The NBA Playoffs Mega-Preview. Plus, Awards Picks With Rob Mahoney, Chris Ryan, and Brian Windhorst
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Please visit theringer.com slash RG to learn more. Listen to the end of this episode for additional details. Must be 21 plus presidents like states game problem call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit RG-HOPE.COM. Coming up, an NBA playoff mega preview. Plus I'm going to do my NBA awards picks and a whole lot more. It's all next.

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I was on Jimmy Kimmel Live last night promoting. It was great to go back. It's been 21 years since I worked for that show, which is incredible. Right now, there's 21-year-old people probably insulting me and Jimmy on social media right now. That's how long it's been since I worked there, but it was awesome to go back. Coming up on this podcast, Rob Mahoney and Chris Ryan join me. We're going to preview our favorite round one playoff series ever.

And then I'm going to do my NBA awards picks and bounce them off those guys once and for all. So that happened. And then a couple of days ago, Brian Windhorst came over to watch one of the playing games with me. And we just went into my office and we taped an hour plus about just a whole bunch of evergreen basketball talk, which was really fun. It was great to see him. I've known him for a long time. So that is today's podcast. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. ♪

All right, recording this part of the podcast on late Thursday morning Pacific time. Rob Mahoney is here. Chris Ryan, the NBA culture ombudsman of the Ringer is here. That's a great new title. Big picture czar of the Ringer. You just kind of float in with takes. We're going to try on some Thursday nights at least to have the three of us reacting off of some of these games. But I wanted to go through my NBA award stuff with you later.

I'm going to talk about the series first because we just got news that Dame Lillard is playing in this Bucs series. And the Bucs Pacers series now is a stealth most fun possibility for round one. Mahoney, series you're most looking forward to out of the eight? Now, we don't know the two play-in matchups yet, but we assume those are going to be blowouts. But what's your favorite out of these eight?

It's Rockets Warriors. I just think it has all the juice you could ask for, all the animosity you could ask for. A lot of people who are just kind of assholes to play against. And I mean that in a very complimentary way. So between like the, you know, jet fuel athleticism against the old savvy champions angle, plus all of that going on, like I, I find it hard to pick anything else.

CR, that checks a lot of your boxes too. Yeah, I kind of wish they would bring in soccer yellow cards to this series where they could just flash a bunch of them in the beginning. I'm really excited for this one. I was really nervous for the Warriors watching that Grizz game, watching the Grizzlies come back. Felt like the Warriors crowd kind of died a little bit in the second half as they were getting clawed back into it.

They got a little nervous. Yeah, and you never want to go into the playoffs with your two best players grabbing at various extremities. So Steph's thumb, Jimmy's ankle. I'm excited to watch this version of the Warriors, but the Rockets do seem like they were built in a lab to screw with them. You know what makes all that stuff better is when Dylan Brooks karate chops it.

You know, just take some body blows from a Stephen Adams screen. You know, Ahmed Thompson blocking your shit. I'm sure it's going to go great for everybody. Well, Stephen Adams has already reminded everyone that Draymond has kicked him in the balls two different times over the course of his career. Like, that's not even a top three feud in this series. It would be amazing if, like, as tip-off was starting, like, a cage match cage came down and it was just Dylan Brooks and Draymond in the middle. And it was like, we're going to settle this right now, brother. Yeah.

I had a couple of Warriors fans in my life who were very upset at me because Mahoney and I did a podcast after the Lakers-Warriors game, and both of us were like, that was really interesting. The Warriors really seemed like they have a handle on a Lakers matchup. We liked what we saw. That team makes sense to us as a win multiple rounds. And then after that Clippers game,

I expressed real concern that they didn't totally look like they knew who they were again. And Zach and I talked about that on his pod on Monday. I didn't even know about the Kaminga benching until the next day. I thought he was hurt. And it just seems like they punted on Kaminga. And this is, Rob, a different team than they were when we did that Lakers-Warriors pod where I thought Kaminga, I think he brings them something extra athletically, physically, just as a bigger body if they're playing Kawhi Leonard.

LeBron James against Houston.

who has a bunch of physical wings. It just seemed... And they're going to play a big lineup. It just seems like you need them. But the Warriors are done with them. And now I feel like they seem really small in this series. This is a classic small ball, big ball kind of matchup. I'm way more worried about them than I was two weeks ago. Is that recency bias or what do you think it is? I think they've kind of always been that team. And they've shown some of those limitations as far as, you know, how much do you trust Golden State in the half court? The good news is...

probably you trust the Rockets less in terms of executing their half-court offenses. So this matchup works for them, but I agree with you, they're very small. The Kuminga element is such a perfect encapsulation of the Warriors, who I think at every turn have prioritized rowing in the same direction, philosophical alignment as

As opposed to, oh, what's like the other counter element that we can bring in to give us a different speed, a different punch? Other coaches, other teams, other structures might welcome a Jonathan Kuminga type under those circumstances. But also, is he really the answer? If you're struggling with a LeBron or you're struggling with a Luka or one of these teams that have big wings at any point in the playoffs, if you're struggling with Tara Eason for that matter, is Jonathan Kuminga really the solution? I'm still a little skeptical of that, even though I respect the talent.

Or was he the best possible solution out of all the other available options they had? But they, you know, CR, you mentioned the Curry injury possibility. Butler, just the fact that it's an older team and you have this young, hungry team of pit bulls going against them that also has home court advantage. I can't figure this series out. What are you looking at on Bucks? You can tell me at the end of this series that this was like

a version of like the early great Thunder teams that came out and just ripped the Spurs apart, you know, like where they lost the first two and then they just, it wasn't that they won the next four after losing two to the Spurs. In 2012, right. Yeah. And you could also tell me that this is too much too soon for Houston and that Wiley, Wise, Golden State are going to carve these guys to pieces. It feels like a real like,

Clash of the Titans to me in terms of like the two coaches are both awesome. I think that everything offsets itself so there's like you can't say that Draymond and Jimmy are going to mentally dominate the Rockets guys or like trick them too much because the Rockets have plenty of guys who are just like I live this dark art shit too. So it's going to be like one of those like I don't want to miss a single moment of this series. I'm sentimentally hoping for more

Warriors to advance just because love watching Steph in big, big moments. And I feel like the Rockets are going to be around for the next five, six, seven years. Yeah, there's some NBA historical stuff with this series that makes me nervous for the Warriors. One of the things that makes me nervous is Tuesday night, they got 75 points from Steph and Butler, right? That's about as good as those guys are going to play in a big game.

and they barely beat a Memphis team that doesn't play defense, right? So you look at that and you're like, all right, that's your best case scenario. If you're not playing Kaminga, you have no other wild cards for points. Kind of need those guys. Maybe you'll have some variance with some threes. For the most part, you need Butler and Curry to be between 60 and 65 points realistically. And Butler's not, you know, in the playoffs, he's been a little different as we've written about.

But, you know, it's a lot of points. It's a lot of points to make up. So unless it's a rock fight from Houston side, I really worry about the upside of Houston if I'm a Golden State fan. Oh, sure. That there's... Is there another level this team can go to? What is Amon Thompson going to be like

on a giant stage like this where it's like, hey, yo, shut down Curry. Make this your goal for two weeks. Take this guy out. What happens if they're just throwing big physical swings against Butler over and over again? And then the offensive rebounding and the big boy lineups, Shangoon, Draymond guarding, trying to guard Shangoon.

This to me is a series where you could tell me they have those bets where you can bet on any outcome on FanDuel. Like Houston in five is plus 790. Golden State in seven is plus 530. You could give me any of those bets. I'm like, yeah, I could see it. Warriors sweep them? Sure, maybe. Rockets sweep them? All right. Warriors are minus 166 favorites, Rob. Did that surprise you? Because Rockets have home court. It doesn't surprise me. I think...

I take everything you're saying about the physicality, the athleticism. And I want to reinforce both of these things can be true. The Rockets have had an amazing season that has been super fun to watch in terms of a young team that's just well ahead of the curve. But if you are a young team that's ahead of the curve, I don't want to see a Steph Curry in a series, a Jimmy Butler in a series, a Draymond Green in a series. There's a level of collective savvy there, especially between those three, that has been so comfortable and so natural. We've seen them run these...

just seamless three-man actions as if they've been playing together for years. And that's where I think you get some of those random points, right? If those three guys are in concert,

Quentin Post is going to spring open for some threes. Gary Payton's going to go baseline for some dunks and get some cuts. You're going to get random points out of that stuff because the Rockets eventually are going to freak out. And so it doesn't surprise me that the Warriors are favored, despite being the undercard in the series. I just think there's so much respect for them. And there's so much even sentimental value, as you were saying, Chris. A lot of us kind of want to see it, and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of bettors kind of want to see it. Yeah, I don't want to be in a world where the Warriors made that Butler move a year too late, which is...

entirely possible. But I want to believe in another Warriors run. And it's kind of funny with the NBA where I, you know, my, the season of the team that I cheer for, like, exploded on takeoff. So I have been... What team is that? I forget. Who's your team? I have been sort of roving around, but like, this is almost like previously on the Golden State Warriors, things were going fine. So I need you guys to level set for me. Like, I don't really remember...

the fourth best player on a team getting benched going into the playoffs. It's not good. Well, you mentioned some of these young guys, the Rockets, that we don't know what we're getting. The Warriors have guys who have never been in a situation where they've been counted on in a series like this. Guy Santos might have to play. You don't know Guy Santos' background. He could have played high-level competitive basketball anywhere. Moody, they actually really, really genuinely need big stretches from. They need him to guard.

um whoever is hot like if jaylen green's having a hot game ultimately i think it's probably going to be him guarding that they're going to need people to protect the boards there might this might be a a dust off kavan looney series you might see jackson davis who we haven't seen in forever i just if the thing that worries me the most out of all the shit other than the home court is i haven't seen a better nobody believes in a situation in around one in a while

You have this Rockets team that's had the two seed locked up for a week that already is pissed off and has an edge and has a coach who could not be less afraid of Steph Curry and LeBron and has already talked shit to both of them in the last year. And he's going to get these guys. I watched him do it in Boston.

Nobody believes in you. We're underdogs even though we don't have game seven. Steph is the favorite, you know, the favorite character in the league. He's going to get all the calls. Yeah. Everyone's against us. The refs are going to be against us. We're going to go. We're going to have Golden State fans in our arena. Nobody thinks we can do this. I just feel like he's going to be pushing that, pushing that. But the question for me, CR,

Who is the guy? There's going to be three games in this series with three minutes left and now I have to match baskets with Curry and Butler.

Who's it going to be? I was going to ask this and I was going to ask about the dangers of Dylan Brooks thinking it's him. Well, you could go through. We could have a draft. It's like, what if Fred Van Vliet thinks it's him? What if Dylan Brooks thinks it's him? We could get ugly pretty fast. Yeah. Jalen Green also will think it's him. This is kind of part of the Rockets conundrum is they don't have a natural level set. Like they don't have a place where when everything goes to shit, the ball finds a certain guy.

it's a little bit clawing it out. And sometimes it is like Alper and Shangoon making ugly stuff sort of work and fighting through, like fighting through pressure, fighting through good defense. I don't really trust their half court offense at all in terms of the first shot. The question with them, as we kind of saw in that Memphis game for Golden State as well, is how many second chances are you giving up?

up, especially if they stick as big as the Rockets usually want to play. It may not matter if Fred VanVleet shoots 36% from the field if you're just constantly getting second opportunities. Bill, will you give me the money to go to GoDaddy and register a site called HeThoughtItWasHim.com? And every night after one of these games, I just put up a picture of the Rocket who thought it was him?

It's Jack Landale. Didn't expect to see him. I was trying to think of what the narrative, it's a fun exercise when you're trying to think of what's going to happen to just think what the narratives would be after the series.

And what we last... What's leading a podcast title? You know, what they're talking about on first take. With the Golden State, the ones are easy. Like, oh my God, Steph did it again. Yes. Wow. They just beat a team that was definitely better than them. Oh my God, playoff Jimmy, the whole thing. Is that want for that moment of like, the Warriors are back, it's another Steph run. Is that a healthy thing for us? Like, I struggle with that of like, do...

Are clinging to guys like Steph or LeBron? Are we clinging to them in the way that I'm clinging to like...

Tom Cruise jumping out of a jet? Is it coming at the cost of something? I'm ready for Austin Butler. You know what I mean? I'm ready for... That's on Ben Thompson, I think. For as bad as it might be for ratings or for narratives, I'm excited at the prospect of New Blood. People might be like, who the hell wants to watch Houston OKC in the Western Conference Finals? I think it would be pretty awesome. That series would be amazing. Yeah, I would love that. Yeah. From a narrative standpoint...

I think the guys that could come out of it from Houston's side are Shingun. Yes. And clearly Thompson, which I think there's a disparity now between the people that actually give a shit about basketball and watch it. A lot of them work for us. It's to say, hey, have you seen Thompson? This guy's incredible. You're not breaking any new ground. But there's a whole level of casual fans that I don't think have any idea what's going on with him, how athletically, how different he is. There are some people that voted for him for...

defensive player of the year have him in the top three. I had him second team all defense. It made me rethink like, did I, did I fuck that up? But, um, in person it's unbelievable. And what he did to Steph a week ago or a week and a half ago now, um, it was notable. All right. So we have that as the most unpredictable ready for anything series.

The other one I'd put in that category guys is Pacers bucks with Dane playing this Pacers team that has looked awesome for the last three months, basically. Right. They, they, if you look at the conference odds, they're 28 to one to win the East. And I think those odds are nuts. I think those odds should be way lower because they are going to play. If they beat Milwaukee, they were playing Cleveland in round two. And I,

I think they could throw some haymakers at Cleveland. I just think 28 to one, like if you consider like if they beat Milwaukee and I have to be Cleveland, maybe something happens to Boston. Maybe there's an injury. They're better than a 28 to one to win the East. Dane playing now, I think is going to screw up the odds and make people think Milwaukee has a chance. Giannis is the best player in the series. CR, why don't people believe in the Pacers yet?

I don't think they've gotten a chance to watch them. I think this is like a good corollary maybe even to the Rockets where your difference between I watch national games and kind of keep up on pods versus I'm out here just getting deep into NemHeart tape is pretty wide gap. And I would probably say that I'm a little bit in the former camp. So it's like I...

I know everything that has gone on with the Bucs this season. They are getting Portis back as well. Is that right? I don't know what to expect with that. But like, look, I just think that it would be so funny if the Pacers just got like a weird slip and slide situation

back to the Eastern Conference finals again and that this was like a sneaky great team. I do think best player in the series has got to be Giannis and I still think I'm kind of leaning that way. Yeah. I mean, the Dame element is... That's your take. Giannis is the best guy in the series. Well, you want a big picture.

I'm also not a cardiologist. Like, I don't know what's going on with Dame's, like this blood clot thing. It did make me a little nervous. So like, no, now he's fine. Yeah. Thing went away. It was, it was miraculous, but yeah, it's, it's definitely a mark. Do you think Indiana is underrated or properly rated Rob? Underrated almost perpetually. Uh,

But I think some of that is the struggling out of the gate earlier in the season, the skepticism that Chris is talking about in terms of, you know, like their playoff run last year, I think felt so fluky to a lot of people based on the injuries in the field, based on some of the opportunities in front of them. It felt blazery. Yeah. It felt a little blazery. I think that's fair. But I also think they...

seized every opportunity in front of them. And I think they've continued to do that and really righted the ship, not just offensively, but defensively. So I am happy to be neck deep in Andrew Nembhard tape and to be an advocate for the Pacers here on a national platform. I think they've been really, really good. I think they're better than most people realize. And I think ultimately more balanced than most people realize between the depth and the defense that they've played over the back part of the season. There's a really good team top to bottom. My biggest issue with them is how stupid they are at the end of games sometimes. Yeah.

They're my number one draft pick for, I can't believe you guys just lost that game. They had to have been the number one team that you would say that about this year. And I was looking at some of the odds with them.

To sweep the Bucs, it's plus 920. That's insane. They're not going to sweep the Bucs. They're better than the Bucs. They could just put four awesome games together and Giannis could have his 35 and 20 in a game and they could still beat them if they shot well. I think there's too much three-point variance with them. The Bucs are plus 490 to win in six and plus 540 to win in seven. And the scenario that would scare me if I was a Pacers fan is you lead the series and you're like...

how the fuck did we lose that series? We were up nine in game one. We turned the ball over three times. All of a sudden, the Bucs are down two and Dame hits a three and we just blew the game. They do this shit over and over again. And this is one of those, I don't know if I'm even touching this series from a gambling standpoint. I don't know what to expect. I don't really want to bet against Giannis because Rob, he seems like he's

he has been pushed to the edge. He's John Wick. My dog has died. Yeah, but you can't tell whether it's Keanu Reeves being like, I keep getting injured on these movies. This needs to end. Or if he's like, you fucking woke up the Baba Yaga. I'm back. I'm here to take my corner back.

And that's where I think the Dame return is such a huge deal. It completely changes the matchup. It also changes it from, I am a battered man who had to carry this team over the finish line for the back part of the season. I'm dragging Ryan Rollins on offense to make this thing work. And now you have potentially a really potent shot maker returning to the field. I thought before the Pacers were going to win in a fairly short series, I picked Pacers in five, thinking Dame was not going to play. Him coming back at some point buys them time.

I just don't think they have enough secondary and tertiary answers. Dame, in whatever state he's in, is going to be out of shape, out of rhythm, coming back into it. Already has had kind of a weird season in terms of the actual impact he's making on the game. And beyond him, you're like, I'm really living and dying with Kyle Kuzma here. And that's not something that I like to do personally, but live your life. I think that was a... Was that a Michael Mann movie in the 80s? To live and die with Kyle Kuzma? To live and die in Kuzma? I am...

I'm probably going to lean Pacers by the time it comes to gut check time for when to make a bet because two reasons.

It's impossible to overstate how involved Kevin Porter is in the future of the Bucs right now. Jesus Christ. They were really, really relying on him. And I think they actually need him to beat Indiana. And that is such a wild card for so many different reasons. And he also needs the ball and, you know, to integrate Dame back into that. And there's Porter. That's one thing. The other thing is something you mentioned about Dame, Rob. The fact that he, you know, he hasn't played basketball in three weeks.

This was always kind of a bad matchup for him because the Pacers love to pressure 94 feet. Yeah. And they love to just bug people and make them work to bring it up. And it's like, oh, you're going to have Giannis bring the bop or we're going to guard him almost the whole court. And I think they're going to try to put Miles on Dame. And I think you're asking a lot for him to just be like, hey, I know you haven't played in a month. I know you're on this blood thinner medication. Oh, by the way, we're going to be pressuring you this whole game and attacking you on defense. Yeah.

It's a lot. It would be heroic if they won the series because of him. The safe pick is Indy here, and that's why the line is what it is. Yes. The heroic language that reminds me of in Shams' report about Dame coming back. Amazing, colon. It was very like the language of the blood thinner thing, which is amazing, is very impressive. I have no idea how he's medically clear to play. The framing of it

from Shams, with all due respect, was a little bit like Trump's annual physical to me. That was the kind of vibe I was getting about like, everything's great. The healthiest man in America. Right. 4.5% body fat. Narratives coming out of this one, C.R.,

If Milwaukee loses, we're just on the clock now for Giannis trade stuff. That's it. Is that, maybe that should be another godaddy.com purchase for you. Has Giannis asked out yet.com? Yeah. Yeah. But like, you know, listening to you over the last couple of days, you and Zach on, on Zach's pod, like it is sort of starting to get a little difficult to imagine these massive star trades, unless it's your problem from my problem. Yeah. So I do wonder, let's just say like,

Do you have a Phoenix-Milwaukee crisis swap? Is there something in there that you could do? I don't know. But these guys also are going to leverage, use their leverage and control their destination to some extent. So I'm trying to... It's hard to go into the trade machine and be like, oh yeah, well obviously you just do this for Giannis. I know that there's the rumors about him wanting to go to New York and stuff like that. Or even the broader New York. It doesn't matter the borough. But I...

I think we'll learn a lot from this playoff series. CR, don't step on my podcast in 15 days when I go through all the possible things, please. No, my money would be on Brooklyn or the Knicks because you talk about how hard it is to match the salaries. There's a Towns, Giannis, like very easy flip you can do. Sadly, the Knicks have nothing else to throw in the trade. But, you know, he's probably going to pick the trade. But I would bet on Brooklyn if I had to because I think

Brooklyn's sitting there with a lot of assets and some other moves they can pieces they can put together. Well, I just don't want to read another Kevin Durant. Well, I don't want to read another Kevin Durant. He's let's just put him on the Timberwolves next year unless somebody can figure out the part where the Suns are going to be like, cool, sign and trade for Randall. Sign us up. That's not. Oh, and you have no picks. That sounds great, too.

So we'll just get Julius Randall and Rob Dillingham for KD. Great. Let's talk to my favorite, favorite series, Nuggets Clippers. A line that has moved dramatically. The Clippers are now favored. Minus 118 favorites. Denver in five is plus 620. Clippers in five is plus 680.

I think it's going longer than five. Denver is six plus 570. That would mean they won in LA. Clippers in six is plus 350. And then if you think it's going seven, which would be in Denver, plus 410 for Denver, plus 570 for LAC. And none of us are allowed to talk about the Kawhi's been hurt every year in the playoffs and you have to factor that in. We all know. Rob, feels like a long, awesome,

incredible Spurs Clippers 2015 ish

serious to me. And I, I, as I've said a million times, I think the Clippers are the second best team in the West. I think they're a real threat. And I think if Jokic can beat them, this would be, uh, way up there with anything he's done basketball wise. I mean, that's kind of why I don't want to over index on that Clippers Warriors game too much because the Clippers just became one of the toughest matchups for basically every team in the Western conference field over a matter of like five weeks. Uh,

They're a really tough Jokic matchup. Like, Zoo plays him pretty well. I think it gives them a chance to play it honestly if they want to try to do that, and I suspect they will. This feels like a temperature check series to me on how you feel about Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. Oh, like long-term? Long-term in particular, but even within this series. Like, we know Denver's depth is an issue. We know that they're not... Once they go beyond their seventh guy, even sometimes their sixth guy, to be honest with you, things can get dicey. But if Jamal Murray isn't

fully healthy and he's kind of inching his way back and more or less play off Jamal Murray, they're going to have problems. And if Michael Porter Jr. has those games where he's a little spotty and the shot isn't hitting and all of a sudden he has 11 points in a mostly ineffectual game, that's a huge problem for Denver against this Clippers team that all of a sudden just has all of the pieces to put it together. You didn't talk about their bench.

I'm trying to talk around it. I'm trying to be nice. Well, it's going to be the top five guys on the Nuggets are going to have to play 38 to 41 minutes a game. Yeah. And I think Jokic is going to have to be in the low 40s for them to... Every second he's out of the game is going to be a disaster for them. What do you see narrative got, Chris Ryan? I'm very interested to see Adelman's first playoffs against Ty Lue. It's probably the best team I have ever seen switch coaches this late.

into a season and does that give them a spark? Does that give them any tactical wrinkles? And how much can Lou think on his feet and negate that because he's probably one of the best in the league along with Spolstra doing stuff like that. The Joker talk towards the end of the season of like, what did he say? Like a caged beast is the most dangerous animal or whatever? Like I'm like,

Let me watch this in slow motion, dude. I just want to watch back cuts all day long. I'm so excited for that. But Adelman under the lights is a really interesting question. And whether he does something different than the Malone teams we've been seeing over the last couple of post-seasons. What prestige TV character does Adelman look like? To me, he looks like the embattled PR person in Succession who's getting screamed at by Kendall Shore. I have to give them a statement! Yeah!

Kendall, we got to tell them something. And he's just getting berated. If Kawhi is healthy, I just think the Clippers are winning this series as great as Jokic is. I think you can give him any stat line in the series, and I'm not sure it matters. They have so many people to throw at Murray. This is a nightmare series for Murray. Just let's start there.

And we're going to see a lot of Chris Dunn and we're going to see a lot of Nuggets welcoming Chris Dunn to shoot from wherever he wants. Sure. Go ahead. You can have that. But then he comes out

Let's go. Hey, have you met Derek Jones Jr. yet? And I assume Batum's playing. Hey, have you met Nick Batum? Because now you're going to have him for four minutes. And I just think it's going to be really hard for them to get on track. They're going to use all the Westbrook minutes against them. Oh my God. And then Zubat's like, here's the other thing. Jokic doesn't want to get in foul trouble in these games. And if he's going to guard Zubat's,

The Clippers are really good when they throw it to him. Teams always overreact. They always send a second guy. And if they try to guard him straight up with Joker, he's going to try to put some heat on him. They're also a really good offensive rebounding team. Jokic is the only guy who rebounds on this team.

Nobody else gets a rebound. It's basically just him. Aaron Gordon erasure, but largely I agree with you. I'm just saying, if they need a big rebound, he's usually the one getting it. So now he's got to keep off Zoo. And then there's this separate Kawhi piece. Can I get a temperature check on big game, James? Under the hot lights? And this is, now you're going case for Denver. Best player in the series. We've seen this James Harden play before. We have.

And Kawhi Leonard, just when you think it's going great, it's like the dun-dun. It's like in Presumed Innocent. What was that dumb episode, Rob, when the guy had the fake heart attack? Next week, is he going to wake up? Oh, he's fine. It was just a dream. Yeah, he's okay. But Kawhi is the dun-dun cliffhanger. Yeah. Just waiting to happen. With Harden, too, honestly. Harden did not have great games against the Nuggets this year, but Kawhi didn't play in any of them, if I believe so. Yeah.

having quite on the floor dramatically changes. Every matchup changes the defensive priorities. And in particular, I like to tie this into what you're saying, Bill, about Yoko and foul trouble. It's not just like battling zoo on the block. It's not just fighting him, fending him off for rebounds. It's you're going to be in a ton of pick and roll all night because James Harden is going to have the ball. That is going to be his primary use. Like you're going to have to hang in that and not get too handsy along the way. And every foul for Yoko could mean a lot in the same way that every foul for zoo could too. Well,

Well, and Kendall Roy's PR guy, who I think seemed like he did a decent job in those last couple games, but he's going against, I think one of the best four or five coaching staffs in the league. And it's a staff that is really committed to defense and, uh,

on what they want to do and is just really smart. Everyone's on the same page. They'll bench dudes that don't look great. They'll take them out. We didn't mention the Ben Simmons piece of this, Chris. Yeah, some of my faves. I don't know what your relationship is with the other BS at this point. I'm going to get estranged. Estranged might be the answer. We're in a real wish him well zone. Oh, you're the sarcastic wish him well. Yeah, yeah.

Okay. I'm excited for Ben. I'm excited for... Which excited? What part are you excited about, Ben? When they go to zone and he doesn't know what to do? If they do hack of Ben? If he takes a shot? What are you excited about? Ben getting hack of Ben shooting in front of the wall in Inglewood? Like shooting in front of the crowd wall? I'm excited for that. Oh, no. My guess would be he gets phased out of...

this series as it goes along because I think there's too many unplayable things about him. The other thing with all the rest, Zubat always plays big minutes anyway. And it's gotten to the point with him where if he's out of the lineup, you really feel it.

And they get away with playing Batum at the five sometimes, especially like the non-Jokic minutes are such a wild card in terms of what kinds of fake centers you can throw out there. I don't see a reason why that has to work that way. One other thing, guys, I got to mention this. They really have a home court advantage now, the Clippers. There's real energy in that arena. Denver's not going to have a lot of fans there, but it's...

It's not swinging games. We're not, it's never going to be the eighties again, where you could just put five loud people behind the bench and just have them berate people. They were the only five people there. Yeah. Right now it's, you know, there, there's just a nice energy to it. So for talking narratives. Oh, go. Oh, I wanted to ask you a question, whether you saw any parallels between the Denver situation and the Milwaukee situation, not the joke or whatever, ask out, but like how different could this nuggets team look next year? If this is a first round exit.

I think you're looking at Porter in that case, right, Rob? I think that would be the first piece. I think Murray could be on the table too. Yeah, that would surprise me. Different financial commitment for sure. But I think if the Nuggets lose, and granted, this is a series they well could lose. Like a 4-5 in which both are quality Western Conference teams. It's not like a disgrace to lose to the Clippers. But clearly this is a team operating with incredible urgency that sees some pretty dramatic changes in its future. Why not?

trade Murray or Porter as a part of that if you think the outcome is disappointing. If you think those guys can't take you anywhere, then you got to start somewhere with the actual roster. Well, if you can't get through this series, that should tell you you got to do something here. Well, because when they fired Booth and Malone, you could read that as white flag, we're getting ready for next season, I have my eye on another GM who might become available soon or is in the mix. Think they're violent?

whoever, you know, and coach and the same thing for coach. And then I think they kind of had a little bit of a dead cat bounce where they're like, no, we're not dead yet. We're fine. You know, and like, we're, we're, we're still, we're still frisky and it's still Jokic, Jokic.

So it's kind of weird. It's like, on one hand, I'm like, are you guys playing out the string or is this like a... See, I don't think they were doing that at all. I think this was bad for a while and I think they wanted to do it a couple different times and they would just win a game right when they were about to do it. And I just think they stared at it and stared at it and at some point were like,

This is actually going to sink our season if we don't do something. Everything's coming up. This is our last chance. Arsenal just beat Real Madrid in the Champions League. Got the magic touch. So for narratives, for the Denver side, it'll be like, well, Jokic, I thought you'd think he's the MVP and he couldn't even get out of round one. Like, I promise you, if they lose to the Clippers, Jokic will not, there will be no shit on his feet. It will not be him.

The Clippers will win despite Jokic. He's one of the best playoff performers in modern NBA, if not overall NBA history. And he also just had one of the best offensive seasons in the history of the league. I think there's the Murray Porter question from the Nuggets side, then who's going to come in, all that stuff. On the Clippers side, if they don't win...

Then it's a James Harden. He fooled us again. If Kawhi that can't play seven games in a row or six games in a row, he fooled us again. I think those would be the two things that came out of it. Let's take a, let's take a break. Wanted to mention one other series to you and then we'll, I'll do my NBA awards for you guys.

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A box of fine wines. Yes. Uber Eats can definitely get you that. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol in select markets. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. All right. We didn't talk Lakers, T-Wolves. I'm really proud of us. On ESPN, they would have just led with that. We could have done a goat conversation about LeBron and then...

done that whole thing. We don't have to do that here. We led with Steph instead. You know, we're much nobler. We did the independent spirits of word version of the same segment. Aubrey Plaza was hosting this podcast. Yeah. Adam Scott came in. Um,

Do you give the two Wolves a chance in this series, Rob? Absolutely. I think there's a real possibility, and I'm not willing to stake all of these claims at once, but there's a real possibility that all three of these are upsets. That every non-OKC series in the West is an upset. I'm not just zooming past the Wolves at all. I think the Lakers, understandably, given just the collective brainpower between Luka and LeBron and the way that they...

really rip you apart over the course of seven games deserves a ton of respect and a ton of deference as we're kind of parsing out what's going to happen in this series. Yeah. Ant is still pretty unguardable and you can pressure him and you can trap him and you can try to make him do difficult things. But this is a pretty capable, pretty deep team. They also require you to bet heavily on Julius Randall being good in the playoffs. They require you to really believe in Rudy Gobert's ability to hang in this matchup. I'm probably a little more bullish on that than most.

Hold on, wait a second. Why are you bullish on that?

I don't think he's a train wreck. I think most of the time that Rudy Gobert gets dragged across the coals, it's mostly misplaced frustration at like perimeter people who can't guard anybody or matchups that happen for like three minutes of a game. But overall, he may not be always playing up to defensive player of your standards. And frankly, he hasn't been that guy this year or last year really at all. He's kind of come down a level. But he's a good NBA player and he's a good player who has some leverage in a series like this. Like I think he will make an impact on it.

Do you think it's an advantage, Rob, that Finch has introduced this idea that there's no sacred cows on this team early in the season where he's like, I might run this five out for the end or I might run this five out. And it's like, just because of your rep, just because of the name on the back of the jersey doesn't mean you're out here because you do quote unquote deserve it. It's who I think is the best matchup at the end of games.

If he's been doing that all season, maybe Gobert is more emotionally prepared for eventualities where he's not on the floor because the Lakers are throwing something at the Wolves that he's not suited for. Yeah. I think you hope that that's the case. And from a coaching perspective, you're right. You're doing kind of everything you can to prime your players for that possibility. Bottom line, your team has Anthony Edwards, Jayden McDaniels, Rudy Gobert, Julius Randle. These are...

highly emotional players, if we're all being honest about the way that they operate and conduct themselves. They've had fights in huddles. They've punched things and gotten injured. This is the core of your team, and you're going to ride and die with some of that emotion, and there's inevitably going to be a fallout during the really, really tough moments. But maybe you can get away with that for a series. Maybe you can get away with that for a couple games at a time. I think you just have to kind of ride the right wave with it. I had a Minnesota fan

try to zag with Gobert and I appreciate it. I won't name who it was, but they were like, you know, everybody's talking about playing Gobert off the court. What about Gobert's high lobs? Who's contesting those in the Lakers? I was like, oh, I kind of like that one. Yeah, he might play Jackson Hayes off the court. It's like, who are the rim protectors on the Lakers? I was like, well, they don't really have some. And then

Uh, the other point was that you can actually hide Gobert in this series a little bit more than people realize. Like if Jackson Hayes is out there, he just stays with him. And if they're going to set picks where Jackson Hayes is the one setting the pick, good luck to you. And then when Rui's out there, he probably shades closer to Rui or Finney Smith.

and does the thing that the Celtics do with Porzingis where he's near the corner, but he can jump back in. He can play free safety, yeah. And I don't know. They were just a little more bullish on it than I thought. There's a best player in the series question with this series that's really fun where you're like, well, obviously, Luka or LeBron. It's like, I don't know how obvious it is. Like, what if Edwards is just incredible? Yeah, Edwards certainly thinks he's the best player in the series. There's some...

You know, LeBron's 40 years old. I feel like if you're going to always talk about, well, what if Kawhi gets hurt? I still think we have to at least mention, well, what if a 40 year old guy playing really physical, awesome playoff games every two, three days? Like, are we counting on that for three rounds? I think that has to be mentioned. And then the targeting Reeves on defense, I think.

The smarter teams have done it. The Lakers know it's coming. How much of that are they going to do it? I think it's an awesome series. If you had to pick, who are you picking, Rob? I would pick the Lakers, but I think it's going to be long. I'm very tempted to pick a Lakers and seven.

CR, do you think Minnesota, you think they get 30% of the calls this series? 28%? Where would you put it? Yeah, what's the circuit breaker? What's the lowest amount of calls they could get before the NBA breaks? I think 30 is a nice number. I'm going with the Wolves. Going with the Wolves? Yeah. Hell yeah. Yeah.

It's an awesome series. I'll tell you this, the FanDuel line of Minnesota being a plus 156 underdog and the Lakers being almost two to one seems off to me because Minnesota has enough talent to hang with this. To me, this feels like a Lakers in seven. You've been watching Lucas so closely over the last couple of weeks, Bill. Do you feel like he's got his head screwed on right for this?

I liked what I saw from him last week, but I absolutely think one of Minnesota's game plans is going to be to try to agitate him and annoy her and hope that he gets mad, hope that he gets technicals, hope that he gets into mano a mano stuff. I just think he's shown some real immaturity on the court.

Like he, all the same stuff he's been doing the first seven years of his career. He still does. He still talks to people in the front row, all that shit. And I think Minnesota has a bunch of guys who love that, you know? And the other thing with Minnesota is it's definitely an irrational confidence team, right? They're not going to be, nobody's going to be scared. They're not going to be, Oh my God, we're playing in LA. Like they're, they don't give a shit. They're not going to care that celebrities are around the, uh, around the front. Um,

Yeah, this will be a good one. I forgot to mention with the Rocket series and maybe with the Pistons-Knicks, which is the last one I want to talk about quickly. I don't think kids should be allowed in the front row for either of those series. Those are great too. I think it has to be 12 and up. You must be this tall. It's like a Disneyland ride. Yeah, if you're nine and under, you don't get to sit. Knicks-Pistons-

I almost think that's like an NC-17 movie. You have to be 18 and older to sit in the front row. Yeah, child services should be called if you've got like a six-year-old. If you bring your six-year-old kid to Nick's Pistons and that kid gets trampled by Ron Holland during like a massive brawl, I don't feel sorry for you. I don't feel sorry that your kid broke his wrist when he's six years old. You should not be in the front row for that series. Counterpoint to this, that'll build character.

Oh, there we go. And we're facing down a time in this country where people are going to maybe have to go back to the factories.

And what better way to prepare you than by witnessing a massive brawl? If you're over 70 years old, stay out of the first round. I'm just warning you now. This is the thing. I don't know that there's an age at which you are safe from an Isaiah Stewart elbow. If it comes down to that, it really doesn't matter if you're a child. It doesn't matter if you're elderly. These guys are going to spill over, and I respect the hell out of it. Yeah, because I don't think you can rule out Lakers, Wolves either for some sort of feistiness. But Rockets, Warriors...

Clearly, shit's going down in that series. And the Rockets are going to hit Curry. They're going to hold him 50 feet from the basket on every screen. They're going to knock him down when he goes to the hoop. It's just going to be on. Brooks is definitely yanking that guy's thumb. I mean, it is. Oh, yeah. Of course. Pistons, Knicks, any chance, Rob?

It's a real climb. I think there's places where the Pistons are going to have definite advantages. That's a matchup that really suits Cade. I think he's going to play great. I think overall the orchestration is going to be there. But keeping up with the Knicks and kind of the sheer firepower of what they're capable of with all of their guys out there is brutal. And I think even more brutal now, they've had a weird season. They've been up and down. They haven't all been together enough.

They've played a lot together, but in terms of the chemistry of that core five, hasn't been as scintillating as I might have hoped coming into the season. But then you get...

stretches where Brunson's out and OG Ananobi transforms into this totally different guy. Maybe there's a huge payoff for that, right? Maybe there's a payoff for those minutes where, you know, Towns is in foul trouble. Brunson has to leave the game for a bit or is just kind of being locked up in a certain matchup. Maybe Ron Holland is all or a Sar Thompson's all up in his jersey for long stretches. And now it's the OG Ananobi show. And I think that's that's something that the Pistons just don't have counters for is that that sort of layered offensive threat.

Great regular season story, CR. Yeah. I think this is probably where the train gets off and maybe they win one. I think Knicks in four at plus 520 or Knicks in five at plus 270. Those are probably two of my favorite bets. The one question I have with the Knicks is,

can Tibbs figure out a way to like could Brunson end up with a minutes per game in this series of like 48.2 like if there was like an overtime yeah is is all are all five guys gonna be in the 40s every game because there's like two days off between games yeah Brunson has to do halftime entertainment does he have to do the red yeah he has to go out there and spin plates I just want to say uh I I was always a big Kate Cunningham fan and I was really worried that

his career was going to kind of get basically torpedoed by the institutional malaise of the Pistons. So to see this turnaround is really cool. I hope that everybody, because it's the Knicks, it's New York, there's going to be a ton of people watching this series, just inevitably, that it's a great platform and he goes off no matter what happens. I think the Pistons definitely get one at home and it's a feel-good story. And I think it's a cool platform to introduce a new start of the league.

Yeah. Rob, are you watching Institutional Malaise on Paramount? You know, I thought it was a real slog mid-season. It just, it kind of lost me. I thought it was good to see Carla Gugino like trying again with one of the Wilson brothers. She's a lawyer who's just trying to make it work with this institution. But Nicole Kidman's three-episode arc, I thought that was pretty good. We should create a video show for the Ringer-TV YouTube thing.

Where we just list four shows and three of them are real and one is made up. And then the viewers have to guess which one we made up. Because I think it would be near impossible at this point. And Apple will have some shows where I'm just like, wow. Yeah. What is that? That was greenlit? There was a show that I heard about the other day called State of the Union with Chris O'Dowd and Rosamund Pike. And it's just about their marriage. And Nick Hornby wrote it. And I was like, this feels like a poster thing.

in Seth Rogen's office in the studio. Yes. Right. The studio has almost, yeah, it's almost like made it even more noticeable. Yeah. Rob, are you a 1923 guy? I'm not. Should I be? Oh, wow. Am I missing out? What do you think, C.R.?

Yeah. I mean, it's not my favorite Sheridan, but it definitely ended with some fireworks. I prefer my Sheridan modern, if I'm being honest with you. I prefer it with, you know, guns a-blazing, but in a more modern setting. Maybe a drug runner is involved, maybe not. I have season tickets now for Sheridan. That's where I've landed. Sure. I really like 1923, but it's one of the all-time couple shows for my wife and I. My wife loves it. I have no idea why...

And she loves shows set in the 1800s and 1900s because she feels like she really would have been an impactful person back then. What is an impactful person back then look like? She would have absolutely been able to defend the ranch with guns and, and,

And would have been able to survive in the cold. She would have hit that train. The lady waiting for the train who was freezing to death, she's like, I would have made it. I would have been able to make it until the train showed up. Yeah. I would have died in the first episode. The median show for a couple is an interesting conversation. Like what show ticks three boxes each? Oh, I think Presumed Innocent is a 10 out of 10 on that scale. Yeah, Friends and Neighbors right now for my wife and I is a ticking equal boxes. Just hamming it up.

Yeah. He's having a ham old time. Okay. Playing games really quick. I picked Miami against Chicago, and I think they're also going to beat Atlanta, and that line is only minus one. There's no case for the Hawks. Is there, Rob? I mean, there's a case in that

Other than what you may have been led to believe by the way that he just shellacked the Bulls, this team can't really score in most games. And so I don't put it past them on any night to have like a 15-point quarter followed by a 13-point quarter. Who do you think Cleveland would rather play? Probably Atlanta, right? I don't think they care. I think they probably... I mean, look, yeah. If given the choice, one of them is maybe a little less physically taxing than the other, but I don't think the Cavs are having a problem with either of those teams. You guys enjoying the play-in experience?

I think they could dump the 9-10 pretty easily and we'd be good. I think we could go 7-8 and then loser plays 8-9 or we go 8-9 first. Yeah. They play the 7, some version of that. I just, although I guess Sacramento's still in.

But it's almost like they need the college football committee from the mid-80s to kind of step in and just be like, no, we've decided Sacramento is not a 9-10 team. SAC fired their GM while they're still in? No, no, no. Like they would be in. Oh, they would be in. I see what you're saying. Yeah. No, it's just...

You see those games. There was one good game out of four. I think they're probably hoping there's two good games out of four. So that's pretty tough. I think year to year, it's just impossible to know. And so they keep the option open for the most possible good games. And some junk is going to filter in. We're just going to have to sit through it, I think. Yeah. CR, I know about three weeks ago, I heard through the grapevine

You and your financial team bought some Nico Harrison stock. The lowest possible level. You were like, I want to bet on this guy. A lot of connections. Did some great stuff in the shoe industry. Made some good trades. Pulled the Mavs to the finals last year. The stock's never been lower. I'm going to invest. And then Dallas looks awesome last night in the playing game. How are you feeling about your holdings? I'm the Charlie Munger of buying into front offices. I...

I find it incredibly funny with all due respect to our former, former colleague, Jason Gallagher, who's really going through it on social media about the, the Dallas situation. Yeah. It was just kind of like, of course they're going to get into the playoffs and we're going to keep having to talk about this. Um,

I still think, obviously, it is a historically bad trade, but AD is good. I don't know. Nico Harrison said they were a championship-level team for two and a half quarters. What more compelling evidence do you need? Yeah. Well, my question is, if they do... There's six and a half point underdogs in Memphis. To me, that game's a toss-up because I could just see Davis going nuts in that game. If they did get in the OKC thing...

and then Davis goes nuts in the first game. It's the most fun, random scenario none of us would have expected. Like, oh my God, Dallas is up 2-1. And Nico's like, fuck all of you guys. I told you. If we had Kyrie, we'd be winning this thing. All the Mavs fans are wearing Joker masks and kind of like, oh my God. How am I supposed to feel?

Rob, who do you think OKC... I know they don't care either, but who would they rather play? I think they'd rather play Dallas. I think they'd rather play the team that basically doesn't have functional point guards. That's starting Najee Marshall out of necessity. That's running Brandon Williams out there. Who's played relatively well, but there's a reason why when you play against anyone who's not the Kings and you're the Mavs, you struggle to get the ball anywhere.

anywhere it needs to go in the half court. They just don't have enough, not just spacing, but the floor balance is kind of busted. They don't have enough playmaking in general right now. I think that would have been the case even if Kyrie was healthy, to be honest with you, but it's especially true now. Lou Dort's going to be like, I don't know who to guard. Who do you want me to shut down? Oh, these guys are mediocre.

I want Dallas to keep winning because I think it would be hilarious. But yeah, this worked out unbelievably well for OKC. And this is why you get the one seed. And this is why I did. All right. Before we go, I wanted to do I want to do my awards that I handed in on Tuesday. Not expecting. I thought I had a little more time. I thought so, too.

but they asked for it on Tuesday. I think they didn't want the play-in game. So I'm just going to tell you what I did, and you guys, I don't think, neither of you guys know anything I did, right? No. Okay. I can guess based on some of your more recent podcast appearances. Coach of the Year, Bickerstaff 3, Kenny Atkinson 2, Mark Dagnall, number one. Okay.

Dagnall's been great. Who'd you have, Rob? I did Atkinson one, Emeo Doka two, Bickerstaff three. But Dagnall's been great. Ty Lue has been great. I think Dagnall in particular, balancing all the injuries that OKC had this season, maintaining an elite high effort, high intensity defense over the entire course of the run and helping their young players get better. That's just not something that a lot of coaches can do all at once. So he deserves a ton of credit.

I was always impressed watching them, how well prepared they were, how hard they played, and how they could basically sustain any injury. And it was somehow okay. But the way the young players have grown on that team, and it's got to the point where the trade deadline, it's like, I don't know, Aaron Wiggins is good. Why would they, why do they need like a swing man? Why do they need DeAndre Hunter? Like they have Aaron Wiggins. I just thought he did a great job. And I think sometimes we default toward

It's got to be this, you know, like a Bickerstaff or like a JJ the Lakers only improved by three wins. It's almost most improved team becomes coach of the year kind of thing. And I always felt like that was stupid. So anyway, I have that. Clutch player of the year.

Jason Tatum, number three. Look up the stats. Sure. No. Jalen Brunson. He's still only 19 years old, Chris. Jalen Brunson, too. I couldn't believe how easy this was for me because I actually watch basketball. Jokic is the number one clutch player of the year. Does anyone fucking watch the Nuggets? He does everything at the end of games for them. Everything possible. How is he not clutch player of the year?

Because this award is kind of bogus? That's a ridiculous award. They should get rid of it. It's reliant on how you parse 12 shots. Like that's what the Clutch Player of the Year is. We talked about other possible things that could, Rassel and I, that could go in for this award because I hate the Kia Clutch Player of the Year and I think it's stupid. But it could be like an award like the Kia...

I'd really given up on you, but you kind of won me back over player of the year. Like, I really think they should have something like that. Or I really thought you sucked and it turns out you don't. How do you think he would feel about that? Yeah. Well, yeah. Does that fit on a poster for them? Yeah. Sixth man of the year, Ty Jerome third, Peyton Pritchard second, and Malik Beasley first. And I, I can't believe Pritchard was favored for this award all year. I just, what Beasley did all year.

clearly the sixth man to me. He didn't start really ever. He scored 16 a game. Kurt Goldsberry did a thing on my pod about how he's basically Clay Thompson for them this year. It's been really good. And I just thought it was a no-brainer. Who'd you have for that, Rob? I had Pritchard. I think Pritchard does a lot of what Beasley does at a more or less similar level, not quite the three-point volume. What Beasley's doing is pretty exceptional in that way. But a great three-point shooter himself, plus...

holds his own defensively, plus drives offense off the dribble. I just think he's more versatile than Beasley at the end of the day. CR, my thinking was if Pritchard disappeared for 25 games, it would suck, but the Celtics would have been fine. If Beasley disappeared, I think the Pistons would have been in major, major, major trouble because they actually ran real offense for him throughout the game. Also, if you'd picked Pritchard, most people would have thrown their phones into a river by now.

I really care about these awards. I try to do the right thing. Even if it's at the expense of Pritch Please. Please tell me that's not a thing. That's a t-shirt in Boston. You can look for it. Pritch Please is the hottest selling t-shirt in Boston. Not a lot of Pritch Please shirts at the Coolidge. I can get you one, CR. Thanks, please. I'm a medium. Rookie of the Year. I went Castle 1, Reese's Shade 2, ED3. I don't

Castle did enough, I feel like. Yeah, he was out there. Any arguments, CR? No, I mean, the Castle thing is just so exciting to imagine him with a healthy Wemby, Fox, full offseason, and then maybe an addition that they make in the offseason. Like, it's really cool. He's like a perfect winning basketball player on that team. I'll skip the rookie for second team. Most improved. I did Kamara on Portland, number three. Really? Really.

I thought he was stunning. I mean, he's been great, but he's kind of always been great at those things, though. I get. Yeah, I really took this one seriously and looked at everybody's because I wanted to do Reeves and I looked at last year's Reeves versus this year and it's like, was he really improved? He was good last year. Same thing for Cade.

Kamara became, I think, a guy that the other team was like, fuck. That is true. They have this guy. Oh, man, this is going to be a hard night for me. So I had him three. I had Christian Brown, too, just getting thrown in the KCP thing. And then I thought Daniels was the clear number one. Who'd you have number one, Rob? I had Zoo, actually, number one. Oh, I looked at him. I just felt like he was good last year and then went up a level.

but he's coming up later. He was good, but I wouldn't have put him anywhere close to all defense last year, for example. I thought he was really solid, but now he's all defense. Now he's putting up massive numbers. Now he's still one of the most impactful rebounders in the league, but has taken an even bigger jump in terms of what that means to a team. I just think he's been incredible. I wanted to put Quinton Grimes number one for CR because he almost ruined CR's draft pick. Oh my God, dude. Every night it was like... I was at home in Philly watching a run of games that they had

and he would honestly be going nuclear and you'd be like, all right, Quentin, roll an ankle. Come on. You know, like, you've done enough. You hit your over or whatever the hell is going on. Anything? Yeah. Defensive player of the year. Number three, Draymond Green. Okay, I'm feeling better. I'm worried. I'm worried where you're going, but I have hope. Number two, Evan Mobley. Oh, fuck. We couldn't get Evan Mobley number one? Number one, Lou Dort.

Should have known. Lou Dort's great. I looked at it every which way and I thought I was going, I thought it was really hard. And by the way, there's no Wemby this year. So this was like an Oscars year where you just take out Titanic out of 1997 and then try to figure out what best picture is. I just thought Dort was the best guy I saw in person this year. And I think he wrecked

the most games that I saw. As good as Mobley is, Mobley looked like facsimile KG a lot of the times and can guard all these different things. I thought what Dort did to some of the best players in the league was unbelievable. And I saw it in person a couple times. Harden wanted no part of him. No one does. No, it's just like he's just like this. He's like...

Revis on the Jets, just like, all right, I'm going to take that guy. You guys worry about what you're going to do. This guy's not doing anything today. And I just thought he was awesome. I voted for Smart a couple years ago, which became a controversial pick after the pack. And it's a lot of the same stuff. I just think perimeter guys who can make sure the other best guy in the team doesn't hit 30 in the game, which he had a two and a half month stretch where nobody scored 30 on him.

So I had him. So Rob, you had Mobley? I had Mobley, yeah. Where did you have Amin? That was his second team, right? All defense second team? Yeah, I had him second team and I'm already regretting it. But I'll tell you what I did for the... So I had first team all defense. I had Mobley, Green, Dort, Dyson Daniels. I felt like had to be... The poke check shit he was doing. Nobody's done that in 40 years. I've never...

The one thing I didn't love about him was the big physical guys. I felt I could overpower him a little bit, but everything else was there. And then I put Zubat's first team. Yeah, why not? Yeah. I thought their whole defense is anchored toward funneling people to him. The rebounding, which I think should matter at least a little bit in all defense, protecting the boards. And I like to have my teams look like a semblance of a team. I know these are all fake teams.

They're extremely fake. They're extremely stupid and fake, but I like that. I want them to look like a team. So then second team, Kamara, Ananobi, Ahmed Thompson, Jalen Williams, and I had Giannis over Gobert. I just felt like we skip over Giannis every year with all defense for some reason. Then you watch these games and he's all over the place covering everybody. So JJJ not in either? Neither. Damn, none. None.

I think he's in the group that could have like a first team argument. I think, you know, it's on that borderline where you're either going to go Amen, Jaron Jackson, Zoo, someone in that category. But I think he's got to be there. I think he's got to be their second team. Sorry, go ahead.

stay on the fucking court. I've watched too many games where he does the dumbest foul. He did it in the playing game. He does dumbest fouls at the worst time. And I think that's a huge part of this. Zubat stays on the court. That is true. Zubat does like 2.1 fouls a game and Jackson will be, any big game and watching the playing game, I'm sure it'll be the same thing. He's always lingering around foul trouble, fouls.

found dudes 20 feet from the basket what do you have cr i was just gonna say in honor of your kia i thought you sucked but you actually impressed me this year uh award or changing that title i think we could do the kia uh i like watching you play defense more than i like watching most guys play offense team and now we're now we're talking because they're just popping off right i like watching amen play defense more than i like watching like 80 of guys play basketball yes yeah

Yeah, I mean, it would be a weird word to have athlete of the year in the NBA, but for me, he's athlete of the year. That's the over and over again when people see Houston in person, they're like, Jesus. It's really jarring. What happened to this guy? Okay, all-NBA first team, Shea, Jokic, Tatum, Giannis, Mitchell. You knew those were the five. Second team, Edwards, Curry, Mobley, Towns, LeBron James. Mm-hmm.

There's some cases against LeBron because of the net rating, Rob. He had a minus 1.3 net rating on a team that won 50 games. Do you care about that stuff when you look at boats? I think you have to flag it and kind of kick the tires on it. But ultimately, you circle back to the fact that this is LeBron James. And you can see so much of the impact he has on the game. He's not a subtle player. He has the ball a lot. He makes incredible plays that no one else can make. I think...

It's worth looking at. But the Lakers rotation has been so funky all year. I think there's just a lot of noise in it, to be honest with you. Yeah, and CR, it was just a goofy season.

Davis gets hurt. They make a trade midseason and he was, you know, the only constant. So you're good with LeBron's second team? Yeah. And I think that you should almost give him credit for the adaptability that he's had. Yeah, definitely. Some nights he has to be the man. Some nights he's like playing setup guy for Luka. He's weathered all these different storms and he's actually been like pretty healthy for a 40 year old. And when he's been on the court, he's looked awesome.

Every time I want to heap praise on him, he does stuff like saying how he was in the bottom half of the league with free throws over the last, whatever that thing he said on McAfee was, easily debunked. Or then Rich Paul goes in and talks about how

The three guys in Miami weren't actually a big three. If you look at it, it's like, yeah, they were. Bosh was like a 24 and 10 guy on his own team. It was a big three dude. Um, the, the constant trying to push this go to agenda with LeBron. And so it's, they're making it worse, not better. I'll just say that. Um, okay. NBA 13, Cade Cunningham and Brunson. No surprise.

The last three spots were pretty divisive all over the place. And a lot of people had Hal Burton and Jaron Jackson here. Neither of them made my list. Come on. Why? Jalen Williams, OKC. Sure. Zubats. OK. I put them on. I like that. Because I just look.

The NBA does this thing where they're, they've just like, there's too much controversy with these, with the NBA teams, just pick 15 best players. And it's like, I don't want to do that. You're throwing away 80 years of history by doing that. I still think I have to have a big man on every team. And if, if there's no big man, then sure, I'll have four guards. But if there's somebody who deserves to be on it, I'm just picking them over having four guards.

I thought Zubats, I made the case for him Sunday. I thought he was amazing and incredibly important. And it was a good litmus test of are you watching basketball or not this season? So that last spot came down to James Harden or Tyrese Halliburton for me.

And I can't believe it. I took James Harden. Incredible. Can I ask you a question? I have two Clippers on my third team. Do you think it's just funny to cost Steve Ballmer a lot of money? Because these guys probably will like trigger... Oh, do they have like bonuses? I didn't even... I didn't know about that. Um...

I just thought Harden, I really liked the Pacers, but there are some Pacers games where he just didn't have to be that important. First couple months of the season wasn't great. Last three, four months, he was way, way better, really good. Harden does everything for the Clippers. Even when Kawhi's out there, everything's still running through him, and he was really durable. He played, I think, like 78, 79 games.

And I just thought he was really, really good. I couldn't leave him off. So Rob, what are your take? Two Clippers. That's a lot of Clippers, even for a great Clippers season. Especially at Halliburton's expense. It will surprise no one, given my Pacers advocacy, that I have Halliburton. I actually have him on my second team. Wow. He is the style of play for a 50-win team.

Yeah. Like, that's a pretty compelling case. He doesn't have a straightforward one-on-one game and that makes him kind of a funky player, but he has a comprehensive winning effect on everything that's happening around him. And Harden has some of that too, I want to be fair. Like,

Harden handling and shouldering as much as he did is what lets you play Chris Dunn as much as you do. It's what lets you play Derek Jones Jr. as much as you do. It's what lets you get away with all these other guys slotting into their roles. And so the usage kind of efficiency trade-offs of that are not always going to look great for Harden, but the impact is there and it's substantial.

But him and Zoo over Halliburton, I think the only way to do it is to do what you did, which is construct an entirely new set of rules by which you need to put a center on the team to make it look like an actual basketball team. Yeah. And if it was going to go, you know, hey, do whatever, then I probably would have done Halliburton and Harden. But I really, I genuinely think ZooBots deserves it. Those are the rules are do whatever.

But they're not his rules. That's true. A man's got to have a code. Those weren't the rules in 1973. Those weren't the rules in 1997. I'm trying to move America forward. Bill's keeping the positions of all NBA and we're going to start smoking inside a restaurant. Then we'll start messing around with the Constitution. All of a sudden, Trump's in there for multiple terms. What could go wrong?

I felt really bad about Halliburton. I had basically 16 guys for 15 spots. Jackson wasn't going to make it for me, but Halliburton. So that's it. I'll probably maybe regret it. All right. MVP. Last one. I put Mitchell five. I test drove the Edwards case and I test drove the Curry case. Did you do similar test drives, Rob? For Curry more than Edwards. I think Ant for me is like maybe a slight cut below these guys.

Tatum four. He was three for me most of the year, but I thought Giannis, whatever happened to him the last month was just out of control and he just had to be three. Especially when Dame goes out and it just didn't matter for them. So Mitchell, Tatum, Giannis, and then I battled back and forth between Jokic and Shea and I changed my mind a hundred times. And I really don't think there's a wrong answer because Shea had one of the best seasons by a guard

probably in the last 40 years, when you're talking about his offensive production, the consistency, how he did against teams head-to-head, what he meant to a pretty young but incredibly deep OKC team, and the fact that they won 68 games. I just thought he was an incredible candidate and probably would have taken easily 80% of the seasons, and I think he's going to win this year anyway. I voted for Jokic. I thought it was the best offensive season ever

I've seen since Jordan. Like for what somebody did game after game, quarter after quarter, all the shit that he did for that team. Not only was he, first of all, to be top three in points, rebounds, and assists is ridiculous.

It's bonkers. I just can't believe, but not trying to pad stats, not doing the shit Westbrook did in 2017 where can you box out so I can get this foul shot rebound, all that stuff. His usage rate's not that high. So if you're going to compare it to Luka last year, like Luka had the ball all the time last year. Jokic kind of has the ball out of necessity, but he wants the ball to keep moving almost like a hockey player. I thought the stuff he did day to day, week to week,

I've never seen anything like it. And I was leaning there, leaning there. And then that 60-10-10 game, I was like, we may never see anything like this again. And I just had to pick them.

So that's where I landed. I felt like just the fact that he'd won before would be the only reason. I get it. Shea with the wins. I mean, there's great cases for Shea. I didn't like making the pick and I'll probably regret it a week from now, but I just feel like I'm never going to see a season like that again. He got 50 games. They were in a three-way tie for the third spot in the West, which was really competitive. The coach GM situation was a catastrophe. Murray didn't show up for the first two months of the season. They had no bench. The advanced metrics for Murray

when he was on the court, when he was off the court, was the biggest disparity in the history of the league. And it's just like, at some point, what are we doing? So I took him. What's your take, CR? Well, I want to ask you whether or not you think you might regret it in two months if Oklahoma City loses like two games in the playoffs. Yeah, if they go 16-2. Because I know it's a regular season award, but how will it sit if Shea is leading this historically good

Oklahoma City team to their first title and he is like it's me like I am him you know like you guys are worried about Luca and LeBron it's stupid right but but I get it it's a regular season award that's the thing and the thing is Shea was incredible

I almost feel like it's not even like a slap on him. He had a better season than any Kobe Bryant season. He had as good of a season as any season Jordan ever had statistically when you look at the wins and all the other stuff. But the Jokic thing I thought was like a fucking unicorn season. Rob, what's your take? I also voted Jokic. I think...

Shay did, as you said, every single thing you need to do to win MVP. But sometimes you play at the same time as Nikola Jokic. And I mean, this is where every voter is so different. For me, if you are definitively the best player in the world, and Jokic is, having a season representative of being the best player in the world, I kind of start there and you have to have the burden of proof to overcome it. And I think Shay got as close as I can imagine a player possibly getting with the season that Jokic had. Like that is an incredibly compelling case.

what the Thunder were overall, a 68-win team, how dominant their defense was and his role in that, especially juxtaposed with Jokic, who has not been good defensively all season. But the way that Jokic carries that team is totally unique. And overall, his production, I think, is just something that is really, really hard to talk your way around or out of. And so I don't feel great about it, but I also don't think I'm ever going to be at the point where I'm losing sleep over voting for Jokic for MVP. Yeah.

As long as he's playing like this, I'm going to be at peace with that. Even if it means someone who also very well could have and I think will be MVP was not number one on my ballot. It feels like Jokic has moved into the Jordan LeBron zone where he's MVP every year. And it's really up to the voters to be like, I'm bored or something has happened that feels like lightning in a bottle.

You could tell me that next season, Shea's not in the top three for NBA voting, MVP voting, and I wouldn't be shocked, right? But I would be if Jokic wasn't. Well, like LeBron was in the zone from 09 to 13. He won four or five. And then that Miami season, the first one was the one he didn't win. But it was just like when he was on that level that he was at,

Nobody was taking the MVP from him as long as his team was winning enough games. And then he went to Cleveland. I think the one LeBron season you could probably make the case after 13 was that last Cleveland season when he played 82. His stats were really good. But if you go back and look, Harden's team won 65 games and his stats were basically dead even with LeBron. He was a better pick. Well, the one quirk in that, though, was that LeBron was the best player in the league and did have that acclaim and Derrick Rose won.

And this look, Shay is complicated. Like, no, this is not that. Shay is absolutely worthy and not just like a narratively driven winner. Like he has every literally everything you would want on the resume. And I think going to get head to head against other good teams like he did it. He was an incredible. But I kept coming back like I did. You did the ringer 100, right? Yeah.

So I had OKC. I had them. I had Shea 2, 17, 18, 62, 65, 79, and 96. I had them with seven of the best 96 guys. In Denver, I had one, 41, 60, and 78. And I'm not even sure how good I feel about the 78, which is Porter. That might have been

even a little bit too high. And then you think like, no, I'm just like, I don't know. I don't know how much I like Porter. And then you throw in the bench, which is like every 30 seconds he wasn't in the game, you felt like Denver was going to fall apart. I thought it was a historic season. I feel terrible that I didn't vote for Shea because Shea did every single thing you ever could have asked. I just think Jokic's position is more important if you're going to look at it.

to be like a point center that is also the best rebounder. He did everything, but he not only made the meals for his team, but he like fucking spoon fed them teammate by teammate. I've never seen anything like it. And when he was out, they were eating gruel. Yeah, they moved to prison food. So we'll see. Jokic could lose in five games in round one and it could be a 2000-

seven Dirk situation. Bill, you said you had seven Thunder players on your top 100 ballot. Is Aaron Wiggins one of those players? No, but Kaysan Wallace was. Oh, I love Kaysan Wallace. Yeah. Okay, now we're talking. Yeah, because I just feel like if Kaysan Wallace was on another team...

that's a 35 minute a game guy for 25 other teams in the league. Straight up one of the best ISO defenders in the league. Yeah. Luxury for them. Maybe their third or fourth best defender, which I think is a real state in terms of what the Thunder are right now. So if you're going to ding Shea for anything, I don't even know if it's a ding. That team is so, and they were missing like, Hartenstein was out for a while. Chet missed two thirds of the season. Like I get it. But,

when you just like, like fundamentally that team is built so perfectly for them where they can lose any two guys for a game and it's still okay. They can guard everybody in every conceivable way. And Shay just really has to worry about, I just got a score for us in crunch time. This is my job. And he was awesome at it. Yep. Um,

But, man, that Jokic season. One other thing about the Jokic case, too, that I've seen going around, like, I get that the Thunder ran away with the West and they deserve credit for that and Shea deserves credit for that. When was a 50-win season not good enough to win MVP? Never. I mean, to be... You want to be in the top four seeds. I think if the Denver had fallen to, like, a seven seed, I think it gets a little dicer. And I know everybody was split by a game. But still, you know, the West was... The West had...

what, eight of the best 11 teams in the league, basically? Mishkana, Indiana? And most of the good players in the league? So, all right, CR. I thought CR would be more upset. CR, who'd you have? Shea or Jokic? You didn't tell us. I have Shea. But it was only just because I kind of have a weird feeling that, like,

Oklahoma could just run away with this. This might not be a very close postseason. I think they're so far and away the best team I've watched this year. And we haven't had one of those in a while where it's just like, whoa, this train just left the station. So I think that in honor of that, there's nothing against Jokic. Jokic played one of the best basketball games I've ever seen in my life. Was that 60-point game? Yeah. But I just feel like it was Shays' year.

I think OKC gets to the finals unless I think the Clippers are the only team that has a chance against them. I think they beat everybody else. I think they're just going to win. I think this is their year. It certainly feels like it, especially if Jalen Brown isn't 100% Jalen Brown and they play Boston in a finals where they have home court.

And it's an 80% Jalen Brown. And them versus Cleveland, I would just take them 10 out of 10 times. Anyway, Mahoney, CR, I kept you way longer than I promised, but I had a good time. Thanks for popping on. Thanks for having me, Bill. I have some good news. On FanDuel, the Ringers player performance doubles profit boost token is moving to Sundays for the playoffs when we know we're going to have awesome games. That's right. Every Sunday during the playoffs, customers can claim

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before you watch the action. Brian Windhorst is here and we're taping this on a Tuesday because you came over to watch the first playing game with me. We're running out of Thursday, so we're going to try to go as evergreen as humanly possible. Right, we'll pretend that we know what's happened in the next two days, but we don't know what's happened. For all I know, Joss scored 56 tonight. Tonight was the greatest day of basketball I've ever had. Joss rescued his reputation tonight and pushed the Warriors to the thunder and

What I'm trying to do here is sound smart if something like that happens. Ja retired the Grenade Celebration and had a 70-point game. Yes. So I want to dive into your life, which I'm fascinated by. You're in LA. Yeah. But you're doing Get Up. Yes. And you told... What time did you get up? Did you get up? I get up at like 3.41 a.m. when I'm here. When I'm doing Get Up. Not every day. What's your normal time zone? Which one are you on? Central time zone. Okay. So you're two hours, but three hours...

behind et i love doing get up yeah it's such a fun show to do i'm not just saying that i swear i love working with greenberg i love working with their show i don't want to do it 20 times a month but and it's playoffs you know so whatever but it is hard to like tonight it's going to be a struggle to stay up for this like i'll be struggling in the fourth quarter so you you wake up

quick shower just to wake up are you getting coffee like what's your move I don't drink coffee I don't I don't drink coffee so it's a problem okay I get up get to put like self-makeup no well it's a good question see this here in the business so I do put on self-makeup the makeup artists come about 6 a.m because there starts your show starting around then um but I put on some powder at like 4 45 yeah

That was, I remember my friend Rob Stone who works for, does a bunch of stuff for Fox, so I've known him forever. ESPN let us do a college basketball game once at Pepperdine. Amazing. And it was like in the mid-2000s and

We get there and we're about to go on and he pulls out this thing and he's doing this. And I'm like, what are you doing? And he's like, I'm powdering up. Do you want some? I'm like, no. And he's like, well, you're going to regret it. And then he was right. Well, like the thing is like too much information. Like after I take a shower, I get like a red face. So I've got to, I got to do it. I got to put on the powder. So I've got like a little compact with me. And you put your little thing, your little head. Yeah. And can you,

Are you on the delay? Because that's always one of the hard things in this. No. So, like, I'm here in LA. We have a studio. I go into the studio. Oh, you go in? Yeah. Oh. I walk. I mean, it's short distance from the hotel. Right. Hotel to the thing. Okay. I get it. But during the playoffs, I'll be doing it from my hotel room a lot. I choose hotel rooms. I choose hotels in the playoffs based on when I can do a good morning TV setup. Like, I'm

I know this is going to sound strange, but there was a hotel in Dallas last year that I picked because I did it in the Western Conference Finals and I came back to the finals that I knew they had high chairs in the lobby. And I swiped, I came, I went to the bartender and said, hey, can I borrow one of these chairs? Because, you know, you got to sit on a high chair. And he was like, hey, you're Brian Windhorst. He didn't know who it was. Okay. And I dragged it into the, like a bar chair into the elevator. Yeah.

I took it upstairs. They probably thought you were stealing it. Because you need to sit on a high chair. Yeah. You know, it doesn't look good when you're scrunched up. So you don't have that in a hotel room. So I, and I did it in Minneapolis too. Like I, I borrowed chairs and take them to my room.

Like when I'm on the road in the playoffs doing get up and first take in the morning. Like sometimes I'm at the arenas where they have setups, but on nights, on days when I don't, and I'm in a hotel, that's what I do. But when I'm in LA, we have a studio. Well, and then you do, you attempt the craziest thing, which I have never done and will never do is doing actual content on the court after games when people can interrupt you. Zach told me, you could tell the story though.

somebody interrupted you and came in and had some amazing story and then it wasn't recording and you lost it. So what was that story? So the Dan Hurley thing had just gone down. Yeah. He came out here to the Lakers and got a new contract. It was after one of the games in Boston. Oh,

had to have been like game two okay and zach and i are on the court and gino is um gino walks past because you know what you're doing on the court it's just live like we're constantly grabbing people who are walking by gino walks by says hello to us we're recording okay and i he had just signed a new contract and i made this joke i was like hey congrats on your new contract i was a little worried they might not retain you right make a joke he goes yeah i should have

There was a job open. Oh, it was a Cleveland job. He goes, yeah, I should have pretended like I was going to go to the Cavs. I could have got more money. Like only half joking. I mean, maybe he was fully joking. I don't know. Or maybe he wasn't joking at all. It was an amazing moment. Like, oh my God, I think he just took like a soft shot at Dan Hurley or maybe a hard shot. I don't know. And then like two minutes later, Cedric Maxwell walks by.

And he's always good for talking shit about the Lakers. And, you know, I think Boston got up too well. And I prompted him to talk some trash, which he did, which is always great. Like, this is now like multiple finals in a row where I've gotten Max to do this. It's almost like a trope. He knows. They all know. Zach and I are sitting there with microphones. They all know what's going on.

And so he makes like some sort of passing comment, making fun of the Lakers or James Worthy. And he keeps on walking and he walks because, you know, there's there's wires on the ground. He walks around.

through the wires and he pulls it and the recorder goes flying onto the court, explodes open, things that... When you lose everything. We lost everything. Oh my God. So... That's like my worst nightmare. Yeah. I mean, and you know, Zach, like... Oh. Zach doesn't do the second take. He was ready to like...

He's ready to walk. He's like, we're just not going to do it tonight. I go, no, Zach. It's game two of the finals. We need to do it. So, yeah, that happened. It's been really fun for me to watch your, I don't know, I don't want to say rise, but like whatever the journey has been where you're now. By the way, thank you for letting me have the Larry Bird cup in your house. I did. Well, you're a guest. I wasn't sure I should take it. Watching the rise. We talked about, or the journey. You came on after the Utah thing.

Yeah. The finger point, which is still going. Get Up is still milking that. I know. As a gimmick for you. It gets milked everywhere across the country where I go. But then last year you did the Luca thing during the finals, which I immediately took seriously because I've known you for a long time and I don't think you do stuff like that lightly. Right. And it felt like there was real thought put into it.

for a bunch of different reasons and you were just like, fuck it, I'm doing this right now. I have all this different intel I'm getting. I was at the same game you were and I thought Luca really screwed the game up and just was acting like a brat that game. I'm pro Luca, by the way. But he was bratty and he really hurt them that game and then you just said, fuck it, went for it. I was angry because the finals were over. He, you know, he fell out of this game and the finals were over.

And I thought it could have been a good series. And the reason that I was having that visceral reaction was because I'd seen him do it before. It was an international play. Two other times in his career, he got disqualified from essentially an elimination. It was an elimination game, which that was an elimination game. It happened when he was on the Slovenian national team. One time he fouled out because he...

Got a technical foul, which in international competition counts as a personal foul. And he fouled out on a technical, like in the European, in the Euro Cup, the Eurobasket, they call it. They were their defending champs. One of the great moments of his career, by the way, was winning Eurobasket with Slovenia. Slovenia, it's laughable that they could win. Not laughable. It's impressive.

I would say impossible. They won the European Championship in the late teens. And then when they were defending their title, he got ejected from the game. They got eliminated. It was ridiculous. And then in the World Cup in the Philippines in 23, so a year earlier, he got thrown out of the quarterfinals. Now, they probably would have lost the game, but in the middle of the game,

He was angry at the officials and he went over to half court. This is in Manila, Philippines. I know nobody watched it. It was in the middle of the night. And he is cursing out the secretary general of FIBA.

The free throws are going on. He comes down and curses out the Secretary General in Spanish. I know because I was talking to people who were sitting next to Secretary General. Who knows what he was saying? But can you imagine in a game... Because you know where Adam Silver sits. Secretary General was sitting kind of in the same spot, midway up the deck. Can you imagine going over and cursing out Adam Silver because...

Scott Foster had just called a foul. Like, it's ridiculous. And by the way, the idea that they would not want Luka Doncic and Sloveni advancing, it's a preposterous conspiracy. And then a few minutes later, got a second technical and got thrown out of the game.

I'm like, Luca, what are you doing? The only chance Slovenia has is if you're great. How are you getting thrown out of these elimination games? So I didn't, I was, that was at least the third time that I know of, and I don't know his whole career, that he had allowed himself to be basically getting disqualified because the sixth foul was a preposterous foul.

It was a ridiculous foul and his behavior the whole game was ridiculous. And so I was angry that I'd seen him for the third time, the second time in person in less than a year, disqualified from an elimination game where he totally undercut his team. For just petulance. Yes. And I was criticizing him, obviously, but the reason I was angry was because he's so much better than that. Yeah. And that's what I was saying. I was like, that's not winning.

winning is what the Celtics are doing. This is what you're doing is losing. This is a losing mentality. And so... Well, obviously the Mavericks agreed with you. Well, the people in Dallas did not agree with me because it was not the most fun next two days. I was going to say, yeah, because I don't remember if I saw you after that, but we were there for an off day and then game four was... And then Luka came back and played great in game four. Yeah. Like played defense, like was focused. And people were like,

Oh, he proved you wrong. And I was like, no. You're down 3-1 in the series. He proved nothing. It was upsetting because he could have played that way the whole time. And you know what's funny about this? I don't remember what day. There's one day off in between games three and game four. It's the only time there's one day off in the finals. And so there was one day off in between. And then there was the whole pregame for game four. I was in the arena for many hours the next two days. And all kinds of Mavericks people were there.

front office people, coaching staff, executives, what have you. Nobody said anything to me. Nobody said... Like, nobody defended him? Well, I don't... I mean, I'm not saying it was in their... I'm not saying they had to. I'm just saying, like, I was prepared... Oh, to get them... ...to get blowback. ...to get blowback. Yeah. And Jason Kidd said some stuff in the press conference. Like, he was, like, defending Luca, which he should. But, like, no... I was available. Like, if... Like, trust me, I get...

When I say something that pisses people off, not every day, but, you know, people will reach out to me like, you were wrong about this. Well, especially at the finals, you're going to run into them the next day. So there's a heightened level of something. I mean, at the time, I didn't think like, I wasn't like noticing, boy, no one's saying anything to me. I was like, well, they're down 3-0 and the series is over. They're not really in the... Well, I said on one of the pods I did this week about Minnesota Lakers. I can't remember. I did my pod, then I went on Zach's.

I really feel like Minnesota has a game plan in that series should be to mess with Luca and try to get him. I've watched him. I've watched it happen multiple times already in this Lakers season.

He, for some reason, and I gotta be honest, I kind of like it because it's almost like he almost seems Italian to me even though he's Slovenian, but he just takes everything personally. If somebody talks shit to him, he can't believe it and he'll just keep it going for five minutes. He'll talk to people in the first two rows. He'll get mad at a ref and keep going with the ref for 10 minutes. And then the thing that really bugs him, which is so funny, I think he's the only guy in the league that does this,

If there's a foul on him, like somebody fouls him and the guy who fouled him is then turned into the ref and complaining about the thing and Luca thinks it was a foul, he actually gets offended. And he'll get involved in the argument and he'll just go back and forth. But he plays with such a chip on his shoulder. I feel like you could use it against him. You look at Minnesota, they have Edwards.

They have McDaniels. They have Alexander Walker, like Randall. They have some guys who can, I think, mess with them. Well, I will say this. I've been talking to the guys who cover the Mavericks. He's had ongoing feuds with individual fans for years. Dallas fans? No, no. On the road. Because he got into it with a guy in Oklahoma City two weeks ago.

apparently that's not the first time those guys have gotten into it or if not it was somebody nearby like he goes I mean like actually I don't have a problem with him getting into it with fans I would rather him go back and forth with a fan or the opposing player as opposed to getting back in it with the refs yeah he gets back and forth with the refs he hurts his team well and they just get so fed up with him after a while right well that play like he was in

incorrectly ejected from that game in Oklahoma City. Nobody would question that he was, obviously he was talking to the fans. But the ref, I believe it was J.T. Orr, had heard, there was not even contact on that play. He scored on the interior, there was no contact, there was nothing for him to really complain about. But the ref has heard him for years. And did you see what he did? He like wound up and gave him the baseball umpire, get out of here! This is what happens with Draymond too. Like, the ref's like,

They are so tired of hearing it that they... There's one other guy that's... If you were doing the first team All-NBA for this, the sneaky guy in this team is Tatum. This is a running thing with him all year. He just... And, you know, obviously I'm a Celtics fan, so I see his side on it because I do feel like he gets...

doesn't get the benefit of the calls all the time. But now, so that he does this wave thing. Certain things trigger refs and one of them is the dismissive wave. They just fucking hate it. They really don't like it. He gets whistled on that over and over again or they hold it against him. And it's weird because I think he's probably the quietest, most unassuming superstar we have.

He's a really good guy. Yeah. And this is like his one thing. Like he just gets really pissed about it. I've had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with him at Team USA. Yeah. I spent three weeks covering him in China in 19. I spent, we weren't as close in the 2021. When I say we weren't as close, I'm talking about we couldn't get as close in Tokyo. But still, he was, by the way, it was awesome with the Tokyo team. I kind of feel like people didn't watch that Olympics that

It was just off and everything. Nobody ever talks about that Olympics. Durant was absolutely freaking brilliant. I honestly can't even remember what happened. But I don't remember anything. I don't remember 2020, 2021. Tatum was arguably their second best player. Well, it felt like Tatum was going to have this arc where he was going to be one of the best American because he was just such a perfect Olympic guy. He still can. He still can. He's got plenty of time. We're going to be here in LA in three years, four years, whatever. Well, I mean, he's...

the number one guy they need. Yes. Just because of what he does specifically. He is a perfect international player. And, um, he was that in that Olympics, they were in big trouble against Australia in the semifinals. Yeah. Um, Australia had been building toward that game for a decade. Um, you know,

Their guys, you know, Patty Mills and Joe Ingles and who am I forgetting? I mean, the golden generation, they won the bronze. They ended up getting their first ever medal. No, this was their sports movie and this was the ending of the sports movie. Yes, they were ahead by 12 or 14 in the third quarter, which international basketball is like 25 because the games are shorter. Yeah. And Popovich goes to a triangle and two, which they had practiced like

for like barely part of one practice. Australia like staggers for like three possessions. They've never seen the Americans do this before. Durant hits like three threes. Tatum misses a shot. I can't remember who else, but Durant turned it because Durant was untouchable. You know, Durant was coming off the Achilles.

and played because he loves Team USA so much. It was such a wholesome moment. They come back and beat Australia. It's a great comeback. Nobody ever remembers it. If they had lost, people would remember it forever. And then they played a really competitive game with France in the title game where Tatum, I think, played really well. Like...

Drew Holiday was huge defending in the semifinals and finals. That's when all the coaches really fell in love with him. Yes. One of the things I like about you is you love international basketball and taking big, giant takeaways from them even more than I do. I really value it. I think it's such an interesting kind of laboratory to put all these great players in and see how they're going to respond. The fact that Jokic almost beat Team USA by himself.

And it was sitting there for him. And, you know, he didn't have the most amazing game, but the fact was his team thought he was the best guy on the court and he gave them the chance and then they missed some shots. The Serbians are fascinating. The way they play. Bogi Bogdanovic.

is like when you, the same way with Patty Mills. You watch Patty Mills, now he's past his prime, but Patty Mills, if you squinted, you thought he was Steve Nash. The way he plays for Team Australia in 2019 in China, which was the World Cup in China, they ended up finishing out of the medals there, but he played a couple of games where you're like, why isn't this guy

a hall of fame. Well, remember the Spain team in the two thousands or like Juan Carlos Navarro? Why isn't this guy? Why isn't this guy a 13 mile NBA? Well, Spain won in 2019. The Americans had a terrible team. Tatum was on that team. He was leading them. He sprained his ankle in a game against Turkey that they went in overtime. And again, like I'm in Shanghai on a Saturday night. It's the middle of the night in America. No one cares.

And Ersan Ilyasova is kicking our ass, right? And Tatum is saving the day. They end up going to overtime and Tatum sprains his ankle in overtime and he's cooked the rest of the way. And we end up in seventh. But anyway, in that game, Ricky Rubio. So now you got to remember the Ricky Rubio story. Rubio...

was Boy Wonder for Spain. Age 17, playing against the U.S. in 08. Exactly. Comes to Beijing. They've made documentaries about this game. Rubio is trash. He was trash in the game. He was miserable in this arena. Now, we are now 11 years later. Rubio has gone through his career. He's had a middling career. He's had his moments. 2019, he is playing in the same arena. They are playing against Argentina in the final. Luis Scola turns the clock back, somehow gets Argentinians to the final.

Rubio is amazing. Dancing on air. Marc Gasol has just won the title with Toronto. A few months later, he wins the gold medal. You know, this is the Spanish get this world championship. They're celebrating. Rubio is amazing. Rubio is named MVP. His mother has just died of breast cancer a few months before.

He comes over. We televised the game at ESPN. Again, no one had watched this because why are you watching in the middle of, or, you know, maybe it's at, you know, it was in the afternoon. I might have been watching. It was at 2 a.m., whatever. And Rubio is having the greatest moment of his career. He's won the MVP for Spain in the arena. And I ask him, I do the post-game interview because I'm doing the sideline interview.

He, Rubio does like seven interviews, like because he's, you know, all the world feeds. He does, you know, France and whatever. And I asked him about his mother and he starts crying. No one ever saw this. It's the greatest. I'll never do. I don't do Southern interviews, but I will never. I could do a hundred of them and never do a better interview. Rubio is in tears having this amazing moment. And the average NBA fan, you could even be a Rubio fan and you don't know about this moment where he wins.

And, you know, subsequently, like basically he quits basketball because of, you know, mental health stuff. So I still feel like if you redo that, that's a classic. Let's redo the career and try another.

try another outcome. Let's just hit the reset button on the video game and bring him into the NBA in 2009. He got drafted instead of Steph Curry and then he didn't come over right away and he tore his ACL. He ended up on the dumbest team ever. Kobe fell into his leg. It was just, everything went wrong for four years. I still feel like there was a lot more there. So he has this moment. So that's what I get in international basketball. You have these moments. Bogie Bogdanovich

is in a feud with his coach. This guy, if you saw, what's the Netflix series? They had him on there. Yeah, it's a quarter goal there. Pesic. He's this old, hard, mean SOB. And he and Bogdanovich got into it during the 2023 World Cup. Jokic didn't play. I don't know why Jokic didn't play. I can speculate as to why Jokic didn't play. Whatever. Jokic doesn't play. And...

It's really hard to qualify for the Olympics. It's really hard because you got to go through all this qualifying, you know, and the Serbians, I'm like, well, Jokic isn't playing, Serbia ain't qualifying because you got to be the top two European finishers at the World Cup to qualify. I'm like, they ain't qualifying. Well, Bogdanovic, after getting benched by this coach, has this incredible run in the knockout rounds, carries Serbia to the championship. And yeah, they lose, but they qualify for the Olympics. And I'm going,

Again, nobody cares about this, but I'm sitting there going, well, this is a bad break for the United States. Serbia disqualified for the Olympics. And now Jokic will see them in Paris. And I was worried. By the way, he really cares. I was worried about Team USA losing to Serbia in August of 23 when the Serbians qualified. And then they set up the schedule so that Serbia got three looks at the U.S. They played them in Dubai.

for an exhibition game, which again, nobody cares, but they got a look at them. Then they played them in the pool play and they got them in the knockout rounds and Pesic and Jokic and all those dudes played it.

to set up the United States to go after them. They didn't care what the score was in the pool play game. They set it up to go after... They were thinking about it for months. The draw that got Serbia into the USA's pool was like in February. They started thinking in February about that night in August when they could get them in the semifinal. They didn't know it would be the semifinal, but they knew they would see them. And they set the whole thing up. And they took money, extra money, to go to Abu Dhabi and play

I'm telling you, all building up to that moment. And the average fan, USA fan doesn't care. I don't blame them. I'm just telling you all that drama is going into it. And Steve Kerr and Sean Ford, like the general manager of USA basketball, like they're thinking about it for months. Like as Steve Kerr is coaching the Warriors last year, he's like, I know,

I got to worry about Serbia. And Jeff Van Gundy is like consulting with the Celtics. Yeah. Jeff Van Gundy, because he's on the USA staff, he's thinking about Serbia. Serbia, Serbia, Serbia. Well, then you also have France at home, which is the other one. Of course, which the French were actually in the middle of imploding and then they rallied back. It's weird because I actually think they really couldn't use Tatum in those games. And I understand why he didn't play. And, you know, I think...

in a weird way. - You are in the minority because-- - No, I really get it. I just think they won the title and he was worn out and he had a kid and he missed a couple practices and his shot was off and Steve doesn't give a shit. - Here's the thing, I keep saying this, people don't listen to me, it's fine, I don't care. International basketball is so vastly different. The difference between 40 and 48 minutes

I cannot underline how big of a difference it is. It is so different. Well, the flow of the game is in person. That's the weirdest thing to get used to. Also the five fouls. Things won't stop. Yeah, right. You get all of a sudden somebody has four fouls. There's 15 minutes left in the game. Right. And so other thing is the NBA mindset is if you get down 15, it doesn't matter.

Yeah, you can always come back. You can't play that way. Well, you also can't chase calls in that international version. You can't lurch into somebody and you can't get bailed out left and right. It's the inverse of the NBA. So here's the thing. In the NBA, there's this inherent bias that everybody wants the Lakers and the Celtics to do well. And whether or not that's true or not... It's definitely the Lakers' part. Of course. Nothing ever goes the Celtics' way. You're right. Yeah, we haven't gotten one break. In the international game, they want the U.S. to lose.

Yeah. Like when the U.S. loses, the FIBA officials are over there giving each other high fives under the table. They want the U.S. to lose because they want it to be more of a global game. Well, would you change? So I've said this every four years. I would

I would put a cap on the age of the guys we have. And I would go, you have to be in your 20s or your teens and that's it. So here's my recommendation. And I know that people are probably turning off the pod because we're talking about international basketball. No, this is great stuff. So the next World Cup is in 2027. I will give you all the money in my wallet if you tell me, because you obviously need it. All the money in my wallet, if you can tell me where the World Cup is being played in 2027. I'd give you seven guesses.

You're not going to take that and be boring, but you have any idea where the World Cup is being played? Isn't it somewhere weird, like Saudi Arabia? You're close. Where is it? Saudi Arabia would probably be the next one. It's in Doha. It's in Qatar. Oh, my God. Okay. Are you going? I don't want to. It'll be in August. That's like you're on a plane for a day and a half, right? I've gone to Abu Dhabi the last two summers with Team USA and absolutely loved it. And I know that it's... You're a big Abu Dhabi guy. I love Abu Dhabi.

And, you know, the NBA is getting closer to there. And His Excellency, Muhammad Al Mubarak,

is the head of the chairman. I call him the chairman of the Department of Culture and Tourism. He is... Possible podcast for you? Podcast partner? I would love to have him on a podcast. He'd be great on a podcast. He knows the NBA. Windhorst and his excellence? The new podcast? Well, you'd get along with... Well, he hates the Celtics. Oh, I wouldn't like that. But he went to school at Northeastern. And he told me this great story. By the way, his brother...

is Khaldun Al Mubarak, who runs the city football group, Man City. He runs Man City. That's his brother. His brother is a couple years older than him. He was going to school in Boston. I'm not sure if it was the Northeastern or something else. He comes to visit his brother. He's 16 years old. They go to a Celtics game. This is like the ruling family of Abu Dhabi. They go to a Celtics game. And he's a big Lakers fan. Because why wouldn't he be? Because he lives in Abu Dhabi. Why wouldn't he be a Lakers fan? So they go to the Lakers, the 2000...

Ten finals he's going to a finals game Lakers Celtics. He's wearing a Laker jersey. He doesn't know us. He doesn't know any better. I

Okay. He doesn't understand. Oh, he's in Boston with the Lakers? He's going to a finals game in Boston. Okay. And he comes up and he and his brother sit down. And right next to him are these, this husband and wife in their 70s. And they've got like, you know, the husband's wearing like this old Larry Bird jersey that he probably has since 82. And the wife is all dressed up and they're all dressed out and they're all ready. And he goes down and says, oh, hey, how are you? He thinks it's charming. And the woman looks over at him and flips

flips him off. It's like, welcome to Boston. So he goes to school in Boston. Anyway, he knows the NBA extremely well. Yeah. He would love to be heavily invested in the NBA. I've spent quite a bit of time with him. I like him a lot. I know that there's

when you're doing business in the Middle East or whatever. I don't pretend to know. I'm not trying to cast aspersions. The global windy. It's even more impressive than some of my connections. I had, like, for example, he would make comments. He was talking about a certain Lakers player. I don't want to put his business out there. He was talking about a certain Lakers player who's no longer on the team.

And he says the reason his teammates don't like him is because he doesn't play defense. That's why they don't like him. This is the kind of commentary he's giving. He watches it games in the morning when he's like on the treadmill, he's watching Laker games. Like when I first met him, he was traditionally dressed, but then he, you know, sits down, he was wearing Jordans.

So he's super into it. Last year, when the U.S. went to Abu Dhabi to play, he came and addressed the team on the first day of practice. And he very begrudgingly congratulated Tatum, Drew Holiday, and who was the third Celtic? Derek White. He's like, congratulations on the title. So he's not in the new ownership group, I'm going to guess. You know, if they allowed him to buy it.

he would have bought it, but they don't allow the sovereign wealth funds to. Were you, did you think it would get to 6 billion? No. Also the team's not sold yet. Don't start with that. No, that's ridiculous. No, I did not think they would get to 6 billion and with Bruce Bach all the way through said, I'm going to get my price. I'm going to get my deal, which is enables him to stay. I'm going to get Adam Silver's price. That's what it was. Well, his price to the number was six.

They got more than six. Well, when you throw in like that little bully tax you have for the other owners, it's six one plus it actually that that part goes into the sevens. From what I understand and, you know, the deal is not official or whatever, but from what I understand, you know, they're buying 51% this year at six and they're buying the other 49% at like seven. Yeah. And so the price is actually a little bit higher than they're being in their state.

Boston Celtics. Not a lot of franchises and pro sports like that, but yeah, it's nuts. They don't own their own arena. Now, they have an incredible power spot in that arena because if they decide to start building their own, the place they're in now is screwed. So they'll be fine. Well, I would just say this about the Celtics. I think Sportico reported this. I haven't heard this, but Sportico is good at their business.

I think they probably got it because the Celtics' financials got out there because they had to show them to people. They had bidders. The Celtics made $450 million last year. That was their revenue, which is great. Probably, I don't have the whole league, but definitely top five, maybe top three. Well, especially once you go four rounds in the playoffs, that is a whole other level. I feel comfortable saying it was the largest revenue season in the history of the Celtics franchise. Yeah.

Their payroll next year is $450 million. If it's the exact same roster. Okay, I'm just saying. Yeah. Fine. I'm just saying, though, that like, why did the Groosbach family want to sell now? Because they know that their payroll is equal to their revenue.

So I don't believe that. I actually am going to push back. I don't think that's why. I think the dad was old and I don't think he's 90. And I think they have four kids. Hey, listen, I don't know. I'm not in their family. I don't know. He hadn't been to a game since 2010. I think he's like, let's sell this thing. We won the title. Let's go. And that, that, I really think it was that simple. Do I think Wick want to sell it? No. Well, he's not selling it. He gets to run it for three more years. He gets to run it for up to three more years. Okay.

That this new owner, whenever he feels like, okay, I'm feeling good on all my business side. I'm ready to take over. I am not claiming to have inside information. But you think that the fact that they are going to spend as much money on payroll as they take in next year. In other words, they're facing hundreds of millions of dollars in losses. You think that had nothing to do with it.

I don't. Okay. You would know better than me. I really think this was a family thing and I think there was a lot going on that had nothing to do with the fortunes. That guy, Irv, the 90-year-old, the legend, he's made a kajillion dollars. You think he cares that there's some big tax bills? I don't know his finances. I know he's got a lot more now. The thing is, I don't think this would be the same roster, which is why the Celtics, this little run is so interesting. Not only are you trying to go back to back, but

odds are this won't be the same nucleus. So let me ask you this. If you win again, does that mean you keep the roster together or you can start... It's the age-old thing, right? Like Dallas didn't do it in 11. We've seen teams say like, yeah, we took that. We've seen teams like the Pistons in the late 80s where they left Mahorn unprotected. I personally do not think the expensive guys will all be together next year, but I don't know. It just seems like it would make...

More sense for them if you're paying, let's say Holiday or Porzingis, you're paying those guys $34 million, but with all the other things that come into play, those guys now are worth $100 million.

and you could reset that way and you lose one guy and you're weaker in one spot, but you still have Tatum and Brown. Right. Well, I would hold on to Tatum and Brown as long as possible. Yeah, because everybody always thinks Jalen's the one that they would trade, but as you know, and this is why with the Durant stuff, I'm doing a lot of yeah butting with the Durant stuff. Like, well, they're going to trade Durant. It's like,

Okay, cool. He makes $55 million a year and everybody is handcuffed by this tax in some way. It's not easy like it was. It's not easy to just get somebody that's making 55 to 60. I agree. A Durant trade is going to be complicated because I don't know what Kevin wants and I've learned my lesson not to guess what Kevin wants. If he wants to go to a contender, that contender is going to have a high payroll.

Probably. You know, those trades are hard. The Suns are in the second apron. But also if you're trading him to a team that's over an apron, then once we start getting into the, I can only take one guy back and it's really stupid. So I would just like, I wrote a story about the Suns published this week.

I mentioned in there with the help of Bobby Marks, Devin Booker is eligible for a two-year extension this year for $150 million. I'm going to say that again. He's eligible for an extension for two years and $150 million. That's $75 million a year. Wow. Nobody's even at $65 million yet, right? Because it's three years from now.

Okay, so we're projecting the cap out there, but the cap is going to go. Not on my LNBA team, Devin Booker. We didn't have a good year. But forget about that. My point is that the max contracts are headed towards $75 million a year. Not in 2035. I'm talking about if Devin gets the max this summer, which quite frankly, I don't know how they're going to get away with not paying him. Because if you don't pay him, then what sort of message are you sending?

Well, you could call Daryl Morey and ask how that worked out. Well, that's true. Devin's 28 though. He's not 34. I don't know where this goes because I think I've talked to a bunch of people about it.

on both sides. And just the owners in general, they're always going to be smarter and they're always going to get whatever they want to get done, actually get done. And they're trying to put in all these protections basically against themselves. They're basically childproofing all of the electrical outlets around their house because they don't want to have their kids stick their finger in. That's exactly, that's a good, that's good. They have like eight owners who will just say, oh, what's this? And they get electrocuted. And that's all they care about.

And

And I don't think the players, I just don't think they saw it. Their side, I don't think, saw it correctly. And they didn't see how hard this was going to be with keeping teams together, keeping players in cities. And eventually, I think there's going to be a backlash with the salaries. We're going to move toward a little bit more like the Hollywood system where you have your two guys on the poster and then everybody else is way down there. And I don't think the union realizes that. I think the Clippers are ahead of the... The Clippers were targeted. Perfect. The Clippers...

The Clippers figured this out first. Number one, when they negotiate with Kawhi, he didn't get the max. He got close to the max. This was, in my view, this is going to be the new normal. The idea that these guys mid-career, oh, it's time for a contract extension. You want the max? Here you go. They're going to get extended, but they're not going to get, they're not just going to be assumption. You're not going to, how many max, how many guys right now are making the max contract? Now, I'm not talking about their max because this is a thing the agents play and we help them with it in the media. I'm not looking to, but like,

A player's max is the most he can get versus the actual max. How many guys right now in the league are making the quote unquote max? There's dozens. Three years from now, I think there's going to be a third of that amount. So you think it's going to be like more of a Jalen Brunson type of situation? I think in a situation with Jalen Brunson, you're going to, there's teams are going to, I think he's still signed for less than he could have got. The teams are going to, they're going to give him, they're going to get hundreds of millions, but they're not going to all of us just get the max. Like,

You're not going to get, okay, mid-career all-star player. You're not getting 35%. So you don't think we'll see Bradley Beal getting a no trade clause and $50 million again? That would be a good thing is to put in a little canister for the future. When is the next no trade clause? Well, I know LeBron will get it when he opts out and re-ops this year with the Lakers, but when is the next new no trade clause coming? You think LeBron will get a no trade? Yeah, I think he will. Again? Yeah.

Why would he, why would he, he would just opt in if he, he has to get it. This LeBron thing is, I, I just don't understand. Like I, I voted for him second team on NBA. So did I. So did I. He entered the league. I had been, I had been working for ESPN, I think for a year. I had, I did have a dog at that point. I think I was married.

No kids. Like this is, I just don't get it. Bill, I had a flip phone. He had a flip phone. Like it was laughable. The iPhone was, when he came in the league, we were four years away from Twitter. We were three, four years away from the iPhone. Like I just- Like the Hummer was a car that mattered. Yes. When he came into the league, I remember my first trade deadline covering the Cavs. This is how trade deadline day went.

I went to practice to shoot around or it was practice. I did my post-practice interview. I went to lunch. I was at lunch eating a sandwich. My cell phone rings. Hello, Jim Paxson, the gentleman who took caps. Hey, hey, I just want to let you know we traded for Flip Murray. Oh, really? What'd you trade for him? 2004 second round pick. Oh, Kelly, why'd you trade for him? Well, he's going to help us with scoring off the bench. Okay. All right. I'll see you tomorrow. But keep eating my lunch.

you know, two hours later, went home. Then I wrote my story that published in the newspaper in the morning. None of this minute by minute trying to find out like who was getting traded. Like, Oh my God. The gentleman was like, Hey, we made a trade. Oh really? You know, like that's how you found out about trades when the calves traded for Shaquille O'Neal. And that was not in 2000. That was not 1997. That was like, actually like that was in the Twitter era. That was like

2009, 2010, I think 2009, Danny Ferry just called me up. He's like, yeah, we traded for Shaquille O'Neal. Oh, okay. What'd you get? Well, you get Ben Wallace in the first round. That's how it happened. You weren't like waiting, you know, on top of it, you know. And that wasn't that long ago. It was basically the ticker on ESPN. Yes. Was breaking a lot of stuff. Even the website wasn't really...

I was writing for it at that point. It wasn't really set up to be like, oh, this happened, boom, let's go. And in 2009, Twitter was around, but people weren't paying attention as a news feed. No. So, like, you know... Twitter was like... That was LeBron's career. There was two years everybody just went on Twitter to, like, make jokes. Yes, that was LeBron's... That was LeBron's... That was happening in LeBron's career. Like, that's how it was. And now, look at... It's pretty nuts. I even think, like, how different things were just from...

you go to the year that the year that Twitter took off on nine and there were all these stages with Twitter, right? Like the decision was a stage. Um, the, uh,

Blake Griffin being the first kind of guy who, when he dunked, maybe you could see some grainy video of it on Twitter. And he became the first social media dunk guy. Then the DeAndre Jordan thing was another great one where that was in real time we're following through Twitter how that's going. So it's had these iterations. My first big Twitter thing was the LeBron free agent meetings. Because nowadays, free agent meetings like

First off, like by July 1st, they're all done. Nobody goes on free agent meeting tours anymore. Secondly, they do it all in secret, you know,

it's people's houses and stuff. Or three, four months before free agency starts. Or a year. Yeah. Or, oh, I didn't realize you were going to be at this dinner. Yeah. Yeah. With the owner of the team that has Cavspace. Right. Have you met him? This is Bob. Listen, I saw Joel Embiid and Paul George on the countdown set during the finals last year. Right. That was an amazing moment. It was an amazing moment. And you know, Joel gave him the side eye. I mean, like,

It's a little bit manufactured. Obviously, Joel and Paul George had communicated before that meeting. All these dudes know each other. Of course. Well, anyway, the day of the free agent meetings was three days. You know, they were having them at this office building in Cleveland. And the teams were just walking into the lobby. And I was just sitting in the lobby. I was just tweeting it.

Jim Dolan just came in. Pat Riley is waiting outside the elevator. I remember the Clippers got there. The heat ran really late and there was no place for the Clippers to wait. And Neil O'Shea and Andy Roser just were standing there in the hallway and just walking back and forth waiting for Pat Riley and Eric Spolster and Mickey Harrison to finish. And I was just live tweeting it.

I was just live tweeting it. Like, I was like, well, Mikhail Prokhorov just left, but Jay-Z is staying back. He must be having a special meeting with LeBron. I was just tweeting what I saw. And like, nowadays you'd never get that. But like, I think I had 14,000 Twitter followers at the beginning of that.

And three days later, I had like 32,000, which blew my mind. Wow. But that was like an actual event where like, I was just like, just nobody was saying, wasn't like Mickey Harrison was saying, yep, we got it done. I was just tweeting when I was sitting there watching. I was just standing in the elevator lobby. I was sitting in the elevator lobby watching. And then every time you think we're post Twitter, then something like the Luca thing happens.

And then it's, there you go. When did you find out? Did you find out? When Shams tweeted. I had no idea it was coming. I did not know. Most of the time, you know when stuff's coming. Like we do. Like, you know, you can't always, sometimes you know something's going to happen and you're just waiting. You know, in our case, it's almost always Shams. Shams knows it. He's got the story written. He's got the tweet and the drafts and he's waiting.

That happened this week with Mike Budenholzer. I'm sure there was a David Griffin typed out tweet there too. I don't know that for sure. No, I'm just saying. Without pulling the curtain back too much, Shams had the Mike Budenholzer story written before he was actually fired. Yeah. Because Shams is on top of it. I mean, he could have written it in February. Well, that's a different thing. But the Luca thing came out of absolute nowhere. So what is your honest take on

For how many people knew before the trade came out? I know you and I are on different sides of this. I think it was a small number. It's bigger than the purported number, like whatever they said. But, you know, I think it was a small number. I think it was bigger. I know you do. And I think about an hour and a half before when Utah found out who was in the trade, then it's out. And I think it's out at that point.

And I'm actually, and my theory was that even if they were telling other people they thought Luca was about to get traded, who would have ever believed that in a million years? And it was like, you might as well have said a UFO just landed on my roof, right? There's no way to even conceivably think that was possible. So the only thing is, the only thing I'll say is, I wondered if Anthony Davis was wearing thin in...

L.A. because he had done that interview where he's like, get me a center. I don't want 100 percent. OK, so when I saw that, like a lot of people, I actually listened. There were two Lakers podcasts that I listened to after you where the people because the Lakers had had a game that night, I think, in New York. Yeah. LeBron.

LeBron was awesome in the game, which I thought looking back is also really interesting. He was very energized in the two games leading up to. I don't want to like give this away because it's not my story to tell. So I'll just tell half of it. One of my ESPN. So the Lakers were in New York. Yeah. And one of my ESPN colleagues ran into JJ Redick in New York that day. And they knew JJ. And obviously, hey, JJ, what's up? He's like, hey, I.

I got to go on a walk. I got to clear my head about something. And he excused himself and kept going. And so JJ knew and went out for a walk. That's one of the... But the person obviously didn't know. If people think JJ and Jason Kidd didn't know...

A couple days before that trade. There's, I just, there's no way. I don't believe it. Well, whether it was days or hours, yes, the coaches knew before Shams tweeted it. Yes, of course. Yeah. People honestly think like LeBron and Rich didn't know that that trade was coming and that Davis was just like, yeah, I'll just wait by no trade. I just found out about this trade a minute ago. Get the fuck out of here. You're talking about the trade kicker. Yes. The trade kicker. That is suspicious. Suspicious? Yes.

Like, I don't, I don't. He loved being in LA, loved being in the Lakers and the whole thing. And he's just, all right, fine, cool. I'm going to, you know, not only am I okay with the trade, I'm going to give up money. Well, what's your standard for knowing in advance? Because like, according to Palenka, they negotiated for a month. I think, I think they knew, I would say, I don't know for sure, but I'm excited for when it all finally comes out. And I'm sure there's going to be a now, as Brian Curtis would say, a now they tell us. Yeah. I can't wait for the now they tell us because I think the circle is wider. Yeah.

I think Rich and LeBron knew, but it wasn't too far or too far. Like, I believe them. Well, Rich definitely knew because he had to, you know, the trade couldn't have happened if AD didn't wave the trade kicker. It would have been way more complicated. The trade could have happened, but I agree. That's a flaw in my thinking. I agree. And I asked Rich about that. That's the red herring of this whole thing. I asked Rich about it. And also, do you think they really would have traded LeBron's guy, Anthony Davis, for

to another team and just not tell LeBron? Like, really? We really think they're not doing that? What you are saying makes sense, but they were focused on keeping this quiet. Yeah. I think they did keep it quiet, but at some point, they think the trade's going to happen. But again, what's your standard? Is your standard that they knew one hour early or that they knew three days early? Because I think they knew maybe one hour early. Is that advanced notice? If I had to bet on a scenario...

I would bet that probably two, three, four days earlier. I don't believe that. I know. No, the trade wasn't done. Okay. But I think it probably got to the point where they were like, I got to bring you in on this. I think we actually have a chance to do this. And that's when you expand it to the coaches. I just, I know how the league works in some of you. You don't just hide shit from your best players. Nobody does that.

And that's why the Durant thing was so crazy, that they were shopping him around and not talking to him and Rich Kleiman about it. But that is what, they were trying to do it. The reason that got out, I'll tell you, I mean like. It was the other teams. Well, that's the thing. The Suns can't execute, they're so hamstrung with their thing, they can't execute. There was a, I won't go into, there was a third team involved, and the third team was negotiating a,

With the Warriors. Well, this has been reported, right? Was it in Miami? Yeah. So Miami is negotiating with the Warriors on Jimmy Butler. They're trading proposals. And then all of a sudden, the Warriors change a proposal. And the Heat noticed that one of the assets being offered was owned by the Suns.

Now, I'm not saying that Miami leaked it because Miami doesn't leak anything, but the talks with other teams, that's how it got out. But that's why it's so hard to do three, four teams. Of course. Plus, every team has the six people in the front office and one person who knows how much you can trust that one person out of the six. Of course, which is one of the reasons why the Heat are so good because the Heat speak with one voice. It's Andy Ellsberg. You deal with the Heat, you deal with Andy Ellsberg. Obviously, at some point,

especially this type of trade, maybe Mickey Harrison or Andy Pat Riley. But when you negotiate with the Heat, you negotiate with one person. You negotiate with other teams, sometimes it's three or four. But they were trying to keep it quiet because when you don't keep it quiet is when things fall apart. And that's what happened there. I think they kept it quiet. I really do. And maybe...

Well, now they tell us I look like a fool, but in this case, I don't think you look like a fool because I think they've all stuck to their story, but I just, I think kid new. And I think redneck new. And I think they knew for a while listening to these two Lake. There were two, maybe there's even more. The Lakers had a game that night in New York. They won Laker fan pods are, or analysis pods. Everyone to call them are recording after the game. They're looking over the, been over the Knicks and I loved it. I listened to them learn, learn it live.

Oh, interesting. I mean, I was listening live. I was listening back to it. Somebody sent it to me and said, listen to these guys because it's hilarious when you have the knowledge and you're listening to them and you can watch them. They're like, well, oh, Shams got hacked. And they're like, that kind of be crazy, wouldn't it? Like, all right. And that third quarter tonight, they did a real good job on the pick and roll.

ESPN just tweeted it. It's almost like a movie. And they're like, oh my god! And I love that. It was one of my favorite... I love it when you see... I remember when this became a thing on SportsCenter, last decade, when people would videotape themselves watching the end of

sporting events like i remember that started like the world cup was a big one yes one of the world the one i remember was you remember the um the alabama auburn game where they returned yeah the field goal yeah the short field goal was too short and he returned it 108 yards one of the great things i ever saw in sports center was the auburn and alabama fans the alabama fans thinking they're about to win it and they're horrified and the auburn fans thinking they're about to lose it and there was like all this stuff and then like

Seeing like the Cavs fans in 2016 watching the end of, a lot of people videotape themselves watching the end of game seven. Amazing. I just, I have great memories of that. This is what that was like. You could watch it. So anyway, the shock of it was one of the reasons why it was such an amazing story.

Well, and it was a shock that everybody could feel, whether you covered the league, talked about the league, wrote about the league, liked the league, were dating or married to somebody who was involved in basketball. Everyone had the same sort of, you remember where you were when it happened. It's such a rare thing for sports. Even the decision, I don't remember where I was when that happened because you knew it was coming. I remember watching it. I don't remember where I watched it. This, I was watching a movie with my wife and

But the reason that I believed it in the real time, because I didn't know it was coming, was that I thought I was in the back of my head. I was like, I wonder if AD is greasing the skids on his time in LA. It was not something I thought was going to happen at this point. I don't think that thing went over well when he was complaining about stuff. It's tough to complain when you're either guy, when they gave up like 10 assets to put the two together.

That's where I started having issues. I think the issue might have been that he was talking to Shams about it and not talking to Polinka and Judy about it. I think that's where the issue may have been. Like, what he was asking for was not unreasonable. Yeah. The venue which he asked for, I think. But I don't think that they were like, let's get rid of AD. I think that

Now, look, this is a once in a lifetime situation. And as Russell and I talked about on Sunday, to do that without Reeves is the craziest part of the whole thing. Well, to me, like, I just don't understand how Reeves isn't in the deal. I'll never understand that for the rest of my life. This is what Bob. So, like, you know, when you were doing countdown, you would talk with magic and you would just I was never there. But you described these amazing conversation with magic during the games. Yeah, yeah.

You know, I've gotten to do countdown about a dozen times this year. I've gotten to do it by half of those with Bob Myers. It's I... Because you're hanging out for six hours. Yes. And, you know, I covered all these Warriors Cavs series and just the way Bob and I, the way Bob talks about the league, like I'll bet he gets a job offer every day. Like the way he views the league, like, and a part of it is because he's so...

successful and comfortable and he doesn't have to worry about like you know part of it is the space he's in listening to Bob talk about the league privately you can see why every owner would want to hire him right because the way and what he does on TV I think is great I don't think actually he gets of course I'm biased he's my teammate the way he the way he talks about the league like the way he talked um last week about I can't remember it was some front oh some front office challenge like

Oh, it was a Michael Malone firing. Like he talked about that whole thing. Like what he was saying was like literally worth, uh,

hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting money, like if he had consulted with the team. But anyway, he feels the same way I do. I feel good that I'm on the same side as him, which is he can get to a spot where he sees why they traded Luka. He doesn't agree with it, and nor do I. But he can see why. He can see how the Mavericks got to it. They didn't want to pay him the $300 million, whatever. They have more information about Luka than anybody.

He can even get himself to the spot where they said, we want Anthony Davis. That's going to be our guy. And so can I. I can get to a spot. Again, I wouldn't do it, but I can see how I can... Him as the centerpiece of a Luka trade. I can see how Anthony Davis is a guy they wanted. Like, this is what we're going to do. And even those two steps are big steps. A lot of people, and I think probably about every Dallas fan, couldn't make the two steps that I just made. But I've been around the league. I can see it. The return is what I can't.

I can't square. That's where I stop. I stop right there because here's the thing. Reeves has one of the best value contracts in the league. And he's gotten better every year. I just voted for him for most improved. I had a real problem for most improved. Oh, you came so close. I had a, look, the most improved. What did you do for your three? Reeves. Reeves won? Reeves won. Oh, man. Zubach. I think I had Zubach. No, I had Denny Avia.

I looked at him, but his numbers were basically the same. House loved him last year in Washington. He was mad they got rid of him. One of the reasons why Joe Cronin got extended in Portland was because of that was how good of a trade that was. I did Daniels. I mean, I thought Daniels was a no-brainer. Totally. I'm a big... I did Daniels. He plays internationally. You know I like... I did Brown on Denver.

And I did Kamara, who I couldn't believe wasn't in the discussion for any of this stuff. Like who the fuck knew who that guy was a year ago? I put Kamara on my all defensive team. Yeah. All of those are good. I'm not going to try to, it's a bleep show. No, I looked at the Reeves thing. He was, I had four guys I liked and the only thing with Reeves was I liked him last year. I didn't, like how much did he improve? He was really good last year. Look, again, Team USA. It's a tough one.

I fell in love with him in the summer of 23. I wasn't, he was already a no, it's like, why didn't you tell San Antonio? He could have saved all of us. A lot of issues. So I was, because Steve Kerr is such a wonderful guy. Yeah. Steve Kerr let the media for that summer in 23, we were sort of embedded with the team. Uh, me and Joe Varden of the athletic, we were the only people really traveling with them. Um,

We went on the team bus when they went to the Grand Mosque. We flew on the team plane. Tim Reynolds from the AP was also there, those three of us. And I was riding the bus with the players, I think to the airport or somewhere, and the players were questioning Austin about the contract. He had already signed it, right? Yeah, yeah. And he's like,

And he's like, he's like, well, you know, I mean, this is off the record. I shouldn't say what he said, but they were. No, I know this story because he was an undrafted free agent. Yeah. Well, he wanted to make sure. Nobody really came after him. And the Spurs really seriously looked at it. The Lakers were given a gift when the Spurs didn't offer him the offer sheet. They were given a gift and they were able to get him on a deal. Now, what Austin got was he got a player option after year three.

Because the Lakers were not incentivized to give that to him. There was no offer. Well, they knew that there was no... The Spurs, what I heard, the Spurs just kind of farted around with it for a few days. And he started to panic that he wasn't going to get an offer. And I think the Lakers strong-armed him. I mean, Palenka being a former agent, I think in situations like that, really helps him. I will say that he got the player option. So after next year, he can opt out. And if he didn't get that, and he was under this contract for two more years, so like...

It was a victory for him and his agent that, you know, because when you're a restricted free agent, you're screwed. You usually don't get the PO. So he got the player option without a good, if he got an offer sheet, but he didn't get an offer sheet. Now he's in the best situation. And he guaranteed himself tens of millions of dollars. Yeah. Um,

And so he's set for life. His family is taken care of. And he's got a player option after year three. He did okay. But the players on the team were like talking about it. Like, yeah, man. Because he was great for Team USA. I realize nobody watched it. I understand that. And defensively, he was taken advantage of late in the rounds. Teams targeted him. But at least he gives a shit. There's guys who get taken advantage of, but at least they fight.

He'll at least fight. We're going to see it in the playoffs. Everybody's going to target him for three rounds, two rounds. There's no way you were part of Team USA. I actually almost didn't vote for him for most improved because in my mind, he'd already improved. That's why I didn't vote for Cade. Because I was like, Cade was the number one pick. Year three, he's supposed to be this good. You can't give a guy on a max contract most improved. No offense to Cade. Or year four, whatever it is. Cade was on my all NBA team. So, yes. So, the...

If Austin Reeves was making $37 million, okay? Yeah. The Mavericks could look at you and say, well, look, we can't have Kyrie and AD and Austin Reeves all making, you know, $40 million because we can't do that. If that was the case, I would get it. Like, okay, you can't do the trade. He's making like $14 million. And next year he's making like $15 million. Like it's one of the top five value, well, top 10 value contracts in the league.

And he's one of the best 45 guys in the league right now. Best 45, 50, whatever you want to put him. So at least if it's a two-for-one, you can talk yourself into it more. Yes. So that's my... In my mind, they should have gotten...

and the other first round pick and the pick swap. They should have gotten all of it. And I know what's been said. What's been said is that when Jeannie Buss heard about this, she said, we're not trading. And I'm sure Rob Plinka didn't want to trade him either. I'm not saying Rob wanted it. Eventually, it's like, we're going to lose Luka unless we don't do this. They're trading. The excuse that comes out is that, no, Jeannie Buss said, Austin Reeves is not being traded. And I'm like, okay.

then hang up the phone. We're trading you Luka Doncic. You give us what we want. Fine, I'll shop him. Let me see what I can get for him then. So I just, I disagree with the trade because as critical as I've been of Luka, I recognize he's a top 10 player, top five player, top three, whatever you want to say. You dream of having a player like that. He's an imperfect player, but I can close my eyes and I can see him holding the Larry O'Brien trophy in one hand and holding the Bill Russell trophy in the other.

I see it. I can see it multiple times. I would not trade a player like that. Sounds like a nightmare. At least not age 25. Wearing a Laker uniform. Sounds terrible. You should feel that way. And so I'm saying... We were almost done with this Lakers team. I mean, they were... This was it. They were last legs. One of the great lines... You remember when they had the press conference and Palenka was wearing that leather jacket? Yeah. At the press conference? Yeah. Um...

I was texting with a high-ranking executive from their team, and he was watching at the same time. I go, hey, what do you think of this polenta jacket? You know, because it was not normal press conference wear. No, he looked like a John Wick villain or something. And he goes, after that trade, he could wear a Speedo. And it was just like, right. It was like, yeah, like...

Unbelievable. Well, I think it was honestly the greatest thing that ever could happen to Luka Doncic. Like we talk about, because not only do you go to a bigger market, you're a bigger star in a team that has big resources, you get to play on a team that has a chance to win the title right now, but also they lit a fire under him and sometimes people need that in life. Well, that's what I think his agent, Bill Duffy, is one of the great

agents of the last 40 years he's a hall of famer i don't know if he's actually in the hall i don't know if they put agents in the hall he was more rip shit than anybody but what i think what bill duffy basically you know i shouldn't maybe share everything but no bill's thing was they traded you the lakers so like you know luca is abs as you can see from the tears devastated it's like they traded you the lakers right so let's let's take a step back and evaluate

you know, that you were traded to the Lakers. And I think Luka is coming around on that. We'll find out this summer because he's got to sign the extension. We'll find out in the playoffs how he does and how everything fits in. And we're going to find out how the LeBron and Luka together, you know, which I think LeBron's handled great so far. Is it going to be a little different in a game four when you're down 2-1 in a series and who gets the bomb? I can't wait for all that stuff. But isn't this...

Isn't this great for LeBron? It's great for the league. It's great for us. It's great for LeBron. And LeBron's never been in a situation where he clearly wasn't the most talented guy in his own team.

Now, he's age 40. If this was 2012 LeBron, it would be a little different. But the only time I can remember even close was that first Miami season, which you covered. Because Wade was incredible that year. LeBron was in his headspace, was in a completely different place. And LeBron was, yeah, LeBron was a mess for a variety of reasons. And Wade was awesome. That was probably the last great Wade season. Dwayne Wade was so great in that 2011 finals. One of the best. That was at game three.

He was the game they won. They won game three to go to one. Awesome in that game. He was I feel like he's weirdly become underrated now because his prime wasn't kind of as long as it should have been. I've said this and it's kind of laughable, but League Pass wasn't as much of a thing. We couldn't watch it on our phones. But in 2010, when I moved to Miami, obviously, Dwayne Wade was already on his way to being a Hall of Famer. He had already been a finals MVP.

But until I watched him play 82 games or whatever he played, 75 games. Yeah. Night in and night out covering the Heat.

I didn't appreciate how freaking good he was. Like 25 games into that season as you know, the heat that was very dramatic. I remember thinking, my God, is he good? And I know it's kind of weird to say, but like I had such an appreciation for how good he was. Well, I felt like in, I remember writing this in 09 when he was stuck on pretty bad Miami team and he kind of carried them, got them in the playoffs. But

I just felt like he was as good as Kobe for a couple of years there. And I don't think people, you know, I have Kobe as one of the 10 best players of all time. Like I wouldn't say that lightly, but I think Wade's, Wade's best was as good as Kobe's best. And I think you saw it in the 06 finals. Like,

If he really wanted to be great, you could really build the right team around him and he could carry somebody to the top of the mountain. Kobe did it way longer and I think the problem for Wade is he had a six year peak. - But he got hurt. - He got hurt a bunch of times, but his peak was basically from '06 to '11. Kobe had the first peak,

And then I had the second peak from like 08 to, you know, 2012 where he had like almost a whole second career. For sure. And Wade was like basically by the 2014 finals wasn't an impact guy anymore. That's right. That's one of the reasons why LeBron left. I mean, yeah, there was a number of reasons why he left.

But he was looking over at Dwayne and he was like, I don't, you know. I wrote that when it happened. It was always like, he's going back to Cleveland. He's got a bit. And I was like, he's dumping this Miami team because he knows because he's fucking basketball genius. He's like, this is done. I've maximized all of my assets out of this team. I'm out. One of my most vivid memories of my 22-year career career in the NBA was the locker room

after game five of the 2014 finals. The Spurs magical, crushed them, fought 4-1. Kawhi was great. The ball's moving. Danny Green doesn't miss for days. We went out to dinner that finals. In Miami. Yeah. I'm in the locker room in...

whatever they called this, or AT&T Center, whatever they called it. And Battier retires, which we weren't surprised about. Ray Allen basically retires. That one, we were caught off guard. Yeah, he felt like he had like three more years left. I thought he had one more at least. Yeah. And he was like, yeah, I think I might be done. We were like, whoa. Bosh is like genuinely relieved. Like,

Not upset, like, almost like I've unburdened myself. Haslam, first off, half the team, like, half the team is about to retire. Like, they don't all know it. Like, Rashard Lewis doesn't know what he's done, but he's done. But, like, a year later, half the team wasn't in the league. And I'll never forget that. It was like they were happy it was over. It was such a finality.

Like it was almost like senior year. Like, okay guys. Four years that were like six years. Exactly. And so when you look like LeBron's looking around that room, you know, half the guys are about to retire. You know, Wade is like wheezing. Like they spent the whole year, Tim Grover, who was, you know, Jordan's guy, Tim Grover spent the whole, the whole season in Miami working on Dwayne Wade to get him to

taped together to get him to the playoffs. Now, he ended up playing a couple more years, obviously, but like, they spent the whole year just trying to keep him together for the playoffs. LeBron is seeing all that and he's just like, I thought he maybe would have come back for maybe one more year just to see. I remember everyone got mad at me because on TV, Cleveland won the lottery and I think, which was, I think before the game,

It was in Indianapolis. Another vivid memory. And LeBron had a weird first half. And I think I said something at halftime like, that was a weird LeBron half. It's almost like it broke his brain that Cleveland was getting the first pick. Because we were talking about that whole playoffs, whether he was going to go back there. It wasn't a good lottery, honestly. It was Wiggins' lottery. It wasn't like they had gotten super flat. No, but it was an asset to trade. And that was the Kevin Love stuff had already started. So post-game.

I can close my eyes and see the locker LeBron sits at. It was, you know, I still think about cows win the lottery. He's like, yeah, pretty amazing, huh? Like it was a little back and forth. Yeah. For that game. Like,

because they'd won it two years in a row. And like three out of four or something like that. Because they won the Kyrie. Kyrie, Anthony Bennett, Andrew Wiggins. I got mad on TV and then everyone got mad at me about that. I thought it was outrageous that they won three in four years. Of course it's outrageous. We need rules. Of course it's outrageous. How is this a thing that's allowed? Yes, of course it's outrageous. They've done a better job with it now. Like even...

you know, Bob Carrington makes a crazy shot. So Utah's one and Washington's two, but they both have 14% odds and it's not as impactful as I think it would have been. Having said that, there were like eight teams tanking at the end of this year or something like that. Well, the schedule's too long. It just is. This is what happens when you're playing for fucking ever and, you know, you get to mid-March and eight teams just want the season to be over.

That's true. That's one. Were you touched when LeBron took that shot at you and everybody rallied to your defense? It was a great online moment for you. It was. People are very protective of you. I would have preferred that it didn't happen. Yeah. But I kind of feel like everybody who knows what's going on knew, but everybody who didn't know will forget. So, like, I...

I actually felt like it might have, my concern was that it would damage me with players because he's so influential with players. Yeah. That hasn't been the case so far. I've had more players come up and not that all of them are, but I've had more support from players, current and former, than I thought I would get from them.

It's a weird moment. To me, I read that as like, man, that's just, he said something and I bet he would take it back a day later. In all honesty, I don't know because I haven't talked to him. I actually haven't seen him since. McAfee, I've done McAfee a dozen, I don't know, eight, seven, eight times. There's a,

McAfee would put up this photo of where he superimposed me as one of his high school teammates. Yeah. He always used that photo. It was funny, you know, McAfee's show has all these tropes. That is a trope. He's put that photo up a number of times. I don't know what LeBron was thinking, but I kind of think when he saw that photo go up, he thought that was weird.

well, maybe he thinks I'm weird. Maybe, maybe he does. Let's put it this way. There's probably 15 things LeBron could be angry at me about, like that I've said or written over the years that he could legitimately be like, that was wrong. That was unfair. You don't know what you're talking about. Like, and he could have hit me with any of those. I've been like, you're right. Shouldn't have done that. I was out of line. Um,

but what he accused me of was not one of them. So, but I kind of, I almost kind of think he saw the photo and thought that was weird. And that's what he was reacting to as if I made the photo or something. Every year you go viral and America's behind you. I don't know. This is three years in a row for you. I don't know about that. You don't think so? I think people in media who knew were behind me. I don't know about America. I don't think it was bad for you. No, I don't. It was fine. I,

Like I said, and I'm not just saying this, like he doesn't know me. So it's fine. I don't know. It was a great relationship for all sets. Yeah. Well, I don't know how he feels about it, but it was a great relationship for me. I do think we are entering in this and we've hit all these different kind of checkpoints with basketball coverage and this, whatever error we're in now,

where fan bases can be mobilized if somebody writes or says something that a player doesn't like. That's a little hairy. Well, I think it's okay for media to be held accountable. I couldn't agree more. We're supposed to be fair and accurate. Yeah, that's fine. But, you know, like, I don't think there's an understanding of the job. You know, that's one thing that's kind of being lost. It's like even you look at the award stuff, which...

Zach just dumped his ballot at it. Which I was really annoyed about. Couldn't handle the swings. I told him that I was annoyed about it and I am annoyed about it and he should get it back. But like, you know, Jokic or SGA, it's a good battle. You talk to different people, they're going to say different things.

Nobody is going to do an MVP vote. Like I finally, I get to do my anti-OKC agenda. Right. So I'm so glad. Right. Like I voted for Dort for defensive player of the year and Dagdol for coach of the year. I wish I had had the,

the guts to vote for Dora. I said I was seriously thinking about it. I just didn't have the guts. It's like when they say a golfer makes an 18-footer at Augusta. They're like, the guts. The guts to read that part. Here's the thing about a media voting for awards. Of all the bad options, we're the best bad option. This is not speculation.

They let the fans into the All-Star voting. Yeah. And the fans are like trying to vote Zaza Pachulia. And like, you know, with all due respect to LaMelo Ball, he's a great player, but he had no business being a starter in the All-Star game this year. He did not. Fans put him in. So the players and the media had to check on that. The players, first off, they vote for All-Star and half of them don't take it seriously. You can see the votes and like Bub Carrington's getting votes. All due respect to Bub. Yeah.

The Players Awards, you remember that lasted for like two or three years? That was a disaster. Who could have predicted? It was a disaster when they did it in the 60s and they had people voting for MVP. Some of the votes were Bill Russell being like fifth. Of course. One of the most amazing awards every year is the Executive of the Year Award. Voted by other executives. The other executives vote for it. It's like the pettiest award. Like there's so...

bias and pettiness. If you go back and historically look at some of these vote totals, you can't trust that. Only the NBA governor's meeting is more petty than the... Can you imagine? So the players don't trust the owners. The owners don't trust the players. The players can't be trusted to pick the other players. The fans can't be trusted at all. So is the media perfect? Hell no. But we're the best of the options. Well, and also you can't fuck around with your ballot. You can't be like,

I'm going to put Bronny James third for rookie of the year because then it's going to be shown that you did that. I know. And my colleagues don't like that their votes are public. So I don't care if my vote's public. I watch basketball year. I really care about the process. I've talked about it forever and I'm going to do my ballot the way I want to do it. I have a whole process and I care. Okay. So hold us accountable. If people disagree with it, that's fine. Right. But

I do wonder though if they should make it private and if they don't like certain ballots, just knock those people out for the next year. Well, that is something that could happen. Hold us accountable. Here's why I say that. I worry about the group think for stuff because people are afraid, oh, if I do this and not enough people are with me, then people are going to

say whatever. Right. And then if you're just like, ah, it's just safer for me to do this because I don't want to be noticed. That's not, then we're not voting anymore. I do think people do that. Yes. I definitely think that happens. And I think especially with the teams that you have to cover, you know, like if you are right, you've Jaron Jackson, you leave them off third, two mile MBA, and then you run into him. And it's like, Hey dude, this is one thing that I do. And I did that this year, Evan Mobley and Jaron Jackson were, are both guys who, if they make all MBA, uh,

get the bonus. Mobile's already in his contract. Jackson is eligible for the Supermax. Doesn't have it, but he's eligible. So I have a rule that if you're close, I put you on. I did this with Jalen Brown two years ago. Jalen Brown had earned it. He was second team. Jalen Brown should have been on. He earned it. That's a bad example. But Jaren Jackson's an interesting one because I didn't have him. I put Jaren Jackson on. I put him on. I put Zubats over him. And I'm not going to argue that with you. I'm just saying I have this rule that if it's close, I give it to him.

I can't argue with it. And Evan Mulby was on it too. Speaking of arguing, we went way too long. We have to watch a play in basketball game. I know. We now missed the first quarter, but I had a great time. It was good catching up with you. I always love talking to you. Thanks for popping on. Can I just say real quick? Yeah. I don't know if it's still available on the web. Yeah. Anywhere. You and I, when you did your book of basketball to, what did you call it? When you did the podcast. Oh, the podcast. Yeah, it's on YouTube. It's on YouTube? We did LeBron's The Shot, right? We did the game seven. Yeah. Yeah.

It's the most fun I've ever had doing a podcast. Oh, that's nice. And is probably the best, some of the best content I've ever done.

Wow. We did it. We did it at the studio at the Rainer. Yeah, pre-COVID. Pre-COVID. I remember like coming across it like during COVID, like in, you know, in the darkest of times and listening to it. So if you are a LeBron fan or a Kyrie fan, just go find that. I mean, all of you did a whole bunch of them. Yeah. Because now it's, you know, half a decade old or longer. But like, I just want to say. Oh, I'm glad. Well, you were great on that one. That was a really fun one to do. I loved it. Okay. All right. Great to see you.

All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Windhorse. Thanks to Mahoney and CR. Thanks to Jesse and Gahow and Saruti for helping out behind the scenes. Don't forget, you can catch up on Celtic City on Max if you haven't watched it. I'm really proud of it. I hope you like it. If you like basketball, I feel like you're going to like it. And then enjoy the playoffs this weekend. I'm going to be back with Rosillo on Sunday night after a whole smorgasbord of games. See you then. Bye.

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