Coming up, game two of the NBA Finals live from Boston. Next, we're also brought to you by the Ringer podcast network, where we have a new episode of the Rewatchables coming on Monday night. We did breaking away because we're. It's definitely a sports movie month. It might even be a greatest seventies sports movies month. It might, just might happen. Breaking away, which is just an all timer and holds up beautifully. Please go check it out. You can watch that episode on our Ringer movies YouTube channel as well, where you can find all the rewatchables plus the big picture with Sean Fantasy. It is on that YouTube channel, so please check that out. Coming up on this podcast, Priscilla and I are both in Boston. We're going to react to game two of the NBA Finals. Then we did a bunch of stuff for the second half of the podcast. We played a little. What would you do with Atlanta? Brooklyn talked a little Caitlin Clark in the Olympics and a bunch of the stuff that's in the zeitgeist. Jimmy Butler. Yeah. That is all. Next for star friends from Pearl Jam. All right, taping this 1120 east coast time.

I'm in Boston, Massachusetts. I went to game two of the NBA Finals. So did Ryan Rosillo. It was, I wrote down on my way home, multiple heart attacks, turnovers at missed threes, could never land a knockout punch. As many Tatum questions as answers. Porzygos might be hurt and we somehow covered and we're up to nothing. Those are my initial notes. It was just a classic heart attack special. And now they're in the driver's seat. And it's going to be a very tough team when you're 78 and 20 in the season to conceive of them losing four out of five times. That's why I want to start there.

Where is your Nick Chubb level right now?

My what level?

Nick Chubb. Running back. Ever heard of him?

What's my Nick Chubb level? I don't know what that means.

Just level of arousement, excitement yourself. Two o bill. Like, where are you? Let's start there. Let's start there. Let's take the floor. I just want to know how you feel.

I love drew holiday. He is 2004 Patriots personified. He was unbelievable again tonight. I think he had 26 and eleven rebounds and zero turnovers. And he guarded Luca and Kyrie for as much of the game as possible. And in the second half, it didn't seem like Luca was, was psyched to have Drew on him. I thought he was the steadiest, best player on the, on the court on either end other than Luca and that trade, the fact that Milwaukee makes this big move for Dame, they trade drew to Portland. He ends up on Boston five days later and he's been their best player in the finals. It's just, just crazy how that worked out. Milwaukee makes this big trade to beat Boston and gives Boston the guy who's been the difference maker in a bunch of these games.

Where do you think I just thought of this? This would have, could have been a whole title for a pod. But the, the anger rankings of other franchises watching this series play out. Where's Milwaukee? Is there anyone higher than Milwaukee? Is Minnesota? I still think Minnesota should be so mad going like, hey, we probably matched up better against Boston. If cat, you know, I know we've covered the cat stuff already. Earlier on the pod today, I just, just out of the top of my mind, I'm like, I wonder how many other franchises are watching this going like, are you fucking kidding me?

So that's a great question. I'd put Denver first because Denver matched up with Boston the best and they just have to be like, oh, my God, we're out in round two and now, you know, watching Boston, 20 point.

Lead to Minnesota at home in a.

Game seven and blew it. So I'd put them first. I would put probably Milwaukee second for giving Drew holiday to their biggest rival in the east. And then, you know, Minnesota has to be watching this series going, oh, that's what we should have done. And we said this, you know, during and after that Minnesota Dallas series. I just don't understand a lot of the decisions they made, especially with Kyrie. And one of my big predictions I made all week was like, I just thought Boston matched up really well with Kyrie. I thought the Kyrie praise was some of the most over the top stuff that I could remember with national media talking about whether this was the best scoring back court of all time. Just talking about him like he was Allen Iverson in 2001 and that he had 16 points. He was seven for 18 for 16 points, a ton of hero ball. And Boston just kept throwing guards and size and just kind of making him go one on one and take bad shots. And he was dribbling into two guys. He was throwing the ball to teammates with like 4 seconds left in the shot clock.

I thought he was abysmal. I thought he was so bad in that game.

Yeah, I don't think the stats will tell the full story. I thought he was awful.

Like, and I didn't, I didn't want to text you? Because I wanted us to talk about it live on the pod. I thought he was so bad. Yeah.

Cause it was a lot of, like, all right, I'll. I'll get us there. And then he hits a shot. He's letting the crowd have it, and the crowd's letting him have it the whole time. And then I was over in this corner where they were really giving it to him again during a time stoppage. And then he starts, like, turning. Being like, bring it on, bring it on. And clearly, like, he has that gear in him. So it's not like Grant Williams being like, I'll be your hero. I'll be your villain, right? I mean, this is Kyrie, but you. I kept waiting for, like, these. These buckets to happen, and I kept thinking, like, there was this one. One attempt, I think it was 189, and he took a three, and it was like, clearly a. I'm just gonna take this shot, which he certainly has the right to take. But, yeah, there was just. There was just a lot of him tonight where I was like, this is sort of flashy. Do you remember that Jalen Brown possession where he stayed in front of him in the first half when he tried to work chainlin?

That was unbelievable defense by Brown.

They just have a great team to guard him. And I think if you're Minnesota watching this, you're just wondering why you didn't have Daniels on, McDaniels on him as much as humanly possible, and just try to put him in a position where he's trying to beat guys one on one, because the other thing, he's not getting other guys involved. You know, he scored 28 points in two games, but it's not like he's setting guys up. He's not creating.

When he. Like, now when PJ Washington has an open three, I just kind of shrug. And I know he had 17, but he was one of five from three. Then they had to run threes, too, right? They had to run Gafford as the number one option offensively in the third quarter because that was the Tatum thing that we need to spend some time on and what Dallas was attacking. And then you've got Jones, who's over three from three, like, all of these things. OKC's got to be watching this, just like you said, with Minnesota going, oh, so now you guys are going to turn back into the shooters that we weren't afraid of, as opposed to making everything and taking turns looking like Steph out there. So I don't even know that Kyrie has anyone to pass to right now that I'm even afraid of. They had two lobs. The corner three thing is non existent because nobody's helping, because everybody can play straight up defensively for Boston.

Yeah, well, the other piece, you know, it's the finals and you're on the road, and it's a different kind of spotlight, which was one of the things, as somebody who likes the Celtics, I was counting on. It's like, cool. PJ Washington and Jones were making threes in these earlier rounds, but they've made two corner threes.

They've made two corner threes in two games.

Well, and they. And you made the key point. PJ was passing up threes by the second half, and he made a couple good drives and little floaters, and there's that weird little euro step jump hook thing that goes in sometimes. But the Celtics were. I mean, they couldn't have been happier. When Jones was open with the ball from 24, they were like, knock yourself out, dude. They weren't even guarding him. He went over three with an air ball. PJ wasn't making threes. Kliba, who, you know, Dallas over and over again, has been able in the last, like four or five minutes of these playoff games, they turned into the 2004 Pistons. On defense, I don't really understand it, but they were scrambling with Kliba. But he couldn't make a shot either.

He doesn't want to shoot. He doesn't. He's done this now twice in this series where he's been on the right side, the right break going left to right, and he has a catch. And I'm like, okay, let's see. His shoulder must be messed up point where he doesn't even want to shoot, which is a huge problem because he's actually pretty good defensively. And you could think, all right, if the lively gaffer stuff isn't happening, then maybe we can give it a different look and go five out and opens up some of the stuff for Luke and Kyrie. But now Kleba would be somebody, I would be saying, if you're the Celtics, being like, don't even close out on him until he makes, like, two of these.

Yeah. And Boston was doing some funky stuff in this game that I liked. Like, they were playing three guards. They were playing white and holiday and pritchard a couple of times, and they're in a situation where, you know, they missed so many threes. Houser came in and had a. Had a one man rock fight. I think he was over five and all five threes were open. But when you think about how many threes that the Celtics missed, you know, we were saying before the series, I thought. I thought Boston and six was my pick because I thought there'd be one game that Luca just won by himself and I thought there would be one game where the Celtics just didn't make any threes. That was tonight. They didn't make any threes and they somehow won by seven and they somehow covered. They were ten for 39 from three. But on the flip side, the Mavericks were two for 17 on the non Luca three s. And, you know, if you're looking at them, you had 89 points in the first game, 98 points in this game. And you and I look for the same things when we watch these games.

Sometimes it's like a, do I like the shots you're getting? And b, am I worried about the shots you're getting? And in this case, I thought Dallas just had a lot of possessions where I just didn't like their shots. Luca made some crazy, crazy threes, one legged stuff, but for the most part, I didn't like the shots they got. And I don't really know what the fix is. They don't have another creator other than those two guys. So if they're going to shut out Kyrie, what's the fix?

Well, what we liked about it was it was two on ball creators, which I think every team needs is like a default thing to go deep into the playoffs. And when it was working for Dallas, like, okay, but it's because all the other stuff was working, too. And there are certain things with Minnesota where I would say that's going to be incredibly frustrating for them. But then the other stuff that Boston does on offense where I think Minnesota can't even be mad about it because this is the whole point of Boston. When Boston's at its best, it's five out, it's five different shooters. It's four guys that are pretty good with the ball in their hands. And even Horford isn't a mess. If he has to take a couple trips, Persingus can put it on the deck for a couple. It's not like you're going to ISO and he's going to just cook the whole time. But it's just a lot of people that are good with the ball in their hands and that's going to put stress on Dallas defense in a way where Minnesota, they could ignore all these other players. So we've been over that.

So I think there's some things in Minnesota where it's frustrating. And then some things where you have to be realistic, where you go, well, I couldn't pull that anyway, so what am I even trying to do? But Luca had 20 points with ten minutes remaining in the second quarter and looked.

He was headed for 60.

It was. It was.

He hit one shot and the crowd made that groan where it was like. And we've been at those games a couple of times, me and my dad, where when that groan happens, you're like, oh, no, this is gonna be one of those games where Luca has like, 54 and he had more assists.

There was other things that were happening, too, but go ahead.

Yeah, well, I remember I looked up at one point and it felt like Dallas was dominating the game and Luca was hot and it was like 35, 29. Right? They're up six.

That's the whole first. That's a good.

That's a good sign. They're down in the building. They're down four. They're down six. They're down two.

They're up for when the entire first half is playing out the way it did. Of course, Luca getting off to that incredible start, but from that point on where he had the 20, at ten minutes left in the second quarter, he had only five points over, I think the next, like 17 plus game minutes. Sure. Like, we. Now he's not even involved with the scoring, certainly at the pace, but it's like, now it's kind of non existent. And the whole game in the first half, I think you agree. I think it's. What you're saying is that it felt one way and the score consistently said something different the whole time.

Yeah. I wrote down in my notes, it was Boston, 36 35, took the lead, seven minutes left, second quarter, big white, three for the lead, Luca, 20. I wrote down Tatum was one for seven. And I wrote Celtics, celtics, two for twelve from three and winning three. Question marks. Cause it was just unclear how they were winning. Cause Luca was playing well. But the thing is, nobody else in Dallas was playing well. And that was. That was the big thing. Like you mentioned that there was a little tiny Gafford stretch there, and he had a couple of big offensive rebounds. PJ made a couple of plays. But if Kyrie is going to take 18 shots for 16 points, they're not going to be Boston in any of these games. Right. They're going to have to have somebody beyond Luca who. Who can score. And I also felt, no, they need.

60 points from those two. And then let me know what happened with everybody else.

Yeah, they need to be in the hundreds, because the Celtics team, it's just too hard for them to be under 100. But, um. But sitting up close, watching Luca, I thought he got. I. First of all, kid, there was a couple more. I actually liked how kid coached in that game because there were multiple moments where it felt like they were going to get like the Celtics. We're going to blow him out. My dad and I kept. We were talking like, this is it. We're up ten. This is the run right here. And they would miss a three. But kid felt it. And I think in the third quarter, he just decided, I can't take Luca and Kyrillo because I think he was going to try to stagger the minutes and he just was like, all right, fuck it, and let those guys in. But they, he just didn't. Like, they put Jaden Hardy in the third quarter. And I think he was hoping like, oh, Jaden Hardy. Irrational confidence. And Drew's like, I'll take. I'll take Hardy. And that was it. We never, we never saw Hardy, but they just, they just can't score enough points.

And this is the first time, you know, in these other series, they would keep it close, keep it close, keep it close. And then Luca would steal the game down the last four minutes. But I think it's. I think it's too hard for them, this series, so for them to flip it, what happens? What, what, what would be, like, the three things you think, like, Kyrie would have to. I think just. It sounds stupid, but he'd have to shoot better. But, you know, 15 shots, I'd be one. I didn't mind the shots. Yeah, I mean, Kyrie going twelve for 18 instead of 718 would be one thing. I don't really know those role guys, I guess. Could you say, all right, Jones and PJ, if you go eight for twelve from three, that'll help. But I don't trust those guys. So it's, it's really the defense and the stuff that I thought they stumbled into the last five minutes, really, when it was 10, 389, and then all of a sudden it just felt like Boston couldn't score anymore. And they really felt like they unlocked something defensively. And I think that's what they're probably going to concentrate on.

Like, maybe this is how we win. These games have to be like, 92 to 89. That's the recipe.

Yeah, but that's just saying, like, hey, let's do this. Because I want to. I want to talk about, like, the biggest thing. Tatum was terrible, which I know we're going to talk about. So I'm not jumping ahead because you have this look on your face like I'm screwing up the. The outline.

I think that's an after the break combo. I'm ready. I'm ready to have it.

He was awful. So I was wondering, because when I originally this game starts, I'm looking for, like, what are they looking for? They wanted to get Tatum on Luca as much as they possibly could. Their decision was, let's attack Tatum. Where I'm going. Whoa.

Cause Tatum's a very good defensive player, but it seems like they were just trying to put miles on him and try to wear him out, is my guess.

Yeah, Luca was actually beating him. But then there would be these Kyrie possessions, and they were like, put Tatum back in it. I'm like, man, is this guys? I kept thinking, like, oh, is there something else coming from this?

Where.

Then there's a lob waiting. I counted two lobs in this game. Yeah, we mentioned the corner three stuff that didn't happen. Do you think Jason Kidd cared more about the take than he did winning game two that Jalen Brown is the better Celtic?

Is that your first take? Tease?

Jason Kidd said, it's not about the game or the finals, it's about the take. And that's why we put Tatum in a blender. JB's the best celtic.

I listen, the fact that he did that made me feel better about the Celtics chances. Cause the time doing that after the first game, to me, said that Jason Kidd didn't like how the series was going. Like, that's a move you make when it's an early one or three one. I mean, he played the card after one game. He's playing the let me start a Tatum Brown thing. I thought it was bold, but it made me think that he feels like he doesn't have that great of a hand in the poker game.

Right? Do you think he comes back before game three is like, honestly, Revolutionary War started in South Carolina? That's a great call. Because I think it was because people were like, what do you think? I was like, I'm shocked that somebody did it. Clearly, he did it for a reason. But these guys have been together now going back to the 1718 series. Like, maybe if they were 23, maybe it would get in their head a little bit. But, like, Tatum's actually, his passing was good tonight, but I just didn't think it was going to affect those guys going through the wars that they've already been through together. I was amazed by it because it was so clear he was doing it for a reason, hoping it was going to work. And your points? Awesome. Like that's a game four move.

Yeah, that's like a we're down three one. Let me throw this against the wall, Holiday said after the game about Tatum and Brown. I feel like how they play together and how they work together is something that is sacred and something that can't be broken.

Wow.

And I think I agree. I've watched those guys for a long time and I just feel like. I feel like they're on the same page. I don't feel like there's ego with those guys at all. I just don't. I don't see it. Let's take a break and we'll talk about Tatum. The NBA Finals are here and FanDuel's giving you the chance to win alongside the champions right now. New customers get $200 of bonus bets with a winning $5 bet that is dollar 200 to use on same game parlays, live bets and so much more. Depending on how you feel game two went, you could bet the entire Finals exact score, what the exact sequence of wins are going to be throughout the series. You can bet finals, MVP, all kinds of things. There's no better place to bet all the Finals action than America's number one sports book, especially if you love doing those same gay parlays. Just download the app, take a shot. An extra $200. Just go to fanduel.com bs to get started. FanDuel, official sports betting partner of the NBA. You must be 21 plus, 18 plus in DC and president select states.

Game problem? Call 1800 Gamble or visit RG Dash help.com dot first online real money wager only $5 1st deposit required bonus issued as non withdrawable bonus petrol expires seven days after receipt. Restrictions apply seat terms at sportsbook dot fanduel.com all right, Jason Tatum is now 56 for 158 in eight NBA final games shooting, which is 35.4%. He finished 18, nine and 1212 assists and a lot of them were nice assists, six for 22 shooting, guarded Luca a lot, rebounded, played hard. Body language, body language.

He was bad, man. He was.

Yeah, the body language was bizarre because it got the point that because he.

Wasn'T playing well, nobody's in a good mood. No one's body language is awesome when you play as bad as Tatum does for somebody that's supposed to play really special, supposed to be Finals MVP, I don't know that anybody would ever have great body language playing the way he just did. Tonight. I mean, as bad as he was in game one, tonight, in person was so much more horrifying because of just seeing somebody stuck in between decisions. Like, he was shot tonight.

Mentally, the levels of body language. And this is why I brought it up.

Tier four.

Sorry, let me think.

Yellow.

When somebody makes a shot and they do the thing where they look up at the sky, like, finally, thank you. That's when I get concerned. Because you're the fifth best player in the league. You shouldn't be surprised that you just drove to the lane, got fouled and finished a layup. And it should be like a fist pump. Like, finally I got it. His was more like a, I have the weight of the world on my shoulders. And finally something went my way, and that was what scared me and my dad, because we were like a sedona.

Like, keyword, Sedona, below Delta.

I just didn't like it. I thought second half, it was better, but first, you know, who does that.

All the time, by the way?

It was alarming.

Luca. Luca does that all the time. He's pissed. A bunch haven't gone in the right. About damn time.

I thought it was different. It didn't. Tatum did not instill a lot of confidence in that first half. And it was the biggest at halftime. It was what everybody was talking about in whatever section. You were like, what the fuck's wrong with Tatum? What's wrong with him? And then somebody else would be like, no, he's having a good game.

No, he wasn't, man. Like, whatever.

Now he's got five, eight assists.

Whatever. Like, I look at, because I know people just can never get past this, talking about Kyrie, but, like, Kyrie was awesome compared to Tatum. I mean, this was. He got put into every action. So you could say, oh, no, he was tired. He was tired. He's stuck in between, like, what he wants to do. And when I looked at the first game, you go, okay. His first shot attempt was at 319 of the first quarter. All right. He had two field goal attempts in the first quarter. But you were looking at it where it wasn't always a zone, but it looked like a zone the way they were paying attention to him. And I thought his first good look was like a dunkin with two and a half minutes to go in the first half. Like, that was the first good look. But here's the point is they were up 3720 after the first quarter because everybody's firing. Prozingus is great. So, like, that part of the Tatum thing is like, all right, and then they're up 58 29. So it's like, what am I really even looking at here? Because this game was tighter throughout.

You're paying attention to the longer stretches of Tatum. Like, the six turnovers in game one were all terrible, they were all bad. And I thought at some point he had figured out, hey, the help is constantly coming up. That's where that drew holiday thing is happening time after time. And then there's that Derek white little baseline thing that you can look for. So that part of Tatum's game, it looked like it was coming around, but every layup was like, coming off the rim. But then it was four fast layups.

Hard layups to the basket, that sometimes when he's not going well, he'll just miss those. And that reminded me of 2022, watching it.

But that's where I think down the stretch, it just started getting uglier and uglier. He was one of seven in the fourth quarter, and it looked like when he was catching the ball, I don't know if you'd agree or disagree. Like, the thing that always scares me with a player who's really special and Tatum is, is you're like, uh oh. He doesn't know what he wants to do. Cause none of it's working. And that's where you're like, maybe just give the ball to somebody else then.

So even if you look at. I like on ESPN, you can do the play by play and you can just look at the shot chart for individual guys. I think my dad and I were talking about the last piece for him because I don't think he's a finished product yet. I know some people. He's played over 100 games now.

Yeah, I do think this is who he is.

No, I'm not ready to go there yet. Cause I think. I think there's one other piece to his game that he just. He can't figure out. And here it is. I'm looking at the shut chart. He didn't take a single shot in that, like, foul line paint anywhere from eight to 15ft around the foul line, which the Mavs were giving him over and over again. And if he beat his guy off the dribble, it was either I'm going to the rim or I'm going to the rim and kicking out. And it wasn't just like, I'm just going to stop and take this little ten footer, which is what makes Luca so special, is Luca gets by people, and then it doesn't really matter. He'll shoot it on anywhere. In the court. And I just, for whatever reason, Tatum cannot unlock that piece mentally of just, I'm just, I'll just shoot from twelve and I'll make it. And it's something he used to do earlier in his career. And I just. I don't care.

I gotta tell you, I gotta tell you, Bill, I love the work here on the shop chart.

You're looking at it.

Yeah. Look how empty I'm looking at it.

It is around the foul line.

It's Chris Paul land is deserted.

That's a great way to put it. The Chris Paul shot is the thing. That's why I don't feel like he's a finished product yet. Because what he needs is the Chris Paul shot because he's beating these guys off the dribble. And then he does know what he wants to do after he beats them. And the Mavs are just like, we're going to protect the rim on you. We want to make you go fast and whip layoffs against the backboard or kick it out. And if he had, if he ever gets that twelve footer, it'll be something. But I just don't think he's a finished product yet. I know that's crazy.

No, but now, now I understand what you're saying. I mean, I still kind of disagree, but I just think sometimes when people have absurd numbers when they're young and they're like, oh, imagine when he's 27, you're like, well, what do you think? He's just going to give this guy 40? And I know that's not what you're doing with Tatum. And tonight was an efficiency thing, like last night, or, excuse me, game one. I watched all his possessions in his drives again. I was like, man, they are showing him a ton of traffic and he's, he's just not ready for it yet. And the six turnovers, all of them are bad. There's not one where you're like, oh, that one kind of really wasn't on him. They're actually. It's kind of rare that you could have that many turnovers and not have a couple where you feel like, ah, that's not that bad. But tonight I thought, okay, he'll, he'll probably look at this a little differently. He'll be more aggressive. He's going to be ready for that help. And that's where the passing came in. But the close of the game, I was. You just see it.

You could just see it. It's like he doesn't really know what he wants to do. And as they were about to piss that lead away, did you want the ball in his hands or did you want it in Drew or Brown's? Grant, a lot of Drew's work was coming off of the Tatum drives, so there's still value of what he does and how much he attracts the defense his way. But did you want the ball in his hands when the. It was like a 90 run there.

By Dallas, it was 10389, and then all of a sudden it was 10, 398. And it was. The Celts did the thing that they've been doing for the entire Tatum Brown era, where they had a lead and they slowed down and they basically go into four corners offense and get a lot of shots near the end of the shot clock, and all of their bad habits came in. It sounds. It's just crazy to complain about a team that's 78 and 20 and is up 20 in the finals. But this was, this game was a microcosm of a lot of the stuff that has gotten the celtic fans worried over the years. And I do think if Luca was. Was healthier, I think he would have stolen the game. Cause the. The big thing that I felt, especially in the second half, was I just didn't like the way Luca was moving. And, you know, I'd heard some. They did that weird thing with the injury report before the game where they said he was questionable to play. Obviously, he was playing. I talked to some Celtics people who said there were people sitting near the bench during game one, and a couple times he came out and just kind of pointed to his knee, like he had a problem with the side of his knee.

And I don't love the way he's moving, and I don't think he was moving. Like this last round, like, if this version of Luca were watching, this round was in the Minnesota series. That series is probably different.

If Luca gets hurt and sits out the rest of the series, worst title ever.

Now, that would be head games by kid. Watch this. Luca out for game three. Now what? Now what are you going to do, Boston?

But here's the thing. Like, he's pointing to his knee. He had like a jog bra on of some kind of wrap around his chest on maybe the brown collision. That was pretty violent in game one. So then it was like, what is it? And it was an upper body thing that he was even downright, like a rib or something. Yeah, right. So he's. He's. I'll give that he's hurt. I'm not dismissing that. I'm just telling you. He's first team all NBA. When I'm hurt, you're going to know I'm hurt.

Fair. Did you think he looked better last round or this round?

I think he looked better last round. And there was a stretch. Even tonight's game where I go, is. Is he more hurt now because they're down nine or ten?

Oh, it's one of those. It's like, yeah, I think my kids pull.

I think he's part. I think he's a really dramatic guy out there.

Hmm.

You think I'm crazy on that one? I mean, I can't imagine anybody's watched him and would think otherwise or they just haven't noticed it.

Well, I saw him in the first round against the Clippers twice, and I didn't think he was moving great in that series, I would agree.

And then I thought it was even worse against Oklahoma City and the. Till he closed. And then I thought Minnesota looked great. Looked awesome. Yeah.

Yeah. So he.

He may be dinged up and there'll be something or whatever. I'm just telling you, when he has something that is bothering him physically, he wears it, like, not just a shirt, but like, he wears, like, a fucking stove, like, pipe hat. Is that what it's called? What did Abe wear? Stovepipe.

Yeah, stovepipe hat. One of the things that I think wasn't helping him was that they have all these different guys that can try to attack him. And I don't know what the numbers are because we're taping this right after the game. How many times he had to defend somebody one on one or fight through a pick or stay with somebody. And, you know, that's Minnesota. They're not putting the miles on you. Right. It's basically, ant was their only creator from the perimeter. There's really nobody else and then guys. Right. So it was just a much easier series for him. I. My guess is that Dallas comes back in game three and shoots better. But if I was a Mavs fan, I would be concerned that the Celtics haven't shot the ball yet that well and that they actually have had some really good road games, not just in the playoffs, but all season. Like, I don't. To me, this is an oh, this is what happens. Series doesn't start. Like, I think either of those teams could win on either floor. And I could totally see the Celtics going into Dallas in game three and really shooting the lights out.

It's a fascinating. What do you think the line is for game three, by the way?

Boston fan is now you think Boston's.

Favorite in game three.

Yeah.

Dallas is favored by one and a half.

Whoa.

The Celtics are now ten to one favorites to win the finals.

What's the finals? MVP now, by the way, where's MVP.

Is now almost midnight. Tatum is even odds. Jalen Brown, plus 185, Lucas plus 650. And drew holidays, nine to one. And if I had to vote, I'd vote for Drew right now after two games.

So you're surprised that. You're not surprised it's Alice's favorite. Cause there's a matchup argument here, especially with the advanced stuff of how much Vegas and every model has loved Boston. And I. God, I'm a little surprised that you could get points with Boston, even with the.

There's a lot of good game three team down 20.

No, you're talking back home. You're talking to captain fake desperate. But this is a bad basketball matchup for Dallas.

Like, no, you're right.

It's a bad matchup for him. And you had to hope Luca could continue the superhero trend that we. That we've seen now, by the way, for a few weeks. And those supporting cast, like, he had to. He had to do what he's been doing with the supporting cast maintaining, and now they're. They're not even a factor. It's just so funny how different it feels when those guys catch the ball now. Maybe it'll be different at home. And I certainly respect Dallas and Luca enough to get one. I guess I'm just with something still at play here. Here's the point I actually should make. If I'm a Dallas fan, I'm furious. I'm furious. They lost game two because this is the game that everybody in Boston has been worried about for six months. That, yeah, even if they get there, they're going to have that awful game where they stink it up from three. They were six of 30. Boston was. And they were up 83, 74. Okay. And then they gave us, as you pointed to this, had every single Boston, like, fuck up setting.

They played the.

They did everything in this game. Tatum was awful. They couldn't make threes. Luca was torching them. And then they're up and they give up the 90 run, and the whole building's like, are you seriously about to blow this game? Are you seriously going to do this? Is this going to be the Atlanta Hawks week all over again with the NBA championship on the line? Like, one of you guys can't get a bucket with all of these options. Not one of you is going to get a stop. They did all of those things in the last two and a half hours, and Dallas still couldn't win the game.

And that 90 run was coming off poor zingas seemingly getting hurt.

Yep.

And then he's limping on. Everyone's watching, going, he looks hurt. We should take him out. Possession, they don't take him out. Dallas has the ball, they don't take him out. Possession again, they don't take him out. Kyrie beats somebody off the dribble, and Porzingis has to chase down Bach behind and decides not to go for it. And let's Kyrie have the layup. And an hour earlier would have just blocked it. Then Joe calls the timeout, and he said afterwards that he's fine, but he did not look fine to me. And I thought. I thought he tweaked it.

But you have.

So you have the KP tweaks is whatever. And then the Celtics go in that crazy funky. But Drew, when it was 97, 89, that was when KP tweaked his leg. They called timeout. And then the big sequence was Drew getting that steal when they kind of trapped Dallas in half court. And Drew gets the steel and ends up hitting the three. They get stopped. White hits a three. Crowd goes nuts. So you knew they were probably going to win at that point. One or three, eight, nine with three minutes left, and yet somehow 103.98 with a minute 15 left. Dallas gets a stop. Washington comes back down, and White, who is basically the greatest shotbacking guard since Michael Jordan. I don't even know who to put once again, makes a great thing. And they. They were saying afterwards, like, apparently Jalen did a slight shove. I thought the refs missed a bunch of shit on both sides in this game. I just didn't think the refs were awesome. And I don't think it really hurt either team. I mean, I don't think it benefited or hurt anybody. They just. There were missed calls. There were guys getting shoved.

I thought the game had, like, a weird flow to it, partly because of the refs.

Yeah, it was physical. It was definitely. I'd rather be physical. I'd rather be that way than the mistakes. It just depends on who you're rooting for. And you're only going to pay attention to the calls that went against your team. You're never going to look at it the other way, saying, like, oh, that probably shouldn't have been called, or that was kind of a gift there, or, why did they call travel there, but not on one of the other guys? I just thought there were a lot of moments we were like, what the fuck was that? Yeah, I would give you two. When Tatum drove in the first half and looked like he ran into a brick wall, and it was just like a tackling session at the rim. I was like, wait. They called out on the floor.

Oh, yeah, that one. That's right.

That one was like, wait, what?

Yeah. You know when the players are just looking at each other in complete confusion? You know, it's a bad call.

Everybody was confused. And then he was trying to lay.

The ball in and it got fouled.

Right. I'll give you one for Dallas. I actually think there's a few in the second half where if you were Boston, you probably got the memo at some point. Like, you can probably do whatever you want at the rim right now. You do whatever you want. And there was that. Tatum one was weird because they called the foul, but they didn't want to give him the free throws. I thought at the other end, it was like, no layup was safe. No layup was safe. The way it can be in other ones. Real, it's like you could just. You can kind of get into it a little bit and some contact to the rim. Up high. Up low. But they're going to let you play Tony. Brothers getting worn out by the crowd, the home crowd, Bill. They were letting Tony be have it.

Listen, Tony B. Took some abuse. The Kyrie sucks chants were consistent, and there were some jokes about Lucas weight. I'm. I'm just gonna be honest. Guy in. My, guy in my section told him he looked fat, and Luca turned around and told him to go home. Was an actual exchange that happened in the third quarter?

Yeah, the one I liked the most. And I don't know if it's true, but I kind of want it to be true. There was a big Kyrie sucks chant going on when Kyrie lined up on the free throw line outside of Horford. So he was taking the big man spot and he waved. Kyrie kind of, like, looked back and he just. He can't help himself. Like, he gives these state of the Kyrie addresses constantly and they're fucking so boring. And Horford, you're right. After the first free throw, the chant died down a little bit. And then Horford kind of were like, no, let's keep these going.

Yeah.

And I went, he did that for.

The Gafford free throws, too. Yeah, Horford's. Horford's a little bit. He'll. He'll go to the end zone section and he'll try to. Try to uplift them. Kyrie probably has the most at stake the rest of the series on Dallas. I mean, I, you know, I think Tatum, the Celtics are in a good spot. If they win the title, there will be some nitpicking, but ultimately, hey, he was the best guy in the finals team. How much are you going to say the Kyrie, after the two week Kyrie celebration? About that. This was one of the great offensive players of all time and he has 28 points in two games and by the way, is averaging 22 in the playoffs. And I was making this point last week to you that Jalen Brown for the last four years has been a better scorer in the playoffs than Kyrie. Jalen Brown's been a better scorer this year and Jalen Brown has outscored him in both games. And, you know, I just think sometimes there's certain players and doesn't matter what the sport is, where your eyes tell you that they're better than the actual results. And Kyrie, this is who he's been the last six, seven years.

The guy from the 16 and 17 playoffs who was 27, 30 a game consistently and was unstoppable. I don't think he's the same guy anymore. I think he's still a really good offensive player against certain matchups and certain teams, but I think you can take him out.

Well, I thought the defense on him was terrific, but I also think he just had moments where he wasn't playing in any kind of system. He was like, I'm going to make some of these ridiculous shots because he's capable. So I can't really ever blame him for wanting to do that stuff. But I thought every time he decided like, ok, it's my possession. It just, it becomes easier to defend. Not to stay in front of Kyrie, necessarily, but everybody else is like, okay, well, what are you going to do, buddy? You going down there between your legs a little bit? Like, oh, you're gonna go, do you.

Know what it is? It's sports movie offense. It's, you're watching the sports movie and the other guy and the other team's like, they're, they're talking shit. And the camera's next to two guys, they're talking shit. He's like, okay. And he starts going through in his legs, trying to beat him off the dribble. It's like above the rim. Eric needs it above the rim.

That's really good.

That's kind of the offense that he has and it's not in the flow of anything and nobody else is involved.

You know, he's getting 50 now in game three. Because we talked about this, right?

I don't think there's a scenario where he gets 50 against the Celtics team. I think it would have to be a seven overtime game.

What about the mayan calculator?

I'll tell you this. I was in, you know, I'm in Boston. I went on Fanduel and I did, just for fun, I did a parlay, like a same game parlay, which actually happened.

Oh, look at you.

But one of the things was Kyrie all adjusted under 25 points. Cause I just think it's gonna be really hard for him to get 25 points. You know what else I put in there in that? That same gamer, a Derrick white. Block. Derek white block. One block. Every game for Derek White is like -160 it's like the lock of the playoffs. Every game he gets a block. Every game, it's like, guaranteed he's going to have an awesome block at some point. In the four quarters today, he had two, but he had that. Like, Kyrie went for the layup on him, and he stayed up in the air and kept his hand up and blocked it. Guys, I've never seen a guard block. Like, he's like six two and then one of the other great shot blocking guards.

You know what I love about Drew is how good he's gotten at. And I know he's always kind of done this, but maybe it just feels like he's doing it against bigger and bigger players, like, seeing him do it against Cleveland, seeing him hit that. That layup against Siokam, the number of.

Times fake lefty layup. Yeah, yeah.

The number of times he gets the biggest guys who are just right in front of them going, there's no way you're gonna get this shot off against me. And he can't go to Ben, go to your son and say, hey, look, lock of the century of the week. It's these. Derek White, block one block again. Going over. So, like, you are going to either SC or you're going to Bridgewater. What do you want to do? No offense to Bridgewater state. I had a lot of buddies that went there. Played linebacker for one semester.

You know, another thing I love about Drew is watching him. Only a couple guys can do this, hopping the screen where the guy kind of sticks the leg out a little bit and he can hop around the screen, but stay in front of the dude. And it's just like watching. I don't. It's like watching, like a kung fu movie or something. He jumps sideways, but then goes backwards and he just keeps his position. You're like, how did, how did he do that? It was like that move Kyrie had in game one when he beat Horford on the baseline. It's like, how did he just do that? I don't even understand how he got by him. Edwards was doing that in the Denver series, too, with Murray, where he would hop by these yokage screens and somehow stay coordinated. The list of guys who can do that is not long, right? Caruso can do it.

Suggs fighting over screens was one of my highlights of the season. One of the things I always think is kind of funny, like, afterwards when these teams and the Pacers did it, and I like Carlisle, but the whole 78 missed calls in games one and game two, like, okay, cool. And then, of course, my all time favorite was the Darryl morey referendum after his team couldn't make a fucking shot. And when you watch the games live and the number of times we were like, okay, they have to let all of this stuff go or be sitting here for 4 hours. But guys were chucking other dudes into screens tonight.

There were, Clevo was shoving poor Zingis 5ft.

I was watching, going like, this doesn't seem normal. And then lively would actually get involved with it. And I think both teams were doing it. But it depends, kind of, you know, your perspective throughout where that would be the whole point if you wanted to release some sort of official manifesto. By the way, I'm on the official side as I build to this point is, how do you count those? Do you just count every single time something physical happened against one of your guys away from the ball and you're like, hey, don't stop until you get to 60 infractions?

Like, awesome, right?

Cause it's just way easier to do. That's why whenever that stuff happens, I'm like, I don't care. I don't care what your count was. Cause I know you're not counting the other ones.

What's the old Chris Paul move of just start doing it in the first three minutes of the game and as soon as they never call it, then you're good. Now you can do it 50 times, right? You just club dudes on the side as they're dribbling up. He was the master at it. Big picture. I'm going to give you two bets that are on fanduel right now. Well, I'll give you three. Celtic sweet. Plus 270. Celtics in five. Plus 175. Celtics in six. Plus 490. Or celtics in seven plus 490 or just the Boston winning the finals bets? Which one of those seems if I had to. If I told you the series was going to go seven or four, what would you pick?

I picked seven.

So you think Dallas can fire back. So you're expecting a big.

But you gave me a sweep for seven. I never think anyone's going to get swept. I never do because I just think human nature kicks in too often. I still am a little surprised that you can get Boston plus points because it's a bad matchup for Dallas. It just is. For all the different reasons we talk about the whole thing. We knew it would be a bad matchup. I just figured that Boston would have this game and they'd lose this one and they'd be going back to Dallas won one. But Boston, I would pick.

Boston won the sweep over. Yeah, I would pick the sweep over the seven. Just because Boston hasn't really played that well yet and they're up to nothing and they could game for they.

Game one. You don't think they played well in game two? Dude, they were up 58 29 and they cut, cut to eight with like.

They gave up 29 to nine run and game one, though. I can't say they played awesome like that game.

I think. I think they played awesome other than the close of the first. Tatum was bad into the first eight minutes of the third quarter and that was the only part of the game Boston didn't own.

What did they shoot from three in that game?

They were 38% game one. Right, right.

But they haven't had the game because they do this once a week where they have the game where they're like 22 for 40 from three.

One of those.

My point is, they haven't had one of those games yet when it's just like NBA NBA jam flames shooting out. On the flip side, Kyrie hasn't had a good game yet. So if you're a Mavs fan, that's what you're banking on. And I think that's it. I think if he doesn't have a good game in the series, they're going to get swept. I don't think they can win any of these games if he doesn't play well. If he's going to have 1612, 14, 1718. That's just not going to be enough unless they do the. Let's turn this into the mid two thousands finals. Let's make these 92 to 89 super physical. Let's go that route. Slow it down. Cause they tried to play fast. I thought in the first half you could see they were trying to get in their actions faster, especially with Kyrie trying to speed up what they were doing offensively. And it worked for about a quarter, and then the Celtics caught up with the pace on it, and it didn't work after that, especially when he started missing threes.

I don't think it's sustainable for Luca to be having to defend as much as he is, more so than against Minnesota. And then also when Kyrie's not going to show up and no one else is going to make any shots, the corner threes are non existent. There's no lock like there was against Minnesota. It's like, hey, Luca, can you get 60? And we hope they miss a million shots tonight. Has to be. I just left arena going like, I can't believe if I'm not. If I'm a Dallas fan, be like they. Boston did, like, three of the bad things all in the same game and they still won. Yeah, maybe. Maybe Jason Kidd could say he thinks Peyton Pritchard's the best player and then the Celtics will play him more. Cause this may not be a Peyton Pritchard series.

They ran a play that they've ran a couple of times this year at the end of the third quarter, and it worked. And he banked a running three in. That was a huge momentum shift. And then did the Peyton Pritchard thing, which I love when he does it. Started doing that. That's what I do. Coming back to the bench and high fiving everybody because it was a set play and he actually scored. He did bank the three in, but I'm not sure if that was intentional or not.

I just feel like every minute that he's out there, granted, he only took two shots tonight, but, you know, he was zero seven in the first game. He just.

And then he transferred it. He did the. It follows and he transferred the evil being to Hauser. Can we predict Jason Kidd mind game move for between game two? Game three.

No Biggs, Hardy, Josh Green, Luca, PJ Kyrie.

There's nothing he could say to the media, though. He's got 72 hours here.

I don't know. It sounds like you may have something cooking. What do you think will do?

Probably a lot. Probably something about the officiating and some things he didn't like. Probably planting the seeds on how they're defending Kyrie or something like that. That would be my guess. The other move is talking about how they need to be more physical in the finals, especially when you get to this level. It's going to be a war and we're not showing a fight. He's going to do, like, the kind of prodding his dudes to just be basically knocked the Celtics around a little bit and see, yeah, it's a pretty. It's a pretty, you know, mellow Celtics team for the most part. Maybe try to intimidate them a little bit would be a move. And kid love, you know, he was on those nets teams that were. He played with Kmart. Mutumbo had the elbows. But I could I. That Dallas in 2011 was one of those teams. Right.

He might call us John Mary. He might. He might say, hey, Pete, you're missing. Yeah. Derek Jones, you're missing. Like, we need to get involved with a kind of reed. And I doubt he's going to go. I don't think you go at Kyrie. I think it's a constant massaging thing where you appreciate his.

Kyrie, you're doing great. Please, Kyrie.

And you're just not going to mess with Luke because it's not like, unless you want to do, like, the coach's son thing where you yell at the coach's son to get the out of shape kid to pay attention, who's picking his nose, you're not gonna think he does it.

Do you think he does the. I saw some guys who were afraid to shoot. I saw some guys who were afraid to protect the rim.

Cleveland arms might not work. That might be the reason he's not shooting. But I would. The Cleveland.

Oh, you know, would be a good one for him here. Would be a good one. I thought the two toughest guys in the game were their two guards. Cause then it's insulting his team. But it's also kind of a backhand and compliment to some of the Celtics.

But he says prichard and Hauser. Then it really gets cranked up a bit.

I'm excited to see where this goes. Well, it's just a classic. 2024. Something like they could sweep and they could finish 80 and 20 and people like, yeah, Tatum shot 36%. It's just one of those teams. Is he a superstar? I know he's the finals mvp, but is he good so far?

That would be the most fitting thing ever. They win game three. Luca's not active for game four. Boston sweeps. They're in down play.

Anyone?

Tatum shoots, like, 29%.

They would have lost.

Denver Jalen wins. And then local radio is immediately being like, do you have to trade one of them now? Do you actually have to trade Tatum?

Can these guys coexist?

They'll be duck boats. And people are still going to be like, huh? I don't know. We'll see.

How many teams should they have lost to if the injuries hadn't worked out for them? Should they have lost to Milwaukee? Ding. There's one Denver. If they just had it screwed up, game seven, theirs, too. Just go through. Yeah, that. I mean, look, they figured out something with the math and they figured out the switchability on defense and the fact that their best players don't have to be awesome for them to win close playoff games, which is something that a lot of other teams cannot say.

How about we do this, though, for just a second? If they were able to look, pull this off, it looks pretty good so far. I think most people would agree.

They're ten one, so it looks solid.

Yeah. The run of injuries and look, a lot of teams have injuries that happened in their past. This was more exaggerated because it was just all of these guys all over the east. Right. You could really start making the list longer. Although I don't know how Brunson's broken handle is on the Celtics somehow, but there has to be some, and no one's really going to do this. But if they were to win the whole thing. Bill, I think there's also, like, a fair conversation that's actually complimentary of the Celtics being like, hey, you know what? When they decided to flip their tough guy, Marcus. Smart. Right. For Przingas in this deal, when they.

Traded the heart and soul Smith team.

Yeah, right. Heart and soul team. I don't see a lot of those pieces anymore. When they traded nismith for Brogden, that led to drew a little bit later. Like, the Celtics built real depth. They built incredible depth with people that could be trusted. So is it their fault that they had more depth than some of these other teams? And of course, like, no. Giannis Embiid constantly being a question mark in all these different games. Halliburton going down. Mitchell, like, I'm not trying to tell you this was tough. I do think that there's a positive, though, on the other side that's completely, completely ignored with valid criticism about the opponents. But the compliment should be a the front office. Like, think about how great of a job Brad Stevens has done here. And it almost feels like this weird afterthought because Ange had drafted the other two guys.

Yeah, the KP and drew trades, the combination of those and the balls.

But I think the Brogdon thing and then Derek White like to go the.

Balls, the balls to trade. Smart. And how that went over in Boston and how upset people were about it. And just like people you and I talked to about bassmart, they traded smart. That was crazy. Why'd they do that? And, you know, it led to a bunch of good stuff. The drew trade was, I think, more logical, but being able to build a sustainable contender. But then that's fine, but you don't want to end up like OKC from 2009 to 2016, either. So the finals would erase that. It would be their first title in 16 years. Yeah, 16 years. But it's an amazing success story with really what goes back to trading Garnett and Pierce in the first place, if it happens, doing that trade, which leads to the Tatum Brown picks and then doing these second ones and over and over again. They were proactive in the right times, which I think you could say the same about Dallas. But I do think. I think whatever happens, the rest of the way, people are going to talk about, it'll be a yeah, but title. I'm just. I know it is. That's how it's going to go.

It's going to be.

Yeah. But you were pretty fair about the Lakers bubble title, so I know. I know you would hope for the same fairness.

Well, I'll tell you this, I'm waiting to see how LeBron interjects himself into the finals this week. And I think it's going to be effusive praise about Drew Holiday, how he's the one guy in the league he always wanted to play with, followed by some sort of story about how he was pushing the Lakers hard to trade for him and Polinka didn't get it done or something. But LeBron knew that Drew was. He knew this was going to happen. I could see that because last week I thought he played the Kyrie thing really well.

That's good.

What he wouldn't give to have Kyrie again.

No, that's good. Be like, I can't believe the Celtics ended up with Drew. That was my number one target.

I tried to tell everyone, that's what we should get. Be a good one. All right, we're going to take a break and then we're going to throw it to the other part of the podcast, which we taped earlier in the afternoon and is very enjoyable and has a lot of NBA talking it. Celtics up 20. Unless you have any other stories from the crowd or any Boston stuff that you saw tonight.

I saw nothing.

You know what I like that they're doing. They had char as the hero among us in game one, and then Matthew Slater today for game two, I like bringing out the popular athletes. They really, I thought, supercharged the crowd. I thought that was cool. And in general, I thought the energy in there was great. It's just so funny that there was ten points during the game where the crowd was like, the roof's going to come off, miss three roofs. Ready to come off. Ah, mislay it. And they just could never get over the hump and make this. This awesome game. But maybe it'll happen in it had to be louder.

Game one, right?

Yeah, the KP. The KP stretch, when it went from whatever tie game to 3720 was the loudest I can remember it being since, you know, probably two years ago. Or maybe I was Philly. Game.

I got something for you. I. Oh, you weren't for that there for that one.

That was probably wasn't at the game seven, but I heard that was a really good crap.

I think they've done a really good job making all the stuff right around the court feel more packed than ever before. Like, I just remember there was more space. And now that there's very little space, which doesn't make it easy to navigate, it feels like there's just extra rows now, and it just fills in in a way. I don't remember it when I used to live here, but maybe. I don't know, maybe I'm just older and I feel more crowded. I went up and did the Celtics pregame show with Scout House and Tom. Yeah.

Oh, my God.

So you want to hear funny? So it was great. So I walked up and there was just this one angle of me to be able to, like, get through the crowd and then just go to security guy. And I didn't even look at who was at the desk. And there's this pretty put together. You could tell, like, former law enforcement guy, white guy, older than me. And he looks at me because I'm like, kind of coming up to be like, hey, you know, I think I'm going on here soon. Can I get through? And the guy's like, I don't know who you are, and I don't know what you're talking about. I was like, I'm totally okay with you. I don't expect anybody to know who but the producers right over there. And I'm in the next block, and they want me in. And then he, like, was looking at me, and then I look and realize he's Adam Silver's bodyguard. So he saw me, like, kind of beelining towards the set and thinking, why is this guy, like, walking so aggressively, like, in a straight line. And then being like, hey, I'm going up there.

And there was, like, a back area, but I wasn't. People can pretend, but, like, I'm never rude in those situations. I never expect anybody to know anything, even though I had this big badge on. And he's like, look, I'm here with Adam Silver. Like, I'm not. I don't know what you're talking about, who you are or who the other guy is or whatever. I'm here for Adam. And then I kind of, like, put it all together. We both put it together. I go, hey, you must have thought, like, what is this guy doing? He goes, it's exactly what I thought.

You thought he was like, you're like an assassin.

Yeah. I can't believe Seattle's gone.

So this fan for Mo said in.

The moment, he's like, I can't believe you left Clark off the Olympic team. He's like, dude, that's a different commissioner. It's not Adam. That wasn't Adam. So then it was just this awesome moment of, like, both of us laughing. I was like, you must have thought he was like, I was ready to tackle you. And I was like, I did not want to be tackled. And then the producer comes over, and he's like, ryan, we're over here. We're over here. So Adam Silver, your guy, is on it. And then was also, like, what I love with people that are in some sort of authoritative position. Cause granted, those people can have terrible attitudes. Cause they're dealing with so many assholes, especially at something like this, a big event. We had this moment of, like, relief where it was. Oh, yeah. Like, I was wondering what your deal was. And I could see why you would think I was in charge of this whole set. Because I'm security. I'm in front of the entrance. And we all worked it out, man. And then I said hi to Adam, and then I went on. And it's pretty funny because scal Eddie, myself, debated Tatum Brown.

And I was like, look, I don't want to do this. Jalen Brown's game one's probably one of my all time favorite Jalen Brown games. I loved it. But Tatum's a better player, and Eddie probably wanted me there for the postgame.

Is there an alternate universe where you just live here and you're, like, battling Felgar on some different station and doing the Celtics pregame, post game and really enjoying the fucking shit out of it? Would you want to do it for, like, a year?

No.

Okay.

Me neither do you.

Think about it sometime. It would be a fun.

Do you like to do that? Do you ever do the alternative, choose your own adventure, Bill Simmons stuff?

No, it's just like, you never do that.

You never think like, hey, if this didn't happen or this didn't happen.

No, I'm saying, like, right now, would it just be fun to do it for a year?

Oh, if I'm doing anything fun, one for a year. Now I'm getting league pass in St. Barts and I'm doing like, a boat thing on the weekend. That's the closest I.

Are you going Harala Bob?

Uh, no, I like division, division three.

St. Barts basketball team.

No, no, no. I mean, like, St. Barts and then get better at boating and then just keep, keep doing this. Like, I had a. It was probably cause my buddy and I had had a few drinks, but we were doing like, he was like, what could you do right now? Cause he's got kids. They're driving him crazy. And he was like, could you do this? And I went, yeah, I think I could do that. And then he was, like, throwing. Basically, it was a list of, like, seven different things. Like, could you do this? And I was like, yeah, I probably could do that. He's like, come on. And then it would just like, over and over and over again. He just kept.

You could just be a bartender at Barney's beanery for like five days a week.

Not at Barney's.

But there was, there was talk, like Manhattan beach, maybe.

Yeah, there was. There's been a few jokes about, would you actually do, like, a Sunday shift here?

Like, non NFL season?

I couldn't do it. NFL season. I mean, the amount of work we have to do on Sundays. But then could I do, like, Thursday nights? Maybe during the NBA season? Would I want to, would I have my towel?

So now you're talking Kyle's language, right?

Maybe. Maybe it'd be better if I owned a place. And I was like, hey, the owner's here on Thursdays. He checks the register.

See, that sounds like a sitcom.

That podcaster who's. Yeah, I don't know.

I feel like an NBC NBC replacement schedule.

Right?

To never opens a bar.

What if you made it more like the bear, where it was like, cool and arsenic?

We've got toe for Grace. He's interested.

What a great setup with the bear. When the guy's like, I thought you were dead. He's like, no, that's my brother. It's just such a good line in that show where he's like. He's like, selling stuff. And the guys thought you were dead. It's like, nope, nope, I'm not dead.

We gotta go to break. And now it's time for today's hard to handle segment presented by State Farm. When you get a new car or new home, your first reaction might be to say things like, I can't handle this. But what you should say is something that can help. Like, a good neighbor, State Farm, is there. So let's get into some moments this week that really gave fans a show. Game one, NBA Finals. We're sitting there in the stands. The Celtics come out before the game, no poor zingas. We look at the jumbotron. Horford's in the starting lineup, not poor zingas. And we're like, what the heck is going on? And a few minutes later, poor Zingis comes out. Crowd goes nuts, comes in, what, midway through the first quarter, and just starts making everything. And within, I don't know, five minutes, we forgot that we had complete anxiety that Christopher was not going to play in the NBA Finals because we had no idea what was happening. That's the thing. You got to know how to handle moments like that. The crowd got into it. When things feel hard to handle, like when you need help protecting what matters most, remember to say, like, a good neighbor State farm is there.

State Farm there to help answer insurance questions about your car, your home, other things that matter to you, whether it's on the phone, online, or on the award winning State farm mobile app, which I highly recommend, like, a good neighbor state farm is there. Visit statefarm.com to learn more. All right, so we're taping the second half of the podcast on Sunday afternoon before the finals game. Cause we wanted to bank some stuff. There's some NBA stuff happening. There's some draft stuff happening. Uh, being in Massachusetts with access to fanduel, where you could just be like, ask, screw it. I'll bet on the NBA draft. I was looking at the odds, and I've kind of settled on a hot draft. Take opinion, Rosilla. Would you be shocked if Klingon was just the number one pick?

Not even close to being shocked.

Okay, so he's, as we're taping this, he's 15 to one on Fanduel to be the number one pick. And I've talked to some NBA people the last couple weeks, and especially in person this week, and it feels like he's the only one in this top five that people are like, I at least know what that guy is. And I wonder if that just trumps all the other stuff in this draft, because, like, we talked a couple weeks ago about the way to think of this draft is just to slice off, pretend there's a top seven that already got drafted, and now we're starting at number eight. And when in a normal draft, where you slice the top seven off and you get to number eight, teams start drafting a little more toward need than they do for best player available. The point is that I'm not sure there is a best player available, and Klingon is just shop locker. He's been really successful. He won a state title in high school. He's won two in UConn, although the first time he was a bench guy, but. And you kind of know what he is. So.

So you don't think it's crazy either?

No. I'd say in the conversations that I've had about the draft, which are still somewhat limited, but it's a more fun draft to talk about with teams only because they'll be like, why do you guys all think this? And that happens every year, but not like this? And I try to remind everybody, like, hey, I'm not in charge of everything, so. And I don't even have a mock draft up. But that's your point, is that there's a lot of teams that they don't have to be tasked with the actual decision of who to take one or who to take two. But it feels like there's growing momentum of a lot of teams being like, man, the buzz is that these mocks are just assuming Sar Risashe in this way, that it's not even close to their boards. And I guess this was starting to happen at the combine a little. Now, again, I know the counter to this is always a really simple one. It's like, well, it's easy to do that when, you know, you don't have to worry about the pickup, and then when you have the pick, it's a little bit different.

But it gets back to the great Neil O'Shea line, where he was like, if there were no mocks, the drafts would actually play out much differently. But it becomes consensus. You decide to go outside the box, and then if you're wrong outside the box, your owner's like, what are you doing? Why did you take that guy two years later? So you're absolutely right. Like, based on what you're saying with this, I feel like the draft is the most exciting thing because. Not because of the talent, but because of, like, a. A lot of just underlying like, hey, you guys are assuming way too much in the media, right?

So I look at like Phillies at number 16 and normally be like number 16. Maybe in this draft, number 16 might actually, you end up getting a top five guy because there's going to be so many misses, right? There's going to be so, like, the number seven pick might just be a complete bus, the number ten pick might be a complete bust. But the way I was thinking about the draft was those NFL drafts where you kind of know a quarterback is going to go third, but the team that's picking third, it doesn't make sense for them to pick. But you kind of know, just looking at it, well, somebody's going to trade up then and take them because somebody's going to want him. And I feel that way about Klingon because the more I watch him and the more I read about the draft and it's just like, you know what he is. If you're a team like OKC and you could just move up from twelve to one with assets and just be like, all right, we get this guy. This is kind of what we need and we'll overpay for it a little bit.

Or, you know, Houston could move up from three to one. But he just seems like the. Sure, I look at Saar, like, Sar didn't even average ten points a game in New Zealand. You know, the french swing man. Who knows? That guy was like in an offensive funk for most of the year until the last month. So a lot of this stuff doesn't pass the sniff test to me. Like shepherd, really good college shooter for one year. It's a 30 game sample size, but he's six one and a half and we hit the playoffs every year where those guys just get routinely hunted. I find it hard to believe he's going to be the number one pick. So you just start crossing guys off and then it's like, all right, could Klingon be go bearish? Like maybe, right? Possibly, sort of.

Yeah, the rim protection in college is unbelievable and you would just love to see some shooting from him. But he took nine threes his entire career. So then you go, okay, well, can he develop that? But the free throw percentage is at 56% for his career. So usually that's something with someone where you're like, hey, the three or the overall field go percentage outside of the pain isn't that great. But the free throw shooting percentage is something teams constantly talk about that. And with Klingon, I think it's just a simple, like okay, well, at least, you know, to your point he can move around on defense. He was unbelievable at the rim in college. I mean, it was, it was hilarious watching Illinois be like, I think we're going to get this guy in a foul trouble. And you're like, you guys need another plan. Like, he's destroying you at the rim every single time. And I think OKC's interesting one because they could just pay it. And I don't know if Prestige would be like, well, I know I can probably do whatever I want to do with any transaction, but do I just overpay because I have a surplus of picks?

Well, if they evaluate him that way, like, what's the point? What's the point of like, oh, you know, we got rid of a 26 first and I felt like this was a bit of an overpay. Memphis has been mentioned a lot with.

Klingon too, but which I like that one too. Memphis is at nine. And the other thing is these teams can trade up in stages, right? Like they, like Atlanta could say to them, we don't want to fall below four or we don't want to fall below five. And ok, say Memphis would be like, cool. Cause Detroit is at five. They don't know what to do. They don't want to take another young guy. So maybe we've tried to flip spots with them, get to five and then we can give you five plus more stuff. That the thing with clinging. I was even thinking about it going to the finals game on, on Thursday where it's just, you know what's really good sometimes having, having a tall guy who confronts some shots. And if we're at the point in this draft where I'm not positive what everybody's super elite skill is and he is the best tracker to re, I mean, him going against Edie in the, in the, in the NCAA tournament and doing really well against him I think was important. You know, I also think he now, granted, I'm not mister college basketball, but I did watch a lot of stuff cause I was bored on a plane.

He does have good hands. He's not clumsy, right?

No, he's, yeah, he can a lot.

Of this knows where to go. Yeah, he knows how to put his hands up and maybe that's enough. And maybe for this draft it's kind of like having the game manager quarterback where you're like, I manages the game cool. Okay.

It's tough for the other two guys too because like when you watch saar, granted, he played, his overall numbers aren't great because he played 17 minutes a game for Perth and he just wasn't taking a ton of shots. But when you watch him run, you go, oh, my God. Like, look at this guy. Like, they don't make a lot of guys. There's not a lot of human beings that are running around like, this dude. On top of the three point shooting percentages weren't great, but he was taking them. It was, it was something, at least with him, where he sees himself 19 years old now, like, developing it out. And whenever you're watching him, or even Risa Shea, who, you're like, man, this guy can really, like, some of the catch and shoot stuff is really good, and look how big he is and look how he runs the floor, even though I think he plays a little bit smaller than he is. And so when you're watching him as, like, prospects, you go, oh, wow, like, I could see Sar. But you're constantly thinking about him as, like, the 8th or 9th pick. Yeah.

And that's why it kind of sucks for both guys, because when you're watching with potential, first you're going like, Zach just, he's a really smart player. There's some really cool small stuff that he does, the way he's screening off the ball and the way he comes back around to it. But I was like, he's not really, like, if you're going to be the number one pick and you're going to be this good, and I'm looking at you as a scorer beyond just the shooting, it's like, I'd love to see you create a little bit more off the dribble. And you're like, that is not based. I'm still pretty limited in what I've watched, but you just don't see a lot of it. And then you're right. Like, sar, you get lost. Like, you throw in one of the games, you're like, oh, I have to wait for him to come off the bench in one of these so well.

And the other thing with Saar, they do the he. The best thing, and the worst thing about him is he feels like he's a guard trapped in a big man's body. And whenever I hear that, I'm like, you know what? That's not. I don't consider that a positive. I don't really want a guard trapped in a big man's body. I'd rather just have a big man who knows he's a big man. But that's what's funny about talking about drafts like this and. And this is why I'm being really careful about.

I'm.

This is just like, blink test me. Reading this stuff, watching highlights, and just having this 50 year experience of what works and doesn't work in the draft. And I just think when you get closer to the draft, teams get more and more comfortable with. I actually. I actually know what that is, and that's what they take over. Like, man, I hope this is it. We've seen the most mistakes happen when people keep their fingers crossed and go, ah, darko, you should have seen this workout he had. It was amazing. And it's just all, like, hypothetical when you're just drafting on hypothetical in the top three or four gets super dicey. Even Edwards. And that was such a weird year. Cause there was no tournament and it was a Covid year. Nobody got to work him out. But he was still, you know, one of the biggest high school prospects. He still had a good, good college year, right. That there was at least some things to point to this saR. Like, I just don't know how you evaluate that. It's fucking crazy. And there's job protection pieces to it, too, where it's like, if you're wrong now your owner's just fucking side eyeing you.

Like, we took this SAR guy. He can't even. He's in the G league. Thanks. Thanks for that one. So, I don't know. I think this stuff factors in if.

You'Re a good gm, you're golfing with your owner all the time. You're just in that first tee box, and you're just going, man, this draft is weird. It's the weirdest draft. You're just working him.

I just hope we get a player. I don't even. It's 50 50. The guy will even be in a rotation for us.

But think about the instinct of survival, just to be fair. Like, Saar coming off the bench. There's plenty of international guys back in the day, too. And it would always be funny because the scouts would go to watch some international guy, and then sometimes the coaches would get really weird about the attention. It's almost like a Caitlin Clark thing where they'd be like, this guy who's, like, the 8th best player in our team, but you guys are going to draft him in the lottery. Cause he's 610 and he's 18 years old. Well, like, I'm not going to play him in the second half now. And there were a lot of guys that you looked at when you were getting ready for the draft. You're like, that's weird. He doesn't really even start. So it's not like Sars the first.

That's the Marvin Williams core. Larry. Remember he couldn't start on North Carolina and it was like, oh, Atlanta is probably going to take him second. And all of us were like, what? Based on the potential?

But he was of. He was pretty good.

I get it. But it was just, I want you to be able to start for your own team in college.

Yeah, but wasn't hooker off the bench, was he?

I don't remember that. I thought he played big minutes, though. Did he? I thought he was like, for them.

Look, Marvin was the same thing, but I'm just, I'm double checking it.

They took him over. Chris Paul. That's where the. That's where it fell apart.

Yeah, right. That's awesome.

I'm positive Chris Paul is good watching basketball. That guy's going to be in the league for a long, long time. The Reed shepherd one is the other one. That is.

Yeah. Booker came off the bench. He played 20 minutes a game. So I'm just. Yeah, I'm just pointing it out. Cause I remember, like, it can't be a hard and fast rule. And there's almost no hard sports. I'll give that as well. But look, I like Marvin, and when you watch Devin, you're like, wow, this guy's. This guy looks like he's pretty good.

Booker didn't go second, though.

No, but it's every. Every time we talk about these guys, you're just going to come back around to like, I can't believe. I have to. I have to take one of them. But that's kind of where we started, though. Think about where we started in this whole thing where I think you and I are both hearing from teams that it's like, don't start writing this stuff down in pen because it seems like there's been this Sar Zach back and forth one or two deal. And then the questions are at three. Can it be castle at three can be Klingon or three, which I think Klingon probably feels like the hottest name of, like, be ready for maybe something a little bit weird. But I kind of can't wait now. I can't wait because I think we might be in for some big surprises.

It's like a bad NFL draft. Cause the other one that I like, who for number one, who is way down there, he's 100 to one on Fanduel. I don't understand that as Castle. Cause Castle is another one where you're like, I know what this guy is. I don't know what the ceiling of it is. But worst case scenario, I know what it is. I know he could be on a really good team. I know he would be able to defend. There's some point guard upside with him. There's some. Maybe he was used incorrectly offensively in Connecticut because how good they were, and on a different team, there might be more there. But worst case scenario, I get somebody who's just a really good athlete who can defend multiple positions and switch and do all the things I need to do if I'm winning. And maybe, maybe that's enough for this draft. You know, hundred to one, you're less bullish on that one.

Well, I love the, I love the payout on it then the castle part. And I know you didn't mean to say incorrectly because you can't be like, oh, they used him wrong when they win another title and they just beat him offensively. I know exactly what you mean. So I'm not, like, trying to correct you like a french open broadcast, but when you have Spencer and you have Newton, there wasn't really going to be an opportunity for Castle to be a point guard. And that's been the thing that his group has been banging the drum on throughout the entire pre draft process, is that he's a point guard, he's a point card. And I don't know if it's because they're trying to. I don't know how many people would scare away in this draft. Like, his floor is probably five right now. He's had some nice offensive games, but I'll. I'll admit what we saw, it never. It never looked like a point guard. It didn't. And I didn't watch his high school stuff, so I'm not informed to just cross it out. But even in the times that he had the ball at UConn, I'm like, wait, this guy's a point guard?

And it was funny because I was.

Talking to, well, let's be honest, he's not a point guard. I think he's like, he can play a point guard, but to what I think both of us are aligned where you're either a point guard or you're not. Don't. You can't talk me into thinking you might be a point guard. But I think his point is he probably wants to be able to handle the ball more than it did.

Cause I started thinking about, like, the bigger guys, and I don't want to just come up with a list that makes it sound like I'm bright, while I'm admitting some other people. But if you think about the history of these bigger guards that are like, actually, I'm a point guard. You know, like, what do you mean? Like Chris Dunn or Emmanuel Moody or Jared Culver? Does it work out a lot? You know, Iguodala was a really interesting one. So if Castle's Iguodala, then he should go number one.

That's the thing. But I think, what if castles, like, slightly poor man Ziguidal?

Yeah. He may have just had Spencer and Newton and caravan and clinging to all these unbelievable players. Maybe they were just all in his way. But I watched a lot of UConn, and I never thought, pre draft, we'd be hearing, oh, no, no. He's actually. He's actually just a point guard. Again, I didn't watch the high school stuff, but I've seen plenty of guys that said they were point guards in high school, and it's like, were you. Were you. Were you, or were you just the guy who scored all the time? Cause you had the ball and you were that much better than everybody else? Cause you're gonna be a lottery pick in two years.

We'll do the exercise again. Cut out the top seven picks, pretend there's a top seven ahead of everyone in this draft, and the first pick is the 8th pick, et cetera, et cetera. And Castle going 9th in a normal draft would seem totally reasonable, right?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's some of these guys I really like at seven or eight or not.

Right. The Reed shepard's the other one. That's fun, because the shooting stats are amazing. He puts together a great mixtape. There's. His worst case scenario is 15 years from now, there's an incredible. Reed shepherd was a problem, exclamation point, mixtape of all his Kentucky and some of his crunch time stuff. But I don't think he's Peyton Pritchard. But my question would be, how. How much better than Peyton Pritchard is he? And that's what I'd want to know if I was going to take him with, like, the third pick in this draft. Right? Is he a bench guy? Is he a starting point guard? Do you feel like he could be a poor man, Steve Nash? Do you feel like he can play off the ball with a bigger guard? I just have questions.

I love that you're talking about him as if he's not as good as Peyton Prichard.

But that's the other question, is, what if he's just Peyton Prichard? Would you take Peyton Prichard with the third pick in this draft? Probably not.

I don't know that people loved it when Ainge took it, when he took him the first time around. So he measured out all right. Probably what you expected. Just under six two. I mean, the shooting, you want to talk about somebody else coming off the bench that's going to go really high. I mean, he only started five games in college.

Yeah.

And the shooting numbers are just so absurd that I think this is where you look at the spurs and go, can we get a shooter and a wing? Can we get a shooter and a wing? That's what's so great. Imagine if San Antonio had won the lottery. Maybe do they put Klingon next to webinarma to say, we're just going to put another body, but then is, then are you actually worried about him getting in the way or you can't imagine that they, they'd want to put Sar with them? I don't know. I don't know.

Don't you feel like they just want wings who can handle the ball a little bit? Throw an entry pass?

Entry passes would be compliment.

Compliment. Wemby. Just be able to get the ball to him and be able to switch on defense would be the only two things. Everything else would be a bonus at that point. Can you switch Md? Can you throw a pass?

Do you think the entry pass is going to become the 300 game winner in baseball? Like, we'll track the last guy that could throw an entry pass.

There was all this Bill Walton stuff was running over the last couple of weeks and there was a couple like Bird just throwing an entry pass to Walt and then cutting around him. And I was more impressed, just like the entry pass, how he would bounce it, get them at the certain thing. It feels like just a lost art. But also, nobody posts up anymore, so maybe nobody has, maybe not had to throw it.

I'm really glad you said that because I didn't want to sound as old as we just sounded during those last 30 seconds, because if nobody's in the post to throw it to, why am I? But it's just, it would have been nice for him beat at times. It would have been nice to not have it be so hand trying to do it.

You know what the new version of the entry passes is? The Tatum Luca type posting up at the foul line and throwing that little bounce pass when they have their, the guy on their back would be the, the other one. What's a. Let's switch to Jimmy Butler quick. Did you see the clip of Sparks game talking about number 22 and then, yeah, he did a tweet and there's just a lot of breadcrumbs being dropped, really, from that Pat Riley press conference and some of the stuff bolster said and Miami's making it clear we love this guy, but we're also really disappointed with how this season went is, is the read I'm getting from them. We want our best guy if we're going to pay him this much money to play basketball more and we want to have more success and we appreciate 23 and we appreciate 20, but moving forward, we're, we're not doing this anymore. And then you have Jimmy on the other side, you know, winking at the Lakers and it just, Priscilla, we've been here a lot of times when the breadcrumbs start dropping, I take notice.

The first thing I thought of from the most recent footage is that's why he tells his assistant. He's like, stop telling me I need to sign up for Raya. I don't, I don't need to. I'm good. I just, I show up in a jersey and it's on the other thing where this all started was maybe it's pre Pat Riley basically calling him out for talking shit about the Celtics. I mean, that was a really rare thing that happened.

He didn't basically call them out. He called them out.

Yeah, he did. Something so many other GM's are so afraid of doing because there'll be times you'll hear stories about, well, why did you do this? Why did you do that? And be like, we're always in fear. We're living in fear all of the time. Now. 30 GM's may not agree with me with that, but there's enough GM's that live in fear of doing all the little extra things, catering to the star the entire time for just that. Fear that one day he's going to walk in and say, hey, I actually want out of here. And you have Riley on the other side just going, nope. Like, I'm not, I'm not even, I'm going to go out of my way to publicly criticize you, even though you're the face of the franchise and Riley may have done it without any idea of a backup plan. Now, maybe with Riley having this many decades in this sport, maybe he's on the short list of guys with enough juice that can pull it off and do it, but then you'd have to also want to do it. And Riley clearly wanted to do that. The same way when LeBron left Miami.

That's a big one. Two days. He got out there and he called him out. Yeah, yeah.

And he got out there, and he was just, he was letting him have it. In a way.

That was the this is hard speech.

Yeah, right.

This is hard. You're not supposed to bail just because you didn't win the title one year. It's hard to win the title. This is great. It was one of my favorite Riley moments. I would add to what you just said, though. Riley's old, and I think old people hit the point sometimes in all aspects of life where they're just like, fuck it. It's like the old Jerry Seinfeld joke about old people backing out of the driveway, where they hit a point where they're like, fuck it, and they just go back. I don't care if cars are coming. They just go backwards.

Yeah. Naked guys at the gym, same thing. Like, there's a certain age, I believe. They get together. Like, you hit 70, they all have a meeting. They pull you aside, and they just say, hey, balls everywhere. It's over. We don't have to worry about it anymore. I'm convinced if you're still in the gym lifestyle at 70 years old, I'm sure that somebody reaches out to you like, oh, I saw you have a birthday coming up next week. Here's the protocol.

So that about first base coaches, too. First base and third base coaches, balls out.

Anyway, I interrupted scrotum high because we agree there's something that happens, and certainly Riley is north of that age. And also whatever accomplishments, you would need to feel comfortable doing that. And also the job security on top of everything else, because the butler thing is still unsettled. And if it were unsettled, maybe they're like, hey, he's older, and this is their ceiling, so I don't even care. But he may have done this if he was just extended and 32 years old, who knows?

Well, and then the other piece of this ecosystem where teams aren't allowed to tamper, but teams are, are allowed to put it out there off the record, to reporters, like, like a Philly situation. We like cap space. We love Jimmy just kind of put.

That Philly love, by the way.

Philly loves everyone. They have go down the list on anyone who makes more than 20 million a year. They love them, but he's somebody that, I don't know if they have the assets, but the Lakers one is pretty fun because you could crack. You could put salaries together with picks. I think they'd have to. I think Miami would have to get a third piece. I don't think Miami feels like they're.

I just always feel like they're a team that needs the player coming back and they've really never prioritized draft picks. So keep going.

Right. So if they're doing, if it's like Rui Hatchimore and Gabe Vincent and multiple picks, I don't think Miami is going to be like, oh, cool. Now we're out of the Jimmy Butler business. Like they, they want stars and big ass players. So if they're moving Butler, whatever version that he gets from whatever team would go somewhere else to get somebody that they actually want, like the McHale Bridges, Brandon Ingram, whoever they talk themselves into, I think that would be why you do it. The bigger question for me is just, does Miami feel like they just had this incredible run at the blackjack table with, with Butler? Right. Four years, they made two finals. He played great. Hes probably a Hall of Famer now. It couldnt have gone better. And now its like 230 in the morning and this is like when Im at the casino and theyre starting to vacuum and sals like lets go. And im like, no, no. One more hand. And I think Miami is like, theyre vacuuming. Its, we should go. Lets go cash chips in. And that's what I wonder with this butler thing. Are they just like, this is only going to get worse.

He's older, he's got a ton of miles on him. He misses 20 to 30 games every year. We've peaked with our, the east is better, the west is way, way, way better. And we are paying for past performance now let's move on. Now.

They lucked into Butler, too. I mean, they, Miami finds a way where, whether it's all the guys going down there to start the heatles, they had the right situation. They had the right star in place already. Remember when all of those guys did their extensions? We're like, why do those guys do shorter rookie extensions? Like, why was that? Why was everyone but Carmelo?

Carmelo never got the memo.

Right. Right. He wasn't on the text thread. So, and that was, that was the next extension. I don't, I don't believe that was the extension because LeBron came in seven years prior. But when I think about that, it's like, okay, I'll give you some credit, but I don't know if it's just the heat way. Like the Heat way was at an all time, it was a 52 week high in 2023. The whole heat culture deal and all that kind of stuff. But sometimes I think there's a mistake of just believing because of that and then figuring out a way to get off the white side stuff and then getting butler in there that they're just supposed to luck into the next one.

Well, you forgot Anthony Carter in 2003. That was the best one because that they've agent fucked up his contract. They were able to get rid of him, basically. They were able to steal Lamar Odom from the Quippers and then a year later get Shaq because they cause Anthony Carter, basically. So they've had some positive luck moments that they took advantage of.

Well, big time, too, because the Shaq part of it, remember, it's because he wasn't going to get the ascension from LA. LA makes their choice, they move on from Shaq. And then Miami's like, we'll do it and it completely works out. But those last couple years for Shaq were going to be dark. And then luckily they had a new owner syndrome deal in Phoenix with Robert Sarbanes being like, this is going to be awesome. It's like this goes against everything that you guys have been doing basketball wise here for a while. So you could go through a bunch of franchises and say, hey, that worked out. Or they got lucky there with all these different things, but it feels like Miami more than any other franchise. We just assume, I guess, it's going to happen again. And we can read the breadcrumbs and all the flirting and all the stuff that Butler wants to do and he's a difficult guy. He's a difficult guy, but he's their guy and he was their best option at the time. I don't. I just never see them in rebuild mode. I just don't.

I mean, not with bam.

Well, bam.

And not with. Not with bam and spo store where you're like, no, I'm agreeing with you. You bam and spoelstra. And you have some good peripheral pieces and then you have the Butler piece and.

But they still need that one score and at least Butler's that whatever his limitations are and the frustrations of how he treats the regular season and maybe talking yourself into a ceiling that's a little bit higher based on the run of 23. I love bam. Every team should want a bam, right? He's like one of those guys, but I don't know how aggressive they would get. Maybe they're just afraid of what Butler's going to be like without an extension. And that's what they already know and why this is already happening.

Or it's like the classic little both sides winking at other people at the bar. But ultimately they're going to get back together. But I feel like there's a lot of smoke and we're going to take a break and then we're going to talk about at least one team that I think could be involved in an impossible Miami trade, but that's next. All right, coming back, we're going to play for the rest of the month through the draft, a game of what would you do? Where we're going to pick teams and they come to Racil and I, and they say, guys, we need help. What would you do if you were us? And we look at their whole situation and then we try to offer them counsel. So we'll start with the Atlanta Hawks, who we talked about earlier, have the number one pick. And the thing I keep hearing from people is that if it was an over of one on Fanduel, Trey and Murray get traded and the overs won, and you could bet under push or over. That some people seem to think both of those guys are getting traded is a thing I've heard and from different people who don't know each other, who know things that they're just like, you know what?

We get the number one pick. This, this didn't work. We got to the conference finals at one time. Let's just try to blow this up. Could you see it, that being a trade trade and a Murray trade? So two separate trades.

I would bet the one number, I think that's the safety.

The push would be, I think probably -120 the over would be plus 302 trades and then zero trades would probably be like plus 200. But yeah, the, or maybe the pushes even have better ads. So which one. Which one do you think is going.

Well, look, Atlanta fans aren't going to like, cool, priscilla is going to do another Hawk segment.

You don't need to do another trade thing.

But that's who I would trade. Yeah, I'd want him out of there. And there's a couple of reasons why. We could talk about the basketball part of it. Clearly, he's the most talented player on the team. There's the star part of it. There's the. This is the guy that kind of moves the needle in our city. This is the guy that helps us feel more relevant. It's the kind of lamello ball challenge that I think Charlotte will continue to face where it's like, this is kind of who our star is. It's like, all right, but what's the goal?

The guy, there's video of him on a go kart just driving around on the roof of a building. That's our star.

I think the videos of him leaving the arena are. Are far worse than the go kart thing. But a young guy who's a famous athlete with money driving, like, in a tiny city.

No, it's.

Right.

You know what I mean?

Right.

It'd be nice to see playoffs once.

Yeah. So Trey's got two years left. 43 million this year, 46 million next year. Early termination option at 49 million. Dejante's deal with Atlanta is actually pretty good.

It's pretty shocking. 2527-2931 so his $31 million option in.

27, 28 is 8 million, or, excuse me, 12 million less than Trey's number for next year. So I wonder what Dejante would be away from Trey. And even though the clutch thing, I think is. So when Trey left clutch, I think all of our first instincts were, okay, we. Well, that makes the Lakers thing more challenging. But what if I were to present it to you this way? What if clutch is, like, cool now Dejante gets the team to himself, and Trey will help our other two guys in LA. Does that mean clutch doesn't want to help him at all if LA and Atlanta want to do this deal? I don't know. I think that's the first we all had.

Yeah. I'd never believe that. Maybe they're not fired up for it, but ultimately, if it's the best trade for the Lakers, they're going to support it, right? They're not. Oh, you can't take. You can't go after him. You left our agency. That'd be crazy.

So then with the Lakers, you have to figure out, all right, it's going to be Reeves and who else? And then it's going to be how many picks? So you get the D'Angelo player option thing where he's probably not going to do you any favors.

Well, wait a second. You don't think it makes sense for the Lakers to trade for Trey Young, do you? I don't see how that improves any aspect of their ceiling to win a title. They're going to get worse defensively, and they. And they have LeBron, who's going to be in year 22, playing power forward and taking plays off. And, like, I just. I think that would be crazy.

The only reason I like it for Trey is that I think he has to go somewhere where it's not him and a bunch of unproven people because he got the keys to a franchise and he got to kind of do whatever he wanted. And that's why whenever I hear about Trey going to San Antonio, like even with Wembonyama and what we expect him to be and how big of a star he already is, he's probably too young and not established. I don't know if Trey would defer to him. I think for Trey's best basketball he has to learn how to defer a little bit more. And he would do that with LeBron and Ad, but the Lakers part of it. I'm just trying to like that.

You like that team's chances against Oklahoma City, Minnesota, Dallas, Denver? Cause I do not.

Do you have a trade where you pick them as a top two team in this in the west that I'm not thinking about.

I haven't. I actually have an Atlanta trade that I like more for them. But just going big picture and I'll get to that in a split second. Keepers for Atlanta.

Okay. All right.

Jalen. Jalen Johnson keeper.

Yeah, totally love it.

We both like still in a rookie deal. I like a conglomerate at 1415 1617, solid price, little below market for where the center position I think is. And I like the limited stuff I saw from AJ Griffin. I wouldn't call him like a, wouldn't include him in a trade keeper, but I think you have him. But I think everyone else is available, including Hunter, who was pretty decent last year. And then Bogdanovich is 16 this year, 16 next year team option, which is a really good bench guy for a contender. Capella's on an expiring at 22 and a half. Atlanta's picks, they have number one pick this year, protected Sacramento pick next year. San Antonio can swap picks with them in 26 and they're giving their 25 and 27 picks to San Antonio, which is the other big piece of this. If you're blowing it up and you're going backwards, you're risking San Antonio having the first pick in the draft with this COoper flag and the Brockton kid where everybody loves the 25 draft. So you have that too, where it's like how bad would you put potentially want to be? But back to the Lakers, doesn't it make more sense for them to trade for Murray?

Isn't the price less? It's a cheaper contract. Because I was, I was looking at it like they could do, they could put the Vincent Vanderbilt contracts together. They're, they're picked this year, they could draft the guy then send them after they're 29 1st rounder and they can do a swap and 28 for Murray and be done with it and keep the 31, but not give up quite as much and get a guy on a cheaper deal. I thought that made more sense for the Lakers. I'm not against that for them either.

Yeah, I wasn't doing this because I thought to solve all the Lakers problems and made them the favorites in the west. The same way your Murray trade doesn't exactly put LA ahead of any of the teams that were excited about in the west. So unless there's some weird Donovan Mitchell thing or something that exists where it's like, okay, Jimmy Butler is on the team, you know, I don't. We. I mean, we can toy around.

Did you trade all that stuff for Jimmy.

Vincent and who? So are you talking Reeves in it?

I think Rui has to be in that. I'm just, I'm not trading, I'm not trading Reeves to get a third star because I feel like I need four stars to beat and not, not that Reeves is even a full star, but I think I need three stars plus Reeves to even think about competing with the top four in the west. If Reeves is in the trade, I don't see how there's an upgrade when we're in that Murray Trey kind of class of guys. I don't. I don't see how that works for them, but I I I'm already on the record. I think it's over for them. I don't think it matters what coach they're going to hire. I just think. I think it's a wrap for them. I think the west has moved toward these four or five other teams. Everyone else has younger guys that are in their primes and they have more assets.

Yeah, I didn't. I mean, I was really looking at this more from the Atlanta side of it of like, what could they possibly do? But I'm thinking if they could keep one of the two, I'd want to keep digiante, see what it liked with him not having he and Trey, which they're both, I think I agree, guilty of where you could just see that. It just never felt like it just dawned on me a few months in, I was like, these guys don't play basketball together. They're out there at the same time, despite how often they would split up their minutes. But you're going to start with them, you're going to close with them. Those minutes when you close, like, that's really who you are as a basketball team. And I just felt like, too many times I was watching them, like, these guys aren't even playing basketball together, and the example I always use is when Jimmy Butler was coming along and Derek Rose came back from injury and they were on the floor together. But it was. It was kind of like this internal battle with five guys out of the floor for your team at the same time.

So I don't like trading Reeves at all. The D'Angelo Russell thing makes it complicated because he's not just going to opt in to do you the favor, then be traded somewhere where he doesn't want to go. So. And then you've got, can we go.

Back to something you said earlier about Trey? You were talking about the relevance.

Yeah.

Right. That he. The reason you'd be hesitant to trade him is because of the relevance to me. That makes him an asset with certain teams that might actually care about that relevance. Cause, um, like there's a couple trace spots I like more for him and actually for Atlanta as a possible trade deal. But one of them is Brooklyn because. And we're going to talk about Brooklyn next with a. What. What would you do? But Brooklyn's in this weird spot where they don't have their pick in this 25 draft. Right. So you have to decide, is that pick a sunk cost? Almost like it was in the Tatum and Jalen Brown drafts where it's like we suck and that picks going to really come back to on us, but we can't think that way. We just got to do what's best for us. Or do you go, you know what? That would suck if that happened again. We need somebody that could at least make the fans go, oh, they have that guy, right? So they could go one of two ways and we're going to talk about them in a second. But either trade Mikael Bridges and really try to rebuild or try to get a second star and be a little more relevant.

Try to be like a six, seven, eight seed. And if Atlanta said, we'll trade you Trey and you can give us back the Simmons expiring, but we want all your Phoenix first. We want 25, 27, 29. We want all of them. And we want that swap you have, too. It gets a little dicey with the swap because I don't know what trade's value is, but basically, would you trade Trey for Simmons and the Phoenix first if you were Brooklyn and then you could put him and bridges together and now you have the foundation of something.

No, not even close. Because that 27 Phoenix pick, depending on where that goes, could be more valuable than number one pick today.

So you. So if you're Brooklyn, I guess we can talk about them now because these two are a little unrelated. You're not worried about the 25 draft. You're just doing what's best for your team for the rest of the decade. And you're not worried about the possibility that that pick might go to, what's it, Houston? Yeah, Houston. And that might be cooper flag or it might be the Brackton kid I wouldn't be making.

The only time I would ignore, like, a long term timeline is if I felt like kind of our Oakley or OKC complaints with the trade deadline where you're like, man, it really looks like you could use a big, like some of these rebounding numbers, like check its beat up in some of these games, like, whatever. And man, you're the one seed. And I know this all feels ahead of schedule, of how young you are and all these things, but, you know, maybe now is the time where they wouldn't even have to blow up all their future assets. If I'm Brooklyn, I have no idea what that team is. I just, I don't. But I still really like bridges. I think about bridges when he first got there post Phoenix and how well rounded of an offensive player he was. Like, he showed us things that we never really saw in Phoenix that made us think like, okay, it doesn't mean he's a one for a title contending team, but he's clearly better in a role where he has the ball more. And then it just kind of turned into a free for all with Brooklyn.

So if I'm Atlanta and, you know, I'm getting, well, excuse me, I should look at it this way. If I'm Brooklyn and I'm trading for Trey Young, who I know is an attraction, is going to sell jerseys, the fans are going to be into it, and I'm not like that much better. I don't want to start trading these Phoenix picks down the road because I look at the Durant part of it, I look at how much of a mess that whole thing has been, I think those Phoenix picks could be really valuable, or at least right now, that's how I would look at it. So I wouldn't be in a hurry to trade any of those.

I agree with you. I thought that was the most interesting trade possibility out of all the trades. And the only reason I thought of it with Brooklyn is the Knicks have taken back the city and then some, right? The whole Brooklyn era really, from the moment Prokorov showed up has been just a comedy of errors and almost and what ifs and, you know, and basically they're in the same spot they were in the mid 2010s, again, with bridges. And I don't think you'd have to.

All of that, by the way, for Trey. I just. I don't think the market for him is like, even if you do the LA thing, like, I would love getting Reeves back if I'm Atlanta, but I don't know that I'm supposed to get all their picks to all the Lakers pitch, too. Like, I. That might be like, kind of.

If that's even just wondering if I'm. If I'm Brooklyn with. Do I need a face? Do I need a famous player? And is there value in. This guy killed the Knicks, and this guy has a rivalry with the Knicks, and this guy's a dog. The trade that I was more excited about, well, there was one house already signed off on this for Trey for Pool and Washington's number two pick and a 26 first. And you got to give me a little more. Cause I took pool's contract. But basically Atlanta would then trade. Train ended up with the first and second Johnny Davis in this draft. Maybe Johnny Davis is in there, but this is my favorite. And this ties back to our butler combo, Trey for hero and Robinson and Miami's pick in the draft. They'll have to draft the guy and then trade them. And then they're 29, unprotected first, and that's the trade. And you basically turn them into hero and Robinson and some assets. And then if you're Miami, you keep Butler. You have bamboo Trey, heat culture. Just the kind of guy, he's a warrior. If you go back and watch him in the.

In the playoffs a couple years ago, that guy, he's unafraid. He's our kind of guy. He's competitive as shit. And I don't know, it just would seem like the kind of trade where I'd be like, oh, man. And then the more I look at him like, ah, shit, that might actually have been a good trade for them.

You have me interested because I don't.

Know why, but I like him in Miami for some reason. And by the way, he's doing all the same stuff they would have wanted from dame, right? Conceivably, yeah, I guess.

I guess I never really felt like Trey was better than Dane.

I'm not saying he is, but just if they were willing to trade for an offense, first guard, who. Who took a lot of threes and couldn't really guard anyone, then maybe they'll trade for the younger version that.

Yeah, it shows a lack of interest in guarding people like, oh, is that a screen coming up. Oh, man. Screen again.

I hate those. I hate screens. Why did they do those?

I didn't get to this one. Next one, though. Next one I'll be ready for. I think this is really important for Trey, though, of, like, who do you want to be? Like, who do you, what do you want this to be? And sometimes Westbrook was given the ultimate freedom at Oklahoma City that MVP year. Okay. And the stats are outrageous, but, like, it was his thing. And I think you look back at that and you go, what was that really like? What was that year? Is it statistically one of the greatest seasons that players ever had, or is it the most tailored season we've ever seen an organization allow a player to have?

You know what it actually was? It was the Kevin Durant didn't break our franchise and we were able to survive and we pulled off and we got in it and we got the MVP with Westbrook and we survived. That's how I see.

Yeah. But I think it's both of those things. So it would be great if you were an awesome player and you kind of got to just do whatever you wanted with the franchise. But I think for Trey long term, there'll have to be a moment for him maybe to be somewhere else where it's like, look, we really love all the things that you're capable of doing because clearly he's, he's an unbelievably talented player, but there just needs to be maybe some teammates you respect way more than the guys that you've, that you've played with or didn't respect in an.

Offer, maybe it's an uncle. Uncle Pat sits him down, talks about his 50 plus years in the NBA, some of the stuff he's seen. I remember when we got Bob McAdoo, former two time MVP or 1975 MVP. You know, he just wanted to win. It's all about winning.

He stayed for you. And if they were to say, like, well, were you worried about his defense? Be like, well, heroes, not here anymore. So.

Right, we've gone sideways. Murray for the Holmes Bagley contracts, Washington's number two in a 2028 swap. You like that for anybody?

I just don't like these picks. I know there's going to be players who are going to be wrong about the draft. There'll be something that'll happen within a year, two years from now. Like, hey, remember, nobody thought this draft is going to be. Of course there's going to be a couple good players that none of us see. That's the way the draft works out. We're going to be wrong about players all the time. But the problem for Atlanta to hit a reset button, this is not going to be the kind of player with the number one pick. I think it's the same thing for Washington.

Yeah, right.

So maybe.

So maybe I like, my favorite trade is the Miami one. My favorite, Trey hall, is Brooklyn. If Brooklyn is just like, we've got to get a star. We can't be irrelevant again.

Those protective Phoenix things, man. I mean, wouldn't you think, like, do you think Phoenix is a happy ending? Three years from now?

I would want those Phoenix picks. That's so, so maybe what would you do for Atlanta is like, get those fucking Phoenix picks. Get those. Those are good ones. I have one Murray trade for you that I really liked, and it involves the Orlando magic, favorite team of our beloved producer Steve Ceruti. There's a fun wrinkle with Orlando where they're under the cap, so they could just absorb his contract, basically, Murray. But they also have Anthony Black, who was a lottery pick last year, and they have all their firsts and is there just something there where it's like, we'll take Murray into our cab space, we'll give you black and we'll give you like our 2026 1st. Let's call it a day. It's pretty good.

I like it better than the tre stuff that people have with Orlando because this version of Trey, I would not want an Orlando. Maybe that heat version I've been just fantasizing about here in my head for the last few minutes because I really like that idea. I think that's one of the best. Yeah, one of the best fake trades you've ever presented to me.

But thank you. Thank you, Murray.

Unless they love black and there's some stuff from him just in his rookie year. I know he's really limited offensively at this point, but just you watching him play as like, man, I just, I like the way this guy plays the game.

I like the way he carries himself, interacts with his teammates, and he has the. He carries himself with the spirit of somebody who will someday be the leader of a professional basketball team. I agree with you.

I don't know that I went that far with it.

I was feeling. I was feeling generous.

I think he's still going to get like 20 a game regularly and I don't, I don't know if that's in his future and it could just because there's other, other options that are in his way offensively. But if you brought Murray in, and that's all you're giving up. You're a better basketball team tomorrow. Well, especially if you feel like Murray out of nowhere. Yeah.

Yeah. If you're looking at the east and you're looking at Philly, who has two players right now, and you're looking at Milwaukee, who's in a really, you know, I think a little bit of a creepy place where they have this older team and really no way to do anything. And then you look at the west, and the west is just getting better and better and better, and you're not going to be able to really get better unless Dame somehow goes back to being dame from a few years ago. Um, but go through the east, Miami, unless they make a move, they seems like they. They've at least probably leveled off, and Orlando might think like Cleveland's if they're clearly going to pick between Mitchell and Garland and who knows what kind of roster they play out. Very Lando, you're like, we might be the second best team in the week next year. Could we be in the conference? Could we be OKC last year, this year in the east, could we just randomly get to 52 wins out of nowhere? You know, with the talent we have, especially if Franz starts hitting threes again.

I can't imagine he's going to consistently shoot this poorly the rest of his career. I just. I don't understand how it got that bad. And with Murray, I mean, he was so three point happy this year, and I know Orlando is looking at it. It's like they have to, whoever they bring in, if he's going to have the ball a lot, has to give him some kind of spacing and some kind of shooting. And the shooting numbers from Murray, from distant. I mean, he was not afraid. I think he took like seven a year this year, and the numbers have been pretty good, even though I don't think he came to the league that way.

So our advice for Atlanta is move, worst case scenario, trade Trey to somebody that really wants him and is ready to pay 100 for him and keep Murray, but potentially trade both. If you're getting awesome trades, but you can't come back with both guys. You have to.

You can't come back with one of them.

Yeah, yeah, Brooklyn.

But just to finish the thought, but also like, to remove both of them and then go, okay, we've got the number one pick. I don't think this player that you're taking, even if everybody's wrong and the first pick ends up being a five time all star and all that kind of stuff you are rebuilding because both, all the options are either limited players and probably what they would be, or it's going to take a while. It's going to take up just a lot of development, and the guy's going to have to have the right attitude to build on what we're seeing so far.

Well, and they're in the same spot Brooklyn's in, where they don't have their 25 pick in this draft that potentially has two superstars, which is just an awful spot to be in.

Right.

Brooklyn's got that. They've got Nick Claxton as an unrestricted free agent, which is terrifying because there's a sense of desperation with Brooklyn. Like, they don't want to lose Nick Claxton. But I also would not want to pay him. I think the going rate for somebody like him is in that 17 to 20 range, but he'll probably end up making more than that. And any dollar over 20 million a year, I just don't feel like his market value for what he does. Uh, the Simmons expiring gives them trade possibilities that they didn't have a year ago when that had two years on it. They got Cam Johnson at 23 and a half, 21.6 and 23.6. They have a Schrader, Dennis Schroeder expiring, and they got Finnie Smith, who's got two more years at 15. This could go any direction we want. I'm gonna give you my number one suggestion for them, and this will be music to your ears. I'm all in on. Traded for Darius Garland. All in. If. If we're hitting this situation with Cleveland, where it's like they have chosen Donovan Mitchell. Donovan Mitchell. And there's been a lot of breadcrumbs dropped around that, too.

Like, he's actually staying. He's the most powerful person in the franchise. It's going to be him and Mobley. I think part of that has to do with the fact that he knows he can't go to the Knicks, because the Knicks like who they are, and they're not going to mess with the Brunson thing. And he doesn't want to go to Brooklyn because everything they would trade for him, then he's just there by himself at the Garland thing. He breaks his jaw last year, he loses a bunch of weight because he's eating through a straw. Then he has to play the second half of the season being worried he's going to get hit in the face. Right. Which is a real thing. We forget we're watching on tv. You have an injury like that, you. You're driving the basket. You're just thinking every time you're worried about getting hit. Not for Mohamed Ali. He's playing off the ball more than. More than he probably wants to because of Mitchell. And I just think his. His stock is lower than it should be, considering his age and some of the pedigree stuff we've done. And if I'm Brooklyn, can I have him and Mikhail Bridges?

Can I just end up with that? And then I can figure out the rest? And I feel okay. That would be my number one choice. Do you agree?

I can't believe you brought these names up. We didn't talk about this ahead of time because I was wondering if Mitchell is staying, based on the Cleveland hat theory I was throwing around, but it just didn't seem like, hey, Mitchell's going to leave. Mitchell's going to leave. So they go all in on Mitchell. They have to break up their backcourt, much like we just talked about with Atlanta. Would you do Bridges? Bridges for Garland? So you go, okay, we get in front of the bridges problem, and now we have Garland. To your Trey young point. I know he's not as flashy or as sexy. I like. Well, Trey's been the better player, so let's not get ourselves there too much.

So, Bridges for Garland, just nothing else on either side.

You'd have to put in some salary to match up with garden, with Garland. But if you're breaking it up for Cleveland, I just don't know how you get. I don't know how you get Garland to Brooklyn without Bridges, unless you want to start throwing in all these other picks.

So I had Cam Johnson, Schreider's expiring, and the 27 and 29 Phoenix first.

For Garland, that's a.

It's a big price. But if I'm Brooklyn, I think I do it. Cause I really believe in Garland. And if we're both wrong about him, so be it. Been wrong before, but I'm in on that guy. I am. There's a unique chance here. Listen, Jason Kidd, who's a better, better player than Garland at the time and turned out to be one of the best 40 players ever, there are two moments in his career in the first, like, six, seven years, when he just became a little bit of a distressed asset compared to what the talent was, right? Dallas moved on him quick. They traded him, and then he had the domestic violence incident with Phoenix, and they unloaded him to New Jersey. I don't think Garland is as good as Jason Kidd was but I do think. I think value wise, he's not as high as he was a year ago, and that would make me want to trade for him because I still believe in the talent and I think he's a gamer, and I think he's fun to play with.

I think, for the record, we have to say Garland's not even close to Jason Kidd.

But that's what I said. I set that up correctly. Kidd is one of the 40 best players ever.

But you're right about Garland because the end of it, and he misses a bunch of shots in that celtic series where the whole thing was a mess anyway. Yeah. Especially with Allen.

Great time to trade for him. It's like, oh, what happened? And it's like, then you in October, there's the athletic piece about Garland so happy he has head on straight. People don't realize he couldn't eat for two months. And they lays out the whole thing. There's a bridges trade I like more than the Cleveland one, but I really like that one. Well, there's two, actually, if they, if, if they're cutting ties and they're just like, you know what? Let's start over. I think there's two teams that could really want him. Houston and OKC. And Houston and OKC both have the assets and the stuff to be like 130 cents in the dollar here. Right? So Houston's got the third pick, Cam Whitmore, and they have the swap rights with Brooklyn. And they could just be like, we'll swap it back. You can have your pick back, and we'll give you the number three pick this year and Whitmore give us Bridges. Is that too much?

How many picks is it again?

It's the number three pick in this draft, which is really like the number ten pick. And then they have swap rights with Brooklyn in 25. So they could say, well, we'll basically cancel that out.

That's just not enough for Bridges. He's too good. He's too young.

And Cam Whitmore.

No, I know. I was aware of the Cam Whitmore part of it. I love Cam Whitmore this year, but.

So you want one more pick? Would you want one more? Cause they also have Brooklyn's 27.

I need something. I mean, it really depends on bridges. Like, are you going to tell us you're out of here?

Well, then that's trying to get them. And the Knicks are playing in the flag on it hard.

I need something bigger than, than Cam Whitmore coming back as a player. Third pick.

Shepherd, Stephen Castle. Stefan Castle. The, uh, there's the trey young trade we mentioned before.

Would you do bridges for cat?

Well, okay, see, bridges for cat we can talk about in a second. Okay. Seed would do giddy. They have the cap space. So it just be giddy for bridges because, okay, so you would have the cap space to absorb bridges. They have the 12th pick. They have the best of the four team swap with OKC, Houston clips philly. So they could give that to the, to Brooklyn. They have all their other picks, but basically the 12th pick, giddy and a couple other picks to get bridges. And then if you're okay, see, you're like, we're really going for it now. Here we go. We got Shay, we got j dub, we got Dort, we got bridges, we got Chet. That's our crunch time. Five.

That would be incredible. It would be unbelievable. But is Brooklyn in the tre stuff? We were talking about Trey being the face of what they need moving forward, Brooklyn, because like, I just would try not to worry about that stuff. Like, hey, the Knicks are starting to own the city. Okay? So now we have to do what?

That sounds good on a podcast, but not if I have Joe Si staring at me going, nobody care. People made fun of my kids at school today. Nobody cares about the nets. What, what's your plan?

The interesting one with, is after the Durant Irving experiment, he'd probably think he'd be like, maybe I'm not desperate to just do whatever is possible to bring in a star, even though every team would have done that to get Durant at the time. So is there, is there a trade? Do you look at the thunder picks, Bill, and go, there's a package of those picks where. Yeah, it's fine. And now we're just, we're starting it all over. All over again.

Yeah. I mean, well, that would be that trade, or that would be the Houston trade. Knicks. Well, the Knicks. Yeah, the Houston trader. The Knicks. If Randall wasn't in it and it was just basically Bogdanovich, you can wave immediately and then you just get all their picks. There's a, there's a fun. It did make me. I think you're going to like this one. I'm pretty good at predicting what, predicting what trades you're going to like. I think you're going to like this one. Bridges and Schroeder to the Pelicans for Ingram and the Lakers, 2025 first. And if you do a little more from the New Orleans side, I'll throw in a little more from the New Orleans side. If you need more yeah, I love.

It for New Orleans because they were probably too small to backcourt. Now when you think about Herb and Bridges and Trey Murphy and all this length.

Yeah. How about those three guys with Zion?

Yeah.

Because I think whipping that out there.

Ingram's another guy post playoffs, too, where you go after the Dort series, you're like, oh, who would want that guy? Now, granted, whenever you re sign him, you're probably not gonna love that contract. And I agree with you totally about the Nick Claxton thing. It was like, I like him, but, boy, I'm not gonna like paying him.

That's a good list. I like them, but, boy, I wouldn't like paying him. It's a fun all star team. Claxton's by center, just FYI.

Yeah, Ingram's. Ingram, whatever his new deal is. And I think that's probably why New Orleans, in a very frank way, David Griffin afterwards, like, we've tried it. We had some things we liked. Probably can't come back looking like this next year, which is pretty rare for somebody to say it. So, yeah, I really like that one for New Orleans and the difference between this and the OKC one where it's like, so I get giddy and maybe some things. Yeah, it's like, I get giddy. Ingram, you could at least say, hey, this guy's actually like, pretty good. Just hopefully Dort doesn't get traded to the Eastern Conference.

I wonder if we've hit the point where maybe the picks don't matter as much as we think they do, whether these teams just don't care. Like. Cause I'll go back to that trade I mentioned earlier about Trey for the Simmons expiring and the three Phoenix first. And you rightly recoiled and you were like, oh, man, I wouldn't. I'd want to keep those Phoenix first. But sometimes I, like, I wonder, like, what happened with the Mavericks and some other teams that just said, fuck it. Like, you look back, I hated the Anthony Davis trade. I thought the Lakers gave up like, 200 cents in the dollar for him. Now you look at all the stuff they got from it, it's like, eh, you'd probably do that one again. You know, Durant might be one of the only ones where they were, what they gave up for him versus what they've gotten back and the lack of success they've had with them is really like, oof. You know, Mitchell and Gobert, those trades, I don't know if you'd run those back if you were Utah and Cleveland, but at least you could say, or Minnesota and Cleveland.

But at least if you're in Minnesota, be like, hey, man, we beat Denver. You know, if you're Cleveland, you're like, hey, Mitchell's one of the best 15 players in the league. You do that 100 times out of 100.

Anyway, the going price, though, like, it just kind of became like a standard of, well, how much does it cost to get into that place? Like, this is what you should expect to pay a plate. And for the stars it was, it's going to be three firsts and it's probably going to be a swap in there and we're going to push forward.

And you're going to have to give up a player you like to, unless.

It was somebody that you felt like, okay, who else are you competing against? And that's what the Rudy thing was, is there wasn't a huge market. If you want to play the results part of the Rudy trade, you could say, well, of course it worked because they're a really good team this year and they beat Denver. And if Kat had hit some shots, who knows how that series goes? Even though Doncic was so unstoppable. I don't know that I can talk myself into Minnesota winning three more games against them.

But towns had hit some shots.

I know. Any, right? But a shot, the cost, it's basically like if you, if you could trade more picks, like, would all these guys go, would Durant be seven first rounders? You know what I'm saying? Like, the default price always seems to be three.

We're going to find out with Trey because he's going to be the most interesting test case. And we'll find out if Charlotte decides they want to get out of the lamella business. But I just don't know if people care about these picks the same way. Mainly because, you know, if it doesn't work out, they're not going to be there anyway. Um, are, what would you do? Advice for Brooklyn is.

If traders keep bridges. Well, I want to keep them. I like them and I think they're, it's, it's hard to find somebody just randomly who's a top 30 player. Is Bridges a top 30 player?

Yeah, I think it's in the 30 to 35 range. Okay, so, and then Claxton, what's your, what's your cap on a Claxton contract? Four years? 85.

But see, the problem is you go, okay, we're not going a dollar or 85 million. And then some of the teams like, well, we have to use our caps base on somebody. And then you lose Nick Clax and for nobody. Maybe. Or do we love enough from Noah Clowney that we're like, see you, Nick.

I would let Claxton go if it was over 20 million. I just think that's how you lose. If you're paying non all stars. Like, Nick Claxton was on the team last year and they weren't good. If you're paying non all stars over 20 million, I think that's a recipe for just sucking. That's the surest thing we know about the NBA in the last 20 years is that specific salary range where it's not. It's not quite franchise player money, but it's that level below. That's where you get absolutely murdered. Is there the range used to be 15 million. It used to, you know, 15 to 16, but now it feels like it's 20 to 25. And that's like the murder range. You don't want to be there.

Is there a way they could do abridges for Garland and Allen deal and be like, can we have Jared Allen back? You probably need to split those guys up, too.

That was our bad. Yeah. You guys signed Claxton. I think that was the most fun trade. I think my top two favorite trades were trade of Miami and then your bridges, Garland. Just straight up swap.

I love the trade of Miami one. I love it because it checks the box of, if you're a bad team and you're trading for Trey, you're probably just getting the same thing all over again. But if you're the Heat, I think this is where the Heat culture comes in. I think it's real.

I think with the Simmons expiring, Brooklyn also has a couple months to figure this out. Like, they don't necessarily have to figure out what they're figuring out in July. They could also say, hey, let's wait till October. Some team starts out slow, some teams unhappy, and maybe we move then. And I'd love it just for a.

Change of scenery piece from ESPN.com or whoever wants to do another esquire feature on Ben Simmons, like, Atlanta. Are you ready? Like, ready for what fits.

What if we set you to write a ringer feature about Ben Simmons? Like, we just got into that mix.

I would do it.

Would you go? All right, we'll talk to the agent before we go. Who do you think the next Laker coach is going to be?

This Hurley story is so weird. I feel like there's something wrong here because I don't. I understand why he would want to do it. Living in LA, is actually awesome when you find a place that you would like to live. So that's not it. It's the Lakers. Okay? That's a big deal if you're a lifer in basketball and the Lakers want you to be their head coach. But are they going to pay them all that money when it's a family that isn't on the richer side of the NBA ownership deal? Where they really going to pay him that much money?

Like 120 million for seven years?

Yeah. So if it's the money, okay, if it's the Lakers, all right, lifestyle, sure, no problem. All of those things. But it just. It felt weird to me the way it went along, that all of a sudden it was like, wait, this.

Can we bring a conspiracy, Bill?

Please do.

Whoa. Once upon a time, wrote a book about the Hurley family, I think has pretty good ties there. Um, we know JJ was talking to the Lakers for a while and probably wanted real money, right? JJ's making money as a podcaster. He's making money as an ESPN announcer. And for him to give up a life that he seems pretty happy with to take on this crazy Lakers job, he's going to want to get paid. So it felt like two weeks ago JJ had the job, but then I'm not sure what happened. Maybe he wanted too much money. Maybe the Lakers wanted to put a little pressure on him. Maybe curly, who I think just signed an extension. Maybe he is looking at all these crazy NBA numbers where all these coaches now are making 10 million or more a year, and he's thinking, shit, I'm actually still underpaid. Maybe I have to float something out that I'm interested in, the Laker job. And then if you're the Lakers, you're like, this is great. We get to steal headlines from the finals, right? People are talking about the Lakers again, Hurley. Oh, my God. Whoa. We'll do the meeting, and then we ultimately end up with JJ, and Hurley gets an extension.

And that's how this plays out. That's conspiracy. Bills, take speaker two.

I don't think it's a crazy conspiracy at all. I don't. Because if, you know, I don't know what JJ makes. I could probably guess. And I could also guess that he's doing it in a way where if he were to do this a long time, you know, much like you, Bill, I mean, there's real money out there to be if you can start your own company and then somebody wants to acquire you later on, those numbers can be more than what NBA coaches make. So as much as I would think if you're a JJ or a hurley or whatever, like, oh, my God, I could be the head coach of the Lakers, I would imagine La. Yeah, but if you're already making a ton of money, you're not going to go to the Lakers and be like, well, I'll. Especially JJ, who's so young, like, if he wants. If he wants to coach, at some point, he can coach. He could probably build his company for five more years, sell it, continue to get better with the NBA stuff that he's doing at ESPN. I mean, clearly the guy's got some goals and an execution plan here, and he would have to delay all that and he could still do all of those things and then become a coach a little bit later on, unless the Lakers is like the absolute thing and you never know, like, the timing of things.

Like, you can't just assume you're going to be offered the Lakers gig five, seven years from now. But I think the money part of it was right, because I was, like, for Hurley to do this is probably like $100 million contract with the new salaries that are going on for NBA coaches, like it, which changed.

He did that extension. Yeah. Because there's a couple of big deals that happen, and same thing for JJ. He's looking at that. Um, I do think there was a money piece. There's a competitive needs. I agree with everything you said about JJ. Just play this out. Try to build value. It's the same reason doc took the Bucks job. You know, Doc was super happy. He was already getting paid for a job he got fired from. He was living in LA, he's playing golf, he's having a great time and didn't want to coach again. And then Milwaukee calls and like, hey, do you want to coach Giannis? He's like, I do. That sounds great because he's competitive. These guys have been competing their whole lives, and when you pull that away, I think you miss it. So with JJ, it's like, I could become the Lakers Lakers coach and I could coach LeBron and Davis and a team that's going to spend money and is always kind of relevant in some way. And this is one of the best jobs in sports, much less basketball. You get competitive about it.

We. First of all, we're totally on the same page on that one.

Yeah.

So if that's the driving force, I mean, I understand that. But there's a number when you're making as much money as JJ might be making now and could be making down the road where you go all right, match it. If I'm. I'm not just here at ESPN chopping it up late night on one of the studio shows and then doing a couple games. And then even if you want to say it's the NBA Finals, like, I probably guess where he's at at ESPN for that number, but the number for him. And this sort of feels weird, but it's just part of the story. The number that he could potentially obtain by building his own media company and all the value that comes with all that kind of stuff. That's where I would think, where he's like, yeah, I'm competitive. I miss it. I want to come back. I want to prove I can do this. I've always wanted to coach. It's the fucking Lakers. I get to move back to Manhattan beach. This is going to be incredible. I can't. Oh, wait, you thought I wanted to do this, like, for some sort of passion discount, right?

5 million a year. Well, because the other thing is, he went for the Charlotte job, too, right? And they took Charles Lee, but he also interviewed for that. So that tells me he really wants to coach. I think he really does. But he also. They maybe made the mistake of floating it out there that he was getting the job, because I know you heard the same stuff I heard, and it seemed like it was locked down. And then all of a sudden, we have this Dan Hurley story, so. And then there is the will shams thing. You can't sleep on the will Shams thing, either. Shams reports that JJ is getting the job, and then WoJ comes back with a. Wait a second. Which I think is a piece, too. Is he getting the job? What about Hurley? And then, boom. So now one of those two guys is going to be wrong. It's a fun story. Was certainly a big topic at the finals. It was who's going to win the finals? And then what's going on with the Lakers? Or the two conversations that are happening in the finals right now. And then the distant third is, who the fuck is going first in this NBA draft?

What is happening?

The Monty Williams to the Lakers rumor is my favorite rumor of the offseason.

I love it.

Would you do if you were Detroit? Would you say, you can have monte in our fifth pick to take that contract off our hands?

It's like a salary debt pick swap. 517 and.

Okay, we'll do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's. That's more.

Oh, my God. Yeah, mine is. He has a great relationship with Lebron. He loves Lebron.

Was that one of the funniest outcome that was. That was written a couple times, right? I.

This week, that's my favorite dream outcome is. Is the Monty Williams trade to the Lakers was the. Is the most fun of all of it, and just everyone talking about what a special guy is, and this is great. And just kind of dumping last year under the rug with pistons. All right, we got to go, Roselle. This is fun.

Thanks.

So our final advice is Atlanta trade at least one of them. We prefer Trey and then for Brooklyn, you're pro, keeping bridges, trying to build around him. I'm like, whatever you. If you can get some crazy bridges, they'll do it.

I'd have to know more about what he's like internally because I am. Look for a younger player who's somebody I like, who I think is really talented, but not talented where it screws up everybody else, you know? I don't think he's a narcissist basketball player. All right. If he's. If he's on board, then I'd want to explore that a little bit more, but if he's not, then I would be totally aligned with you on. All right, we'll probably just do this now before we have to.

It'd be funny if I was like, two days from now, it's like, trade me to the Knicks, I want out. And that whole segment goes, you're probably.

Right, by the way. You're probably right, but I. If I were running, like, I just would never be in a hurry to give up somebody before he makes it. Like, I know that's. You could counter that by saying, well, you better get rid of him before then. Everybody knows that he wants out. It's like, I don't know. Some of these guys demand trades. They still get three firsts and some players back, so we can talk about declining value and all that kind of stuff. I just. There's a lot of these players that we always move around in our fantasies, and I. Sometimes I'm just kind of like, I don't. I wouldn't want to not have Mikel Bridges on my team. I loved him last year. I loved what I saw from him last year, and I don't know what the hell happened this year. Well, I think I do, but. Just had to watch that game.

Good to see you.

So. All right, thanks.

That's it for the podcast. Thanks to rosillo. Thanks to Steve Cerude and Kyle Creighton, as always, remember, you can watch clips and complete episodes of this podcast on my YouTube channel. Just search for Bill Simmons it is YouTube.com illsimmons. Also bring her movies where all the rewatchables are going, including breaking away, which goes up Monday night. I will see you on this feed, I think on Tuesday. Don't hold me to it, but I think it's going to be Tuesday. Go South must be 21 plus 18 plus DC and present in select states FanDuel offering online sports wagering Kansas under agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC Gamble problem call 1800 GaMbler or visit fanduel.com rG in Colorado, DC, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and Vermont call 100 next step or text next step to 53342. In Arizona, 8887-8977 or visit ccpg.org Chattinconneticut 809 with it in Indiana, 852 4700 or visit ksgamblinghelp.com. in Kansas, 877 770 stop in Louisiana, md gamblinghelp.org. in Maryland, 800 gambler.net in West Virginia, 805 224700 in Wyoming, hope is here. Visit gambling helpline ma.org or call 803 two seven 5050 50 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 18778 Hope NY or text Hope NY.

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