Join me, Danny Kelly, along with Danny Heifetz and Craig Horolbeck every week on the Ringer fantasy football show as we prepare for the 2024 fantasy football season.

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That's the Ringer fantasy football show on Spotify. We're also brought to you by the Ringer podcast Network. Last week, we put up a four and a half hour two-part podcast about Pulp Fiction on the rewatchable speed. It gave no warning whatsoever. We just did it. I was on vacation, so it was fun to just drop that out into the world. Me, Sean Fentasy, Chris Ryan had a great, great time. We covered every single aspect of the movie. If you want to listen to it, you can listen to it. If you want to watch it, you can watch our YouTube channel, Ringer Movies. That was the only pot I did last week. Then Craig and Danny and Danny from the Ringer fantasy football show, they did dodgeball on the feed this week. I was off on the rewatch. I've been off for about a week and a half. I have just a ton of Olympic basketball thoughts. I was hoping there would be a Patriots Trade segment at the tail end of this podcast because it felt like for a split second, the Patriots might trade for Brandon Ayuk, who I think is actually underrated. There's been some talk like, what level is he at?

He's at least DJ Moore, who got 25 million a year. If the Niners don't want to pay that for Ayuk, you know who I'd love to see do it? The New England Patriots. My summer has been a lot of just Patriots Twitter, Reddit stuff and videos and analyzing Drake may throws. I'm really enjoying this offseason. It looks like the pats locked out with these two receivers they pick, Poak and Baker. They're for real, might be legit good. This is after 20 years of Belichick, just whiffing on receiver pick. So There's been energy. Brissette's been nice. New coach, new energy. Just feels different. Everybody's more accessible. It just feels a little different than a typical Patriots training camp where there's no information, you never learn anything. I'm not complaining about the old days because we won six Super Bowl. But it is nice to... It just feels different. It is cool that they actually have some fun players on the team who are young and have potential. Obviously, now they're talking about trading for AUK, and it's like, Oh, my God. Could this Pats just be this really weird 5-12 team that throws the ball all the time and has fun receivers?

Sign me up. Sounds great. But it seems like he's trying to steer his weight to the stealers. We'll see if that happens before Thursday's podcast. I am coming back on Thursday after the two semifinals Olympic Games. This podcast you're about to hear is with Rob Mahony. There were four games today. We watched all of them. We're going to talk about them. Do a little presumed innocent at the end. First, our friends from Pearl All right, we're taping this. It is 2:20 Pacific Time, Tuesday afternoon. Somehow, I have been up for 10 hours. I got up super early today to watch on replay second half of the Greece game and then powered all the way through. Rob Mahony is here from The Ringer. Rob, I wrote about this in 2012 when I went to the Olympics and had no real idea what a great sporting event this is. Four games in a row with a lot of the best players in the world just all coming up on that. It's basically like Lollapalooza for basketball. We had every really, truly great player playing today, except for Luca and Jalen Brunson, if you want to call Brunson a great player.

But it was one incredible game, two dramatic games, and then a USA blowout. But for the most part, there's just nothing like this. I think I like this more than any single NBA playoff game day.

Well, especially for a single site, and in theory, a single neutral site, although with the French team cooking the way they are, the games being in Paris, that changes things a little bit. But the fact that you can get into that building and stay all day through all of these games, that's an incredible term. And it's an incredible thing, even for basketball sickos like us on the other side of the world, cranking it at 2:00 AM to check in on these games. It gets a little wild, but I like the sicko mode of the Olympics, to be honest with you.

What time did you get up?

I did the 5:30 start. Went the 5:30 start caught up along the way. Also, I just figured Germany was going to handle Greece, and I didn't need to be completely plugged in for that right out of the gate. Turned out to be the correct call.

I did the hardcore wake up like I was getting up for an early, early flight or something. Didn't look at my phone, went right downstairs, rewound whatever the live feed was on Peacock, or as I like to call it in my house during the Olympics, the cock. Rewound the cock an hour, got the second half, and it was 36, 36. And I was like, whoa. And I had seen on my phone, I had a bunch of tech. So I was like, did you honestly do it? That's one of the fun things about, especially when you get to this knockout stage. It's basically we're going to take one of the greatest people in the world at doing something We're just going to put them with a bunch of mediocre people and see if we could figure it out.

Mediocre might be strong with some of these supporting cast.

I mean, by international basketball Olympics standards. Absolutely. It's like you're taking the greatest guitarist in the world and you're like, Here, will you play with this band, this college band that's been together for two years? Can you try to figure out how to be great with this? But it was so much fun to watch. Germany-greece was really good. What order do you want to go in?

Do you just want to go chronological or do you want to build up to what was ultimately the main event, obviously being France's incredible win over Canada?

Oh, that's a good point. Well, why don't we do... We'll start with US.

Okay. It's open and shut.

Hit the other two and then we'll go to France. Yeah, but I I've been uncorked some of my Team USA posts. Yeah. I know you've been getting shots off. I've just been in the practice gym. Nobody's seen me.

Yeah. You've never said anything about Jason Tatum, Olympic athlete before.

I've said a lot of stuff on multiple text threads. There was some panicky stuff. I'll start here. This Olympics was clearly built around LeBron and Durant and Curry. I don't think I fully realized that until we were in the warm-up game. So it was like, Oh, this is what we're doing this year. Everybody else is a supporting cast. This is about these three guys. I was fine with it. They're three of the best parts of all time. I think this Olympics has been good for LeBron. I think it's been good for Kevin Durant, and it's been bad for Steph Curry. Every game, there hasn't been one even fun Steph Curry. There hasn't been like an 11 points in two minutes. And we hit the point today where I was like, Oh, man, is this going to be Steph's whole Olympics? He's just going to suck. Because I don't think Steph sucks. Well, clearly not. He's still one of the best 15 guys in the league. Just for whatever reason, he's not playing well. So what's wrong? What's happening?

I mean, he still makes Team USA better with his movement. He provides something to this group that basically no one else does, maybe short of Devin Booker, I would say, is the only close analog in terms of a movement shooter, which is something that they need for their spacing. If you took him off the floor, took him out of the mix entirely, they would miss that. He just isn't hitting in the way that we're accustomed to him hitting. And some of that is he does stand out on the perimeter, off ball a lot more than even these other guys, even the wings who are having a hard time, your Jason Tatum types, for example, honestly, get more on ball reps and touches than Steph does in these games. And so he's playing a very particular role, and I wouldn't say doing great with it, but he's playing a part on a stack team. And ultimately, that's what all these guys are doing to varying effects. And a lot of them are struggling in some way or another. Joel is feeling his way through this clearly. Jason Tatum is feeling his way through this clearly. The second unit, I think, has acclimated itself very well.

That Derek White, Durant, Ant, Bam, and AD, those guys haven't figured out. Everyone else is trying to find how they fit into this I would say no one more than Steph.

Well, it's so interesting that Curry is the coach because he's been Curry's coach really since the '14, '15 season. I really appreciate and admire what they've tried to do, the coaching staff. They're basically like, The ball is going to move. We don't want people... We don't want ball dominance. We don't want a lot of dribbling. If you're not going to cut and move and shoot when you're open, you might not play as much. We'll talk about Tatum in a second. But I think the biggest problem with Tatum is he's not shooting. He's passing up open threes.

Wide open shots.

Supposedly that's happening in practice, too. I don't know what happened to him. You go back, I guess we're going to talk about him now. You go back to the Miami Eastern Conference Finals, it's 26 playoff games all the way through the 2024 playoff. He's seven threes a game. He shoot 27% from three. That's Westbrookland. You're under 30, you're in Westbrookland, and that's a pretty huge sample size. We talked about it a lot in all of our podcasts during the playoff. For whatever reason, his three-point shot slid a little sideways and then down. And now it's to the point where he's passing him up. And that's why he's not playing. This isn't like Steve Kerr has an ax to grind against Tatum. It's like, Oh, my God, we have so many great guys. Tatum has been first-team in the NBA three years in a row. He should be playing. He's the perfect four for Olympic basketball because he can rebound, he can play defense, he can switch positions. But if he can't shoot, Kerr is not going to play him. And I feel like when we get to the middle round, I don't think he's going to play.

I think he's going to be out of the rotation.

Yeah, I mean, he's not even in that second five right now. He's coming in for an auxiliary minutes. And I think that's the right deployment of his skillset With adjustment for matchup. There are going to be games where a team wants to play smaller. And you even saw traces of that. This was never going to be a competitive game. Brazil basically tricked their way into the out rounds based on the fact that they had a weak group, and specifically on the fact that they got to play Japan and beat up on them. That's really the only reason they were here. And then the USA drew the softest first-round opponent, and I think probably the softest second-round opponent, that we can talk about that a little bit, too. This was never going to be a game. That said, there were moments where Marcelo Juertas was embarrassing Joel Embiid on pull-up jumpers. And we've seen that with South Sudan. We've seen that any time that Embiid is in a pure drop, it's a very vulnerable position. I thought he adjusted well enough to actually start contesting some shots, being more of a factor on ball and defense in a way that, I hate to say, it is almost surprising to see at some point, just because he can be more of a passive drop defender where he's waiting for the game to come to him.

I understand the virtue of that as far as a deterrent, but you need someone who is impacting the game on the ball. And if he's not, they're going to play smaller. And guys like Tatum are going to be more important. And certainly guys like Bam and AD are going to be more important, all of which is to say there's going to be opportunity for Jason Tatum at some point, even if he's playing poorly. It just worries me that his offense is in this state where he's so clearly in his own head about it. And it's passing up the open shots in a way that we sometimes see stars do as they graduate into their career. They get less and less comfortable taking pure catch and shoot opportunities. He's not the only star to suffer from that problem. I mean, look no further than Nikola Jokić, who all of a sudden can't really shoot threes either. It happens weirdly to some very talented players.

But he's still taking them as the difference.

He's still taking He's not like, Oh, my God, I might not make this.

I'm just going to put my head down and drive through the basket because I don't want to take this, which Tatum did multiple times today.

When Tatum does go into his bag, into his move set, he just ends up smoking some layups, missing some shots against smaller defenders that he otherwise would make. He's in a really weird place offensively right now. It doesn't concern me long term, but I have no idea what to make of him as a member of this team.

Well, he certainly had the biggest workload of anybody. He played over 100 games, big minutes. That's the only excuse he can make. But I got to say, a little dark on the Celtic fan threads I'm on. To the point that I was looking at 2018 YouTube clips of him and his jump shot. Oh, no. I'm just like, That's different because it doesn't feel the same. Because even when he was a rookie and we couldn't get him to shoot, and that was a big narrative. Jason, we don't have a lot of offense on this team. Just shoot. Take over. Go for it, man. He would, without hesitation, just a beautiful jump shot. The only thing that I've noticed, and I don't know if this is a working theory, but I would love to see some maniac on YouTube try to do the before/after. It seems like he's afraid to land forward. If you go back and watch his old jump shots, his feet kick forward, right? Almost like where you could land and like, sprain your ankle, like in the landing spot. He did this kick out, and it feels like over the years, they've tried to get him not to do that so he doesn't get hurt.

He took a shot I think it was the last game or the second or last game in the corner where it was almost like a set shot. And I was like, What the fuck was that? That's not how you shoot. So these are the text threads I'm on where we're just like- Landing zone mechanics. Yeah, we're landing zone mechanics. The Celt are for sale. Is Jalen Brown's new girlfriend? Is this going to be good for him? Him saying the thing about how he didn't make the team. This all sounds very healthy. Porzingis. How long is Porzingis out? It's like, We just won the title. I should be enjoying this.

At least you have Derek White. That's not all bad.

I have on one Southerners fan thread, I'm on one of the guys is a glass half-full guy, and he's like, Guys, Derek White's been amazing. I can't keep him off the floor. Let's talk about that. I'm like, All right. But you mentioned earlier the lineups that have worked and haven't worked. I felt this way after the second game where I was just like, it's just clear what's going to be the lineup if it's really ball-busting time. Whether LeBron is it. There's two Two lineups, one that has LeBron, one that's just the pure second unit, which is- Well, LeBron is going to be on the floor in ball-busting time. But there's that lineup of Drew, White, KD, Ant, and either Bam or AD, where they're just like, Here's defense, and KD is just going to make every shot. These two guards have the ball for a split second. You watch that lineup, you're like, Holy shit. What's interesting is Curry's not on that lineup. There's LeBron. Then there's the other lineup with Drew and White and Booker, and LeBron, and AD. You watch that one, you're like, man, this is basically three guards with LeBron and AD and LeBron and AD, the chemistry they have.

I think those have been my two favorite lineups. There's a White, Booker, KD, LeBron, AD, five some that I feel could be the crunch time lineup, either white or Drew in that spot. But it's weird that Curry is not in any of those lineups. And that's been a shock for me because, well, let's say it's 82 to 80 against Serbia And Curry is like, I just got to play my best five guys. Would he be willing to seek Curry in the last four minutes if he's not doing well?

So the situation in which I think that might have been a conversation was if Canada was on board, right? Especially if you have a lead guard who Steph would have to defend and put him in a vulnerable position. We've seen that he's just not up for those sorts of assignments right now. And yeah, you can cross match and get Drew or Derek Wyatt or whoever else you want in there. But if there were ever a matchup where Steph was a defensive liability and was a close game, then you might see him take it off the floor. But I'm looking at the remaining field and especially the guards. I'm not really seeing an opponent that Steph couldn't handle. And that makes me think, because of the politics, because of the leadership, when it comes down to it, I would say especially Steph and LeBron will be on the floor, whether that's the best lineup or not. Kevin Durant will sometimes, but we've also seen that maybe in some cases he won't. But I think Steph and LeBron are the true non-negotiables of this team when the games and the minutes actually matter.

It seems like it because I would have said Tatum was a non-negotiable for the top 10, and now I feel like he's not in the top 10. You would have said indeed, he's definitely going to start. Then he sat the second game. He looked better today, and I know we're going to talk about him in a second But I feel the best when Drew and White are out there together because I think neither of them need the ball. They do all the little glue guy stuff together, and then it just opens up everything else. They just feel the most like a basketball team. But regardless, they have so many options. I'm not ever going to say this is the best Olympic Team USA we've ever had, but I think this is the best team we've had since '92. I don't even think it's a question. This team has size and shooting and athleticism and youth and experience and all kinds of lineups they can play. You go backwards every four years. There's no team that has as many options and as much star power as this team. You think Curry's not even been playing that well.

Embiid has been out of shape. Tatum has been playing bad, and I still feel like it's the best in the last 32 years. Would you put anybody in the last 32 years since '92 against them?

Yeah. You think this group is definitively better than '08?

Yeah, because I think they have more size. The size thing was always an issue when they would go against the Gasals in '08 and 2012, because they always felt like they were one big guy short, and they would run out of options in the last five minutes. It was like, We're just going to have to play this five. This is what we have. You would always see Bosch or 2012, Kevin Love was out there. This time, it's like, Oh, we're playing France? Cool. We have three centers. We're fine. Even if you go back to 2000, I think Alonso was the only actual center on the team. So this year, it's like, I don't know what this team doesn't have. Do you? What would you add? They have everything you'd want, I think.

That's the thing in terms of the flexibility. And I would also say relative to the level of competition. In '08, that Spain team was really good. But otherwise, the level of international competition is not where it is right now. So the baseline for all competitive teams is higher, even though there isn't one singular standout like that Gasol's combination. Other than maybe Germany. I think Germany is probably the only club that has a case for that, that has a case for the cohesion and the style and the balance. And they don't have Team USA depth, but relative to these other international teams, they have pretty incredible depth. They're going to be a tough opponent if Team USA gets a chance to play against them. And I really hope that they do. But otherwise, you're right, the flexibility of this group is pretty incredible. And if they ever wanted to pair down a seven or eight man rotation or go to those key actual best players and best lineups when it mattered. There's just nobody who can keep up with that.

I want to talk about Embiid and LeBron, but we're going to take a quick break. So the LeBron thing has been interesting because They clearly were putting the car keys with him in the warm-up games. Then at the first two games, he was putting up stats, but I didn't feel like he was playing that well. I thought he was ball dominant. He had 12 turnovers in the first two games. It just felt like I felt like him and Steph, specifically, some of what was going on was like, This is a big Olympics for me. I have to show off. I have to prove to everybody. Then I I felt like that went away in the third game. I thought in the whole third game, in the first half of today, watching the shit he was doing, it was so high level. He's just like, I'm just going to make everybody better. I'm just going to be completely additive. I'm just going to try to set dudes up, keep the ball moving. The ball dominant stuff went away. Then, ironically, it came back in the second half. The game was already over. But watching him be the facilitator like that, which I think is what they want from him.

Then you see all the toys It was like this. We always thought, we've been following LeBron for so long. It's like 20 years with this guy. There was always like, well, he could... There was this Jordan side where if he had to score, he could. He would also have this magic side and he would hybrid it together. But the fun part for me, for him on this team is that he can just be Magic Johnson. I felt like he really leaned into it the last couple of days. There's no other player in the world, I don't think, his size that can do that. It was just fun to watch. I was like, Oh, yeah. I almost forget that he has this. Does that sound crazy to say?

No. I think he's been that guy. In some ways, he's still that guy for the Lakers at times. It's just they don't have the supporting talent.

He just has the ball all the time.

He has the ball a lot, and more in those cases than he probably should. Here, I do think he is doing some of that toggling, where if you want to extend an '08 comparison, he's somewhere between the Kobe of that team and the Jason Kidd of that team. Depending on what the moment requires. Honestly, we really haven't seen many moments where he has to be the Kobe, more that I think sometimes he gets bored and decides he wants to be the Kobe. And that's fine, too, given this level of competition. And that's something that is incredible. No other player on this team can do. Not many players in the world can do, to be totally honest with you. And so So, yeah, the passing that he presents this group is pretty unique. If you were to just run your playmaking through Derek White and Steph and Devin Booker and the other go-to ball handlers on their respective teams, the flow Joe would look entirely different. And I think in particular, the bigs would be much less involved. Having LeBron is what makes some of these bigs as impactful as they are, and it's what makes Joel's minutes so frustrating because he should be able to catch and finish relatively easily.

Sometimes he chooses not to. And to his credit, he did step out in his threes were finally hitting, could not shoot for the life of him in group play. Three of three from deep in this game, which is... That's huge. If he can do that, all of a sudden, the minutes are going to be a big net positive for Joel.

Well, he already looks like he's in slightly better shape than he was two weeks ago. He's moving better. I still think he really looks plotting. He just doesn't look in shape. I know a bunch of people have made that point. But the ball stopping part, I think Kerr and the staff made a decision. It's not going to fly. Even with the Ant, you can see he's doing it, but he's also so talented and so explosive, and especially against countries that aren't as good as America. It's almost like you have to have them out there anyway. Yeah.

And he wants to drive, too. Kevin Durant is an incredible shooter, incredible scorer, is not going to get to the basket a lot, to be honest with you. Having someone like Ant, even if he does dribble a little more than everyone else, that's a valuable thing.

It does make you think as you watch because it's this different style of basketball in some ways, and then it's completely the same as the NBA in other ways. But you watch the stuff that works. It's a more frenetic pace, which I was talking to Sruti about this yesterday with Franz. It's just a better sport for Franz, the speed of a version, where it's chaotic. There's not a lot of timeouts. The ball moves. People are just flying in the basket, and it's like that's in his wheelhouse. The way the NBA is set up, it's so much. Think about Tatum, how much Tatum and Brown just walk it up, try to figure out what happens. One guy having the ball for 10, 12 seconds, and that's what works more in the NBA or Jokić on Denver, where they would run that play. It's like, Dump it on the side. He's going to back his guy down for seven, eight seconds. In Phoebe, you just can't do it. I think they did that maybe twice with him today. And the ball really has to zip around and guys have to cut. And there's this just extra intelligence that needs to be there in this comfort with playing that way.

And some guys just don't innately have it. Don't you notice that as you're watching it?

Of course. And I think it usually affects the Americans more than most, right? Especially with some of these other international teams that have more continuity and familiarity within the groups, they usually do fine. The Americans are always a different combination. It's always a bit of a scramble. Yeah, there are some through lines, there are some stars who are going to come back, but there's some guys who are going to have to figure it out. And these are guys who are used to being in that primary creator role, who are used to having the ball on their hands. The adjustment for that is always going to be pretty profound. And it's why you see from the exhibition games to the group play to, I would say in particular, probably the next round. When USA and Serbia face off, you'll start to see I would say we've already seen it with Devin Booker in particular. He's moving so much better than he was at the start of his team USA play.

This is my favorite version of him in a couple of years. It's awesome. And he's had good stats and he's made all NBA teams. But I'm like, wow, I didn't know he could do this.

He can be a buzz saw whenever he wants to be. And yeah, he has the other stuff, too, the mid-post game, the footwork. He can get to all that for the Suns and whenever team USA would want him to. But if you can just have him harness and attacking in transition and spotting up for wide open threes, why wouldn't you do that with a hyper talented player like that? Why wouldn't you hone his skillset to the absolute best things that he can do in the same way that LeBron is honing his game to the absolute best things that he can do?

Well, you know it's interesting. This sounds corny, but you watch some of these guys, and Booker didn't really seem that happy the last two years. And he seems happy on this team. I wouldn't say KD's had the most joyous last five years. And KD's just smiling like a... He's just lighting up all over the place. These guys, they're just in the zone. Some of these dudes just love being on this team, playing the style that they're playing. You see a guy like Bam, that Windhorse thing was funny when Windhorse, which he was right. He was like, one of the three centers is probably not going to play today. Might be Bam. Then Bam played and he was really good. But it did make sense. It was like, Embiid, AD or Bam, who's going to sit? Well, probably Bam. But then you watch this team and it's like, they can't take out. Bam does too many good things.

Why would you?

Yeah, why would you? I think from an Embiid standpoint, it looked super grim. Today, 14.7 rebounds in the first half, moving better, blocked a shot. I went from thinking he wasn't going to play in the middle round, that they were going to come up with some reason to bump him, to now wondering what they're going to do. I think they at least start him. And maybe in the second half, maybe he doesn't play in the fourth quarter. But I don't see him getting another DMP, which makes me think it's probably Tatum and probably using him like they did where he comes in the second quarter for somebody for four minutes to save some face, but that's about it. That would be my guess.

That would make sense. Look, we're already seeing in this game, MB did not start the second half and didn't play the second half. Wouldn't surprise me whether you plug AD or Bam into that spot. For this game, it was Bam, but really, either option is great. And when those are the alternatives, if MB doesn't have it or isn't giving you quite what you want or isn't fitting the flow of whatever the play needs to be for that particular game, I think you have every right to do that. He's clearly When he is not on is the single most disruptive piece of Team USA.

But he had said what? Eighty % of the worst turnovers we've seen from team USA.

And there's some bad ones.

Just whipping the ball and gets guys in the first row.

The only reason these games were ever close so far is when team USA is turning the ball over a lot. And whatever the other team is, is running out the other way and getting easy buckets. If they don't do that, they're going to walk over pretty much everybody. But I agree with you that all of these guys who may be varying levels of either competitive or grumbly for their actual NBA teams, depending on what their circumstances are. I'm sure Steph is at least somewhat displeased with what has happened to the Warriors over time since they won the title. For him, even if he's poorly, he gets to play on a team like this. And you're right about Devon Booker and Kevin Durant, and these teams that had like, overwhelming playoff performances. I don't know if you saw that Kevin Durant quote a couple of weeks ago. Someone asked him, I think about him and K Adams. Ask KD if he was still happy to be in Phoenix, and his response was, I'm happy to be alive.

Wow. That's where the bar is. That's where the bar is.

It's a denial-denial. He's happy to be alive, and it seems like he's happy to be a part of this team. I think this can be a really rich and rewarding experience, even for the guys who are trying to figure it out. Joel, if nothing else, seems to relish being able to quiet all these booze that he's getting all the time. Every time he's hitting a shot, every time he's making a play, it still seems like he's having fun, even if he's not playing well.

Yeah, I was trying to think if you're in Halliburton's inner circle and you know nobody else will see the text, it's like his three best friends. All three of his best friends are like, You'd be totally doing better than Curry. He's like, Yeah, man, I know, but it's his Olympics. Because Halliburton is perfect for what this team is trying to do. He doesn't need the ball that much, and he just hits open threes, but he's gracefully stepped aside, which I think had a lot to do with the way Jalen Brown decision, too. It's weird to watch this team now and think that they wouldn't have picked Eric White over Jalen Brown because they really, really, really need Derrick White. He's been one of the big winners. Drew has been a big winner, but we already knew he was great in this format. Definitely. People were reminded that KD was KD, which is funny. Booker, we mentioned, LeBron, and then Edwards just does this crazy fun wild card, I think. Not surprising, but he's still been a winner.

Well, also, I think potentially the future face of Team USA. Yeah. And that's what Halliburton in part represents, too, is an investment in the fact that this guy is going to come back. And that's where the Derek White, Jalen Brown trade-off might hurt. Jalen Brown is a guy who four years from out, you may want to be a part of Team USA. Are you really going to bring Drew and Derek White back? I mean, I wouldn't completely rule it out. I would say, especially for Derek White more than Drew. But realistically, I think those guys get edged out in four years, and Jalen Brown could have been a core part of that team.

Well, they'll have to hash it out with Celtics owner Elon Musk when that happens. I can't wait. More worst-case scenarios.

It's going to go great for everybody.

From the summer. Lebron, by the way, I think was plus 26 in the first half of that That was pretty great.

It seems good.

I'll say one last thing about Katie. I was out on that Phoenix team. The West is so good, and it's like, All right, can you pick your four? Who do you have? The four for me was pretty easy to pick. Then it's like, Well, and then two wild cards. Then I had Phoenix seven or below. It's like, Well, what's going to be different this year? They're still not going to have rim protection. The Katie Booker thing still seems a little weird. What's different? Then you watch them together. It's like, well, all right, you had Budenthalzer. They stole Tyas Jones.

I was about to say I was waiting for the Tyas Jones drop.

Holy shit. It was ridiculous. I feel like they have to at least do forensic analysis of his bank accounts to figure out if there's any extra cash.

There's something offshore happening. I don't know where the money was moved.

From the Ishmael account in the Caribbean. But he was exactly what they needed. I'm not counting them out. On the flip side, we should turn this into Canada, Greece, I guess, or Canada, France. On the flip side, I feel so much worse about Denver than I did two months ago. They lose KCP. Murray's just looked just... I mean, he's the talking point now of the entire Olympics. Like, what happened to that dude? You go back to his playoffs versus 2023. It's 31% three-point shooting in the playoffs this last year. It's not getting to the line in the same way. No.

And you were talking about the side by side of pulling up old Jason Tatum tape and comparison it to now. If you are a Nuggets fan, do not do this with Jamal Murray. He does not move the same. He doesn't navigate the floor the same.

Everything is mechanically. Is that going to get him by people.

Absolutely not. The idea of him as a finisher around the rim, he was a guy who was challenging, maybe not prime LeBron, but still, gently post-prime LeBron at the apex, dunking over him. That was who Jamal Murray was. That seems unfathomable right now.

He was 27 in a game and 23. He seemed like he was his generation's big game guard that was just going to be in all these playoffs doing stuff. And maybe it'll come back. Maybe there's some injury we don't know about. Maybe he's a little out of shape. But Canada was playing for their life today, and they lost, and he wasn't out there. You take that piece, you take the fact that the West is better. As a giant Jokuj fan, I'm concerned. I just think, what happens? They're a weaker team, and Murray's worse, and the West is better. Why would I feel great about this season above the Nuggets? To me, they look like a clear under. And Murray will see, will this inspire something? Is this some, Hey, man, I got to look in the mirror. But you're losing minutes to Dylan Brooks when Dylan Brooks is one for nine and whipping bricks off the backboard in a must-win game. That's embarrassing.

I think if there is an under to hit on the Nuggets, it should probably hit. The lesson of last season for them, it seemed like internally, was they pushed too hard to stay in that race for the number one seed, and it ended up costing them in terms of energy. They just felt depleted. Kcp even said that he thought they probably should have lost that series to the Lakers, which, fair point, they had to come back in basically all of those games.

I heard that. I thought that was stupid. The Lakers The Lakers couldn't close in fourth quarters for two years. They were one team for the first three quarters, another team for the last quarter, and that's who they were.

But at the point where you're having to make 20 point comebacks to win, I understand that part of his point. That part of it is a bad sign. And to me, it's an omen, they will take this upcoming regular season a bit more slowly. Honestly, as if they had a choice. Without KCP, they're going to have to play younger guys. Julian Straather, guess what? You're going to have to get real rotation minutes. You're into the fire. Payton Watson, these guys are going to have to actually get minutes. And Michael Malone, against all of his instincts, is going to have to trust some of these guys and find ways to trust them and find ways to invest in them. The result of that might be that in the long game, they're a little younger and a little more athletic, and maybe some of those guys hit. In the regular season, they're just not going to win as many games. And with Phoenix as a contrast, Phoenix won 49 games last season. They just brought in, as you said, Mike Budenholzer, a great regular season coach who is going to help them win more games. And they actually have guards.

I would be very surprised, even with all of their injury concerns, if Phoenix doesn't wind up in the mid-50s. That's just where I am penciling them in at this point.

And the case against them is Durant, year 18.

Yes.

With real miles and real injury miles on him. What do you think Denver is over under his unfanned will? Just out of curiosity. Oh, my gosh.

47 wins.

Yeah. So I thought it was going to be like 48, 49. Right now, it's 51 and a half.

51 and a half?

Yeah. That's just... To me, that is- I don't think so. An absolute oversight.

In a conference, it's like 13 deep.

Yeah. So then you go Western conference odds right now. Okc, Minnesota, Dallas, Denver's fourth. Okc is the leader at three to one. Phoenix is fifth. The Lakers at 18 to one or sixth. I'll book all the Lakers action if anyone wants to make Lakers conference. That's Pelicans, Grizzlies, 21.

Where are the Grizzlies?

They're eighth, 21 to one.

Give me that over. The Grizzlies are going to win more games than the Nuggets.

I'm with you. Can I throw... I thought about this. Admittedly, I overrated international basketball and the connections of players. I was telling Cerruti yesterday, I just don't know how Orlando doesn't have Schroeder. Just go get him. He plays with the Vogners. Go get him and Banga. Just go get him.

Just become the German national team.

Yeah, just get four Germans. They all play great together. I never understood why a team teams didn't do this with Spain in the late 2000s, early 2010s. Schroeder's great with those guys. Orlando doesn't really have a point guard. But I was thinking the same thing with Denver because the out for Denver is a Michael Porter trade. I know it's summer vacation, But Picasso, he's still painting the trade machine every once in a while. But I was thinking, Porter, three years left, pretty sizable. He's in the high 30s, he's in the 40s. Bogdanovic on Atlanta, who Jokuj plays really well with, who can do a little discount Murray with Jokuj moving off the picks. He didn't have a great game today, but he knows I'd do it. Bogdanovic and DeAndre Hunter for Porter. Who says no?

Maybe both. A double no. I think it might be a double no. I think it might be a double hang-up. Really? I think if you're the Hawks, Porter's, I know he's coming off of a very healthy season, but I think in a larger sense is still an injury risk. Frankly, as more of a primary option, we haven't really seen it, and I don't know if I would really trust it. I like his role in Denver. I think that's probably what he's best suited to do. Maybe a little more creation than that, but ultimately, he needs someone like Jokić to play off of.

Yeah.

I don't know that- That's Trey Young? I don't think I feel that way about Trey Young, personally.

How about... All right, let me make the case for Atlanta. We just took Risa Shay, 6'9.

They certainly did. That's the thing that they did.

For offensive, in theory, playmaking forward. Now we get Porter Junior, 6'10, playmaking forward. Now we got little size of the forwards with their guards, and they need to make a two for one anyway. That's what I was thinking. But I don't know if that's the right move for Denver, but it's something like that where I think they're going to have to split Porter and get two guys out of it because I just don't think they're going to have enough with the way the league's gone. The league's too deep. You need seven really good spots at this point, and they don't have it.

That is the natural trajectory, but it depends on Jamal Murray being Jamal Murray. Because if your core is Jokić and Aaron Gordon, who's a really good player, but somewhat limited as a scorer in certain matchups, and this version of Jamal Murray, that's just not enough offense. You need Porter's explosion in those circumstances in ways that- Getting queezy. It's a precarious place to be.

This is bad, man. Jokić, he's important. He's like a big diamond in the safe. We got to take care of this dude. The good news is that I don't want him to be in half-ass teams that aren't very good.

Well, Denver at least passes him the ball. That's the one thing that I come to appreciate more after today.

Serbia, Australia, which was an incredibly fun game. In the second half, well, first of all, Australia made... It felt like every shot they took, I think they were 17 for 21 at one point. Reticulous. Patty Mills. He had flame shooting out of his ass. He was Patty Mills, by the way. He was Fiba God. Yeah, this is four years from that should have been an option. At some point, it was like, Hey, can you guys just let Joker handle this? What do you think? There's an idea.

Or just be involved.

Just participate. How about throwing him a couple of entry passes? Then it became clear there was one and a half guys in their team that could actually throw him an entry pass. Yes. They were lobbying entry passes to the wrong shoulder. He's yelling. Have you ever seen Jokuj yell at his own teammates? He's like, What the fuck, man? I'm watching on TV in my glasses, and I'm like, I could fucking throw this guy an entry pass at this point. But they hung around. And then in the overtime, after Mills makes this crazy shot to send it in the OT, and then it felt like Australia was going to win. And then Jokuj just took over the last two minutes. It just felt like he was- Defensive stopper, Nikola Jokić. His hands were everywhere. He's making plays, and it was just a classic, We have the best player in the court. We're not losing. What jumped out of the game for you?

I think it was... Well, look, the fact that Serbia led Australia build a 24-point lead, did not go to Jokić on any consistent basis. And at times, it seemed like a bit. It seemed like they were actively trying to not do it. I would say Vasili Mechik was maybe the greatest defender. There was a point in overtime where I thought he was sabotaging the game?

I have text the house where I was like, This motherfucker, what is he doing? I'm so mad. Because it's one thing if he wasn't an NBA player, this guy played in the NBA last season. Yeah. And you have Jokić on your team. Your job's not hard. Get the ball to Jokuj and figure out how to play off him. That's your job.

He's usually one of the best players on this Serbian team. He was not in this one, but it was a pervasive thing. All of a sudden, it was just like, it's Ongi and Dobrich time. He's going to call his own number. God forbid, you get the best player in the world, the ball on the block, or even you run a pick and roll with Jokić and actually pass it to him. And don't just take the pull up from the elbow. There were so many things that were on the table for Serbia that felt But most importantly, they just had to start actually guarding people. And it took them the better part of a half to start doing that. But I thought once they finally did crank up some of the ball pressure. Jokić, for whatever his limitations may be defensively at the NBA level, athleticism is relative. And against international competition, and specifically a team like Australia, his rim protection is a big deal. He has a big imposing presence around the rim. He's always had good hands and been good at picking his skills.

He's good at hitting the ball off the rim. He did that a couple of times. Of course.

Straight up saved a clutch layup that Patty Mills should have had by playing the FIBA rules. So his presence defensively, I thought, turned out to be a massive impact. But it's just tough for Australia. They had this thing. Patty and Josh Gitty, too, I thought, played a really good game. But as it slowed down, there entire offense became Patty Mills attacking an ISO, and it just didn't have it.

To the point that it seemed absurd. And then, of course, he made the shot to send it over time. It's like, Guys, this isn't working. Of course, it was going to happen. Let's go to plan B. One of the One of the best things about FIVA and Olympics, and especially a day like this, is you're sending text to people like, Why aren't they trying to set up Jack McBay? They should be running my bags. I didn't know who Jack McBay was a week ago.

But now you're invested.

Yeah, now I'm in. Gitty Island. Controversial island. Yeah.

Unless you're the Chicago Bulls from an office, in which case you're all in, baby.

I feel like Rizel and I, maybe there are a couple more people out there, but we were the only ones who really liked this trade for the Bulls. I'm still in on you. You really liked it. I really, genuinely liked it for the Bulls. I thought they won the trade. He's 21. There's just a lot there. I'm like, If I'm the Bulls, why not? I thought the Wizards should have got him. There's a couple of teams where it's like, What are you guys doing? Just go get this. It's not like he's 27. He's 21. He's got this huge resume already. I saw nothing in this tournament to make me change my opinion. I thought he looked... He's still missing some stuff, but he's a young player. I just like in his game. I think he's additive and he plays hard and he rebounds and he gets to the basket. He made a couple of corner threes today.

Yeah. He's honestly been hitting his threes throughout this tournament. The shorter line does him a lot of good. Needless to say, if he can actually hit NBA threes, that's a different player.

Right. I think the announcement, I forget who it was, but the announcement made that point. This is a better three-point line for him. And it's like that extra two feet sometimes can just kill somebody.

It can make a huge difference. I think where I'm a little bit apprehensive is When the game starts to go sideways, and you could feel this as Australia's lead was starting to slip away, he gets frazzled. Yeah, you're right. And his decision-making, he struggles with it. And this is classic young player shit. Everybody goes through that on some level or another. He's going to get better at some of those things. What worries me is when he tries to blow by guys, because he's not the most athletic, he picks up the ball pretty early and then just tries to make things happen. And he has great vision and he's big, so oftentimes he can. But then when he can't, it just leads to terrible turnovers. And so for a guy who's already a little sheepish about shooting, who's committing bad turnovers, and the decision making isn't great, the idea of putting the ball in his hands and running offense through him all the time, I don't love.

And if you're not doing that- You know what, Rob Mahony? You're not invited on Getty Island.

I'm honestly fine.

You stay in your country.

I don't think I want to participate in what's going on on Getty Island.

From my notes, Dela Vidova Crunch Time Minutes with three exclamation points was also in my notes.

You got to stop on Jokic. That could have been one of the biggest plays of the game, but I want to say it got off as it retonded.

It was out of what? The 2015 finals? What finals was that when he was doing stuff? It was Nine years ago? Was that still at Grantland? I don't even remember.

They had to plug IVs into him because he was running himself to exhaustion. He might still need an IV from this game, but playing much fewer minutes. It's just he's at a different point in his life.

It was really funny. Dyson Daniels, speaking of young players, it's funny that he's on this team with Exum because to me, he's just Exum 2.0. He's the evolutionary Exum. He can't shoot either. Yeah, it's like, I've already seen this.

He's been shooting a little better in fairness to him, but he doesn't get guarded. He needs to prove a lot in terms of actually finishing and attacking. Why do all these Aussie guys turn out the same way? Maybe it's a weird, Aussie rules football influence or a cross-sport thing. I'm not understanding, but they're such good open floor players.

Yeah.

And Dante Exe had the same problem. When the game slowed down, he just doesn't have a lot that he can do in a game like this. But when the game is open, he's an incredible force. I think Dyson Daniels, if he can figure out a way to be kinetic and active in some half-court setting, is going to be a really good NBA player because he can sure guard the hell out of the ball.

I like the move. Him switching teams, I think, will help him, too. Oh, yeah. That's an investment I like for Atlanta. I just wanted to see on not a very good team, just getting minutes. Serbia is playing the US. In the line right now in Fandil is USA minus 16.5..

That feels right.

Yeah, you could tell me they're going to win by 38, and you could tell me we're sweating this out. I don't think I don't think they're going to sweat it out. What are you saying? So you need to pick the 38 option?

I'd pick the 38. In particular, you got a sense of it in this game, but Serbia shooting is so streaky. When they're not hitting their open shots, they just fall apart offensively. They don't They have a lot that they can do when they're not running through Jogic and capitalizing on the things he creates. And the fact that they- You know what they have, though?

They have some really ugly post-up players. They have some guys doing... Who's that guy who did the 540? Oh, my God. He was trying to do the 540 Degrees, Mikael, jump, turn around, flip the other way, and it just like, whipped it off the backboard.

Petrushet. We got to relax Petrushet. Like, please.

No your job, Petrushet.

No your role. Honestly, too many guys on Servia's team need to know roles in a way that is a little bit concerning for me. If you're trying to project their chances, especially how are they going to beat Team USA? What would they have to slow down the Americans? Primeter defense isn't really it. You saw Patty Mills and Josh Getty light them up. The size is a real thing. And in particular, Jokić does really well against AD, does really well against Bam historically. Embiid can be a bit of more of a give or take matchup. And maybe that's his most important matchup in this entire bracket is what can Embiid do on ball against Jokić, and can he give you good minutes there. That could be a real thing.

It felt like they rope a dope a little bit against America when they played them. Because we know it's going to happen when we get to the meta round.

Who is the dope who got roped?

Well, I think there's another gear to go with Joguj. Oh, sure. There's a scenario where he just doesn't come out of the game because as soon as he comes out of the game. They were doing it today because Australia kept putting him in pick and rolls, and I felt like Australia's game plan was to try to wear him down, which I think would be a possibility for America. But on the other hand, if they're going like, Oh, we're going to run centers at him and try to post him up. I actually think he's good with that. What he doesn't want to do is guard Devon Booker 25 feet away. I think that's a way worse outcome. Or Kevin Durant. Yeah, a way worse outcome. But I do feel like there's another gear with them. I just didn't feel like... It seemed like one of those... The previous game was one of those, We don't want to show you everything, games by them. Not that it's going to because America is way better than them. But I'm just never counting out Jokić. Nor should you. One of the fun things about today was you got to see just three great players in super adverse situations just coming out of the TV in these cool ways.

Sga was the other one. We'll talk about that game later. But Yannis, there was a stretch in that in that fourth quarter. He was just guarding all five guys for two minutes. He was just like, Oh, my God, this is one of the most amazing players in the last 25 years. And he had everyone on his team let him down. Oh, yeah. I was so mad at every Greek guy. It got to the point where you're like, Fuck, I wish Thanasis. I wish they had Thanasis for this. He might have helped.

Well, they have him as a support staff. He's still there riling guys up. Achilles injury be damned. But yeah, speaking of teams that cannot get their best player of the ball, nick Kalathis did it a couple of times with little lops for Yannis.

I forgot how disappointing he was as an NBA player. It's like, Oh, yeah. I was really hoping for better things for him. I was let down by you 15 years ago. But yeah, they just don't have that second thing. Yannis, what are you going to do? You're double teaming them, you're triple teaming them. But that game was tied at the half.

I know. Another one where Greece looked really good when the game was open, and as much as it slowed down, they just couldn't get in scoring position at all. Their offense completely dried up. But you're right that this is what's fun about Olympic basketball, is like superstars in a loaded Team USA of context that we've never seen them before or on an international team that really doesn't have the talent to be competitive at all, but they have Junkich, or they have Janis. Or in Canada's case, they should have all the talent to compete. But Shay is really the only guy who showed up on that team today.

Yeah, let's talk. I want to talk about Germany's team, and then we'll talk about that other game that we didn't talk about. We'll take one more break. So I've been watching a lot of basketball just because I I love basketball, and I'll usually watch most versions of it. I will not watch the three-on-three. I stayed away completely of three-on-three Olympics.

You're allergic to Jimmer for dead or Haley Baylyf. Who is it that you're staying away from?

Who is that sport for? Why did we do this? I'm watching all the best Olympians possible at all these other sports, and then I don't know what was going on there.

I don't know if you saw, too, it's a different ball that they're playing with for three on three.

Who wanted this? Why didn't they ask people like us? We really didn't give them feedback because you watch that and then you watch Cole Decker breaking the Olympic record and coming back from fifth place in the last half of the... It was like a sports movie. Then it's like, I'm going to watch this three on three gimmick. But I've watched a lot of Germany, and I just really like how they play. I really enjoy their team. When it was 36, 36, I was bummed out because... Granted, I had them in a parley, but I was like, Oh, man, I don't want to lose guys yet. I like watching Germany. I like the Vogners. I like the Banger resurgence. Oh, my gosh.

She's been incredible.

I like seeing Thais, who I've never... Thais for some reason, NBA Thais versus Fiba Thais, or two different people. And then just Schroeder, just classic the classic guy who's just way better in this version of basketball for reasons that are unclear.

Has anyone cracked the code on that? No.

Carlos Arroyo was like this.

Sure. But this is a consistency and a level of performance that just defies anything that I can explain. I like Dennis Schroeder as an NBA player, fine. But he's Steve Nash on the international state. He's Chris Paul. But that's the thing. This is ridiculous.

But does it make you think, are we doing Dennis Schroeder wrong? Should we be letting him cook? Is he one of those actors who's just on the wrong TV shows? And it's like, this guy's actually an Oscar winner, and we don't realize it. I don't know what to make of it.

I don't either. And to your point about, can you get him to Orlando or somewhere like that? I don't know that he should be cooking in that context. It's one thing if this is your team, but if your team has Palo Banquero on it, that guy should probably be cooking.

Or maybe he has the ball too much, Palo. That was certainly the... No, I'm saying when they got to that Cleveland, especially game seven, it was like Palo or Buss. I think he needs somebody else.

He does need a ball handler. Does he need NBA Dennis Schroeder? I would argue no. But Germany clearly needs Fiva Dennis Schroeder.

How do we get Dennis Schroeder be Faba Dennis Schroeder all the time. Because so here's the thing- Hypnosis?

What do you think? What do we do?

Well, I watched him on the Celtics that year, and we were all like, Eh. He was on the Lakers, and everyone was like, Eh. But he did have that great OKC year. Yeah. Where I think I might have even voted him for sixth main of the year, but I thought he was awesome that year. It seemed like, at the very least, he's this rich man's version of what a sixth man is, where he can come in and get heat checky, but he can also run the team and be out there in crunch time and guard bigger guards. I still feel like there's a place for him on a good team. I just don't know what the team is.

There has to be a place.

Because he's in Brooklyn now. He's in Brooklyn purgatory. We can't have that. He's got to be on at least some contender.

The calibration with him is tough. I think some of it is reputation, where as he was coming up, he was constantly pushing for more and more responsibility and a bigger and bigger role in a way that was difficult to manage, I think in in Atlanta. As he's evolved as a player and as a veteran, he's found some really nice roles for himself. I thought he did well for the Lakers, too. I thought he was exactly what that team needed in some respects. How can we get him into a comfortable spot where he is both restrained but also has this pop to him, this confidence to him? It's a hard thing to manage to do all of that at once. I think that's part of the reason why he hasn't been as effective in the NBA.

Well, the funny thing is he was like a curry stopper. He did an unbelievable job against Curry. In Well, but I mean, if you're talking about all guards, who's done the best against Curry the last five years is probably Schroeder. There was that one playoff series where I felt like he really bothered him. I was surprised the Lakers didn't keep him. We have to bring in the President of Team Germany, Steve Cerruti, and get his take on Dennis Schroeder and whether he'd want him in Orlando. Cerruti is also an Orlando fan. I can't believe you've basically filed for dual citizenship like Joel Embiid. I don't know. How does that work? Do you just get to go to Germany now and just live there? How does it go?

Yeah. Listen, I'd love to go there. Never been. Seems like an awesome place. But it's going to be awkward if the final is Germany-USA because I- What do you do? I'm not trying to be anti-patriotic, but I don't really care if this US team wins or not. I am invested in Franz Wagner, and I think I'd be happier if Germany won than I would if the US won. So you can call me a bad American, but I think I'm just a good Orlando Magic fan.

You know what? If the heart wants what the heart wants, Rob Mahony, you just recap presumed innocent. Sometimes, Carol and Palimps, the heart wants what the heart wants. You know you shouldn't go there, but sometimes you can't resist.

The Part one's Andy Ope's, apparently. It's tough times. But I respect your decisions, even if it is anti-American.

Well, I think with Cerruti, the Franz game 7, coupled with the lavish extension. Let's be honest, lavish. Extension that they didn't need to do yet.

It's fine.

I didn't like it. Well, I got an announcement.

Thank you, Rob. Thank you.

I got an announcement. Cerruti knows this already. I'm back in on the extension. I recant my statements.

What was the time lapse on that? Was that a month ago?

No, it was three Germany games where I'm like, You know what? I love Franz Wagner. I'm in. Wait, how old is he? Like 22?

Yeah, but the thing with Franz is you just see all these elements of his game where you go... So he has the turnaround, right? He does the spin move in traffic. He had the two stupid dunks on France, one of them, the switch hand against Wemby. I said this two years ago, and people laughed, whatever. He doesn't have that many weaknesses overall. I'm not saying he's elite at everything, but he's pretty good at just about everything. The shooting, the three-point shooting, specifically, just dipped. If that's the only thing, if he could just be like, All right, he's going to be awesome because he's a great team player. I think the Fiba thing, you're right, the ball moves a lot more. He's not an ISO type player. It's like, Hey, give me the ball and let me cook. He works within the system. I think that's probably why it works better. I'm not as excited about the possibility of Dennis Schroeder trading for Dennis Schroeder midseason because I've watched Dennis Schroeder for his entire career. That's clearly not the player you're getting when it comes to NBA basketball. But yeah, man, the Franz thing, make him happy.

He's clearly good. Let him be comfortable. That's why I didn't have any issue with the extension. And I'm glad that you're on that side now.

Yeah. Honestly, he projects as one of those stars who can be a B or B plus across the board. And those are hard players to understand, especially when they're younger, if they don't have that takeover skillset. But you watch him in these games, and especially the way he can use his footwork and his length against some of these teams. He does a lot of the same things in the NBA to varying effect, depending on the opponent. Ideally, you would want him to shoot a little better, but all the tools are here. He's going to be a really good pro for a really long time. The ceiling is just not quite at superstar level. And I'm fine paying him that extension money if I'm Orlando, even knowing that that's the Well, we were in this spot with Jalen Brown, where he clearly was a really good talent that you'd want to keep.

And they got a better deal on the Jalen contract than I think the Frons thing. But the argument was like, this guy's got a lot of good stuff already. Like with Jalen, it was like, he's competitive, he's durable, he's tough, he can guard different positions. Maybe he's not ever going to be a second-team All-MBA guy, but he's a really good asset. Then Jalen exceeded all those expectations. Turned out to be an All-MBA guy. He just kept working on a job, and he became one of the best 15 guys in the league. So I think that's part of the case for Franz. The thing I love about him, and it really comes out in Fiba, is he's so fucking competitive.

He's a motherfucker.

I mean, he's a 10 out of 10 of like, I just dunked on someone, and then I ran back to mid-court, and I'm so excited. I'm just going to start pounding the court. Which is weird because his brother might be even more competitive.

Oh, yeah. Mo is a psycho.

You don't want to go full Mo. That's the thing.

Well, the question for me is, how do you build around that competitiveness and that spirit? Team building, we've had all these different... You even think about how they built Team USA, and they're like, We want specific type of guys that play a certain way in the ball. I wonder with Orlando, maybe they should just lean into it because we saw this happen in hockey, the Florida Panthers who just won the Cup. They just went out and got a bunch of pricks. They became the team that was like, Oh, man, I hate the Panthers. I hate this guy. I hate this guy. That was part of their identity. Maybe, Sareuti, maybe that's what you need. You need to go Badboy Pistons a little bit.

But the thing is, they're a tough team to play, but they're not bad guys. They don't have a lot of guys. How do you hate Jalen Sugs? How do you hate Franz Wagner? I get why you hate Mo.

Mo was a tough- You're not evil. It's non-evil provocateurs.

Yeah, you're just like, damn, we got to play those guys tomorrow.

Right. That's the team. They're so annoying. Yeah, I think you're not far away from that.

We're dangerously close to you suggesting instead of a no assholes policy, an assholes only policy.

Competitive asshole. Does Anthony Black have it in him?

Well, I was saying I wanted him to play more last year, including in the playoffs. Give him the Gary Harris minutes. You were buried down in Gary. Gary, I still think he was good defensively, but he couldn't hit a shot. But hey, Anthony Black can give you great defense and not hit... Although Anthony Black actually wasn't terrible from three at last year. I don't know that he's another nice guy, though. I don't think there's the Russell Westbrook thing where there's an edge. They have an edge, but it's not a mean edge. It's more of like, I'm just pissed off competitive edge. Yeah. That's why I thought... That's why watching that team last year, they're just so likable because they're all young and they love... Even Cole Anthony, who's not like... I don't know if he's defensively that great, but he's a likable guy in the team. He can go off for a quarter. They have a lot of guys like that.

He's got that edge, too. Yeah, I think, well, first plan has to be you got to get Bonga. You just got to get him. You got to get him. What else does the guy have to do? He's just banging huge shots game after game. Got to bring him in and then maybe start eyeing Schroeder and figure out maybe December range. Figure out if you could steal him. Maybe it's a buyout from Brooklyn.

Yeah, because you're right. It's a shame that he's there. But I do love, too, that the people now now watching Franz because I feel like people are watching Franz more sometimes now in the Olympics than even during the NBA season. Without a doubt. Because it's always like, Oh, yeah, Franz, he's not that athletic, but he's actually super athletic. He's insanely athletic. It's funny to watch people in real-time realize, Oh, he's a sick athlete.

To recap, I'm backing on the Franz extension, and Cerruti is ruined for Germany over the USA. Those are the two things we've learned.

It's a tough stance to I don't blame you, man.

If it was a case of a young Celtics team that had him win in forever and one of our best guys and his brother were playing on another country, and it was great for my team long term if they won, I don't know how I would root against that. The US has won 88 medals already. Exactly.

If Paulo was on the team, maybe I'd feel differently, although he probably wouldn't be playing. I don't know. I just don't care as much as the US wins or not.

I All right. Thanks, Sourudi. We'll see. Thanks, guys. All right, back to Germany and France. We did not talk about the France game, Mahony. Germany is minus four and a half over France. I watched France. I thought France was going to lose today. They were a fucking mess for weeks with no signs of hope.

Including against Germany, we should note.

Yeah, they just looked awful. It was just What is this team? They had a couple of guys I liked, but they did some dramatic changes today. Now, Gobert, finger injury. I have some questions.

Why didn't that come out? I think a lot of us do.

Before the game, I'm not calling anyone a liar. It just was like, Hmm.

His own coach called him a liar. Rudy Gobert said he had surgery on his finger yesterday, and his coach corrected him and said, Actually, no. He He had an MRI. He got some treatment. Also, he said he wanted to play smaller in this game anyway, which is ultimately what we saw. Taking Gobert out of the starting lineup, replacing him with, Look, I think we got to get your thoughts first and foremost on Olympic X-Factor, Gershon Yabou Yabusele. How are you feeling about this emergence?

Listen, another feather in Danny Angel's cap. Some people were questioning that pick in 2016, including myself, and now it's he's been vindicated yet again. The master.

Someday this will be the line of his obituary, the guy who believed in Gershon Yabusele.

I texted Chris Ryan in the Wayne Jenkins voice. God damn, Yabuseli. I didn't realize you turned into Charles Barkley. First of all, He's in shape.

Looks great.

He was fat on the Celtics. He just could never get in shape. He was a guy that they really liked, that they thought could be this giant X-Factor, and a discount Barkley, potentially. He just was never in shape, and they gave up on him. He couldn't shoot threes. Now he's refashioned himself as he's in shape, he can shoot threes, and he's got a really good game. I thought, should we give France the coach? Should we give him shit for maybe taking, what, a month to realize Gobert and Wemby couldn't play together? I could have told him that three weeks ago.

How could you not try it? You got to try it.

They couldn't play together.

They couldn't play together.

But we get to this round and he's like, You know what? These guys can't play together. And guess what? Everyone's here to see Wemby. So, Rudy, you lose. And that was it. But I thought that team... This guy they have from the Knicks, Lesore, who is awesome in this game. And I'm watching and I'm going, Man, is this guy... Who has his NBA rights? This is the most Tom Thibodeau player I've ever seen in my life. And I look it up and it's like, the New York Knicks have Lesore's rights dating back to some trade from I don't know how many years ago. That guy could play for the Knicks?

Oh, yeah. If Taj Gibson can play NBA Minutes, Mateus Lesore can play NBA Minutes.

Yeah. So Lesore?

Unstoppable in this game.

Unstoppable. Lesore and Yatt Masele together, it was like they were like fucking the Bruce Brothers. And I thought Wemby did not have a good game. He did some good stuff on the defensive end, but offensively, it was just bad.

Yeah, the lowest scoring game of the entire tournament so far.

Fournier, a couple of big shots, but for the most part, they didn't even start him. But But it was those two guys that won the game for them. And then what was the other guy? Cordonnard?

Cordonnay. Isiah Cordonnay. You were so close.

You knew I was going to mess it up. You're on that one, Kyle. I was on fire for a second there. Cordonnay. But he was good in the last couple of games. He was one of those guys. He would come in and be like, Why don't they play that guy? But I thought they legitimately won the game and played really well. I was shocked by the Murray piece. I was shocked by how bad Dylan Brooks was and that they just kept him in. Horrendous. I was shocked that I said the words at some point, They really miss Zack Eady, a guy who hasn't played an NBA game yet? Yeah. I felt like they genuinely missed them. They don't have any centers.

They were so desperate They were just rolling Ken Birch out there, hoping that it would make up for some of the rebounding, some of the effort. And look, Jamal Murray does deserve criticism. He played terribly, did not do the thing he was brought there to do, which is be a secondary scorer along with Shay, could not deliver. I also would point the finger at Dylan Brooks and Lou Dore and Andrew Nemhardt, all the guys who were supposed to bring Edge to Team Canada. They lost the energy game. They lost to Courtney on those grounds, to Lesore on those grounds, to Yabusale. They were getting bodied inside. If those guys can't play bigger than they are, Team Canada's whole formula falls apart, and they didn't even get close.

Well, I don't want to make excuses for them, but I'm about to. I had a couple of friends that were at the game. The homecourt advantage was legit and loud and impactful, and it was impactful immediately. It really lifted the France guys. I think from a Canadian standpoint, you played together, but you haven't played 100 games together. You haven't played 50 games together. You're still a little bit thrown together. You've had some practices, you've had some warm-up games, you've been in the Olympics. You haven't been in that. It's the difference of... We We'll see in the playoff sometimes where it's like, Oh, what a nice story. And they'll get to a game seven and you'll see a young team on the road and they just like, deer in the headlights. I thought there were some deer in the headlights stuff with them, which is surprising because a lot of those guys have been in big games. But when you start losing the 50-50 balls and bricking threes. I thought the crowd really affected them. I was shocked because they were... France was 8-point underdogs, and at no point was like... House loved France. House was like, I'm not sold on Canada, home court, blah, blah, blah.

But I was like, I don't see it. I watch all these France games. They suck. I don't care how good the crowd is, but the crowd lifted them.

The crowd is a huge deal. I think the counterpoint to that is I do think the crowd effect is real. It sounded loud as hell. It sounded like an incredible atmosphere. Separate from that, to your point about Canada getting affected and letting themselves get rattled, inexplicable letdowns are a way of life for Canada basketball. This is what they do is they roll into these tournaments with lots and lots of talent, and it never quite matches up to what it should be. There's a reason why, even though they finally got to Bronze in FIBA last year, other than that, they haven't had a medal in an Olympics since 1936, despite the incredible influx of talent, especially post-Vince Carter. It's been a renaissance. It's been an incredible surge within the country, and they just can't deliver. It's because it never quite comes together the way it should. They don't have the bigs, which is a huge issue. Dwight Powell cannot be your starting center against this level of competition.

What happened with Zack Eady? Why didn't he play? We never got a good answer on that.

He is hurt right now. Is that what it was? Maybe it's that. Maybe it's just trying to get ready for the NBA season. I don't know the exact reasoning behind that.

Well, the other one who didn't play. There were two German guys last year, Maxi Kliba. I guess he didn't play in the warm-up tournament. And Germany got pissed. They were like, You're not going to play in the team. And Schroeder went at them. And there was a Schroeder-Maxi Kliba beef. That was weird. The other guy they didn't play was Hartenstein. It didn't seem like a big deal last year. It was like, Oh, my God. Isiah Hartenstein is not going to play for team Germany. Then a year later, it's like, Isiah Hartenstein is getting $89 million from Oklahoma City, and it's this improbable playoff for us.

Meanwhile, Mo Wagner almost fouled out of this game on offensive fouls alone in 15 minutes.

I would have bended my rule if you had to play with us last year. He's right there. I I don't know the story behind it, but if you put Hartenstein on that team, that's a real threat for the US now. Yeah.

I mean, they already are a real threat.

They are, but I'm saying now I can see a path for something to happen. It feels like they're a big guy short to me.

Yeah. For Canada, I think they are a big guy short, too. At least one, maybe multiple.

Probably one and a half. Yeah.

I mean, they have some decent players. It's just not quite the balance that they need. But there's something fundamental happening there that they to sort out. And it's weird because the pecking order should be clear in some ways. Like, Shay did do his job, and he showed up and created and played and scored well. Nothing else was really working. I don't have a good explanation for that, given the level of talent involved.

Yeah, especially he's played with Dorep for the last few years.

A lot of these guys have played together for a long time.

Dylan Birks is a guy that makes sense to be a Shade teammate. I thought the reps were atrocious. This isn't the first time France. I get it. We're in France. They're going to get some calls. The Japan game was an absolute atrocity.

That was bad.

It was an all-time atrocity. I still don't know how Rui Hatchmore found out of that game. That was super fishy. Then the four-point play was egregious and it was awful. Agreed. They should have lost to Japan. If they had lost to Japan, they're not in the tournament. The stuff today, France probably wins anyway. It was one of those days. It was one of those days Fournay is hitting 40 footers with one second left in the shot clock and just crazy shit's happening. But SGA was getting mauled. They were like, Fuck it. They're either going to call it or not call it. There's a lot of contacts. At one point, they had a 25 to 8 free throw advantage. But the play that shocked me was Fournier, just an easy charge call, and they counted the basket?

Yeah.

Has that happened? Have you ever seen that happen before?

I don't think I have. Honestly, I don't hate it as far as a charge where you count the Basket, but it's also an offensive foul. I like that as a result. I wouldn't mind that if that were more widespread rule and policy in other weeks. But yeah, I can't say I've ever seen it before.

Another thing to review, maybe?

What? The list is short.

Can we add another five-minute review?

You know what? Let's do an automatically triggered review. You don't even have to challenge. Let's just tack it on.

You know my theory, no more block charge reviews ever. Just take them out. Not eligible.

We'll just take out the charge, frankly.

But just not eligible. Like, ref calls, it's a judgment call, we move on. And we never have to say it reviewed from different angles. The SGA, the Batum was really important in this game, and I wanted to mention him. It's the type of guy you're thinking like, okay, see, he's basically the favorite in the West. Basically, they are the favorite in the West. They're positioned the best to be the best regular season team in the West, at least. Denver falling back feels like that opens the door a little for them even more. They have to win four straight playoff rounds. It's like, well, how are they going to do that if they're SGA-centric? Well, one of the teams in those four rounds is going to have a guy like Batum. It was interesting to watch him struggle, at least a little bit with them. Maybe that's a possible game plan for him, putting a 6, 7, 6, 8 guy in him, some size. I guess Dallas was throwing what they were putting a little X on them. Who's the other guy they were putting on in that? What's his face?

They did some cross-matching with P.

J. Washington. They used their swings on him, but I guess that would be the the recipe.

I would say the recipe is in part, nick Batum. And certainly the ball pressure, full court, that stuff matters and wears you down a little bit as you go. It's also having Victor Webanyama on the back line for someone who... Shay is one of the best at getting to the basket in the world, and all of a sudden that guy is lurking behind everything. That's a pretty big deal.

Are you disappointed by how Wemby's played, by the way?

I wouldn't say so overall.

Are you in the middle? Because I'm in the middle. I'm not disappointed. I'm not excited. I'm just, I don't know how I feel.

Offensive Defensively, it hasn't been an ascendant run for him. It's been a lot of what we have already seen, which is sometimes he settles, sometimes he gets pushed off his spot, sometimes the passes to him aren't quite as crisp as you would like and put him in awkward positions. In this game, honestly, I thought it would have looked better if the three was falling, and it just wasn't. So that's going to be a reality that he's going to have to learn how to work around. But defensively, he does wild shit that no one has any business doing, taking outlet passes out of the air that Canada is trying to throw or picking making guards in the backcourt. And there were those plays where he would turn the ball over or he would miss on an awkward shot and just immediately get the ball back in a way that bigs just don't do that. And so those things are really special plays. Frankly, what he was able to do defensively Basically, Rudy Gobert can't do all of that in a game like this. Especially after the surgery. We'll see what's going on with Rudy Gobert's hand.

But it is so funny as we're talking about Dennis Schroeder and Fee or Olympic fit, and the fact that the circumstances change just slightly and all of a sudden, everything works. I agree with you that Wemby and Gobert should not work offensively, and it did not work offensively. It also should have been better defensively than it was. And yet, I thought this was France's best defensive game, and it was by taking the defensive player of the year off the floor. And Evan Fournier, in between these games, was actually talking about that, about like, this isn't the '90s anymore, to paraphrase him. The best defense oftentimes is having a good offense and a competent offense, which, to be fair, of course, Evan Fournier would say that. But he was also right. And them going smaller, I thought, made them so much better defensively.

Agree. I want to talk about Gobert. Let's take one more quick break. We've got a new segment brought to you by our friends at Yahoo! Fantasy Football, and it's all about winning. Why do we play fantasy football? Play for fun. We play to make fun of our friends and trash talk and send Long text and protest trades. But we also play to win. That's what we do with Yahoo! Fantasy football. You can win in your league and someone will win $1 million. You heard me. I love Yahoo! Fantasy football. It's easy to use. It's easy to set up, lets you focus on the game. Yahoo! Fantasy football. It's bringing us this segment to help you win your league. To kick off our Yahoo! Play to win segment, let's talk drafting. I'm going to be doing a lot of this on the podcast over the next couple of weeks. It made me think, though, what was my greatest fantasy football achievement? I had to go back to 2007, the last time I win the league that I'm in with Sal, where we get to kick somebody out. Just everything fell into place. I still think about it fondly.

It's like having a great birthday dinner or a great weekend with your buddies or a great anniversary weekend with your wife or your girlfriend, whatever, where you're just like, the one time everything fell into place. It was just awesome. I I had this team. It was, I think, Adrian Peterson's first or second year. I had Larry Fitzgerald. I had Wes Walker, the first year he goes on the '07 Pats, and he lights it up. I had the Pats defense. I had Carson Palmer and Tony Romo. I just everything fell into place. Then on top of it, LaDanie Tomlinson with the first pick, which was, he's the running back goat of fantasy. That was it. Now I think back to '07, I'm just trying to chase that feeling with fantasy. You could put draft tips to use not just from Yahoo, but from our Ringer fantasy football guys. You can create or join a Yahoo fantasy football league right now if you wanted to, literally right now, at yahoo Sports. Com/simmons. Remember, someone will win $1 million. All you have to do is play in a private Yahoo fantasy league. Enter the sweepstakes by September fifth and enter now at yahooSports.

Com/simmons. No purchase necessary. Open in all 50 US states or DC for ages 18 plus. And September fifth, 2024. See official rules at yahoo-sports. Com/simmons. All right, so you mentioned the Gobert piece of this, which was pretty predictable because it was obvious that they were going to have to pick one of them.

You think Rudy Gobert playing three minutes and then having maybe a surgery, but maybe not a surgery is predictable?

None of that was predictable. But that he would be the loser if they decided, we can only play one of these guys.

One of these guys is the future of basketball in your country, and the other one is Rudy Gobert.

One of the things I thought they would do is at least play Wemby maybe 26 minutes and play Gobert the other 14. As it was happening, I'm like, Oh, okay. I see what they're doing. But then Wemby, I forget if he got foul trouble or something happened, he came out and they didn't put Gobert in.

Yeah, it's Lesore time.

I was like, Whoa, this coach is now thinking, Lesore and Yaba Seli, I have a better option to just win this game than with the defensive player of the year. I think it might be time for me to flip flop on the Gobert trade yet again. I don't know what my career flip flop is.

You're very flexible today. Did you do yoga this morning?

What's going on? Yeah, maybe it's the summer. I'm in a better mood. But I went from doing podcast segments about how I thought Minnesota had a chance to be one of the best defenses of all time in the Denver series to now wondering if the Gobertrade was a mistake. So I'm back, baby. The world makes sense again.

The Gobertrade was a mistake because Gobert is not Victor Webanaula. That's the problem.

Yeah, I'm still workshopping it, but now I'm on the flip flop, and I'm sure I'll flip flop back the other way when we get to October. But right now I'm in the, Oh, my God, the Gobertrade Can't believe it happened. Wemby offensively reminded me a little of first two months San Antonio Wemby. You know what I mean? He has him figure out how to get near the basket and do Wemby Spider-Man it enough. But defensively, like that one time when he... R. J. Barrett stole it from him, and then he did the Spider-Man thing and grabbed the ball back.

Nuts.

I've never seen that before in 50 years of watching basketball.

If I can pause it a comparison to those first two months with the Spurs and team France. Both have a similar problem. No one on the team can dribble the ball. If you're big, that creates some issues. It was honestly shocking that it took Canada until there were five minutes left in this game to realize none of these guys can handle. Maybe we should pick them up full court and pressure them.

Were the other games, did they know they were televised? I don't know.

I don't know what...

Because I had Canada as the last piece of my parlay, so I was rooting for Canada. I didn't really care. But I was like, they don't have anyone who can dribble on their team. No one. It was like Canada had no clue. I thought their whole plan with the guards was going to be almost like, who is that when Indiana played Milwaukee in the playoffs? They were just like, We're picking everyone up full court. We're going, You We got to go 94 feet against us. We're going to make it super uncomfortable. They did the opposite.

It was so strange. You're just going to let Frank Nilekina walk the ball at the floor? Why would you have Lou Dore and Dylan Brooks on your team? Why are you doing this?

And depth off the bench. It was awful. I think their Canada coach is going to be the Brooklyn coach. Yeah. So good luck there, Jordi Fernandez. Okay, so Germany, France, Serbia, USA. It It's felt like USA, Germany to me for two, three weeks. The home court advantage France had today has me wavering on that a little bit. But I would still, at gunpoint, probably lean toward Germany. But did today change anything? Because I think you and I were aligned on it's Germany and US, they're two best teams.

Canada seemed like a realistic spoiler until we saw them in a game like this. Clearly, they weren't up to the challenge. I still feel confident about Germany because they almost don't need to play super well. They just wear you down, and they're steady. They're more steady than they are dominant. And against a team like France, where the offense is going to come and go a little bit. And honestly, even in this game, if Courtney wasn't hitting from three the way he was hitting and gave them such an early boost with his energy and his shooting. Maybe the whole game feels different. And those kinds of things can swing between opponents. And certainly, when you're against an opponent like Germany, they're going to grind you down. They do have great depth. They do execute really really, really well. I just think that's going to overwhelm France on a certain level. And Wemby is going to do some incredible shit, and they're going to have their moments. But even this slightly tweaked version of France's lineup, I don't think is quite up to what Germany presents.

Yeah, because Germany is going to, from a competitive physical standpoint, will be able to handle the Bruce brothers.

Yeah. They do a pretty good size. Certainly better size than Canada does.

The Bruce brothers? I'm trying to think of some French.

Oh, boy.

I'm trying to think of some French angle on that. With Serbia and the US, I think you're probably right. There's a piece of me that wonders what happens if Jokuj is just like, Fuck these guys, and just goes right at them. But they were so stupid with how they handled him today that I don't know if they'll have the coaching intelligence to be like, We've got to survive these first 10 minutes and feed Jokuj as much as possible. In Beat versus Jokuj, is there any piece of that that excites you about that game? Of course. Why would it not? No, but I'm saying for big picture because it's this little bit of a rivalry that's not really a rivalry. And Embiid's ducked a couple of the Denver games, and it's always like Embiid likes when the deck is stacked on his side when he's going to get to Jokuj. Basically, now he has the best team possible. And I do wonder, I never know with the NBA, but there's always, especially when it gets American versus I do wonder if the American teams could be like, Let's try to lay it to Jokuj a little bit here.

He's one of the three MVPs. He won the title a couple of years ago.

You think they're going to coo-coach him, you think?

Well, we love Embiid because it really does seem like everybody in this team loves each other. I do wonder in that first quarter, they can be like, Let's really try to work Jokuj with Embiid here and build that rivalry up. I'm just throwing it out there.

I do think they'll give him his chances. This is the Embiid matchup. This is the This is why you have him on the team. This is why he's on the team. If you're not going to give him some run here and give him some opportunities, why did you bring him?

A couple more quick things for you. Would the Olympics have been more fun if Embiid played for Cameroon with Siakam and they qualified? It was just Embiid Reid, Siakam, and a bunch of Cameroon guys, and they're just hanging tough.

Well, if they did qualify, wouldn't that mean they qualified over South Sudan? One of the best stories of the Olympics.

Yeah, that was more fun. Fair. Why is Oscar Schmidt not immediately mentioned as the best Olympics basketball player ever. When people do, they're like, KD, he's the best Olympics player ever. It's like, only one guy ever scored over a thousand points.

Yeah.

He averaged 28.8 points in his career.

Yeah.

He put up 46 against 1988 Soviets.

All true.

42.3 points a game in the '88 tournament? Yes. I don't know. High bar to pass.

Do you think Oscar Schmidt is a better basketball player than Kevin Durant?

He's not. He's not even close.

Then what are we talking We're just talking about the Olympics.

Just shout out to Oscar. Next topic. When does the first... Anthony Edwards really loves Bam out of bio and Eric Spolstra. He loved his experience. With them. Don't be surprised. Story drop.

I feel like we're already seeing- Am I dropping it right now? You might be dropping it now. I feel like I've heard more mumbling about the opposite, which is- Bam going to Minnesota? Well, not Bam, specifically, but like, man, Ant and Katie seem to get along really well. His favorite player, someone he's idolized and looks up to, wouldn't that be interesting if those two were to play together somewhere that's not Phoenix, in theory, luring Kevin Durant in Minnesota? I think That's the more likely outcome.

Oh, I like that one. Good. I'm glad I brought that up. Do you think Mark and then saw Steph Curry play in the Olympics and was like, I'm actually doing the long term extension on August seventh, so you can't trade before you. I'm good.

Extremely I'm worried about an all time great player.

Is SGA this much better than Jamal Murray? Or is this just a terrible summer for Jamal Murray?

Both. Okay. Yeah. I'm really worried about Jamal. I am, too. There have always been whispers about work habits, stuff with him. Obviously, there's long-term injury concerns, and he has a habit of picking stuff up and being out for long stretches. That's always a big deal. That combination is not great. And the fact that this is what he looks like, even if he is a little dinged up, it's a little concerning.

Who was your favorite failed lottery pick, first-round pick, or international guy you had high hopes for that you saw in this tournament in a reunion standpoint? You were like, Oh, that guy.

I mean, Bruno Kovolklo dropping 30 today? I didn't even realize it was happening.

He was mine. I got to say, though, I was upset Kylian Hayes wasn't involved in any way because I felt like we're all having a party here for the fail battery pics.

There's a reason he wasn't involved. Where's killing his?

And where's Poka Shefsky? Where's Poka? Why couldn't we have gotten him in there? All right, so we're both picking US, Germany. All right, before we go, you did Presumed Innocent. If you haven't watched Presumed Innocent yet. Just stop listening to this. See you on Thursday. I'll be back. You did Presumed Innocent with Joanna. Yes. On the Prestige pod. You did it not having read the book.

Or seeing the movie.

Or seeing the movie. You did it. You were like, La, la, la, putting your fingers in.

Honestly, it worked very well.

I went on the second and last episode with you and Joanne, and you still hadn't seen it. I was so dying to be like, Do you think it'll be like the book? But we didn't want to spoil it for you. You talked about it on the pod, but just for this pod. Did you like the ending? Did you like the twist? Then what did you think of the movie version of the same twist?

The movie version, I do like. I think it's executed a little better. I mean, it's very of its time. It's very like, look at this crazy woman because women are crazy. The gender politics of the movie are not ideal. But I think as a narrative, it works better. The show, putting a twist on a twist.

Double twist.

I get what they're doing. I get why they wanted to try that. I thought it was ridiculous. I don't think there's any narrative foundation for it being the daughter in the end. There is not enough groundwork laid, and so then it just feels cheap.

So I agree. They didn't set it up at all. No.

A couple of throwaway lines at best, I would say.

Not set up at all. It was just ridiculous and ludicrous. What really surprised me is it seemed like the general feedback and even feedback of people in my life were like, Really liked it. Good season finale.

I've heard this a lot, too.

The approval rating was B plus, maybe even A minus. I was like, Are you fucking kidding me? It's the daughter? They didn't hint this at all. We had no... I barely even knew who the daughter was.

It was so bad that Joe and I had literally joked about it four episodes before about how ridiculous it would be if the daughter also happened to be at Carol and Palimas house. And that's exactly where we ended up.

At that point, just pick any character. It's like, Oh, yeah, her swim coach. He did it. Could have been the cat. Remember? Who's the same? Who's the same? He's Pick any character who's been on the show. It's like, Oh, that guy. Jury member number 11. He did it. I just thought it was stupid. I even think it would have made more sense if it was the daughter and the son together. Sure. They went over there. Then it's like, and they're hiding a secret. And then it's like, you see them whispering a couple of times during the season. It's like, Hey, what's going on there? And then it turns out that's what it is.

This is what was frustrating is in the movie, Barbara kills Caroline herself and has been hiding it the whole time. The way was initially revealed in the show was that Rusty thought Barbara killed Caroline, and he was doing all the cover up, and he had posed the crime scene. If it had actually been Barbara kills Caroline, and Rusty is covering it up, and she doesn't know anything about the cover up, and they're both in the dark as to each other's motives and each other's actions.

That's enough of a twist.

I love that. They did enough to show it to us and then rip it away and say, Actually, wouldn't that be funny if it's the dog?

They did a double, actually. I think it was good enough to have him being involved in the cover up when they were in, and that's enough of a twist. That's juicy. I really like the twist. I read the book before the movie, but I really like the twist of all these red herring, and then it turns out to be the wife. The scene in the movie where they're in the garage and all this, he finds the little ax handle and he slowly realizes it was just a great, Wait, holy shit, she did it. I did not have that feeling with the TV show.

No. I will say I I still enjoyed the show. I still think it's a fun season. It's just a bad finale, unfortunately.

I said this to you when I popped on your pod. I just wish we had more of these. I wish there was another legal thriller on right now that I could watch.

Well, for better or worse, we're getting another season of Presumed Innocent. I don't know who it's going to be about.

Is it about Rudi Guepaire's finger injury?

We're going to litigate the finger surgery in full. We're going to bring in the doctor. It's going to be more like anatomy of a fall style because it's obviously the French legal system. But let me tell you, that's very theatrical in and of itself.

Well, I give that show a thumbs up. Oh, yeah. I was into it. I was super frustrated. I made a ton of jokes as I watched it. When I came on the pod with you, I was all ready to throw dark, but the second last episode was great. I really like that. I thought that was the best episode of the whole series.

When it was so much Sarsgaard who apparently is not returning for the next season, which that would be the framework that I would want, is like, let's follow him onto another case. That's something I can get behind. But if it's not going to be him, I don't know if I want the extended adventures of the Savage family. That's not really what I'm hoping to sign up for.

Sarsgaard is like, Yeah, but selly. Just clear out. Let him fucking cook. Let him do his thing. He's Yeah, but selly. Yeah. All right. Rob Mahoney. Good to see you. You can hear Rob on the Ringer NBA show and sometimes on the Prestige and the Big Picture as well. Thanks for hanging on a Tuesday with me.

Thanks, Bill.

All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Rob Mahoney. Thanks to Steve Cerruti and Kyle Al Creighton for producing. As always, don't forget, you can watch this entire podcast on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel. I'm going to be back on Thursday with another podcast. Yeah, I know it's early August. I'm usually not podcasting, but I love Olympic basketball, so I'll see you on Thursday. On the wayside, on the wayside, never on, said I don't have a few years with them. On the wayside, on the wayside, never on, said I don't have August. I'm usually not podcasting, but I love Olympic basketball. So I'll see you on Thursday.