the bigger point is we've always considered games as a media apparatus when it comes to judging awards.

Can I add one thing to the Jalen Brown of it all? Maybe this is why I feel like the need to give him extra credit. Because he not only scores and does all the things that he needs to do, but he ticks a box and fills an invisible stat that nobody else on that list fills. Like Wemby's a great defender, but he gets the blocks. So you can point to it and be like,

great defender. Like nobody else on that list really is like, he is locked down. And you can't, you can't really quantify that with the stat. I mean, I'm sure there are advanced analytics to talk about like what his field goal

percentage against is and shit like that. I'd be interested to see that. But like he really is up two way, like he's two way. The reason why Roger loves him is he's also playing defense. Yeah, he defends. I mean, really,

and we'll defend your, we'll do, it's rare. Talk about how hard that is, please. I know it's something that we say a two-way player is like something that's very coveted, but can you just talk about how hard that is?

It's incredibly rare to have your best player offensively take their best player defensively. You know, and I'm not, you know, he might not do that every night now. Like, I don't tap in every night to watch Boston, but I mean, that's what he does when push comes to shove

and you got to put somebody on one of these wings that can really go get it, Jalen Brown's on their ass. And not a lot of cats on that list offensively because usually it's an offensive award will go and do the defensive dirty work to get those dubs too. And those are just hidden points for me

in the conversation for Jalen. Yeah. Jalen Brown is the classic case of what when people, if we hyped him up or if we, if he won the award, you would have all these people doing the, oh, he won on narrative. This is the dreaded narrative, which became a pejorative.

Whoa, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. It's at me, bro. Just at me. Just at me. Anyway, go ahead. But it's, like, I hate, I hate when narrative is deployed that way because it's turned into a pejorative term and it shouldn't be.

But it would basically, what Roger is speaking to is something that, like, fundamentally, there's the basketball element. Jalen Brown is a really great player who has elevated the Celtics, and there are some advanced stats that actually don't reflect on him, unfortunately, Roger. Like, if you start sorting by some of the advanced stats, weirdly, it takes them down a notch. And I'm not exactly sure why I'm not smart enough to understand all those formulas. But Jalen Brown is putting up box score numbers.

He's defending. He is leading. And he has got a team that is missing. The guy we always characterizes their best player, the guy who was the perennial MVP, candidate before the injury without him. And they're one of the top two teams, top three teams in the Eastern Conference. But when you put that all together, there's a there's a pocket of people out there that are going to say, oh, it's just narrative. Jalen Brown is doing exactly what you want a superstar to do. He's elevating his team and taking them places that you didn't even think they could go. He's made them a viable contender, even if Tatum doesn't return. I think that counts a lot.

But yeah, some people would say that that's just the dreaded narrative case. That is the narrative. Yokic and Shay have more of the like, you know, classic stat cases where it's like they just fill up the box score, all they check all the boxes on all the advanced stats too. And their team's records are great. And so, yeah, you just get this clash of definitions eventually. You know who to fill the box score. You know, we love a story.

Who's that? The original, not the original. box score stuffer but my man russ russ had a game the other night dog yeah yeah yeah yeah ended ended the 16 game losing streak like the fucking beam maybe like the beam like the beam um no hey man shout out we got one more does he got clif got another one you said you had two right we got this second one is from trevor chan hey fellows greetings from montreal long time listener with the first time question this may veered into conspiracy, build territory, but here it goes. Is the NBA draft overhyped?

How come every year has the best prospects of all time? Last year's draft was clearly awesome with the immediate impact of Kuh, Khan, Harper, VJ, Cedriced Coward, courtesy of Verno's pal, target guy, etc. How is it possible this year's draft is even better? If possible, I also love to hear hot takes from the extended fan like Joe Meekly. Are these prospects for real or is it simply media hype from the blog boys? Thanks, fam. Keep up the great work. Cheers, Trevor. P. P.S. Yes, yes, I'm an avid listener of the ringers NBA multiverse. PPS, tell Beck save his best takes for real ones.

He doesn't need to drop the heat on the low post or Zach Lowshow. Zach is overspos as is, L. O'L. What the fuck? The fuck, Howard. Trevor Chan from Montreal. Who are you with? Who are you with?

I'm a team player. What are you want? Hey, your name is on this marquee. I'm just saying, all due respect to Zach, but it's the Zach Lowe show. This is the real one with the Raja Lowe's. And who's that? Howard motherfucking Beck. There's not appreciated. There's not some finite amount of takes where if I use them on Zach's show, I have none left for our show.

There's more enough to go around. The drafting's funny because like, all right, I think all three of us would probably say this, right? I don't want to speak for you guys. But like, I'm not a draft expert. I would never claim to be a draft expert. And there are guys who both in our business and obviously for NBA teams, that is all they do. their entire attention span is focused on college and international prospects all year. I would not ever pretend to know as much as those people do. So if I say like, oh, the 226 draft class could be historic, I'm almost always going to say, according to all the people who are the actual experts, according to the scouts I've talked to, and according to people who write about this for a living and who focus solely on that,

like Jay Kyle Mann, not that he focuses solely on that, but our Jay Kyle man of the ringer. That's his specialty. Not mine. Not mine. But if all the experts are saying this, I will kind of go like, okay, that's the, that's the consensus. But to the, to Trevor, the listener's point, not every draft class is hyped. We do have an overhyped problem with drafts in general. Like, all I have to do is watch the broadcast every time there's a draft and every single player is like, oh, he's great at this, great at that, whatever, he's perfect. He's exactly what they need. He'll fit perfect. That's true. But when we talk about like the strength of a draft class, um,

2024 was said to be bad going in and it was. That was, uh, Rises Shea going number one, followed by Alexar, Reed Shepard, and then Stefan Castle and Ron Holland, who have become,

you know, very good players, but like, when Rises Shay is your top pick, like that's going to be viewed as a bad draft. And it was even in real time. That was one where no one was sure who the number one pick should even be. When the hawks actually leaped up to get the number one pick,

it was kind of considered to be like a mixed blessing because it was like, eh, this is the, this is not the draft you want to leap up. to be number one in. So that one was said in real time to be a bad draft. 27, everyone's talking about constantly as being a bad draft, especially in contrast to 26.

Del that said, yes, historically speaking, statistically speaking, as much as we are hyping DeBanza and Peterson and Boozer and the rest of these guys, at least one's not going to work out. It's really rare that a hyped draft with like three guys or four guys all end up becoming superstars. It just, it's not the way this goes. Like, I remember 2014, the whole league was tanking for Andrew Wiggins. And it was not just Wiggins. It was the Wiggins, Jabari Parker, Joel M. Bede draft. And they went in that order. And I think we all know where that landed, right? Like, Jabari Parker, even before he got hurt and fell out of the league, like was not living up to

expectations or anywhere close. Andrew Wiggins has become a very good player, but not a great player. Joel and Bede won an MVP. And then those guys were followed by Aaron. Gordon, Dante Exum, who had a ton of hype going into that draft. Julius Randall's in that draft had a ton of hype. Like, good players, but like, so sometimes the hype is, is overheated. And sometimes, you know, it's accurate. But yeah, the draft is still a crapshoot on so many levels. Teams cannot accurately forecast health and character and work ethic and coachability

and, you know, a whole bunch of other, you know, intangibles. Roger, what do you think about this draft? Because you know, you kind of have a better sense of it than a smux. Yeah, I mean, that's ridiculous. But I don't, I have watched a good bit of college ball this year just as I start the process with Ty. You know, I'm trying to see how teams are playing and what they do. And so we're locked into more games than I've ever been. there are going to be to Howard's point some of these guys are going to look great in college and just not

translate the way that people projected them to translate and then they'll be the ones that like me that no one thought could play in the league and then they wind up finding a way to stick around having said that this is a loaded loaded draft like at the top with with the petersons the the boozer who's one everywhere he's ever been like I mean everywhere they they grew up you know We grew up playing against them. So I've watched him in real time. The kid at BYU, why can't I call his name right now? DeBantzda.

Wilson at North Carolina. There's there's there's there guards the kid at Illinois, Kingston Fleming at Houston, A-Cuff. This thing is loaded. They're dudes that are out there putting up monster numbers in college. Just super, super talented kids in this year's draft in a way that I think is deeper than at least the last few years of the draft.

Real talk. That's what my eyes tell me when I watch. I am not a draft analyst. I don't project these kids. I just watch the games. And there's some cats in college basketball this year that can go, go. Like, they get it done. I want to add to this because I don't watch college basketball at all.

But my question to you just as a novice, as the professionalization of college basketball kind of helped this season at all, like in terms of getting star players ready at this point? I know this is a pretty loaded question, but I'm honestly curious with these types of players. Has a professionalization of college basketball helped in this particular year with this particular crop of basketball players? Yeah, that's a good question.

I don't, I don't know, Logan. I don't know that that's affected the cycle of kids that's come through this year. I can't attribute it to that. Like all these kids were the kid at Louisville, Mikkel Brown. I've seen all these kids in high school because I've been tapped into that. They were already really good. These kids came into college.

Co-A-Pete, they came in, you know, already projecting to have that year. And if they were to have it, you already knew that they were going to be one through 10 on a lottery board, right? So like I don't know that it's as much college as much as it is what they did prior to college. Now, clearly they've gotten better

and that college situation is going to hope you know, prove dividends down the road for them. They've improved. They've learned. What I would say to that, Logan, in a weird way is when you came out of college before and had to transition to being a pro, there were so many things that you were learning at that point off court, how to deal with money, how to deal with people coming at you, just those type of things you were ill-equipped to deal with because they had never,

you had never seen it before. These kids should be better in that space. On the court, you know, I don't really know. But off the court, I think they're way better equipped for the transition from college to the NBA than we would have been a generation ago just because we weren't walking around with hundreds of thousands of dollars at our disposal then. We didn't have access to that until we got to where we were going. Sure. Okay. That's really interesting.

Two things for Trevor before we get out of here. One, I've not been to Montreal, but I've been to your airport. Really good. Really loving. that was a great layover. And number two, is the draft. That's some faint praise there.

Love your airport. I wanted to go, but I had a flight to Toronto. I'm sorry. I just, I want to go to Montreal. I got a Montreal Expo's hat. For sure.

Stop hating, Howard. Let me fucking give a compliment to the man city. And second thing is, is the draft overhyped, how come every year has the best prospects of all time? The reason for that is

these ads got to be sold, okay? We got to sell these commercials. We got to sell this show. There's a whole culture around the draft that makes money for a lot of people that need to make that great. The world wide leader? Is this all on them? No, I'm bringing capitalism.

Just the overall construct of it. That's the reason why, you know, sometimes the drafts are duds, but we think it's going to be, oh, my God, this is going to be great. Bro, there's so many people in the second round that these analysts be like, oh, he's great, he's great. You're just, you know, you're pushing. They don't know what the hell is going on with these, you know, Oh, this guy is great. And the 38th pick. They don't know.

They're just trying to sell it. All right. Selling stories. Sorry. Second round has its own night now. Why? I don't know. I hate it.

My favorite thing to do, my favorite thing to do was just go out to an arena on a Thursday night, just dredged through the whole first round, and then just like clockwork. The second round's over in about hour and a half. And we're good. We're ready to go home. You know, get the press conference is done. Now I got to go back. I don't have to do it anymore. But you got to go back to the arena and watch this.

Stop. Relax. Stop it. We're not doing that. Stop. I know you're trying to be the NFL NBA, but you're not the NFL. Relax. Sorry.

The second round hit rate is like two or three out of 30 that even have NBA careers on average. All they do is just say. Is that all they. Is that real? Is that those real stats? Wow. Just dude. Just go.

I mean, that's not a stat stat. Like I haven't done the math. No. But if go scroll. through, Raja, go year by year and find how many guys had like reasonably, you know, substantial NBA careers out of the second round. And every year, you'll find like two or three guys. And sometimes it's somebody great. Sometimes it's, it's Yokic or Draymond Green or somebody else who's like become a star star. But you go through most of those names, you're like, I don't remember

ever hearing this guy's name in my life. And like, some of them are, you know, drafting stash types where they never came over or whatever. But like, yeah, there's, there's, the hit rate in the second round is, extremely low, which is why having a TV show about it is kind of so. My favorite part about the second round is the player comps. It was like, they do a player comp for somebody that wasn't a good NBA player. I was like, that's not actually, I don't think you actually want that. Or they play the shit out of Draymond Green and Yokin's highlights. Be like, are we going to find the next Yokers?

Are we going to find the next Jermon Green? You know, still got to sell these commercials, you know, on a Friday night. It's tough out here in these TV streets. All right, that's what you get here. Realonesmail back at gmail.com. Real onesmail back at gmail.com. Quick announcement. Howard is now going to be joining us on Fridays, ladies and gentlemen. Clap it up. Clap it up. Clap it up. Clap it up. Clap it up. He's back. He's never leaving us. We're stuck with him. He's going to be here on Tuesdays and Fridays with us for all of eternity.

Unless he's like off or has to do something or has to take up. I might retire at some point. That's possible. No, man, you got that LeBron blood in you. Anyways, we'll see all three of us on Friday. Tap in, I, I, all the shits. Bye!