Orlando Gets Bane, The Limbo Grizzlies, KD’s Future and OKC’s Moment with Ryen Russillo
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Larry Olivier, I call him Larry. William Devane, Roy Scheider. Any thoughts on that? Written by William Goldman. Yeah, that's the old story where the other Larry O, didn't he tell Dustin Hoffman to be like, I want to just try acting? Yeah. Oh, yeah. We're going to be covering that. Yeah. He was talking, doing a method acting thing. And Larry's like, how about just trying acting? So there you go. You think you'd be a method actor? I definitely would not.

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All right, happy Father's Day. Taping this a little after 10 o'clock. P.T. We thought we might be talking about a Kevin Durant trade. Instead, we got a bombshell, Rosillo. We got a Memphis and Orlando trade where Orlando gets Desmond Bain and they give up four first rounders and a swap and Cole Anthony and Contavious Caldwell Pope. And I want to talk about the Orlando stuff in a second. The Memphis piece really jumped out to me because...

You're basically getting three firsts from a team that's going to be really good over the next five years. You're getting a swap, but then you're getting this 2026 best of a Phoenix, Washington, Orlando swap thing. That is the prize asset. And yet when you have Jaron Jackson and John Moran and Desmond Bain and you trade Bain and Jaron Jackson has a year left on his deal,

and John Morant has been, I wouldn't say stable over the last three years. And you're in the West with a team, OKC, that looks like they're going to dominate the rest of the decade with the Spurs, with Dallas, with Cooper Flagg. You go on down the line. This feels like a possible white flag for me from Memphis and maybe not the last trade. What was it? What was your thought on the Memphis side? No, I want to stay there, though. White flag. Like that's saying something when you start. Like clearly we had it with Golden State

where when it was just stacked up and i remember talking to other teams and like daryl it was like hey at least daryl's going for it like so many of these other teams in the west go what's the point that might be the best starting five we've ever seen in the history of this game and daryl's like all right well and i remember we had him on and he was saying something like i don't know if we had it wasn't i don't know the quote came out thing we were talking about him chasing gold state

Yeah, we did it then, but in the moment as it was like... We'd already been through a year of it because I thought the Vegas thing was after that because it was right before the baseball train. Well, whatever. I get your point. Yeah. Yeah, it was just that Daryl had figured out the math of like, we have a 41% chance of playing the Houston Rockets or the Houston Rockets are going to play Golden State. That was my Daryl impersonation. Sorry. I liked it. You no-sold that a little bit. So...

I know it's method acting. You'd be like, wait, he's taking night courses at MIT? What do you... Like, do you think that...

I mean, do you really think that, though? Because that's a pretty bold statement about a team with a job, with a Jaron Jackson in a city where it's like you kind of have to feel like you're all in all the time. Like, do you think they look around and go, OK, Dallas gets Cooper, Wemby's coming and all these other things. And of course, you have OKC two games away from this whole thing, which I know we'll spend a lot of time on. That's just a massive statement for front office and ownership to get on the same page and be like, let's white flag this conference for the next few years. I don't know any other way to take it.

Because like I looked at my rigor 100 list and Desmond Bain, I had him at, you know, in like the high thirties, somewhere in there, wherever, whatever list you're having, he's one of the best 35 to 43 players in the league and a 30 team league. Right. And you're whatever the Memphis is trying to do to win a title, you would think would be built around those three guys. Now they're saying we only need two of them. One of them we can't rely on. The other one has a big contract coming up. So either they didn't want to pay all three or,

Or this is stage one of a massive blow up. Let's try to emulate what Presti did, you know, with the Paul George, Russell Westbrook, that whole four year era, which would mean the second part would be a Jaron Jackson trade. I have, I looked at everything. I had a really good time this morning. What a father's day for me. It was the perfect gift to just go in the trade machine and spot track for two hours. I think it's a lot harder to move jaw than it is Jaron Jackson.

Because the Jaron Jackson, the fact that he only makes 23 million bucks makes him tradable to every team in the league. Not that every team would need him or want him, but it's just a completely different type of trade. Like you're talking about the Lakers, not that, you know, but they could literally get him for Reeves and Rui and all their picks. Like it's stuff like that that can't really happen when you're talking about a guy making 45, $50 million a year. You're a bigger, I think you're a slightly bigger fan of Jaron Jackson than I am.

Yeah, and I understand the problems. You brought it up, the rebounding, the stupid fouls that constantly happen that makes them a cat's foul decision seems smart. And sure, I mean, you could get into even different playoff moments of like, is he a coin toss kind of guy? But I mean, you're talking about how much easier he is to trade.

My argument would be they don't want to trade. You would want to stay in the Jaron Jackson business. And as much time as we spend trying to predict how teams will sort of manage some of this stuff with the second apron, we've been on here for a while. Do you look at Bain's deal with what's left on it? I mean, it was a pretty big deal. Five years, $197 million.

Although I think Bain at 37, 39, 42, 45, and he'd be 45 million in the 31 year old season, as opposed to like some of these other deals where you're like, that guy's going to be making what at 35, 36 with, with everything in the cap being at like one 95 for this year.

I still think that's a fairly reasonable contract for a player that I know we both like a lot. I love him. I love the basketball fit for Orlando. But it might just be like if we're all in on Jaron and Ja, then we can't have... Where am I going if that's my answer? Like, well, no, this is a commitment to Jaron and Ja. It's like, cool, you have no chance of being one of the five best teams in the West for the next three years if those are your two guys. The Bain thing is...

It's not just getting off a contract. It's not just the assets. It's that this is a directional shift to the franchise. I do. I really do. I'm not saying you're wrong. I guess...

Well, there's two ways to perceive it. Either they felt like they couldn't pay Bain, Jaron Jackson, and John Moran all at the same time, which as we know with this hard cap, which Zach has officially named it a hard cap. And I think I agree with him. This hard cap, you're paying three guys, 40 plus million. Orlando's going to find that out. When Palo's, when his extension comes in, I saw like for the 26, 27 season, you're all of a sudden looking at like a $350 million payroll with the tax.

It's just really hard to pay four guys, much less three. It just feels to me like this is a full reboot. Like we gave it a whirl. Maybe we should just be a bad team, let Ja just go nuts for a couple years. Everyone wear his jersey and we'll just be one of the three worst teams in the West. And by the way, I support it.

I like, especially after going to those two finals games in Indy and watching the athleticism and the depth and the youth, and you just start thinking about how many teams could play at this level. Um, that's why I love the trade for Orlando because Bain is somebody that could have played in the two games I just went to. Right. That's, that's somebody who could easily play 35 to 40 minutes on either team in those games.

Yeah, he's the 35th best player in the league, which I think he's probably in that 30 something to, you know, I don't know. I don't know if I had him 43 to mess with your cutoff there. Somewhere in that range. There are some incredible numbers for him and who he's been. I mean, the minute he came into the league, he's just makes threes. And there was one number I was looking at today. He's 43% on catch and shoot threes.

In all five. So since he's coming to the league in five seasons on 43% shooting and catching threes, that's third best of any player in the NBA pairing that with Orlando's greatest need, which had the worst three point shooting percentage season since we've seen in the league since the 2015-16 Lakers. So you're saying it was a need?

Yeah. I mean, this is, you know, whatever you think of Orlando, because Powell is starting to take some hits. If you don't like him, he's an inefficient hog who makes bad decisions. I like him. I think he's a guy whose inefficiency speaks more to the role that he's tasked with of solving a team that can't shoot around him. And he's 21. There's that part too. Yeah, but I don't look at him as some of the other on-ball guys that are really dynamic where it's like, well, you just still haven't figured out a lot of the game. Like I've seen enough from him from college.

And in these years in the pros where I'm like, I actually think he is a willing teammate. It's just his teammates are unwilling to make any threes. The Pope signing was a fucking disaster. I mean, that guy was invisible. Well, that's why one of these picks, I think, goes to making Memphis take take Caldwell Pope. Right. So it's like basically four picks for Bain and then an extra pick to please take Pope with you with him in the trade, I think.

Yeah, I mean, the picks are 16, the Phoenix first and 26, which, you know, who knows what Phoenix is going to look like day by day here. The unprotected 28 and 30. I mean, it's just so funny when we start looking at these picks. We're like, you're going to be sitting here in five years being like, oh, that's that 30. That's the unprotected from who was in that deal. Be like, remember Pope? That's my fear with the Derek White trade. So there's one other piece of this trade.

that I think really hurts Memphis and really hurts or, and really helps Orlando is Bane's just a tough motherfucker, man. Um, and we think about like the way Presti put together that OKC team and watching them in person for a couple of games where none of them talk, Caruso's the only guy on the bench that talks, everybody else is just like silent assassin competitive guy. And it's like clearly a prototype they're looking for athletic, silent assassin, do your job, keep your head down, work really hard. Um,

Bane fits with Suggs and Palo and Franz. That's a foursome that makes sense to me from an intensity standpoint.

chippiness, little aggro. Bane gets a little aggro from time to time. Like you think about him in like round two of whatever series next year. And that's a team that's almost like the Florida Panthers. Like what we're watching, you know, they add Marshan to all these other guys they have who are just agitators and just this physical agitator team. And Marshan is just like perfect for that.

And Bain just seems like perfect for them. I love the trade. I also thought there was more playmaking from him last year than I thought he had in him. Like his assists last season, he was over five. When you're over five assists a game, that's not nothing, you know? The true shooting percentage is around 600 for his career. Wow. Look at the regular season part of this. He's 41% from three in the regular season. He's played 27 playoff games. The playoff 3% shooting is at 40%. Um,

I love him because I like him as a player in a vacuum. I like him for Orlando a lot because this team desperately needs some kind of spacing to make it easier on Paolo, to make it easier when you're swinging to the other side for Franz. Suggs clearly is so important to this team because they fell off a cliff. I do not understand some of the stuff that they do offensively. I'll never forget that regular season game where I think it was Ty Jerome and Sam Merrill. Shout out to Sam Merrill. But they were at the front line.

They were at the top of a zone that Cleveland was running, and Orlando, with all of their size, still couldn't figure out a way to do anything. They're just not very creative offensively, so I don't know if that's lack of point guard or Powell not being along. Don't you think Bain can help that a little bit, though? Because I do feel like he can initiate some offense, run some pick and roll. I really like the fit. Yeah, because the catch and shoot guys usually are this good. It's kind of like you catch, you shoot, muscle memory, and that's pretty much it.

And he's able to provide that with somebody that can put the ball on the ground and can probably swing it and make some decisions, you know, back to this kind of thunder ideal of, of the ideal thunder players, the way I should say it of that. Once the ball is in your hands, we,

we trust you with every decision you're going to make after that and bane definitely fits that now if you want to say you know i just always get annoyed when it's like oh he only has one year left it's like what's he worth and then it's like oh that contract it's like well what do you want do you want somebody under contract or do you want the flexibility of not being under contract because i think the headline part of it is it's for and to swap for desmond bane but

No, that's just for people to watch basketball. I mean, come on. I would do this in a heartbeat. It's three non-lottery picks. It's the number 16 pick this year. And the Phoenix pick, which is a prize. Yeah. The Phoenix pick, which if Phoenix does all right on this trade. You like Paolo the most. This is a bet on Paolo. Like this is like we have Paolo. We're going to be in the mix every year because this guy is going to be one of the best 15 guys in the league.

So I think that's when, that's when I don't really care about the picks. Like if the Celtics had done this with Tatum in the early 2020s, I would have been like, I don't mind it. Like I, we have Tatum, we're going to be in the mix, you know? And I think Paolo is at least an in the mix guy now, especially in a, in a crippled East.

Yeah, I know. It's just five years out. That's all. I mean, you never know what's going to happen. We sit here all the time being like, oh, this team or this guy and all of these things are like even sitting here pretending like the Thunder, like no one's going to challenge him for five years, depending on how the rest of this week goes here. So it I sense that there's some resistance to like people made fun of the Bridges deal because of all the picks is like Bridges hasn't even made an all star team. But

but the Knicks probably felt like at that point, we know we can't pay Hartstein. So we're going to lose them. And so can we reinvent this thing with another wing, go all in on the picks and just go all in now because we actually like with Mitchell Robinson, the other four. So who's, who's the fifth guy or with heart that we like the five guys, who's the sixth guy. So,

Bain fits such a desperate need for this team that it's probably worth the extra pick. You know, if it had been just the 28 unprotected and not the 30 unprotected, does that sound a little bit better? But I don't know who they're bidding against. I don't know what the rest of it is. And he's a really good player. He's a really good player for a team that desperately needed to figure something else out because KCP, even though he's making, it's not half, but he's 22 million the next two years.

He just was such a massive disappointment, which, by the way, should be another one of those deals where if you're a team thinking about trading for anybody that's not Jokic with Denver, I might just, if I were running a team, I go, even if I like this guy, I don't think I'm going to trade for anybody post-Jokic. Because you have no idea what their actual talent is playing with Jokic? I like that theory. So Michael Porter, buyer beware.

I mean, Aaron Gordon's a perfect example of the other side of this, which Orlando fans had to hear this shit. It's like, I can't believe they traded this guy. Dude, what did you think the market was for him? And now he's playing next to Jokic in this awesome baseline role, and now he's become a better shooter. So, I mean, this is a different conversation. But I think the Senate summary is we're aligned on this. He fits such a just awful need for this team that obviously,

I'm okay with the price even if it feels a little bit like, man, you're throwing a lot in there. Yeah, and who, like, who are the other type of people if they're going to make a trade like this that you'd want to go after? It's basically Jalen Brown. Maybe Ananobi, right? Knicks aren't trading with Orlando. I don't think the Celtics are trading with Orlando either. So if you start thinking about

kind of guard, big guard who could also maybe guard some small forwards, like perimeter guys with size who hit threes, who can play defense, who are tough. This is probably the number one draft pick. I had two bigger reactions other than that Memphis one. This to me is a blood in the water trade for the Eastern Conference. And this is why I don't think Milwaukee is going to trade Giannis either. I think everybody who's in the Eastern Conference has to look around and go,

we might be able to make the finals next year. Like Tatum's going to be out. Look at what Indiana, Indiana was 10 and 15 after 25 games. I know there were reasons for that, but, um, and they're, they've won 14 playoff games. Um,

Who knows what the Knicks, the Knicks seem like they're a mess right now. The Knicks are going to be good. I mean, this whole coaching thing is funny to make fun of them, but they're going to be good. I know, but I'm just saying, if you go down the line of who are these slam dunks, like Cleveland, we still don't know what the roster is going to look like. Nobody's afraid of any of them. Yeah. Even Indiana. And as good as Indiana has been, I don't think anybody's going, whoa, like you would with OKC. And I think,

I think that's why Milwaukee keeps Giannis at least until the December, January, February range. If they're, if they're horrible and it looks bad, maybe they look differently at it. But, um, but I think with this, Orlando has to be looking at this going, we might make the finals next year with this team, especially if we can get one smart free agent signing. Um, you know, who knows? Who knows?

Um, we have Palo. What if he makes a leap? What if there's like an Ann Edwards going from here to here kind of jump or a Halliburton going from here to here? So that was, that was one thing. And then the other one, um, it just confirmed to me that I don't think Milwaukee is going to trade Giannis. I just think if you're them, could you, could you talk yourself into, can, can Giannis do a 2018 LeBron and just win three rounds by himself? You know, maybe, but,

You scared anyone in the East? I'm not. So that's it. So Orlando through that, which roster would you rather have right now, Orlando or New York? Orlando. I mean, we did, when we did the next five years thing with the Pacers before, I think everybody kind of fell in love with this Pacers team. And I think that's despite the loss, which I know we'll get to just, I know you were in the building and after game three, you're like, damn, this team is just, you know, this team is, they really are something else. They have an identity. Yeah. Right.

And I was like, would I still take this roster over Cleveland's roster? I'm battling with it. But when we did that exercise, I thought it was worth bringing up Orlando before the Bain part of this. So yeah, it's going to be expensive with Franz, with Suggs, with Paolo.

and Bain, which is a different way that's... The Pacers kind of hit this right with the timing a lot of these contracts, too, because if you were going to start re-signing these guys and keep it longer term, then clearly the salary would be a lot more. But yeah, I think you're right. And by the way, as bad as it can be in Milwaukee, it can't be that bad because of how special Giannis is. So the other thing, Memphis, did you see that sneaky ED injury that they announced a couple days ago where he's out for like...

five to six months, maybe they're like, they're going to reevaluate in four. So they might not have him for the whole year. Brandon Clark's coming back from a knee injury, but I think he's going to be fine for the season. They have no idea what job. And then the Jaron Jackson piece, you know, I'll put it this way. If they decide to auction him out, like I was thinking Utah,

Is Utah ponying him up the fifth pick and Collins and more first to be in that conversation? I would assume Houston, a lot of the same Durant stuff with more picks. Detroit, if it's Tobias and Ron Holland and like all their firsts and swaps and they just go all in on trying to add him. Brooklyn, Claxton, here's, we have a shitload of picks. How many do you want? The Spurs, could they, could they figure out how to get him without giving up the second pick? And then,

I hate mentioning them, but man, if the Lakers put Reeves and Rui in their 31st and some swaps in the 32nd first, like, I think it's a conversation. I really like Reeves, you know? So those were the teams I was looking at.

But I mean, clearly on the asset part of this, it's about the picks. It's not about Pope's contract and Cole Anthony, who we should probably mention at this point, because it's been this far in the discussion of it. Uh, Cole's Cole's like a really nice off the bench guy. You probably don't want to be in your starting point guard, obviously, but Cole Memphis ties too for him. What's that? He's some Memphis ties, right? Cause I remember Verno loved him. Was it just for, no, um,

No, in the draft. There was something with him in Memphis. I can't remember. Do we need to get IT on this? I don't know. I can look at it during the break. Verno was like the biggest Cole Anthony fan. So what would you do with Jaron Jackson?

i like the utah part of it because you know the whole bang conversation is you're sitting there going like all right but don't we want to wait for like somebody who's just a little bit better if we're going to go all in with all of these picks it's like a lot of times you're just sitting there waiting around and you go all right cool you waited yeah and then no one else became that available uh you know it's is is it like the bridges conversation where

You know, well, sure, it'd be nice to have all these picks for like a top 10 guy, but waiting around for this top 10 imaginary scenario where we outbid everybody else and the guy definitely wants to come here and stay. Like, that's a really...

it's probably, it's likely a stupid plan because the idea that it's going to just follow through the way you had planned it out for this one specific guy in this certain tier, it's just chances are stacked against you that that's going to happen. So if you're a Utah and you go, okay, we need something that's heading in the right direction. You know,

you know, if, if the draft goes the wrong way and can nipples gone and VJ is gone. I love it. I love that you did that is can nipple gone at five. Cause I feel the same way. I think Utah would be devastated if can nipple was gone. Unless they want fears and they go, this is great. We wanted fears the whole time, but that's another guard, another really young guard. Cause he reclassified like Cooper did. And,

You can say whatever you want in the press conferences. There's a lot of teams going, we are not rebuilding anymore. We are going for it. You guys won 32. I'm not even talking about Utah, but I've heard it a lot. It felt like the Pistons were saying that year after year after year. And look, then it finally happened. And we all like where this Pistons team is right now. So you wonder if there are teams that have been bad now for a while that would look at Jaron Jackson the same way Orlando looks at Bain. And I like Jackson better than Bain.

But if they would look at him and go,

You could do a lot worse than going all in on somebody this young that's this talented. I think showed you the full repertoire of his scoring possibilities. It'd be nice if he was probably with a more athletic five. Can I get like seven rebounds a game from him? Yeah, I know. I know. You're probably not going to. So, yeah. But I don't know if this means Memphis is tearing the whole thing down and that would just lead to like, what's the jaw market? Or is jaw the best...

Cause I used to joke that like if I were changing market, you're, you're looking at like Brooklyn, Washington teams like that. Part of the problem with trading a franchise point guard is that 22 of these teams have a franchise point guard or a point guard they love. You know, you go on, if you go on trade machine and just be like, Oh, John, that'll be easy. And then you go through every team and it's not nearly as easy as you think.

Um, even if you talk about like, Oh, maybe the Clippers would take them. Okay. Well, who are they giving back? And why has Memphis trading job for like James Harden and Zubats? Like not happening. Um, I do think Brooklyn, Brooklyn's the most interesting summer team, just cause I have no idea what they're up to. They have all these picks. They're going to have potentially a hundred million in cap space. I don't know if they want to be good right away. Maybe they want to tank one more year. Maybe they want to be the way station for other teams, crappy contracts and do what Presti did.

But it also feels like there's a way for them to just supercharge it and be like, we'll take jaw. You're souring on him. You're rebuilding. Okay. We'll put them in. We'll put them in Barclays. We'll get people excited about him. Um, there was another thing. So conspiracy bill, not quite. It's like his brother just kind of, I'm mildly intrigued. His cousin, I'm mildly intrigued bill. Yeah. Wayne. So that Phoenix pick being in the trade, uh,

Did make me wonder, because they, like, we're going to talk about Durant later. I like this. And the Durant trade would be Jalen Green, I assume, Jalen Green, Jabari, maybe Cam Whitmore. They give Phoenix back their 27 pick and it's something like that, right? But then what does Phoenix do with Jalen Green and Devin Booker? Could that then lead to they trade Jalen Green to Memphis and get their other pick back? And then it's basically they have Booker, Jabari Smith, and all their picks back. It's just,

Just a Matt Wayne. My cousin Wayne just was mildly intrigued by it. Or that's not what I thought you were going to do. What did you think I was going to do? A Booker to Memphis? Did Orlando do the trade because they have a good feel on what Phoenix is going to get for Durant? And they go, well, look, Phoenix is still going to be competitive. Like to a plan, a play in game level where they're. I don't see it.

You think they're going to be one of the five worst teams in the NBA? No, I think they're going to be one of the five worst teams in the West. They're going to trade Durant. Can we both agree that if Jalen Green is the centerpiece of a Durant trade and it's Jalen Green and Devin Booker together, that's not a playoff team? Because I'm willing to sign that in ink right now. You're not making the playoffs. Those are your two best guys. I do not like that mix at all. We would agree, but I'm wondering if they have...

They feel good about their intel. If they have an understanding that Phoenix, however, they're going to try to put the pieces together for 25-26, if they're including that pick, does that mean they feel like, all right, well, Phoenix will have

you know, a 6% chance of the number one pick. You know, they're not going to be completely bottom. And Booker's probably too good. And you probably feel like you owe it to him to be competitive. I mean, I guess we could pretend that Beal's on the team. Well, you're like in that Atlanta situation where it makes no sense to bottom out. So you're basically grinding your way to 39 and 43 or whatever it is. That's what I'm talking about. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know if there was another version of where Phoenix goes, now we're just going to tear the studs down around Booker because you would just think as much as Booker seems to love it there and says all the right things and

you know, I think it's a lot easier to say those things and say that you're on the same page until you're actually like living in it again. And I don't know how happy he would have been long-term with Sarver and all the stuff that was happening until Chris Paul comes in and saves the day. And then they're competitive. They're playing an NBA championship. So now it like that window of three or four years of being competitive is

Maybe it revives you a little bit, but then if you're going back into it, but you know, I could do a weekend. I could do a marathon podcast on trying to figure out what we actually think the best and worst assets are of all the Durant rumors that we've heard. Because you're right. If the headline is you got Jalen Green, you're like, you can't do better than that. But then you'll hear something that's like Sohan's untouchable. You're like Sohan? We like Sohan. Untouchable? Yeah, he would not be untouchable for me.

Jaron Jackson. I was trying to figure out what his trade value would be knowing that you're going to have to pay him in a year. Would you rather have the second pick or Jaron Jackson? If you're saying Antonio. Yeah. That's a tough one, right? I think I would rather have the second pick because I think both of us think Harper, man, I did an all day rookie deep dive yesterday in the top eight.

Yeah, I was getting a text. I didn't even know what to do. You were so excited. I couldn't keep up with him. Yeah, it was an all-dayer. It would probably be the unknown of hoping what Harper is now, projecting like, okay, if this guy really figures it out and how seamless it feels like his college game in just one year as a freshman. Just all the stuff that you see with him, you're like, okay, well, that's an NBA thing. That's an NBA thing. And the price control, all that stuff. You probably would rather have the number two pick with Harper, but it's not as if it's... It's not like...

I would personally rather have number two pick. If I'm San Antonio, I just want Wim Benyama and Harper and all the rest of the guys I'll figure it out later. Fox, you name it. I just know like, give me these two. I'm going to build my team around these two. Even Castle, who I really like.

I would be like Wemby, Harper, maybe Castle. And I would just be watching this OKC Indiana series on a loop going, what kind of team do we need to put in a game like this? Athletically, from a playmaking standpoint, from a shooting standpoint, what does our team have to look like? I would rather have the number two pick. But yeah, that's the thing. If they just go, hey, we're going to re-sign Jaron Jackson. We have all these picks. Maybe we'll make a move, maybe not.

And we're going to build around John Morant, a guy that everybody in Memphis loves. And one of the 30 best guys in the league and Jared Jackson. That's our team. I don't, I don't think people would be upset about that, but I don't think they're making round two of the playoffs anytime soon. Do you like that in the West? Come on. No, I don't think so. Uh, I, I would think there's a lot of teams that really like Jared Jackson, but,

a lot of the value of all of these picks, especially when we're talking about lottery picks, it's okay. You know, but if I hit it right, you know, the value of the unknown, the value of talking yourself into like the biggest ceiling ever for a player, because you haven't seen anything yet on an NBA court that tells you that somebody can't do it. So, right.

The unknown always feels like it's more valuable than the known, which is probably a mistake in a lot of these transactions. Cause I love Jaron Jackson. You know, I, I really do. I, if it were just in a vacuum, like who would get more calls? If you said, Hey, Jaron Jackson or Bain's available, Jackson's getting more calls, right? You're not saying, wow. Wow. The one year left on the deal makes me nervous. I love that Bain is just, here's his contract. Let's say this, let's say this. Cause all right, fine.

But this kind of gets back to the whole, like, that's a lot of money or, oh, he could leave in a year. What if Jaron Jackson is telling you like the Siakam transaction with the Pacers? It's like, I'm in, I'm going to, I'll, I'll resign with you. So if you know, you can get Jaron Jackson resigned versus Bain already being here. But Jaron Jackson's like, you're going to resign me, but I expect something in the high forties, low fifties. And I'll be like, so 50 million a year. So that's 10 million per rebound a game. That's what, that's what we're pricing out. Is it 9 million per rebound a game?

I don't know. I just don't think he's a $50 million player. I don't. Now, that doesn't mean he's not going to get it from somebody. But I just think with this hard cap now, if you're paying him $50 million, it's going to be really hard to put a winning team around that. Let's take a break because there's a lot more to discuss, including the KD ramifications of this trade.

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at doordash.com. Super easy. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2025, Anheuser-Busch, McGlobe Ultra Light Beer, St. Louis, Missouri. All right, Rosillo. I looked at Fando. They had the odds for the year 2026 NBA champion. OKC is plus 220. Cleveland is plus 850, second best odds. The Knicks are plus 950, third best odds. The Pacers are 12 to 1. Celtics are 14 to 1. I'll book that bet.

Uh, Orlando is 16 to one. So you're going to bet the Celtics to be NBA champs next year. I would book. If somebody was going to bet that I'll, I'll book that action. You'll take it. Yeah. I'll take that. My bad. My bad. Um, Orlando 16 to one with the, with the one, two, three, four, six best odds in the conference. It seems kind of excessive. I would, I would have them. I'd probably have them second behind, uh, Indiana, right?

Or would you have Cleveland over them? They're in the top three. Cleveland's still too talented for Vegas to just completely write them off. Especially after 64 wins. Yeah, you're right. Anyway, 16-1 for them. I'm trying to think for them to actually win some rounds next year, Anthony Black would have to go to two other levels. I assume he's the fifth guy, especially because now they've traded Cole. I don't, unless there's some free agent I'm not thinking of, or maybe it's like

They get like a Luke Canard type or something, but they're still going to need that fifth guy out there in these crunch times with those four. And I guess it's going to have to be Anthony Black. What'd you, what'd you see from him last year? What did you like and not like? I liked him. I think there's probably moments as a rookie where I was like, oh, this guy's going to be pretty good. And then there wasn't enough progress from year one to year two with him, but I still like him.

I like his playmaking. I like his unselfishness. But I mean, the key for him is, you know, like the whole, remember like two years ago, we're sitting there with Jonathan Isaac and we're like, this guy's awesome. Is this Bill Russell in the time machine? And you, you,

Are like, oh, this team can't play another non shooter. Like this is a complete disaster. And that's kind of the problem with black, at least for the second year and the regression. I mean, he was under 40% from three. Granted, he's only taken one and a half a game.

You know, that's a bit like some of these bigs are just like, that guy's a 40% shooter from three. It's like, yeah, he takes like one a game. So it's not really a thing, even though the number is nice. And he was 32% from three this year, taking two and a half a game. So the minutes jumped up. You know, he didn't start a lot of games. He played. I still think there was enough there. I just feel like maybe in that rookie year, I was more excited about him. And then I expected a little bit more this year. And

And it's not just about the shooting. I think he's a smart player. I think he's competitive. Probably still needs to fill out a little bit more, but he's not playing. He's not closing. Yeah. You think he's closing with Paolo Bain? I don't. There's probably a veteran. There's a Derek Fisher early 2010s type move. No, no.

But it's the four and then whoever the center is. And Wendell is underwhelming. I think it's safe to say. So you think it's the four guys with the center and they don't even play a point guard? Yeah. Well, what do you think it is? Franz and Powell are playing. Suggs is playing. Bain is playing. So then it's who's the center? You seriously think they'd run that

I would want somebody that I know in certain situations could play crunch time if I wanted to go small with Palo and Franz basically as my quote unquote bigs. I would want the flexibility to do either depending on who I'm playing. Because like what if I'm playing Indiana in game six and they just go small and put Toppin at the five and they have three guards and I basically have no guards out there. I'm in trouble. You know? Mo minutes. I mean, Batazi's been a nice little story. Remember, they like spent their money last year too.

I thought he was a little reckless in the Boston series. I'm still mad about it. Some elbows flying around. Well, the other part of the odds for Orlando is people are probably thinking like even with Bane, it'd be nice to see him win a series. Right. And they're really young. So, you know, it's not like they had all these massive expectations. I'm going to just say a couple teams for John Morant and you tell me when to stop.

Okay. So these are teams Memphis is calling and they're dangling John Morant and the other team is not saying no thanks. They're saying, really? We're going to talk amongst ourselves. We'll call you back. All right. And I'm not going to say every team in the league and I'm not going to say teams that can't trade for him. Atlanta. Is Trey gone? I think Trey has to be in the trade, right? What are you doing if you're playing Trey and John next to each other?

I think Trey has to be in the trade going to Memphis. But I just wanted to be sure. Trey and Ja together would be an attempt to just completely ruin your brain. I'd watch it. Actually, the whole DeJounte thing was test driving Ja and Trey. John and Lana seems like a good fit, though, just in general. How about Chicago? I'm not totally against the

You know what, though? You can't because Trey is a more stable guy that you can also count on who plays games. Are you still thinking about the Atlanta trade? Yeah, because I mean, that one just I mean, I was a little frazzled here when I I was so ready for you to say something positive about the Celtics. I completely misinterpreted a very normal phrase of like, I'll book your bets.

But I just expected, I was like, wait, you're still, it was like breaking news to me here in June of 25. I was like, did Bill talk himself back into believing that they're a sneaky East contender? And the answer is in fact, no. And I'm so pre-conditioned to think that you were going to actually, I got so excited. I was like, he actually thinks they're going to win the East next year that I should have totally understood based on the phrasing. It was like, no, you want people to make that bet. All right. So back to Atlanta, because I can't get over this one yet. Let me throw it back.

Even if you think like peak jaw is better than Trey, even if you don't like Trey, his stability, you, you would never do this. Even if you thought like, okay, but jaw, there's like a little bit more of a, I'm not even sure if there is that much more of a ceiling, but like, does jaw feel like a bigger star, which is kind of a dumb conversation. Higher ceiling because he's, um, I think if his head's on right, he's a better player.

And he also means more to Memphis, which is the other reason why it's tough to, I mean, as Verno has talked about many times, everyone in Memphis owns a job jersey. So if you're trading him,

As stupid as this sounds, this does have Luka getting traded from Dallas kind of vibes where people are like, you traded Jai? Everyone loves Jai. So if you're going to do it, you have to get a good trade back, I think. Take out the fan base part of it, too, because that's like the superstar conversation that's a little different because it's like Jai at one point felt like he was tracking towards being one of the faces of the league.

I know that might not be done yet. He's only, he's only in his mid twenties. He's still, I'm over him as a basketball player. I just, I'm over his very predictable approach, predictable approach to all this stuff. I think he's going to get hurt all the time. Um, and I think he's delusional. I think he's a very delusional guy. I would, I would personally treat them, uh, Chicago. So I guess that would be like Kobe white. I'm not done yet. Not done yet. You're still in Atlanta. Yeah. Who would you just rather have? Um,

Like not Trey's appeal in Atlanta, not I'd rather have Trey. I would rather have Trey. At least I know what I'm getting. Chicago, I guess would be like a Kobe white, some picks. I,

I don't know how that makes sense. Is your pitch on this that you're kind of, if things go the right way, you're kind of getting a star, a very discounted star? No, my pitch on this is a jaw trade is a lot harder than people think. If people are like, Memphis is going to blow it up. They're going to trade Jha Jaron. Like we're going through the teams now. Miami. So I think Hero would have to be in that trade plus picks to get Memphis to do it. I don't know. Is Miami rolling the dice with Jha Morant?

I think they'll roll the dice on somebody that feels like a real. Okay. So, so we finally have a guy. Yeah. I think Miami, Miami first team, Toronto. Keep hearing Masai. It's ready to do stuff. It's going to be aggressive. Don't count them out. Don't trade for Durant for a year. They don't even, he did it with Kawhi. Yeah. He did it with quiet when he had like a 57 win team. He did it with Kawhi. Uh,

He didn't give up a lot for Kawhi. Have you gone back and looked at that deal? I mean, you probably remember it. DeRozan and Yacob. Right. And it was a top 20 protected pick that was Keldon Johnson at 29. Yeah. You do that trade every time. For one year. And they also won the title. I'm going to rule out Toronto. Brooklyn. I'm not ruling out Toronto for Ja. I just don't think they have anything to give up. They're not trading Scotty Barnes for him and the rest of this stuff they have. They're not getting them. Quickly? No. Brooklyn. Brooklyn.

Yes. Charlotte would have to be LaMelo for Ja, which I think we've discussed on seven podcasts at this point. It's a fun one. I'm not against it. It's a good who says no. I think Charlotte probably says no ultimately, but it's a fun one. Who says no? Why do you see my hair percolating on that one? You're just picking all my favorites here, you know? And then Washington.

That just feels wrong. It is because it is wrong. Yeah, that's just that just brought in this front office group. I mean, I know it wasn't yesterday, but I think jaw kind of disrupts the team that trades for jaw. And this used to be the old Westbrook thing is that I know he puts up numbers and he's talented. I personally feel this way about his approach to basketball and basketball.

and the flaws and how he fits in like you have to hand the keys you give him the entire franchise and you only do that if you feel like you have been a stale franchise for a really long time without any direction or any kind of plan and before Orlando desperate yeah and like before Orlando had hit on you know Franz and then winning the lottery and getting Paolo and be like okay we have real building blocks here who knows how it's going to figure out but like there was there was

different years ago, different landing spots of like Westbrook. It's like, would Westbrook to Orlando like work? You know, hey, just you've got an attraction. Yeah. But it happened in Washington. So you could argue like it kind of happened in Washington. It would at least feel like there's a three to four year plan here for the Wizards where you're a year in and you'd be completely derailing everything you've been, you know, hypothetically mapping out here by saying like, okay, now we have John here and good luck.

It'd be the most wizardy move in a while. So then you go through the West and there's a lot less candidates. There's really just one team that jumps out because I don't think New Orleans, that doesn't make sense. And I don't think Utah would do it either. Sacramento, everything you just said about a desperation, a malaise, make it a big swing, not being afraid. They check a lot of boxes for a job trade. I think

Sabonis probably has to be in it because I don't think otherwise, I don't think you're getting him for Levine and picks or whatever. They don't really have a lot of assets, but maybe it's a three-way, but that's the only other team I looked at. The point is, I think a job trade is hard for them. Yeah, I think Vivek would do it. I think he would too. Yeah, I think that's the kind of thing that he would want to do. Like, I thought Monte did a really good job with that team, but I feel like there's...

Like a lot of these teams, like sometimes you're like, what happened there or what went on there or whatever? Like we always have to remind ourselves a lot of times the owners go, hey, this is what I want to do or this is what I'm going to do here. They're bringing Scott Perry. So are Scott and Vivek aligned enough that

It's like, hey, we're a little flat here. We were close. It was new for us. Like light the beam, all that. Like they had some real momentum there, but you knew that that was like, that's not a high ceiling team, but this is kind of fun that they're even in the mix considering their history and where they've been. And that now like that building towards something, it's likely like, hey, that was it. That was all it was going to be. And, you know, Fox is out. Was it a game seven against Golden State? That's where it landed, right? Steph had, yeah, 52.

One other thing I was thinking, could Memphis get a little sideways frisky? Maybe be no man lands it. No man's lands it. I don't know what the phrase is. KCP and Brandon Clark to Denver for Michael Porter Jr. And they say, fuck it. And then if you're Denver, you save salary and you get two pieces for one. You get out of the last two years of Porter's deal. And if you're Memphis, you're like, let's take a fire on him. The guy's talented.

put him in the Bain spot. Maybe he can capture 85% of his scoring. And then we just got all these picks. Because whoever's trading for Porter, I like what you did there. He can't ever be expected to be anything more than your third option. Right. That's the best case scenario. And if you were to bring him in being like, we're going to have him, well, he's going to be, you know, you just already see the headlines that are fake. We're going to get him more in the actions. Yeah, right. He just needs more touches. Yeah. He's a feel guy. And when it's right, it's beautiful.

It's nuts what he can do. 6'10", those pull-ups, off the dribble. When it's right, you realize why this guy for a very long time at a young age was projected to be this dude. And there's always these glimpses. But him, kind of back to the other thing we were talking about, him not with Jokic somewhere else. If you think that you're two-manning it and Porter's your one or two every single night, I don't even know how many teams would even think that.

But I like what you did there for Memphis. Thank you. Well, there's a bigger picture thing that ties into that Jalen Greed trend I mentioned earlier. The one that didn't happen. The one that hasn't happened yet. And maybe by the time this podcast goes up, Durant will get traded to somebody else and this whole section will be moot. But I do think, and there's a second piece of this that I want to talk about, about why I don't think San Antonio, why I think something is changing about their philosophy of what to do big picture.

I think it makes the most sense for Durant to go to Houston. And the trade that makes sense has to have Jalen Green in it from a salary standpoint with Jabari, who I think both of us really like. Maybe Whitmore is in it and they give Phoenix back their 27 pick. I think we like Jabari, but we're running out of patience. We realistically like him. But if they can then flip Green to Memphis and get their other pick back,

And Phoenix can at least write the ship for the next two years. That gives them a lot more flexibility with Booker to be a little more patient. And maybe they could do what OKC did with SGA where, remember SGA, OKC was just sitting him for two years, basically. There was one year where he just, after the all-star break, we just didn't see him again. They just punted on two years. I don't know if Sarba would have the patience to do that, but it leads to the KD thing, which I think we have to talk about.

Um, because it feels like that's going to happen pretty imminently. The, the, he said the three teams he would sign an extension to was reported last night where San Antonio, uh, Miami and Houston. So the two Texas teams in Miami, Minnesota, I don't think could ever figure out the go bear defense. I just don't think they had enough. The salaries were weird. They're both hard cap teams. Um, and I thought it was going to be San Antonio, uh,

Okay. So where are you on that? Because a week ago you were heavy on San Antonio. I was. And I'm not calling you out for it. I just want to know, like, tell us of your journey the last seven days. Let's say we're working for the Spurs. We find out we have the number two pick. Harper's clearly the second pick. I think we can both agree. And now we're just crunching Harper tape for a month. And at some point we look at each other and go, what are we doing? This guy's clearly should be the second pick. This guy's a potential franchise guard.

He looks like he's a combination of Kate Cunningham and Jalen Brunson. And I don't even know what else, but he's a really unique, awesome athlete. He's herky jerky. Um, he's crafty. There's stuff he's doing at age 19. He's got moxie. Yeah. He's, he's got a lot of moxie and guile. And you're like, Hey, the deer and Fox, no brainer. We didn't have to give up a lot for him. We wink, wink. Maybe we'd give him an extension, but,

This is kind of our guy. Maybe the move is to just take Harper, move away from Fox, not do the Durant trade. And maybe our window isn't right now. Maybe our window is like three, four years from now when Wemby's 24, 25, when this kid has been in the league a couple of years, castles come up. Maybe we could kind of emulate what OKC has and build up through this nucleus. Why are we trading any assets for Durant now? We're not going to win the title.

It just makes me, I don't think Fox and Harper make sense together. I don't get it. A couple of things. I, there's maybe nothing I hate more than this idea that everybody's supposed to be locked into this kind of timeline, right? Like,

the Dallas Mavericks talking about a timeline is it was like, we're smarter than everybody. Like, you know, we, we need to be about defense and the way AD is paired with Kyrie. And it's like, everybody's supposed to be within three fucking years of each other for you to be doing it. Like, like Duncan couldn't use Ginobili, Tony Parker, like, Oh, these guys are too young. You know, right. It's not the same timeline. All this stuff is so stupid and all of us bring it up.

constantly about like, well, if you have a guy who's like in year six, but then you have a lottery pick, it's like, well, who knows? Maybe when you likely don't win the championship, your best player who's only in year nine and likely came in after one year and is 28 or 29 years old and you pair him with a guy you've completely nailed and he's terrific in his second year. Guess what's good about that?

he's a really good player playing next to the other guy. And it doesn't mean that they have to be 28 or 26. It drives me fucking crazy because everybody defaults to it all the time. Now that makes it sound like I'm totally aligned with you. And I think the Durant thing is really stupid. I feel like I could be talked into this either way, where if, if the price on Durant is Harrison Barnes, Vassell, who I think we all like, but,

You know, what's the ceiling there as of this point? Like he probably feels a little bit more like an opportunity score than just a dynamic. Like nobody can do anything with this guy. If it's Barnes and it's like some other later pick. It's Barnes, Vassell, the 14th pick and some future pick that's okay, but not awesome. I would also do that trade in five seconds. Why not?

It gets me excited a little bit about, all right, well, let's see what happens here because this is a guy you can bring in and you know he's going to put up numbers. Even when he was miserable coming off of that summer going into Brooklyn, he put up huge numbers until he was then pretty quickly miserable again by the trade deadline and ended up getting his way out. So I could be talking. He wants to be there is the other piece. If he wants to be there. He likes the Austin, San Antonio area. I really do. I think he likes that area. Okay.

I don't know. I don't know. Because, you know, you're also betting on somebody who finds a way to be unhappy everywhere he goes. As much as we love him as a player, like that's on him. And I see him. It's only been the last seven years. You're right. It has only been the last seven. Hasn't been a full decade. It's only been seven years. And the last three stops. So, you know, based on pricing and, hey, we do this. And I would think every team wants to do the two-year extension with them. I don't understand why you'd be trading kind of anything for a one-year rental of Durant.

I know the numbers, two years, 122 million, which he's eligible for after July 6th. I don't know why he would wait another six months to do two years, 124 million. I hear that one talked about all the time. It's like, well, if you're Durant, you go, it's okay. I'll risk the other 2 million with my injury history at this stage of my life. I'll take the 122 now. And I'd imagine that he would want that. It also reminds me a bit of the Jimmy Butler thing is Jimmy Butler didn't like Golden State.

until Golden State was the only option. And they go, opt in and then we'll tack on the next year. So you're going to get another year at like max money. It's like, you know what? Maybe I could do this Golden State thing. So that could be the Minnesota thing. Minnesota is not on my list. Oh, you're going to promise me two years? How? Now you are on my list.

Right. Everybody has a million options in their head and all their preferences and the things they will do or they won't do until it's like, okay, well, all those things you thought were in play, you don't get to decide. You don't have those options are not on your terms. So now here are the only things that are left. So now you got to pick one of these. And a lot of times you're picking one that you didn't think you were even going to do, or you're trying to talk yourself out of it. So on the other part of this first part, which kind of speaks to

criticizing my own timeline thing here is if the Spurs, if we came out, although, you know, you don't hear a lot from the Spurs, they just went,

Hey, Durant at this stage and the two years, 122 million. We're really excited about Harper. We'll see how it fits with Fox for a year. It probably is a little redundant there. There's a lot of overlap in their games. Can Fox later on play off a little bit more than he did before? That seems kind of stupid to have De'Aaron Fox playing off of him. He already couldn't do that with Halliburton and Sacramento, so I'm going to guess it's still not going to happen.

which would be the funniest thing for Fox. It's like you got to stay because of Halliburton and then they got Dylan Harper, which they didn't expect. Clearly they didn't think they were getting Dylan Harper when they make that trade. And now you get spun out for the new young guy, which was again, the opposite of what happened there with Halliburton. I have now, if I've, I've talked about this enough this week, I don't really like it. I would say, Hey,

Are we really solving anything here? Are we just more interesting for 25, 26? Yeah. And it's also going to cost us another $122 million for a guy that does get hurt. And who knows if he's pissed off about being here in a year and goes, oh, you know, I only have one year left. Or, you know, he does the extension. It's like he plays two years. I don't think it makes a ton of sense. I really don't. I don't think I would do it, even though the price isn't that bad.

We agree because the difference with them in Houston, San Antonio has no reason to be desperate at all. What do they care? Right. They have this amazing roster of assets and picks and all of these other things. It's not like they're like, oh, we got to cap this off and get Durant. Whereas I look at Houston, I actually think Houston not only needs Durant, but

Becomes a really interesting team if they can add him and all they give up is Jabari and Jalen Green and Cam Whitmore and they give Phoenix their pick back. I still really like the nucleus of their team. Like post-trade, they would have Shengun and Adams. They'd have KD and Amin Thompson. They'd have Eason and Brooks and Whitmore. They would have Van Vliet and Shepard and the 10th pick.

That's a lot to work with just to throw Durant. And what was the one thing they did last year? It was a guy to score at the end of games. So it's a home run across the board. I think for them, I, uh, if that was the price and I just don't think San Antonio is going to top that from a price. So, well, he wanted Houston apparently last year. Um,

I don't know why Houston would be giving back that Phoenix unprotected pick that they were able to get in the Brooklyn thing, which has worked out for Houston because at the time it's like,

I mean, I went through all the Houston Brooklyn stuff when we did the show together just almost, you know, almost exactly a year ago. It was like, what did Brooklyn do here? It's like, well, Brooklyn wasn't going to do the trade for bridges unless they knew they could get their picks back. So you could sit there and say, well, you're giving up these valuable Brooklyn picks. It's like, well, you don't know what Brooklyn's going to do. They're not going to get rid of bridges unless they know they're going to get their picks back. And then you're looking at, well, there's a chance, especially with Dallas winning. It's like, what if they had won the lottery?

You know, like Houston gives that pick back, but now it looks like stone pulled off another one here because it's going to be four picks for the two. You've made it through the scary part of like, where is that? We both like to trade for Houston though. When that happened, we were like, cool. Like they're, they basically leverage, they took advantage of,

Of Brooklyn kind of panicking, right? I think we like the trade for them. Well, Brooklyn couldn't tank unless they knew they were getting their picks back. So they were paying a premium for that. They're paying the VIG. But a year ago, the conversation and then in the fall was like, what if Brooklyn ends up, you know, they gave him that pick back. But it wasn't that. There was clearly the thing in front of it. So you think that's too much for Durant to also include the Phoenix pick? Yeah. Yeah.

I think Phoenix is a mess right now, like not trending in the right direction. So why would I help them stabilize in front of that? What if Phoenix says that's the only way you're getting Durant? Then I'd be like, let's fucking Jabari this up. I think I agree with you. Although if I wouldn't trade, I wouldn't trade Durant to Phoenix unless I got my own pick back. It's like if Houston's like, how about the 10th pick? I'd be like, no, I want my pick back. I need my pick back.

When the deal happened last year and they have the 27 Phoenix pick that's unprotected, I thought that was the single most valuable asset in all this stuff. And I don't know that. Look, if you would talk to us, we were having this conversation right after game seven. It was like, hey, guess what? Offense wasn't great in clutch moments.

I think it was Houston's who saw that coming, right? This feels like a very solvable plug and play. Throw them in there. You wonder if you were Houston and you're talking to Phoenix going like, all right, well, what's, I mean, they don't know what the hell the rest of their plan is going to be. I mean, we've got to keep reminding ourselves how quickly these things change, but the unknown of what that 27 pick could be. I'm not interested in,

in doing that for somebody with KD that isn't a complete... It's a slam dunk from the scoring thing in the fourth quarter for 25-26, but it's an expensive $122 million for the years beyond that. And...

you know, his habit of, you know, you really wish one of these picks that they had had turned into some sort of super polished closer in the fourth quarter. As much as you can love him in Thompson, it probably feels like a reach to think that he's going to be closing playoff games and being their number one scoring option. And then Durant just eases up everything else for everybody else. I would be very reluctant to want to get rid of that 27 pick. Or could you use a lot of those assets with something else and try to get somebody younger than Durant? Like,

but Jalen Brown, who I don't even know if is available. Who do you think is more valuable? Jalen Brown or Kevin Durant? Jalen Brown. It's not even close. He's 10 years younger, right? I was looking at the Durant stuff. He's 37 years old in September. He's played 18 seasons. He's played 11,000, 23 games and 170 playoff games. So he's almost at 1300 combined games. He's played 41,000 regular season minutes, 7,000 playoff minutes. So he's getting close to 50,000. Um,

If you just look at the numbers of, hey, 37 and over, who's averaged 20 a game? It's LeBron, it's Karl Malone, it's Kareem, and it's that one Michael Jordan wizard season. So this is like the rarest of rare territory just to be good after this age, right? And then you think, said foot fracture. He had the Achilles, said some knee stuff, seven feet tall.

So there's that. But then on the other hand, in the 2020s, just this decade, he's averaging 28, 7, and 5, 53%, 42% from three. He's been pretty steady offensively. There's been some slate athletic signs of decline that I've seen just from the defense and rim protection. And I wouldn't say he's 2014 KD.

but he's 88% there, 85%. I don't know. I just don't know how many more years he has left because NBA history says this isn't going to go in a great direction from here. You know? So that speaks to your Phoenix point. You're trading, you're not trading for a sure thing. Whereas if I'm trading for somebody like Jalen Brown or even Desmond Bain, I know I'm getting like the best years of their career right now. With Durant, I don't know what I'm getting.

All fair. I mean, none of this is new to anybody that's paying attention to the league as much as his scoring is like, you're so enamored, but like run through all of the stuff. And by the way, I need to clean it. I knew as soon as I said it, Ginobili and like Duncan are the same age, but he didn't play for three years. No, but he came in, he was in 03. He was, but they're about him and Parker were young and Duncan was still stands bad, bad little tidbit on that one based on the technicality of the same age. Anyway, here's the thing.

Go through it all. Like if I'm, if I'm stone in Houston, I'm like, okay, so what's your Miami offer, right? It's Wiggins. It's Wiggins. And where, well, I don't know if they'll do where it gets it's Wiggins. One of the young guys we don't like, and then a pick and then maybe a swap.

All right. Okay. What's Minnesota's offer? Go bear and defend Jen. So, or it's that's Dillingham is the, is the exciting thing. Cause I mean, there's so many different problems that they have, especially if they have to wait in like a sign of trade. I wouldn't put him in there. Would you?

I really like Durant and Minnesota. I could probably live with it knowing how jammed up they are. But I mean, you want to start running through, like if they didn't do, I was looking at it this morning. I don't know how Minnesota like goes from how expensive this team going to be and why they did the cat deal. Knowing that his numbers at the end, but I mean, if you were at and at 49 million, this is in 25, 26. Yeah. Or maybe I did. I was doing. Yeah. Katie at 60 million.

Jaden at $26 million, which look, five years, $130 million for him. It's not cheap. It's not terrible. Nas, the numbers on what that could be or what he wants. I'm just guessing $30 million, right? $25 million to $30 million minimum. Great guess. Nobody has free aging. I don't know who. I guess...

From a cap space standpoint, maybe there's not a lot of people with cap space. Maybe he goes for 20, 25. I don't know. So if it's DiVincenzo and Gobert's out, and so that means Randall staying, which now you're like, okay, so who's playing center? You didn't mention Alexander Walker yet, who's an unrestricted free agent. They're just going to punt on him? To me, he's just gone. I mean, he doesn't work in any of this stuff. I know, but that's a loss, even that.

I don't know how they were going to redo Randall and then sign Nas and then keep Alexander. Would you redo Randall? I would not. So you would just let him what opt in and we'll talk to you next year. Yeah, I would, I would play chicken with him. Yeah. I think that's the right move there. Okay. So say he has cap space. Is Brooklyn going to sign Julius Randall? Probably not totally aligned on that one. You just never know. Sometimes they'll be like, all right, we're going to do this. And then you,

Again, we've seen different versions of this. Anyway, the point is, is let's keep Randall at that $30 million number on the player option. That's $190 million with those guys. So you're just below the first apron. And I haven't even filled out seven spots.

Yeah, and I'm not counting the stuff, you know, some of the smaller stuff that's already on the books here with different roster stuff. So again, back to the exercise, that 27 pick that's unprotected from Phoenix that Houston currently owns. And what's the Knicks deal? I like OG. I like Mitchell Robinson. I've never liked Mitchell Robinson more than I do right now. All right. That guy was a motherfucker in the playoffs. Knicks fans, I get it.

I get it. All right. Like him to stay healthy. You can make the same health argument about Desmond Bain, by the way. But we've already done the Desmond Bain part of the pod. So what's Toronto's deal? Hey, do you want expensive former Knicks or expensive former Pelicans? We got you.

All right. Now, not impossible, not impossible. Maybe there's one guy in that group that the group in Phoenix actually really likes and they feel like it's stable and then they get a center out of it and they're like, hey, Booker, we're going to try to do this. But what if whatever this is, is we're running through all these assets.

Is Reed Shepard more valuable than the 27 unprotected? Potentially. Or maybe Houston still loves Reed Shepard so much they'd rather do something else. Maybe they'd rather trade the pick in 27 than even Reed Shepard. I feel like if I'm Houston, I'm sitting on either the Shepard part of it, the 27 that's like,

That's better than Gobert aging out at $35 million a year. That's better than Dillingham. That's better than whatever the Heat are going to throw at you here. It's probably better than Vassell and then Harrison Barnes. They have other picks they can throw at it, too. They don't have to put in number 10 or they don't have to put in 2027. You're right. They don't have to do either of those things. They might have to say, hey, Jalen Green was the second pick in the draft.

They also have the two picks in 29 where they get the two best picks between Dallas Phoenix and I believe themselves in 29. So there's other avenues. Okay. But as quick as these things happen, like what if, what if Houston did the deal and it's Booker's like this Jalen green thing sucks, right? Or this isn't working out. And then you start realizing that Booker's like, Hey, I tried it in the beginning.

I was patient. The Chris Paul stuff was great. We tried it with these three guys. This sucks. Beal's still hanging out. He just bought another condo in Scottsdale. He says, I'm never leaving. Beal joined another golf club. He's a DiCaprio. He plays to four country clubs. I'm not going anywhere. He's down to an 80 handicap. Yeah. He's never felt better about his approach. Short game is great right now.

There's just so many unknowns where I feel like all of us could be like, oh, just throw a pick in there, throw a pick in there. If you compare it, and maybe there's another secret thing out there, that's a really valuable piece. I mean, are you with me on this at all? Or do you think I'm crazy? No, you swayed me a little. The case for it would be, can we actually make the finals if we make this trade, right? We still have an awesome nucleus.

green it's basically green and jabari for durant and then we threw some other stuff in there that we can't use right now anyway and that's the trade but i think you i think the who are we bidding against if san antonio is like yeah we're getting dylan harper i don't know and then miami i just don't think has the kind of assets to swim in this pool right i guess they could throw a bunch of firsts down the road but why are you doing that for kevin durant in his 19th season

Here's another timeline to revisit. We've already touched on it. Last year, it was, you were hearing Durant wanted to go to Houston. So I feel good about him actually wanting to go there. And I imagine his team is telling whoever it is, because there's no other option. It's waiting six months for the extra $2 million. They're going to want to, in the beginning of July, say, we need that two years, $122 million extension. Durant's like, cool. Just pocketed another nine figures. I thought it was $112. Excuse me. No. I thought it was an extra $12 million.

If you waited six months. I asked Bobby Marks this morning. So I thought it was 122 versus 124. He's going to grab the money. You're right. Why would he wait six months? Well, I saw it talked about a few times. I was like, I need to look that up. I mean, it's hard to keep track of all this shit, right? And then taxes like, like there's no point. And I don't know if you've heard this, but there's no state income tax in Texas. What? Did you know this? Oh yeah. Huge advantage for the stars. So he wanted Houston last year.

There was a TV report that said Phoenix wanted to trade him. I was lucky enough to talk to someone. We said it on the pod. I talked to somebody and said, they're not trading. They're not trading. They didn't trade him. This Minnesota thing happened before the deadline. Supposedly, Durant was kind of open to the Minnesota thing. Doesn't mean I'm right. And by the way, all of the things I'm about to say could be completely irrelevant. Golden State had the deal done and then found out

No, I don't want to go back there. So I've also seen it talked about where it's like, well, they want to do right by Durant this time around because he was left out of the process. If anything, you could argue that Golden State and Miami kind of went through the process of it all last year.

Or I should say this year before the trade deadline. And then once they had something in place, instead of wasting his time and updating him and his team all the time, it's like, hey, we could do this. Do you want to do it? That's being involved. He says he don't want to do it. So he can't really play the card of like he was left out of this process and it was somewhat disrespectful. So whether or not he wanted to play with Ant, wanted to go to Minnesota in February, I don't even know if that's true. It appears that's not what he wants to do now, which is cool with that. I heard it was like a five or six team deal.

It got too complicated was one of the issues in February. In February? Yeah, because there was no way to do it. What do you believe now? Do you think he wants, do you think Minnesota, because it's not brought up, right? I think he wants to go to Texas. I heard Minnesota, Miami, and Texas are all the favorites at different points of the week. I would not rule out him wanting to be in Miami, but Miami feels like it's, I mean, unless they love Kahlil Weir,

which there's a lot of nice stuff from him. What's he doing in Miami other than he gets to live in Miami? What's going to happen? Should we ask that question? Should we, I just don't think you're, you're even in the Eastern finals with that nucleus. Nothing's happening. Houston is the only team that I feel like he could elevate. I even have real questions about him with Edwards. That feels dueling banjos to me. We've seen, I, I, sometimes it is. And sometimes it's an awesome second option. Another Booker situation.

Where there's a lot of Durant standing in the corner like, I guess I'm not in this one. And he has that weird body language thing he gets going from time to time. I'll just be over here, guys. Whereas Houston, they'd be like, please take us home. Here's the ball. Eight minutes left. Do your thing. Like they don't have anybody else other than Shingun. But it is funny how when teams have one option as that closing score, it's like Manny needs help.

And that's what Ant needed. Looking at those possessions against OKC. I don't think he needed help. I think he needed a fucking point guard. That's what they need. If I'm going to make trades, I'm not trading for Kevin Durant. I want to get somebody who can actually handle the ball and take pressure off Edwards and get fast breaks. Conley was in that OKC series. Conley looked like he was 50 years old. That was why they lost. They couldn't bring the ball up.

It wasn't because they didn't have enough scoring. That's not how I watched the series. Conley Western Conference Finals moment. I thought it was going to be bad. It was way worse. And listen, I just went to a second half of a game four where Lou Dort was looking at Halbert, who's one of the best guards in the league, and was like, you're not dropping the ball over half court.

I'm not letting you do it. So poor Mike Conley is 37. That was like his worst. He's probably in bed, like fucking seeing nightmares of Luthor and Caruso. I think they need a point guard. I don't think Durant changes their destiny at all. Okay. And there's also a funny thing that we've already touched on here before. Imagine if Houston gets Durant and is ramped up and it's 25 versus 2018. We're like, Hey, we're the team best positioned to try to take on. Oh, it's like we're rebooting this. Yeah. Same situation.

like in 10 years from now where there's just this epic player and he's on another team and the guy's like, hey, Houston, do you want to be the one that goes in there first and tries to give this a shot? So, you know. Year 19 of Durant, I just don't think gets discussed enough in all this stuff. Now, maybe he can keep it going for two more years, three more years, but this is, we are now at the point, LeBron defied it, Carl,

Carl Malone, who even if the stats say he was still pretty awesome, if you actually watch those games post the two finals, he was at a slightly different point in his career. Jordan and the Wizards, Kareem near the end. LeBron's the only one who's defied it. And by the way, LeBron hasn't been in the finals since 2020.

So, you know, like when you go to these games and you see how young and athletic everybody is, like there's a reason for that. It's really hard to win four rounds in a row when you're an older player. It's almost impossible. The only reason Bill Russell was able to do in 1969 was because the series were shorter and it was three rounds. Like he didn't have to win 16 playoff games. I just think counting on old guys is really hard.

We agree. I mean, when you run through all this stuff, you don't need to. I think everybody listening for the most part, but it is still Durant and whoever gets to introduce him with a brand new jersey. I think you're right. If they could be Jabari and Jalen Green, some other pick that's not the 10th pick or the Phoenix pick. That's that's my offer. And if you can top it, so be it. Jalen Green's still young.

Had some really good moments in the week. And we both like Jabari. Yeah, but I'd like to see more from Jory. Can I end with one last thing, though? Yeah. You just said it. Okay, he's been in the league this long.

Right. He hasn't been happy the last few stops. It makes sense because we think he cares about hooping so much that he would want to go someplace that at least has a chance to contend in the next year or whatever, the next three, if he likes Lee. I still would imagine he's going to get the extension of teams are giving up. If you're giving up Jalen Green and Jabari, you probably still want control of the asset as opposed to like, well, let's see what happens in the summer of 26. I can't imagine any team wanting to do that.

But would there be like a long form feature by Brian Windhorst if he ended up on Miami where it was like the role model Kevin Durant never thought he would have the Bradley Beal story? And they're like, why South Beach, Kevin? He's like, why the fuck not? We'll take a break.

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for long-term success. Workday, moving business forever forward. Find out more at workday.com. Quickly, San Antonio, I forgot to mention one thing. They did trade Darren Fox and they just went Wemby, Harper, Castle, let's go. I'm just going to throw a couple of fake trades at you just for fun. Fox to Brooklyn for 8, 19, and 27. Does Brooklyn have a meeting? Yeah.

Okay. Let's say that happens. Could they then flip eight, 14 and 27 and move up to four to Charlotte for, for a guy can nipple basically turning Fox and a can nipple with a couple other assets. Kind of fun. That timeline would make sense. Much more like the analogy where I should have said Kawhi Leonard instead of Ginobili for Duncan. Yeah. Yeah. Um,

Is there a Trey Murphy possibility where Fox could go to Brooklyn and then you basically do the Bain trade with the extra picks you have, more stuff, and try to get Trey Murphy from New Orleans, who I think is gettable if you just do the Bain price maybe even more. That's the kind of trade I would rather see them do than Durant. There's one other one, though, and tell me what you think of this. They're keeping Fox. If they just dropped from two to three and got McCain in the trade from Philly,

So they would still be picking a three and they could take Canippo or Trey Johnson or Ace Bailey, whatever they want. And they get McCain. But I also don't feel like Philly's giving up quite enough. What is that trade for you? If it's McCain and three plus what to move up a spot? Korkmaz. They still have his rights. I don't think they have his rights anymore. Or is that just a no-go? You're keeping Harper.

No one in the NBA would trade out of the two into the three. That's how I feel too. I just wanted to talk it out. I don't think so. Even if Utah was like, we'll give you marketing and five to move up to two and we'll throw in some extra stuff. They're still like, no, thank you. Yes. Yeah. That's why I think they should trade the Aaron Fox. Um, we got to talk finals. We're going to do a whole bunch of draft stuff, but, um,

I guess we'll do it next Sunday. I was prepped. I'll be, I'll be even more prep next week. I have some people I will say, I'll get, I'll give you this. I'll leave you with this little tidbit. Nem hearts in my draft prep. Nem hearts brother. It was like a late second rounder. I bought some stock. Ryan Nem hard on Gonzaga. I averaged almost 10 assists a game last year. I watched some film. I like them only five 11. You're doing second rounders already. I just, he was, he was, I already have my sleeper. Um,

The finals, what'd you see in game four? You didn't get to talk about it in a pod. There was a moment in the third quarter where I was very surprised to see how just out of sorts OKC was on offense again. And it was a lot of like, SGA, can you come back and take the ball? Can you come back and take the ball?

And it was the first moment in the entire finals where I was like, maybe this is actually going to happen. I mean, sometimes this stuff has to happen. Sometimes we have to have these great stories. This is why we keep coming back. The sports need to be unpredictable for us to continue to be entertained. Because what if, what if the ball just bounces the right way? And in that moment, I'm like, what is up with this OKC offense? This is awful. I felt the same way sitting in my seat. There was, it was like a five minute stretch where you're like, my God, this, this is going to happen.

Right. Really? I really did feel it. It felt like they had kind of mentally broken. Okay. See a little bit. Yeah. It wasn't the first quarter. It wasn't that building quarter. It was that third quarter where I went. Holy shit. Like I had to like almost just have a moment with myself being like, this might actually happen. And I think this is important because you didn't catch it because I want to get to you more than me because I was at home watching it.

But on the broadcast, it's like a six-point game. But it felt like 12. It felt like the 12, like OKC's down six, and it feels like 12 against the Pacers. But that's just how impressive the Pacers had been. And on the broadcast, you have Doris, you have Breen, you have Richard Jefferson, and it's

Like, hey, this is still a six-point game. And it was like nine minutes to go. But they were right. It would be easy if you didn't experience it in real time. It'd be right to be making fun of the announcers. Why are you telling us it's a six-point game as if anybody's changing the channel? But the control of the game just favored the Pacers. And it was so aligned with what we saw in game three that you're like,

all right, I guess they just kind of figured this team out. And yet, like, why would I be doubting a 68-win team? Like, okay, see, why would I be doubting this team that has the best point differential in NBA history? And they're down six and you're like kind of worried about them. And I thought the announcing crew did such a great job of relaying that

vibe that yeah it's only six points it's only six and they said it a couple different times and instead of being critical of something that would seem like almost an observational mistake it was the perfect way to sum up how the game felt and then sga happens a bunch of different stuff you were there what did you think well i remember i turned to i was sitting with my friend chen and at one point okc was one for 12 from three in indiana was 11 for 27 and they were up eight

So they're plus 10 on threes, but they're up eight. And we were just like, this is, I can't, we couldn't believe OKC was still in the game. It felt like they, especially when that sequence when Toppin hit the two threes and the crowd went nuts and it just felt like OKC was dying to be knocked out for about three minutes and they couldn't do it. And they hung around and they hung around and then, um,

The only reason not to count them out was just how crazy the defense was. I said it, I went on Zach's pod Friday. I'm saying, I don't think I've ever seen defense like that in person. I've seen rim protection defense that was as good. This was different. This was attacking whoever had the ball 50 feet from the hoop and making it impossible for them to even start the offense. It was like shit you would see in like a high school game.

Where some crazy guys like that, he's won 500 career games in Long Island and he has this crazy press and the other team can't get it over half court. That's what it felt like. But it was Halliburton and Nembhard. Like these guys are good guards that are good ball handlers. And Dort was just standing there on the logo, just wiping people out.

And then you have Caruso and then you have Jalen Williams, who I thought was really, really awesome in that game and really took it to Siakam. And just athletically, it just eventually won out. And I thought Dort was the MVP. I said that the other day. I know SJ had 15 in the fourth quarter and came through in the end. But I thought what Dort did all game and the physicality and the intensity and just how he kept fucking with Hal Burton, man.

really hard to do. He's the first guy, all playoffs, who's kind of slowed down Halbert to the point where if you're on a show going, they need, Halbert needs to step up. It's like, you're not watching, you don't understand what's happening with this. Like, Lou Dort is impossible to go by. So I thought that was why they won. And then SGA, I didn't see. So when we were sitting in the seats that after the three, that push-off shot where he traveled,

I just didn't see that angle. That was an amazing no call. It was like, we didn't cover that on the Friday night thing. That was really rough because he definitely pushed off and he definitely traveled and Foster was just staring at it and didn't do anything. Really tough call. Do you want to talk about the extender? He was bad for both teams. There was no, I talked about it Friday night. There was no rhyme or reason for the calls. There was touch fouls being called.

There was Dort and Caruso just kind of shoving guys away at midcourt to get the ball or create steals or running through picks. I just, I didn't understand what a foul was in that game. They're bad for everybody. Both coaches were mad. Both benches were mad. It was just all over the place. The two SGA plays that everybody has talked about, I don't think officiating had anything to do with the game. I rarely do.

But I don't like rewarding the offensive player for initiating that contact on Neesmith on the one at the free throw line. But Neesmith is also on a heater of fouling, which is to be expected. He's averaging over five fouls per 36 minutes, which, according to NBA.com, is the highest foul rate of any player who's played 175 minutes or more. But that's how Neesmith plays. But it's very...

It's playing out like that regular season game that I keep referencing. There were a few things that I thought, okay, well, that's interesting. That's interesting. Is that whether it's Jalen Williams or SGA, and it's really when Jalen Williams gets him, he's like, I'm going to kill Neesmith. So Neesmith, this hyperactive physical defender, Jalen Williams is like, you have nothing for me. Okay. And to the point where they were running that two-man game, which is something that if you track it,

there's not a lot of on-ball screens being set by SGA throughout the course of the regular season and that he and Jalen Williams started doing it for each other and the hope was to get Neesmith because they needed to get Nemhar off of Halliburton. So there's this, and everybody's been talking about this now. Yeah, excuse me, SGA. Trying to get him off of SGA, just doing such a good job with it. But they started working this like two-man thing and setting screens in ways that it's just not something that they normally do, which is, you know, look, the Pacers would be ready for it in game five if they want to go back to that kind of stuff.

But the whole point of it is let's get Neesmith in the action. Let's get Neesmith in the action. And yeah, there was a lot of free throws and everything, but I want to stay on this because I've heard about it so much, especially with Scott Foster being involved in it. A part of this game that's a little easier to miss is that the Thunder were called for four fouls on defensive rebounds.

within six minutes of the fourth quarter. And there was a fifth foul on Neesmith. So for the whole idea of that, hey, let's extend this series, let's get OKC back to 2-2 and all that kind of shit, that's why Foster's on the game. They called five fouls on the Thunder.

and got the Pacers into the bonus with over six minutes to go. And again, four of them. I don't know that I've seen that very often. Four fouls on the Thunder just trying to box out. And I'm not arguing that they were or weren't fouls, but I think on a lot of box-out stuff, you can find more fouls there if you want to. It's like college officials. They'll just pick a game in the tournament and decide to call all of them. You're like, how come this first half's taking... So that was on our basket, and they definitely were doing this mauling technique of the rebounds.

But with that was that speaks to my point from earlier. They started calling stuff in the fourth quarter that they didn't call for the first three quarters. I hate that the most. Well, this game, there was no consistency to anything that was happening. The two Pacers games, or at least at Indiana, it, it felt like there's so much effort in that first half. Yeah. That, and it might be even a little underplay. We'll see, you know, what happens here in game six and the second half, but you can, you can almost see the guys exhausted. Yeah.

On both sides, like I thought Chet was spent in game three. I thought Chet was so good defensively. He was getting into switches. He was holding up against perimeter players. He's contesting shots like Halliburton got him one side. So I look, I thought that was kind of interesting in the free throw part of it. It's like, OK, I understand this team loss. So it's all about the free throws. I hated the baseline thing with SGA. I don't like that knee Smith foul, but it is a foul and all that stuff. But there's another like that Dagnall part of this.

is that they clearly don't like Hartenstein because he's a target for the Pacers. When he's in, he's targeted. And let's face it, he's a nice player. He's been a fucking zero on offense for this entire series.

and him holding the ball 30 feet away, waiting to do some sort of dribble handoff thing in a playoff game when everybody's flying around at full speed, that stuff looks all right in the regular season. It's kind of a waste of time in these playoff games. It kind of slows everything down the way everybody's hedging against all this stuff. I said that to Zach on Friday night. He's become a backup center.

And I don't feel like he was during this season. Yeah, in this series and a little bit last series, too. You know what? You're right, Sean. Look at the game logs in the minutes. They're pulling away from it. You could argue some games. It's just Chet has it going. Chet had the two follow dunks, too, on top of the really good defense because he closed really poorly after a great start in Game 3. Didn't play that well. But at that 6-0-9 foul, the fifth team foul against OKC, another defensive rebound thing, Dagnall went to the double big.

And I was like, he must like hit that staff has to be going. Can we grab a board? Can we grab a board in this game? The closest thing out went double big for just about two minutes, little under that. And I don't know if it's settled, but clearly, you know, look, Kuru

Caruso's the preferable guy as opposed to the double big against this stuff because I think they worry about Hardenstein being a target. But it almost felt like in those two minutes when he went double big, his main concern was we got to figure out a way to try to control the defensive glass here. And we're not closing six minutes of double big, but let's just let's try to change our physicality here for a couple minutes because our guys are getting eaten up just trying to box out. He was trying to help out Chet too a little bit because he didn't want to take Chet out.

So it was like, I'll give you a little added muscle for a couple of minutes here. Jalen Williams was the only guy on that team that didn't look tired in that game. Because SGA, you know, they played Wednesday night and that Wednesday night game was a brutal game. Brutal game. Oh, yeah. So they're 48 hours later.

Indiana looked fresher than OKC for the most part, but they're also home. You get energy from home. But Jalen Williams was the one in that team that, and Dort, who Dort is like, he's not even human. I just thought my big takeaway from just seeing that in person for those two days is just how unique Dort is. Because I was thinking before the playoffs, like, all right, if they win the title, they got to pay these guys. Maybe they'll trade Dort. Wallace can take his minutes. Dort is untradeable for me.

Like with the toughness and physicality and all the stuff he does for them, I don't think they have anyone on the roster to replace it. To just have somebody who can wipe out the best guy on the other team and make it like, even when Halliburton was scoring, they were like, you know,

flying down the lane layups where he had to like throw it high off the backboard with some spin on it just to like make the shot. Like it was, nothing was easy for them and that's why they won the game and that's why they're going to win the title. I think, I just feel like Indiana missed their chance. They had it. They had it in that third quarter. I felt that way when I left. I felt that way on Friday night when we talked about it and you know, it was 80, it felt like it was 86 to 76 for,

two, three minutes there and they just couldn't extend it to 15. If it gets to 15, OKC wasn't making threes. They're not coming back from that, you know, but they just couldn't get the hump high enough.

And I don't know what the, what the fixes are either, because we've seen with some of these games when you kind of unlock the other team, it just kind of gets worse as the series goes along. Like, I think the Warriors Celtics series in 22 is a good kind of parallel to that. It's just everything you got worried about just starts to get worse and worse as it goes. I think they've figured out if they're not going to call those fouls on Dorton Caruso at half court with how physical they're being, it's going to be really hard for Indiana to run offense.

Like that, remember that part where they're putting Siakam 40 feet from the basket and he was trying to go one-on-one and they were, okay. So he was like, really, this is, you're doing this? No, thanks. Um, the only wild card is Matherin to just, he seems like, you know, and he's the ultimate trick or treat guy, but that's the one where I, I felt like they should have thrown him in, in the fourth quarter. They were so stale. It was so hard for them to do anything. They kind of needed the wild card. He check irrational confidence guy.

It feels like a quarterback avoiding pressure and then like getting back to the line of scrimmage and then thinking he has like another chance at the same play. They'd be scrambling. It would all get shut off. And then it'd be like, all right, Halliburton. Now it's like started all over again. And I didn't have any issues with him. And Siakam had such a terrific game, like completely well-rounded with the steals, the assists, the boards. The shooting wasn't great. But the problem is like, okay, but now you're taking, you've had this really nice game.

And you kind of need to be like a number two scoring option with some of this stuff. And I know everybody's going to think that I'm just kind of on his ass again. But, you know, the variance of noticing him to then going, oh, did he take one shot in the fourth quarter? It's one for six in the second half. Well, I mean, once they took away their fast breaks and slowed the pace down. The pace, by the way, has been like,

a non-factor. Maybe you can say they pushed it a little bit more in game three, but like if you look at the pace numbers game by game, it's 102, 97 and a half, 100. That's for the full game. So the first half of game four, especially for the first like quarter and a half, Indy had to have been delighted because...

OKC, this is what Indy does over and over again. They pull you into how they want to play. And OKC was doing it, and then they backed off. I think OKC's fine playing at a pace. They played at a faster pace than...

the Pacers have for the entire playoffs. They've had a lead now going into the fourth quarter, the first three games. They didn't have it. They come back. The storylines that I touched on after they were down 2-1 is like all of these storylines that are potentially in play of doing the obituary on what this Thunder's team ended up being, right? If they had lost this series, who knows? They could still lose this series. I'm at a point now where certainly I'm not going to change my pick or anything, but this Pacers team is

more real in this final series than I certainly thought. A lot of us thought, but

you know, the too young thing, right? Or they didn't play in enough clutch games. And it's like, man, if they were too young, doesn't that show up in game seven against Denver? Doesn't it show up? I thought that game four win against Minnesota was just a, just an absolute like ballsy. We're here type of win. And so you come back and you win this game for like, if the Pacers were to win this, are you allowed to say that it was, Oh, because the thunder were too young. If they're too young, they don't come back in game four of this series.

The too young thing comes with going three for 17 from three and having 10 assists. But they didn't shoot it well. Some of their young guys were MIA, like people like Wiggins, Wallace. Those are the guys that when you're talking about too young, they're just not getting stuff from the role guys. That's why Caruso was so huge in that game. I mean, Caruso, you know, he might make the Hall of Fame now.

Michael Cooper made it. Does Siaka make the Hall of Fame? I don't know. The answer is yes. He probably does. Second best guy in a finals team. Might be on pace for almost 20,000 points. Do you know where OKC is right now as far as three-point shooting in the playoffs? Where? 13th out of 16 teams. They shot it well against Minnesota. They did not shoot it great the first two series. And that's another thing that's so scary about this team is that

I mean, I wonder where they'll be historically as a three-point shooting team if they stay at some of these numbers and they have another bad shooting night. Like, they're in that game. And I'm glad that you brought up that math because you're like, something feels wrong here. They're going to be one to 12? It just doesn't resemble the basketball we watch in 2025 when somebody can be that bad from three and be in the game. That's usually a death knell. Okay. Another observation, because when the

The Thunder are not talking to each other. Only Caruso's the guy with any energy on the bench. And they're down and they look lost in that third quarter. Body language doc is right there just studying everything. You're on the case. Yeah. It is used against them. It's like, who's... You know, you start thinking like, hey, who's their Draymond Green? Like, where's their emotional leader? Where's their badass? Is this too subdued a group of players? You know? That wasn't what I was thinking. I was thinking more like...

These guys have all the same type of personality where they're just like, they just go. The only thing I really noticed. Would you have said that if they lost? No, the only thing I thought was that they seemed tired. Like Chet looked like he was going to keel over.

Like, for real. All the young guys, like, people like Wallace and guys like that, it just, you could just tell they weren't going to get anything from those guys. But Caruso, I thought was, you know, really seems like he's the glue to everything. And then SGA, they never bailed on him. He took him out for that one minute and he got the fourth foul. Yeah.

And he looked tired. There's no question. He didn't have a good first half. They said it after. So yeah, like I think Dagnall even had said, you know, he wasn't having the best game and then he was going to have to work through it and we're gonna have to figure a way to get them her off of them, you know? Yeah. And then Jalen Williams, I thought, you know, the fact that he can do what he does, but that team, they're, they're just a bunch of dudes that, you know, they're like a, like a football team that just kind of goes out and it's like, you're not getting a first down right now, you know?

They just have a vibe to them. It's hard to explain. I think they specifically pick certain type of personality types and that's who they look at and go after. Like Draymond wouldn't make sense on that team. I don't think they would ever have a guy like that kind of boisterous type of, you know, big alpha personality. It's not the kind of team they have. Even Dagnall, when you watch him, like he got mad at the refs for him at one point. And mad at him and the refs is just him like making a face and putting his hands out. He's not like a screamer.

Um, everything they do. And I think they do a lot of stuff after the games, which has been, uh, talked about, about how they, they constantly barrage the, uh, NBA with like clips and stuff like that. But I think on the court, even afterwards, I thought it was interesting. Dagnall said, I thought they called a good game. They could have called even more fouls. Did you hear that quote? He had,

Like they're very careful about not pissing off the refs or showing them up. Halliburton, when he got fouled that one time and he did, he was doing the holding his hands up and I don't know, refs hate that shit. This has been Jason Tatum's problem for the last three years. I mean, it is that sarcastic wave at the refs. Like they fucking hate that. Okay. So you just do any of that stuff. And it's another one. And it's just every single baseline on the way up. It's like, before I get my balance back, I'm going to motherfuck this guy. Uh, Halliburton had every right to be upset.

No, he didn't. But he just gets called a little differently than most stars. I would say that after seeing him. Just the default that it's always the refs. It's always the refs. It's always the refs. And you just go like, all right, well, you want to go through? Do you want me to file? You want me to find a Nemhart foul that wasn't called? But you didn't think that was a well-called game. I thought that game, I thought the flow of that game was a fucking mess. It was really, really, compared to the other games that we've had, that was like a mess on both sides. I thought the game just became very different.

Yeah. Well, what do you expect in game five? Well, it's nice to see the fourth quarter defense that we'd expect from the Thunder to show up. Although I still think the Pacers defense in game three of that fourth quarter was more impressive than...

When they pulled that game out, I thought what they were doing on defense. Like that was that game three thing. I'm just telling you game three Pacers. It changes the way I feel about them in the East. Okay. Going into next year. You drafted them number one. We finally got there boys and girls took me three games, the NBA finals, but

It was pretty special. But unfortunately for Pacers fans, not the case in game four. And the whole time going into this is like, I just think that Thunder defense is going to be too hard to solve for four wins. And that's how I feel about it still. I mean, you know, here's the thing is going home.

OKC just feels too knocked down like 14, 15 threes here in one of these games. Yeah, this has a 29 point blowout vibes. I also wonder like everything was going so magically for Indiana for two months there. And that was the first game where like Halliburton does the little step back when they really need it. You know, the dribble, dribble, dribble, three step back. And it was an air ball. It was almost like the clock hit midnight for them in that fourth quarter.

in so many different ways. But I do think, I do think they have some moves. Like, some things have worked. OKC, they've lost some trust in a couple guys. Like, they're basically down to six and a half guys now. That's a good sign for Indiana. And for Indiana, like, they've had different guys play well the whole series. I don't feel like, the only guy they seem like they've lost confidence in is Thomas Bryant. Everybody else has had moments. I don't know. I guess they re-lost it. Uh-huh.

But they need, if I was them, I would have been sending just clips of Dort and Caruso mauling my guards at midcourt. I would have sent a whole highlight video of like, hey, are they allowed to do this? Just check in. Because I thought that was, I thought they got away with physicality, which they should do because if you're getting away with it, do it. You know, but man, it's the story of the series is that the Caruso trade

What it did for them when you actually go in against them, when they ramp it up, is the scariest thing in the league. And that's probably why they're going to win the title. Do you remember, and I'm not trying to put you on the energy that OKC came out with defensively, the first touch that Halliburton got, it was just swarming. I think they sent two at him and it was intense. Granted, it's when you're freshest, the game's just tipped. And I was like, uh-oh, what's going on here? And then the Pacers survived it.

And you're going, all right. You know, like it was so I, you know, I almost was wondering, like, are they just, this is like blitzing on the first drop back of the NFL game. Like, Hey, let's just do something so that they know we're coming today. And like, we're going to do this. Cause like the first play was so much energy defensively. So we're not going to be able to keep doing that kind of stuff. Like, this is insane how hard you're going just on this trap. And yeah,

Pacers feel great about themselves. Thundercamp knocked down a shot. There's a bunch of possessions. And you're right. Wiggins coming in isn't pretty. Wallace got caught up in between a decision there in the fourth quarter on one play. We're like, okay, that's a sign of somebody not necessarily being comfortable. They weren't guarding him either. If he was out there, they were just playing off him. Hartenstein, he feels like he's less confident. But this is what happens when we get to the finals. You start

Guys start falling off in the battlefield and you end up with five guys, six guys left. I'm glad you brought up football because it really was what OKC reminded me of watching them. It was like watching an awesome defense just put everyone on the line, knowing that their cornerbacks could defend any receiver and just like going. And at some point you're like, oh my God, I don't know. We didn't know what Indiana should do in the fourth quarter. It got to that point. Like, I don't know.

They can't get within 40 feet of the basket. I don't know what the move is. Like it was like watching them get checkmated. On the left side, because I think because he had SGA, but it was like 15 feet out.

Yeah. And then he was just kind of dribbling. You're like, what the fuck is this play going to be? That was every play. He was turned and he didn't have enough time and it wasn't like a straight line drive or anything. He was kind of turned. Turner had a couple threes where it looked like he wasn't in a hurry to get those off. And then Nembhard will, when Halliburton gets stuck, Nembhard's the guy that's like, I'll shoot. Like, I'm good to go. And then usually Neesmith's good for a three or two that you're just like, okay, these are...

He had that huge one in game three. Yeah, not yet straight. Turner's the wild card because, you know, obviously they have to win one of these next two in OKC to win the title plus the one at home. And the way Turner looked in those two indie games, if he's going to play like that, there's just no chance because they were giving him the wide open shots at the top. They were happy with him. He wasn't making them. My guess would be OKC is going to win the next two.

I hate counting out Indiana like that, but I just feel like the OKC solved something in those last two. And then the closer you get, the more you can smell it. And anything you're doing is going to be ramped up anyway. Once you get really close to the title, it's going to be the craziest version of yourself, right? And the craziest version of OKC, I don't think Indiana can...

couldn't score again. So I feel like they missed. This episode is brought to you by Visit Myrtle Beach. If you're dreaming of a beachy summer escape, then head to the beach in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. You'll find 60 miles of stunning coastline, hundreds of attractions to explore in the South's newest foodie hotspot. This is where you play hard and beach easy. You belong at the beach, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Start planning your summer adventure

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All right. So you're covering, you got Tuesday, Thursday this week. Yeah, we got a lot of stuff. I don't know what we're going to run. We got a little F1 for you. Ron Chernow. You excited for the movie? Yeah, definitely. I really am. Every time they show the ad. The Ron Chernow movie? I'm excited for the Brad Pitt movie. Oh, because I haven't seen the Chernow movie trailer. Yeah, the F1 Brad Pitt. Yeah, that looks great. You're so, I was thinking about you the other day. How easy I am to please with a trailer?

that wasn't the thought, but there's these things that you love that I'll know that you're going to love, but then you'll just shock the world. Yeah. And be like, it's kind of like your star Wars position. Be like, you like wrestling. Do you like, yeah. Top gun. Yeah. You know, and it's like, but you don't like star Wars. I did not like star Wars. I just never got into it. The one that one, I can't, the line I can't cross is Wes Anderson movies.

I just don't get it. Not for me. I watched Tenenbaums the other night. Yeah, not for me. I'm not against them. Just not for me. It's an Owen Wilson fest over at this place. Jumping back and forth between stick and Tenenbaums. Summertime. Let's go. You've never seen Rushmore?

I've seen Rushmore. I've seen Tannenbaum's. Okay. Yeah. So Steve Zissou when we lost you? I'm not like, that's a dope. Yeah. It's just like, you know, I'm putting together the Blu-ray collection. There's no Wes Anderson yet. You don't think Rushmore is a rewatchable? I think we did it already. I don't think I was on it. Good. You're going to be on one this summer. Hopefully. We're planning. I might even go to Scotland. You're hard got a book. You know, you call to see if you're in and you're like just on your way to some strange country.

It's going to get real strange this summer. Can I tell you what I did in Indy on FanDuel? A lot of Pats bets, including Mike Vrabel for coach of the year, plus 750. I couldn't resist. Pats over nine and a half? Sure. Pats five to one for the division with Kansas City and Philly? Okay, I'll parlay that. When you were hanging out with guys, you're like, I have to go home and hammer this Vrabel bet? Yeah, I was like, guys, it's been great. I got to go. Indy does close pretty early, though. It's surprising.

I really like Indy. You guys didn't make it to Ike and Jonesy's? No, I didn't. Let me double check if that place is still open. Stanford Steve and I went to Ike and Jonesy's one night. I think they were like, hey, can we get a beer? And there were just cups. They were like, grab as many as you want. I don't think there's a more Rosillo city on the planet. Than Indy? Come on. Yeah. No, for like, if you came for a game, I think you'd have a great time. I have. I've been to Indy a million times. Pacers? Playoffs? No. Did, uh...

Did the Super Bowl there. We did... Hardcore basketball fans, man. It's our people. They're all there. Just love basketball. Stanford Steve and I drove over to Butler to check it out. And then...

It was pretty obvious because there was a rack of balls and the guy was looking at us. He's like, how bad do you want to get a couple of shots up? And it was like insanely bad. He's like, yeah, you're not supposed to, but like you can. Oh, no problem. Which was a lot different than when we were at UNC and Roy Williams told me I could get shots up after the practice was over. I was like, all right, no problem. And then somebody came over and screamed at me like, what are you doing? And I was like, Roy said it was fine. And she was like, okay.

Turned around. That's all I needed to know. That was like the time. Anytime I was at Eugene, like, what are you doing in this? And I'm like, Chip said it was fine.

Like, okay, that's a good thing to have. Anyway, the point is that Indy, we drove out to go see Tom Crean coach the Hoosiers. So Van Pelt and I drove out to Bloomington, and we spent the afternoon there. Got out of there pretty quick. So I can't say that I know Bloomington super well. But then I did a bunch of Big Ten championship games. We did the Wisconsin win. There was another one in there. Hey, why don't you play a Pacers playoff game? A couple people mentioned it.

My approval rating is not very high in that state after the college football season. So I think I have Indy down. Now you're back. The Pacers thing. Now that you've circled back with the Pacers, I think big comeback is probably. I want to push back a little bit that it feels like a Rosillo town. Because I don't. Why? It's just they love sports. That's true. Real American people. Yeah. No, I like that. It's all of the earth. My only criticism is the San Elmo shrimp. I don't like when you're touting the food.

And it's good. It's fine. But if it's going to be like a marketing thing, I really want to have my socks knocked off. And it's not there. I'm sorry. Van Pelt hated it as much as any single person has ever hated anything. The St. Elmo shrimp? Yeah. Because I'd had it. Stanford Steve and I probably got in earlier. Van Pelt would get there when he needed to get there. And then I think we went back again.

And it really becomes the hang too. You know, it's, it's not just the restaurant. It's the hang. Multiple floors. There's nooks and crannies. You go around and yeah, it's good. And no one loves St. Elmo's more than you do. So Van Pelt's sitting there and he was like, we're watching him about to eat it. And he's looking at us. He's like, what, what, what's going to happen? Is it really hot or something?

It's really hot. Like, are you guys fucking with me? And we were like, just eat the shrimp, dude. It's not that big of a deal. And he like kind of like halfway through a couple of chomps, spits it right out. Was like, this is what is that? Like, it's horseradish. You know, it's it's that's the whole thing. It's kind of clears you out a little bit. He's like, that's that's the dumbest thing ever invented. He was so mad. He's so mad about it. It might have been the first time he didn't pay for the dinner.

Because his thing is he always pays for every dinner, no matter what, all the time. And I think that night he may have just been like protesting. I went for drinks there and I ordered a ranch water. Oh, look at you. Yellowstone. It's tequila for the people listening. Tequila, club soda and lime. They brought the ranch water. They brought me a glass. It was like a triple tequila.

with a little bottle of club soda next to it. And the Kila had lime in it. I'm like, and they're like, watch. And the waitress said, watch out for this. That's all tequila. And I'm like, I ordered a ranch water. And she's like, this is how we serve it here. So they make their glass of tequila. Not the pre-mix. With some lime in it.

And then I can pour the club soda in if I want. Yeah, it's their version of it. It's also called a tequila soda, I believe, in other places. It's called the don't drive after you have this, I think was the actual thing for it. But it was pretty impressive. Anyway. All right, Rosillo. I'll see you in a week. We got to do the finals will probably be over by then. There's a chance we'll be coming on after game seven of the NBA finals. Maybe from now. Why not? Can't be ruled out. You're the biggest Pacers. Believe you and Windhorst.

You guys are looking at property there. I don't think it's going to be a game five for them, but it would have to be a game six. One last awesome run. You were just there two days. How can you not believe after you were in that building? Lou Dort psyched me out. That's what happened. So we'll be Sunday night at some point. Anyone say anything offensive to you in person? No, people were great. Indiana's great. Sponsored.

Thanks to Eduardo and everybody else behind the scenes as well. Don't forget, Rewatchable is coming Tuesday. And I think I'm going to have something else tomorrow night. So we'll see. Anyway, bye, Rousseau. See ya. I want to see them on a wayside.

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