OKC Wins the Title, Haliburton’s Devastating Injury, the Durant Trade and NBA Draft Buzz With Ryen Russillo and Zach Lowe
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On Monday, it is still New York City month. I kept calling it New York month. It's really New York City month. We're trying to find movies that feel very New York City-ish. So we did Die Hard with a Vengeance, me and Ben Lathan and Chris Ryan. That is going to be running on Monday night. It was a really, really, really good one. Excited for you to listen to it. And then we have one more movie after for New York month that I'm trying to figure out, but we'll be taping that later this week.

So you can check out the Rewatchables and the Ringer Movies YouTube channel. It's also a video podcast.

And there you go. We have a bunch of NBA draft stuff. If you're into the draft, because where you're about to listen to our post game seven NBA finals podcast with a tragic twist, thanks to the terrible Halbert entry, but it's Ryan Rosillo and Zach Lowe coming up. Zach stays for the first hour. And then we're still, and I talk about the Kevin Durant trade plus the NBA draft. So that's coming up. It's two hours. We did it live on YouTube.

YouTube, but the ringer has all kinds of great stuff coming with the NBA draft this week. You can check out our NBA draft guide, which you can find on the ringer.com. You can check out the ringers NBA draft show. We're silo. You can check out the ringer NBA show, a whole bunch of stuff. So good draft this year. I'm giving this draft an A minus just from a storyline standpoint. So there you go. I'm going to be back on Tuesday and then probably Wednesday night after the draft. And those will be the podcast this week.

Zach Russillo coming up next. First, our friends from Pearl Jam after this break. This episode is presented by State Farm. It's no secret that great teams need great teammates. I've been saying this for years. And when it comes to insurance, State Farm is there to help you find the right coverage for your home, car, and more. Whether you need an in-person or digital assist, they're ready when life hits you with a full court press. Get a game plan that helps fit your life. Talk

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All right, we were recording live after the trophy celebration, Game 7, the NBA Finals. Ryan Rosillo is here. We brought in Zach Lowe for this one. We thought this was going to be a special night. It was definitely a memorable night. It was a sad night. It was a happy night for OKC fans, sad night for basketball fans. I've never watched a Game 7 like that in my life. Rosillo, I'm going to start here. I think...

This might be the first NBA playoffs that comes and goes where the team I'm going to remember is in the team that won the title. When I think of it first, as weird as that sounds, I can't think of another playoffs. You always think of the champ first. You go through, it's like 21 Giannis, 20 LeBron and the Lakers in the bubble. Like you go on through this one. I'll be thinking, okay, see when, but Indy, and there'll be right in the sentence with them.

Yeah, I wanted to wait until it felt like kind of a bummed out recap of game seven. But I guess it's it's already there because I think all of us that were watching as soon as you saw Halliburton go down.

You're like, all right, how are they going to do this? And then they're up at half. It actually felt like the Halliburton injury messed up OKC more than it did the Pacers. So that would be like the first thing that I had from the game. Like, are you guys seriously going to let this happen to you? Or it's the Doc Rivers theory, but it's Doc Rivers theory in game.

Well, and then on top of it, even when Indy's down, what was it? They were down like 18 late, Zach, in the fourth quarter. And Mathur made a couple plays. You're like, are they going to do this? Like, I wasn't counting it out. They're down 103.89 or whatever it was with four minutes left. I'm like, I don't know. Maybe they can do this. I literally went into the living room to watch

the last five minutes of the game with my wife and talk her through the Halliburton injury because she was watching it in the other room. I'm watching it in my office. So I'm like, it's over. And then I'm like, I look up the score. I'm watching math. And I said, I literally said to her, I think I might have to go back to my office and take this, like watch this with a little closer. I know this team would not go away. Man, the Halliburton. I mean, there's so many decade ramifications for this. Like obviously the Pacers next year, we can go into all that a lot later.

So did you think they, did you think they actually had a chance to win tonight when you watched the first five minutes pre-injury? What were your thoughts before he goes down?

Well, look, every single time somebody asked me about each one of these games, I would just go like this Pacers story is crazy. But eventually the talent and the defense of what OKC is. And I know a little bit later I want to share some of their statistical profile stuff from all these playoff games because you're like this team just won the championship. And it's because of this defense and it's because of that takeover in the third quarter. So I wouldn't rule out anything with the Pacers because we've all come away disappointed.

incredibly impressed and just their toughness and how they're built and who they are and their belief and all that stuff. So I think everybody just kind of raving about him on social media. But in those first few minutes, I thought there was like two things that were going to stand out. SGA was not ready for how much they collapsed on him in game six. It was pretty obvious he had a career high eight turnovers. And with his passing tonight, you could see that he had adjusted for that. How

However, OKC, all of these threes are wide open and they still miss them. This is their ninth game in these playoffs where they're 30% or lower from three point. But yeah, I guess I never really ruled anything out, even as Zach was saying, they're up

OKC is up 22. You're like, this thing's over. And then it's the Matherin show. And you're like, what the hell? Like in that five, that six to five minute mark, you're like, they've already chipped away 10 points on this thing. I was getting ideas, Zach, because two things. They were calling it tight early, which I thought if Indy had the recipe for Indy to win is, are they going to call it tight? Is OKC going to look tight?

And then could Indy come out, hit some threes and start? And they went to timeout and Halliburton was mean mugging the crowd. And I was like, okay, this is if Indy was going to steal this game, this is the recipe. And Indy, I think OKC was even four for 17 from three at halftime.

you know, and then the defense took over and that was it. I thought your question to Ryan was actually, did you think they had a chance to win after the injury and at halftime? I guess that's another question. Because my answer to your actual question is, of course, I thought they had a chance to win with Halliburton playing well. I thought this was like not quite a coin flip game. I predicted OKC by four. That was my random, you know, OKC really close prediction. Of course, I thought they had a chance to win.

And I don't think you're wrong to say the runner-up is as memorable or more memorable than the champion because this was like some sports magic stuff that happened to the Pacers. Like actual, and I'm not just talking about the crazy Halliburton end-of-game shots and buzzer beaters and miracle comebacks and all that. I'm talking about like, you know, I was talking to the GM of another team today and I was like, what do you take out of this Pacers thing? What do they win or lose? And he said,

We take hope because they are a study in like alchemy and the whole adding up to way more than the sum of its parts. Like something magical happened to them in the nexus of style of play slash unique superstar chemistry, toughness, how personalities and games all mesh together. It was like, it was magic. And when they're up one at halftime,

You allow yourself to think, like, are they actually going to do this? Now, I thought the whole time they just are not going to be able to score enough points. And Oklahoma City is not going to have to even play a good offensive game to win this game. They're just going to grind them to dust piece by piece by piece, drip by drip by drip. And that's what happened. But this was a magical thing that happened for the last two months, even extending into the regular season, obviously. And it's just, I mean...

It's just such a gut punch for it to end this way. I mean, the shot, I don't know if you guys are still watching, of Halliburton on crutches in the hallway and McConnell in tears hugging him is just... I know the Thunder are celebrating. They should celebrate. They were the best team all year. There's no question that it feels like everybody, including the Pacers and starting with the Pacers, was robbed of what should have been an epic, epic moment in the NBA. Yeah, it's...

As you know, I love sports movies. And there was that moment in halftime where you're thinking like, this doesn't even feel like a real life thing anymore. This actually feels like a sports movie. This is like watching the Friday Night Lights movie when they're going in the finals trying, and then they lose at the end. It's like, oh my God, those scrappy underdogs. The way they responded to losing their best guy

In the worst possible way, you know, it's almost, it's almost like you're getting hit by a sniper from the crowd or something when you go down like that. And to, and to just have them be like, shake it up and like, all right, let's, let's stay focused. Like, I don't know how you stay focused in a moment like that. Like it certainly this, when it happened to the Celtics a couple rounds ago, the game was basically over at that point.

But Indiana, they had 43 minutes left in the game. And I agree that I thought it affected both teams. How could it not? And OKC even a little more. And they were saying the crowd was kind of... Like, what do you do for the crowd? You know, the whole thing. Definitely one of the weirdest things I've ever seen in a big game. Rousseau, can you think of...

In any other, like this is a do or die game and you bring in this variable that nobody's expecting. I couldn't even concentrate on the next half hour of the game. Like I didn't even really take notes. I don't know. I was watching it and, you know, Indiana was hanging around, but I don't really know. I don't really know what happened in the first half. I was just like kind of stupefied. It was like, did that just happen?

These games, I think the last two, the first half's been played at such a frantic pace. And I don't know that that showed out in the pace numbers because that was a big thing that we talked about with the way pacers had run through the East because OKC was going to be comfortable doing some of that stuff. But I think the energy, right, the effort, the sheer effort that you see the pacers throughout, you either match it or you don't. And you see what happens in game six for OKC. And then it always felt like the games when they came out in the second half, like the last couple, it was just...

even though you just come off this break, you could see that that first half was like draining for all these guys. And, you know, I expected, I expected, okay, shoot, okay, okay. See to shoot it better because the role players are going to shoot it better at home traditionally. But I, I don't know, man, like it was, I think it actually speaks to the Pacers in that,

All they've done is fight now for months. And if Halliburton's going down, as much as the three of us can be sitting here and be like, how do you reset yourself? Like, because it happened so fast, like you're out there, there's nothing, there's no other game. And if anything, right, they've proven that they're going to respond. So I, yeah, at halftime, Nembhard hits that shot. Like they're up one.

They didn't even know how to talk about it at halftime when they're doing the halftime show. They're like, what's like, they didn't even ask Bob Myers. You were in this exact spot six years ago. I can think of one game, one thing they could have talked about at halftime. Well, I mean, it would have been how I led the show. Like Bob, this, you had KD coming back from a, from a calf strain in 2019. You were worried about it. He came back and he made the injury worse. Everyone was saying this wouldn't happen to Halbert. And then it happened.

I mean, I got to admit when he had the calf strain game five, I Googled all the Achilles injuries and there, it didn't seem like there was any sort of rhyme or reason to whether there was a connection or not. Some people are like, it's two different injuries, but this was exactly what happened to KD. It's hard not to think this was just the sequel to it. And yeah,

I mean, there's a bigger... But you think this one, you think this is different than KD just because it's game seven. It's a couple of minutes in. Well, I'm saying it's the same situation where he's coming back playing hurt on an injury that if it was the regular season, he's out for three weeks, four weeks, like he's resting it, but that he was playing on an injury he shouldn't be playing on normally. They were claiming it wasn't going to make any worse. And then, you know, it gets worse and worse.

I, I, I just don't know what's going on. They, I mean, this is a whole separate topic and it was one that I was texting with a bunch of different people on. It's like, where are these Achilles injuries coming from? These used to be old man injuries. They're not happening. These dudes are in the prime of their career and Tatum's case and Halliburton's case. And, and,

I just don't fully understand it. And I know that's going to be a huge topic over the next four or five days, but it's maybe some of the stuff we've talked about on past pods about how the sport's harder to play. There's more running, there's more training, and the miles that you're carrying are from AU is they're just more wear and tear in these guys. But it doesn't make sense to me why guys who are 24, 26, 27 years old are blowing out their Achilles.

Well, the other difference with Durant, too, is Durant hadn't played in a month and then he came back. And like Halbert, the reason it feels a little it doesn't feel that different to me. But the difference to Halbert just kept playing through this and played pretty well last game. But look, I mean, like it's a hard game to talk about because we should this should be a crowning moment for the Oklahoma City Thunder for just the greatest, quickest rebuild ever.

from, from the, from bottoming out kind of to utter dominance and having a team that is literally the best team ever, probably in all the professional sports, the best position to win now and win later of any team that maybe has ever existed. And it is their crowning moment, but like in 15 years, the number one thing we'll remember from this game is that Tyrese Halliburton in a game that we were all jacked up to watch got hurt seven minutes into the game. And in a game where all the casual fans are watching.

Like this was one of the, this is like my wife and my daughter are watching this one. My dad's here. My dad and I got to watch Keegan Bradley somehow get back, come back on Tommy Fleetwood in the Hartford open today. And that was, that was a fun sports moment. This was not as fun to watch Halliburton go down. I don't know, Rosillo, what the OKC piece of this, I think Zach makes a crucial point that this might be the beginning of

you know, a half a decade run. I feel like you and I have talked about this after titles before. Like we did this, we talked about this after the Denver finals. I remember like, Jesus, Jokic, Murray, they're both so young. Like we kind of do this after every finals, but in this case, with how young they are, I didn't feel like they've peaked with whatever their core is. It feels like that's two years away. So this is pretty unique. There's no reason to think that this is Jalen Williams peak. There's certainly no reason to think that it's Chet's peak. I mean, offensively,

He was so good defensively tonight, especially when he closed that one out. The Pacers wanted to go small because they wanted to be chaotic. They wanted to try to challenge all of the inbounds. I mean, OKC didn't have a timeout. Caruso couldn't get the ball in, so they weren't going to have a timeout the rest of the game. SGA's got the fifth foul, which is another thing at that five-minute mark.

park, you're going, what if the, and like TJ went right at him on the next possession. I'm like, if he fouls out, like this has been four guys on the thunder, all looking to get the ball back to SGA for about an hour and a half here. So like, what's that going to look like? Um, and it real weird part of me was like almost rooting for SGA to foul out. Just be like, all right, here we go. Like Caliburn's out as J's out. Like, let's see what happens here. Um, but

Yeah, I don't always love the... It was kind of a Mission Impossible line that I had where when the eighth one comes out, you can't say this is the third best one ever. You have to say that it's the best Mission Impossible. Nobody's going to do that and have it be in the ad. And no one can just win a championship without the follow-up questions of how real is this? And a lot of times, it's total bullshit. It's a waste of time. It's a Monday topic after a championship. It's not good enough to just celebrate the championship. But as Zach said...

considering what they've done, how they've built this, how young this team is, what the youngest team in 40 plus years to win a championship like this. And even with a couple of warts, you know, that their defense seems to solve and we can say now solves enough for them to win a championship. It's totally reasonable to look at them and go, all right, you know, of all the teams in the West, I know we'll get to the East later because Sixers fans must just be like, all right,

Is this the year? There's no reason to think any of that stuff. Normally, that post-championship discussion, I just think is so fatiguing. And this one is completely relevant. Well, can you imagine if they had ended up with Philly's pick?

If they had the seventh pick with all the Ace Bailey drama right now, I'd be like, are they going to fucking get Ace Bailey? Is that where we're headed with this? I mean, that seventh pick, especially, I know Rossello has been grinding tape. I think even our guy, Zach Lowe has been grinding. A little bit. Grinding is strong. Whatever is like a little softer and grinding. Yeah. Spanish sanding.

Yeah. But that seventh pick is, you know, you might really get a dude there. So maybe that's the one silver lining with this. Okay. Sea piece. Zach, one thing I liked about them today, I thought, you know, Jalen Williams was bad in the first half, but really came on second half. SGA was great the whole game. I really liked everything he did today. And then Chet was great.

You know, you win the title, you want your best guys to have a good game in the biggest stage. I do think we're going to have a complicated relationship with this as a game seven, though, because you think back to all the game sevens from the past and the first thing that jumps to your mind with each one, like 2016, LeBron, the block, Kyrie's shot, and you just go through and it's in this one, you're probably going to think about Halliburton first and then probably SGA second. What else? What would be the takeaways other than that?

Well, SGA, you know, greatest 8 of 27 shooting game of all time. Like, it snuck up on me how bad he shot from the floor. But he made 11. He made a shot for the last 40 minutes, right? But 11 free throws, 12 assists, one of the best passing games of his career. Yeah. J-Dub, like you said, recovered from a shaky first half, pretty dominant second half. And Chet was just everywhere defensively. And just their wealth of defensive talent. When they don't play Joe at all,

it's like what am i even supposed to do against this team it's just what like that guy made all defense that guy made all defense those four would have had they been eligible but they didn't play enough games like what am i even supposed to do and that's like the ultimate tribute to this team is the one thing that's consistent game in and game out is the puzzle that no team could solve four times in seven games is oklahoma city's defense no team was able to solve it maybe the pacers

Who knows what happens if Halliburton doesn't get hurt? Do they put up a better fight? Obviously. But this is a tribute to how good the defense was. With 11-22 left in the game, Shea hit a step back three. 84-68.

I wrote in my notes, zero test by that. And which, by which I mean, could they not score the rest of the game and still win? Is, is, is, is Indiana even going to get to 84? And they did get to 84. They got to 91, but like, I actually thought could the Pacers pitch a shutout for 11 minutes and 22 seconds and still not win the game. Well, what was it that had that stretch where TJ was the only guy that scored for

It was like 10 minutes. 10 plus minutes of the game. And like Pascal, I...

It shows you how great Halliburton is. He is the straw that serves the drink. His combination of the threat to shoot off the dribble from 30 feet, the instant getting off the ball passing, the unpredictable movement. It's like without him, they're not the Pacers. And they did enough to stay in the game for a half, but their backup plan just wasn't there. The separation that Siakam thrives on, all the gaps he sort of darts through when they open up. They don't open up without Halliburton.

Yeah, see, Occam hit that three, right? So there was that weird near-shock-clock-violation three that Dort hits, and it's ridiculous. All right? And it was off another one of these kind of like...

like messy, just get it back to SGA. Like there were a lot of offensive possessions here for OKC or I was like, the other four guys have zero interest in doing anything and just hoping SGA figures it out. So I think I'm with both of you guys that if you look back at the box score on this one and be like, SGA didn't really have that great of a game seven and shoot it. It's like, yeah, but he's dictating everything. It's like a bad Steph Curry shooting game where you're like, okay, but he's still so important to everything that's happening. And I do think there was an adjustment and his willing to pass because only had two assists in game six.

So Siakam comes right back and hits that three, I think about 1030 left in the third quarter. And at the time, I'm like, if the Pacers pull this off, like I wrote it down, it was like, this will be such a monstrous three because Dort shouldn't have hit that one. It just goes in.

From that 10-30 moment on, even though TJ is just dicing everybody up, because even in game seven, the secondary defenders still weren't ready for this TJ McConnell fucking show. It's unbelievable what he did. He scores all those points in a row. Siakam did not take another shot in the third quarter until that thing at the very end with five seconds left. Now, he did sit for five minutes. So then when I thought, okay, he got that rest, he wasn't a big part of the offense because everybody's kind of watching TJ go off, I was expecting him to try to

get that push and very early in the fourth quarter, he gets a possession and

And you can see that he wants to be aggressive. It's not him checking out. It's him not, you know, like being afraid of the moment. It wasn't any of those things. But he gets into this position where Chet comes over, just swallows him up. And Siakam twice had these two early positions in the fourth quarter where he's like, this is, to Zach's point, like, oh, shit. Like, everybody's paying attention to me now, and I'm not going to be able to just cut off his halibut and dicing everybody up and just breaking the paint.

Well, that was the fun part about that McConnell stretch when he scored all those points. But I think he also had at least four turnovers and they were just like, if you ever wanted your answer on, could McConnell be Jalen Brunson on the Knicks? If you geared your offense around him, we're throwing everything we have at stopping him. I think he had the two turnovers in a row and hit the three threes when they blew it up. And all of a sudden they're up nine. And they were just coming at him, coming at him.

And it was like, oh man, the clock struck midnight for poor TJ McConnell. And then he scored 10 straight points. He was like, no, I'm just going to go to the basket over and over again. And was just fighting these guys off by himself. But yeah, I thought the thing they miss, I mean, on top of all the other stuff you miss with Halbert, and they just don't get fast breaks without him.

You know, they couldn't push. They couldn't push the pace at all. And if it's going to be a half court game, OKC is beating anyone except maybe Denver if we're just going half court versus half court. And that's how Denver was able to hang with them. What else do we need to talk about? OKC wise, Zach, is there a way for them to get better in your opinion? Oh, absolutely. What would be your number one move? Well, I think, I mean, you know,

The talking points are always, well, Chet's just scratching the surface of what he can be offensively. And, you know, he did not shoot the three, maybe one or two from three today, did not shoot the three well in the playoffs again. And J-Dub still has levels to get to as the second and third guys.

I think just along with that, those guys getting better offensively comes a... They still have molding of a general offensive system to do that doesn't default all the time to just like, Shea, can you do something at the end of the clock? And I think that's what Ryan was talking about earlier, of just the dependence on his one-on-one game, the synergy between Shea and J-Dub. We saw them run a few pick and rolls in this game like they did at the end of...

Game five, I think it was when they when they cracked the defense a little bit with that. I just think like just building out the offense is the thing that would scare me about the Thunder if I were all these other teams in the West trying to load up and compete with them is that they still have as a collective language.

levels to get to. But look, I mean, the Halliburton thing is also a reminder that even, I mean, the Thunder are probably going to be the exception given how well they are set up now and later. But like, none of this stuff is guaranteed. That's what's heartbreaking about this Halliburton injury. Like, it's not, like, when was the last time the Pacers were in the finals? There's no guarantee they'll be back at this stage ever in Tyrese Halliburton's career. Like, none of this is guaranteed to you, not even to the Thunder. And that's why

getting all the way here after all this grueling stuff and having an MA, it just sucks. Like, it just objectively sucks. I would also add, like, I'm happy for Presti because it was always the annoying guy and I'm using that as just the

catch-all annoying guy of like, oh, if he's so good, you know, dot, dot, dot. And you're just like, shut the fuck up. Okay? And to think of what Zach's talking about with Halliburton, like I thought about it too. It's like, what's the likelihood Halliburton gets back to the NBA Finals? Like, it's far more unlikely than likely, just the way this stuff plays out. And if you're a Thunder fan, and it's not like I have this decades-long sympathy for Thunder fans the way you would maybe say like the Cleveland Browns or something, but

For that group to have Katie Westbrook, Harden, Serge, and make it to the NBA finals in 2012 and feel like they were competitive, right? Even though it was a five-game series. And you're kind of leaving there going, all right, you know, we got some of that playoff seasoning and we're good. And imagine like telling anybody, imagine telling press to be like, the next time you guys are going to be here is in 13 years.

So it's like, it's just an amazing rehabilitation. Yeah. I was, when they were watching, watching everybody hug and celebrate and prep, they showed Presti hugging SGA. And you think back to that summer when, and Ryan and I were doing pots together that summer. Um, and all the focus was on the Clippers trade and man, okay. So he did well for themselves because they had hit a dead end. The Westbrook era was done. This, this, that there was it, there was no chance to win a title with Westbrook and Paul George and whoever else they had.

Um, and to be able to parlay that into what they did with weirdly an umbilical cord to that 2012 finals that Ryan's mentioning, where it does feel like it's somehow connected to that era because they took that era as far as they could. And then they turned all the assets into, uh, the rest of it. I do want to point out they did. I mean, did you feel like this was OKC's first title or their second Zach? Just a, just question. I don't get the question.

OKC won the title today. Is it their first title? Is it their second title? I'm not going to wade into these waters with you. No, you're wading in. It's a question. You have to answer it. It's their first NBA championship. OK, there we go. This is my Minneapolis Lakers case or something. But does anyone disagree on this one? Nobody in OKC and the fans are like, we got our second one. The franchise has number two. No one's fighting with you on this one, right? Yeah, but this is the Minneapolis Lakers point. They still claim the five Minneapolis Lakers titles. Whatever. Jack Sick was seventh in MVP voting that year.

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Can we fast forward to how weird the East is next year and then circle back and talk about the finals? I don't know how long Zach's staying because he's on East Coast time. We have to talk about this. No, but I'm glad you're doing it this way because, and I just want to say this before we go forward. I'm glad we're doing this right after the heat of the moment and after the trophy presentation because it's going to go down as a weird podcast.

And it's weird because we don't know how to talk about the game. Like what you said before about I was just in a haze for like an hour after Halliburton got hurt. So this should be a strange podcast that jumps from like, hey, who's favorite in the East next year with all these injuries to what do we think about the Thunder's legacy as a champion to poor Tyrese Halliburton? Because it's a hard thing.

it's just a strange moment to be, to talk about. So I'm glad we're getting strange. Let's talk about the freaking East next year. Yeah. So, so two pieces. The first piece is the Halliburton piece, um, out for next year. No question. Heartbreaking. Uh, I was so bummed out. Like, I just couldn't believe it. I like it. Cause you knew right away. It feels like we've seen enough of these that as soon as you saw the calf shimmy, you're like, Oh my God, really? This is happening. Um,

For him, he just went through this whole eight, nine month thing where he went from basketball fans knew who he was. Wasn't really a household name to like, I felt like he became a legitimate star. He became the face of a team that we all loved. Even if you weren't a Pacers fan, you have your own thing. Like this was the front man of a team that I think was the biggest winner of this entire NBA playoffs that didn't win the title.

And now he's just gone. We have no idea when he's going to be. It'll be 18 months before we see him play basketball again. And I just can't believe this is how this worked out, Russillo. Where you have somebody who's, it's like watching some, like a summer movie where they're promoting this movie coming, this movie coming, this so-and-so. And it's like, oh man, this guy's the new Superman. He's going to be a big star. And then that's it. We just don't see him. I just can't believe this is how it happened. Yeah, because I couldn't even start thinking about the East until like halftime.

Cause then it crept in my head and I knew we probably should have to do some of this. Cause yeah, I think all three of us are like,

You know, it's not like we're a thunder podcast. You know, sometimes like I think of the sports center rules, the arguments I would get into the radio show back in the day of like, well, this team won. It's like, so what are we supposed to do? Just say they were awesome for seven minutes. Like what's the actual topic? And we've gone, we've all on our own podcast. We've all talked about all the reasons that are awesome. I mean, the East was weird before this Halliburton injury. We were like, what's going to happen with the East next year? We had no idea. Now it's three times weirder.

Well, maybe I could guess that Zach, the GM you were talking to, wasn't Kobe Altman if he was like, this gives us hope. Because it felt like a team that didn't have high-end talent. And after Cleveland gets a win. Are you excited for the potential LaMelo Ball, Jalen Green backcourt down the line? Yeah. LaMelo Ball, Conn Knipple. Yeah. Let's go. Can Knipple and Jalen Green work together? I don't know.

But if you're looking at everything that we said in the moment with Cleveland, you're like, another disappointing early exit. Incredible regular season profile. Clearly Garland is even more hurt than we realize because I missed time in the next season. But I would always talk with you about it and be like, you know, most of the GMs are just going to go, hey, we really like our four guys. We spent a ton of money on the fifth guy and Hunter. We added shooting and all these different things. I mean, Ty Jerome's probably gone, but

We'll probably just run it back, even if we seem a little flawed and it's embarrassing that we lost that series of the Pacers, even with the Garland injury. Now, if you're Cleveland, you're just going, well, of course we're running it back now.

Who are you afraid of? Tatum's out, Halliburton's out, and the Knicks just had a coaching change, and God only knows what's going to happen with them. Dame's out? Does that even, I mean, if you think that matters or not. Yeah, that's part of it. That's definitely 100% part of it. And Orlando, who does this Bain trade, and now they're like, Jesus. Did you see the Orlando odds went from 30-1 to win the title to 12-1? After the injury? My God. Come on. Well, this is one of my subplots that I talked about last week is like,

And it's even more relevant now. Is there another Bain-style move coming for like a random team? Not that Orlando was a random team. I thought Orlando would have been a 50-win team this year had they stayed healthy. So they're above that. But like, are the Hawks going to be like, hey, you know what? How many picks we got? Like, can we go get, I don't even know who it would be. Can we go get this guy, that guy? Like, why not? Do you want to do some Hawks trade exception talk? Oh my God. Because there's like 25 million. Yeah, they could fit Dylan Brooks right now.

We'll take them. Think bigger. I don't know. No, I'm just, you know. I think smaller when it comes to trade exceptions. Because I was reading some free agency thing the other day and it's like, oh, it's like, okay, right. So the $25 million player has to be another guy that costs that much. The other team doesn't want anything back for a value. I'm ashamed to admit the only reason I know about that trade exception is I was looking at three-way deals with Drew going to Phoenix.

And Dylan Brooks going to Atlanta and the Celtics getting Royce O'Neal and saving like $23 million. I gave it a test drive on the trade machine. I'm not saying it's a trade that could happen, but I was trying to figure out some. I mean, I can't wait to talk about it. I probably should have. Maybe I could screenshot it and put it on Instagram. But yeah, if you're Cleveland, you have...

like a legitimately embarrassing loss you win 64 games and you just go out you get basically sucker punched in round two and then after that happens tatum go as that's happening tatum goes down halbert goes down and the knicks got only we still don't know who their coach is um so you're saying calves 73 and nine mixture let's put the pressure on them now

let's, uh, let's run. And then Orlando, I think is feeling good. And then I think you guys are right. Like there's going to be some wild card East team. We've had some fun trades where teams who weren't in it were like, maybe we're, maybe we're a contender and they'll just do something crazy. I'm not playing bowls. Yeah. They start calling them. What's going on with Julius Randall and you guys?

Hey, look, man, Toronto, Toronto took Yaka Purtle off the table for Kevin Durant. Like, I don't, I don't know if I don't, maybe Toronto is not our candidate for a wild trade. If you're taking Yaka Purtle off the table and Kevin Durant trade talks, it's, you know, maybe, maybe real. That was real. Yeah. It's a real thing that happened. And it was the Miami thing real that Sean said, cause that like that Haywood Highsmith and,

What do you say? No. Yeah. That one was Sean's with Miami was no one was available. Tell me, tell me what he said. I didn't see it. He's basically saying like, they were like, we'll give you Wiggins Wiggins and a contract and the 20th pick. Like they basically offered nothing. It sounds like somebody is a little anti-potal.

I like Yaka Pirtle just fine. I'm just like, do you want Kevin Durant or not? Why am I on the phone with whoever's taking calls for the Suns? If Yaka Pirtle, who, what is he, the 16th best starting center in the NBA? 12th? 9th? 18th? I don't know. I don't know.

I'd certainly would not take them off the table for anyone who averaged over 20 points a game last year, much less 25, 26, 27. Yeah. So he ended up going to Houston. We're going to talk about that later, but yeah. So Cleveland Orlando, I, I mean, and then you look at the Pacers, they have this magical run. It's amazing. And now, you know, no Halbert next year. Not a lot of ways. Detroit 50, 58 wins next year for the Pistons. I mean, let's go.

Ron Holland, year two. Our guy. Is there anyone else now that Durant's off the table that you feel like is an elevator for a team like Detroit, for instance? We've already had two. We've already had Bain and Durant traded. I'm looking at the standings. I mean, it's going to be hard to find...

a team that's like motivated to sell, let's call it like the Jeremy Grant line, a team that's motivated to sell a player that's better than Jeremy Grant. Like, I think we all agree. Jeremy Grant's a nice NBA player from a team that might at some point want to pivot away from him, but also not a guy who you're going to be like, Whoa, they got that guy. That changes my, my whole thinking about the team and the Memphis guys seem to be somewhat off the table.

I think your best candidate would be marketing, right? Like just like if they decide just this, this is on Collins is Collins above or below the Jeremy grant line below. I don't mind him. I think it's an expiring contract too, but the grant thing, you're taking on some real money and that's like over 90 billion. So I'm not, I'm not as excited for that. I know for solo as a GM, he would have, uh,

He would have already scouted all the eight and post-ups from last year. Try to talk yourself into it. The other place to look is like DeRozan to me doesn't do it, but the Levine, is there any big Zach Levine fan disguise changing? Is he above the Jeremy Grant line? I think he probably is, but not by as much as his sort of raw stats would suggest, I don't think. Well, he's playing for his number one fan right now in the VAC.

So we're still, how far below the Jeremy grant line? Do you have Bradley Beal? Is it, is it like you go into the basement and then there's a special freight elevator where you have to go another, it's like nobody knows about the elevator. Then you go another three floors down. If I could do Beal for grant, I'd make a grant statue. If you're, if you're Phoenix. Yeah. You don't even have to play. And then he would veto it after you made the trade. Yeah. Um, I, um, so, um,

You know, one of the reasons is that Durant trade happened was because the draft is somehow three days from now. It's on a Wednesday night. We just had a game seven. It's that we have a 72 hour. And so Phoenix wanted that 10th pick.

I still feel like Dallas has Dallas is the one I'm watching because I just don't think the roster that they have is going to be the roster they start October with. And I don't know whether it's going to be Gafford or Clay or PJ Washington or what they do, but I just feel like there's some sort of move with them. And I think Gafford would have real value. But, but I'm talking about like, that's not,

catapulting. That's below the Jeremy Grant line. But I think Dallas is the most likely trade. And then I think Sacramento, I'm always going to be on the edge of my seat waiting to see what they do. I didn't think we were going to do a Gafford-Grant debate, but I mean, Gafford probably means more for certain teams than Grant would because as talented as Grant is, he also can be a little Tobias Heresy.

Look, I just want to apologize to the listeners. We're all just part of my basketball soul just evaporated during the Tyrese. And now my brain is broken. And I'm going to say a following the following sentence out loud on a podcast an hour after the Thunder won the championship. Um,

Does anyone know what's going on with Zion Williamson? If we're talking about the Jeremy Grant line and tradable guys, like is he, do the Pelicans want him? Joe Dumars is somehow now the GM of the Pelicans. Like, do we know what's happening there? Because I guess that's another name we should at least be like, that guy could change. If he ever actually played, he could change some, change some themes. Well, Rosillo is our number one Zion expert. I know he's been monitoring it. Yeah. I still think ownership really likes the idea of him there.

and they feel burned historically.

with other big names asking out and having great stories. But, you know, again, I don't know that because Baron Davis was good after, I'd be like, we have to keep Zion. I personally would just be like, hey, it's time to move on from this. Even though I think all of us, when it's good, we love watching it. I've referenced that Minnesota regular season game when he was back and he was spry and ready to go. And I was like, this is a fun, fun game. But there's also like a basketball question with Zion because the best version of him is when he's your point guard.

And you just let him go point Zion and he kills everybody. No one can stay in front of him. And the funny thing is like, you play off of him because he can't shoot. And that's normally what you do against somebody who's a penetrator, but you actually are allowing him to get a running start. So it kind of backfires. So you then have to close out on somebody who can't shoot. And then I've always kind of liked his passing, but yeah, look,

If he were healthy, we could probably have this conversation about him. But I do think that there's a fair conversation about what he would actually bring to an already established team if we just got to clear out and let him go a much taller, more athletic version of T.J. McConnell. As great as T.J. McConnell has been throughout this series, I didn't think I'd ever see five-out T.J. McConnell just beating up on a defense player in the restricted area and a team being like, this is how we want to run our offense. This is our identity.

What Zach, if you had to make a documentary about anything about the 2025 finals would just the TJ just trying to,

Trying to figure out how this guy was attacking one of the best defenses we've seen in the last 40 years and getting shots that he wanted. Just trying to understand that. That's like a two-hour doc. Apologies to the listeners again. But there was like... Two and a half years ago, he would not shoot. He did not want to shoot. And then sometime last season, I don't know if he flipped a switch in his head, if Rick Carlisle flipped a switch in his head, he was like...

I'm going to go get me some buckets and I'm like going to be an elite isolate. Forget picks. I don't even need picks. I'm just going to isolate like I'm a 6'8 wing and I'm going to get buckets on fucking everybody off the bench and play my way into the six man of the year conversation. I've never seen a transformation like it. The Thunder just won the NBA championship, by the way. So, so, Ludo would be the only...

Well, Lou Dort would be the only thing if they had to try to save money with extensions. That's the only move. And I just wouldn't trade him. He's beloved. He's beloved. And I'll tell you this about Lou Freak. He's also too important on what they do. To me, it's a non-starter. You know what we can say about Lou Freak and Dort? You can say a lot of things about Lou Freak and Dort.

But you could never say he will stop shooting threes if he goes into a slump. That dude is going to keep on shooting contested three after contested three after contested three, right? And he doesn't care if he's missed six and oh, he shoots with the conscience of like Klay Thompson. Just like, of course, I'm going to make like the next seven that I take. I love it. It's weird. I always feel like they're going in.

You do? I do. I don't know why. I just... There's something about him. He's got a very specific launch angle where there's some where you go, whoa, whoa. Like this is... He is playing this one up.

I did have a list of to-dos for the Thunder had they blown this, which I wrote some of that stuff down. First, one of the reasons they can't get rid of Lou Doerr, even though it's been suggested if they want to get really clever and constantly stay in front of this and allow themselves financial flexibility, I would be afraid to see what the personality of this team is without Lou Doerr.

Yes. Okay. Because every team needs a badass and he's still kind of a quiet badass. He's not an outward emotional guy. And at the times when I was wondering what the hell's going on with this team, like what's, what's wrong with the thunder right now? And it's like, are they too casual? Are they still a little too chill? Is that still even something that's fair to say about a team that just won an NBA championship? Because clearly it's not so detrimental that it prevents them reaching the ultimate goal because they just did it an hour ago. But,

it's part of the door conversation because this is, it's like taking Draymond away from prime Stephen Clay. As great as those dudes were, you needed somebody who was always on edge. And I think every team needs one of those guys. And Chet's certainly not ready to be that guy. I don't even know if that's in his personality physically. Like I'm so excited about Chet when he can actually hold his position. Cause I mean, it's just a nightmare for him trying to hold up, which looked a lot better when the other team went small tonight, but,

The Dort thing I think is really interesting because I'm with you. Like you would hear, could they get in front of that? And I think they desperately need his personality. Yeah, because he's the reason you do it is I think he's up to like 20 million a year and you could just, you have guys on your bench that are cheaper replacements. That's it. That would be the only reason. But Zach and I went to game four and in the second half of that game, he, I thought he was the MVP of the game, him and Caruso. They just took the game over with their,

you know, by, by just being like alphas on defense and like a really specific way, like the way they carried themselves to what, what they try to do to Halburton. I mean, one of the complaints I had about this series was there was very little bad blood shit talking, anything, all the stuff that we're just used to in a final. It was a very polite series. Um, and now I thought the second half of game four was the only one when they

really ramped it up where it felt like a little more, a little more personal. I don't know, Zach. So if they keep him, then you have all these young guys on the team that

I guess it is what it is. It seems great. Yeah. I was going to say we can, we can pitch. There might be some topage minutes somewhere, maybe some garbage time stuff. I don't know how they change. They have 15 contracts next year, like 13 guaranteed contracts. And then AJ Mitchell and big Jalen Williams are team options. That's 15 dudes. That's all you can have on an NBA roster. I think the guy to look at for like,

How do they re reorient the roster a little bit to just not be a second apron team and just get crushed by luxury tax more so than Dort is Hartenstein's player team option rather for 28 and a half million and 26, 27. Maybe, you know, I, I'm not saying they would decline that. I just think like, that's, I'm sure that some part of their brain is like,

It would be really great if two years from now, he was not super essential to our, like Chet had ascended and the rest of our team had ascended where it's not like super essential to pay another center this much money.

And I bet Dort would take a decent team-friendly deal, too, when it comes time. The Hartenstein signing felt like the cap scheduling signing that we see a lot of teams do, where it's like, before we have to extend all of these guys, let's just use the space now, add the asset. You've got to have the owner sign off on it, but

He's a really big story. Remember last year, their fatal flaw felt like the rebounding. The rebounding rate numbers were atrocious. They weren't great this year. They weren't very good at all in the playoffs, but

And he wasn't very good in the finals. No, I really think he became, you know, they ran the first two plays for him where game six, it was a hard roll. And then they did the same thing tonight, but they weren't able to get it to him. And sometimes when I see that kind of stuff, it's like they want to set the tone to have him be a little bit more engaged offensively. And even his passing is really good. But, you know, it's one thing when you're running your regular season offense through him 30 feet away from the hoop and he's kind of passing over the top of defenders if you're caught up in some sort of scramble. But,

you could see Dagnall with just trying to go away from him. You know, I mean, he started the series of them on the bench, you know, so that's a really expensive luxury to have for a team that's going to have to pay a ton of other guys.

So that special portion of today's episode where we looked at these conference was brought to you by loom by at last hand with video messaging from loom. You can trade out these novel length emails and back-to-back calls and finally stop feeling stuck at work. Simply record whenever you need to share with your team. No video production or editing skills are needed. It has easy to use skills and AI features to help you make it exactly what you want. Get them back on track. Try loom today at loom.com. That is L O M.com. Uh,

Zach, I don't know how long you're staying, but we got to talk SGA really fast here because he is the first since Shaq 2000 scoring title MVP finals MVP. And the problem with, with SGA is there's not a lot of controversy with him. There's not a lot to say. There's no zags. He's just scoring 30, 32 a game. Sometimes it can get a little one dimensional, but I feel like that's,

Probably the fault of his team. Like we're so laid out earlier. Uh, his assist stuff was really good today, which is a theme that we've seen in the, as we get, especially these finals games that happened with Tatum last year, where the unselfishness really comes out as like a,

but is there another level for him to go to, or is this it? No, I mean, look, it's hard to have another level from MVP, uh, in a year where, in a year where Jokic had the year that he had and you still want MVP and it wasn't like an outrage. Um, uh, I,

I think he stepped up his three-point volume this year. And if you could marry that with some better three-point efficiency, he'll continue to grow as a playmaker. I like the stuff they were doing out of timeouts with him off the ball. We would talk about that on podcasts where he would set back screens like he knew. But there's like, what else are you supposed to do? I do think it's kind of cool.

The whole foul grifting thing kind of faded. It wasn't a talking point at all in the finals, and I didn't feel like it needed to be. He wasn't shamefully going for fouls, and I think that was always kind of overblown. It was cool that that just vanished as a storyline. Yeah. What do you guys saw? No one talked about Nembhardt trying to get fouls. Just a little counterpoint there. Decent zag. Yeah. Not even a zag on that one. 8.9.

It's funny because Tatum, the Tatum conversation always felt like, hey, he's really good and he's never going to be the best player in the world. And it's OK. And the Celtics were always ahead of schedule playing deep into the playoffs. And then it was like, yeah, but you actually think they were going to beat some of these teams. These conference finals are great. There's there's a heat or two one in there that you're like, OK, what went what went wrong there, especially a couple of years ago. But.

It felt like Tatum and maybe it was because of the Olympic stuff where it was like, if this guy is so good, you know, the cool thing for SGA, because it all feels very on schedule with this team.

Because as you said, which I think another thing we need to give the Thunder a ton of credit for, is I've heard people talk about them like, oh, they tanked. They had Chris Paul that one season. They get to game seven of the first round against Houston, and then they have two down years. And then they're right back into it to being competitive. This is one of the quickest resets ever. And again, when you nail on the same draft Chet and Jalen Williams to go with a guy who's going to be MVP, that's crazy.

It's pretty good. Like a lot of the hard stuff is done on your to-do list and building out a roster. So,

However, this team has been around. This isn't like and this may have led to some of the lack of interest that it wasn't the best player in the game at a young age trying to finally get over the hump. Or it wasn't one of the guys who was considered the best player in the game. Like imagine Giannis without a ring being in the NBA finals in 2026. And it's like, man, now maybe with him not being American, that would be a little different. But there seems to be a need for some dramatic buildup.

And the funny thing is this all feels very, very on schedule. Like it makes sense that they, I think they still should have beat Dallas last year. They didn't. They housed Minnesota. We start to think, okay, this Pacers thing's probably over. It ends up being a terrific series. But them winning this in this year, in this form, even though I still want a little bit more from the guys around him, it's just so like,

Like, there's nothing disruptive about it at all. It's ahead of schedule. It's ahead of schedule. You think it's ahead of schedule? If anything.

I mean, the team is supposed to beat him. Well, I'm just saying the team to your teams don't get this good this fast with this many young players. And even Shea's turning 27 in like three weeks. He's still like not like just entering his traditional prime. Yeah, but it's basically their second playoff run. So from that standpoint, just based on how the league works, it's how the league works. I would say, yes, they were the favorites. Yeah. But based on the competition. Yeah.

Um, but it is weird that they didn't have their version of, you know, the, the, the Steph game in 22, 22 against that Celtics team. Like there's just like the heartbreaking loss. The closest they came to is Shea Fowling. Who's at PJ Washington in the corner on the three.

That was their heartbreaking loss. Usually you have a couple years of those and they just didn't. Flashback to two years ago when Denver wins the title. If you had said who wins the championship next, who wins the championship sooner, the Nuggets again or the Thunder? We would have all said the Nuggets, of course. The Thunder, their play-in team. Before the Zeke Nagy extension, though. The play-in, the leap last year, it's a complete

It's a fair point. Again, they were crippled by one $8 million extension completely paralyzed. The play in team to what they were last year is that's the mega leap. I mean, they made another mega leap this year, but that was the one where I was like, you saw it coming. I didn't think they would make that leap that fast. And that that's like a massive, massive jump. Yeah, I went I remember doing this before two seasons ago, just trying to figure out was it realistic and looking at history and

And there were some pretty decent examples, which is why if you're Detroit or Orlando, you can look at OKC and be like, hey, it's not as crazy as you think. They were below 500 two seasons ago. They were 40 and 42. Right. But everybody thought that year they're going to have like 20 wins. And Rassel, the point you made about how they really only threw away two years.

It felt like more than two because all the Poku five-out offense, just watching that on League Pass in real time in February, March, and April. That's why it felt like five years, but it was really only a little cluster of a couple months. Do you think Poku watched? Yeah, he did. I'm sure he did. How could he not? More bummed out Poku or Josh Giddey? Josh Giddey's going to get paid. Yeah. Giddey will get over it. I'd bet money Poku didn't watch.

He was like, that was last night. I didn't realize. Well, it is interesting because you think of the initial incarnation of this team. It was SGA and Giddy together, right? And then there was this moment where SGA, all of a sudden it's like, yeah, Josh, you're just not going to have the ball a lot anymore. We have this guy and he's going to average 30 points a game this year. Our whole team is moving this way. So,

Maybe you can learn how to shoot some corner threes and push the ball when you get it. And that was it. And SJ just took the team from him. The Jalen Williams piece him. I remember he was such a fun draft guy. We all, I think the ringer was really high on him that year. Right. Weren't we all in on him?

What draft was that? 2022? Well, Zach wasn't with us. I remember Charks loved him. We loved all those. Is there a Jalen Williams for this year for you, Rosillo? Do you have one yet? You're going to be a little Carter Bryant? I don't like Carter Bryant as much as everybody else does, apparently. Every single team really likes him. And I'm always kind of like, oh, wow. I guess I'm wrong.

We shall see.

Zach, you should sand that Carter Bryant tape for like about eight minutes. You know, but you know who J.W. is for me? I actually should make a list of these guys. There's always a bunch of guys. There's always one guy every draft. Maybe not even every draft. Maybe every other draft who I watch him play. I'm not a college basketball guy. I'm not doing that stuff like you guys are. I'm just flying and watch a little YouTube and do this. There's always one guy who I watch him play his first NBA game. And I text like 10 scouts.

how the hell was this guy picked 12th or 15th or 17th and not like way higher than that and jalen williams was that guy i watched him play one time i was like whoa this guy was like well he was 12th right like and he was like a late riser behind to get to 12 that's right same draft you know so that's why i'm still excited about him presti took him before so you know does zach know about usman island

It's just Russillo in a cabin with no electricity. Just like... Cabin. Sail. It's on shore. Just washed up on shore. I'm trying to get off like Tom Hanks in Castaway. The waves are smashing your raft over and over again. No, he's not giving up. I mean, he's only like 22, right? Isn't he? He's still young. Fortunately, he's on a team of people who are also 22 and way better than him.

I could see a second unit running their offense through him. It was a worse roster. But then again, people used to say this about Neesmith Island, and look what happened. Well, now I floated out Cam Whitmore Island today, and I'll tell you, we didn't have enough people working in the office to write down all the credit cards. People are in. People are ready. People are saying TJ modeled his game after Cam Whitmore.

So we have final finals odds right now. And FanDuel is plus 220. It's like far ahead of everybody else. Just to make the finals? No, to win the finals. To win the finals. So this is about as prohibitive of a favorite coming out of the finals as we've had. So my thing is, if I'm chasing a ring, I'm trying to go east harder than ever now. Right?

Like we talked about the LeBron scenario. Oh boy. What was that four weeks ago, Rosillo, when I was throwing Cleveland trades you with LeBron, Jared Allen and Deandre Hunter for LeBron, something like that.

Little who says no action. Is this what one of us has to say as the no trade clause? No, he would have to agree to the trade. But if he's agreeing to a trade, there's only one place I think he would go. But if you're LeBron, could you talk yourself into that? I don't know. I'll put it this way. I haven't taken my eye off that situation. I know I sound like a lunatic. If Giannis had ended up in the West.

Right. Well, now, I mean, we didn't talk about Milwaukee, but they weren't trading Giannis anyway. But now they have to feel even more emboldened to keep Giannis and see what they can patch together. It's a whole conference of why not us? Just every team, why not us? Is it? Well, I'm going to bring up the Celtics. It's the 56-minute mark. Do the Celtics reevaluate how they're thinking about everything? My quick answer would be

only based on the options that present themselves. If somebody thinks they're getting Jalen Brown at a discounted rate, they're probably just going to say no and be a competitive team next year. I would say no. Yeah. I still think they have to slough off some pretty major salary just to do it. It's been a really frustrating conversation with Celtic fans in my life who don't seem to understand how the salary cap and trades work. They're going to trade Drew Holiday and get under the second apron. It's like, well...

You know, they have to take a contract back. Look, I know these things are very complicated and running a sports league and organizing a sports league and a collective bargaining agreement is very hard. The NBA has not helped itself be fan friendly in that regard. Like I like the swaps upon swaps upon swaps upon swaps thing. Like I just have regular people in my life who are like, can you explain why this pick is? I thought my team had a pick, but my team suddenly doesn't have a pick and it's this pick instead. I'm like, it's...

Let me direct you to Real GM. And even that, you might want to get your attorney to help you understand what's written on Real GM to figure out that one. The only one who has it figured out is our friend Bobby Marks, who just has these screenshots with all the information that he can Twitter pick out at any moment that just tell you exactly what a team has. He's the only one who seems to understand it. I remember Russell and I were doing one pod after they did the CBA.

And we felt like something substantial had happened, but we didn't understand it. We were like, this feels like something... It just feels... And then people started telling us after like, oh yeah, this is a fucking disaster. It's a hard cap. And now Zach officially anointed it a hard cap. But even the Durant trade, I think that was one of the reasons...

It's just not easy to make trades anymore. There are all these trap doors that you forget about. Like, oh, but if I do that, then I'm capped at the first apron. That's right. If I do this in a trade and like I send a pick over here, then all the first I'm hard capped at the first apron. So I got to do this. It's like, OK, OK. The cap guys should all make like a million dollars. The best cap guys, because it's so goddamn hard. I'm sorry. I just saw a headline on ESPN.

Oh, let's hear it. Oh, no. SGA in the conversation with Jordan and Kareem. What conversation? Tall, athletic. Wow.

Okay, so I see the headline and it's a talking, it's a video clip. So I would watch the video clip. Maybe it's single season accomplishment. I'm assuming that's the context I would assume it is in. In which case it's like, okay, you know, 30 points a game, 30 points a game in the finals again. Finals MVP, regular season MVP. I'm going to listen to it.

Yeah, I can't wait. As soon as we're done, I'm going to grind that video. Zach's a journalist of the three. He brings up a great point. Like, I get mad whenever it's like somebody else gives you the titles. I'll look at titles of my own podcast being like, that's not what I said. Well, there's just no way that anyone is like, now he's in that class of player for a holistic career. Like, no one would ever say that. It has to be a single season thing. Well, I mean, the most interesting thing with him is the guard conversation that he's in now from...

start to finish seasons the the pool that he's swimming in is pretty crazy we're gonna take a break zach are you you you have a you on east coast time and we're gonna talk to rant now if you want to stay feel free to parachute out i will parachute out and let you guys do the durant thing i appreciate you let me crash the party uh the usual simmons really fun party and i just uh

Weird night. Weird night in the NBA. You're right, Zach. Regular season for one season. Averages, MVP, the whole thing. Great instincts on this. The guy could be an editor. Congrats to the Thunder. Congrats to the Thunder. I'm going to go watch some TJ McConnell highlights before I go to bed. No, you're not. And...

See what happens. Enjoy the Durant trade talk, guys. This episode is supported by FX's The Bear. The Emmy Award winning series returns following Carmi, Sydney, and Richie as they push forward, determine not only to survive, but also to take The Bear to the next level. This season, the pursuit of excellence isn't just about getting better. It's about deciding what's worth holding on to. FX's The Bear. All episodes streaming June 25th on Hulu.

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We're going to talk to rant. We got traded. So on the one hand, I feel like the league should pass a rule. There should be no trades within 24 hours of NBA finals. Game seven seems like a decent rule. And then there, and I don't know how you would enforce it. And, uh, and I thought it was a pretty fun trade. I thought it was an awesome trade for Houston.

I just loved it for them. I don't, we could talk about the Phoenix part after, but why don't you just take, don't even ask me a question. Well, we talked about this last week. I had so many more assets in the trade. They didn't give up Jabari Smith in the trade. That's a fucking miracle. Like for Phoenix to trade Durant, it just speaks to what I, I mentioned, I can't remember the last pot I did, but it was Wednesday or Thursday, but like, I just think the offers were so terrible.

Everyone low-balled them because everybody knew they had to trade him before the draft and everybody knew they wanted a pick. And it ends up being Jalen Green, who I don't know if there's four teams that they could spin him to for $33 million a year. And then Dylan Brooks, who at $21, $22 million a year, I think is a solid asset if you're trying to win games. And then the 10th pick. That's basically the trade. So I think for Houston, no brainer.

10th pick wouldn't have played for them. Plus you get rid of Brooks. Now you get to play Tara Easton and Whitmore, basically give them those minutes plus Amin Thompson. I thought the trade was a home run for them. Yeah, I loved it. I mean, Stone is on an absolute heater. He's been incredible. That draft picks, they've been incredible in how they've worked a lot of this stuff. And yeah, we knew that they were limited offensively. Like the Durant market, right? The Durant market, if you go through it,

You knew it was getting bad when you were just at least hearing the rumors of like Miami won't include who. At first, it started with like, well, where? You're like, okay, I could see why you just wouldn't want to be in a hurry. Or you would say no until you think like if you wanted to rant that bad, you're saying no about where for days until maybe then you finally give in. But then you're like, Hawkeyes wasn't. Come on. Like, there's no there's no way because the salary piece that you're moving out in Wiggins, I think, is less attractive than Brooks.

because Wiggins is probably going to get you some numbers, but I don't know that he impacts the game the same way Brooks does. And by the way, shout out to Brooks for all the jokes when the Lakers eliminated. And granted, he brought a lot of it on himself, and then he wouldn't do anything with the media after they would lose. So it's not like I was feeling bad for him, but like, dude, didn't think he was going to be in this league.

And I still think he's somebody who impacts games. And when that contract came out and Houston gave all that money to Brooks and gave the massive deal to Fred Van Vliet, a lot of us are going like, man, that is so much money for that level of dude. But it's like, well, we got to spend it on somebody. We probably have to overspend this way now over Houston. And they flipped Brooks into Durant. So there's just all these things you can look at with Stone being like, oh, he did that right. That worked out well. So credit to him. Credit to the Rockets front office. He went and got two guys who he knew could play in playoff series. And they did.

Right. So like the Yaka Purtle part of it, like, was he really not available? Well, maybe not. I'd probably like him a little bit more than Zach does. And considering how expensive Toronto is, like they're going to have to get one of the expensive guys, get like rid of one of those dudes. When you heard the Knicks rumors, like now we've come full circle. It's like, well, first of all, apparently they didn't want him. But the early stuff on that was Mitchell Robinson and OG. Now I look at that, I'm like, Phoenix would have been pumped.

I love Mitchell Robinson now. Remember, I was thinking Towns for Durant straight up. I mean, that's like three times what Houston paid. Yeah, so that's not happening. And then when it comes back to Minnesota, I can understand like with Randall, the player option, which he probably opts into at like $30 million.

because I don't think he wants to opt out and go to this free agent market. But then it's like, if you're Phoenix, do you want to get in the Randall business for 30 plus another 60 plus million over two years? I don't know. I don't know that there's a ton of teams that want to do that kind of stuff. And then even San Antonio, and I'm finishing here quickly, but like San Antonio, if they had done it,

and whatever their case was, I would have been like, okay, yeah, that makes sense. And if they don't do it, which obviously they didn't, then I could also understand their position on that one being like, yeah, maybe it doesn't make a lot of sense to add Durant here because you're not just adding a 37 year old player who's terrific score. You're adding somebody who doesn't have the greatest history with how happy he stays with franchises and the fact that he's going to cost you like another 120 million, which this probably was worked out ahead of time for him to be like signing off on this, even though we'd heard last summer,

right around this time, almost exactly to the day a year ago, that he wanted Houston, but Phoenix didn't want to move him out. All right, so you put all that together, and I think it kind of makes sense that this is what the price ended up being, isn't it? Yeah. Well, for Houston, you're getting somebody who can shoot the ball in the last four minutes of a game and maybe appear on a panel about the future of the intersection between athletes and business. There we go. Get those two.

Those two verticals covered now. Are you mad that Ruben didn't invite you again this year? I got invited. I just, it's in New York. Oh, you didn't go white party. You going to that? I don't go back Eastern this summer. I'm trying not to. How about you? Uh, I go back to Vermont. Usually I'll go back to the vineyard. No, it's a no brainer for Houston. I think it's great for Durant. I was really excited because I want him to have one last act. I wanted him to go to the right team. I think Miami is a disaster and I really am.

dubious how much Miami even wanted him or what Miami wants to do in general. Because I don't want to add Hawkins legitimately didn't want to put him in a deal after all the other guys they want to put in a deal. Then they clearly didn't want him that bad. No. Like if I, if you, if I had a buddy who was selling like a, I don't know, Ford Bronco and I knew you love Ford Broncos.

I'm like, this dude's, it's like a 1973 Ford Bronco. He's like giving it away. And you're like, yeah, I don't know. I'm like, but you told me last week, you really wanted a Ford Bronco. This guy it's right here. This is, so I just don't think Miami, I don't think that Miami knows what they want to do. We talked about this last week. I think they're a mess. I don't think they, they have any idea whether they should be trying to pursue and try to be good in the playoffs or go the other way. So Durant didn't happen to give him an extension.

Just didn't see what they want to do it. You're giving, you're paying a hundred million dollars a year to him and Tyler hero. Where are you going? Right. A year from now, is that a recipe for anything in the East? Well, I guess in the East, but, um, so anyway, with Houston, the fact that I, what's, what's really interesting to me about this is they kept their flexibility for one more trade if they want to do it. And I don't know whether that trade happens in the summer or

or whether it happens in the December, January, February range. But like, for instance, as we covered many times, Giannis is not getting traded this summer. But if it's January and they're 15, the Bucs are 15 and 25, and he's like, you know what? This sucks. It's time. Poor Bucs fans. They still have their chance. If the Celtics...

changed their mind and they're like, God damn, we didn't realize we'd be this bad and we're going to pay how much money in luxury tax? Like, yeah, maybe we will trade Jalen Brown. They have the flexibility still in some of the assets to make a second move, which I thought this was going to be their move. And this might be move number one. So I thought from that standpoint, great. And then from a Durant standpoint, I'm excited to see him in playoff games again, because I thought it sucked. Those teams that he was on basically since that Brooklyn Bucks game were not fun teams to watch.

you know, and teams that had real, no, no real upside, uh, from a Phoenix standpoint, I have no idea what they're doing. I, you re you have to really like that 10th pick. You have to feel like you're getting somebody who is going to be potentially like an all NBA guy. Um, if that's the centerpiece, because we know it's not Jalen green and Booker together. That's I can't imagine how those guys are playing together. And then you got Bradley Beal next to them. Like what is this?

It's a lot of depth. What is this? Yeah, no, I know. One position. I'm worried about your guy. I don't know if you want to talk to somebody about all your Booker stock, but you might want to like get rid of some. It won't be his fault. Diversify the portfolio. Yeah, we're probably gonna have to make the call tomorrow. But yeah, you know, there's a lot of other factors. I like let's have a Jalen Green conversation. Like right now, what do you think? Like, what do you think about? I want him to go to a bad team.

and have the ball a lot for like a year. That's what I think. I'd love to see him. And maybe Phoenix will be the bad team. I do feel like there's something there. And I think he's young. And I think he's had stretches that made both of us go, wow, I thought he got worse last year as the season went along. And I thought in the playoffs, they were scared to even have him out there in some of the fourth quarters. But he's still young enough that

There might be something there. I don't, can you run an offense with him as like the creator slash looking out for everybody else? We haven't seen it yet.

Well, you could argue Which is why I'd want to see him on a bad team Yeah, I know what you're saying I mean, his second year He had almost a 30% usage rate On a team that won 20 games So I don't know that Houston's ever shied away From exactly what you're talking about But I think To be fair to you, exactly I know what you're saying You're saying, okay Fifth year version of him I don't know if that's the recipe Because clearly he's going to get his buckets If you give him the shots And when you get drafted as high as he gets drafted It's a bit like

a top draft pick in baseball where they almost always will call him up even if they don't know that he deserves a roster spot.

Or Volpe. Like how that Volpe is just in the Yankees, even though he's Volpe. Big bonuses, you know, signing bonus stuff would happen in baseball all the time where you'd be like, why does this guy get called up? There's like five other guys in double A that are better than him. It's like, well, we didn't spend the resources on them. So we have to make sure we know whether we're right or wrong on this guy. So I think there's, it's not apples to apples, but there's a close parallel there between Jalen Green being picked this high and going, all right,

go to work and i know i've already referenced it before too many times on the pod because we just did it but that stretch when shangoon was out at the end of the regular season last year was when i thought this light went off for him two seasons ago yeah but then you go to where he was um in the playoffs and you're like hey your counters don't work and you can't shoot

And we desperately need like the possessions are there for you. We don't really love any of our options here. It's not like there's two awesome hall of fame scores and you're getting shut out because you're the third option. Like we're allowing you to be a one option here offensively, probably a lot longer than anybody else would want to. And again, credit to stone. We're in the playoffs and we need you. Yeah. Yeah. And you can't. So, Hey, he didn't, he didn't close out a bunch of playoff games his fourth year in that's probably being a little harsh, but,

I think he needs to figure out how to play with somebody else. And maybe that's good for him and Booker. You know, I don't know. Or maybe they want nothing to do with it and they're happy to get the pick. They're happy to have Brooks to add some kind of toughness because whatever it is Phoenix is doing is it feels like they're still trying to fix this thing on the fly around Booker, which is usually just going to make it worse.

I don't think if the goal is to keep Devin Booker as your franchise guy through his entire prime, I don't know if this trade is going to help that. Who's your best case scenario for them with the 10th pick who could actually come in and play real minutes for them and be good for them? I don't think Malawach is going to be there. Oh, gosh. I don't know that he's going to be there. House wants him at six. Vassini thinks he will be there.

When we talk, I don't even know if we did that on the pod because I like Malawatch more than he did. He does way more work on it. So I would defer to him if you're listening to this, but I listened to that whole podcast on Saturday morning. Thank you, Bill. Had a coffee seven o'clock in the morning.

Um, when somebody writes 160,000 words about the draft, I'm going to give them an hour. He's literally wrote 160,000 words. It's insane. That's like almost the size of what my book was just banging about. Kudos to Sam. Unbelievable.

Yeah. It's unbelievable how. And so we were talking about the Malawatch range because then I there was this guy, Noah S. N. Gay, who's playing in a fan in the German league. And then somebody else hit me up. It was like, you know, we went to their facility. They were playing your podcast.

Like, do you feel bad now about what you said about us and gay? And I was like, you know what? I'm mad. I'm mad that draft people are talking about his incredible free throw rate. And I'm like, I watched the games. I can't believe the horse shit stuff that he got calls. You made him better. Maybe it was a wake up call for him. You're talking about how he's falling down all the time. Yeah. Get up, dude. What's going on down there? So yeah, if there's a, a center, but this is a weird, cause after Malawatch,

Unless you like Baron Jair more, which I don't think that's, that seems a little high for him. I do like Sorber, the kid from Georgetown. And again, the mock stuff is stupid because then you keep looking at him and you're like, I love this guy at 14. It's like, you can't take him at 10. No, but there was one, you guys had a disagreement on one guy that I thought was fascinating because I thought Fears was guaranteed top 10 and Sam had him 18th and was like, look, I don't like small guards. And he can't show me.

He's like, show me this, show me this small guard with shooting issues that's come into the NBA and been awesome. And I was like, ah, because I just had him in that seven to nine range just assumed. But then that put the fair guy to me a little bit. What I do love about this draft after the first two is that like Trey Johnson, the Texas kid makes the most NBA type shots of any player in this draft. Right. And can't finish anything. Can't finish the round.

Just atrocious numbers. He's like basically the best version of Eddie House you've ever seen in your life. That's my Trey Johnson take. It's Eddie House on a heater. He's a little bigger than Eddie. VJ's got the most motherfucker in him out of this group. And Knipple is the most adaptable. And I don't know what's going to happen because then you keep hearing that Utah likes Fears at five because if you're talking yourself into Fears, you go, he can...

already get to the rim and get past defenders in a way that is so special. There's no way they can take him fifth. I can't accept it. Why? Because of Utah's roster or because of him? I just think he's... You can't. You have to take who's left between Vijay and Ace Bailey and Knipple. You have to. And if you want to get nuts and take Malu, maybe...

Fine. You can talk me into the centerpiece, but you can't take fears. Twin Towers? Kessler or Malawach? Well, then you trade Kessler to the Lakers for the two first round picks they've been allegedly offering for a year and a half. I just feel like Utah's have to, they have to be dying for Vijay or Knipple to get there. And if neither of them are there, they're just going to take Trey Johnson because he's the best asset at five. Like that's how it has to play out.

I don't know what Danny's role is as far as like the final say now with Austin there. And of course, Zanuck was a big part of all of this stuff that happened. But Danny was getting all right. Ryan Smith has final say listening to Danny. And I think those other guys are in the room would be my guess. Ace feels like such a Danny pick. It really does. To be like, what's wrong with that? Right. Yeah. He's like, I watch Ace. I see a 30 point a game score.

Yeah, because the stuff to be scared of with Ace, it's so funny because if he turns out to be a bust, you go, see? The way he handled his representation, the Rutgers, that team never won, the fact that his assist rate, you could just point to all these different things. But if you watch the right YouTube clip on him, you'd think he's in the running to go head-to-head with Flagg and Harper.

Like there's one of those hoop intellect had some really good YouTube videos. Shout out to that guy. I don't understand why you want, do you not have synergy access?

No, but I'd like watching, I like the YouTube guys where the guy tells me the strengths and weaknesses. I like those clips. There's a hoop intellect. That's a good one. Cause I think there's like a Marty Conlin YouTube clip still going around being like, how did it not happen for this guy? Well, that's the thing you, I like seeing the weaknesses. Cause like VJ, the weaknesses were what you pointed out. It's like, how come every time he drives to the basket, he whips the ball against the backboard and it goes flying the other way. It's like,

At some point, the guy can't make a layup. That seems like an issue. But with Ace, there was a chase down block section that was like the most exciting 45 seconds I've had in June, other than maybe the Halliburton game winner in game one. He looks like LeBron on these chase down blocks, like 2012 LeBron. So there's just like a lot going on both ways. Like can clearly score from 18 to 20 already, like nobody you've seen. But I also think he might not play for two years.

So for Utah, do you care? Well, Utah should be doing anything based on need. And the fact like I'm always trying to think about like, because Danny's drafting habits, anytime he just sort of you're like, oh, Mark is smart. Yeah, that makes sense. And you could say, I remember one time I'd asked him, we had like press availability. I didn't go to many of those. But one time I was just there in Waltham and I went, what's the most important asset? Like, what's the most important trait to have? And it was he was like, shooting, like shooting.

shooting. So then you're like, okay, well that doesn't really make a lot of sense of fears. And then you could count it out by saying, well, he took Rondo. It's like, no, he took Rondo because he thought Rondo was a freak and every other thing. And they couldn't take him 20th. Right. He also couldn't believe how much he had fallen. Cause I think they had him like six or seven, but the Jalen Brown conversation. Cause you remember that draft very clear. It's Ben Simmons. It's Ingram one and two. And then it was a constant, like what the hell is going to happen at three? Cause there's all these other names.

people kept thinking chris dunn it's like well if they don't like him and he played at providence then nobody should want to draft him even though chris dunn had a nice little revival this year with the clippers but certainly not what you're thinking of with the number three pick but the jalen brown conversation because that cal year was a mess right cow was there that other kid was there they're big time recruits and like jalen didn't even look like he knew how to play basketball yet but the ange argument was physically he was so gifted in his size and there were still some like

you know, we're talking about Jaylen Brown's handle a cow, but he wasn't worried about all the other basketball stuff as much as he thought, like this guy kind of fits the mold of this big athletic wing. And, you know, if we let him just kind of get loose, he might figure some things out. And I've been thinking about that when I've been thinking about Bailey, but the difference that we know. Can we, can I add one thing on that Danny thing? Cause it's a really important point you just made. And there's one piece you're missing. And we've talked about it before. I think a million years ago, Danny loves pedigree.

And if you go back, like you mentioned that Jalen thing, the ESPN top 100, Jalen was the fourth guy in that class, right? Danny doesn't care about what, Oh, what was your college year? Like, like they took Avery Bradley that year at 19. He was the number one guy in high school the year before Ace Bailey, the number two guy a year ago and went to this weird Rutgers team where they basically just had two guys and nobody else. Right. It's got weird representation. It's all fixable stuff.

Danny's going to look at the pedigree, which is why I don't feel like, I don't feel like fears is in play for them. If you look at that draft last year, first of all, there were five guys that were 95s or higher in that draft class. Cooper one, ACE two, VJ three, Harper four, Trey Johnson five.

And I just think he's a pedigree guy and he's going to take one of those five guys, whoever's left, they're taking. And if it's Bailey, they're taking him. It's a great point. Cause it was a big Bob Myers thing back in the day. Like Patrick Baldwin jr. Was a five star. I'm supposed to go to Duke then. Right. That's a good example. Kavon Looney was like a big time high school guy before he went to UCLA. So there's a lot of that stuff there too. The Avery Bradley calls. Perfect. Now what I'd also say, and this is really about the draft and trying to figure out what the hell Utah is going to do.

Is if Ainge thinks that Ace is not wired to be competitive because clearly Jalen Brown had that in him. Yeah. Even if you don't like Jalen Brown, like, you know, when he takes the court, like. Rational confidence. Right. He thinks he's going to win.

If he picks up on anything that he thinks like ACE is checked out when it comes to that. So even with the pedigree, even with the physical stuff, even with the classic, like I can't believe this guy's still here at five because that's what it would be if they were to take them and go, we're not even good now. So the idea that we're supposed to worry about how does he fit in with the rest of the roster? Like who cares? Yeah. If they don't take them, I would imagine there's something that,

Ainge thinks is alarming about the way the kid is wired, which is again, why everybody makes mistakes on this stuff because we don't really know. The Wizards passing him on six, that will mean there's some real fears going on that all the NBA people know and that we're not even knowing about. Like just about work ethic, work habits, stuff like that. Because for the Wizards to pass on him would be insane. That's like a miracle if he gets to six.

It wouldn't make a ton of sense there. And it would at least make more sense that that's why he's shutting down these interviews and workouts because he's thinking, which a lot of the guys do think, it's like, well, if I go to Washington, I can give up the money from pick three to pick six because I'm going to get so many touches. Although, Bob Carrington may have something to say about that. Alex Sark. Yeah.

Let me show you how it works here in Washington. I like Bob. So, okay, well, let me ask you, what do you think Daryl's going to do if he has to have the pick? Because, you know. So, two options. You love this. This is, draft week is my favorite, Rosillo. If they keep the pick, I think it's Vijay. I've been saying that all along. I just think he fits the Daryl profile. I feel like they're going to do some trade back a spot, trade back, like,

stay in the top five, but try to trade back and pick up an asset and try to leverage Charlotte, who I think really does want VJ. And I think if Charlotte can move up for not a huge price and take VJ and just make sure they get him at three, I feel like he's going to move back a spot and end up with Knipple. Knipple checks a lot of Darryl boxes, can play with the lineup they have.

Um, he's got size, he rebounds. There's some stuff when, uh, when flag wasn't playing or when flag was in foul trouble where the offense had like, I don't know. I mean, I'm, I'm biased cause I like them, but, uh, I just feel like he's the most additive guy in the draft. And Daryl has always gravitated toward those guys. Like remember he made that Shane Batty a trade. How many years ago is that? It was just like,

We didn't have the stats to quantify all the stuff Shane Badde was good at. Darryl had the 1.0 version of those stats and was just like, no, no, when he's in the lineup, all of these awesome things happen. And it's not about the counting stats. It's this, this, this, this, and this. I think Knipple's like that. I think they need a guy like that.

They need like a connector shooter. Doesn't need the ball that much. That's asking a lot though, of a team with now title aspirations coming in and being like, all right, let's honestly think they have title aspirations. Cause I don't, you think like they think you think Daryl thinks, Oh, everyone's talking about Cleveland and Orlando. And like, why, why not us? Like, I think he's thinking, can Embiid play 40 games? Okay, sure. Right. But I was thinking about this the other day and I,

Like the haul that Phoenix sent out for Durant and what they get, you know, not even two years later. Right. It's it's it's what we call sunk cost. It's brutal. Like when you see the side by side and you're like, that is one way to derail. We both like the trade. We just didn't understand why Cam Johnson was in it is my memory. But we both thought it was a good it was a good trade for them. They're getting an awesome player.

I'm fine with thinking it's good to get Kevin Durant if you can get him. Yeah. If that ends up being something. I still don't know why Cam Johnson was in it. But yeah, you're right. Look, it's very new owner syndrome. Right? So yeah, two years. It really was. Two years of not even, well, right. We have to go back to February. When was the trade? It was February. Right. Super Bowl week because it was in Arizona. I was thinking about Phoenix this morning.

when you were hearing that it might happen, uh, in the side-by-side thing we just talked about, but it's very simple to be like, well, they shouldn't have waited. It's like, well, they just got them. Okay. So, right. And if you're Phoenix, you're going, we won 47 games last year and we didn't have all of our guys or 45 games, excuse me. Um,

We didn't have all of our guys playing together at the same time. You know, we didn't have enough flexibility. We kind of figured out some things on the margins. And if these three guys can all play together, we feel a little bit better about the center rotation. And we have shooting to play off of what should be a ton of help to these three dynamic on-ball scores. That's when people were still tricked by Beal. I don't blame Phoenix for saying if, because this league...

More than any other league, you could argue the same with quarterbacks and your pitching staff and break and spring training. But because there's so few players, there's way more conversation of talking yourself into the if scenario. Same thing with the Clippers. We went way over on the Suns 47 and a half.

We thought they were going to be good last year. Yeah. So we were right there with them. So they're thinking, Hey, if we could, if this, if this were to break, you know, it's better than the unknown or like hitting the reset button. When the owner gets pissed about it, your business partners get pissed about it. Your vet players get pissed about it. Now we in the media really overrate the simplicity of just, wow, tear it all down and start all over again. The same reason why the Clippers would sit there again and go, well, Hey, look,

But if, but if Kawhi is healthy and here were the Clippers with this incredible close of the season, maybe the best defense in the NBA over that stretch and then they lose in the first round again. All right, whatever. I imagine...

Josh Harris and Daryl and everybody's playing this if game, especially with all of the injuries that we've seen throughout the East in the playoffs. So for you to say, like, do I think they're a title contender within beads track record? It's not a good bet. But the if scenario here is even more appealing than it was yesterday for them.

So that's why, like, even as much as I love Knipple. Can you imagine Embiid trying to play 10 straight playoff weeks, though? That's why I can't. Come on. No, I can't. You're right. I cannot. I'm out. I've given up on that possibility. I would say 50 to 1 odds. But what if, you know, the rest of them. What if he does? Right. What if he does? What if it's March and you're like.

Hey, you know, Cleveland has a great regular season record. The Knicks have a really nice record. If the Knicks are the same team, they're going to be good. Um, even with a different coach, they're still going to be a really good team. And then, you know, as the Orlando, this Franz ever going to hit a fucking shot here. Right. Uh,

If you're the Sixers, I don't know that you should be afraid of any of that stuff. The scariest thing is the team that you see in the mirror, not necessarily anybody else in the Eastern Conference. So I know this has become a far more expanded conversation around Conk and Nipple, and we both love the guy, but that's asking a lot of him. You're like, all right.

Huge game. Five minutes to go in the fourth quarter. Like, all right, we're going to get Khan initiating some of this stuff. No, but I do think he could play 20 to 25 minutes a game for a good team. I think he can figure out anything that is needed of him. It's just a matter of whether or not he'll be able to execute those things. Like, he won't be lost on a basketball court because he's so... Like, that was my favorite thing once I really dug into him. Just how smart he was off-ball cutting. And, you know, when he... I just...

There's so many basketball players when they have the ball and it's all predetermined, it's fine. But when they get stuck, you know, it's like a college quarterback who we were talking about this, I think with the scene, he were college quarterback. It's like, all right, these are the two reads. Like, this is the, this is who you're trying to beat. If you see the safety, do this, then just throw it underneath. Keep moving the chains. It's like, all right, so this guy threw 4,000 yards. Like, is he good? And like, no, he's not any good.

and there's a lot of guards that it's like okay we're setting the ball screen here you're gonna go here if the help comes off the corner then it's open to three and if this guy plays up then you should be able to have the roll guy and it's like what happens if both things stop am i gonna like yeah i have to decide i have to come up with something and that's one of my favorite things about knipples that i thought he saw the game at a level that i couldn't believe for his age he'd be really good uh

for any of these teams. The thing that's a bummer is that the number three pick isn't like we have like flag and then we have Harper and then it drops again. I wish the number three pick was good enough that we could really have a Utah Paul George trading up from five to three, but you have to take Paul George's contract. Like I actually wish, cause I think, I think Danny would do it. I don't think he would care. Like fine.

Paul George is still pretty good. If we can go from five to three and get this guy, I'll take the contract. I don't care, but it's not, it's not worth it in this draft to do that. I don't think five to two is a different scenario, but I don't think the Spurs would go in here. I think the one thing that's changed over the last two weeks, I said this to you last week is I think that I think once the Spurs got a little closer to Harper, uh,

really like diving into him. They were like, Oh shit. Okay. We don't, we don't screw the Kevin Durant idea. And I still wonder with Fox is I still think a wild card for the summer. Yeah. I, you gotta wonder though, like if that was the Fox market that just happened, then. But wasn't part of that teams are afraid of, uh, of clutch and they wanted to go to the Spurs and Pete, some people kind of backed off cause they felt like he was headed that way anyway. Yeah.

I don't feel like it was an official trade market. It seemed like he's like, he wants to go there. And then that's how it played out. Okay, but that entirely may be true. And I think there is, I don't know, it's hard for me to remember all this stuff with this. But it's always a good reminder that when we hear about teams making calls, and I've even made this mistake too, which I regret when I make it. But I think these teams are constantly making

canvassing the league to kind of get an idea of like, hey, would you ever do this without any intention of ever doing any of those things, but just trying to figure out what the value is. And that Fox trade didn't really give up. No, it was a no-brainer. So you're bringing in even as flawed as like even the most ardent detractors of Fox. I still like him. I still like De'Aaron Fox. I'm not saying he's perfect, but I like him. But the market wasn't that strong for him.

Are you going to like him as much when he gets like a $230 million extension for four years? Might not like him quite as much, but I'll still like him. If both of us were GMs, like you're running New Orleans, I'm running like Charlotte. I would call you all the time. Why? I would have like five GM friends that I just called constantly to check in. And then every once in a while I'd be like, yo, what's up with Mark Williams?

And just, you know, cause I'm sure they just are shooting the shit on the phone. Right. It's like, Oh, my buddy's calling. And then at some point you can kind of steer it toward feeling out if a guy's available or not. And I'm sure that like Danny and Kevin McHale, I'm sure Danny would do that all the time when McHale was in Minnesota. Right. You're not going to trade KG. Right.

He's just, you know, just kind of working it. But I think that's how I think this is how some of this shit works. I think these guys just there's certain guys that just call everybody all the time. I imagine like anything. There's talkers, guys that can't help themselves. It's like even though he's my friend and I've known him for 30 years in the business, if I can just get him on the phone, start bullshitting, like maybe he'll say something because that was the old Dan Duquette thing is that he used to not talk. You'd be on the phone with him and you wouldn't he wouldn't say anything.

You have to make conversation. Right. Right. Because he felt like. That was the John Walsh interview move. John Walsh's famous move. Not talk? You'd be, you're on a job interview and he would just be silent and it was like a power move and then you would start talking. Yeah. He recommended a good book when I met with him. Yeah. Game changer. We'll do that. Yeah. We'll do that too. Let's stay on this though, because I was thinking about the Luca trade again. Great example. The best ever example.

Exactly. Nico just bitching about Luca, Luca Dutchess one day and, and Palenka going, Hey, and then all of a sudden they're, they're negotiating. Right. Cause I was looking at all the picks that Bain got. It was like, you know, we're not sure that Luke is going to resign here. So we can only give you this, this one pick. We can't even do a swap. We can't even do a swap. Um,

I don't know if Palenka will ever write a book, but since Nico's his guy, which he clearly had the inside track on this entire thing, why there was no market for Luka because no one else knew that he was available. And some of this after the fact reporting on like, well, they had called this team, but then you hear from the team that they're like, we, we didn't, they were asking for our best player saying Luka wasn't part of it. We didn't like whatever you want to do to make this look better for Nico. But if Palenka ever writes a book,

And I wish you could get Palenka to like completely tell the truth. But like that moment when Nico said, I would do this, I would do Luca for AD and, you know, figure out the rest of it. AD and Reeves. And he'd be like, well, we're not trading Reeves. Is it still a conversation? And there's a pause and Nico's like, yeah, there might be. Because you wonder if Rob, based on what we're talking about, like the guys calling each other,

is rob thinking i've heard you about this guy for like two years because we've known each other for so long and was that you know this is all hypothetical i don't know the answer to stuff that's why i wonder if it would ever come out of the book because could rob ever just be like i couldn't believe it i couldn't believe it then make his friend nico look bad which would feel kind of shitty if they still have a good relationship i mean polinka should love him now but if palinka would ever in that moment honestly answer 20 years from now in some interview

where he was on the phone being like, holy shit, I can't believe I'm actually going to be able to do a trade like this that is just not supposed to happen. I would also love to know the whole Magics last year with the Lakers when Magic went on first take and said he got stabbed in the back by Poinca and then they were fine. I would love a whole chapter on that in the Poinca book. I'd also love a chapter on playing with the Fab Five. The Poinca book, I'm signing up right now.

I'm pre-ordering it. Mark Twain would publish it. He was big in the publishing business, killed it with grants, but then wanted to do a book on the Pope. And the Pope was like, are you sure? And he was like, are you reading a Mark Twain book right now? Yeah. I just finished churn out smart Twain book. I already interviewed churn out last week. We're going to run it later this summer. Yeah. Yeah. It was on the list, but.

You would call me all the time. I think I'd get sick of you calling me that much, though, because I think you would be trying to get over on me. Be like, let's see if we're just be checking in. Let's see if Priscilla has a couple of Coors lights. Be checking in. Because I know you would start bitching about somebody on your team within like 10 minutes. You'd be like fucking Jose Alvarado. This fucking guy should have seen him. This guy wants a bottle head? Fourth quarter calling for ISOs.

It's like, you're lucky you're playing. But see, I would know you too well though. Cause then you would be on the phone with Daryl being like, Rosillo hates Alvarado. Like I think you get it for a top 50, top 50 protected. There must be like an honor among, but you must have your two or three GMs where you're like, these are your guys. Like if you're bitching about your team to the other GM, I'm sure you get feedback from somebody, you know, who works for a team who's listening to this afterwards, but I'm sure you get,

I'm sure you have your guys that you feel like you can vent to. I'm sure. Friend to friend. Right. That must exist. I'm sure that exists. But I think this is one of the fascinating parts about the job. And that's why, you know, you can bring it full circle here with a thunder. Presti, when he's at the combine, back when it was at the old one, when I would host it. Yeah. He wouldn't even stand there anymore.

I don't know if he still does it now because none of us are even allowed to kind of, even though we can get in, we can't go to this big section, which is fine. We shouldn't be able to go over that section. And, you know, when I was still hosting it, I could walk wherever I wanted to. But now that I have nothing to do with it, like I shouldn't be over there. I think I went to get a box score once and I was kind of like, you know what? I shouldn't do this anymore. But I remember years and years ago, Presti, like, hey, you're not anchoring it anymore, buddy. Put the...

box score back. Presti was like standing by himself, like arms folded. And I'm like, is he that freaked out that he can't even like sit six seats away from somebody else? And I was like, yeah, maybe.

That was, I forget the player, but that was, I think it was Dave Cowens. That was a red, our back room where he went to scout Cowens and he stormed out at halftime. Yeah. And people were like, Whoa, red hated Cowens, but he loved them. Yeah. So, you know, anytime he went to a game, people knew he was there. Can we do draft really quick? So Harper second, if you had to bet edge calm now is almost a three to one favorite on Fandle to go third.

So it's just, would you go chalk and say edge comb to Philly? Number three, can nipple four. And Danny says, fuck it. And takes ace Bailey five. I don't have your prediction. No, I really don't have any, like probably a day or two away for feeling good about it. You know, just cause of just bullshitting with guys. And cause everybody has a different board for everybody else right now. But if you had to pick, if I had to, right. Uh, would you have Bailey going to Utah or somebody else?

That means Trey Johnson's going sixth. No, that would be Trey. Yeah. My whole Bailey, Utah exercise was just you and I talking out. I think seeing what age does. So you'd have Trey Johnson in Utah. He can shoot, man. I think you're right. You and I see this Danny thing the same way. I think he fucking takes Ace Bailey. His whole history of the last 20 years is he would take Ace Bailey. So unless there's some massive red flag that we don't know about, I just think that's the kind of guy he takes.

Unless he feels like, okay, I saw enough from him that I think he might check out of games and he's not competitive enough. Because then I think it's kind of a no. It's like a deal breaker for somebody like Ainge. Because even with the pedigree, and I'm not saying everybody's perfect, but he likes guys with a little motherfucker in them too. I'm not saying Gabe Vincent was starting fights with anybody. Well, the other piece of him is... Gabe Pruitt, excuse me.

If you're, are you drafting somebody because you think you have one more tank year in you? Or what Austin Ainge said about we're done tanking. If you feel like there's one more year you want to throw away, Ace Bailey is perfect for that because he's probably a year or two away from having any sort of impact at all. Here's the thing is there's no one you're taking at that pick that is now preventing you from tanking. True. No, but I think the Ace is like, he is like a project. Uh,

Trey can come in and be fun off the bench, like I think right away. I think he would be, he'd definitely be a league pass guy where I could see you texting me in December and be like, yo, you watching Trey right now? Like he's one of those guys. He can absolutely light it up. And there's zero fear. Like 16 points in four minutes kind of guy. So, you know, I know some people have talked about like it not being necessarily like the best fit for him. And granted, they're making a coaching change anyway. But I mean, that was still a pretty efficient offense from that group.

And, you know, he's going to be set up off the ball a lot, which is probably what they need. I mean, God, they've got so many guys who love having the ball in their hands. And, you know, I don't think that you're sitting here. I think Zach was smart to kind of bring up. I don't know. Maybe you were, I forget if you were Zach did an hour or so ago bringing up like who would be the line above Jeremy Grant where marketing would be, he would be above it. I would think, but marketing is probably not good enough to go. No, we've got our one. Right. Figure out the rest of the pieces later. So,

I mean, Austin Ainge can say we're not tanking. I just... I think the rule is you can't ever say that you actually are. But I don't know who they would pick to be like, holy shit, they're not tanking now. They just took... VJ fell to them. Right. Can I test drive a couple draft stuff? I'm not done with my sweep yet, but I'm pretty close. I know I let you down with VJ to three. I'll say yeah, but... You didn't let me down. I wanted to test drive a couple...

A couple half-assed, just doing my rounds, stuff that jumped. Malcolm Gladwell blink test stuff. I love it. I love the blink. You know what? There's value in the blink test. Sometimes I'm pretty good in that. I've been pretty good over the years with that. I don't see it with Danny Wolf. I know he's polarizing. I don't see it. Doesn't shoot him well enough? No, I can't. Well, I can't imagine him in games like the ones that we just watched the last two rounds.

Like just where would he be? Like, could he put up stats on a team? Sure. But like, if I'm actually trying to win the title, where am I playing him? And is the, is the ball running through him? Like I, I, I just, who, who are the examples of guys like him that,

have been impact dudes on actual good NBA teams in the last 20 years? I just have a lot of questions. If he's in the 13 to 17 range, that's one thing. But like some people are saying like he could go like, you know, in that seven to 10 range. That just seems pretty high to me. If you're saying that Danny Wolf to you would not crack the rotation of two of the deepest teams in the NBA that just played for a championship, I would agree with you. Let's go final four. Let's go final four. Let's go last eight.

The problem is the best thing about, well, the best thing is probably his rebounding, but it's that you're letting him have the ball in his hands as this 6'11 point guard. So there's a little... Who's doing that, though, when we're in May? Taller Joe Ingles, Jingle Juice. Taller Joe Ingles. That's interesting. All right. So we've seen that work a little bit. Ingles was an incredible pick and roll, read, decision guy. And...

You know, look, if you stick Danny Wolf in the corner and be like, hey, you're only doing this, then don't take him. There's no point. He's a very unique player. The Cedric Coward thing worries me. Like to get on the board there. This is a bit like the Jalen Williams question from before where it's like a bunch of guys that were draft people were like, you know, it's pretty good. It's that guy at Santa Clara.

And then the first time I watched Cedric Howard, I didn't see where Vassini had him in his rankings. I go, dude, I love Cedric Howard. He goes, yeah, me too. I have him ninth. And I was like, oh shit. Uh-oh. Frown face. Bill does not like him. I'm not saying I'm out. Did you only watch the Iowa game? No, it's not a don't like. I don't know. Like the way they were talking about him, what I heard about, oh, this guy, he's fast, right? Like I started getting the Jalen Williams in my head and then I watched it.

And I didn't feel like he was athletic enough on that level. I don't know. I just didn't totally see it. He felt like a 13 to 17 range guy to me. Okay, maybe I'm wrong. This is blink test. But this is like a fast riser. He only played in six games. Wasn't cleared for contact with a shoulder injury forever. Started in D3. Goes to Eastern Washington. The D3 thing scared me too. I can't lie. He was filthy.

in those games that he played this year. But if you want to tell me, hey, it was against Northern Colorado. Looked like somebody from the lacrosse team was out there. No offense to Pat or Anton. But I would say he was filthy and he was like a man and he was like mean to guys. And then he got some kid in the post where he was like, I'm going to fuck with you so bad that I could score in the first, second, but I'll just do it on the third move. So you're in on him. Yeah, I like him better than...

you know some of the other like dude everybody loves carter bryant because he's 6 8 he's really young he can really shoot it he can play defense everybody really likes the kid i'd say like highest approval rating of the kid is vj or malawatch teams have talked about just raving about them like vj just off the charts i guess in all of his interviews and his background and everything he went through and there's a lot of people who really like carter bryant arizona i saw a guy that the good parts

And that three and D six, eight, whatever. Okay, fine. Like that guy's a very in demand type of player. The second he had to do something with the basketball after like it was either shoot it or it was an outlet pass on a defensive rebound. It was a nightmare. I really like my watch. I think there's a case for him to go sixth. Like if the whiz took him six, that wouldn't make fun of us. Sar Malawach, twin towers, double bigs, Adams, Shingun response. Okay. So in the finals, a couple years, little twin towers, uh,

40 years later, the Samson Lajuan. Does SAR spacing provide enough for Malawatch to operate those locks? Who's to say no, right? Here's a positive one. I'm kind of talking myself into Dara Queen. I think it depends on the team. Big time. I think there's teams where it could be a disaster, but there's a lot of stuff there. And then what's the dude's name? Yakashonis? How do you say his name?

Yeah. The guy from Illinois. Yeah. Yeah. You did great. That guy's an NBA player. I don't know when it might not be till he's 28 and it could be his 13, but there's something, there's a,

There's a wherewithal he has offensively and how he uses teammates that I just see it. It translates. And there's going to, I know he's going to get hunted like all the usual shit with him, but that dude would be fun to play with and is unique and has like an elite skill. As you know, I love elite skills. When, when I look at this draft stuff, I'm always like, what, what's, what's your thing? What's your trump card? What's the thing you have? He would be fun to play with.

So it feels like he's dropping a little, right? Doesn't it feel like he's, people are cooling off on him a tiny bit? What are you talking about? Like outside of the top 10? Well, initially he was supposed to be, you know, top eight or nine. Now it feels like he's in the, I don't know, a little lower. He probably could shoot it a little bit better. I mean, I like him better than Demond because he can shoot it and Demond just couldn't shoot it all year long. But apparently Demond, the BYU kid is lighting it up in some workouts.

With the shooting. So I'm out on him. I do not have an opinion on him. I couldn't crack that one. That one, I threw my hands up. I like Colin Murray-Boyles. He's probably a little smaller for the way that he plays. And then Derrick Queen. I'll admit, I just don't know that I can figure it out. It's all over the place. But sometimes it's really pretty fucking good, man. And then I'm like, okay. Was Sam the one that said he's just been somebody who's played against men for the last couple years? Yeah. I like that.

It's meaningful. I like Sorber, the Georgetown kid, because I think he's a legit center. I haven't researched him yet. Nick Clifford's probably the most well-rounded guy, but I think he's already 23. Where do you stand on Fleming from St. Joe's? I don't know what he is. Well, physically, he's a specimen, okay? So he's enormous. He's like 230. He's chiseled. And playing in some of the games that I was watching,

There are times where I'm like, is he a small forward or is he a center? Because I think he wants to be a small forward. And I'm not saying he should be a center. So maybe there's a ton of value in him and his size, you know, stretching the floor for you a little bit. But I think he was so physically gifted. I would have liked to see him make people feel a little bit more. Yeah. But, you know, to be fair, again, I'm not doing this year round. I'm not, you know, watching every single game. I was watching Hugo Gonzalez the other night. I was like, I think he might suck, but I like him.

I liked... He hasn't shot it like... He's had five different stints in Europe and he hasn't shot over, I think, 27% for three. And he's not a point guard. So I'm like, okay, how does this work? But I got to tell you, fun kid, fun little guy out there. Well, he's not... He's 6'6". Shocker of shocker, I like Clayton Jr. I mean, it's the most predictable Bill opinion of all time. But I just don't see how he's not an NBA player. And I don't know how many more times we have to do this with these guys. Brunson was one from...

way back. But what did he go? Like 31, 32. It's like at some point, at some point it should matter what we saw. There's other times where it shouldn't matter at all, but you can kind of, you have to filter it. And he's clearly somebody who could play in NBA games and create his own shot and do stuff. Yeah. And the shot making, like,

Yeah. Again, Trey's the best of the class, but there's some Walter Clayton shots where you just go like, I can't even believe he has the balls to even take this. And then it felt like it went in more often. Hanson Yang. I'm going to give myself the combine. There is value in the combine. Okay. Didn't speak a lick of English when he was at the combine. And so he would just kind of do this like yell when he wanted the ball. Like, ah. And then he had this baseline line.

spin with, with the ball and one flushes it. I was right there on the baseline when it happened. And I, I tweeted out that I've seen the, I think it was on threads. I'm on threads a lot lately. I was like, I've seen the future of the NBA and it's right in front of me. Hanson Yang got a couple of chuckles. The threads audience really liked it. Yeah. And the peanut gallery, you know, at the combine. And now, uh, people think he might go in the thirties.

So if your team takes Hanson Yang in the thirties, you may have something bit of a project, but you may have something. I, uh, I don't mind the Stanford senior cause I scouted him because there was some Celtics buzz with him. So of course I had to watch. He was awesome at the combine. He seems intriguing. Awesome. Hasn't really been playing basketball that long, which I think sometimes is a bonus room to grow. Yeah. All right. There's our draft thing. I know you're going to be tackling a lot, um, this week. Hopefully we'll have one fun trade.

And that's it. I've run out of things to talk about. Unless you want to talk about what do you do with Connor McDavid? No, I just want to say one last thing about the Thunder. Yeah. This is a team that finished the playoffs 11th in rebounding rate, 12th in defensive rebounding rate. Their assist percentage was 11th.

Their three-point percentage may have dipped down. It was 13th out of 16 playoff teams. Might have been worse after today. They had a couple points they had to make up there, so 13 as of today. They fouled at the third-highest rate. They had, I think, nine games under 30% from three, maybe under 31% from three. So nine bad shooting games in the playoffs. They went five and four of those. For this team to win an NBA championship with the lack of shooting,

and the rebounding being an issue and fouling all the time speaks to how insane this defense was. And we saw it in the third quarter, and you can see it like a switch when that group gets connected and says, you know, granted TJ went crazy, but all the turnovers they were committing because of the pressure, I think it was a 19-2 run, as great as SGA has been at the peak moments and the MVP and deserving all that kind of stuff.

For a unit to have six, seven guys, it's like we just got to be dogs defensively. And for that team to win a championship, I know how disappointed everybody is that it wasn't the full version, obviously with a Halliburton injury. But that's some pretty special stuff to be able to win 16 games with some of their deficiencies that they had. Yeah. I mean, game four will be the thing I remember about that team. Watching them just basically refuse to let the Pacers start their offense within 30 feet of the basket for an hour.

I've seen good defense before, but I don't know. It was also a team that if you were calling the game and letting them kind of get away with stuff, they became completely unstoppable. Right. It was like an NFL defense where you're like, oh, you're going to let us do this. And then they would just, and I felt like that was happening a little bit tonight. Once Caruso and Dorton Wallace could really get physical 40, 50 feet from the basket. Yikes. What happens with McDavid?

It's going to get worse, not better. This was, it feels like their best chance with the cap. Yep. And here's the thing. Last year, they were a better team. Yeah. Where this year, people couldn't believe they beat Dallas and Las Vegas. Where last year... They weren't even favored in round one. Right. I think the Kings were favored. The Kings came out smoking too, right? So, you know, they get to return trip. But I watched all the games. You know...

I don't know that I have a ton of great insight on all of it, but this is, this will bother me. This will bother me in a way. I don't want to be at Charles Barkley level. Won't be a Chris Mullen level, but it's going to bother me. Like how will the rest of your life be if McDavid never hoist the cup? He'd be okay. I feel like he's, I've been watching hockey since when Bobby were still was good.

And he's one of the six or seven just easily best players I've ever seen. And I can't believe he hasn't won a cup yet. I was thinking about something with, with Marsha and the Panthers, how he goes to that team and it's the perfect team for him. Cause they just have a bunch of fucking assholes that are just agitator assholes. And it was like, finally I'm with my people. And it made me think like, I wish the Bruins in retrospect had just been like, you know, we have this guy,

He's just so fucking annoying. He drives everybody crazy. We should just get like four more of those guys. And just, we become, that becomes our identity. Cause I do feel like, like Evander Kane was so mad that by the end of the series, the game's over, there's two minutes left. And he just went over and he slash Kachuk as hard as he could. So he'd get a game misconduct and not have to be in the handshake line. Like that's, you know, that you, you have a team full of dicks when somebody is like, I just, I can't shake hands with these guys. Just, can you kick me out of the game?

So it just made me think like that would be an interesting way, almost like how Presti put together that OKC team of these fucking silent assassins who just get work done and have no ego. And they all did the press conference together. Could you have done that with Martian? Just like, let's go get five assholes. And that's that'll be the nucleus of our team. I don't know the answer to this because, again, I don't know the sport super well, but it feels like.

And we've touched on this a bit in the last few years. I feel like the NBA playoffs is very different than the regular season for a bunch of obvious reasons. But like some of the shooting variants, I wonder, like, could you trick yourself into thinking that you're this really good offense? But then all of a sudden it's like, yeah, but those guys just aren't going to be as comfortable. And I mean, again, OKC, a lot of these threes were wide open and these guys didn't make them and it still didn't matter. They didn't make them enough. Even wide open corner threes.

Yeah, and then you could see like, I mean, not to recap game seven again, but Jalen Williams had one where he passed up an open one to throw it to door. And I'm like, dude, what? Like you had 40 the other night. Yeah. Like, what is that? And he responded and he closed well. But do hockey GMs have to think about like,

I need a completely like different team that survives advancing through the chaos of the NHL playoffs. Like, Hey, we may not be the best offense. We may not be all of these things, but at least we have like the right personalities. And maybe I'm just telling hockey people what they've already known. And this isn't a secret. I think they must think about it.

Yeah, but it's the biggest gap. Like football is pretty straightforward. Baseball is a total coin toss. Like you can talk about how valuable pitching was. I remember like all I would do is look at the pitching matchups for every single playoff series. And then all these times it didn't really matter. The Braves would have had more World Series, right? It's just baseball is just so fucking weird in the playoffs. But hockey feels like a real departure of like we can have this really good team.

But we need these kinds of personalities that may not show up or may not be as valuable in the regular season because obviously Florida checked all those boxes over the last two years. Well, and the goal. You have to have the goal. It starts with that, which is that was Edmonton's biggest failure in the last couple of years. But I didn't think it was really a skit.

I didn't think it was a Skinner. Like, I didn't look at this final and go, oh, well, you know, once again, it's Skinner's fault. And then obviously I know. I know. But it was, I mean, when you're changing. Yeah, you're, you're swapping dudes in and out.

It's usually not an awesome sign. Yeah, but I could name, I could name like 10 plus guys from the Panthers that I'd be like, Oh, that guy did this. And this guy had this game. Then Reiner of course closes it out. Rodriguez, like all these other dudes that aren't Sam Bennett. They're really right. And there's so many dudes that you could name.

There are so many times, like you mentioned the Evander Kane thing. I was like, I almost made it Tobias Harris show, but he's on the Oilers. There's just a lot of dudes that we know the names because we've been watching the playoffs with them these last two deep runs. But to just the very casual drive-by fan that I am, there's a lot of guys that were on the Oilers, right? I can't remember that guy ever having a moment that stood out. The Canada not winning a Stanley Cup since 93 is one of the craziest moments

Streaks in sports. It really is. It's just nuts. 32 years. And the last time they won, they beat Gretzky in the Kings, which was like, you know, one of the most important finals, at least in America in the last 40 years. It's like Sam Malone not getting laid for a year. That was, I think that was an episode. You know, do you know Voodoo? It's like, it turned into Fandango. It's like a streaming movie TV service. I thought you meant the art arts. No, you can rent and buy movies on it.

Sometimes they have these sales. They had the entire cheer series streaming for $29.99. I was like, fine, that'll come in handy on an airplane. Why not? Switch out the Blu-rays. It's just like, who knows? It's how many seasons was it? It's like 11 seasons. It's like over 200 episodes. Fine. 30 bucks.

Twist my arm. I'll do it. We almost called you for the Die Hard with a Vengeance rewatch. It was on Friday, but I knew you were at Elite 11. Yeah. Went down to Elite 11. I had a busy day. What was it? Why was I so busy that day? Elite 11. You love Elite 11.

We have to go. We're over the two-hour mark. I feel bad for Gahal and Eduardo. Thank you for producing the pod for us, guys. Thanks to Zach Lowe for stopping by. Another season of the books for us. Thanks to everybody on YouTube who watched this. And you're going to be doing a bunch of stuff this week. We love the draft. Hopefully, we'll get some more trades. Rosillo, good to see you. Thanks, Bill. On a waste of space.

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