Coming up, part two of the NBA playoff extravaganza with Brian Rossella.

Next.

We're also brought to you by the Ringer podcast network new rewatchables coming from me Monday night, the Running man, me and Kyle Brandt. Stay tuned for that. If you missed part one of my Sunday podcast with Priscilla, we covered Nick's Sixers and Maverick's Clippers and a whole bunch of other plots from the weekend that is already up. This is part two. Me, Rosello talking about the end of the sun season. Pacers, Bucks, the bucks in trouble and some panic. Teams that we think could be coming to fruition as we head toward the offseason. For some of these teams, including the Phoenix Suns, it's all next. First, our friends from Pearl. Jim. All right, we're taping part two. It is 941 Pacific time. What a night for Priscilla and I. This is great. This is like, if we had a basketball child together, it would be Anthony Edwards and just watching him blossom. I just feel like I'm watching our kid go through high school and get a 40 senior year and let her jackets and win the state championship. This is just really special. This is the first time I really felt like this guy might be the guy, like a year, two years from now in the league, like in a real way, like final level, face of the league, best guy in the league.

He's just hitting every checkpoint Rosilla he is.

And it feels like it's ahead of schedule and like a concerned parent because I get it. I still get it. I was afraid for him in a way. Like, I was afraid. I go, what if everybody loads up defensively on him and no one else is scoring and Conley or McDaniels can't get anything going on and Rudy's not an option and, you know, who knows what to expect with Kat, I was like, it's not going to be his fault. It's not going to be his fault. And the beauty of this team, through this series at least, was, we know the defense was going to travel for every game, but there was these little pockets where I don't know if Conley was bad tonight, but Conley got Grayson Allen for like a half straight. You know, towns, when you looked at his numbers tonight, you're like, wow, he scored a ton. McDaniel's had a huge night in there. Alexander Walker seems to hit all sorts of shots. If you leave Rudy, you know, look, we know he's not on offensive. The point of this is then ant would just say, okay, you know what though, you know what?

Thank you to everyone. Thanks for the help, but this quarter is mine.

Well, and you know, when it's about to happen, like, when it's in progress, it's like when you go to the movies and they start showing the previews and you're like, oh, the lights are dimming. The movie's gonna start now. And he hits, like, that first shot and like, is it.

Is this. Are we.

Are we gonna have a little run here? And then. Then it happens. It's like, on both ends.

Yeah. Yeah. Like Marty fish, tennis player, I guess. Just an unbelievable golfer as well. Tough life. But anytime something's happening during the regular season, we just have a code. Now, he's a huge Timberwolves fan, so he's just texting me. We have this alert code for ant, and it's probably like in the beginning of the golden state thing, like, do you see what's happening tonight? Like, have you paid attention? Where everybody who's just a league pass junkie, like, this is what it's supposed to be like, but we're so hard on the superstars because we kind of want it to happen all the time. Like ants first half, you know, like, oh, what's going on with him? What's going. But with him, I'm like, whatever, it doesn't matter. And then he and Booker go toe to toe for the third quarter, and then to see ant, like, I don't.

Know that I've had a playoff game.

There was 141 left, Bill, and it was 117 113. And it was the least drama. I felt like, whatever, it doesn't matter.

Because they thought there was 20 seconds left. They said, hey, you guys have a hundred seconds left? Ant hit a 28 footer with 534 left to make the score 105 101, Minnesota. And it was a bomb. And that was the official ant alert. It was like, uh oh, here we go. And then he just kept making shots. He basically turned Beal into a summer meme over the course of the fourth quarter. Beal, I just could not have been worse tonight. I mean, it was an iconic, awful game. It was such a bad game that we were texting about what a bad game he was having before the end of the game, when he had two straight turnovers, gave up the monster dunk to Ant and then fouled out 50ft from the basket. He just like Ant and just ruined him tonight. But 40 points, 31 in the second half, and it was the same thing as game three, which we didn't talk about in part one. There was like an alpha thing going on in the game where a control of the surroundings that, I gotta say it, it reminded me a little of Jordan.

I don't think it's like, I don't feel like that's like, a crazy thing to say. Something about the superior athleticism combined with the moment combined with him really just wanting to kill the other team. He said in the interview after, he was like, I just want to kill. But he said it tonight to the TNT guys at the end. He's like, I told you all, I just want to. I just want to kill everybody and get them out of my way. Like, that's how he's wired. And this is the stuff that we love, so we'll see where it goes. But age 22, this is pretty good.

Cause I was trying to think of, like, who. It's one round, right? But it's like, who comes into the league where it's already understood, okay, this is his team, and I'm not talking about, like, jalen Green sophomore season with the Rockets where they're not good, and he's taking 20 shots a game. And again, to update the Jalen Green stuff, we felt really good about him at the close of this year. So there's younger players that are really talented that we've seen put up huge numbers, and you're like, okay, well, this guy's the number one option. You're like, okay, but what does it really mean? Like, this team has a chance to do something really special this year. I don't know what to make of these teams in the west. Like, I got to pick somebody, but I don't know.

It feels more wide open than it.

Did two weeks ago for them, but. But in a. Yeah, but I think in an. In a way. Yeah, in a good way. And, you know, the offense, there were just a lot of times it was like, okay, if they have their one Achilles heel, what could it possibly be? But then I start thinking about how they have enough size with Jokic, and then it's like, okay, but with this Murray situation, is there going to be enough wing scoring? If you're going to have a third guy kind of step up offensively for Minnesota, then that changes the landscape of, like, what I even think is possible for them. But back to the ant point, of course, there's LeBron, where it was fairly apparent this minute he suited up, that it was going to be his team. And then he started doing some really cool stuff early on.

That was zero seven against the Pistons was the moment. And I don't know if this I don't. I'm not ready to say this was the moment for ant, but it was. It only reminded me of, like, watching.

That was the Eastern Conference finals.

Yeah, it was 25 straight points, and it was a much tougher opponent, but he had a couple of checkpoints leading up to that. And the point is that ants hitting those checkpoints leading up to that. And now it, to me is it's conceivable that he could go against Denver and knock out Jokic. It's conceivable. I wouldn't predict it, but it's conceivable. And by the way, racello, this starts with the Team USA last summer, which he goes in and they don't realize that it's going to become his team. But over the course of whatever, they slowly realize, like, oh, shit, we can't keep this guy off the court. And then it spreads to the season and it just keeps going. Kept climbing the ladder. And then he's going against this hero in this series, which he talked about in all the right ways, like, with the right amount of respect, but also, like, I also want to beat this guy. He said that the interview after, it's like, I can't wait to play with him this summer for Team USA and give him shit that I. That I sent him home. You know, it's just. There's a spirit to him that I think the league really needs.

That's the part that is scary about, like, how big of a deal he can be as far as a superstar, right? Wade, I think, is another good comparison. At least Wade was in his third year when they won that title, and he was the reason why it happened, I think more so than any single player on the Heat team. I don't think that's really even debatable. But in the beginning of the year when. Maybe it wasn't the beginning of the year when he had the John Collins dunk, I had, like, I think I've had three monologs on ant. So if this were a Sports Illustrated cover, like, keeping track of him this season, I've had more monologs on ant than probably any other player in the NBA. And I had this one where I was talking about, like, look, his game is the most esthetically pleasing. Like, this is what you want every awesome basketball player to be able to do. Like, hit all the shots, show supreme athleticism, and a floor full of the world's best athletes. And then also just have these Sean Kemp. Like, I want to insult your family type dunks mixed into all of these other things that he does, but then the personality.

Yeah. And the defense, where he has moments where I'd be like, wait, is that McDaniels? Oh, my God, ant. No, Ant picked him up over half court, and now he's like, I'm going to take you apart. And then he's also like, fun. He feels 100% real. In this world where you're just so aware of your surroundings at such a young age, when you have any kind of profile. He doesn't. It doesn't seem like any of that bothers him whatsoever. And I was just raving and raving and raving about him. And they actually put my quote up at the Minneapolis airport.

Oh, and.

Yeah, I know. And then he had the dunk against Collins where I did another open of just like, he makes me feel like a kid again when I'm watching him do all these things. But like, look, the dunks, the athleticism, the attitude, the quotes, all the growth of his game is what should scare the rest of the league. The fact that he, you know, this year when I was watching these drives and it wasn't like, all right, maybe I'll get fouled and get some free throws. And he actually doesn't get much of a superstar whistle at all. But these kickouts, the trust that he still has with his teammates. He had a play late tonight where he got bottled up. He grabbed the offensive rebound when no one thought he could get it. He got trapped in the corner and he got out of the trap and still made a pass. And then Minnesota kind of screwed it up. But there's, there's an understanding of the game that he seems to have also that combines with this personality where all these older players are totally cool with him being the alpha. Like, he laughs at cats, jokes.

Well, and he also, he shouts out the teammates in every interview, which I always love. I told you, I went to that game, the Laker game, a couple of weeks ago, and I was so impressed with the patience that he had offensively. But then just seeing it in person, how he deal, how he deals with everyone on his team and what a force he is around. Everything feeds off him, like, everything. And you just know it when you see it. I think it's been the best thing that ever happened to towns. Towns was great tonight, you know, and Towns is somebody that, there's an alternate universe where he just never has an important playoff moment in his career, you know, and he just becomes your typical frustrating, talented, but guy who let you down in the NBA playoffs over and over. Again, I thought he was really good tonight.

And since he's come back, I've noticed his passing. Not saying it wasn't there before, but he's a more willing passer. Yeah, I mean look, no one's. You're not going to love him. I mean you had a tweet the other day about his, his bad fouls. He had three terrible fouls. Helped get him in bonus. Yeah, he had a foul that was in the bonus at 341 when Phoenix couldn't score. Once Rudy got back in and you were just like what? What are you doing? I also think Towns leads the league in weirdness per 36.

But is that a basketball reference?

It is. You gotta keep going to keep scrolling over. But Towns was awesome. And if you think about the player that like would be the prototypical roster fit, like, okay well ant can kind of score all these different levels but you need some spacing. But it's like, wait, they have Rudy. Oh, they love to have a stretch for. It's just that towns at one point probably thought he was gonna be in the hall of Fame. Who knows? The basketball hall of Fame would probably still get in. But you know, towns, okay, we could go back to doing what you want to do and take 20 shots.

Game last.

We're not really going to win. You know, defensively Towns is always a mess. And now it's like everything this, this rising tide thing of this entire team has been incredible. And the offensive concerns I would have late against another really good team tighten the playoffs. It was never even an issue here. Phoenix felt helpless against them.

Yeah, this was town's really first really good playoff game of the series. Now they didn't totally need them before, but I am just so upset that I'm never doing this again. Just remind me next year when we're doing podcasts in the last ten days of the season. I'm never overreacting to the last week of the season again. I'm not doing it because watching, watching the Suns beat this team nine days apart at the end of the year really messed me up. I really liked the t wolves. I bet on them 16 to one to make the finals against the Celtics like two weeks before the end of the season. And by the time the playoffs are starting, I'm like, yeah, Phoenix is going to beat him. Just a bad matchup. Like no thought at all put into it. And then you watch these games and it's like they're way bigger ants. The best part in the four Phoenix is depth and the beal issue which we'll talk about a little later. Like, just kind of mushroomed into this awful thing. Their body language was awful. You could see it today. They were dying to fall apart in that game today.

You could feel it.

I thought it was way more like the way you're talking about it, though. I thought Phoenix was way more impressive than my expectations for this game. Down 30.

Yeah, that well. Cause. Cause who was impressive? It was Booker and KD, right? Both of those guys were at least, like, we're not going down this way. Nobody else showed up, but those two guys were great. I mean, Bill Beale had one of the worst backs to the Walls games. I don't.

I.

It's just. It's always going to be mentioned when we be talking about it in this summer and we're calling him Bradley Beals, not expiring contract, and we're just going to mention this game. What did he end with? Did he even get to ten points?

So he got to nine, which is shocking.

He had nine points, two assists, one rebound. He was four for 13. He had six turnovers. And he fouled out and had an incident with Vogel where he ran by him and kind of, like, stiffed him on a handshake that went viral on Twitter. Other than that, pretty good game.

The numbers don't do it justice.

No, they.

This is one of the special, terrible games of anyone with a profile. At one point, I wrote down his line. He had two personal fouls, 0.0 rebounds, zero assists and two turnovers. And I was like, okay, it looks like he's going for the Tony Snell tonight. And because of the fouls, you know, they ended up having to go to the bench a little bit earlier because Nurkic had two fouls. And then Phoenix is just like, look, we're going to go small. I think they were going to try to go small at some point anyway. But the problem is when you go that small, even though it was a really tight whistle, I think, throughout most of the game, when you're small, you're just going to end up. You're just going to end up fouling in a bunch of spots you don't normally want to because there's just nothing you can do physically. And so, like, it's like, okay, well, Beal will come in. He can't be this bad in the second half. And he was. And, you know, you mentioned those turnovers.

They were like super turnovers. They weren't just your typical NBA turnovers. They were, like, truly horrible.

And it was still 110. 109. All right.

Yeah.

So it's 110, 109 in spiel. Goes to throw it cross court to Katie, who's not even looking at it. Right.

He nails him in the shoulder, hit him in the.

Yeah. So it turns into a turnover, but then Conley can't corral the ball.

Phoenix, that didn't even count for one of the turn. He had two other turnovers after that.

Right, right. So then during this. This melee of getting the ball, Phoenix brings it across, and because of the scramble, Beal's wide open at the top of the key. And I always, like, every time a shot goes up, it's pretty nauseating to do it. As often as I do, I'll just make myself say whether or not I think it's going in or not.

Right.

And sometimes, like, I'll look at the guy's feet or his hands, I'll just be like, nope, yep, nope, yep. When he. When he caught it, I was like, out loud by myself. I'm like, there's no fucking. There is no shot attempted this weekend. I have been less confident in than.

This one and maybe a precious achille 15 footer game.

15 footer two, three. The handshake thing with Vogel. Although, look, Beal, during the Wizards years, had some real, like, all NBA pout team where it's like, hey, man, I know you put up huge numbers and you're really talented and everything, but, like, the team always kinds of. Kind of stinks in, and it's a little on you. I know they had the run in 17, and then the flirtation with the playoffs there with the Westbrook year, when Westbrook put up big numbers. But there was always this element of Beal where you were like, who are you mad at? Like, what? What. What do you have? And you did the extension, too. You got the extra money. You got the extra year, which is what everybody kind of saying. Like, deep down, he wanted to do all these things. So then when he comes off the court, though, with Vogel, to be fair to him, I think he's so incredibly frustrated with himself because nothing's working out and he's picking up a foul, like, every two or three minutes. I think it was almost like Vogel going, hey, give me five. And anyone with any pride is like, I don't want a five right now.

Yeah. Like, I don't want.

I just want to go to my room and put on Pink Floyd. He was singularly atrocious tonight. It was really rough.

It's kind of our job to never forget.

Listen, I said last year when they made the trade I thought it was a dumb trade. I didn't think it would make much of a difference for them long term. And I said if they had had Bill instead of sham it against Denver last year, I still think they lose this year. If they had sham it instead of Beal, maybe this goes five. Might even be able to sneak it to six. I don't know.

I.

Did the shame at face make a difference?

Look, I don't love Beal, but he was free.

He was.

He was free.

But he wasn't totally free, though, because it was the Chris Paul expiring, which they could have used in February to try to get a better asset than this Bradley Beal contract that now is almost 54 million.

Maybe. But the biggest headliner for this trade deadline was Bogdanovich, who wasn't even part of the closing group for the Knicks.

Yeah, fair. But maybe they could have gotten Zach Levine in November. I don't know. Who knows? Would you want Zach Levine? I don't know.

Yeah, I think I'd rather have Beal.

Well, they might. They might find out next year. Let's take a break because we're going to do. Oh, we have a good thing coming up here. All right, so Minnesota, Denver, and Denver still needs to win game five. Murray will see if he plays. But do you feel differently about a Minnesota Denver series than you did two weeks ago? Because I feel at least mildly different. I would still pick Denver, but I'm hesitating now.

I don't want to get caught up in this because I also think Phoenix is a mess. Yes. And you could even see in the beginning, like, some of the stuff they were doing, like Nurkic came over with Kat. That said, or, excuse me, Nurkic came over with Rudy to set a screen for KD. And Katie's like, get out of here. Right? I don't want to switch into Rudy. I've got Kat on me. Then there was another play where Booker didn't have McDaniel's on him, and then O'Neal came over to set the screen where then he'd be switching to McDaniels. And Booker's like, no, get. Get away. And I'm watching this start of game four. It was like two of the first five plays they ran. And I'm thinking like, are you guys still this screwed up? And there's a bunch of examples of that of just like we. There was another play, too, where Booker took his guy into the corner and then Gordon had Conley on him and Katie had a better defender on him, and Booker had to be like, hey, set a screen for Kd at the break because they're going to get a switch into Conley.

It was like, oh, yeah, great idea. So anyway, well, the reason I asked.

That question is because two years ago, yeah. A team built around some young stars that thought they were going to be in a dogfight in round one against a team that they allegedly didn't match up. That great against was the Boston Celtics playing Kevin Durant. And the Brooklyn Nets stole game one at the end, sweeps them, goes on to make the finals, and at some point over that series, past some invisible point and rounded into some different, better version of themselves. And I'm wondering if that happened with Minnesota.

Well, I think it's a really good comp, too, because Brooklyn was messed up.

And they also had Kevin Durant.

Can we just, before we get into the Minnesota Denver thing, spend some time on Durant? Cause we haven't really done it yet.

Yeah, it hurts, but I'm ready to do it.

Go ahead.

Cause he got swept this year last year, lost, forced his way out of Brooklyn, ends up losing in round one. Year before it gets swept. Year before, foot on the line against Milwaukee, year before, no playoffs.

They made it to round two last.

Year in the finals. Round two. Sorry. Um, yeah, I mean, when you think of where he was in 2019 before here at his calf. Um, when he was averaging 35 a game, the first series and a half, he was in that Houston series, and he just was unequivocally the best player in the world. And since then, he's been one of the best ten to twelve players in the world, but has not been at that same level. And now he's gonna be 36 years old next year. I don't love the situation he's in. I don't know how they improve the team and we'll see if he stays. Not great, though. Not, not, not a great. Not a great last five years, priscilla. I don't feel good about it. To answer your question, the whole thing.

Feels pretty ugly because last year they got the scare from LA Clippers, but then, you know, George isn't playing, Kawhi gets hurt, and then they're basically like, hey, Westbrook, like, let's go. OKC Westbrook. You get all his predictions. Westbrook puts up big numbers. It still ends up only being a five game series. And then they get two two with Denver. And if you remember, like, Booker was going crazy, three, four.

One of those games, what did they average? They scored like 100 points combined or like 90 points combined. In game three was some crazy number.

No, it's a.

It's.

It's an absurd number.

So 89, something like that.

86. Yeah, 86. Booker went 20, a 25 for 47 points and nine assists, three turnovers, and.

Then Denver just turned it on the next two.

Yeah, and then in that series, because you're kind of like, all right, well, they got it to six with the eventual champs. It's like they got blasted in three of those games. But you don't think that this is happening. Okay. And then you're probably thinking, all right, well, Durand will have been here longer. They'll figure it all out. We'll have these three guys that are really good scorers. Like, that's what really matters in the playoffs. And I can't help but think of, like, this, whatever this chapter is wrong with Durant. Like, it's got to count for something because I thought he was really good tonight. But, man, you know, watching ant just take over these quarters and you're going, shouldn't Durant have like a couple of these quarters? Yeah, and it's not so much even about the sweep now. I don't know if I'm missing something because the overall numbers, like, look, when you're, when you're a one or two option, you're still going to get your 20 plus points.

But this was the case of the Boston series two years ago. Remember, Tatum was just better than him for a week and a half. Stout played him the last time he was really at the level you're talking about was that Buck series.

Right.

And that was in 2021, which is three years ago. But, you know, his 2007 draft, he's been in the league since his 17th season. It's kind of crazy. So that the guy that we have in our heads just because it's this weird thing that happens sometimes in sports where the guy gets older, but he looks exactly like, I remember this happened with Jerry Rice, where it wasn't really Jerry Rice anymore, but it still looked like Jerry Rice. So you're like, oh, it's still Jerry. Right? When he was in the Raiders, but it wasn't really Jerry rice anymore. Um, I don't think that's the case with KD because KD still, statistically was awesome. But what you're talking about is there's like a five, 6% declines the wrong word. But he's just not. He can't match baskets with somebody like ant in the same way. When ants feeling like that, it's like, durant's not like, okay, now I'm going to throw some punches. We don't see that in the same way. And maybe it's part of, like, it's part of booker. He's on Booker's team, too, and maybe he. Maybe there's stuff he doesn't want to, like, do from a takeover standpoint.

I don't know. Maybe he's just older, but I'm with you. There's something slightly disappointing about it.

He went for 30 twice. Game two was bad. You know, he ends up with 25 and four. The shooting numbers are fine except for three, but, I mean, his shooting splits are still exactly what you'd expect him to be. 55, 42, gets to the free throw line a bunch. I'm just. My idea of what he is, the idea of what Ishpia thought he was doing when he makes this trade. Cause I don't blame an owner for being like, if I just say yes right now, I get Kevin Durant on my basketball team. But to watch it feel like it's like, oh, okay, he got some numbers, but, like, when was. When was it so clear he was the best player? When did it seem like he was completely in control, that the other team had no answer for him? And it just doesn't feel like that enough with him, especially when there's a guy on the other team that's doing those things. Yeah.

Well, and there's also more good offensive players now.

Yeah.

You know, that might be a small piece of it, but they never figured out, one of the things I thought with the Suns is they never figured out what their best five was and what that looked like. And sometimes I almost thought of my head, maybe it was Durane at the five, which is the matchup. That was the lineup I thought they were going to go at in this Minnesota series to try to, like, turn it on. Minnesota a little bit, little smaller, little golden state 2017 ish. But it just didn't work.

This game, this game was so bad for everybody that, I mean, nobody else had double figures. Nobody could hang onto the basketball. There's just so many moments in these games, you're like, what are you guys doing? And then guys got scared to shoot on top of everything else. I mean, I'm really.

Can I say something that's really important?

Oh, I'm gonna listen.

Cause this happened with the 2011 heat, too. And every once in a while, these teams, they load up with the two or the three expensive guys, and then they're like, no, we're gonna be able to build around these guys, and we're smarter than everybody else we're gonna be able to build. You know, we'll find. We'll find eight. You only need like, four or five more role players, and we're gonna be great. And then we get to a situation like this, and it's like, yeah, we just didn't have enough around those guys we gotta really build around. And it's like, yeah, this is what happens when you spend $150 million on three guys. You end up with like, Josh Akogi in big spots. You know, you end up with no point guard. You just don't have a point guard. I do think that Miss Grayson, and I'm not, maybe he would have swung one game and they lucked out with the fact that Grayson was so good this year, considering where I think all of us were on him heading into that trade. But when you go all in on guys, I've been saying this with the Lakers, too.

Like, you, you know, you're going to spend 105 million on Davis and LeBron. Guess what? You got to roll the dice with dangerous Russell. You know, you got to roll the dice with Rui Hachimura. That's how it goes. You're not just going to be able to build a super team. So I think people forget that over and over again.

It's.

It's really, with the situation you want to be in is like, where Minnesota was, where they at least were able to draft a couple of the guys they had. That's where. Where Boston was, where Denver was, where you have some of these guys on your team ready when you're. And you're building around that, versus where Phoenix is, where the only guy that's, you know, is a homegrown guy is. Is Booker. Everyone else is gone. Or the traded. Or like, do you think about, like, that Jalen Smith, that could have been Halbert. And all these moments that they had to build the team around, they just didn't have it.

No. And especially getting rid of bridges and, you know, Cam and then, you know, the Durant trademark. I don't know if we're doing any of this now, but you bring up that Miami comparison, at least they were losing to Dallas in the NBA Finals. Okay. And you still, if you're Riley, you're like, what can we do? Like, okay, we'll. We'll put those three guys together and we'll figure out the rest of it a little bit later on.

But they really had the five. Cause they also had Mike Miller and they had Haslam and they had Chalmers. Like, on paper, that made more sense. Than that. But then when it actually got into it, they didn't have. Dallas had more depth, and LeBron sucked in the finals, and that was why Dirk was good. And. But once they added Ray Allen, it.

You know, I don't. You know, when I looked at that team and you go like, oh, well, they could have done that. I mean, you made it to fourth straight finals. We're talking about a team that just got swept.

And in round one.

Right, right. And I was thinking about the story. Cause you and I were both doing, you know, it's not the Vegas Super Bowl. I was in Phoenix, that one. Because it's a trade deadline. We were texting, being like, I think this is happening. And then we tape the pod, and you're kind of like, I know, I just can't help myself in that. I'm like, okay, well, you just added Kevin Durant. But then when the story started coming out a little bit more about how it went down, it's like, well, Durant was adamant that he didn't want to turn it into some open market thing. And I'm like, well, if I'm the nets, I'm going, well, we just. Your four year extension just kicked in. You wanted the coach, you wanted me fired. So, you know, apologies if we don't want to fucking acquiesce to every one of your demands here, because you're burning us with a four year extension left on this thing. Yeah. So we knew that part of it, or at least the part that was told. And then you think of what was given up, and you go, okay, so then it's all these first.

Because it just feels like anybody of this magnitude is, like, the four first and maybe a swap on top of everything else. And then it's like, okay, but it's also Cam Johnson, who's a nice role player, and then it's Mikhail, who, you know, felt better about last year, but I still think there's a lot of stock and bridges, and you're like, but who are you bidding against? If Durant was saying that I only wanted to do this way, I mean, did spiel just get worked?

Well, when we. When we did the pot after, I think we both said, you kind of have to do it. You have to get Kevin Durant.

I know I said it.

I know I said it. So, no, we both said it, but we also said, that's a lot, and you don't have a lot of outs now. Like, if this doesn't 100% work, there's not a lot of moves left if these two guys don't work with Ayton and Paul, what's your next move? And then when they did the Beale thing, that was the. I did not, I was out on the beal trade. I did not like it. And I thought they all, they're outs.

Because, like Durant leaves you less out. So it's like, okay, we may as well add somebody in Beal from a talent standpoint that is going to be better.

But then they did that for Nurkic and Grayson and I don't know, I just.

But they were so done with eight and they were just.

Nothing left. There were no other moves. That's your team. And now. And we're going to do the playoff panic draft in our next break.

But, you know, we never answered the question. I never answered the Minnesota Denver thing. Oh, yeah, I know. I know what Minnesota will want to do, you know, with Rudy on Gordon to try to take away the lob threat. And that can screw up Denver a little bit by having Gordon spaced as opposed to that dunker threat that destroys all these other teams. Yeah. You know, ant, like, is he going to do something really, really special here and take out the defending champs in the second round? Like, who are they going to have defend them? Peyton Watson? You know, wait a minute, wait. It'll be pope, but it doesn't matter. Like, it with some of these guys, it doesn't matter. It doesn't, it doesn't mean he's going to be shut down. It just means things are going to be a little bit harder for him, the same way they were harder for Booker throughout this entire series until he could get free in game four. But it was too late. And that big third quarter is because Rudy had foul trouble. So Booker could drive at will in this.

Well, so, yeah. So if I gave you Minnesota, Denver, OKC, Dallas, Boston, Orlando and Knicks Indiana, it's pretty clear what series we're going to be the most focused on out.

Of those four, easily. Yeah.

Which is crazy. Minnesota. Denver will be the marquee series around two. Quickly, let's talk Indiana because they're up three one. I can't even believe what happened this year. At one point, it seemed like Middleton was going off and I was like, what else can happen? Um, no Giannis, no Dame Bobby Portis gets thrown out. Indiana just turns it up. They're just running on everything. They're shooting threes, they're having a great time. They're up three one in the series, and they have a chance to finish off Milwaukee, who we head into the season and I think they're one of the three favorites to win the title. They're all in on this team in a variety of ways. They fire their coach halfway through. Things never get better. They basically play 500 ball. They get close to the playoffs. Giannis gets hurt, dame gets hurt during this series, and it looks like they're going to be gone in a couple days. Sparring a miracle. Is this more shocking to you than Phoenix?

No, because the Giannis piece was already eliminated, even though I always held out hope that he could come back just because he's always had a good history of this in the past. And, you know, maybe they were doing what a lot of teams do and they're like, we're not going to update you with any of the bad stuff. And then you factor in Lillard to the whole thing. I mean, they were in this game. They were in this game today. Middleton was great, and when he went down, I'm like, you'd be, what are you going to be running Jackson Isos now? Like, what are you going to do? Yet Indiana's on the other side. They just didn't miss any shots for two and a half hours. They hit every single three. Like you're looking at that going, how is Milwaukee possibly in this? But that's the great thing about playing the Pacers, is you're always kind of in it because their defense just continues to be terrible. So as I was watching it, I don't know, I think when they tossed it back to the studio, somebody had said like, hey, this could be a dangerous team in the playoffs.

And I started thinking about it, like, could the Pacers just run like crazy with the winner of Knicks Sixers? You know, could they just run and go, all right, we're not going to play any defense, but we're just going to get out there. We have all the shooting and Halliburton starting to look a little bit Halliburton ish again now with the amazing game three finish. But then I look at their pace. They were second in the NBA and pace behind the Wizards, which is maybe the Wizards should play slower in the playoffs. They have press conference actually here, the Wizards, like, we just want to be a little slower, actually. So I was looking, I was like, I wonder what the pace is because we all know what's down in the playoffs. They're down to 9th of the 16 playoff teams after being second in the NBA. They're down like ten possessions, which is kind of because it's still, I wonder.

If that has some part of partly to do with Milwaukee going slow.

It does, it does. But I just don't know if. If they're going to be able to just, you know, I just don't know if they'll be able to defend well enough to win four games against a much better team that's not missing its two best players.

I think they could hang with New York or Philly, especially if, like, what are we getting from Rob if Mitchell Robinson is just not going to play in the next round? You know, Bogdanovich, now, he's hurt, and it looks like he's either going to be playing hurt or he's going to be out. I just don't think New York has the depth, and if you go on the Philly side, I just feel like Philly could lose to anybody. Like, how. How do you. How could you predict two days from now with Philadelphia?

So I can't imagine. I can't imagine Embiid looking like this and playing against a stretch big. He's been going up against Hart Stein, who's only really got him with these floater handoffs after Embiid's gone to help on, like, a Brunson drive. But as I was watching him beat today, I was like, you know, if they were to even make it against Boston, imagine him having a run out against Persingus. He's going to get his 35.

And how about who's running with Siakam on this team? I mean, Siakam looks. This is about as much fun as I've had watching him play basketball. Yeah. I think Indiana could talk themselves into, hey, why not? Portland made it that year. What was it, 2019? All of a sudden, Portland was in the western finals and we were like, how's Portland? The western finals? Sometimes you never know. Two teams, one of them to two really good teams, one gets knocked off, there's an injury, then all of a sudden you have a weird final four. I also think they're. They have a good home court. Their fans are into it. They like playing at home. They play with real pace. There's a feistiness to this team. Like, Neesmith once again got into it today with somebody, you know, they're Jackson.

Jackson did grab him from behind.

No, he didn't.

He and Nemhar are ready to fight.

TJ. TJ's feisty. Like, I. I think it's a feisty team. So, um.

All right, do you know any Sigma Kai's? TJ's like, get out of here, then.

What's that? Let's take a break. We're gonna do the panic draft. All right, so we're gonna do the panic playoff draft. Only playoff teams eligible. And, and as we went to break, Saruti told us that there's an athletic article. Brian Curtis calls this the now they tell us article, where the season ends. And then there's immediately a story with inside anecdotes from the season that went wrong. This one they had just, I guess, cooked, ready for those sons to get swept. It's all about how Frank Vogel basically lost the team halfway through the year. Durant doesn't like how he's been used. This is stuff we've been hearing for the last month or so, that if the sun's lost, Volga was going to be on his way out. I'm glad they have somebody to blame. The 2020 finals winning coach. This was his fault. But that article came out and that ties into what we're going to talk about here with the panic playoff draft. I'm going to give you first pick. We have the nominees for the panic playoff draft are you can take Phoenix. You could take Milwaukee, Dallas or Clippers. You have both.

They count as one selection, Philadelphia, New Orleans Lakers, Miami, and then Cleveland or Orlando. Most panicky team heading into the offseason for you. Is it Phoenix?

Yeah, it's Phoenix. Okay. I think we've talked about it already. The lack of outs, the draft pick debts are absurd.

Can I give you some deets?

Please do.

Durant, Bill Booker. That's 150 million plus next year. Nurkic, is that going to be at 18? Grayson Allen has an extension kicking in. He's going to be at 15.6. They have nasir little somehow at 6.7. So they're a second apron team. Going to be really hard for them to do anything. Their picks 25, 27 and 29 go to Brooklyn. They get the worst out of these swaps with all these weird teams in 24, 26, 28 and 30. So their picks are going to, they basically have four firsts that they're not going to be allowed to trade and.

Then all their seconds, there's a chunk of the seconds that I'll go to Washington, too. Yeah.

And they lost all their seconds.

And.

If you had to say who's out between Durant, Booker, who would you pick?

Durant.

Okay, so where does he go?

I don't know. Let's see who wins this year.

Come on.

Hey, man. I mean, he's made it real hard. He's made it real hard on a relationship. I've defended him for a really long time and I'm not just talking about this series. If you're going to fucking do this again, you're going to do it again. You know, I mean, Lakers fans in LeBron try to do this with Vogel and it's like, oh, cool, now you got Darvin Ham. Problem solved. Great work, everybody. So I'm not telling you, like, I loved everything I saw from Phoenix, but they were all in and out of the lineup. I think Vogel's a good coach. So you're there one year, you don't like the way you were used? I don't know, take it to the fucking hoop. No, it was Vogel telling you don't. So if you're going to ask for a trade from Brooklyn when the extension is about to kick in, which is the new normal now in this league, I got to dig around a little bit more. Let me see what he says. But he makes it tough for you to continuously have his back on some of these decisions. If it's true that he's going to want his way out of this after an exit at some point.

Man, I was with him when he was like, I just don't know if I can play with Russell Westbrook anymore. And I need a new city. And it's like, I get it, man. Then he was in the warriors and it's like, you know, Steph's team kind of want my own team. It's like, all right, I don't get that as much. Steph's like one of the great teammates of all time. But, you know, everybody's got. Got the right to follow their own destiny. So he goes to New York with Kyrie. Didn't really get that. They get James Harden. Now it's the three of them that didn't really work. Harden leaves him and Kyrie. I don't know what happened there, but all of a sudden Katie's ready to go. They say, hey, what are you talking about? You just got here. We're not trading you half everybody, no, fire everybody.

And I'll stay.

Yep. Steve Nash goes, you gotta. You gotta keep Jacques Vaughn. This is our guy. All right, we'll keep him. And then two months later, he's getting traded, goes to Phoenix. Who was the coach last year for Phoenix? I'm blanking. Who's Monty Williams? Monty's out bringing Frank Vogel. Let's bring in Bradley Beal. I'm still not happy. It's tough. It's a tough look for him. It's tough to defend.

I can't defend it, so I'm not going to try.

I can't either. Booker, I think, fetches a bigger price than Durant at age 36. And if they wanted to get serious about this, debatable.

That's why you're keeping them. Yeah. And he's under contract for four more years, so it doesn't. It's. This isn't even a conversation. The only thing you'd have to worry about in the way this stuff works is if Booker. So, like, I thought there would come a time where they kept losing. It was Sarver still owning the team. He was cheap. And then Chris Paul came in and saved everything. You know, I mean, look, I know he didn't win a ring, but the thing entirely changed once Paul showed up. They're winning games. Booker's in. He's starting to get the notoriety that I think he deserved. And this whole thing, I don't know, there's just certain players that I look at and be like, okay, this is entirely his fault. And there's other players I'm like, I don't know about that. I just would have way more sympathy for Booker being one of the original guys there. And the fact that he's younger and he plays. I know he's had some injury stuff. This, yeah, he's actually missed some games over the years, but he's still younger and he's locked up for four years. And by the way, you're not going to, I mean, what do you think they're going to do?

Do like the Brooklyn. I mean, now we're just podcasting, right? But you do the Brooklyn where you think, well, can you trade.

The asset.

To recoup some of the picks?

We're in this new era where you don't have any of your picks. So you like basically where Brooklyn is where you run and rebuild, you have somebody else's picks but not your picks, so you don't want to get too bad. And, you know, this is how they basically solve tanking. Nobody can tank because nobody has their picks. It's going to be the new NBA 30 teams. Nobody has their own picks. Booker would be an interesting one.

But then why would you do it? Because then you'd have to tear the whole thing down and you don't have any of your own picks. So then you'd have to be trying to figure out, hey, do we, you know, that's the thing about trading Durant, is you go, cool, you guys can have them, and then in two years we'll get your good picks. If this is all going to happen, you know, it's it's. This is 2 hours after the game ended.

So Kamenga Draymond and a couple firsts.

That doesn't do anything for me, for.

The warriors or for the Suns. Julius Randall and three first.

Let's go back because actually Julius Randall.

And three first for KD. That's how I think he stays. And whatever. The prices for him has dropped dramatically.

Let's go back to the Kamingo one.

All right. Okay.

Cause that would be an incredible, like, we're running it back. Golden State zag on. Like, do they start to get creative this offseason?

It's like when bad boys for life, when Martin Lawrence and Will Smith were like, fuck it, let's make a third one.

That's the problem with the soft cap, is that you end up doing stuff you don't want to do because you can't ever recoup the salary slot. Although it become more restrictive with this. And it's actually great for players in a way because it's like, well, wait, we don't want to resign you. Oh, my God. That's how much you're going to get. Okay. But we don't want to lose you for nothing. So maybe we'll trade you in two years. So here's your contract. Even though we hate it.

You know what else is going to be weird? The Team USA, where a lot of these guys are all together and a lot of these storylines are going to be kind of happening in real time. Like, I tweeted this on Friday, but Ant took the two guard spot from Booker. I think Booker was the starting two guard. And now it has to be ant. And it's going to. Has a chance to be. It's going to be LeBron, curry and ant as the face of the team, basically. Um, but now you have Booker and KD on that team. You're going to have LeBron. God knows what he's going to pull this summer if they get bounced in five. I'm prepared for literally anything with him. You know, you going down the line. It's what happens if Boston, you know, loses in the eastern finals. Like, they're all going to be in France together with all this drama.

It's been a really quiet few months, man. Wow.

It's not gonna be much quiet. Listen, I took five weeks off last year. I'm not taking five weeks off this year. I'm gonna be. So I'm gonna be doing stuff. All right, so we have Phoenix. I'll go next. It's obviously Milwaukee. I mean, it's Phoenix and Milwaukee as your two panic teams. The Milwaukee thing's brutal because that dame contract just gets worse and worse and worse and worse and worse. They can swap, New Orleans can swap picks with them, which. So Milwaukee keeps their pick this year. They do not have their 25, 27 or 29. And they have some swaps going on in 26, 28 and 30. And that team looks old.

Cause they are.

Cause they are. And you watch them today and it was a little alarming without their two best guys.

Well, I don't. Nothing today doesn't even count today.

You just realize the three through twelve, like, how grim it is. And I wonder, like, could there be, could they maybe call Miami and be like, hey, remember when you guys wanted to trade hero and Jovic and the Hawkes pick for dame with some picks? Like, is that still on the table for you guys? Or what are you thinking?

If there's one team, as long as everybody's okay there and not pulling a. I tried it out. I'm out of here. That team probably is more likely to run it back than some of these other panic teams.

You took Miami or Milwaukee?

Milwaukee. Okay. Unless we get our first international player who's a superstar. Because I've always wanted this out, but I mean, just because it's always been the american guys doesn't mean it's never going to be an international guy. Just, we need some.

It almost happened in October. I mean, it really. I think they thought that was going to potentially happen.

Who, Giannis?

I think that was closer than was reported or people realized. I think that was one of the things that led to the dame trade. So anyway, Milwaukee's in trouble. Who would you put. Would you put Dallas or the Clippers as the third panic team?

Who.

Who's more panicky because one of those two teams is going to lose the series and then go, wait a second. What?

Yeah, but when I look at it, I think of, like, panic of panic equaling actual transactions because the Clippers would probably just want to resign everybody, even though it hasn't worked, and go, this is better than not resigning everybody for the reasons that we've already pointed out. I think Dallas would go. We were really good in the second half. Tweak here. Tweaks hurt.

Luca was talking after the game, after we did part one. He was talking about how he feels like he let down Kyrie. Kyrie has been amazing. I'm not playing well enough. I got to do better. Like, he had some of that stuff so they could talk themselves into, whoa, what if Luca gets healthy? Next year, and we get the same.

Kyrie season that doesn't have its picks and Lucas still young enough, and this is really only the first full year with Kyrie, so I don't. It would be a really disappointing loss on either end. Certainly more so for Dallas because the Clippers don't have Kawhi. But I think I'm going to go with Philly as my pick. As your third pick. Okay. Make the case. They've got to use that cap space on somebody significant. And if Paul George is not on the table, like, after Paul George has that game three with seven points, you know, you're just making the rounds and seeing people be like, well, you know, I don't even want him. You're like, you hope you have the option to say, like, yes to him. Okay. Unless you're going to get really, really creative with, like, a bad free agent class, because they get worse and worse all the time. There's very rarely, like, the good ones anymore that you're excited about, like, four of the guys because I'll just do extensions. Now, if you're Paul George, would you.

Be, other than the La piece, would you be super pumped to just re sign with the clips if they lost to Dallas in like six?

The only way it happens is if he feels like the Kawhi deal. Like, the Clippers weren't as committed to him as they were to Kawhi. And then maybe egos get true.

Yeah.

Which is true. Yeah. So maybe that is all Daryl needs. And it's a better landing spot than all these other teams that are bad. I mean, Orlando has to have space in the space.

Maybe it's what Orlando needs.

Yeah, right.

I mean, if I'm Paul George and my choices are Orlando and Philly, you know what I'm doing going to Orlando.

It's not even.

It's not even a debate.

Did you say that Paul George seems like the perfect fit, personality wise, for the greater Orlando area?

Did I say that?

Yeah, because I think you did, and I think it's great.

Hey, I'll claim it. I don't remember if I said or not, but I'll take it.

If you think of Paul George, like, yeah, you know who loves Orlando? Paul George.

Yeah, it sounds great.

He's over celebration, like on his day off. Just walks around. He's like, this is crazy. Roller coasters 24 7365 Cotton candy like you read about.

He's literally what they need. I mean, imagine next year. Suggs Paul George, Paolo Franz guard, TBD.

That there's something there the Orlangtho magic.

Oh, my God, that'd be great. In the net. The modern Bill Russell, Jonathan Isaac.

If, if they don't have, so Philly can't land something really significant and maybe it's the next mad guy getting traded into their cap space, which is always potentially on the table. If this were to be a weird, so I just feel like we're gonna have a weird summer. We definitely, if Philly can't do that and they have to use the cap space to like, piece it together, and then they got to tell Embiid, like, hey, we didn't, we weren't able to figure it out. And the thing that really sucks for him too, is these hardened minutes should have been going to somebody better than roll guys that could disappear on a night and you wouldn't even notice them. Like, hey, cool. I love Batum's effort and I know they're getting some picks back out of it, but, like, that's a devastating blow. Even if I don't love Harden later in the playoffs, it's like, that's a.

Good point about today where Kyrie looks awesome. That's a double loss for Durant, who's just that this is a professional low for him other than the achilles. And then same thing for philly. They have this terrible loss, and 2 hours later, harden is fucking destroying Detroit on the same little swoop play over and over again. It's like, huh, we had that guy.

Well.

I'm with you. I'm philly. I think. I think the philly thing is way more chaotic than maybe it seems right now. Cause if they lose to the Knicks in game five, I don't know, all bets are off for me with that team. Here's what I would ask.

Like, would embiid if I gave you the two options? If we want to be completely irresponsible here, we're not reporters. Who cares? But if they don't get anybody, does.

He ask for a trade?

Does Embiid go, this is awesome. Or does Embiid say, hey, I need to be better? Or does he do what most pro athletes do and go, hey, I'm not getting any younger and I'm hurt all the time? Like, I tried it. Ben sucked. The hardened thing sucked. And then we didn't get anybody for him. And then we had all this cap space and, you know, we don't really.

Have any of these New York fans were at my playoff game. They hurt my feelings. That's not a LeBron destination, right?

Well, remember when he was a free agent before he went to the Lakers. Like, that was the thing. Those guys. I think clutch was really putting it out there that Philly would be a potential destination to just try to drive the competition to get LeBron. And then they didn't even take a meeting. So I don't know.

If you just replaced Tobias Harris with LeBron, I would say the Sixers are a more interesting playoff team. I don't know what version they'll get with LeBron in year 22. By the way, I did my best free agent signings. Pyramid in part one of the pod. I forgot LeBron of the Lakers. There's third LeBron free agency. Both of us forgot which.

That's a good one. Yeah. With the title. Yeah. That's got to be in the top ten, right?

Yeah, I guess. But it was almost like that wasn't totally a free agent signing because everyone know he was going there. But I guess it counts.

Well, it does based on the way you did it. You still had Butler lower than he should have been. If you make it to two NBA Finals with the Heat, and that team wasn't great either year.

I, Guidall was a Finals MVP. It was a fun exercise. All right, so you took Philly. I'm going to take. I'm going to take the Clippers. Just because I think the Kawhi extension, the fact that they did it when he had played well for a couple of weeks, they're like, oh, he looks great. Here's more. Here, more years. Don't want to lose this guy. And now they have that hanging over the franchise again. It's now a half a decade of this dance with them. So you have for fifth, would you say Dallas? Or would you say. Would you say the Lakers?

Panic is the word here. Does New Orleans finally go, hey, they have to. You have to. Yeah, but think about what we're saying here. We're naming, like, seven guys. Like, all right. And that's what was so interesting about the drama of this playoffs, is that you're going to have these really disappointing exits this year.

Ingram is not going to be in the Pelicans next year.

I'm going to New Orleans.

They're going to trade Ingram somewhere for something. I think that's. That would be the one prediction I feel the best about for Harrison healed summer movement. No, I think he'd have value for some of these teams. Right?

Yeah. It would be like, what?

Like, if you're Detroit, you're like, oh, we can get Brandon Ingram.

Absolutely. Yeah.

There's five teams that would love to have them. Is there a possible Atlanta does that a. Could there be a Trey young? You know, could you get super frisky? Could there be a mega deal?

The Lakers might be a better pick then. If you're talking about panic and something more drastic, I could see them just dumping. If they re sign LeBron, they're dumping the picks and they're adding the best available, maybe two time all star they can find. And I don't know if that's Trey Young. I don't know if it's a Brandon Ingram.

I don't know how Trey young changes their destiny in any conceivable way.

Well, I'm not saying I think it's start printing banners here, but that's a lake.

No, I have Laker fans in my life who are like, to some more good. And Trey, well, they don't like. Okay, cool.

That's. I'm sure they're just grinding Atlanta games out here in LA at 04:00.

Good. Good luck with Trey. And LeBron is 40% of your defense. Let me know how that goes. LeBron at 40 years old, the West.

Coast is watching Hawks games at four Pacific time.

I would have the Lakers. All right, New Orleans, the only, the only panic would be they're hitting shitter. Get off the pot stage with the roster. Like, what are you gonna do with all these picks? What do you do with all these assets? Do you really think Zion and Trey Murphy and Brandon Ingram, do you need all three of those guys? Is CJ really going to be your guard? Who's going to decide big stretches and playoff games for you, or can you upgrade that? Like, they're. They're going to have to go all in at some point here. And I think this would be the summer to think about that, especially as OKC gets better and better. Denver has yokage, Minnesota has this ant fucking freight train coming. Like, you're. Those are the three teams you're looking at now. And you have to, you know, you have to compete with them.

Ingram, two picks, Dyson and some filler for Durant if you're in New Orleans.

I mean, on paper, yeah, but does Durant want to go to New Orleans? Would he be happy?

Oh, you're only getting it for a year before he asked for a trade anyway.

If this Phoenix got two years left in his deal.

No, I know.

Yeah.

Kidding. About the Phoenix story. Oh, I just feel like we talked about it and went pretty deep on it, and I haven't even read it yet and I haven't heard anything. So I don't know.

We'll see. If we're just talking, what's the most fun Durant to go on? State is the most fun. If they're just like, we're running it back. It's when a band gets back together, it's like, oh, the police are back together. Sting and sting and Stuart Copeland and Andy summers. They're all talking. They're going to do a tour. We're like, what? That would be the worst.

And I just wonder if wouldn't be.

As good as seeing them.

They were like, actually, Andy signed with Orlando. Hmm.

Miami. Panicky at all to you?

No, I think they, they didn't have Butler, they didn't have Rosier. And Yovich is going to be really good.

Joe Cronin regrets. Could add Hawkeye and hero plus some picks for Dame. A trade that we both thought was a stupid trade for them because they had so many guards.

Well, I just didn't think hero was as good as Maxie. Like, that was one of the other things that was being floated out there. Yeah, like if they could have done this deal and then, you know, they traded for two players ultimately with all the pieces that moved around that are really hurt all the time, like Rob Williams. I don't know why you would have been able to depend on him. And then bragging gets hurt on top of everything else.

But you see the eight in stats last seven, eight weeks of the year.

Dayton was putting up big numbers, man. I thought, I couldn't believe how bad his numbers were the first half of the season. I was expecting huge eight numbers all year long for.

He was like 22 and 14 for the last two months of the season. And he was saying, finally I'm getting a show who DeAndre Aiden is. I think he might have third person himself. Not as many times as Malik neighbors did on Thursday night.

But if I were tanking, I would sign Westbrook to a four, four year deal with three player option or, excuse me, three team options and I would trade for eight. But the thing is I'd probably still be too good. I'd win like 25.

And then we didn't even mention Cleveland, which I think would be the other possible panic team. More from a sense of Mitchell being the last year of his deal. And if he wants to go somewhere, you start to push for it this summer.

If there's one consistent, hey, what do you think happens this summer? The most consistent one is that they have to do something because he's not going to stay and they have a year left on it. So if we were talking realistic moves instead of just ranking it in the panicky thing, which still not quite sure what it is, they're a higher pick, but I don't feel like them losing is as dramatic as Dallas losing in the first round to the Clippers without Kawhi or the Clippers being just stuck in purgatory. Same thing with the Pelicans. Philadelphia. If they were to miss out on big free agents, you know, I think Cleveland could go all right, we lost in the first round. We've had this group for two years. There's still a bunch of young guys. And now we have a Mitchell decision.

Well, our winner is Phoenix. Any predictions for the week? Is the round one going to zag it off for you or think we end up where we all think we're going to end up, do we have a seven game series?

I think Cleveland and Orlando will go seven. Me too.

You think Philly Knicks go seven?

I don't think it's going to be five. I just think they're so intense, those games. It just doesn't seem right that that's a five game series.

Don't you think Cleveland, Orlando will be our seven gamer? I think the Knicks are going to finish them off in game five. The crowd will go nuts. All the Knicks fans, they're just out of their mind with Brunson and I think they finish it off. So we have tomorrow Celtics, heat, thunder, pelicans, lakers, nuggets. All three of those series could be done. Tuesday, 76 ers, Knicks, magic, cavs, pacers, bucks. That one could be done. Yeah, we might not. It could be one of those situations where we have like no game on Friday night. You know how that happens sometimes they're like, oh my God. Can't wait for the Friday night to do or die and it's like, oh, wait, every, every series is over. This sucks. Rosillo, great to see you. As always. Thanks for hanging for the two parter. Thanks to Steve ceruding cowcrate for producing. As always, you can listen to Rosylla's podcast. You can check out his YouTube channel. You can watch clips and videos from this podcast on my YouTube channel, YouTube.com billsimmons. Can I get you on a rewatchables over the next couple weeks? By the way, you available.

Legend of Greystoke?

That's not on the list, but we can negotiate the movie. But I'm going to need you next couple of weeks.

I'm reading this new book on Captain Cook and they brought this guy back to London. It was from one of the islands and his island had been invaded by some other island. And he wanted to basically talk to the people in charge of England and say, we need guns. And instead he just partied, just banged everybody that moved. And it was just like he was like the most famous guy because he didn't look like anybody else. And he was fun. He loved to hunt the Englishman, that he befriended people with major power. And then there was a rumor they were like, here's three guineas going into the town before you get on this ship with Captain Cook here and grab yourself maybe a mug of port and a mutton something. And they were like, nope. Rumor is he spent it on a woman right before he got back on the boat. So movie that.

They can turn that into a movie or. No.

Well, that's kind of what got me thinking of Greystoke a little bit. This is your father. Remember that? This is a big movie for us.

We were kids, you know, Ben Simmons is in a history class. Every once in a while he comes home and he's mad about something that happened historically.

And I can't even imagine these conversations. What's he got mad about? Yeah. Yeah.

A few days ago he came home and he's like, dad, the Versailles Treaty, we really screwed that one up. That was one of his takes. Maybe that'll be. Maybe I give him a history podcast.

That'd be great.

Man. Versailles treaty didn't solve anything. Headed to headed us to the Second World War. All right, thanks, everybody. I'll see you in this pod on Tuesday. Bye. Rosilla 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 Gamble 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, 805 224700 or visit ks gamblinghelp.com in Kansas, 8770 stop in Louisiana, MD Gambling help 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 for 24/7 supported Massachusetts or call 18778 Hope, NY or text Hope, NY in New York.