The Big Suey: Billy "The Fireman" Gil
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Welcome to the Big Suey, presented by DraftKings. Why are you listening to this show? The podcast that seems very similar to the other Dan Lebitard podcast. I'm sorry, I'm not going to apologize for that. In fact, the only difference seems to be this imaging. I have been tempted in restaurants just walking past tables to grab somebody's fries if they're just there. That hasn't happened to you guys? I've done it. And now, here's the marching man to nowhere, fat face, and the habitual liar.

This episode is presented by DraftKings. DraftKings, the crown is yours. Grateful to have Amin in. He was at all the finals games. I want his takes that will echo throughout the offseason because I do believe it was, even though he predicted it,

That that's what it would be. And OKC was the best team from the start of the season until the end of the season. And it wasn't much of a surprise, but it wasn't terribly satisfying either, which I'm confused by my feelings there. I don't know if I'm reacting that way to youth. I don't know what I'm doing because it was an overwhelming regular season team that I wanted to see be overwhelming against Indiana. And I never did. Yeah.

And, and, and by the way, that seems to be the case with almost every one of these teams. That's amazing, right? Think about the Warriors, their first championship. Amazing. But then that finals, they were down 2-1 in that finals. Think about the Miami Heat. Amazing, right? Amazing collection of talent. But yet, even in their first championship, forget about losing to Dallas, even the first championship, the path there wasn't quite overwhelming, right? So there's always a, there's, there's, it's never as easy as it looks. That,

And there's so many variables because at the end of the day, there's a big difference between I play Milwaukee on Wednesday and then Friday I go play Chicago and then Sunday I play Minnesota versus big boy, you're playing me every single day. And all I'm doing is devoting all my resources to learning your weaknesses and

I thought Indiana would have had an advantage if it had been like a 30-game series. We joked about that. It was like Pacers in nine after game six. No, because I couldn't believe that Indiana got OKC to play four games that were the four worst games that they've played all season in terms of assist to turnover stuff. I didn't recognize them as a team, given that I'm watching something that is historically great at turning other teams over.

and never turning the ball over themselves to see them have, it was four games where they had more turnovers than assists. No, that's like, I just couldn't believe it. They happened to win one of them. The one where they made three, three pointers. Right. But then I would argue that game one was...

was the other way around where they had all the turnovers forced and they had all the assists and they lost that game and they probably shouldn't have lost that game. So I think it washes out. But the point is like everyone, even the most indestructible, they all have something that they don't like being done to them that if you've confined it and if you have the personnel, you can impact it. Then I always talk about like when you say, oh, this team is going to beat this team in a seven game series. How many times we play that seven game series a hundred times, right?

A thousand times. How many times would that result happen where we think the favorite would be the underdog? In some cases, like 999 times out of a thousand, right? They're going to win, right? In other cases, it's like more like 501 times out of a thousand that they're going to win. And in every case of that, the underdog winning is you got to find the right combination of things. And some of them are things you can control. Some of them aren't, right? So 2016, Warriors beating the Cavs, I mean, Cavs beating the Warriors.

Some of it is like, hey, we need to attack these certain things. Hey, Steph Curry isn't healthy. Attack that. Some of it is, and Draymond Green got suspended. And Andrew Bogan, and what's it called? And Andre Goddard got hurt during those finals. Oh, and by the way, Harrison Barnes, we're going to let him shoot every single time, right?

And all those things need to add up. And then LeBron needs to make the best defensive play in Finals history. And Kyrie needs to hit one of the biggest shots in Finals history. And then Kevin Love has to be ISO'd against Steph Curry one-on-one. And he's got to get a stop.

All of those things needed to happen in order for the Cavs to beat the Warriors. There's a lot of variables. Some of them you control, some of them you don't. There are a number of things I want to get to in basketball, including drunk OKC players and the story with Josh Gronke. But before we get to that, do the Celtics make all of the same moves if Tatum's healthy? I absolutely think they would have shed salary. I think it would have looked different.

So, for instance, trading for Anthony Simons, probably not what they were going to do because Anthony Simons with a healthy Tatum represents an overkill. They don't need more scoring at that point. Porzingis for George Niang, just like here take him, I don't think that happens. But I think some form of salary shedding happens because as we were talking about in the last segment,

there are basketball reasons not to be in the repeater tax, right? As I said, if you're in there long enough, they take your first round pick and they move it to the end of the first round. You get the 30th pick. Even if your repeater tax only got you the 20th best pick regularly. Nope, it goes all the way to the end. Is that lottery protected? Ain't no protections, buddy. Take it all the way down. Imagine you win the lottery and...

You wouldn't. You wouldn't even be in the lottery. If you win the lottery with a repeater tax, you're a bad team. That's the point. They're trying to make you see. So you know, like, hey, don't you dare. You can't aggregate salaries in a trade. So, for instance, if I wanted to trade, you saw Kevin Durant got traded, right? It couldn't be Kevin Durant and Caleb Martin because they're above the second apron. So they take that away. Obviously, the lower mid-level exceptions. Your first round pick seven years out can't be traded.

So, oh, hey, I'll give you my 2032. No, you can't. So there are all of these things that handcuff the hell out of you out of improving your roster. Plus, you've got new ownership coming in. Nobody cares about this conversation. I was just back here like, what?

Unless you're that deep into the game, unless you're caring about every single team in the NBA and you want to know all the machinations of value and all of that, why would you care about this? You shouldn't have to know all of these things to be able to digest why a trade happens, but it's why you don't understand why this player gets traded for four first round picks while this player only gets traded for one when the disparity between their play is a gulf in the other direction. Right.

So I think that might be a place of curiosity for some people. Wait a second, why did he only go for this versus that? But for the most part, if it's not my team, people don't care. Right. The NBA, I think, does a lot of un-fan-friendly things these days. And all of this, like everything Amin just talked about,

Boston trading Chris Hapsworth-Gingas for George Niang. It's the most unfan-friendly thing I think the NBA does because fans don't understand. Why would they do that? Why would they trade him for George Niang? I'll draw you a chart, man. It's, I got a team. Oh, my team's getting good. Oh, we're really good. We're competing for a championship. Oh, we spend money. Oh, we're in this championship window. Maybe we win, maybe we don't. And then at some point, no matter how much we win, it's like, all right, some of this shit got to go. And then we...

Go all the way back down. It's a cycle. It's created. This is the parody that everyone begged for. Well, this is the thing, though. When you've got seven different champions in seven years and... Eight now, right. Excuse me. And this last one was...

Not surprising at all if you're watching all season, but because of the way the last seven have gotten, you didn't think, have gone, you didn't think that it was a foregone conclusion. There was not trust in what the OKC team did during the regular season. But what I will tell you about those finals that was confusing to me as someone who really admired the way OKC played, you saw the Tom Haberstroh numbers, right? The Pacers...

made 705 more passes in that series than OKC. Yes. Like, when you talk about stylistically what it is that you'd root for when you've got that, the shithead, as Bob Ryan calls him, Titus saying that SGA is a disgusting MVP.

The reason is because of the style of play, is it not? I'd prefer to watch 705 more passes than what OKC was doing. You got real close to calling Sarah Jessica Parker. It's 10. It is seven straight, not eight. Horseshoes and hand grenades. Don't do this. I'll do it. I'm looking at Wikipedia. I thought it was seven going into this season. I'll do it for you. Just watch. 2018 Warriors. 2019 Raptors. They won again in 22. Watch when he realizes. Like,

He's saying not competitive. Yeah, he's saying not back-to-back. He's saying we've had eight different champions the last eight years. We didn't have any back-to-back. I think it's seven. And you guys are saying eight different franchises. I've never heard anyone make that point you just made. That there hasn't been a repeat champion in eight years? It's a semantics game. Right. Yeah, you're right about that. But I've never heard anyone make that point. The repeater taxes. There you go. I'm first. Wait, you get repeater taxes? You get taxed if you win back-to-back championships? Yeah.

The thing that I see happening with our show that is delightful, and it happens more on Wednesday than any other day, is that when someone tips over the garbage can and the fire leaks out, Billy jumps out from the shrubs, like just really excited. That's why they call me the fireman.

They're really excited to be like, let's argue about whether it's seven or eight. No, I'm helping out. I'm actually trying to put an end to that argument. He said semantics. I'm saying it's just a semantics thing. You're both right. No, it is semantics. Look, he's right in that it was eight different teams. You guys are right that it was seven different franchises.

This is a semantics argument. You both are right. No repaints in there. Semantics. Semantics whether he's right or not. He's right at semantics. Thank you. That's why I invited you in today. I said, he's got to be here, man. Big day for the association. No one covers the league like a mean. See you at the watch along later. Yeah. Wait a second. That's a baseball one. Sorry. What time is the draft at? At like 8?

No, right around the same time. Really? Six? That's early for a draft. What's the perfect time? Because eight is too late and six is too early. I guess it's seven. There you go. There you go. Way to go, Billy. You did it by yourself. It's semantics. Just closing loops today. That's what today should be. Yep, that's what you are. Closing loops Wednesday. Everyone knows you as a loop closer. Hey, Chris knows his godparents now, speaking of closing loops. Let's close that later, shall we? Okay. Loop fiasco. I want to ask...

I mean, Jordan Poole was also traded yesterday. And I'm wondering if a very highly paid, successful champion basketball player is going to be associated with only one thing that doesn't have much of anything to do with basketball the rest of his career. When I say that name...

In a trade, in a transaction, do you guys think first of anything else other than punched in the face by Draymond Green? Is that what he's going to, no matter what his career is, is that what's going to be on the Jordan Poole resume at the end? And was never the same after that. Punched in the face by Draymond Green and then was never regarded the same after that. Some would say he was never the same before that either. He had like a good series in the playoffs, a couple of good games, but

They rewarded him. But, I mean, I was not really enamored with Jordan Poole's game before they won the title, let alone before the punch. And so, to me, it's just like, yeah, this is kind of who he's always been. Because I remember getting arguments with Warriors people like, no, you got to see. And I'm like, I'm telling you, he looks like someone who doesn't understand the, like,

the value of what they're doing there. It's like, oh yeah, so we just get around and shoot threes. Well, no, not exactly. It's like, no, no, no, I get it. We should run, we run around and shoot threes. I'm like, no, there's more to it than that. I got it, I got it, I got it. And he played that way and then he got punched in the face and then he played that way but didn't

play as well, and then he got traded. And then rather than go to Washington and say, okay, reinvention time. This is my team. I'm going to show everyone that I am serious. I'm not a joke, whatever. He treated it like an absolute joke. And I'm going to tell you why, Dan. When you look at what Washington did, right, what they've done basically since the trade deadline, where everyone's like, what are the Wizards doing? They have C.J. McCollum. They have Marcus Smart. They have Chris Middleton. This makes no sense.

They did that because what they had was a locker room of young people looking up to people who aren't good examples of how to be a pro. Kyle Kuzma and Jordan Poole. They did not behave in a way that's like, that's what I want my young people learning. I'm not kidding you when I tell you the Washington Wizards this year, before they traded for Chris Middleton as a basketball team, when they played, I watched a couple of their games and it offended me the way that they were playing basketball.

What was the moment you realized, this here offends me? It was Poole and Kuzma. They're being so sloppy with me with the basketball. Like, they don't care about the basketball at all. It's just kind of like, Valerie, can you believe this? Valerie, I'm offended. That's offensive. Am I wrong, though? I mean, like, when I think of two teams in basketball this year that offended me, it was the Wizards and Charlotte on occasion, the way that they would use balls.

Oh, you think the way they use the lamello ball or the way they use the ball? Both. I think because one of those is a lot more offensive. Let's put up Chet Holmgren here and the sound of him slurring his way through the speech. How did you guys feel about yesterday's parade here at OKC? It started with Clay, Sam, and Mark for believing in me enough to bring me here.

In the first place. Because without them, I'm never even here. All right, let me lock in. Should we put you on the mic? Yeah, it's our show. Somebody misspeaks and everyone else pounces. Was anyone else worried that Chet was going to tip over while holding that trophy? I don't like it.

Not for Chet, for the trophy. Like, they looked like they were trying to get that trophy away from him to not dent it or anything. Put it on the poll at Levitard Show. Were you worried that the trophy would tip over Chet? So we had Chet seeming a little drunk on stage, which is fair. And then we had SGA on Good Morning America. And I don't think it's drunk he's being accused of, but I think it might be a little stoned. Jay Gilgis Alexander, give it up, all. Woo!

for SGA, getting up and joining us this morning. - That's how you say it, SGA. - Oh my God, how does NBA champion, that have a good ring to you, SGA? - Yeah, it's everything I imagined it to be. The opportunity has been amazing and I'm just, I'm happy and I'm blessed to be a part of it. - Okay, have you been to sleep, Shay? Have you been, 'cause you look a little sleepy. Did you get any rest since last night?

I got some rest, not as much as I'd like, but you only live once. Was winning a championship a burden to the Thunder and Oklahoma City? They didn't celebrate when they won. They rushed the parade like a day and a half after. The quickest parade ever. I don't know how they must have been planning to win this. They wrapped the buses like three days early, which was a ridiculous decision.

But then you're on Good Morning America. You sound upset to be there because it's too early. Like, did we inconvenience them by making them NBA champions here? To be fair, man, Good Morning America is on very early. And Oklahoma's an hour back. And he didn't go to sleep the night before. He went out. He had a good time, man. You wake him up and then you put makeup on him and say you got to answer these questions.

That's not a great... Yo, come on, guys. He's not stoned. He's got those tired, dry, heavy eyelids from not sleeping. And a lot of alcohol consumption the night before. Seems like a very reckless thing to accuse him of, to be honest. Yeah, how dare you, Chris? On Good Morning America. I have a question for you guys that I had never considered until yesterday, which was the buses that they ride around town with, that they wrap with the championship, the 2025 NBA champions or whatever, right?

I had never considered what happened to those buses after the parade until Monday when I came in and saw one of the Florida Panthers championship buses just doing its regular job of hop on, hop off, driving around. And I just see it with like Panthers and NHL champions driving around right in front of the building. I'm like Stanley Cup champion. Yeah, there you go. They didn't unwrap it.

No, it was still wrapped. And then I'm wondering, well, when do you decide to take that off? Like when you sell an advertisement? Like I would keep that on forever if I could, right? I saw another one that was completely white. So they had taken off of one, but then I saw another red one that looked like it was coming from the parade. I'll tell you. So one of the things that I was thinking about a lot

in the aftermath of Game 7 was before the game, pre-game press conference, Rick Carlisle started by saying, hey, I saw a video. They already had the buses wrapped. You know what? That's all I can think about. And I turned to the guy next to me and I was like, yo, that's some real great shit talk. Unless they lose. Unless they lose. But then, you know, Tyrese gets hurt and

All is forgotten, right? But like, kind of, I was like, what about them buses, huh? Let's play the sound here of Jalen Williams. He's the 12th highest paid player for the Thunder. I know that I mean, and I think some other people had some objections to me saying that OKC has sort of rigged the system. You get the fixed costs with your draft picks and all of a sudden you can keep players in OKC maybe longer than they'd like to be in OKC.

But before we get to that conversation, let's play Jalen Williams saying that he doesn't drink and he's going to start drinking now. Yesterday was my first time drinking ever. Like I never had a drink up until that point. And the beginning of the season, the guys want me to drink. That's like the big thing for them. I don't know why, but I told them at the beginning of the year, I was like, win a championship. I'll drink. I'll do whatever you guys want. I'll drink champagne. We could do shots. So we kept getting closer during the season. And I was like,

I'm gonna have to drink. So I drink a little bit. I had a couple shots, champagne, I had beer. It was all disgusting. I'm gonna stick to Shirley Temples. I had a lot of those yesterday in a lot of water. Okay, so you've never drank it before. You think champagne is disgusting. You think all shots are disgusting. So you'll probably, are you never gonna do it again? I'm retired. I can't speak on the parade though. I don't, I don't. Okay.

I don't want to. Yeah, I put it on the poll, please. Did we inconvenience the Thunder by making them win the championship at Levitard Show? There's something about when somebody doesn't drink, everyone wants that person. Like, we had Danny around here. He's not a drinker. You bring him out, it's like, Danny, you going to drink today? Come on, you want one? He's just like, no, I'm not drinking. All right, great, great. You guys are great. I love leaning on people who don't drink and making them drink. That's what they did with Jalen Williams all year. They're like, are you going to drink? When are you going to drink? Why do people...

want people that don't drink to drink. He was asked this question post-game about like, yo, your upbringing. He's like, yeah, my parents were, I would call it a God-fearing household. And he has this very long, thoughtful answer. And then he says, but then I had alcohol.

At the end of the answer. It was so funny. Dan, they didn't know how to open the champagne bottles. They literally sat around like, do we watch a YouTube tutorial? And Alex Roos had to come in and be like, no, guys, this is how you do it. I don't know how to open a champagne bottle. Really? Nope. As a two-time champion. Not a champion. Nope. Well, that's not true. But I don't drink champagne. I don't know how to drink a champagne bottle. I'm embarrassed all the time at the number of corks and things that I ruin because I can't open any of those things. You guys, you don't know how to open a champagne bottle? Man, no. I mean, I can...

I can't be screwed, bro. You need a sword. I want someone to pour it for me. Pour it? Yeah, whatever. You don't pour champagne. You spray that thing. You let everybody know. Woo! That a real champ would know. Yeah. What does Zinn give you? Not just smoke-free nicotine satisfaction, but real freedom. Freedom to do what you love and choose your rewards.

With Zinn Rewards, you can redeem points for premium tech, outdoor gear, and gift cards to your favorite retailers. Find your Zinn and keep finding rewards that fit your lifestyle at Zinn.com slash rewards. Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.

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Don Levitard. That was a long story. Yeah. It's the only kind he tells. It's a short one for me. I tried to speed it up for you guys. You forgot about the League's Cup. Stugatz. Yeah. La Careta is a place where the best of the celebrations has to be the 97 Marlins celebration because it was Levante. Well, when Fidel died the first time. This is the Don Levitard Show with the Stugatz.

I mean, you're so busy yelling, you didn't hear Billy say that he would open it with a sword. That's a trick that people do, a party trick, and then you don't need to figure out how to do it. You just go, you go right across the edge of it, you go, and it shoots off. Can you guys get me a champagne bottle for Zazz to try and open here at some point? There's a lot of equipment. There's a lot of equipment. That's fine. Certainly we would have champagne here somewhere. Let's get to this crowd. I'm feeling pretty confident today. I'll do it.

We got the sword. Let's get to this crunky sound. What did you guys make of this? The Denver Nuggets owner saying this out of nowhere. For us as an organization, going into that second apron is not necessarily something that we're scared of. I think that there are rules around it that we needed to be very careful of with our injury history.

the wrong person gets injured and very quickly you're into a scenario where that I never want to have to contemplate. And that's trade number 15. And so, you know, we're very conscious of that pushing forward. Dan, it would be like, no, who was talking about that? Nobody but you, sir. There was nobody talking about that. I never want to contemplate this, but let me bring this up. Let me be the only one who's thought of it.

like something so out of the ordinary. It would be like asking Dan about his diet and say, you know what? I would hate to eat the wrong thing and then I have to divorce Valerie. Like, wait, what? Do you think there's a single person before that press conference that's attending that's like, I think he might mention Trey Njokic. I think if you're the PR person, you have to tell him, look, there's only one thing we're not going to mention today.

The only reason that doesn't get warned is because of the fact that no one would ever think it could even come to his mind. Very quickly, you're into a scenario where that I never want to have to contemplate. And that's trading number 15. You just contemplated. Sounds like he has contemplated it. No one was contemplating it. I want to never have to contemplate it. He's just spitballing in the middle of the press conference. To be fair, nobody... ...that I never want to have to contemplate. And that's trading number 15. Nobody thought about trading 77. That's crazy.

They contemplated, though. Again, though, no one spoke it before doing it, though, either. Actually, Tony brings up a point. If

If the Mavericks had said that, something similar, the news would have just pounced on it, and then you don't make the trade. So maybe now they see this reaction to this sound. It's like a weather balloon. Where he was maybe going to think about doing the trade. So it's more dangerous if the general manager has never mentioned it? Put the feeler out there. I think that they started receiving calls like, so I know you'd hate to contemplate this, but what is this going to take? Because, like, obviously...

he will be available at some point in time or you would not have said that, right? He's not going to be available. Hold on. Why would you say that unless it's a possibility? If you're running an NBA team and you don't make a call that day to be like, hey, so we kind of heard old Cronk say this crazy thing. How crazy is it? What is it going to take to make that crazy situation happen? You wouldn't be doing your job if you didn't check in, right? Billy –

What can I interest you with Tyler Hero and Bam out of bio for Jokic? Dude, this team is never going to trade Tyler Hero or Bam for anything. Not putting him in. Hightower? Highsmith? You stop it. Billy, did I hear a zip it up from you at Kronky this morning? Yeah, I mean, I didn't...

You should, right? Tell him, zip it up. Why are you even out there talking? Especially if that's what you're going to be doing. Zip it up. He can't be saying that. Can he be saying that? It's the one thing he can't say. He can say anything. He's the owner. I know, but why is he even talking? Because it was a press conference introducing their new front office, which Dan is going to get kicked out of this. Dan, their new front office is Ben Tenzer and John Wallace. Ben Tenzer, who I worked with at Summer League in 2012. John Wallace, who I scouted.

When he was at Georgetown. Did you get a kick out of that? Well, I want to examine that saying for a second. Jeremy, look up the origins. That's not how you get a kick out of it. That's not how you get a kick. What is getting a kick out of something? What is getting a kick out of something? Let me see that kick again. It's clicking the heels? No. What is getting a kick out of it? Is it when you whip a horse, you get a kick out of it? Yeah.

Like what? So, no, to answer your question, I didn't get a kick out of it. No? No. You don't think it's weird that people that I worked with or even worse that I scouted have now ascended to the very heights of running an organization? It's sad, honestly. The way you phrased it, it kind of made it sad because you're here. What? Nothing. So that I never want to have to contemplate it.

Tony's telling everybody that he thinks we should have all seen the Halliburton injury coming. I mean, it just feels so obvious, right? Like, we see what happens with KD, calf strain, Achilles. We see what happens with Jason Tatum. We see what happens with Damian Lillard. Now we see what happens with Halliburton. No, the calf strain isn't something you should be playing through. But it's a Game 7. It's a Game 7. We heard. You have to play. Everyone plays Game 7. It's what I live for. It's what I live for. I'm

I'm trying to figure out. I'm Mike Ryan. The other day. You're Mike Ryan. I've worked my whole life. I've worked my whole life. I'm insulted for Mike Ryan. I like that Mike Ryan. I like the limited fake Mike Ryan who looks like Bert Kreischer. All your life you lived for this.

It's where you live for. Game seven. Play. It's Micah Zass, though. That's what we were saying back here. That's the greatest of the characters. Micah Zass arguing with Zass. I'm offended by that. Not as offended as I was by the wizard before they traded for Middleton.

It just feels like more and more NBA guys are dealing with these Achilles injuries. And Jeremy had brought up a good point. Like, is that going to turn into the Tommy John of the MLB? Where now Achilles is the one thing that used to be a career killer. And now guys are going through it like if it's almost like a meniscus repair. It's like, all right, we're going to get scoped. Let's rename this. Who's the doctor? Who's the doctor that does these main surgeries? Is there one guy who does the Achilles? The doctor was Dr. Achilles. Let's call it the Hanes. Yeah. Dr. Hanes. What's his first name?

We need to rename this injury. We got the first Achilles injury. That's really the big one. Achilles. Achilles. Well, in the NBA, obviously, it's Achilles. But is it Kevin Durant? That's the first memorable one. So you call it Kevin Durant's injury? No, Wes Matthews had one. Isaiah Thomas, Dominique Wilkins, a lot of people had it. So we can go back. Hold on. But I want to ask, because you're saying, it's like Tommy John. The difference is guys get Tommy John, they come back, and they're fine.

Other than Kevin Durant, who's come back from the Achilles in, which is fine. But it used to be a death sentence in baseball, too. It's still a death sentence. So what I'm saying is this is the origin of it becoming Tommy John surgery. Because what started happening when you saw this ascension of guys getting Tommy John surgery, it was because of...

essentially what is AAU baseball because you had kids pitching and only pitching from a young age. You had guys throwing curveballs earlier at a younger age, specialized training for the specific muscle groups that only have to do with baseball, not playing all year long in different sports and training different muscle groups. And so you saw more wear and tear at a younger age,

on the UCL. Now in basketball, we're going through this wave here where we've talked about it. Guys like Jason Tatum, who have gone through AAU basketball and trained from a super young age on a specific group of muscles, and now you're seeing the wear and tear that comes from that. So you wonder if the specialized training and load management, in the same way innings management has only hurt the rate at which Tommy John has increased, and

I think that we're seeing sort of a similar pattern to what we saw at the beginning of this escalation of Tommy John surgery. But you can't predict that Achilles injuries are going to then become like Tommy John, where you now become back stronger. That's not necessarily what I'm saying. I'm saying more. I'm worried that this is the new. Hey, this is about to spike over 10 years because of the way we're training our players. So we did a whole episode of Basketball Illuminati that's out today about this, right? About this.

this concept that, because people say they need to shorten the season. And it's like, it's not the number of games. Thanasis ruptured his Achilles. You think it's because he was playing too many basketball games? No, it's because of training from a very young age, specialized training over and over again. And then the other part that you didn't leave in into the Tommy John conversation is,

It's an unnatural movement, right? Just like throwing a baseball. The elbow was not meant to have that amount of force and torque on it over and over and over again. And because people are bigger and stronger and throw harder, the pressures are even higher. Same thing with this Achilles. It's because...

Because the bodies are bigger, they're faster, they're more explosive. The human body was not meant to withstand all of that. And that's what's happening for sure. The one thing I was thinking about is, well, Tommy John, how'd they fix it? Well, they found this surgery that's amazing. So they didn't actually fix any of the other symptoms of like, hey, let's have the kids train less. Hey, let's have the kids...

be less specialized. No, no, no. We'll just have a surgery and then it'll be fine. We'll get it at 16. Here's the thing that you're not understanding, though, about the differences between the two things because you're not necessarily a baseball fan. Yes, both of the things are things...

the pitching motion more than anything. It's not meant to be done like that by human beings. But now we've gotten to the point in baseball where the big arm wants to have that surgery early and then resume his career, whereas the Achilles, there aren't

I fear that Halliburton will never be the same in terms of quickness again. It's not the death sentence it used to be. People come back faster than they did. But when the specifics of the surgery are one makes it better and one gets you back quicker.

but your lateral speed and quickness is not going to be the same, and he kind of needs it the way that he plays. That was my point. My point is baseball didn't solve the problem by addressing the symptoms earlier on that led to this. They just found a surgical procedure like, oh, good as new. And so basketball doesn't have that equivalent. We've got to address it earlier, but nobody wants to. I got a kid who's 14 playing AAU, and...

Like, you can't afford to be like, okay, now you're going to go play volleyball because all these kids are working year-round and they got trainers and they got – and they're AU and then high school and then all these other club teams that they're playing for. They are constantly working and getting better. You get left behind in the dust very easily.

So is it a bigger product of like can we diversify kids' game more or is that just dead in the water? Like you can't do that anymore. Like you're going to get to a point where your kid is playing basketball, Tony, and you're going to have a decision to make. It's like, okay, am I going to put my daughter in volleyball now or softball or whatever as a season switch so that we're not getting that wear and tear? She stays active, right? But she's still staying active. But what's going to happen is when she comes back to basketball –

All these other kids have been doing basketball the whole time, and it's like you're blown away by the skill level. I mean, like, it's crazy. I remember scouting, and you go months on the road watching college basketball, and at most you'd see one or two shooters per team. And now my kid, 14 years old,

every team we played against had at least three or four knockdown deadly shooters. I'm talking about in game. If I, if I have a window that's open this big on boom, I'm knocking it down. I'm like, holy shit. I remember you used to go to the park and like all day long. He's not a shooter. All right. He made a couple now close up. Now you got to stay at home on everybody all the time. And I asked my buddy who trains kids and I said, how,

how the hell did they get this good? And they said, they're all going to gyms and they got the gun and they're shooting a thousand shots a day on the gun. Like, well, Steph, Steph made it all possible. Like it doesn't make sense that he's on a magic carpet out there playing a different sport than anyone else and making it accessible to young people because now everyone wants to play that way. And we're living in the Renaissance of whatever that age is going to be in basketball.

You're already not liking how many threes they're taking in games, and smaller dudes are all going to do what Trey Young does. Because that's the only way for them to get into the league, is can I make it from 40 feet? And the evolution of those things is what makes a baseball now be thrown 103 miles an hour, and makes it now that it's not one or two guys you see shooting from the logo. Oh, there's Halliburton. He can do it too. They're all doing it. And baseball, by the way, another evolution in baseball is...

I don't need a guy who pitches seven innings anymore, right? We're just going to burn you out real quick, a couple innings, and then we're coming in and something else. They're discarded. Maybe that's another evolution in basketball. Desmond Bain's going to be a dinosaur in nine years. Desmond Bain, there are going to be 40 dudes in the league that can do what Desmond... Because if you're exploiting the market inefficiency of Orlando and Houston are only bad because they're the ones that can't make the shots from three. By the way, if we're talking about...

the way that it worked in baseball now there's no salary cap there right but the best teams in baseball even the dodgers have several positions at which they're platooning their depth is really their greatest strength what did we just see in the nba finals having an extreme amount of depth was more important because what if you can disperse minutes

And have a whole bunch of guys who are only playing 20 to 25 minutes who you actually genuinely trust. Well, you have fresher bodies. And that's essentially the same concept as, hey, your starting pitcher is only going to go two times through the order. And then we're going to mix and match with all these relievers who are fresher with the perfect matchup against the perfect guy. It's sort of the same concept. And I know for baseball, it's been a worse result for a lot of people.

You know what? I'm curious. I want to ask you guys a baseball question. What's the baseball equivalent of this? Because in basketball, somehow people saw that and said, it's the shoes. And I'm like, what are you talking about? You think high tops are going to save that tendon? What are you, an idiot or whatever? So what's the baseball equivalent where they blamed it on something that has absolutely— The sticky stuff. The sticky stuff. Really? We started blaming Tommy John on sticky stuff in the last five years when it got outlawed.

clearly part of the sort of leak to some of the bigger reporters and writers was like, talk about how the sticky stuff is a big part of what's happening with Tommy John. When really it's the fact that guys are chasing, throwing 105 miles an hour. It doesn't matter if they have the sticky stuff or not. The sticky stuff. That's what they refer to it as. Exactly what you think it is.

The sticky stuff. Like tar. Rosin? Yeah. Rosin tar spray. Little pine tar. Under one umbrella, the sticky stuff. Sticky stuff. Can you guys just get me the video real quick and just put it in the picture in picture of Joe Necro when they caught him on the mound scuffing a baseball and the umpires gathered around him and he took the nail file out of his back pocket and tried to throw it past the umpires.

Can you guys just get that video? What are you laughing about there Billy? Just a means face as soon as you said his name whose name Joe grow What Joe so he's on the mound. Okay, and the umpires are surrounding this Necro and He's clearly cheating

And he's got a nail file in his back pocket, and he tries to throw it past the umpires behind them. What are you talking about? The process was good. Exactly. The result was not good. So what do you mean, me? We've all been there. What? No, question. Did that happen before or after the naked gun? You remember the naked gun? He goes up to the guy because he's searching for the gun.

and the pictures got sandpaper and rosin and all this stuff on them. - I think Naked Gun was first. I was wondering if you guys were interested, did you like the trailer to Naked Gun with Liam Neeson where he's actually a badass but he's also doing the I eat too much fart jokes. He's doing Frank Drebin but he's also the guy from Taken, which is a funny evolution of Naked Gun. - So this is the amazing thing. Leslie Nielsen, a lot of people don't know this,

a dramatic actor, right? And so when he did Airplane, like part of the reason why that role hit so hard because everyone was looking at him like this very serious guy doing these dumb jokes like, Shirley, you can't be serious. I am serious. And don't call me Shirley. Right. So by the time he does Naked Gun, now he's effectively changed his whole career to I'm a comedic actor. I'm really rooting for, wow, look at that. Well done. You dropped that. That wasn't me. It's like, why do you have a nail file? Nobody did anybody.

He blamed it on Palermo. He blamed it on Frank. Look at Frank Palermo. He's like, what, that? Look at the Ops hand on his face. He was like, are we really doing this? It almost worked. Look, one guy sees it. Only one. Only one. It almost worked. And he goes to help him pick them up. Is this yours? It's so good.

He's got the inside out back pockets like me. I wouldn't cheat. He does almost go to pick it up like, oh, ump, you dropped something. Yeah, I'll help you. Oh, look. There it is. The point.

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