Bill Simmons on Draymond and Wembanyana
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And now, The Low Post. Welcome to the Wemba and Yama Post podcast. Wait, no. The Low Post podcast on a Friday morning on the East Coast where it's time to finish up our annual preseason home at home with Spotify's, The Ringers, everything's. Mr. Bill Simmons, my old boss. How are you, sir? I'm great. We thought we were going to talk about Victor the Alien and then some NBA news dropped. We're taping, what is this, like 7.50 Pacific Time AM Friday. Yeah.

And the Warriors situation has blown up. We talked about this on my pod on Tuesday and I was mad at myself after because I didn't feel like I went far enough on it. I was concerned there would be a Draymond distraction element. Who knew it would blow up like this?

Well, one of my – I couldn't think of a good gimmick for this podcast, so I just did X number of burning questions with Bill Simmons, NBA historian. Yeah. And one of them was, are you worried about the Warriors? That was already in light of the reports of the Poole-Draymond altercation, which I have to say I talked to, as you would expect, many people around this situation yesterday, Thursday, and

And it was consistently downplayed. Consistently. It's not that big a deal. We knew a Draymond thing was coming. He got it over with before the season. Now we can move on. Now you can't move on. Somehow, someway, the video of this leaked to TMZ. That's a whole different thing. And now it's out in the world. And Draymond Green, we don't know what was said. We don't know what Jordan Poole said. We don't know what Draymond Green said.

We know Draymond Green absolutely full body clocked Jordan Poole, who was clearly not expecting it. Put his whole legs, lower body into it and just clocked him. And again, it's 10. You got to go backwards. You got to go backwards. Go backward. He he he approaches him and bullies him.

Right. So Poole has to shove him off him because Draymond's like in his face. And I've already seen some people on Twitter being like, well, Jordan Poole pushed him. What did he expect? Like Jordan Poole pushed him because Draymond went up to him. Again, we don't know what was being said, but I think a lot of humans in Jordan Poole's position, maybe even including me, would have just done it like a, hey, man, just give me a little space here. And then, bam, boom.

Well, Draymond launches, he launches like a Kermit Washington punch at him. And I think Poole, who didn't realize it was coming, and he ducks back at the last second. But honestly, that could have been a broken jaw, broken cheekbone. He fully launched into it. He was launching forward like a boxer.

It was like a flying MMA punch almost. And they are super lucky Jordan Poole is not injured. Seriously. Apparently he's fine. We are entering into...

Kind of uncharted team territory. I mean, the larger story we talked about the other day was the Warriors have between Wiggins, Poole, Draymond, and soon Clay, four guys up for extensions, all of whom have some expectation, reasonable expectation, you should take care of me. I don't care if the luxury tax bill is going to be, you know, take your total payroll into the half a billion range one year. I don't care. I just helped you win a title. And we knew there was going to be tension surrounding that.

We knew Draymond's case was maybe the most interesting of the extension cases. Now, now we have this tape, which somehow got, which is very bad. Somehow it got out into the world. And we know this about Draymond.

I think one of the reasons you were worried about this from the Warriors' perspective is there's sort of this perception of did Draymond's temper cost them two championships already? Did it cost them 2016 when he punched LeBron and got suspended? Did it cost them 2019? The answer is yes in 2016. The answer is yes on that one. They were going to win game five, so yes.

Did it cost them Durant in 2019 during the sideline argument against the Clippers where Draymond says, hey, man, we, you know, in more profane terms than this, we won without you. We don't need you, implying you just sort of joined up the super team. The relationship is somewhat broken from there. I don't think you can argue that cost them the championship. I think injuries cost them the championship. And I don't know what you think. I bet Durant was going to leave anyway. I don't think that helped.

But I don't know the scenario where Durant stays. But more interestingly, and you can get to that in a second, more interestingly from my perspective is, if you remember last year, Draymond and KD did a podcast about that in which they both, particularly Draymond, blamed Steve Kerr and Bob Myers for suspending him in light of that argument. Did not go over well.

I don't think there's any chance now that they don't suspend him. And we know from that incident, I don't know if he's going to be wired to then view himself as not a victim, but as someone who is in opposition to the higher-ups in the organization and what that does to the dynamics of the team. I mean, in a year in which you could argue they're the favorites to win the championship. I'm not picking them. I'm picking Milwaukee.

But they're right there with anybody. I mean, I don't even... My head is spinning. Like, what do we make of this? What's going to happen? I have no idea. You could tell me he's suspended for 50 games. You could tell me he's suspended for one game. You could tell me the Warriors are ruined forever. You could tell me the Warriors are going to be totally fine. I have no idea. Not 50. Come on. I'm just saying. Yeah, no, I know. Everything's on the table. I'm being facetious. No, I know. The 2019 thing, I think...

was worse than I think it gets credit for now because of some of the stuff he said to KD in the huddle and then in the locker room after. And I think lines were crossed with some of the language. I'm with you. KD had a foot and a half out the door. And I think that was part of why Draymond was so mad because he felt like they had a chance to get a third title. I thought the podcast last year was weird. We've hit the point when these guys get together and do these interviews. We saw the magic happen.

And Isaiah Thomas won. We saw the Shaq and Kobe won from way back. It's just that this is all like performance. It's people trying to spin their versions of things that happen when we actually know what happened. The thing this week, I had one person who was basically, I could tell, it was way worse than

Then it was coming out, the punch. And I think they were worried about this the whole training camp. I think this starts last season with the podcast, with some of the stuff he was talking about after the games, and just there was a me, me, me element to some of the stuff he was doing. And I can tell you for sure there have been people –

Around the Warriors that have either told him or want to tell him but aren't sure how it will go over. Yeah. Do not podcast about this. Do not address the pool thing and do the apology or explanation on the podcast. But that's either here nor there. Yeah. And I think that Warriors, their whole culture was...

pretty close, right? They did a good job of, they had this huge spotlight on them, but at the same time, you know, they were team, team, team, team, team. It got a little compromised last year, but then they rallied and they pulled it together the last couple rounds. And, you know, he went from being a guy who I think we all thought was declining to in that Celtics series, he kind of became old Draymond again in those last couple of games. With that said,

I was really worried about this, and I really regret not going a little bit further on the Tuesday pod just because of the NBA history. And Kers played on teams like this. He had the Pippen situation in 98, which is the worst version of the situation. He got punched. Well, yeah, he got punched too by Jordan. And if there was video of that, I'm sure it wouldn't look a ton different than this Draymond thing. The Pippen thing, I think, is really instructive for this because there was a title at stake.

Pippen had a reservoir of anger about eight years of being underpaid by the Bulls and being taken advantage of by an agent and playing hurt and all these different things. And then finally, he got his revenge by he had surgery and missed 20 games. The documentary, all the books written about it, we don't need to rehash all that. But it did really affect their season.

And I think there was a chance that there was some version of that that could happen with this Draymond thing this year because he knows this is his last big contract. He knows they've won four titles of them. He's a huge part of the team. He's the emotional leader. He's the engine. He's the alpha on the team in a lot of ways. And as we said on Tuesday, his attitude is, where's my contract? Now, who's getting the contract? Probably Poole.

And that has to factor into this. Who's the guy he gets aggro with? Who's the guy he throws the punch at? The guy who's getting paid over him. You can't tell me that's like a coincidence. So I don't know what was happening in the last couple of weeks with them in practice and stuff, but that, that was not just an, I'm mad at my teammate there, that there was like real malice with that punch. And if I'm the Warriors, I don't know how you deal with that going forward. And we can talk about all the trade possibilities and,

I'm not ready. We can talk about the suspension stuff. Well, but the Warriors have a real chance to win the title, and this could submarine it single-handedly. This is Pat Riley, disease of more, in action.

Well, talk about that then. How would this submarine their title chances? Like, what do you see happening? If they, assuming they don't trade him, because for all the noise you're going to hear now, it's hard to imagine the Warriors without him. It's hard to imagine the Steph Draymond two-man game without Draymond. Now, it's hard to imagine, you know, defensively, you mentioned the Boston series. What he did to Jokic in the first round is what makes Draymond so special. The ability to guard up and down every position. Nobody can do that. Um,

So trading him feels like, I mean, maybe they've done some preparation for this eventuality at some point. We don't know how unhappy this situation is secretly. So set aside the trade for a second. How do you see this unfolding? I just don't even have...

I think everyone in there is in DEFCON 1 right now that the tape is out reeling from, okay, we can't just, we'll handle it internally. We don't think he's going to be suspended. We're the Warriors. We'll move on. Like that's over now. You got to do something now, but I have no idea what happened. This is the biggest basketball story of the last four months since really, since the Durant trade now, which is saying something by the way, and this blue Wemba Yama off the headlines, which I was so excited to talk to you about. I did a little, we're going to talk about it. No, I mean, that was like,

you know, a seminal moment this week with him. But yeah, I think the question is how much baggage is there already? That's the question for me. How many of these incidents do we not know about? How hard is he to coach? How much of an up and down emotional thing comes with him? And do they look at this and they go, you know what? This isn't going to be the last time

this is going to blow up in some way this season because we don't want to give him that contract. We don't want to give him an extension. And he's going to be unhappy and he's going to be acting out all year. If they believe that, I think they're going to move. I think they will move and they'll try to trade him. And, you know, I think Detroit's a possibility. I would say the Lakers are a possibility. And Dallas, those are the three teams that jump to my head as teams that would be like, yeah, we'll take them. I don't even... Like, we can...

It breaks my brain to even think what they could get back. I put a thing on Twitter. I saw, I saw. But like, it was like dream onto the Lakers, you know, with that Westbrook package that you've talked about where they were going to get miles Turner and buddy healed back. And if you just send miles Turner, the warriors and dream onto the Lakers, it all works out under the cap. And the warriors save like 70 million in luxury tax. And if you're the warriors, I don't even know if that's, that deals on the table, but,

But if you're the Warriors and you're just like, man, we could get out of this Draymond situation, replace it with Miles Turner, we could have no drama all season, get back to the chemistry we had a year ago, and maybe we just do that.

I think the key with them last year was they had so much fun last season. There was a real joy with that team and a real camaraderie and a real chemistry. I think that's one of the reasons they won the title. And now that's compromised. And I'm going to be interested to see how they handle that. You have Kerr and Myers, who I think are in the top five in the league of chemistry. What's going on with our team?

that's not basketball. Kerr gets it. Kerr, like the secret of basketball, when I wrote that in my book, a lot of that came from conversations with Kerr. It's not just about the basketball. It's about what happens behind the scenes. It's about how the guys relate to each other. He's the biggest believer in that out of anything. Well, and he's also had now, what, seven, eight years of coaching Draymond Green.

many different Draymond Green incidents, most of which you probably don't even know about. But even going back to, remember the locker room blow up in Oklahoma City in the game that Steph ended up making like the half-court three to win the game where Lisa Salters overheard it outside the locker room? Yeah. And Steve's thing has always been,

This is Draymond, not necessarily a violent punch like this. This is a new thing. But this you can't have what he does on the court without the sort of on the edge, walking the line spirit that he lives and plays with. But this is not walking the line anymore. This is obliterating the line. Right. And they had this a little bit with Rodman, too. So 98, one of the things 98 was so fascinating, such a good documentary subject and a book subject.

Because you had the Pippen side of it, but you also had Rodman unraveling in a different way, right? Rodman with real issues. I mean, probably like drinking issues, chemical issues, whatever. And they're just trying to keep him stable the whole year. So they're dealing with that too. The point is Kerr especially has been in so many of these different situations that he

either are headed the wrong way or there's some signs. It was like, oh, this is happening. He played on the jailblazers. You know, he played he played on a bunch of different Bulls teams. He's been through this in 19 with Durant when that last Durant season, which I think by all accounts, everyone says was a really, really profoundly unhappy season. Oh, yeah. And I don't think they want to go through that again. I don't think any of these guys want to go through that again. So that's why I do think a trade is

Isn't inconceivable. And the fallout of this, Draymond's going to get crushed all weekend. I don't feel like he went far enough publicly with his apology because he probably didn't expect the video was going to come out, right? Nobody did. Yeah, nobody did. Very clearly, they all thought top down. We could cover this up. Yeah, not cover it up, but yeah, we're going to cover up the severity of it for sure. Yes. So you figure TMZ is involved, which means...

This is, I'm guessing, a closed practice. I think it was. There's video of the practice, and then somebody grabs the video with the cell phone. Somebody that obviously works for the team or had access to it and just sells it and makes some cash. Someone else on Twitter mentioned...

And again, this is just me wanting to slow down the dot connecting because the dot connecting, as we have seen in other recent stories, can take you sideways fast. And be inappropriate sometimes too. Someone on Twitter did mention, I wonder if they sent the tape to the league and maybe that is – but why would they even send that? If they're going to handle it internally, there's no reason, I don't think, to send it to the league. So I guess –

Somehow they got out. There could have been a couple of fans or family members at the practice, and we didn't see what precipitated Draymond being so mad at Poole. But I remember when I was at the Clippers game when it broke down with him and Durant, I taped that on my phone. I have that video of them in the huddle going nuts at each other because I was watching what happened at the end of that regulation was –

Durant was open on the side. It was like a little chaotic last 10 seconds. Draymond had the ball and Draymond tried to hero ball it and didn't see Durant on the side. Durant was really mad and they were walking off and Durant was yelling at him. And that made Draymond mad. And they started yelling at each other. And I just got my phone out. I was like, this is going to be good. They're going to get into it in the huddle. And they did. And I taped it. So there's a chance somebody in that gym was like, oh, ****.

This might get worse and just started taping. And again, that's another reason I think they have to worry about, even if they decide we're going to try to salvage this, Draymond feeling betrayed.

By someone, some mysterious person in the organization, if that's what he's going to think. And if you don't know who it is or how it happened, you may not trust anybody anymore. And I realize worrying about Draymond's trust issues is not the thing that you should be worried about. We should be relieved that Jordan Poole's not injured and worried about other things. But the ramifications go everywhere. There's one other piece of this that we didn't mention that preceded the punch. There was a tweet.

The night when this all came out, that it was by Chris Haynes. So I really like, and I think he's a good guy, but he had this tweet that basically was like, the Warriors have been worried about Poole as...

you know, as, as this contract stuff. The word behavior, the word behavior I think was used. Yeah. And the way the Warriors reacted to that, both, you know, on the side, but then even publicly, Iguodala came out with almost within an hour, be like, what the is this? This pool is a great guy. And then Curry, who never gets involved ever with anything, Curry came out and talked about what a great guy pool is. And I've always heard,

Poole is like he's a little cocky, but I think the Warriors like genuinely like Poole. I don't think there's any sort of head case stuff with him at all. So it was interesting to see their oldest leader and their best player both come out emphatically defending Poole and being like that's – this guy is a good guy. And I think Curry behind the scenes from what I've heard did even more than that to kind of defend Jordan Poole. Yeah. Yeah, they like him.

Iguodala on Twitter. So my theory was, and I've been told that this is not true, but my pet theory, which was just I invented and I asked people, is this what they were talking about? Because you mentioned the money dynamics. I thought, I wonder if Poole is sitting there. You know how it is when you're arguing with someone.

And the closer you are to that person, the more likely you are to, as the argument worsens, where can I really get them? Where can I really twist the knife? Oh, like a little dig. Yeah. And I thought if I'm Jordan Poole, where I can really twist the knife is if I say, hey, man, hey, Draymond, you got four rings, Hall of Famer.

I'm about to make more money than you based on one NBA season. I'm about to have a higher annual salary than you based on one NBA season. I don't know if you'd say that to Draymond. But it did get me to thinking, like, you know how everyone from, like, the 90s generation, early 2000s looks at salaries now and be like, man, I really missed the boat. Draymond's generation is going to feel the same way.

As the salary cap is like $225 million or something in 10 years. I mean, I'm making that up, but there's going to be the same money envy. But I was told emphatically that's not the case. And in fact, Poole is apparently a guy who doesn't care all that much. I mean, obviously everyone cares about the money, but he's not wired that way. So I don't know what the hell they were arguing about. Maybe Michigan State. Who the hell knows? We had the hero extension for $130 for four. Poole...

Pool versus Hero? I don't know. That's, to me, at least an argument on who's more of an asset. Hero's probably slightly better. More of a track record. I think Pool's arrow is maybe pointing up a tiny bit more than Hero is. I don't know. Who would you like more just out of those two if you could have one? Hero?

Probably hero because the catch and shoot three point numbers are so incredible with him. And if I can direct his game to be a little bit more Klay Thompson and a little bit less, I'm trying to be a guy who runs 40 pick and rolls a game, but I can do it if you need me to. Whereas pool feels more like sixth man to me. The greatest, the greatest version of Jordan Crawford possible.

Or Lou Williams or something like that. But maybe Jordan Poole proves that wrong. I mean, he's got a certain jolt and creativity to him that I don't think Tyler Hero has in terms of just like fast twitch speed and sort of bravado in that sense. They're dead even to me. I think I would actually take Poole because I think I've seen him do it in more big situations over the last year than Hero. But I think it's a good argument. The point is, if Hero's four years, 130...

Poole can't be that far behind. To me, that says Poole is at least 4-1-10. Oh, no, that becomes the Barrett and Hero deal. The Barrett and Hero deals become the benchmark. If you're Poole's agent, absolutely. You walk in and say, here's the contract. This is what it is. Well, Draymond knows that. Draymond's making 25 this year, right? He's never had the massive, massive contract, and this is going to be his last chance to get it.

And as we mentioned earlier, like, you know, the fact that his three point shooting has declined the way it has has really changed what he is as an asset. As great as he is defensively, you're still playing four on five with him a lot of the time, except for all the passing and the picking and the cutting and the thing that matters a lot. But I get it. But on another team.

It's really hard to translate that. You really need to play with guys who are on the same wavelength as like Curry and people like that. I just think it becomes hard to assess his value on top of all the off the court stuff and his age and his size. And we talked about on Tuesday, like when these intangible guys like the Ben Wallace in the mid 2000s, you slip a little and you don't have any offense to fall back on. It becomes tough.

So, yeah, I think this really hurts his value. I really do. I don't think I don't know where he's getting like a 100 million dollar contract after this. So what's the most likely scenario going forward? Let's talk it through for a second. To me, if you ask me between the extremes of really long suspension, no suspension trade, warriors are ruined. All these extremes floating around. And to me, I don't even know what the hell's on the table. I have no idea.

To me, if you ask me, Zach, what's the most likely scenario? You know me, I'm Spock. I'm going to calm down. I'm going to start to think a little bit about it, give myself a beat. And to me, the most likely scenario, and maybe I'm being just wildly off. Maybe the damage is so severe that this is ridiculous and you're going to tell me so. The most likely scenario is, look, we need each other. There's no scenario where you're in a better spot and we're in a better spot.

10 game suspension, pretty severe. 10 game suspension, no pay. Come back to the team. And as long as Poole's good and Curry's good and we don't have anything like this again, we move forward. If you ask me my gut right now, this is an hour after the tape, less than an hour after the tape. So who knows how ridiculous this sounds? Something like that would be like my median outcome for this. But I legit have no idea. What do you think? I would say five to seven game suspension, no pay.

I think there's one variable that we haven't discussed yet. How does Draymond handle the next 48 hours? Because he could actually make this worse. He could do a podcast and he could be like, you know what? This is a great, great way for me to expand my platform. This is the number one topic anyone want to hear me talk about on my own podcast. I'm just going to do it. And guess what? I'm going to defend myself. And if he tries to defend himself, he's

And tell his side of the story and whatever. I think that makes this worse. If he was smart, he would do nothing. He would fall on the sword. You know, we were getting into it and I totally overreacted. I want to be a warrior for life. I'll take whatever punishment they give me. I was wrong. He basically has to do that over the next 24 hours. I just don't know if he will.

I could see him doing the opposite, being like, well, I'm telling you, or you didn't see what happened before that led up to it and blah, blah, blah. And that would make it worse. I'm telling you, I know for sure there are people around him who will either tell him or want to tell him. Do not do that yet. You're going to be number one on every podcast chart. It'll be the most downloaded episode of the year by anyone anywhere. Do not do it. I don't know. It's not going to be Joe Rogan.

Well, I don't know. I don't pay attention to the numbers. You know me. I can't even look. That's a lie. I think you look. I think you look. I think you're a looker. I'm not. People ask me about numbers. I don't know. It's bad for my mental health. I don't know if you haven't made a finals pick yet, but I was debating Bucs Clippers, Bucs Warriors. Clippers have obviously two...

All-time players and incredible depth and the outlines of a system. The Warriors have the system and are so cohesive. We talked about the other day how Wiggins, underrated to me, has a year of learning how to play with Steph, Klay, and Draymond and how valuable that experience is because it's a system unlike any other in the NBA. The young guys are better. Klay's going to be better. I was starting to lean Bucs-Warriors-wise.

As a finals prediction over Bucks Clippers. I don't know what the hell to do now, but that's how high I was on the Warriors. I go Clippers Warriors a little bit higher than Denver as the top three in the West. I was going to go either Bucks Warriors or Sixers Warriors. We talked about Sixers already. I just had two drinks and somebody bought me a shot pick.

Darryl is furious, by the way, that we that he doesn't he didn't like that. We put our stink on the Sixers. I've been doing it for five straight years. I'm going to keep doing it. I think Bucks Warriors was the safe pick. And I think when you're making title picks, it's probably safer to do the safe pick. We talked about the Clippers. I, you know, I just want to watch them for 20 games before I have a real opinion on that. Denver's the upside team.

There's one more in there. What's the other one in the West? Clippers. Oh, and then the Phoenix. Why did you guys rule us out? We all had COVID during the Dallas series and we won 64 games. I feel like that has to be acknowledged too. There could be a little chip on their shoulder. Nobody believes in us with them, but I thought the Warriors were the right pick. And now I just got a text from somebody who used to play who was like, I've never ever in my life seen a teammate punch another teammate like that.

So I think there's going to be in the actual NBA community, which is filled with a lot of players and ex-players. I think they're going to react to this a little bit differently than even we did. We just look at it like, holy, that was a really dangerous punch. I think there's a teammate code that's a little different. There's only been a couple real teammate fights over the last 25 years that even got out in a real way. I remember like, remember in Portland, they had a couple, like there was one with, I think

Reuben Patterson and Zach Randolph. Zeebo broke Reuben Patterson's jaw. Then there was another one with the guy, the Asian guy, and he did a karate kick at somebody. The jailblazers had a couple ones. But for the most part, the teammate fights do not really happen like this. There's shoving, there's pushing, but not like real malicious punches. You could tell in the video, he's walking up there and there's eight people around him

Who could all intercede. And nobody does because I think they're assuming, yeah, it'll be some pushing and shoving and some trash talking. And by the way, Ron Adams, who's like 75 years old or something. He's nonplussed. Just absolute star of the video. Just stoic. And by the way, he loves Draymond. He wanted the Bulls to draft Draymond. He was there when that draft happened in Chicago with Tibbs. And they all allegedly wanted Draymond anyway. And he's just like...

I'm just glad Ron Adams didn't get hurt, but he's just like, oh, here comes Draymond. Oh, it's like no one expected that to happen. If they did, they would have tackled him. You just triggered another fake trade when you said the Bulls. Oh, boy. Little Vooch Draymond centerpiece of something. Stop it. Throw in. Warriors have to throw in one more thing.

We got to talk about Web and Yama, but let's do it. Let's move on. I just, I'm like, my brain is broken from this. This is like you, you texted me because my, and then my phone started blowing up with, did you see the video? How many games is he going to get? I got GMs and front office people from all over the league texting me. I hadn't seen it. And now I'm like, what? My brain is broken. I was having a nice smooth morning, starting the league pass rankings out, doing some writing, prepping for this podcast. And now my whole September, October, 2022 in the NBA, uh,

Wow. We're all going to remember this like normally dormant period of nothingness. It's not been like that at all. The last time this happened was when we started working together 10 years ago with the Harden stuff. Because the Harden thing was like a month long. Wait a second. They're not going to actually trade him, right? And that was all we talked about for four weeks. And I think I wrote like three Harden columns. But it was definitely one of those, man, there's a lot of buzz going on.

There's just a lot of noise around this, but they're not going to actually do it, right? No, no. Teams, and this is, you were telling me, because you had some connections even at that point, they're like, there are teams that think they can get Harden. It's like, nah, they can't actually trade. This guy's worst case scenario, the next Ginobili, they're not going to trade him. That ended up blowing up right before the season. And I think that was the last one like this.

Hard and trade bingo. Because now we have Webinyama plus this. Hard and trade bingo came up at about minute 35 of the Simmons Low podcast, if you had that on your card. That had to do it.

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everything and more i mean there's just no words for it that's why people are saying alien never seen this before seven four guys shooting corner threes the superlatives are insufficient and what surprised me the most about it was everyone's going to focus on the threes and the ball handling are relevant the shot blocking oh my god he's everywhere on defense and in the second game

I thought he was much better about not being jumpy, just knowing like if I just stay down, all these dudes are afraid to shoot if I'm around. He had a couple where he would just – his arms are so long where he would just reach in and hit the ball just to disrupt the possession. Like he's going to get steals just by being like, oh, you don't realize that I'm not a normal human. I'm just going to poke my arm in here and get the ball. And then the other thing –

His willingness to be a roller is so super refreshing because all these big men prospects who can shoot threes, they want to dance and they want to be guards. He's like, no, I'll be a hard roller. Not only will I roll and catch lobs, he had this play yesterday where he slipped a screen on the left sideline, slipped into open space like 18, 20 feet from the basket, caught it.

His immediate one dribble spin around a help defender fouled at the rim. I think he had 28 free throws in the two games. It's that kind of stuff that almost gets me more excited. We can just be excited. The 28-footers to me are irrelevant. Great. I'm glad he can shoot threes. But the rolling stuff, the where is he aspect of his shot blocking where –

It's like Gobert on steroids, where it's just anybody going to the rim who thinks they're going to get a layup, who's on a fast break, he's just lingering like a freaking...

They're just, where is he, where is he, where is he? You can't quantify with stats. He'll get his four bucks a game. The elbow to rim diagonal rotation is just one half step for him, and he's from one elbow to the opposite side of the rim to block your shot. That's a really important rotation. What about that first game when Scoot, who was starting to feel it because he tested it, he beat him in the first half. So in the second half,

He thought he could go by him. He thought he could sneak by him for a layup. And Wamba flew out like a left hand, almost like a karate chop and just blocked it. Scoot and flag. But yeah, it's the shot blocking. And then the third thing that I thought, he had a couple low post moves. Oh, he had a dream shake. He had a dream shake where he ended up with facing the guy with a little one-hander off the backboard. And I was like, all right. I said on my podcast, if...

The one thing I didn't see the jump hook slash sky hook, whatever that ends up being. If he adds that, cause he's just too tall. Like he'll just be able to get that off. If he adds like a little eight foot hook shot to all the other stuff we saw, this is, I mean, he's still the greatest prospect I've ever seen in my lifetime. It's him and LeBron. And I, the more I'm thinking about it, probably him. We weren't there for Kareem. I think everybody by all accounts, Kareem in high school, uh,

Kareem not being allowed to play as a freshman at UCLA. But I think that was the last prospect like this where it was like. Yeah, your tip on Kareem was that from age 13 on, his teams basically never lost a basketball game. High school, college, he just couldn't beat a Kareem team for like seven straight years. And he was seven foot four like this guy is. And he was fluid like this guy is. And that was the other thing that I think was shocking to all of us is that he moves like a 6'5 guy.

These super tall guys, they all have to kind of carry themselves a little like they're super tall. Their shoulders are hunched. They're a little clumsy. They're a little plodding. Holmgren's a good example. Holmgren's only seven feet, but Holmgren kind of carries himself like a seven-footer. This guy carries himself...

I don't know. Like, like he could just, if he was six foot six, he would still be awesome. And I think that's what makes him special. And, and you know that you've talked about a little bit already, like the, uh, the ramifications this guy is going to have with the, with the season. We haven't seen this really since the Samson Olajuwon Ewing era in the eighties with teams. Cause we haven't had a prospect like this since with teams just being like

I'll do anything to get this guy. I don't even feel like LeBron in 03 was like this. Teams will actually compromise their integrity to get this guy this season, if they can. So here's what's going to happen, because immediately during that first game, my phone, your phone, all starts blowing up with people being front office, people at the game, scouts being like, basically, holy, this is incredible. This is way bigger than I thought. This is going to be...

The biggest story in the NBA this season is going to be a guy who's not even in the NBA, which I don't think has ever happened before. Well, no, there's been versions of it because Duran Oden was a little like this. You're right. Okay. I think LeBron, I think that year was a little like this. And I think Zion was a little like this, but not even close to the impact. It wasn't bigger than what was happening in the league. No. Duran Oden, I think, was the last time it felt as big.

And you had this school of thought, Wojo, about this, about GM saying the race to the bottom is going to be incredible. And I do think there was some leveraging going on.

In the media all over the media, but those some I think a disproportionate amount of those everyone's going to race to the bottom stuff came from big market teams who really would like Utah and Indiana and on and on to trade their players for nothing and lower their prices. And then I would hear the opposite from.

in teams like that who would say, oh, no, no, we're going to be plenty bad enough as it is. We're not going to be rushed. We're not going to be told to lower our price point just because people think we need to be bad immediately. We're bad already and we can sit those guys down.

I do think, and then people bring up the lottery odds, which changed four years ago. And as you know, you can go 0-82. You're maxing out at a 14% chance at Webonyama. And so is the second team. And so is the third team. But there's Scoot. That's the X factor. Scoot is one of the best wing prospects we've had in the last 30 years. So here's what's definitely going to happen.

The worst teams are taking no chances. So they're already pretty confident they're going to be really bad. If there's a hint of, uh-oh, we might be like sixth worst team, those teams are going to take steps to make sure that doesn't happen. Well, the team I thought of immediately was Indiana because Indiana is going to be just frisky enough –

If they keep healed and Turner in a contract year and they have Halliburton and they have Duarte, they have like professional basketball players. Yeah. Plus Carlisle. They have to get Turner and healed off the team. They're just like, they should fire sale it over the next week. They can't even, you can't even waste 20 games. You're speaking the Lakers language. You're speaking the Lakers language right now. Do it. Call it in. Get those guys off the team. And then, you know, the other one is, is, uh,

There's that – you were going to mention like that Charlotte-Orlando group. Orlando is kind of screwed because their young guys are really good. There's no way you can tell those guys not to play well. OKC is the other one that's just – Shea, make up your fake injury now. What is it? Tendonitis? Is it – oh, your back is bothering you? What's your fake injury, Shea? The other thing that's going to – two other things are going to happen and you mentioned Charlotte. I think they're the best candidate for this. Some team –

That allegedly is in the middle. But I think is closer to not being in the middle. Is going to start 2-10. And just their owner. All the owners watch these games. Is going to say okay cool. We're pulling the plug. Let's go for broke. And then what's underplayed about the lottery odds. Is how much they've helped teams. Like 5-9. In the worst record derby. 100% I would bet money on.

30 to 40 games left in the season. Like that's how many games. I wrote about this yesterday in my tears column, 30 to 40 games left. Some team within three games of the play in range and three games of like sixth in the lottery is going to say, we're done. We're done. And we're done because what likely is going to happen if we keep trying is

is we miss the playoffs and have like a 2% chance at a top two pick. What can happen if we stop trying now and go three and 27 the rest of the way, which by the way, it's not that hard to go three and 27. Portland was like lost a million games last year.

We can go from 2% to 18%, 20% at one of those two guys. Not at Wimbanyama, but one of those two guys. 100% some team within striking distance of the play-in is going to do that. And so, yeah, they changed lottery odds to discourage abject, horrible tanking. They're still going to be tanking.

everywhere because owners watch these games governors watch these games gms on bad teams love to tank because it gives them greater job stability and the chance of the guy like this who makes your career and all they're waiting for is go ahead from the top and they're going to get more go ahead from the top after these two games charlotte i want those lakers picks if i'm one of these teams we know the lakers picks are available if i'm charlotte i'm calling the lakers right now

Gordon Hayward, Rozier, PJ Washington. What else do you want? We'll take Westbrook back. Give us those two picks. You want to put top three protections on them? Fine. But I want to gut my team. If I'm a team that I know I'm not going to win 40 games or I'm going to be in that 35 to 40 range, what's the point? This is a once-in-a-lifetime thing. I heard Woj on TV last night saying,

He said that teams thought Wemba Nyama was going to be worth an additional 500 million to a franchise. Hey, you say woo. I say that's too low because LeBron on Cleveland we know is worth a 500 million dollar swing because they would have those Forbes things. And Cleveland was a top three team when they had them. As soon as they didn't have them, they were like worth 500 million. To me, this guy's worth a billion plus dollars.

I think you think about what Giannis is worth to Milwaukee, right? And we'll see that if one of those guys ends up... I've always heard...

I've heard the Lazzari stake might be available on Milwaukee, and we'll see if they trade that. If he sells that, we'll see what the evaluation is. Giannis is part of that evaluation, right? Same thing for the Suns right now. If the Suns stunk, they're not getting $4.4 billion, but they have Devin Booker, they have Aiton, they have Chris Paul. You have Wemba Nyama on a team like Charlotte, which I would say is one of the lowest...

kind of, I don't know what a team would go for teams probably in the one five to two range on the really low end. You put him there, that's now a three and a half billion dollar team. Well, I mean, not only that, I'm just looking at Charlotte in general this year. I don't understand why they're over under is almost 37, 37 and a half, 36 and a half. I just, I don't get it. And I keep thinking after this off season in the last two drafts for them,

thank my lucky stars as a Hornets fan that stars coming off their rookie contracts always sign the max because if I'm a mellow ball, I'm like, what, what is, what, what's going to be around me in three years? Like, are any of these guys going to be good? Like who's here? And book night, Kai Jones. Like you have no idea if those guys are going to be good. Um,

Am I going to have to watch Mason Plumlee do spin moves from the foul line for two more years? What's going on here? We've all been afraid to talk about the Miles Bridges thing all summer, but the reality is he was the second best part of that team and he's not going to play for them anymore. So you take that, a team that wasn't that good anyway, and now you lose him, a guy who was a borderline all-star. To me, that's a team that could go backwards, and I think Washington would be another one.

Where like if Beal has another like, oh, Beal hurt his wrist again. Do they just start getting rid of all their vets and, you know, going on? And you can tell me, you can tell me. But the lottery odds, the lottery odds, they flattened it out and blah, blah, blah. It's still better to have a 20 percent chance at Scoot or Victor than to have 2 percent chance at them and be just mediocre. Isn't it funny that the Lakers were one of the big winners in this?

Anytime there's some sort of big prize like this, they always end up either on the Lakers eventually or the Lakers are involved immediately. Unless... They had to pick the year with Magic Johnson. Unless... What? They miss the playoffs and win the lottery and the Pelicans can swap picks with them. Well, that would be hilarious. I mean, that would be a top 10 greatest moment of my life. No, I was thinking...

I was thinking more like they, you know, they're, they're gonna, they obviously made a deal with LeBron that they're going to trade those picks, right? LeBron signed the extension. We'll trade the picks. So I think though the people they could get for those picks are,

I think that list has gotten way better in the last three days since everybody saw the alien in person. That's what they're hoping. That's what they're hoping. So, by the way, all this stuff, I don't mean to come off as saying the lottery odds are bad or the NBA is good. No, they did a good job with the lottery odds. We both think what they did. The lottery odds are great because I've had a couple of GMs in the last couple of days just spitballing about this, say, number one,

Imagine if they just did it by worst record, how bad the tanking would be this year. It would be unbelievable. And then also, remember, people used to argue for every lottery team should have the same chance at every pick. It should be totally unweighted lottery. Then you would have teams tanking out of the playoffs this year, out of the play-in for sure, just to get into the lottery. What about... This is the one rule that I think...

is indefensible that they don't have. I think if you get in the top three two years in a row, you should not be allowed in the top three in the third year. Well, I was going to ask you, what's your favorite solution? Because a lot of the solutions that have been bandied about by people who just can't stand to watch tanking, and I get that. April basketball can really suck, and this year there's going to be March and February basketball that really sucks. Yeah. The wheel, which Mike Zarin came up with with Boston. Eh.

The idea that there shouldn't be a draft, that there should just be free agents and have a choice of where to go. I just think all those things sound great until like the Warriors draft Wemba and Yama or the Warriors get – like the best team gets the best guy. And everyone's going to say, how did we let this happen? And that would happen at some point. I agree.

I don't like, I remember I lost my mind. I was on countdown when the Cavaliers won the lottery for the second year in a row. And I was just like, this is ridiculous. They've,

They've won the lottery. This is like, what was that? Like the fourth time in 11 years they've won the lottery. And I was just like, we have to stop rewarding bad teams. This is LeBron Wiggins, LeBron Wiggins, Kyrie Bennett. Right. I was like, we got to stop rewarding bad teams. They've won the lottery three of the last four years. Basically, this is ludicrous. I look, Houston got Jalen green two years ago with the second pick and they got Jabari Smith last year with the third pick. Should they be in the top three again? I would say no.

Now the Houston fans, you hate us. I'm just, I've been pretty consistent on this. I don't think you should be top three bad three years in a row and be rewarded for it. We can at least change that. The other fun subplot of, of whatever tanking happens this year is the pressure on the good teams to,

to not up those games against like the thunder, the Spurs, whoever is taking, because those can be the difference between number six, number five and number seven and being in the play in. And just last year,

The Lakers season unraveled when they lost those two games to Oklahoma City early in the season when the Thunder came back from like 20 points down twice to beat the Lakers in the first 15 games of the season. Everyone's like, wait, are the Lakers just – is this just not going to work? And it was so demoralizing. And you know some of these teams just like love –

When you get close in a game like that, they love it. I think there's going to be a lot of pressure, particularly the Eastern Conference teams who don't have as many of these bottom feeders. I mean, Indiana is the only team that's obviously not trying to win this year in the East. Like, if you go to Oklahoma City and lose and you're New York, that's like four losses. It's like you lost four games. Right.

See, I think this is going to make for a really fun season because we'll get to complain. We'll have crazy takes. The tanking is going to be hilarious. What was the pinnacle of tanking? Mark Madsen? That was bad. That was bad. I mean, there have been some bad. People should have been suspended that season. That was bad. But we'll have some fun stuff, I think. And look, one of the things that's crazy about this, like we had Duran Oden.

And we're able to watch those guys in college all year. Right. That's the last time we've really had something like this. This time around, when Maniam is in France, I don't even know what league he's in. Like, what league is he in? I don't even know. And then you have scoots going to be in the G League. So neither of these guys are in college. Like, what a miss for college. It's like if you're worried about college basketball, which you should be.

This is like a death blow for college hoops. Not even having one of these two guys? Yikes. I don't really care. I figured you didn't. So we should have mentioned quickly, Danny dumping the Utah guys looks brilliant now. I mean, he's done it again. And, you know, all the real NBA people knew Wemba Nyama was a prospect like this. Now it's just he had his coming out party. But him doing that...

San Antonio with the Murray trade. That looks even smarter than it did three months ago. Those are the only teams that are like in year one. I guess Indiana too in year one of the super tank. Those are the teams that will be the most hurt if they end up with like the third pick or the fourth. Now there are the Thompson twins, the Arkansas guy. Like there's other guys. But I think now there's clearly a line between one and two and a line between two and three. Listen, this happened in the Celtics twice, 97 and 07.

97. ML Carr is the coach. He's playing Antoine Walker at center. Just telling him to go for the Rookie of the Year award. And it was disgusting. But we didn't care because we were trying to get Tim Duncan. 07.

Similar thing. They shut down Pierce with a fake injury. They have Gerald Green. They're playing 40 minutes a game. They're throwing some really young Rondo out there. Doc looks like he's just getting a root canal and a colonoscopy at the same time every game. They lost I don't know how many games in a row and they finished fifth.

It's devastating when you watch your team throw away a season, take a huge dump on your fans. You know, it's not like anybody's getting refunds on their tickets, right? It's like pay full price for this crap and then you don't win the lottery. It's devastating. It really is. It's absolutely devastating. Can we do some rapid fire questions for 10 minutes before I let you go? Rapid fire question number one. True or false, this is the biggest season in the history of the Clippers franchise.

No, I think 2014 was. And I think they should have potentially won the title that year. I think they were lined up in a way that even this year they're not lined up in the same way. They had Chris Paul and Blake who were arguably two of the best six guys in the league at the same time. It was a pretty weak year for the league. That was the tail end of Miami. You have Spurs. You have the Spurs that year were unbelievable. That's the one counter. The Spurs were unbelievable. But...

They played the Spurs really well. They did beat them the next year. And they beat them the next year. And I just think like OKC was the team that took them out. And if you go back and you watch that series, they completely blew it. Yet another one on the Doc Rivers resume. I mean, the Doc Rivers thing is so funny. He's had the best rosters for the last 15 years of any coach in the history of the league.

You look at all the all NBA guys he's had, all the max guys he's had, all the salary caps spent on his rosters year after year. And now he's in the same situation in Philly this year with another team that's got two potential first, second team, all NBA guys and a load of money and owner spending. But he had that in 14 with the Clippers and over and over again, couldn't get it done. Anyway, I would say that was the bigger year.

That's the only one that's in the argument, I think, because 12 and 13 when CP's there, those are the Del Negro years. They're not ready. Blake got injured in the second one.

15 is the Houston debacle, but that's your one of the Warriors. They ran out of gas. They played those guys. Blake was incredible, but I do feel like they just didn't have a bench. It was partly because of Doc, but they were two guys short. I was going to all those games. Blake and Chris just really ran out of gas. 14 was worse, though.

1920 was bubble disaster. Last two years, injuries. 14, the only caveat.

is Sterling and that happening right in the playoffs. Yeah, fair. And what that – and just the chaos that they're not living in. But they still won the series. They moved on. They won the series and kept going. And game five in Oklahoma City is an all-time collapse. Also, this is also I think probably indisputably the biggest year in the history of the Nuggets franchise. The only difference is their players are younger and so if they don't do as well as hope this year, they have more time than Kawhi and PG at age 31, 32, whatever. Yeah.

So my rapid-fire Nuggets question for you is? See, I dispute the Nuggets thing. Okay, so dispute it. What's bigger, 2009 when they made the conference finals and there may be a couple inbounds passes away, Trevor Ariza steals away from going to the finals? I'm going to get super NBA nerd on you. 80s? I'm going 1977-78 Nuggets. Okay. They beat the Bucs in round one. This is why I have you on the podcast.

Round two, playing the Sonics, who started 5-17 that year. Change coaches. Super young team. They have David Thompson, who was really Jordan before Jordan. He's 27 a game that season. In the playoffs, 25 a game. They had Dan Issel. They had Bobby Jones. They just had a really good team. And everybody thinks it's going to be David Thompson,

versus Dr. J in the finals. And it's going to be amazing. And it's like, holy, this is going to be so great for the league. And as a little kid who never got to see those guys, I was like, I'm monitoring it in the scoreboard. It's like, oh my God, David Thompson versus Dr. J. And they blow it. They lose to Seattle. Philly loses to Washington. And we get those two. That was the first of the two Washington-Seattle finals.

I think that was their best chance ever to win a title. And you could argue that they were, I think, 48 and 34 that year. Yeah, 48 wins. Larry Brown is the coach. And they had one of the best five players in the league. So, yeah, I would say this year is the first time since that that you could look at the Nuggets and say they have a top five player. They have a real chance to win the title. Oh, my rapid. Oh, nine, by the way. What was that? Two to after four games? I think it was two to Lakers, right? Yeah.

Billups, either Billups or Carmelo. Billups didn't play well. One of those guys didn't play well that series. It was in the last two. My rapid fire Nuggets question was, what is your response to those who argue, and there are a lot of them, that they cannot win the title with Jokic at center because they just don't have enough scheme versatility on defense. He can't switch, can't really drop, blah, blah, blah. You don't watch the Nuggets.

That's it. You're saying that. Yeah, I'm like, you haven't watched enough Nuggets games. I think Jokic was good defensively last year. He's not. Against the Warriors? No, not against the Warriors. That's the point. Four playoffs years. That was a horrible matchup. But that's what the playoffs are.

I know, but come on. He was playing with the Generals last year. Let's see what happens this year. If they win, it's going to be because offensively they were better than everybody else. So my response is offense matters, and they have every possible answer offensively now that they have their real players back, provided Porter is healthy.

Number two, I think there is truth to the idea that if we clean up our perimeter defense, which now we have Jamal Murray back, who's I think an underrated defender, KCP, Bruce Brown, Aaron Gordon. Yeah. His job just gets easier. Those are good defensive players. He's not – Jokic is not a put out of fire guy. He's a put me in an ecosystem and I can make it work guy.

And also just Murray being back, he doesn't have to post up 9 million times to do every single thing offensively just to get this broken team limping into the playoffs. And it's not like we haven't seen star players who are minus defenders win championships before when they're surrounded by really good defenders, whether it's Dirk or Kevin Love or you could even throw Steph in there, whatever it is. I mean, I think Steph has become a pretty solid defender. It's rarely that their centers –

I think it requires a little more support and creativity defensively. Maybe they need to do more of what the Celtics did with Robert Williams, putting him off the ball. The Celtics did that because to emphasize his skills, not to hide his weaknesses, but I think it's totally possible. Dirk's a good comparison to this. Dallas won a title with Dirk. Chris Vernon wanted me to make fun of you that you're too high on the Nuggets.

That's fine. A lot of people make fun of me that I'm too high on the Nuggets because people just don't care about the bubble. People have looked at the bubble and made it whatever they want to be. So if you hate the Lakers and don't like LeBron –

The bubble is fake basketball, shooting backdrops, no travel, doesn't count. If you like the Lakers and you like LeBron, the bubble is a heroic feat of perseverance in adverse circumstances, which every team faced. If you are bullish on the Nuggets,

You're like what they did against the Clippers, who were maybe the favorites before the pandemic through the whole season to hell, was beyond impressive and showed a resiliency and a creativity that is championship level. If you are, you'll get skeptic. You say, well, the Clippers were disintegrating. They didn't want to be in the bubble. It doesn't count. The bubble is just the ultimate Rorschach test of NBA fandom. I think it's fair. And I think the J.A. Donde had the best point on this. Whether or however you feel about the Lakers piece of it, the fact that basketball stopped for a while.

And for older players especially, that they got a chance to just work on their bodies, build back their legs, shake off the regular season, and just make it a sprint for eight weeks, I think really helped older players. I think that's the one thing we can all agree on. Ranked and the lack of travel. The lack of travel is huge. Not changing time zones. Yeah.

And if you're a mentally tough guy like LeBron, who I think, you know, the earlier parts of his career was a little suspect, but over the years became, you know, one of the most mentally tough basketball players we've had as well as the smartest. The bubble is great for him. And he's like, this is...

I am just going to focus on basketball. I'm shutting everything out. And I think it really helped that team. And it really hurt the Clippers. And I don't know who wins that series in a normal – it was shaping up as such an amazing, holy – we're finally going to get it. And that's another thing we should mention. You've never had the awesome LALA series. It's never happened. So maybe it'll happen this year. Well, and Denver defended the Clippers well in that –

in that conference semis. And I do think there are teams that they're built to defend better, obviously, than others. Steph is a nightmare for them and for everybody. And the Lakers scored well on them. But if you look at the numbers, that was mostly offensive rebounds and free throws. It wasn't anything like super-duper schematic. But anyway, rank these teams, three teams, in order of likelihood that they make the Western Conference Finals this year. Memphis,

Memphis, Minnesota, Dallas. I don't love any of those three teams this year, but I would have Memphis at the top, Dallas second only because of Luka because I think they have a trade in them, and Minnesota third because I think they're a year away. So much of the Minnesota piece depends on what happens with Edwards over the next three years because it's not Towns. We all know deep down. Towns can't be the guy. But Edwards could. And I think one of the reasons I didn't love the Gobert trade was

was because by the time Edwards becomes the guy we know he's going to be, unless he gets hurt, Gobert's going to be like 35. And they need him to... They basically need Edwards to be 25-year-old Edwards this year. That's five years from now. I think Edwards is going to be something like the guy sooner than that. I couldn't be higher on Anthony Edwards. Me too, but this stuff takes a while with guards, is my point. To actually put together four straight playoff rounds. Think about...

Jordan didn't really do it until like 1989. He played three years in college and five years in the league. Curry didn't really do it until 13 was his breakout year.

He'd been in the league four years and didn't really, really do it until the 15th season. He'd been in the league six years. I just think guards take longer. It's hard for them to dominate and put all this stuff together for that many rounds in a row, which is what they're going to need to do. We both think he has it in him. I just think to ask him year three or year four, go toe-to-toe with all the best players in the league, that's insane. He's not going to be able to do that. Well, they're obviously betting on Cat also to be his peer in that regard. I'm out.

Well, here are catch playoff numbers. 11 playoff games. 19 points, 12 rebounds, 2.2 assists, 3.5 turnovers. Last season's playoffs, he had 13 assists. Is there a stat for horrible decisions and completely inexplicable brain farts at the worst possible times? What were those stats? What?

13 assists and 27 turnovers in last year's playoffs. He has three single-digit scoring games out of 11 playoff games and a fourth game in the play-in in which he scored 11 points on three of 11 shooting and fouled out last year. The pressure is on. It's time now. It's time to... Can I do a Stephen A. Smith there? It's not good enough. Can I do a Stephen A. Smith there?

Carl Anthony Towns was terrible last year. Terrible. We cannot forget that playoff series he had. Listen, we forget stuff. Things happen. You move on. You look forward, get interrupted by other things. We came out of that playoff series like, wow, that is...

That is one of the strangest basketball series I've seen from a good player. And I just don't think he has it in him. He's been in the league, what, eight years at this point? Seven years? He's going to miraculously become a high IQ basketball player? I don't see it.

Two more. Are we all sleeping on the heat who are in the second tier of my tears column? And I think by consensus, fourth at best in your regular season, Eastern Conference pecking order rankings. And yet they've made the conference finals two of the last three seasons, the finals once. Are we all they did lose P.J. Tucker. We can talk about that just very quickly. Are we sleeping on the heat or is this properly where the heat are?

I think it's probably where it should be. Lowry's old and he looked slow last year and he didn't look like the same guy. Need him to come back in a bigger way. No P.J. Tucker. The Duncan Robinson-Strews thing is still weird. And I know they're going to give the Robinson the one more run, but I really thought they would trade him and they didn't. And Hero would be the X factor on the positive side. If he goes up a notch with the contract.

I like him in their starting five almost better than I like him off the bench, which seems ridiculous because he just won six-man of the year. I think in their starting five they can cover for his defense more. And like I said before, I want him to be a little bit more Klay Thompson than he was last year. And playing with Bam and Jimmy and Kyle, I think will redirect his game in that way. I think Kyle Lowry had a little bit of a bounce back year.

But he's 45 years old. I know he's old and their half court offense is just, I need to see it. But I, I, so I think they're properly rated, but you know, look, do you know, Lowry's like one of the eight oldest veterans in the league now or like seven or something like that. I mean, he's only like seven guys in the league have been around longer than him. I think we're going to look back at that trade. If it doesn't work out for Miami over this little stretch here as well.

the reason it didn't happen. Because they had that draggage expiring, they had Precious. Those were actual assets you could have turned into somebody making some money. They chose Lowry. And let's be honest, he didn't deliver last year. He was out with very serious personal family issues, lost his conditioning along the way. I'm giving him at least like a 15% bounce back. Not like prime Kyle Lowry. I just think Jimmy Butler is like...

I think they're fourth at best in the East, but I don't want any part of Jimmy Butler in a playoff series if he's healthy. And they were one shot away from making the finals last year. Now it took an incredible Celtics choke job that probably took a year off your life when it happened, but they almost made the finals. Okay, last one. This is just Taylor. Second to last one. Can I give my own one before you do your last? Yes. I bought so much Sam Houser stock the last four days. I am now the leading Sam Houser stock shareholder.

And the other guy, the guy, he's from the Congo. He's bounced around. He was 27th pick on, I think, Brooklyn. Kevin Gailey? Yeah. My dad is all in on both of those guys. He went to the game. He came back. He's like...

We never have guys like this. They're always on other teams. He's just always wanted us to have like a Max Drews type and just an energy guy, shot blocker, finisher, run the floor guy. And I think both of those guys have it. I think Hauser definitely is going to be in the rotation and is going to make the gallon everything not matter.

he's definitely going to be in the rotation. That's settled. That was settled before. Yeah. And then the other guy, I think has a chance to actually play real minutes for them this year as they try to figure out various ways to not get Al Horford to 1800 minutes. Anyway, I own all the Sam Hauser stock. Nobody else can have it. Last one. And this is, this is just tailor made for you. Yeah. Which player who made the NBA top 75 list, which active player on the top 75 list is,

has the most at stake this season. Here are the players. Chris Paul, Kevin Durant, Anthony Davis, LeBron James, Stephen Curry, James Harden, Kawhi Leonard, Damian Lillard, Russell Westbrook, Giannis Antetokounmpo. Kevin Durant. Whoa! Didn't expect that. I thought for sure you were going to go Harden. No, because Harden's not the best player on his own team.

And I think he's at a slightly different point in his career. A little Clyde Drexler with Hakeem kind of thing. Durant chose his destiny the last four years. He nearly blew up that Nets thing. He attached himself to one of the worst basketball stars you could have attached yourself to. He's still the best player on a team that I think we all think is really talented.

We still think there's a chance he's a top five to seven guy. He got his ass kicked by Tatum in the playoffs last year, which is a thing that happened. We just have to say like Tatum played way better than him and bullied him and made him look as bad as we've ever seen Durant in a playoff series. How does he come back from all that? What kind of player is he at this point in his career? He was in the 07 draft. This is, I think, his 16th season now.

Is he still a super-duper star? Can he still be the best guy on a title team? You created this whole situation, Kevin Durant. It looks like Simmons is actually going to be able to play. I still have serious concerns about him at a free-throw line in the fourth quarter. Can he go 82 games? Is he going to all of a sudden disappear for 10 games? I have concerns about him at the free-throw line in the first quarter. Right, yeah, any quarter.

He still has to play in front of crowds, all that stuff. But athletically, he looked good in the exhibition game. So we have that question answered. And they have a lot of talent. And I don't... You know, other than the Bucs, who are the most stable team, and I think the Celtics maybe are a little sneakier because they lost the coach and it was, oh my God. But man, when you watch...

I don't know if you saw the second quarter of the preseason game. They had Brogdon out there was smart. They had Brown and Tatum and Horford. And it was like a holy moment because Brogdon's like Derek White would have good games and he would have bad games. Right. And when Derek White was good, the Celtics looked really good in the playoffs. Like, oh, and then he would be Derek White again. Brogdon's just good all the time.

And he knows where to go. And he knows the ball moves. He can create. He can beat guys off the dribble. And I was watching those five guys together for five minutes. And it was a holy crap moment. So I think Milwaukee and Boston and Philly, you know, whatever. But Durant can go toe-to-toe with all those teams. So that's the guy I'm watching this year. Who do you have? I think you can make the case that

For everybody that I just named on that list, except... No, Dame is not Dame. No, no, I was going to say, except Dame because his team's not good enough. Russ because he's not good enough. Steph because it's all... His legacy is completely cemented. All he can do is incrementally add to it. Yeah, but he could get five titles and that ties himself with Kobe and that puts himself into a legitimate player of his generation versus LeBron argument. Well, and we didn't talk about that with regard to...

The Warriors guys, because they were in that photo at Draymond's wedding with LeBron holding up the four fingers. They all have a chance, all of them, to get the five rings. Because LeBron's going to be in the Warriors in two years? LeBron, you can make a case for. Chris Paul, you can make a case for. Time is running out. Chris Paul's Alvarado, that was it. That was the seminal Chris Paul moment. Alvarado pressuring him 94 feet changed his career. Wow. Never the same. Jose Alvarado sucker punched him basically.

That is a late... Cut his knees out. Now everybody knows. Just pressure Chris Paul in a playoff series. That is a late podcast episode scorcher from Bill Simmons. What did we learn in the playoffs last year? Pressure Chris Paul. Make him work. He's going to wear down. It's going to happen. He's too old. AD. Just because everyone's written him off. Come on. So Richard Jefferson has sort of inadvertently made the case that it's Kawhi on television by saying...

Kawhi's two-time finals MVP thing is a little bit overblown. I don't believe this to be true, but here's RJ's argument. 2014 Spurs, that was a collective effort, and he's just sort of like the guy that had to get picked. Someone had to win. This was an actual take Richard Jefferson had? Yes. 2019 Raptors. Wait a second. What is he talking about? Did he go to those games?

I'm just saying. Kawhi shut down LeBron in those games. He outplayed him in the finals. I'm not saying I agree. That's a terrible take. I'm not saying I agree with it. Come on, Richard Jefferson. Get your new media shit out of here. That's a bad take. 2019, they only won because all the Warriors got hurt. I dismiss that take as well because if you look at the Philly series and the Bucs series,

He just lit those guys up. And what he's done in the playoffs his whole career, he's led the league in PER and playoffs twice in two separate seasons. Game six, game seven against Dallas in the first round when the Clippers were on the verge of collapsing. I think he's fine. But I do like the idea that sort of he chose this Clippers team. It really hasn't gotten to where they were supposed to, blah, blah, blah. But I don't agree. Can I make the case? Wait a second.

Richard Jefferson, who we both like, and I know you're friends with him. That Kawhi 2019 take is even worse than the 2014 take. Kawhi played 24 playoff games, 30.5 points a game, nine rebounds, four assists. Incredible. He was all over the place. We left that going. This is now the best player in the league. He answered every question. He came through at every moment. And he was the dominant player in the playoffs forever.

And yeah, the Warriors were the rent getting hurt. That was probably win. But that's what happens in the playoffs. Guys get hurt. What else? I done bad stretch of games starting from game for Philly, Toronto, where Philly was up to one in Philly and Kawhi single handedly jump shot by jump shot. Stop by stop.

won that game for the Raptors through the end of the playoffs where he wore down a little bit by the end of the Warriors series and Fred VanVleet picked him up is just an all-time ridiculous playoff

two-way clutch stretch of games. Playing 40 minutes a game on a knee that he had played nine games on the year before. I revere that Kawhi 2019. I think that's a bad thing. As you should. As you should. That was an amazing performance by him. So I don't think he has the same legacy standpoint. Durant's never won a title on his own.

He he and I think it's unfair to say he wrote in the backseat because he was the best player in those two Warriors teams. But he's never been the guy on a team that won the title has come close a couple of times. It's never happened. It's in position for him. And it would be the most fun story of this season, obviously, if they had somehow won the title. I mean, how crazy would that out of all the crazy possibilities this year? That's the craziest, right?

It's probably, yeah. It's up there. Kyrie, Ben Simmons, and KD hugging at midcourt after winning the title. Like, my brain would break. I would love to see Adam Silver's speech for that one. You guys went through a lot this year. Self-imposed. Congratulations. The case for Giannis is...

He's the most universally beloved, admired superstar in the league other than Steph right now. I think fans, other players other than the random people who are like, he's not skilled. He doesn't have a bag. Chance for a third MVP, which vaults you into all-time territory.

And just with the holiday Middleton age curve, it's not just like infinitely there for the Bucs. It's not like there's a clear five-year runway with this big three. And they blew last year because Middleton got hurt. And just, you know, just a second title, third title. Then you start to get into the historic season.

really, really inner circle of history where he's going to be anyway. But I just, I'm just, I don't, I wouldn't make the case for him because I think he's just solidified as a guy. But I do think it is a sneaky, sneaky opportunity. It's more opportunity than sort of at stake for him. I think that's fair because when you mentioned him initially, you have this feeling in your head, oh, he's got plenty of time. He's in his prime. He's a made man with plenty of time. Yeah. And he already had his thing two years ago. The more I'm thinking about it,

Durant still first for me, but I probably think Curry second because the windows are tight with this stuff anyway. But winning the back-to-back five titles where the culture that they've created there, where he becomes some sort of combination of Tim Duncan and Kobe, and then the LeBron conversation really starts. Whether the LeBron fans want it or not, I'm just telling you, man, it's going to start and you better be ready for it.

Even if LeBron is like number one all-time in points, number four in assists with four championships. There's different arguments. No, it'll be like LeBron had the best career ever, but Steph had one more ring. It's just going to be there. It'll be mentioned and...

It goes back to what you said before. However you feel about blank, you'll make your case one way or the other. The only thing we learned today is that Richard Jefferson has terrible Kawhi takes. Yeah, we've argued about Kawhi on TV already because I totally disagree with him on Kawhi. I just can't believe that.

The 2014 finals, I'd never seen anyone do that to LeBron other than Sean Marion. I just floated it out there because I am an extreme Kawhi believer. I voted him MVP in 2017. I was one of eight people to do it. So I might be just the wrong audience for his Kawhi take. I just wanted to test it out. You copped out that year. No, I didn't cop out. I voted for Kawhi Leonard because I thought he was the most valuable player in the league. How does that vote look now? Both of us didn't want to vote for Westbrook.

Harden was the right vote. And you decided to be in neither camp and you went to this other side camp. I'm offended by that. I'm offended by that. You were like, here's my statistical argument for Kawhi. No, the guy is a freaking monster on both ends of the floor. I just thought he was the MVP. Sue me. I was just mad we weren't aligned. I do have the shirt, though. I still have the shirt. The right side of history shirt. My son stole the shirt from me. He wore it to school a couple weeks ago because my son can now wear all my clothes.

You'll get to that point when your daughter gets older where she's just starting to just steal shirts from you. All right. On the Curry-LeBron note, that brings us full circle to the Draymond News of the Day, which we are still... Do we have any more? Anything else happen? No. Nothing yet that I see on my phone other than some holy crap texts. You know what we should mention? Fantasy just texted this to me. So the Warriors and Celtics make the finals. And the Celtics are like, hey, they didn't win this year.

But they have this incredible runway now. Holy and Tatum and this team's all set. Everyone's under these great contracts. They have an incredible coach. This team's set. This is a made team for the next five years. So you have that. Then you have the Warriors like, wow, not only they win the title, but they have all these young guys.

Spurs 2.0. Yeah, they have this chance now. This is like their Tony Parker Kawhi class potentially where you have that first wave of the Duncan Manu and then now you have this new group and Curry is Duncan and let's see where that goes. Who are the two most dysfunctional teams in the offseason other than the Nets? The Warriors or the Celtics? Lakers are up there. Wow, but that's a given. And by the way, you mentioned that NBA 75 most at stake thing.

It's weird that I feel like I've just given up on Davis. Let's end on that. I've just given up on him. And it's probably wrong because he's really talented. And we talked on the Tuesday pod about how could 2018 Davis be back. Oh, my God. And then I saw he missed those two games. And I'm like, what am I doing? Why did I fall for this? This guy can't stay on the court. He just can't. Back tightness, man.

has made me question my we're heading for an Anthony Davis vengeance campaign. I'm a little worried now. Yeah, can you get through two preseason games, Anthony? All right. Great to see you. I had a lot of fun doing our two pods. Always fun. You can listen to the Bill Simmons podcast on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. I don't think I need to tell anybody that. It's always good to see you. I will see you opening week. Clippers, Lakers in L.A. Who the hell knows what will happen next two weeks from now? Anything can happen between now and then. I'll see you at the game. Yeah, looking forward to it. Thanks. Thanks.