The Zach Lowe Show - Drafting Our Favorite Championship Teams Since 2000!

Episode Date: September 17, 2026

Zach is joined by Chris Ryan and Joe House to draft their favorite NBA champions since 2000. Then, Sean Fennessey joins for Mets Corner to discuss how they both feel about Citi Field giving Pete Alonso a curtain call. (0:00) Welcome to The Zach Lowe Show! (2:33) Drafting favorite NBA champions since 2000 (23:02) Second round (36:58) Third round (54:19) Fourth round (1:11:41) Fifth round (1:28:05) Teams that weren’t selected (1:40:38) Mets Corner with Sean Fennessey! (1:41:21) Should Mets fans have given Pete Alonso a curtain call? Host: Zach Lowe Guests: Chris Ryan, Joe House, and Sean Fennessey Producers: Jonathan Frias, Billy Gil, and Mike Wargon Social: Keith Fujimoto and Michael Szokoli The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit https://fanduel.com/playwithaplan to learn more about the resources and helplines. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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On the Zach Lowe show as we are in the doldrums of pre-training camp NBA, we're starting a new tradition. Last year, Chris Ryan and I drafted our favorite teams from the last 20 years to not make the NBA finals. This year we're supersizing it. Chris is back. Joe House is here. And we're doing a draft of our favorite single season NBA champions from 2000 until now.

We're making 15 picks. So that means 12 of the 27 champions eligible are going to be omitted. We're going to rapid fire through all these teams, why we picked them, why we didn't pick them. It's a really fun stroll down memory lane. I watched a lot of low definition grainy footage on YouTube of the 2003 finals and the 2000 finals and things like that. There's some controversial picks and non-picks. It's just a really good way to sort of look back and ahead at the same time. And then Sean Fantasy is here for an emergency mini-Mets corner.

The Ethics of Giving a Visiting Player, a Curtain Call, which Pete Alonzo now at Baltimore Oriole got at City Field. The day he hit his 300th home run, the day after I went to the game with my daughter hoping to see him or Francisco Indoor hit their 300th home runs. The Mets lost all the games. Sean and I talk about the ethics of that sort of fandom. That's all coming up on the Zach Lowe show. Welcome to the Zach Lowe show.

It's mid-September. There's nothing going on in the NBA now that the Clippers thing is done in Kauai maybe is about to get an extension in Toronto. Chris Ryan is here and making his Zach Lowe show slash low post debut. Joe House. How are you doing, guys? Let's go, Zach Lowe. Unbelievable.

First time, a long time right here, buddy. Has this a trio ever potted together? This is a first. We potted together, but not, not. Just the three of us? Well, the three of us is definitely the first time. Yeah, that's what I thought. You guys haven't been on the watch together.

So otherwise, I don't know where it would be. I've never been on the watch, period. I see your Phillies, uh, semi-Philly's hat there. Mets, Phillies. Maybe we can do you a favor today. So here's the genesis of this. There's nothing going on in the NBA. And around this time last year, Chris and I did a draft of our favorite teams from like the last 20 years or something, whatever, wherever we cut it off to not make the NBA finals. And people loved it. It was a great nerd out, a great stroll down memory lane.

And this year we're stepping it up. Here's the draft we're going to do. Our favorite NBA champions, single season NBA champions from 2000 until today. Favorite means whatever you want. We're only going to draft 15 of the 27 because we just don't have time. And also it's going to make people mad when their teams are not drafted, which is going to be great. And we're going to go in snake order. House has been given by me the number one pick since his debut. CR, you asked to go second instead of third. So I will go third and then fourth. And there are 27 teams and just for trivia's sake of the 26. Here's how they divide up. The Lakers have six of the 27, the Spurs and Warriors four each, the Heat three, the Celtics, two,

and then one apiece for Cleveland, Detroit, Oklahoma City, New York, Toronto, Dallas, Milwaukee, and Denver. Do we have any questions before we put House on the clock? I'm all good. I'm sure I'm going to get this wrong. So my only question is to beg for forgiveness. Again, only since 2000. Favorite can mean, whatever you want. It could be your favorite. player. It could be a favorite moment. It could be favorite games. It could be the difficulty of their path there. It could be whatever you want. So Joe House, you get to go first. The number one pick in our favorite NBA champions draft since 2000, which is loosely post-jordan, is who? Yeah. So this is tough, right? Because you have to really dig down deep here. With great power

comes great responsibility, fellas. And I have to tell you, I took. a couple of tours through Pandertown. I really looked hard at this New York next team. Boy, the circumstances surrounding their arrival in the finals. If you go back and look as those finals arrived, you know, they weren't a clear-cut favorite to just waltz through. It all came together. The chemistry was beautiful.

And when you see a city, like one of the great cities on Earth, everybody coming together, and it feels like it's possible. And then the individual games themselves with the Knicks and the Spurs were incredible games. Like, you know, truly epic kind of experiences living through them. Having said all of that, I'm not going to take the Knicks. I knew the butt was coming. The sort of clubhouse favorite to go number one, recency bias aside. Well, and that's right.

So I just feel like an obligation as the senior contributor to this to come in with some old head perspective. And for me, that means the finalists are teams like the 2015 Warriors who won a championship for the first time in franchise history. The Spurs, I mean, the Pistons in 2004. an incredible team that took down the mighty Lakers. His flag on all sorts of picks here, man. I'm just telling you how I consider this. I want everybody to understand the process that I'm going through. He's out of a lot of pressure.

This is a big, this is what, you know, you don't want to Durant Oden this draft. This is a big pick for him. It's going to be hilarious to see the reactions now that I tell everybody that my, my favorite, my favorite is the 2011 Dallas Maver. It's not a crazy thing to say at all. It's a chalk. That's a chalk pick, and I'll explain one later.

But you go. You go to your floor. Well, it was unexpected. It was this Dallas team taking on the heat, the threedles, right? You know, how many wins is that heat machine going to produce? And it showed the power of a team, right? It was Dirk Nowitzky finally getting his moment, having his moment. But, you know, the supporting cast, nobody going back when you look at it.

Okay, Sean Marion, but that wasn't the height of Sean Marion's powers. Tyson Chandler, was Tyson Chandler, you know, drafted super high. The expectations for him throughout his career were super high. Never really got met those expectations, but incredibly important to this team. J.J. Barreya? Yeah, J.J. Barreya. a very important player in this thing. And it was, to me, a reflection of what NBA basketball at its finest,

a team that comes together kind of not expected to just roll through. I mean, I could have done a couple of the teams that you guys will touch on who just rolled through the postseason and grabbed a title. But no, I wanted to grab a team that was a true. expression of what a team, to me, feels like in modern basketball. And to me, that's that 2011 Dallas Maverick. So thank you, gentlemen. House, I liked that you're trying to frame this is you could have gone and seen a

blockbuster in the theater, but it said like, oh, a Francis Truffaut movie was playing from the French New Wave film in the 60s, and you went to see that instead. Mike Warg on, our producer and Billy Gill, they will, they will admit, I said before you guys came on, I'm going to predict that the first two picks in the draft for the 2011 Mavs and a team that shall not be named later. This would have been my number one pick. If I had the number one pick, I think I'm not quite sure. It's incredible. Wow. Like, it's a murderers row of teams that they go through, including the two-time defending champion Lakers, a series that ends with Andrew Bynum nearly murdering J.J. Borea in mid-air. Borea then starts in the finals as a key

swing piece. Jason Terry has the freaking tattoo of the Larry O'Brien trophy. The heat are blowing the shit out of the mads in game two and talking all sorts of trash. Incredible Dallas comeback punctuated by a Dirk layup around Bosch and Eudonis has him is still pissed that he wasn't guarding Dirk. They beat that they like hold off the thunder like the last like, okay, this team is coming. But we with our veteran guile, we hell him off. And like, Dirk leaving the floor because he is so overcome by emotion. And the NBA staff having to drag him back out to accept the. finals MVP award all time great moment pagea has a game corey brewer has a random game against the lakers

awesome team they have the brandon roy game remember like brandon roy came back from the dead and had a monster first round game to tie that series at two and everyone was like the mads are going to choke oh my god and they did not see r any thoughts before you would put you on the clock you know what this series this 2011 finals has such a warm place in my heart because i was i remember during this finals i went to our former Grantland colleague Michael Weinwrib's wedding. And it was out on Long Island. I think it was at Montauk or something like that. This was right as NBA Twitter is really getting going.

This is right as NBA podcasts are really emerging. Obviously, Bill had been potting for a while. But I remember listening to Bumani Jones, I think I had to download the MP3 and put it on my iPod, listening to that on the L-I-R-R slack-jawed because there were like 19 storylines a game. Those guys making fun of dirt coughing. That's right.

You know what I mean? Carlisle switching Terry into this like offensive hinge. It was unbelievable. Like for pure drama, it was unreal. And this is the American Airlines Bowl. I think both stadiums are called American Airlines. but it was like every single day, it was like waking up to read five chapters of a great book.

And I remember this very fondly. Funnily enough, Zach, like going back through this list, and I'll say this, this was an unpleasant experience for me as a Philadelphian. I do not like a lot of the teams who won NBA championships in the 21st century.

But what I did like doing is realizing that I can remember where I was for almost every, one of these. And now, often it's just a bar. So it's not, that's like, amazing of a, of a trip down memory lane. But I was like, I was at that bar in Brooklyn. I was at that bar in Brooklyn for this. I will tell you about, uh, probably my favorite. I'm going to go with this. I'm going to go with these guys as my favorite for, for, for my first pick, though. The 2015, 16 caps. It's a basically a two week long miracle on ice. Uh, and a real like, how can you not

be romantic about basketball? situation. And this was probably my favorite playoffs to follow and cover as a professional like basketball person or, you know, editor and writer and colleague. And I just, much like the 2011 team, obviously Warriors blow 3-1 lead. Obviously, Draymond getting suspended. Ty Lou taking the guys to San Quentin to show them what real, real stress is about. I don't remember that at all. That, That I completely forgot that. I don't even, I'm assuming that's true because you're saying it. I completely forgot that that happened.

I believe it was like he, like as a day, like a day of or an off day kind of activity. I believe he took them to San Quentin to be like, you guys, this isn't hard. What's hard is going to San Quentin. And yeah, like LeBron Game 6, just just in general, like, LeBron taking a team, even though they had kind of. even though they had Kevin Love that felt it was like for LeBron he's such a superhero but this one felt like his folk hero win and knowing that it gave Cleveland a championship it's up there with like the Cubs winning a championship the Knicks winning a championship it's just like guys who were like I never thought I would see the day my grandfather I'm thinking about him he never saw a championship in Cleveland etc I just think it's it's it's just the most sort of romantic one out of all of these I have an inner circle of five teams that I think would have been my favorite favorites. And this was also one of them, as was the 2011 Mavs. I mean, I was at every single one of the games. I remember vividly being at game

four. And I can picture exactly my angle from my seat to the court. And I was, the Warriors offense was coming my way in the fourth quarter. And Steph and Clay ran a bunch of pick and rolls. J.R. Smith got lost. Clay made a lot of threes. And it just felt like, oh, it's over. And then the rumblings began of like, hey, I think you need to watch this clip of Draymond. Like, this could be something. He has all these flagrant points and the whole series turns. And then obviously, I've said this before, game seven is the most intense sporting event I have ever been to in person.

I felt like I was playing in the freaking game. You have the most iconic play of LeBron's career, the block on Andre Aguadala. After in game six, he blocks Curry in Cleveland. It talks a whole lot of trash. Like, this is still my league, man. That was like, that was like a big brother. on Curry at the rim. There's a, there's a forgotten in game seven. LeBron dunk over Dremont in like the last minute of the game where Dreymond fouls him and it's almost an

and one. And if it had been an and one, I think the whole arena would have just exploded and we would never have had a 2018 NBA season. Just all time great. LeBron Kyrie, Kyrie's got the shot. Kevin Love has the stop. It's Cleveland. It's J.R. Smith without a shirt at the parade and the whole city going crazy. It's a great pick. It's a great pick. House, any any thoughts or memories of this team? Well, I'm especially fond of this team and this might have been my

first selection, but I thought that I shouldn't be so petty about it. This was the series where I was going on the Bill Simmons podcast. Back then, I think it was still the BS report. And Cousin Sal

was on and I had announced before the series began that I liked the underdog Cavaliers. And Simmons, famously only to me, had me on after the Warriors went up three games to one. And he and Cousin South dunked on me for like a solid, you know, 10 minute segment. And I just sat there and took it. Obviously, the whole thing changed. It flipped around the Dramon suspension. But still, there were- Gotta win the games. Got to win the games. Had the games, had home court advantage. And, you know, the 40 pieces that

Kyrie and LeBron were dropping in game six and seven were just next level. And that's one of my all-time favorite gambling wins. So that, that's very, very close to my heart, that win right there. Well, and also, this was like when now game seven is like a home court, like coin flip, this was this was when game seven, like road teams did not win game seven back then, even even then. And they did. Only knock against this Cavs team is the East was a pile of shit and they didn't really have to try at all to get out of the East. And sadly

enough, I actually think the best Cavs team of the LeBron era was the next season, 2017, when they were just like an unbelievable offensive team, completely scorched earth over the East. And they just ran into the Durant Warriors, who I'll

be curious to see if we draft. And this 15, 16 Cavs team, we can leave it here is obviously one of the great turning points in NBA, modern NBA history because of what happens after they win and what the Warriors do and what the rest of the league does to try and compensate and keep up

and probably ushers in the like high volume superstar movement era, I would imagine, if you want to look at it that way of assembling like, you know, top heavy teams to try and compete right now. And the league's never been the same sense. You have left me now. I get two picks at three and three.

for and you have left me with the team that I thought would go second that I told our producers, I think this will be the second team. And you have given me a team that is just, it's, it's almost central casting a team that I would love, a team that became so dominant and so beautiful to watch that by game three and game four of the finals, the highly anticipated rematch finals, I just sat back and smiled and was like, this is over the 2014 San Antonio Spurs, the beautiful game, completely just passing the heat in circles. by a Manu Gnobli dunk. Somehow he summons a dunk over Chris Bosch in game five. It's revenge for the Ray Allen shot and the all-time gut punch series finals lost probably and maybe in NBA

history in 2013. It's this kind of like championship swan song for Tim Duncan at that level. Kauai finals MVP, no player on their team. Tony Parker led the 2014 spurs in scoring 17.3 points per game in the playoffs. He was the least. score of a finals team. And I, my memory, I was at a bar for game six, Spurs Thunder, the previous round. And the Thunder had beaten the Spurs two years before in the playoffs. They were like too young, too athletic. They were the kryptonite to the beautiful game of the Spurs. Spurs won the first two games of this series with Serge Baca out. Serge Baca comes back. The Thunder evened it up at two-two. And I remember talking to coaches on

the Spurs staff and people around the Spurs on the phone. And I think I saw some of that series in person. I can't even remember. And the urgency and borderline fear they felt both of Oklahoma cities like at like, like how are we this aging fundamentally sound team supposed to contain this explosive duo of Russ and and, uh, and Durant. And not only that fear, but the, the understanding of like, if we don't beat them now, this might be the last shot for this team to win a title.

Like that was, the urgency was very palpable in the next two games and in that series of like, we might not have another chance to avenge what happened to us last year. Corey Joseph has a massive game in that game six because Tony Parker is injured. It goes to overtime. Kauai has an iconic block on Russ in overtime, like, like, swip, like catches the ball basically in midair on a fast break layup.

And then they just, you know, pass the spurs to death. And I was at all the finals games. I remember one of my vivid memories of the Spurs locker room after the game is almost bumping into Aaron Baines as he came out of like a training room holding, I'm going to estimate four beers in his hands. And he just shouted to no one in particular, I have a lot of beer. And I was like, this is just a very fun team, a beautiful team.

So that's my, that's my third pick. I was, I was worried when you said you bumped into Aaron Baines coming out of something. worried about where we were headed with that. But thankfully, it was just him getting into, you know, they weren't fosters, but amen for him doing the proper thing. I was at game one of this finals in San Antonio. That's the air conditioning game, right? Yeah, it's the one.

Yes. And I will tell you that the way that the spurs kind of deconstructed the heat, it did just suck the life out of the heat. heat. It was hot as a mother effort. I'm sure you were you were there right, Zach? Yeah, and LeBron cramped up. Right? Yes. That was the cramp game. Yes. Yes. So it felt like when I walking out of there, I didn't think that the series was really a jump ball after that game. I was like, I think the Spurs have this now. Having watched the way they, they, it was demoralizing to the heat. And as, and I think they're conditioning played a role. It's interesting that we've picked a

couple of, I mean, the, the Mavs aside, which is definitely just this shock, unbelievable David Goliath kind of story, you know, for Zach and I to go Cleveland and Spurs here, it kind of speaks to probably for our adult lives, how like building up these giant rivalries between these teams and having them play multiple finals against one another and having it feel like almost myth-mythological in its sense. stakes. Like I was watching a Danny Green interview a couple days ago where he was talking about how like every game of this regular season, Popovich was just like, this isn't going to be good enough to beat Miami. Like it was like an animating kind of thing for him the entire season is like they knew where this was all going again a hundred games later. And you know, you could say it got a little, you know, if you get bored of like, you know, these two, three final rematches in a row. I understand and the parody of the league now is certainly interesting and gives a lot of different fan bases, a lot of different hope. But for stakes and for stories and for legend building,

this is really a pretty amazing period. It's also speaks to LeBron's centrality in all of these rivalries and how what an earthquake the decision was and what a monolith the heat became for the four seasons they were together, the heatles. And I remember. going in the locker room after that after they lose game five to San Antonio. And there was a sense in the locker room like it's over. We just were not going to get this team is going to be different next year. We've run our course. Like there was almost a relief that the season was over.

They knew they were not going to beat the spurs by that by that game. And to your point about the rematches and the rivalries, I'm going to be interested to see where again, we're only picking 15 of the 27 champions. I'm going to be interested to see how many of the eight, the last eight with no repeats and no one even getting to the finals twice in Norah, I don't think, are going to get picked because there is a sort of standalone, like, without the repeat, without the run at a repeat, without the rival, it does feel a little different. All right, but for my fourth pick, House, you've already mentioned this team.

So I get to be, I get to go from nerding out on the Spurs to pandering now. I am going to take the 2026 New York Knickerbockers, breaking the 53-year title drought and just finding Nirvana at exactly the right time down to one against the Hawks. They then go 15 and 1 the rest of the playoffs, blow out almost everybody. And then the crunch time wins over San Antonio. And it's game one against Cleveland when they come back from the huge deficit. Landry Shamet is on a heater. He has his moments after Dussel McBride had his moments against your 76ers

when the entire arena was Knicks fans in that series. And then it's the all time, like, I'm going to, I still have friends months later asking me, hey, were you at the And Anobie game? Were you at Game 4? And I'm like, I'll set that game. I don't know if it's the craziest game I've ever seen, but it's the most delirious atmosphere that I've ever been a part of the way that everybody stayed after the game and sang songs. And I actually was talking about this with someone, I'm not sure any player in the history of the NBA

has had their fame level jump more in one. minute than O'GN and Obes did with that play. Like he was always like NBA nerd fans like, oh yeah, three and D guy, really tough can guard multiple positions. Like, yeah, whatever. And casual fans, but they're like, I think he played for the Raptors. That was like in movies. He's on TV.

He's a megastar because of that play. And just look, I'm not a Knicks fan. I didn't grow up a Knicks fan. I lived in New York for 20 years. It's my favorite place in the world. To see the city like that, it was just magic. And so there are a no-brainer top five pick for me. I will take the 2026 Knicks and then CR gets to pick fifth,

but you guys can weigh in. CR you haven't weighed in on this team yet. I was at a bar in Chicago for what game five, the comeback game, right? And I obviously... Game four. Game four. They go up three one. Feeling pretty hostile about the Knicks after that Sixers series

and what the Knicks fans did to my beloved core state slash Wachovia slash, you know, a.k.a. the spectrum in my head. Wells Fargo Center. And I'm sitting there. My wife's from Yonkers. She doesn't really care about basketball very much. We're watching this game. It obviously becomes this thing that, you know, you're going to remember for the rest of your life. She's locked in. They win. And she starts crying a little bit. And I'm like, why are you crying? She was like, I'm just thinking about my dad. And I was like, God damn it. So now I have to like the Knicks. You know what I mean? But that's what this team did to people.

You know what I mean? Like you could be like the most casual, passive New Yorker in terms of your fandom with the Knicks or what have you. And it was this giant kind of heartbeat inside of like a city and a fan base that even as a callous and bitter Philadelphia and I had to respect love.

And I lived in New York for a long time and have a lot of affection for the place. My wife who is not a basketball fan, doesn't really follow it other than like, you know, through my work and vaguely hearing it around our house all the time was like texting me during the games. Like, do you think they're going to win? What's I'm like, honey, I'm working. Like, I got a job. And it was only because she loves New York City that much. She doesn't care about the Knicks. Like, she likes Jailen Brunson now, but like she just loves the city and wanted the city to be happy and have a moment. And it did. And I'm sorry that

some of the came at the expense of the Sixers. But you do get to pick next to you. I do get to pick next. This is a really interesting turning point. I feel like we've started to take off most of the obvious ones. So I'm going to go with the 14-15 warriors here. Okay. Birth of the Death lineup. This is Kerr taking over for Mark Jackson.

This is Steph going full supernova into our consciousness. A great mix of funky old warriors or even if, they're not old, but guys who felt like of a different era, like Festus and Barbosa, with this new wave of Steph, Clay, and, uh, and Draymond, and tied together by, by Wadala, you know, and this kind of basketball felt so, especially, you know, coming on, like, obviously iterating on what San Antonio had been doing. I just felt like this kind of basketball was like, um, it was like watching punk rock emerge or something. It was like, this is awesome.

This is like a whole new, new way of seeing things and a whole new way of watching this game. And it was an incredibly lovable team. I really didn't have any hostility towards LeBron other than like he just obviously got a lot of bites at the apple here. But this specific

Warriors team, watching them kind of become self-aware, watching the Splash Brothers emerge, you know, watching Kerr make this incredibly consequential tactical change that changed NBA. It was just a team I have

a lot of time for. That out went Andrew Bogot, a player that I loved watching like a really cagey it really cagey smart player. And in came Iguadala, the death lineup suggested by Nick Jureen, who was an assistant coach at the time sort of famously. And the genesis of that

was even like, Dremont is a complete accident. Like David Lee gets hurt in training camp and Dremont, who's going to be a 10-minute-to-game backup, is forced to start and changes the entire course. of not only the Warriors, but the NBA creates like a total archetypal player. And you have that. You have David Lee in game three in garbage time, like as in like a version of the

death lineup kind of lighting up the cabs and the light bulb goes on with the coaches. Fun, kind of underrated like drama in the playoffs. They go down to one to Memphis. Mike Connolly's playing with a broken face. And there are these moments. And they're down to one to the calves without Kyrie and without Kevin. love by that point in the series. Kyrie's injured in game one.

So that's, that is a little bit of a mark against them. Like they kind of had a bit of an easy road. The Clippers and the Spurs had to face each other in the first round. Epic Spurs win. And I'm sorry, Epic Clippers win. And then the Rockets, a limit, the Clippers choke in the next round. So their best West rivals are taken out. But it was punk rock.

Like even Barclay was like they're too small. They can't, you can't win like this. Phil Jackson was like, how's it going with all the three point shots? And yeah, you could win like this. And I was at a lot of those games. It was super fun. House? Yeah, I don't want to dunk on Mark Jackson,

but I do want to just note that it felt very, I don't know, invigorating, invigorating. That's the word, to see that version of basketball unleashed. And it was sitting right there. Like the elements, the pieces were there. And I think the way that the 2000, 2014 season ended for the Warriors, we wanted more. It felt like there was more to be had.

And then to sort of have that visited upon us by the realization of, you know, all of these happy accidents that occurred. But the arrival of Steph Curry, speaking of sliding door moments, just a wonderful team, definitely on my list of favorites. Yeah, Steph iconic, forgotten icon, not so I guess it's not iconic, but forgotten crazy Steph three-point or game three against the pelicans of all teams in the first round to send a game into overtime crazy like falling out of bounds corner three only step makes that shot he had already arrived right like i always think of the 2013 series against the spurs

who go on to the finals as step's like holy shit this guy's a problem or like even the spurs can't figure him out but this was this was the capstone and like the this style of basketball actually can win like this house you get two picks and now it's going to Now it gets interesting. There's a couple, there's one team. I'm surprised nobody has picked yet. I wonder if you will pick them in this little spree you have here. Yeah, I will tell you guys, I'm thrilled to have this team available to me.

It's the 2004 Detroit Piston. That was for sure. I adore that team. It's speaking of, you know, refreshing, you remember the era that we lived through in the years leading up to the Pistons, you know, win. It was the dominant lake. here's 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003. I'll be respectful, but kind of forgettable,

spurs over nets, okay, right? The whole net's winning the east, both being in the back-to-back gears. Fine, okay. But that Pistons team, where really, at the moment, only Chauncey was the one that you felt like, you know, the famous way. to tag it is was a starless team. Now, Choncy went on career-wise to, you know, he's first

about Hall of Famer, assuming his legal troubles get all kind of sorted out. And I assume that they will at some point. But I mean, Rashid, Rip, Tashon, and a guy that will always be close to my heart, Ben Wallace, who started his career here in Washington. That's one of those trades. I thought it did not. I was going to say, started his career in Washington. Washington didn't have to have to have. He started his career, Washington. Yes. We won't.

I can't. I won't. I won't. It's still too hard. It's too tough. But yeah, an incredible team. And, you know, they validated. They went back to the finals the next year.

So, you know, proving that it wasn't, they didn't just catch lightning in a bottle and catch chemistry. It was a sustainable, you know, really hard to defend team is the way. The hallmark is the team defense. But, you know, Kobe said at the time, those guys just don't fuck up. They just don't leave anything. They're not, no unforced errors with this team. They're too good.

They're too crisp. They execute brilliantly. So I'm thrilled to have the 2004 Pistons as part of my inventory here. I watched the end of this series last night on YouTube. The final game is up for free on YouTube if people want to go back. Which one? The Lakers Pistons. Yeah, Lakers Pistons.

And I played. in Boston, Detroit, rather, and Al Michaels on the call, I believe. The game ends and Al Michaels goes, the crazies just have to stop blowing up stuff in indoor buildings, which is the most Detroit thing ever. Like somebody had obviously started setting off like basically firecrackers inside of, I guess it was the palace. And Al Michaels is not happy. And it is not a poetic summary.

Wow. this amazing blue-collar city beating the Hollywood Lakers. He's just like, gosh, darn it, you got to stop setting off these fire trackers. It's just a very weird kind of anticlimactic end to a series because game ends. There's no rushing the court. There's no crying. Larry Brown hugs Kobe for like two full minutes. Everybody's pretty respectful.

I mean, GP and Carl Malone, like that whole late period of that Lakers team. obviously hang in their heads. But I had, I was in love with this team. I had a blog at the time named after Chauncey Billups or shortly like right after that, I think I started it. But this was a,

this is a team that was made up of guys where you were like, this could only work these five guys together. Like rip on any other team. She had been on other teams. You know, Chauncey had been, it was a guy who had been in Boston,

obviously. And it was like something about the five of them all clicked together. Yeah, that starting five carried like a massive burden. These teams are like, I went back and I watched a little bit of their, a couple of their elimination games against the Nets. I've forgotten that the Nets Pistons went to seven games in the second round. And the Pistons are down three, two in New Jersey, I think. And Rip Hamilton makes a bunch of, makes a bunch of clutch jumpers.

And they blow the crap out of the Nets in game seven. It's a pretty, both of these teams and I watch a little bit of, the Pacers conference finals, which the Pistons win four to, there's like a absolutely preposterous amount of Anthony Johnson going on. Backup guard, Anthony Johnson is playing like crunch time for the Pacers and just throwing up these layups that have no chance in a game that the Pistons win game six, 69, 65 is the final score of the game. And then, but the Lakers series, that was like similar to Heat Spurs in 2014. That series was like done by game. game three, game four.

You could tell, like, they just had it. The Lakers were toast. And of course, if Al Michaels was upset at what was going on in the palace at the end of that series, I would have had bad news for Al Michaels in 2004. Some other bad stuff was going to happen at the palace in a few months as presaged by Pacers. But they were in my inner circle of teams, too. So that's a good pick house. Who you got next?

Thank you. I really regret this. Before you go, shout out to Corliss Williamson, who was a key member of that bench and was one of my, I just had a soft spot for Corlis Williamson A as like an undersized but physical interior. Incredible razor back. And a college, a college basketball. Those Arkansas teams. I can name every, every NBA player. I remember where they went to college because they were there for like two or three years.

Yeah. And those Arkansas teams were so fun to watch. They were incredible. Right. Yeah. So I regret this. It's a little bit choky. It's definitely corny.

But in my heart of hearts, the 2008 Celtics. God damn. I was wondering. I was wondering who was going to do it. I'm sorry. I didn't have to do it, but now I'm mad because I got to scramble. There has been no mandate from the top to pick the 2008 Celtics. I actually was sort of, I'm actually a little surprised they're picked this high.

I probably would have picked them somewhere, but this is high. This is high, House. I know. Well, the heart wants what the heart wants. And part of the reason that this hokey Ubuntu, you know. I'm so glad you mentioned Ubuntu right off the top. A reminder to everybody that anything is possible. Anything is possible, as Kevin Garnett told us.

Their run to the finals was tough as balls. The Joe Johnson Hawks gave it to him. Gave it to him. Kind of an embarrassing seven-game series for the Celtics. That Zaza-Pichulia going, nothing easy. Nothing easy. And the home team won every game. I think that's a true testament, a point you observed earlier,

to home court advantage still mattering. And then another seven-game series right after that with the calves. And, you know, it was Paul Pierce against the Bron. The Bron, you know, in 2008, having delivered the Cavs to the finals for the first time in franchise history the year before in 2007, and then coming out and taking on this Celtics team with its own version of Big Three. This was the true, this was Big Three. That's where that phrase came into Vogue, right? Wasn't it with this group, this Ray Allen?

It was like the, I mean, obviously it had been a big phrase in the 80s, but this was like the rebirth of the big three. It birthed like LeBron being like, I got to leave and do my own big three to compete with this team. Right, right, right. Yes. They handled their business fine against the Pistons and then the Lakers series and ended up being, you know, kind of legendary just because of the game four comeback. They were down 24 points in game four on the road. in L.A. And at that point in time, I had a soft spot for Boston, even though it's in my DNA. As I grew up a Bullets fan, so as a Bullets fan, I hated the Celtics. I hated Larry Bird,

that whole era. They tortured Washington, although one of the claims to fame for Washington in that entire era is that the 1986 Celtics only lost one home game in the entire run. And it was to Washington, but it was not at the garden. They played that. home games somewhere in New England. I'd have been in Hartford. There was a time where they play like a couple of games in Hartford every year. So Washington did. We have that.

We should hang a banner for that. I was going to say. I was going to suggest it. But I mean, you know, so I'm against the Celtics in general. But I've also, maybe this is some recency bias. I kind of love Doc. And I love Doc's the way Doc's career arc has moved. And those guys believing in Doc at that moment.

And seeing those personalities come together. for that common purpose, that common goal. And I really do now have an affinity for KG as well. So I don't mind calling this a favorite of mine from that era. C.R, you said you were scrambling. So sell me on why this team appealed to you, too, as a, you know, as a Philly fan to boot. I was a huge KG fan. And I was a huge Rondo fan.

And I remember, this is like if you. not to use another musical comparison here, but I remember when I, this was the first time I remembered watching the Celtics and the Lakers play in the finals. And I was like, this is like, it's like the difference between drummers

and John Bonham drumming. You're like, this is different. This is crazy. Like the pageantry, everything, all the clips they're showing of like the previous dynasties,

the previous decades of teams. Green versus gold just looks good. Like it was just, it was everything that I kind of had always thought about basketball but never experienced and then to see it actually play out and the personalities they're just so much larger

than life with Pearson and KG versus Kobe and Powell and I was just awestruck you know and even even though I think it's really more of those recent vintage

of Celtics like always somehow getting the upper hand on trades with the Sixers always landing on their feet with their, you know, rebuilding in midstream. It's, that's the, the teams that I sort of resent. This version of the Celtics, I kind of have some time for. I used to live in Boston. And, yeah, this felt like kind of an extension of that period of time in Boston

where the Red Sox come and win the World Series. And then the Celtics win the first one in, what was it, 22 years? Since 86, yeah. Yeah. So you sold it very well. I would, I would, this team definitely deserves me picked in this draft. I think this is a few spots too high for me. But here's, here's the other selling points on the team.

I love KG. KG is one of my all-time favorite players. He's languishing in Minnesota. And as part of the greatest single season turnaround in the history of basketball, pretty much, he wins a title in Boston right off the bat, one of my favorite players ever. And by this all starts because they'd lose, they fall in the Durant-Oden, lottery and decide, okay, we've got to reshuffle it, trade for Ray Allen, trade for KG. Pierce Redemption, like he, you know, was there was, he was almost traded a bunch of times.

Like, is he selfish? Is he's not, he's not a guy? It's the wheelchair slash maybe poop game series, which we can't, can't forget that. Can't forget that. Such a great poll. House's game four comeback highlighted by Ray Allen just, I think, crossing Sasha Vuechich, like out of the league entire. in one of his shots.

The Cavs, so the knock against the Celtics is embarrassing that it takes you seven games to beat the Hawks when you're a 66 win team. Yes. Somewhat embarrassing that it takes an all-time Paul Pierce performance in like a 40-point duel against LeBron to sneak out game seven against the Cavs team that's like relying on Sasha Pavlovich to play big minutes. That's the famous like Paul Pierce snags a jump ball, loose ball in that game. PJ Brown, a buyout guy has a big game in that game.

And Andrew Bynum is out for the entire playoffs for the Lakers. But it's a slightly unconvincing run in the playoffs, but a great team. Tibbs becomes an NBA character for how he revolutionizes NBA defenses and schemes and zones with that team. So it's a good pick. CR, you get to pick eighth. And after you will take a, we'll take a quick break. So you get, you're at the midway point of the draft now. We're really, the problem here is.

is that we're all, we're all avoiding the Lakers. And I, and I, I'm going to continue to do it. This is, you and I, the three of us are all generationally in and around

similar ages. We all are from more or less similar parts of the country. We all know what we're doing. We're not picking these goddamn Lakers teams. Wow. They are obviously

this dominant force in the earlier part of this century. So I'm just going to go with a sentimental fun. I had a blast watching these guys pick here, and I am going to pick the 23 Nuggets. Wow. I thought that was going to come all the way back around to me. Which I'm doing this because I do not think this is a team

that had to face a lot of obstacles, although they certainly handled their business. I think they lost four games the whole postseason. True. Yep, 16 and 4. They beat a Miami team that was probably, with all due respect, maybe punching a little bit above their weight,

but this was just like spolstered Jimmy Magic, you know, getting to this point. But this, much like the Warriors team I picked earlier, another absolute piece of poetry when it comes to the sport of basketball is watching Joker, conduct an offense, orchestrated offense. This is probably the best version of,

best team Joker's had. Michael Malone, as we as we always know his name is Michael coaching these guys and this was Aaron Gordon Jamal Murray Porter Joker and then you had contributions coming from Brucey and KCP and all these guys and it just felt like Denver's had a lot of trouble balancing everything since then getting guys healthy at the same time getting their young players to play up to the standard that they expect them to the this was maybe it was a one-and-done

for them, which is kind of tragic when you consider Joker's talent. But this is just such an awesome team to watch throughout this playoffs as they kind of bulldoze Minnesota, smoke the Lakers, you know, and then really handled their business against my name. Yolkich has that iconic stepback three over Anthony Davis in game four to sweep the Lakers, a sweep that Tim McMahon called the Golden Broome because the Lakers bragged about how close they were to beating the Nuggets and they lost four games. Howe, you seemed very excited to pick this team.

if they were actually going to fall out of the draft, but you seem like you were, you were going to be on it at some point. Well, an element of it to me is picking up on the theme that, that CR just identified. I'm nostalgic for that team now. Wow.

It's only, we're only a handful of years away from it, but I, you know, this is going to fall in that category that we get accused of over at the ringer of being, uh,

Joker truthers. I mean, you know, guilty. Yes. For sure. Yeah, it's like, that's like being, he's pretty good. Like ice cream truthers.

Like ice cream, I like ice cream. It's really good. You know, maybe it's just the non-existent rivalry between Yokic and I've had a lot of people in my life. What I would sell Joel and B to me over there. Like, come on, man. Come on, come on. He's an MVP. Joker has a trophy.

It's all right. Yeah, yeah. I think everybody's happy. Good. Yes. Right. So I had this team kind of circled because I feel like it's the one. I don't see a pat, unless he goes to a different team, this Denver situation. And it is a modern challenge.

Like this is a function of the collective bargaining agreement. They weren't able to really come back and vigorously defend their title. Now, injuries played a role as well. But they kind of had to break up the team right away. and that kind of sucks, depending on your perspective of whether or not you like this parody era that we're in. But I just, you know, I'm glad that the Joker got his one, so I had this one circle for me. This team has to be picked because of Yokic at the absolute apex of his ability and one of the most watchable players ever. It's also a sort of like they had 2021 and 22 taken away from them by injuries to Jamal Murray, to Michael Porn.

quarter junior. Aaron Gordon was this just master stroke of a trade by Tim Connolly, like the absolute perfect fit. It was clear right away. And then it was in 2021. They traded for him. Then they didn't get to really leverage that in the playoffs because of their injuries. Jamal Murray has a bunch of big shots in games three and four to hold off the heat, including game four, Yolkich for one of the rare times in his career, gets in foul trouble and has to sit for a bunch of minutes in the fourth quarter. And like, and usually when Yolkech sits, Denver just melts, but they didn't. in that series. Michael Malone, all-time parade performance, possibly a beverage or two

had been consumed. Up there with Jason Kelsey after the first Eagles Super Bowl. I got to watch that. I'm not, I don't know. Full mummers wear. Full mummers outfit. And interestingly, if you talked to people with the Nuggets even during that run, they would have told you, you mentioned Minnesota, CR, that Minnesota series, that was the toughest team that they played in the playoffs. And I believe Nas Reid and Jada McDaniels, maybe were both injured in that series. And boy, were they right because Minnesota has eliminated them in two out of the last three playoffs since then. Was that Jane McDaniels punches the wall? I believe that's the year that Jada McDaniels punches the wall and is out in that series. But a really, a really fun team.

Again, like faced two play-in teams of their four playoff series. So not the most hellacious road, but they did their job. All right, let's take a quick break. And then I'm on the clock for two straight. has arrived in Alberta with BetMGM Sportsbook. Sign up to unlock access to hundreds of pregame and live betting options for all your favorite sports, including hockey, baseball, soccer, and much more. Have a hunch your favorite player is gonna have a great game?

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Thanks. All right, I'm doing it. someone's got to pick a Lakers team, and I'm going to pick the 2001 Lakers. Maybe the most dominant. Of all the Lakers teams, you had to do that one. What's wrong with that one? They're the most dominant playoff team, perhaps ever. They go 15 and 1.

Yeah, they did. You got the one. That's right. The stepover game is the only game that anyone beats them in the playoffs. So you have that. It's a much better banner to hang than houses. We beat the Celtics in Hartford in 1986. There aren't many banners.

There's Washington, baby. Shack for the playoffs, 30 points and 15 rebounds. Kobe 29, 7, and 6 on 47% shooting. It's the absolute height of their powers as a duo. The feud has already started. Like, if you can go back and read books and news articles, it's like, it's already out in the open that there's a feud, but they put it behind them for that. And they kind of sweepwalk through the regular season.

This is the middle title of their three Pete to start this, the 2000s. And then they just turned it on in the playoffs and destroy everyone. I mean, like, you will not, it's, it was unthinkable that any team could destroy a Tim Duncan, San Antonio Spurs team, like this Lakers team did in the playoffs. It was like, absolutely unthinkable. Horace Grant is randomly involved and dunks on Arvita Sabonis in the first round of the playoffs. And let's see what else happens. And Mark Madsen dances at the parade. I have really nothing else to say.

It's just a peak Shaq and Kobe. I'm sorry, Chris. The 2000 team, the first one. The Pacers, they wanted to play the Pacers, yeah. Maybe I'll take them next. They might be more fun. 2002 is tainted by the officiating controversy against the Kings and the fact that like every neutral fan I was rooting for the Kings and the way they played to kind of

break through. So this is my sweet spot Lakers team. You guys don't seem to like this pick. I hate it, but this team lost three games in three straight finals. that's crazy. They went 12 and 3 over 3 years in the finals. Like we're probably historically underrating them

because this is the kind of like, you wonder about media bias where it's like a bunch of guys who don't like the Lakers. It's hard to like acknowledge that this might have been the greatest collection of basketball players outside of some of those 80s teams

that we've ever seen. This period of Shaq when he's dialed in is caused me many nights of wondering whether basketball was solved and over. Like I was like, well, if he can just do this, I don't really know where there's, there's nothing to do about it, right? Like, they're going to win the title for five straight years. It's really only them that destroyed themselves, you know, like it was the fact that they kind of couldn't keep it together. And obviously, you know, basketball is something, the NBA season is so long, the personalities involved are so complicated that I think a three,

repeat is about all you can really ever dream of. But when you now look at what we we watch now and as House referred to the parody era, it's almost inconceivable that we'll ever see something like this again. And they were the Death Star and I hated them. Yeah, I will say, Zach, I wasn't 100% sure what the rules around these selections were going to be. If we were going, we had some combination of excellence and personal. Anything you want, house. Yeah, I understand that, which is why I was thrilled, and that's why I'm happy with all the

selections. But this team was at the top of my list, potentially, if I had to really extol virtue. Because you mentioned that Spurr series. They beat the shit out of them. They won game three by 39 points in game four by 40. Like, you know, that was unthinkable. Unthinkable. That's exactly it.

So I had this side. I didn't think that you were going to be a Laker hater all the way. through. But if they'd fall into me, I would have taken this team. All right. Now it gets tough. I've got like six teams I'm debating between, including just taking to either the 2000 or 2010 Lakers, both teams that I'm very fond of. I will take one of those eventually, I think. I just think these guys have to be represented in this draft. And I'm not sure anyone is taking them anywhere, this franchise. I will take the 2013 Miami Heat, the second of the repeat championships of the LeBron Heels era, the second and last.

That's the Ray Allen shot team coming back from three to two down. It's game six. It's not the greatest, I don't know if it's not the greatest game of LeBron's career. That is either game one of the 2018 finals against the Warriors or game six against Boston in 2012 where he basically saves the heat and the Heedles is a franchise in that game. They're down three, two. But There's like a 25 minute stretch of game six where if you go back and watch it, he is literally doing everything. He scores or assists on like every basket. He's flying around defensively blocking shots and getting steals. It's crazy.

And it's an interesting team because that's the team that won 27 games in a row in the regular season. And they get to the Eastern Conference finals. They face the Pacers in the Eastern Conference finals. Pacers are kind of like an accidental rival. Like it was supposed to be the Bulls. The Pacers were like, and it was the Celtics. and then they age out. It was supposed to be the Bulls. The Pacers kind of rise up in the void and become a pretty formidable rival for the heat. But the heat going into that series were

45 and 3 in their prior 48 games. And then they're 8 and 6 in the rest of the playoffs. They get tested a little bit and they get knocked down and they have to get up. Haslam has two random games against the Pacers where he like rises from the dead. It makes a bunch of mid-range jump shots. I mentioned the Ray shot. You could argue the 2012 team is more fun than this. It's the first one. It's the one where they really discover their identity with Bosch at center and all that. I'm interested to see if somebody picks them. I'm just,

I have such a soft spot for these two series between the Heat and the Spurs that this is the one that I would gravitate to. The other highlight from this, I had forgotten it was this year. LeBron Pacers game one, game winning buzzer beating layup when Vogel takes Roy Hibbert out of the game on the last possession to controversial coaching decisions. So I'm going 2013 heat. I'm not sure any of the heat teams are going to get picked, but I'm picking them here. Well, think about that.

That's two controversial decisions taking your best rebounder out of the game. And the heat were the beneficiary of both of those. Because Tim Duncan was not on the floor for the Ray Allen shot. That's right. CR, you get to go next. I've taken Heatles, Peak Heels from you and Peak Lakers. Probably not teams that I'm going to, we're appealing to, I'm guessing. No.

I'm trying to decide now because we're getting into like you're going to pick. This is the 11th pick in the draft. Yeah, and I am in a complicated position here. This is a team that stabbed me right in the heart. Oh, I know who you're picking. Oh, I know who it is. Yeah. And I actually think I might get my Pennsylvania card revoked if I do this.

I'm really nervous about this. But you guys have to understand, like, I can't good conscience pick a team where, you know like the reffing seemed to basically manipulate a finals and I'm not going to pick Boston again oh brother I can't I can't I can't believe I'm going to do this is this for content or is this for self-flagellation am I taking the 19 wraps

I just wrote it down in Sharpie before you said it I could tell who's going right we knew we were headed fuck these guys I agree with that that's it's why am I picking this team I'm picking this team because it was incredible. And even though I think that they obviously caught in some ways some injury luck with the Warriors in the finals, this was a precursor almost to what New York was.

You know, with the fan experience, the emergence of the We the North thing, you know, take yourself back to 2019. Drake's a pretty important guy. Courtside, every single game. We built this, everything you see here. built this. And a really, really cool collection of players that I individually like, even if I hate

what they did to one of my favorite Sixers teams. So I guess this is my way of tipping my cap to them, the Kauai, Van Vleit, Marc Gasol, you know, Pascal and OG here, right? and just a really, really fun, cool team. We've since now inherited Nick Nurse as our coach in Philadelphia, so I do have some connected tissue to it. What's your guys' is feeling about the 19 reps? Well, first I wanted to ask you,

that's the Jimmy Butler Sixers team. Reddick is still there. Triple Doink, yeah. Yeah, I know. And it's that that series, actually, I remember I wrote about this, I think after game six or game five, was when you could see the beginning of Ben Simmons

just being lost at sea offensively. I asked him about it after one of the games, like, hey, man, you're just kind of standing in the dunker spot. What's going on? But is that CR? Is that the best Sixers team of the Embed era still? Or has any of them surpassed that? I think that's probably,

I'm sure there are teams that had underlying numbers that were more effective in the Mori era. And I'm sure I personally have a level of affection for like the Fed's era. of Embeddied Simmons, Covington, Dario, you know, Faults, Reddick, like that kind of like, it's all coming together. But this is probably the team that had the best chance at the finals.

And then I know there's a lot of butterfly effect to consider, but if the Sixers had gone to the finals, if they had gone to the finals this year, with that kind of what happened to the Warriors with their injuries, you know, then we're talking about your NBA champion Sixers, which is hard to contemplate. So I also love this team and I was going to pick them at some point. There's a bit of a mercenary element to them.

And I don't mean that in a bad way. I just mean like the raptors who had suffered all the pain at the hands of LeBron over the years were kind of like mostly gone. It was Lowry and like maybe one other guy that I'm blanking on who. But Baca had been there like a year by that point. Gassol was new. Kauai was obviously brand new. Van Vlid.

He was going to saw a mid-season trade. Mid-season trade for Jonas Valenciunus, who's one of the guys who had suffered all the pain. Norm Powell had been there a couple of years. But they all did blend very well together into a beautiful machine on both ends of the floor. I've joked with people from the Raptors, like they were so pissed when Kauai left.

Obviously, that's all been out in the news again in the last year. But I've joked with them over the years. Like, isn't it sort of ironic that you guys were all so furious about how that went down and Uncle Dennis and all that? And really, like, you got the last great, healthy, non-controversial year of Kauai Leonard's career. And then he's got back. And now he's back. And to your point, like, Warriors, yeah, they suffered injuries.

Durant comes back, tragic Achilles tear. Clay gets injured all that. The East was like hellacious that year. That Sixers team was awesome. The Bucks team in the next round wins the first two games of the series. Game three of the conference finals goes to double overtime. Like the Raptors are that close from being down three oh. and then they win four straight and win the title.

I think it's a fun team. And, and, yeah, it's Canada's team. It would have been cool to see them play Death Star Warriors' super team at full strength. But again, like the NBA is an attrition league and that had been a lot of basketball on a lot of tires there. And, you know, I just, I wish that the injuries that the guys on the Warriors suffered

had not been so significant because it altered careers. I mean, I've said this before. When Clay got, I was at all those games. And when Clay got hurt in game six, I was like, can we just end the finals now? Like,

this is just too much. Just let's, I mean, game five was an unbelievable Warriors win minus the, like the elephant in the room of Durant getting hurt and Bob Myers crying at the press conference and the controversy of whether you should have come back or not.

By game six was like, I can't. This is too much. House, you seem like you were tempted by the Steve. You have two picks now. Yeah, I,

just to close the thought on Toronto, I have an asterisk next to them. You have to make a judgment call around, you know, them vanquishing Golden State in the finals, the highly depleted versus in the moment, the experience of living through Kauai, taking a franchise to its very first and the beloved, you know, the way that Toronto embraced that team, you know, the combination there of that city and Kauai there at that moment and dragging them into the position to be in the finals in the first place. And dragging them, like, not to bring up bad memories for CR, but they're down

to one to Philadelphia. In Philadelphia, game three is like maybe the best Sixers game collectively of the entire Embed Air. It's when he runs down doing the airplane after some play. And Kawhi in game four, I think it was like 39 or 40 and just hits these just gut punch threes. But I'm sorry, House, go ahead. No, it's fine.

But that was the thought. And now I'm calling. I'm hopelessly colored by what's transpired with Kauai. So I was not going to pick this team at all, but I understand sort of the inclination to do so. With my first pick of the two that are here, I am going to take a Golden State Warriors team, but it's the one that the heart wants.

And since CR took 2015, it's going to be the 2022. I knew this was going to happen. 2015 and 22 would be taken and 17 and 18. I'm going to bet you are not going to be taken. I can tell you I won't be taking either one of those two teams for sure. Interesting. This 2022 Warriors team is the ascendance of Steph into is he in the top 10 of all-time players in the league. That's what he this was the true experience is his only finals MVP, which is kind of hard to believe, was is 2022.

I think it's a fascinating finals because they played the Celtics and it was this, you know, this annual referendum with the Celtics team because of the success that J.B. and Jason Tatum had so early in their careers, are they ready for it? And, you know, that 2022 series does maybe fast forward us to the moment we just went through where, you know, J.B. played better than Jason Tatum in that final series. I mean, there was a real sort of question. Many people are saying this. I don't think it's controversial. You know, he was the alpha in that series. But I was at Game 6.

I got to be there in Boston for the awarding of the trip. It happened to coincide with the U.S. Open Golf Tournament at Brookline up there. So I got to see both the U.S. Open and the NBA Finals. That's a nice bucket list. Two buckets checked off there. But it was cool to see Steph get the MVP trophy. So I'm happy to select that one. Kind of, it certifies it.

You know what I mean? Yes. If Durant did anything, if Durant's arrival in Golden State did anything to kind of diminutive. Steph's power, his standing, his ability to claim that I am enough to just take a team to a championship, he got it back here. I think that what's interesting about this team and this era of the NBA is that you're getting into, even though you have teams like Boston who are in and around the finals for several years, you have really great teams that are obviously engineered to succeed

deep into the playoffs. There's a little bit of like a hot goalie thing going on. on in the NBA now where it's just like, ah, we just got a hot goalie. We got a good, good seed, good path through the playoffs. And you never know what might happen. And that's like, you get Halliburton, hot goalie.

You know what I mean? Injury luck. And then all of a sudden you're, you're kind of find yourself playing for Larry O'Brien trophy. But this, this Warriors team is, you know, for as much as it might seem fluky in retrospect after we've seen what happened to the Warriors,

it was such a great moment to see Steph get one more and really be in that that that real upper VIP roped off part of the Hall of Fame. It was unexpected. I think even maybe by some people within the Warriors before that season, although I know the coaches were kind of optimistic. They had finished the previous season strong. There's like a little bit of an interregnum in the Western Conference where Denver's taken

out by injuries and the Clippers are taken out. Kauai's out this entire season. The suns kind of fall apart in the playoffs against the Mavs. which is, again, no fault to the words. They beat who they beat. And they were 16 and 6 in the playoffs. It was a great team. It's a wonderful clay back from like the back to back devastating injuries.

It's an Andrew Wiggins like semi-redemption from disappointing number one pick to like maybe second best player on a championship team. It's it's just random guys like Otto Porter started a game in the NBA finals. Like that was a real thing that that happened. Remember the. Draymond Brown feud where like they got tangled up and Draymond like kind of grabbed his leg and like they feuded. And then Draymond went on his podcast was like, I got in his head. I was in his head.

I took him out of the series. I knew I had him. Just peeked Draymond fucking shit up. Very fun team. I knew they were. Oh, even like they played Memphis that year as a kind of a callback to their first title in 2015. They run into a little bit of a road, not a little bit of hiccup against Memphis. It's one to one.

Morant then gets hurt. and misses the end of that series. There's the whoop that trick game where they get destroyed in Memphis and Draymond is like singing along with the crowd. Just a very fun team. And like you said, it's just a crowning game four crowning moment of Steph Curry's career, 40-something points, Warriors win on the road to even the series of two,

go on to win it at six. I was also their house and was able to finagle my way in to the Warriors after party, which was in a VIP club inside the TD Garden. And one day when my career is nearing its end, I will tell a story of something that occurred, not anything super controversial, but just funny at that party. But I cannot tell it now. How should you get another part? That party is legendary.

Somebody needs to do an oral history of that party because you're not the only one with stories coming out of that party. If I go back into my text thread, I know. It sounds like the oral history would be a grand jury testimony. No, no, no. There's no. I want to be clear. There's no crime. There's no nudity. There's no salaciousness. It's a funny in the weeds NBA story of like a sliding doors moment that kind of occurred at that

party that I will tell one day. Hey, can I ask you something like more than an hour into a podcast that, and it's not germane to exactly what we're talking about? Yeah. Did you happen to see speaking of, I can't speak about this? Dwayne Wade has a pod and was like, LeBron went to Philly I think that's the right place for him to go. I think there's something else coming. And that's all I can really say about that. And everybody is assuming what he's talking about is some sort of AD trade.

But I was rather thrown off by this. He says it with an enormous amount of certainty. And I was curious whether you had any guess as to what he meant. It wasn't KCP signing with the Sixers. Not that? I didn't. see this. Was there a twinkle in his eye? Was there? Yeah, he's like looking off camera to see like

am I in trouble for even saying this? And like, he's like, I'm just going to say there are more people. Like, there's more to come. You know, and I didn't, for all I know, that could just be like, Brani, I hear Delaware is lovely in the winter, you know, like, but I was, I was a little bit confused. I did not see this. People are assuming it's an AD trade or the people are dot connecting up potentially. That would be Embed, right? Is there any, I mean, I guess it could be jail and Brown. I have not heard wind of anything, and I won't even hazard a guess. Maybe, maybe Dwayne Wade is coming out of retirement.

That would be cool. Yeah. Sure. Wow. I got to, this is my homework now when I get off this. House, you have the 13th pick, and then we have two picks left after that. Yes. I, as a policy matter, will not take the Lakers because the only Lakers team I would countenance was the 2001. Lakers, so I'm proud to avoid them. I'm going to honor this last selection of mine by taking the 2021 Milwaukee Bucks. And the reason, there's a handful of reasons for it. It was a unique moment, not only in NBA history, but in human history, because it was the 2020, 2021 season, a season that was

shortened by 10 games. It started around Christmas time, which in my heart of hearts is so goddamn beautiful. I really wish the NBA could just adopt it. We have a model for this. It's super successful. 72 games starting at Christmas. I mean, let's go back. Let's romanticize that. It's really terrific. But it did us this NBA season. It was as, you know, COVID, the vaccine was arriving. and there was hope on the horizon. And, you know, there was some semblance of normalcy creeping back into our lives. In terms of the actual basketball, the Bucks had an iconic series with the Nets. Like the flameout of the Nets in 2021 with the Kevin Durant foot on the line game.

and it was, you know, they were down two games to zero to that Brooklyn team. And that Brooklyn team was supposed to have been, you know, the Eastern Conference Dynamo for a bit of time and never, you know, that was always just promised unfulfilled. I liked very much the way that the finals went, where we had the drama of Janus hurting his knee in the series against the Hawks. And then, you know, what's happening with the news? with the knee for him to come into the finals against this son's team. And it culminated with his 50 piece on in game six,

which turned into him going to Chick-fil-A in ordering a 50-piece nuggets, which is always will forever be obviously close to my heart, iconic. So I just have, you know, a fondness because of unique circumstances in which it occurred. I'm always a sucker for a, you know, a player. of Janice's stature, delivering a title to a city that's been deprived of titles for a super long time. Now, obviously, Green Bay and that sort of thing. But there are, you know, the Bucks have been, depending on your perspective, a tiny bit of a

snake-bitten franchise. They've got near the summit many times and circumstances, you know, is kind of snatched away their path. So a little bit of a fondness for this Bucks team. And this is probably, I don't know. but probably the only one that Yannis gets. C.R., he mentioned that they faced the Hawks, surprisingly, in the conference finals.

Do you have any memory of how the Hawks arrives at the conference finals that season? Like, how could that have been? No, it seems as though that would have to be kind of like a weird twist of a guy's brain shutting down in a high-leverged moment, but I don't remember any, maybe my brain's shutting down in a high leverage moment because I personally don't recall anything like that happening.

I was wondering if either the 2020 Lakers or 2021 bucks was going to be picked because of the COVID factor of like the bubble for the Lakers, just weird. I've always defended that title, but as an experience, it was weird. 2021 was like the arena, were their fans? There were like some limited amount of fans, I think, in some of the arenas. I can't remember. But it was not like normal. And kind of, and the net series, while Epic, Hardin misses part of it and then is limping around at the end, Kyrie misses the last part of the series.

So like, yeah, you know, but whatever, they win the series. It's peak Middleton, Yonnas, two-man game for the NBA nerds. Janus makes his free throws somehow in game six, like the best free throw shooting game of his career. And then game five, I just think maybe it's underrated because of the lack of fans and the COVID and all of that. one of the craziest plays in the history of the NBA is the Drew Holiday steal and Ali Upe to Janus in the final seconds of Game 5 when the bucks are up by one and the

quote unquote smart play is for Drew Holiday to not throw like a risky lob pass to a horrible free throw shooter, but he does anyway and it works and Yonis dunks it and they win the game. One of the craziest plays, he steals the ball from Devin Booker. It's a fun team and I like House. I like that you have the soft spot for the long-suffering fan bases, as you should as a Washington Bullets slash Wizards fan. C.R. Were you going to pick this team?

Was this on your map at all? They were on my map. I have a very strange relationship to this playoffs because for a lot of it, I was in England and was watching games at like one or two in the morning, like starting the, the play, like NBA games would be starting like really late.

So I would get to see like 20 minutes before I would pass out. So I can't remember. remember where I saw this, but it was like on a computer screen in a hotel room. And so it wasn't like a commitment. Yeah, sure. I mean, I love the game. But like it was, it was definitely not a, like, I'll remember where I was. What an amazing situation. I was very happy for for my bucks loving friends. And this was actually like, uh, I would have been fine with whoever won because I loved this Sun's team. This Sun's team was really cool. Uh, and the, the, the the bridges, Johnson, and the combo,

and then Chris Paul, obviously, with Devin Booker. I'm a point God guy. I, you know, it was his last real shot at a title and didn't happen. So this is me. Is this my last one? Yeah, 14th pick of a 15 team draft. Your last pick, and then I rounded out. So you got the floor.

25 Thunder. Interesting. Yeah. It's hard. because in the last 15 months, I feel like this team and this franchise has become a little bit of a punching bag when it comes to, you know, foul hunting and complaining about refereeing and, you know, all the stuff that like I think maybe as fans and as NBA watchers, we turn a little quickly on teams now because we get bored. But one of the most amazing accomplishments of team building I've ever seen. obviously some luck here involved with getting Shea who would become an MVP but this team it's like no notes man you guys had the best team you won 68 games you had the MVP 68 games

and you had like a bunch of guys right underneath Shea who were pretty awesome themselves like Jalen and Chet and everybody else and the thing that I loved about this season was that it seemed like a fair complete that the Thunder would win. in, but there was always a question of like, are they going to be able to take that leap, like when the lights are bright? And I think because of the way that the Eastern Conference playoffs shook out and like the weirdness of all that, I was like, oh, like they get the Pacers. Like this is going to be a sweep.

This will be quick. And I think they really got their metal tested, you know, and we'll never know what happens if Tyrese doesn't blow his Achilles out. But it was, it wound up being an extraordinary final. and a really, really, really aesthetically beautiful finals of two incredible basketball teams. So even though it's recent, I think it is a great championship and a great championship team. I love the pick. I honestly didn't think anyone was going to take them for all the reasons you said.

And plus the the recency bias of Chet just turning into a zombie and quaking against Victor Wembeyanama in the conference finals. They were great. 68 wins, a 68 wins, man. That's like absolutely incredible. Not only were they tested against Indiana and they passed it at, Shea's game four, all-time clutch finals game 40, even that series at 2-2, that Denver series that went seven in the conference semis, that was an epic. And it's the role players that I remember from that series.

Game four in Denver, down to one, not do or die, but not far from it. Cason Wallace and Aaron Wiggins hit like a bunch of clutch three-pointers in the second half of that game. And then game five at home, Lou Dort hits, I think, four in the fourth quarter maybe, and it's a big thunder comeback. Like those are the kind of things you need to win four playoff series is guys doing stuff like that. So I actually didn't think they were going to get picked

because of all the Shea, foul grifting kind of stuff. But I'm glad someone took them. Do you have any thoughts on these guys? Just I couldn't do it because it's still too close in time to that Halliburton injury, right? Like I have so much, you know, sort of capital in this Indiana Pacer's team coming into the 26-27 season. Capital, like literally capital or capital, like, just emotional capital?

Maybe maybe Spitting both. Could be a little could be both. I mean, over 43 and a half wins was incredible. It's already up to 48, four and a half for the pace. But no, setting that aside, my issue is, is we're still too proximate to the Halliburton injury. So I couldn't, I couldn't take it. Like that series will always, you know, what will click in my mind is having, you know, washing that in real time and being so bummed out about the injury and feeling cheated.

I mean, it was a valiant effort by the Pacers through the balance of that game. But the Halliburton piece of it made it for me not one where I would say, oh, this was one of my favorites. Even, even though I appreciate all of the virtue. You know, I got to say just on a kind of front office team building side of things for the thunder to go from where they were in 16 to, you know, to completely dismantling the KD Russ version of the team. And in 10 years, basically win a title, you know, is with a completely new group of players is a really impressive act as, as a process follower. I have to applaud that. I get the last pick. And I am, I feel obligated to.

to honor one of the franchises that won multiple titles during this 20-something year stretch. And I'm picking, I'm going to end up picking between, I really do have a soft spot for the two Lakers teams, 2009, 2010, back-to-back champions. I'm not going to pick one of those teams. Good. Well, I mean, I could, but I won't. I'm actually going to take the 2005 Spurs, which is the middle of the 2003, 050, 05, 07. You know, I have the beholder, which one of those you prefer. We'll talk about the omissions later.

O5 to me is peak of the best Manu Genoblee we've ever had, 21 points a game in the playoffs, just monoeing all over the place, playing point guard basically down the stretch of the games. It's the lineup of Parker, Bowen, Genoblee, Ori at the four, Duncan at the five is just, that's like a modern day kind of NBA lineup. It has the iconic Robert Ory game winning three in game five in Detroit in a game where the pistons have three shots to go up by four late in the game, like one of the ultimate what-if swing games in the recent issue of the NBA.

The Spurs won. They ended up losing game six to Detroit at home to set up game seven. And I just, I mean, I love Tim Duncan, one of my favorite players of all the time. There's also, I had forgotten about this in going back and researching. I think it's the second round. There's like a sneaky, entertaining San Antonio Seattle series that's that's two, two, I think at one point. Duncan misses a buzzer beater in game three.

And Seattle's like on fire. EQ rows at the games. And I, it's the last playoff series in the history of the Sonics. It's like one of the Ray Allen teams. The really fun series. So I'm going to go, my love of Manu and Tim Duncan, I'm going to go. 2005 Spurs. I like it. I mean, that's what it took to

vanquish that Pistons team, which was such a unique team and looking to, you know, they validated that their 2004 win by making it back to the finals and losing to that Spurs team. I mean, I know it, there's some great quotes out there. I can't remember who about, you know, that Hory shot especially. He had 21 points in the fourth quarter

in overtime, Horry did. And, and, And how that's like one of the lowest moments in this player's life that he was on the wrong end of that. I can't remember who gave that quote. He has it before the three. He has an, I've asked him about this on a podcast, like an absolutely bonkers. Pumpfake, drive, lefty and one dunk, like right over somebody. And I can't remember who it is. It was four, two spurs over Sonics.

And the game six is 98, 96 spurs. Duncan makes like a little layup with half a second left to. win that game on a pass from Genoblee. Just a fun. I feel like those Spurs teams are kind of forgotten because there was low scoring. It was ugly. It was whatever. But they were fun in their way.

I don't know that there's a team or a franchise that goes through such an incredible transformation from what those guys represented in the middle of the aughts to what they represented in the middle of the teens in terms of the beauty of their play. Like, you know, when you, when you would watch. watch San Antonio back then. It was kind of like, hey, man, bite down on this. It's going to be a long two hours watching these dudes rebound and grind out wins. And then to get to, to get to the 14 era where they're like essentially playing Princeton from outer space, it's pretty awesome to imagine one coach overseeing two completely different basketball experiences. I wanted to ask you guys

we didn't do 08 heat, right? We can talk a little bit about teams that we didn't pick here. 06 heat. Oh, 6E, excuse me. And free throw gate. Nope. Is this one that just has a stink on it? I hate that series.

Why? Because Davey got every whistle. That's why. Free throws. Yeah. Well, let's go through the, we'll do the omissions. Let's go through it. I didn't consider that team very strong, though I think they're fine.

And peak Wade was like really something to behold. If you could set aside the free throw things. Also about the 2006 heat, they beat the Pistons fair and square. And the year before, Wade is injured in the Eastern Conference finals against the pistons. I think he even misses a game and then gets some painkiller injection and is not 100%. They could have made the finals that year and faced the spurs. Okay.

So let's recap the draft. Number one pick, House 2011 Mavs. Number two picks, CR, 2016, Cavs. I get three and four. I go 2014 Spurs, 2006 Knicks. CR at number five, 2015 Warriors, House at six, 2004 Pistons, a steel at six. House at seven, 2008, Celtics, pandering. CR at eight, 23 nuggets.

Hi, maybe a reach, but fine. Me at nine, 2001 Lakers, me at 10, 2013 heat. CR at 11, 2019 Raptors, even though they broke his team's heart. House at 12, the 2022 Feel Good Warriors. House at 13, the 2021 Bucks. CR at 14, 2025 Thunder. Me, I rounded out 2005 spurs. Here are the teams we didn't take, and maybe we just, like, everyone gets,

one person could just say a thing about them. 24 Celtics, anyone want to explain why they are not picked or say something nice about them. we're going in reverse chronological order. 2024 Celtics. I gave it a thought. They were analytics darlings. 16 and 3 in the playoffs. It was a hell of a run.

You know, Porzengis was the straw that stirred the drink. Really, truly. The calves and the Pacers being ravaged by injuries kind of ruins that. Ruins is strong. Mars that run a little bit for me. And remember that Jalen Brown shot? a tie game won against the Pacers from the left corner. It was like, oh, maybe the Pacers are going to make this a series,

and then everyone got hurt. Okay. Next on the list of teams not taking the bubble Lakers, 2020. Does anyone want to justify not taking this team? Yeah, I mean, in some ways, you could say this is the biggest asterix. You could also say this is one of the most amazing accomplishments in the history of the leak. You know, I mean, these guys went to a campus at Disney World, lived unlike any other pro athletes

have ever really had to do something like this with the exception of like you know sometimes you see like World Cup teams that are like yeah we were in this hotel but they were allowed to go outside they're allowed to like travel and they're allowed to like go get in and out like these guys were in such a unique circumstance

so for as much as it's like I don't even know if those conditions hopefully will never be recreated but you have to admire and it seems like yeah maybe only LeBron could have done that you know could have focused like that and could have pushed a team through like that. I'm not going to name names.

People can Google it, but one of the highlights, speaking of the conditions, were the escapees who were caught and the player who was caught bringing in a woman from the outside into the bubble. Just great times in the NBA. He needed a force for bridge, Zach, do you ask him for me.

Like, come on. I do like, I really like this team. It's AD at the peak of his defensive powers. He guards Jimmy Butler in the finals. He makes that three in game two at the buzzer over, when Mason Plumley messes up in the conference finals to put them up to Owen shouts Kobe, Kobe about it. It's like the perfect supporting cast

that they inexplicably then break up. And it's LeBron's cranky press conference. Like, I want my respect. Rob wants his respect. And Jeannie wants her respect. I like that team. Those guys all at Coos has a ring. Brandon Ingram has a ring.

Am I remembering it all right? No, Brandon Ingram. Caruso. Caruso, Rondo, Danny Green is heavily involved. I think we can clump. I was in the AD trade, right? Yeah. I think we can clump these two together. That's right. The 17 and 18 warriors, very dominant.

2017, maybe the best theme of all time. Kind of like, obviously they were boring. They were too good. 2018, they do face the adversity of the rockets and they get pushed to the limit. The rockets missed 27 threes in a row. Daryl more a year later says, oh, a referee audit that we did shows that we actually analytically won the game. No, you didn't.

I mean, there were awesome teams. It just, there was an inevitability that just wasn't fun, right? Yeah. Yeah, it was a glitch in the matrix that KD ended up with that team. You know, once in the entire industry moment where the salary cap had a, you know,

a spike and it permitted him to join. I think it had the reverse effect that they were hoping for. I think KD was like, I want to win a ring. And I think the Warriors were like, how can we say no to this? Everybody loves us, right? and it kind of

it went the opposite way. It was like everybody was like, you guys were so cool without him and you were so cool not being on that team. How about you guys just play each other? We like watching that. 2016, Warriors Thunder,

one of the greatest series of my life. Incredible. How about doing that again? Can we just run that back? Yeah. Another couple of years. Cupcakes, maybe. 2012 Miami Heat, LeBron's first ring.

DeBirdenoff is back. Kendrick Perkins inexplicably starting every game of the finals, despite people on the heat being like, are they going to bench them? Because this really isn't working. I mentioned how they kind of discovered their small ball identity. I'm kind of surprised nobody took that team as iconic as it is. And then we get to the back-to-back Lakers teams of 2010, the revenge against Boston in just a grueling seven-game series per-th. Although, they never lost a series when getting up for a starting five was together.

They're down 13 in that game, game seven, the Lakers are. And they come back to me. They come back. Six for 24, Kobe, yes. I actually prefer the previous years team 2009, which is they beat the magic. D. Fish has a couple crazy threes in game four to put the, the, the Wichel Lakers win in overtime, go up three, one. I have some haterade towards that magic team because I lost gambling money on them.

not in the finals in the in the in the in the eastern conference on one of the by the way I went back and watched down the stretch on one of those threes stand van gundy's obviously the coach of that magic team on one of the threes they're up by three toward the end of regulation the lakers are inbounding from under their own basket basically uh the magic press the lakers beat the press derrick fisher drivels up the right wing jimier nelson is on him and just sort of doesn't really guard him and derrick fisher just pulls up and hits a game tying three and jeff van gundy on broadcast is like apoplectic at how like Jemir Nelson screwed up. And the only thing you have to worry about is a three. Why are they not running them off the arc? It was like a little Van Gundy,

Van Gundy kind of moment. I like the so so 2009 Lakers, they actually kind of struggle to beat the rockets in the second round. Yow is hurt and T-Mack has hurt. Kind of a little, you should have been easier than that. 2010 Lakers have the Ron our test effect going for them. He switches from the Rockets. He and Arisa basically switch places. He goes to the Lakers and he has that tip-in on a Kobe air ball to beat the Sons in game five of the conference finals in 2010. I don't, I'm a little, is it really just the Lakers win too much? Is that, is that what happened here? How would neither of these teams get picked after the heartbreak of losing and getting humiliated by their rivals in 2008? They rally. Powell becomes the black swan. They win two straight.

There's no love for these teams. You probably should have had a California. on this podcast. Part of it for sure. Like Bill? Well, you mentioned Powell, that will always be, to my mind, a black mark on David Stern's legacy

when he showed no remorse whatsoever about permitting or forbidding trades. But he acknowledged the trade of Powell where there was no market whatsoever. No announced market. It was not that dissimilar from

Luca being traded to the Lakers. You know, there was a under the cover of night trade by the Memphis Grizzlies of Powell to the Lakers. And that was what, to me, ultimately gave Kobe the pathway to those two titles. The Grizzlies did get Marcus sold. It turned out to be very good. Turned out to be, took a long time. And that was at that moment, seemed like there were other players. There were definitely teams that are on record saying we had no idea that Power

was going to be available and we would have jumped in. 2007 Spurs. It's the Ori hip check and the suspensions in game five of Boris Dio and Amari Stademeyer in a tied series against the Suns. I just got a lot of Spurs teams to choose from. I'm just not going to choose that one. I really liked those Suns teams and I wanted that series to be settled the way it should have been settled.

Yeah, it's sort of crazy to go back and remember the Spurs as like the villains, you know, like the Big Bad Spurs. Well, they're back, baby. They're villains again, right? They have a little bit of, I think they still have a little bit of like, like, look at these kids. This is amazing. It's actually one of the reasons I wanted to pick the 2026 Knicks very high. And I did.

I picked them forth is because they did the impossible of instantly turning Victor Wenamah, the biggest curiosity and new superstar in the league until like suddenly he was like hated by the entire fan base. Like, I don't know. Well, Jacoby. Jacoby's for the hate. Now, most of my friends locally are Knicks fans because that's where I live, but they're still being like, man, I really hate Wemby's flopping, his arms or a little for the place he hit Jalen Brunson in the head and blah, blah, blah.

2006 heat, we talked about the free throws and just the weirdness of that series. And then also not taken to 2003 spurs. Steve Kerr has his moment in that in that playoff run against the Mavs. Dirk is out for part of that series. That's one of the reasons I didn't really. considered them too strongly. 2002 Lakers, we talked about,

that's the King's rivalry peaking with food poisoning and ref shenanigans. Oh, yeah. And the 2000 Lakers, nobody took. I came close to taking them, the lob from Kobe to Shaq

against the Blazers in game seven. And we mentioned the Pacers finals that year were. Kobe sprains his ankle, misses game three, and then carries them in game four when Shaq fouls out in overtime. That was a fun team. I actually think someone, maybe I'll raise my hand.

It should have been me. Either the 2000 Lakers or one of the Kobe Powell team should have been selected. That's an omission on our part. I had forgotten, we kind of, we talked about this when you first picked that, I believe it was the 01 Lakers. I've forgotten that Shaq won the finals MVP for all those championships. Every time. Like to your point, there was just nothing you could do with Jack other than foul. I mean, it was like, if he was interested, it was over.

If he was locked in and if he was, if he was in good shape, it was, there was nothing to do. I'll confess. I had a hard, as we were processing through the draft, I had to make a judgment call on whether it was going to be the 2000 Lakers, the 21 bucks for me. And I, I went for the bucks because of the significance to the city. By the way, 2003 Spurs, I just wanted to visit this real fast, not picked. That's David Robinson and Tim Duncan's last. year together. I mentioned

Dirk was out. I had forgotten about Lakers Spurs. What round is that? It's either the second round or the third round. And the Lakers are going for a four-peat in that moment. That series was tied to two,

and Ory playing for the Lakers at that point, not the Spurs, misses a potential game-winning three at the end of game five that, I mean, it is in and out. And it's basically, at the buzzer and it would have put the Lakers up three, two. They then go on to get rolled in game six and lose four to.

I'd forgotten about that shot. What a swing shot that is. All right, this is a fun draft. Any closing thoughts? I know you guys both have other actual work to do. Any closing thoughts on this? This is very cool. Like, because this is a big chunk of my life we're talking about.

This is like half my life, most of the part that I'm most conscious of, you know, and it was kind of awesome to go back through all these teams. and to kind of trace my love of the sport and my relationship to the sport through all these teams. It was a pure experience for me to see R's observation of reliving some of these moments, watching some of them again going on YouTube. And honestly, for sure, this will come as no surprise.

The thrill of some of the bets that I won along the year is definitely, especially that 2016 Cavs team, that one will just always be chef's kiss to me. So thank you for the opportunity. Going back through that footage house, we used to make stuff in this country. Those end up finals. We used to make stuff in this country, CR. Not a single statistic on the screen.

Costas or Michaels just being like, and this is what we have all arrived here to see, to watch this experience. It's like, it's poetry, man. I wish we could go back. Chris Ryan and Joe House, you can see them all over the place on the Ringer Podcast Network. Thank you guys for indulging me. We will have to reconvene a year from now and find something else to draft and have fun with. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Zachlo.

Thank you, Zachlowe. Appreciate you. Where some see heroes and others see egos. Bloomberg sees the era of billionaire athletes. A fad to some, the future of money to others. We see crypto's trillion dollar swings. The end of jobs or the end of human struggle. We see the endless funds fueling the AI hype, while others follow the,

The noise, we follow the money. Learn more at Bloomberg.com. Yeah, too. All right, we were not planning on doing a Mets Corner until after the season was over or it petered out toward the end. But we have a controversy in Mets Nation. I was at Pete Alonzo's first return game, which was quite an experience. We could talk about that if you want, just an unbelievable welcome back by the fans to him. I was not at the second one in which he did.

did what was so anticipated what I was hoping to see, hit his 300th home run, and it was a big one, a game tying ninth inning solo home run. The Mets would go on to lose an extra innings in a way that only they would lose, allowing a standing inside the park, three run home run to someone on the Orioles who I had never heard of. So Pete Alonzo hit a home run that very much swung the game from a Mets win to a Mets loss. And yet the Mets, the Mets, fans on day two cheered not only Pete Alonzo but cheered that very act, that

300th home run so much that a road team player, a visiting player, got a curtain call at what used to be his home field. And I'm going to tell you, Sean, before I tee you up, I had an actual friend, a human person who I knew and worked with for

a long time, tweet at me that I was displaying quote, he's a Mets fan, season ticket holder, tweet at me that I was displaying, quote, loser behavior by being happy that Pete Alonzo had hit a home run. What say you about the curtain call? I wish we hadn't found ourselves in this situation this season. I feel that it is fine to applaud Pete on the home run as a celebration of 300.

I would not have applauded for the curtain call. And that's not in an effort to undermine my appreciation for Pete Alonzo, who is a player who I've had a chance to talk about quite a bit since we've been doing this segment. I found the most egregious thing that happened over the course of the last 48 hours to be booing Jonah Tong for walking Pete Alonzo in game one. I found that to be spiteful behavior from a fan base

that is very understandably aggrieved about what it's front office did over the off season. But Jonatong should not be booed. That's absurd. Jonah Tong may be an important part of the future of the team and I don't appreciate that. The curtain call is a little much.

I do think that we made our point as fans, but I'm very happy for Pete for getting 300 and there is something poetic about him getting 300 at City Field. But I root for the Mets. I am a team fan. I'm not an individual player fan. And I think actually the individual player fandom

is a bit of an insidious thing over the last 25 years of sports fandom and ultimately I root for the Mets and I don't want to see the Mets lose. And what puts this in some interesting relief right now, Zach, is that the Mets probably should continue to lose. So I felt a tremendous amount of mixed emotions. The other thing that complicated this was

I was not watching it live because I was at a screening of the movie Resident Evil and I was following the game on my phone and via text with you. And you know who is sitting to my left? Mallory Rubin. It's Mallory Rubin's 40th birthday today, one of my dearest friends, who I love,

and she has taken Pete Alonzo from us, and she got to cackle with glee after she learned that he hit 300, and then later there was an inside-the-park home run that led her team to victory. So just a wild night of emotions for me with the Mets and Pete and Mallory. So my wife is traveling this week

to give you just the Lowell Mets version of this. And so I had queued up to watch, in my life, my wife will never watch this. I can't wait till I'm done with all my work at 9.30, 10 p.m. I'm going to sit back and watch obsession. And I delayed it and delayed it because the game was so goddamn exciting that I was like, I got to watch this game. Lindor could come up at any time and hit his 300th home run.

You never know what's going to happen. And then the inside the park home run happens at like 10, 25 p.m. Eastern time. I've missed my window. I'm old and I'm tired. I don't have a two-hour movie in me at 10.30 p.m. And I'm sitting there being like, I cannot believe I postponed my movie viewing for this, for an inside the park run, for AJ Ewing to crash into the wall. And Carson Benjewan Sotomayor to leave him there to die while a tall dude just loaps around the faces for an inside the park home run. Okay, we actually disagree fairly vehemently on a couple of things.

Number one, I was at the Tong game. And at least in my section, the booze were like playful. booze. There was a lot of, oh, come on, man. We all, can't we, we all agree what we want to see here. We want to see him swing away. At least in my section, it was not negative, jeering, like, actual nasty booze that should hurt Jonah Tong's feelings. It was more like, oh, come on. I totally get that. I understand that. I still don't like it. I'm just being honest. You don't have to. I still don't like. Jonah Tongue's 22. Like, let's try to just be signed on for the young pitcher, you know? You think he's going to be okay?

I think DiLonzo's going to be just fine. That's the thing is he's sitting on $160 million in Baltimore. So he doesn't need our sympathy either. He's fine. Look, all I'm saying is, in my sense, I can only speak from the experience of people around me. It was more good-natured and playful razzing than the fire sterns variant, which is broken out over and over again.

Yes. I am completely okay with the curtain call. I would have participated in the curtain call. I do not understand this slice of Mets fandom that you are not in. That is like all of you people are fake idiot fans for standing up and giving this guy. I know you don't. But I would have stood up and given the curtain call. And here's why.

This is the perfect storm of events. The team is out of contention. The game is meaningless. You, in fact, had me looking at, I discovered something today because of you that Tankathon has a major league baseball lottery simulator. It sure does. And you're damn right. I spun it until the Mets got the number one pick,

even though you could give me a million guesses on who the number one pick is going to be, and I would never get one of the two names. No, right. This is an absolutely beloved homegrown player, the all-time leader in franchise home runs that everyone, I mean, you couldn't find a fan. I'm sure there's some Sterns fanboy nerdy analytics, people nerdier than me and you who are like,

no, this is what happens with first place, when they turn age 32, suddenly the bath speed goes away. All this new does. A lot of voice work from you in this episode. All this guy does is play every game. You know who plays no games? Jorge Polanco plays no games. Play zero games.

The first major and the mess plays no games. You and I contributed about as much as Jorge Polanco did to this season. And all he does is hit. And everyone wanted him back. He wanted to come back. In fact, I would say the underneath all the adulation at the game I went to, was a layer of sadness among the fans. Even it seemed to, there was a wistfulness even to Pete Alonzo's presence at the game.

It's like, I think everyone kind of agrees this was a mistake and would go back and do it differently. So you put that together with the fact that it's a milestone home run. I can cheer. I can curtain call Pete hitting a game tying home run and cheer for him and still cheer for the Mets to win the game, which is what I did staying up to not watch the movie obsession because they give up. a freaking inside the park home run. I can do all those things always get out of here with this. You're a fake fan. Blah, blah, blah. It's the team or nothing. We are human beings. We go for moments. That was a moment. And boy, I'll tell you, Jean, that bat, that wasn't a bad flip.

That bat hurl had, that was aimed right at David Stern's face. That was a metaphorical laser beam at all the rage and anger. And that's what I mean by sadness. He's pissed. He should be pissed. He should have finished his career as a met. You were texting me today. He should be hitting his 300th and 400th and God willing 500th home run as a met. Instead, it's like, all right, our all-time home run leader has half the number of home runs of Aaron Judge. Great. I think sadness is the right term. I think, you know, you made that point to me last night. And it's it's genuinely depressing to think about. And I'm so interested in the aftermath of all this. And we can save some of that conversation for a week from now when the season is over.

But this was a very, very ballsy offseason by David Stearns. And he came up, snake eyes. There's just no, there's no two ways about it. He made a lot of big choices. And those choices, there's either one of two things is going to happen now. This generation of homegrown players, aided and abetted by a couple of very big superstars who are on the team for long term, are going to either lead this team to the promised land, or David Stearns is going to, going to be probably the most hated executive in Mets history.

And there's probably not an in-between. I think even if this team goes on to the playoffs, three or four seasons in a row now, but never wins, I think there are fans who have convinced themselves at least that they would have preferred to have watched Pete Alonzo cross milestones that we've never seen a hitter cross in baseball history. And the Mets have been around now for 65 years. I mean, this is a real, it's becoming a storied franchise.

It didn't used to be. It was an expansion team for years. the Lull Mets existed for a long time as this sort of young team. Now this is a team with a lot of history and not a lot of impressive records and what I worry about is that Pete is our generation's Tom Seaver.

And when I was a kid, all I heard about was trading Tom Seaver and Tom Seaver leaving the team and what a black mark that was. What a joke that made the Mets. That they would trade Tom Sever. And that we very easily, with the richest owner in the sport,

could have re-signed Pete Alonzo. And we didn't do it. And we didn't do it for reasons that I understand, but when you do the math in your head, and you're like, okay, we paid Frankie Montas, $18.5 million this year to contribute nothing. We paid Jorge Polanco, $20 million this year, to contribute nothing.

We paid Boba Chet, $42 million this year, to have a league average season. We paid Sean Manaya $25 million this year to be a number five starter. Add the totals up from, we paid Marcus Semi in $25 million a year to be the worst position player in the sport. Put all that money together

from just this one season that we paid, out one season, that's about seven-eighths of the entirety of the Pete Alonzo contract. And that's baseball. That's how baseball works. So it is crushing to think about it in that way when you think about the amount of time and effort and thought that was put into whether or not to extend Alonzo that deal and to not give it to him and the way in which all of those resources were allocated just this year. It's hard to accept.

He's going to keep on hitting. Look, I just wanted to bring you on to do our version of the curtain call ethics question. and I am fine with it. I've become actually more forgiving of this experience has actually made me more forgiving of what you might call fairweather fandom or intermittent fandom or something like, I'm cool with it.

Like I didn't boo. I didn't boo tongue. I didn't boo. I didn't chant fire sterns. That's just not my style. If you want to chant that, that's fine. Like we'll see how the young guys work out next year. But I didn't want to see it was just me and my daughter.

I didn't want to behave like that anyway, but I didn't want to do that in front of her. we had a great time. She had a great time. And I'll tell you, first of all, Mania. Mania was the lead complainer after the game last night. Yeah, I'm interested in this.

So here's my theory on Mania. He's mad. He's clearly mad at the fans. So he's not a Met anymore. Pete's not a Met anymore. I love Pete. It's not a Met anymore. We're the Mets.

We work our ass off. I think he's really mad that that home run cost him a win because they had to take him out after five and a third innings. Because when he gets into the sixth inning, he turns into me and you throwing pitches. I think he's just mad that he didn't get a win. And I frankly don't really want to hear from Sean Minaya about his take on how the fans should or shouldn't behave.

It's such a paradox because does it speak well or ill of the fans if players are reluctant, if players don't like that? And does that make players not want to play in New York or play for the Mets? Like that's the only thing I'm thinking about in that prism is if you're more worried as a member of the Mets, whether or not the curtain calls will be reserved only for visiting. players who were formerly on the team. Reputationally, that is odd.

And as you said, it's very unusual for that sort of thing to happen. And it's usually reserved for people who have beaten terrible illnesses, you know, or who represents something socially that they broke through the culture in some way or someone like Cal Ripkin kind of crossing a record of games played. You don't usually just see a rival player who beats you, get a curtain call. But he's not a rival player. That's the whole point. And what I would say to Sean.

But I would say which to Sean Mania is, it's not that met fans or any fans, like opposing players or rival players. You know who they like? Players who do awesome stuff for their team. And Pete Alonzo did more awesome stuff for his team in seven years than most of the Mets roster has combined other than the best players on the team.

You know what I speak to really quickly, though? I do think it speaks to something that I am as guilty of as any Mets fan, which is that sometimes, we like to revel in our own failure. And the idea of applauding an opposing player points allows us to loudly point out the organizational failures that have brought us to this place. Of course, that's part of the perfect storm.

And there's a gratification in that. And it is poetic that, you know, he showed up to the schedule makers put it on the schedule for this time in the year and that it aligned perfectly with, of course, as he always does, hitting somewhere between 35 and 40 home runs that he would hit cross 300 at this time. But there is something in the fan base. You know what? The other thing I want to say that I think is true,

and you can tell me since you were at game one, the fans have been really good for the Mets for the last three or four weeks. They've been really positive. They've been really supportive of the young players on the team. And they played a pretty good brand of baseball, about 500 baseball, but they played a pretty good brand of baseball. And this felt like a lot of the fans who got really mad in July, myself included, who were just like, fine,

I'll come back this weekend to boo everybody who's in the building because I fucking hate them because they've ruined my summer, as opposed to the people who were showing up the previous few weeks who were like, I'm kind of excited about AJ Ewing and I'm kind of excited about Zach Thornton and I'm kind of excited about whatever whatever happens when Jefferson Rojas comes up

or whomever. Oh my God. I'm just, I'm following Mets minor league accounts, Billy Amics hitting home runs every day. Can't you be both? Can't you want to celebrate a franchise icon and in doing so, vent a little bit of frustration?

But also like I was mad because I went into one of the clubs to say hi to our mutual friend David Sims who was at the game. Oh yeah. When AJ Ewing hit, his solo home run. And my daughter loves Ewing and Benj.

I love Hewing and Benj. I'm like, yeah, I want these guys to do well too. Just it's complicated, I realize. But by the way, just a couple of, I have to share my sentimental father-daughter notes before we go. I got her out of bed when Pete hit the home run. I knew she wasn't going to be a sleep because I had just put her to bed recently enough that she would still be awake.

And she, I mean, ran gleefully into the office. office to watch the replay with me. And I think I would have woken her up if Lindor had hit it. And that would have been a real wake up if Lindor had hit his 300th. And we were watching the game earlier. You said you were watching the game. There was a Lindor little infield chopper that was a bang, bang play at first. And he was called out the match challenged or it was reviewed or whatever.

It was a long review. And during the long review, for two straight minutes, the camera is on Alonzo and Lindor, these two former teammates for five years, having a wonderful conversation. They're laughing, they're smiling, they're hiding some portions of the conversation with their glove of their arms. They're putting their shoulder bumping each other,

having fun. And my daughter just looks at me and she goes, oh my gosh, Daddy, look at them. Look at them. And I was like, yeah, look at them. It's really sad. That is really sad to think about. Because that, I mean,

those were our two guys for the last four years. Those were our guys. Those were the dudes. They seem to get along and like each other the whole time. too. They never really had drama. And so, I don't know, man. It's, it's hard to think about. I'm glad you had a good experience with your daughter. And it's wonderful that you've given her this team. But what were you thinking giving her this team? No, it's part of life and it's going to be great.

All right. Sean Fennis, you go back to your regular job. In a week or two, we will debrief all the good stuff that's happened. And there's been a lot of it to the Mets in the last couple of months since the deadline and everything that needs to happen for this team to have a better season next season. The big picture projections newsletter, Sean Fennis, you're the man. Thanks, brother. All right, that's it. For today's edition of the Zach Lowe show, thank you to Chris Ryan,

Joe House, and Sean Fennessey for their very valuable time. Thanks, as always to Billy, Mike, and Jonathan on production. Thanks to you all for listening to and or watching the Zach Lowe show. We'll be back next week, as usual, with new episodes. We're inching toward the NBA season. We'll be there soon. 21 are over in President Select States for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 and over in President D.C.

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