Coming up, all hell is breaking loose in the NBA. It's next. We're also brought to you by the Ringer podcast Network. I put up a new Rewatchables Thursday. We're doing two week now, at least for the next few weeks, because we got to burn off some of those Rewatchables. 1999 episodes. We did Big Daddy last Thursday. This Monday night, brand new episode, The Naked Gun, one of the great comedies of the last quarter of the 20th century, and it still holds up, and it's still funny as hell. There is a lot to talk about. I have a special guest host for that one. Hey, if you care about the NBA, please check out theringer. Com, our website. Check out the Ringer NBA show, check out the Mismatch, check out the Ringer gambling show because we're going to be talking about a lot of the futures on there all week as the futures change with all the movement. Kevin Wilds, my old friend, is coming out to talk about all of the signings, all of the gossip, all the rumors Did the NBA change? Did it actually not change? What happened in the Clippers? Paul George, how excited should you be?

A lot of storylines. It's all next. First, our friends from ProJet. All right, I'm taping this. It is 6:21 Pacific Time. All hell broke loose today in the NBA. It is free agency day, which used to be July first, midnight, and now it's like a few hours before, and it's always hard to figure out, but we had a lot of signings and a lot of things happened already. My friend Kevin Wiles is here. You can watch him on- I'm locked in. Yeah, you can watch him on First Things First. You'll be able to hear all the takes he's about to give on this podcast tomorrow on the show. You can double dip. You have my permission.

Thank you. I'm going to also take some of yours if you don't mind. It's part of the contract I drew up. Please take a couple. You know what I'm thinking?

No, it's like when you come over and I have dessert, I'm like, take some brownies. Take a couple of my takes. I'm like, Sure.

Thanks.

I want to start with Paul George. I was thinking about how last decade we really mastered this NBA free agency thing where every year it was like LeBron in 14, and then it was like Lamarcus Aldrich in 15, and Durant and Horford in '16, and Blake Griffin, and Hayward, and Millsapp, and '17, and LeBron, and Chris Paul, and Paul George in '18, and then '19, Kawhi, KD, Kyrie, Horford, Butler, Kemba, D'Angel Russell. It was just the smorgasbord. Then somehow this decade, the big prize in '20 was Hayward. The big prize in '21 was De Rosen. The big prize in '22 was Bill, Levine, and Jalen Brunson, who actually turned out to be a real prize, but we didn't realize it. Last year was Kyrie Reid and Fred VanVleet and Dylan Brooks. This year, it's Paul George, who's been in our lives a long time. Really good player. I voted for him for third-team All-MBA. I had Clipper season tickets the last five years. At no point during those five years that I'd tell my kids, Let's drive down to Staples, Paul George's plan. But he's a really good player. He became the prize of free agency.

Is this a Clipper story or a Sixer story for you?

I think it's a sixer story. And first of all, I felt like you were downplaying Paul George, who was several players' current GOAT. So don't talk bad about the third GOAT, Paul George.

Is that true?

Yeah. Several guys said Paul George is their The Goat. Brandon Miller said Paul George is the goat, and then we thought it was joking. But there's several players like, no, Paul George is the goat. There's a certain window when you were coming up that Paul George is just cooking, I assume, with the Pacers, and people think he's the goat, unironically. So Paul George is the goat in some people's eyes. I assume this is a Sixer story, and I don't think he could go anywhere else that makes me happy.

Well, because Orlando took themselves off the table with Contabius Caldwell Pope, which made Cerruti happy as hell, but now they're on the cusp.

Well, that's another story for my nuggets that I'm upset.

Well, we're getting that later. It's a big hole. Okay. All right. That's tough.

I assume Paul George is going to Philadelphia. He's been on this low-key ring chase since he left Indiana, where I always thought another story was like, Oh, do you think... If he goes ringless, let's say, just fast forward Paul George's career, if he goes ringless, do you think that he looks back and says, You know what? I could have been Reggie Miller. I could have been the next guy in Pacer's history and just been a one-team guy and just been a legend and got a statue. Right now, Paul George is just roaming statueless and ringless. It's a bad combo to be statueless and ringless, and, broadly, also the goat.

And also representative of what his generation is, where guys bounce around now and they don't stay with the team. So in a weird way, he makes sense for where we've been. See, you're mentioning all this Paul George, big picture stuff, and you hit on something that I don't think he takes an enough poopoo for, whereas Kevin Durant takes all the poopoo. But Paul George has been pretty like, bouncy around-ish, right? Going back to Indiana that last year ends up in OKC. Then it's like, oh, no, he really wants to play for the Lakers. Then all of a sudden, he's resigning with OKC. Then a year later, it's like, Would you be cool if we traded the Clippers? He's like, I love it. That would be great. Now he's not staying with the Clippers. When I thought the whole time he just wanted to be in LA because he's from here. Now, he's going to Philly. I guess to chase a ring, and there's some weird lack of respect piece, too, because they didn't give him one extra year. He's 34.

I didn't read the lack of respect thing.

Oh, yeah. That's a big piece of this.

Oh, I thought it was just a final- He wants four years. Give him four years. He's Paul George. You're giving Kauai years. You're giving Harden two years.

Well, the Clippers put out this big statement today about why they couldn't come to terms with him. They put it out like minutes before we started taping. It was this bizarre little, I don't know who wrote it. It felt like Balmer wrote it, and then a PA spruced it up. But it was basically like with this new apron. Everybody's just going to blame the new apron. We'll talk about Denver and some of these other things. The apron. I'm so afraid of the apron.

Can I ask you a question about The Apric? How much do I have to care about The Apric? Can I just watch basketball and enjoy free agency? Or do I have to dig in and be a pro bono lawyer learn about the second Apric and the first aprun. It's almost where I take a right turn off the basketball fandom.

You just don't want to be second aprun. Second aprun locks down some decisions in the wrong ways. I think if you're going second aprun, you got to feel awesome about your team, which to me- Second apreon, we have to win a championship.

We're going second apreon.

Or second apreon, you're the self-text. You're like, Second apreon, we went 80 and 21 last year. And if we bring back these six guys with some role players, we're probably going to keep contending for the title. Let's pay the second apreon. If you're the Clippers, you've had this Paul George run where he was there for five years. 2020 bubble, round two, lost to Denver in seven. '21, made it all the way to round 3, Kauai gets hurt, but they lose to Phoenix. 2022, no playoffs. 2023, Paul George was hurt, round 1, lost to Phoenix. 2024, Kauai was hurt, round 1, lost to Dallas. So they won three playoff series in five years. And we're fun intermittently for little tiny stretches, but for the most part, I don't think anybody Will remember this Clipper load management, Kauai era, finally. Do you? No. That was half a decade.

Yeah. No, they're still far behind Lob City as far as fun Clippers teams.

They might even be behind Quentin Richardson and Darius Miles, whatever that season was.

I'll buy that. I never believed in the Clippers. I know there's pockets of the NBA that believed in the Clippers. I just never thought they were going to do anything other than be middle of the pack in the West and get bounced.

But then there was that moment last year when they were like, Oh, my God, the Clippers.

I know, but did you really believe in the Clippers?

I was one of the last holdouts because I just don't trust James Harden. I didn't trust Kawhi's health, and it felt belatedly that was the right thing. There was a moment there. What were they? 26 and 5? I just never- They killed the Celtics in Boston. With the Paul George thing, though, one first-team All-MBA, Five-third-team All-MBA, he's nine All-stars. He was the number three MVP in 2019. He's made the conference finals three times. Since 2016, when his first season, when he came back from the broken leg, 24, 6, and 4, almost 40% from three. And yet he's 34. And I read that Klipper statement. I'm like, I don't really blame him. Year four of this, he's going to be over 50 million. He's going to be 38 years old. Can I read you the names from his draft? Most minutes from his draft, Paul George, number 1, 29,000. Here's the rest of the list, descending order of minutes played. Gordon Hayward, John Wall, Eric Bledso, DeMarcus Cousins, Derek Favors, Evan Turner, Avery Bradley, Al Farouk Aminu, Greg Monroe, Patrick Patterson, and Ed Davis. He's like the last guy from his draft. So if I'm the Clippers, I'm like, Oh, man, we couldn't even make it at a round one this year with this team.

We're going to go all in for four more. I see it from their perspective. I don't like it.

We ran a graphic the other day. I pulled up his basketball reference that he shot 91% from the line. He shot 52%. These are all career highs.

What did he shoot from three? Last year.

Yeah. He shot 41 %. So career high in three-point percentage, free throw percentage, and two-point percentage. So overall field goal percentage. I mean, is there a chance that he's like, all right, so you're not going to get the old slashing Paul George, Pacers Paul George, a little Thunder Paul George, but you're going to get raw shooter and can't miss from the free throw line, Paul George. A little extension of his career. So you don't have to worry about so many You're basically getting a way better Tobias-Aris, maybe 22 to 23 a game.

Really good shooting percentages, can play defense, and has been in a bunch of big games, and at least for two years, which is effectively your window with Embiid. I mean, Philly has to do this. They don't have a choice. What are they going to do? They're on the clock with Embiid in general. They're all in.

How open is Embiid's window in your mind?

For In what respect?

Of being the guy... By saying, how open is his window? At what point, if you were running this six, is it be like, you know what? Our window is now closing pretty tight. Are you already in the closing part? I think we're there. You're in the closing part. I mean, MVP, and then the window starts to close, I guess. I don't see him making... Is he playing 100 games? I don't know. Is he playing 90 games to get to a final?

He turns 30 this season. He He's never had a truly memorable playoff moment. He's had a bunch of different injuries. He has a bunch of bad stuff to his body in the rear of your mirror. That's not great. That never ages well. He's the center. There's stuff to be worried about. If you're Darryl, you're just thinking, you pulled off this Harden thing, where Harden only wanted to go to one team. You somehow got enough assets to at least stay competitive until Embiid got hurt last season. Then you basically have the illusion of hope with your fans with the cap space. Like, No, we got cap space. The fans are like, Yeah, we got cap space. We're going to be able to get somebody. Then they actually got somebody. It worked out. You think like going back to Ben Simmons missing those free throws in Atlanta and that thing cratering. Turning Ben Simmons into James Harden, that thing craters. Then James Harden feuds with Philly and Darryl. He wants out that crater. They have trade them. They get this cap space stuff back. Usually this doesn't work out. But the bigger question to me is, is this the right fit/city for Paul George?

Because this He played in Indiana, played in OKC, and he played for the Black Sheep Clippers in LA, where it's all Lakers all the time, and the Clippers are over there unless they're doing well. And now he's going to Philly Where I think, how many? What is there? Like, 20 Sixers podcast? This is 24/7. This is the moment anything goes wrong, people get mad.

Are you counting Paul George's podcast as one of those?

Now he's 21.

Are there Sixers podcast upset that he's taking Sixers' mind share.

Do you think he called Tobias Harris? He was like, Hey, Tobias, can you tell me about Philly?

No. Well, Tobias, don't disappear. Don't get paid a ton of money and disappear. You'll be fine. I think that's what Tobias Harris will do. He'll play hard. He shows up like he said, he played 74 games last year. He's going to play hard, and I think he's going to work with Embiid. I think it works.

It definitely works on paper. Well, because this Darryl and I We've talked about this in the past where he has this three-star theory. This has always been how... Ever since he had Tracey McGrady and Yau, it's like, if I could just get three stars, that's basically what the Celtics did. And now there's so much talent in the league. I don't know if it's two stars in a lot of depth or whatever it is. But just fundamentally, when Maxi turns into a star and you still have Embiid and you have this cap space, you're just keeping your fingers crossed, basically from February on, that something bad happens with another star that you can sign. Paul George was the logical candidate forever. They lose in round one. It's still like, well, they're not going to lose him. Kawhi, who knows if he's playing? But it somehow worked out. If you're Sixers, you have to do it. I'm not being critical at all. I just wonder from a Paul George standpoint, this now becomes a big home run or disaster with no in between. Whereas the Clippers, he could have just chugged along, made one more thing, and basically, Kawhi gets blamed if it doesn't work out, right?

Yeah, but he's just going to I don't know. If I'm Paul George, I want to take a shot at some point. Right. The Clippers are not winning the Championship, and he knows it. So I actually like it. Why don't I go to the East? Why don't I go to Philadelphia and try to win? I like His legacy is so... For knowing him as long as we have, his legacy is still very much in pencil. I don't know what it is. What's the defining Paul George moment? So some bad playoff games, dunking on LeBron when he was 21 or something?

Well, so the Clipper fans would say it was the Utah series, the last couple of games after Kawhi went out, when Paul George went to a whole other That was yes. Theoretically, is the perfect third guy to play with Maxie and Embiid because he can be a stretch four for them. He could play two, three or four. So basically, he can Swiss army knife any of those positions, a little like Jalen Brown at the Celtics. He can handle the ball a little bit for them. They can play maxi off the ball. He gives them protection during the game. Embiid is going to have the 20-game stretch when he's just out for a month. He's a lot of big playoff games. For them, it's the all-time no-brainer because plan B was basically Clay Thompson and Najee Marshall. I do like Clay. You're in on Clay?

I'm way in on Clay.

You're in on revenge Clay?

I'm in on leadership Clay. This is how you win Clay. A little revenge Clay, but I don't think that Clay plays well. Are we switching to Clay now? I I don't think that Clay-No. Okay. I'll save my... I don't think Clay will play well angry. I think Clay needs to find another level of joy. Clay only plays well happy. And he can't play resentful. I don't think he can play vengeful. But happy Clay. If we get happy Clay, yeah, I'm very big on happy Clay.

I feel that way about myself. Happy situations, I just produce better.

Yeah, Yeah, play with joy. Podcast with joy. Podcasting with the vengeance, it doesn't play. The takes are angry, a little pessimistic. It doesn't work. Tearing your jersey, getting into fights in the first quarter, it doesn't work.

Can we play a conciliaria with Paul George? To this point, he has not signed yet, but it seems like he's done with the Clippers. But Paul George calls us. He's like, Yeah, Clippers won't give me four. Four years max. Philly's dying to give it to me. I really love living in Southern California. I've enjoyed being on the Clippers. Do you think I go back east and I throw myself into this Celtic, Sixers, Bucks, Hornets nest, where now, once and for all, people are going to know about me as a player. Or I could just glide over here and I'll have made $500 million and done a bunch of great stuff, and I can just enjoy my life, or I'm going to do this. It sounds like we're both like, Man, just know what you're getting into, but... Yeah, do the Philly thing.

This is what I would say. I'd say, Paul, first thing I want you to do, I want you to watch three Rocky movies. Three Rocky movies. Start with one, and then you can pick two other ones. I want you to really start feeling Philadelphia. Then I want you to put on some Meek Mill, Dreams and Nightmars. Start to get fired up. Then when you sign with Philadelphia, I want you to buy a Philly's hat. I want you to go to a Philly's game.

And that's the way to- So you embrace Philly right away. That Cree is my favorite movie. I've watched Cree a hundred times.

You got to go all in very quickly. This is a great sports city. I'm new here. We had some good battles when I was with the Pacers, but I'm so happy to be a Sixer. Also call Iverson. Do maybe go to the Philly's game with Iverson.

Have Iverson on your podcast.

Great. Great.

And then you have Philly month on the pod. I want Philly people in a row.

I want you to hit the ground running. The person I'm taking this from is Drake May. All of a sudden, Drake May at the Celtics game, Drake May wearing red socks hats. Great, Drake May. This is exactly what I want. You come in like, Yeah, Celtics. I'm here. Perfect. You would have been at a Wizards game if the commander has drafted you, but now you're 100% in on the Celtics, boom, hit the ground running.

It's a great point. Drake May, the day after he gets drafted, shows up with all his brothers and his girlfriend from the seventh grade and said, I wanted you to meet everybody because this is who you get when you get me. This is who you're going to have in your life for the next 15 years, the six of us. I was like, I'm in.

I also need six Celtics jerseys. Just give me... Every guy gets a different player.

So Paul George, you're right, because the Philly fans, they've been hurt. They're bitter. Just a bitter fan base. But sometimes those are the tough loved ones that actually you just got to win them over and just get to. He just needs to embrace the Philly thing. It can't be anything. He comes out of the gate and he says, I never wanted to leave LA. I love Southern California.

Yeah, it's great. I'm from there.

Don't do anything. This is such a tough call. It's just, spin it forward, spin it forward. I've always admired the city of Philadelphia when I come here, the passion of the fans. I thought the way you guys treated Ben Simmons like he deserved it.

I have a special Ben Simmons take coming up. Here's the other thing. Here's the other thing. I know you have flipper season tickets.

Yeah, unfortunately.

It's a Lakers town. I think that he would enjoy the idea of a city being that passionate about a team that he's playing for.

Oh, this is good. He could say, One of the reasons I had to leave LA, the city belongs to the Lakers. I wanted to go to a place that lives and breathes and dies with its basketball team. I just missed that. I had it in Indiana. I had it in OKC. I just never felt it. Then you're insulting the Clippers, too. It's a little shot.

It's just a quick shot, but it doesn't feel like that big of a shot because someone came back and was like, Am I wrong? Is it a Clipper city?

Let's be honest. Lebron owns LA. The Lakers own No way. We're just over here.

I'm just being honest. Now I'm in Philly.

I do feel like he could also float it out a little bit. Like James Hardet, not fun to play with. Just maybe second, not directly tied to him, but it's one of those. It's in a story three days from now.

Yeah, I think it's like you can do that via maxi compliments. Like, wow, this guy just loves the game here every day, with infectious joy.

I just think about making me Me better. It's nice to put somebody's thinking about making me better. Well, to put a bow on this Clipper's thing. I'm not ready to call it the most catastrophic NBA trade of this century because I think it was the Brooklyn Celtics trade, which isn't totally the fault of the trade because Prokerov does that trade, and then a year later just basically says, We're not spending money anymore after they had gone all in. I do feel like if he had just kept spending money that Tate and Brown doesn't happen, none of this stuff happens that happens with that It's really like a fluke. This trade was pricey when it happened. They gave up SGA. Nobody knew who was going to be SGA. They gave up four first and two swaps and another pick. And just already, even if I'm not going to just read all the stuff that's in it, but already, okay, so you got SGA and Jalen Williams from this trade. So already it's a disaster, right? And from a quipper standpoint, you're like, Yeah, but they won the title. Like the way the Lakers fans talk about the Davis trade.

Yeah. Well, we did win in 2020. We won the title. We made the Western Finals two years later. There is a remaining 2025 swap with OKC, where Presti is now doing the evil Dr. Evil laugh. And then there's still a 2026 unprotected first left.

There's still an unprotected first.

There's still assets left in this Trade. It's moving up the ladder. I'll just say that. It's really bad. It's a really, really tough one.

The SGA piece alone, the franchise- If it was just SGA in a second rounder, it's a disaster. Yeah, it's like, Wow, I trade SGA. Never mind. Unprotected first 2026.

It could be bad by then. And a swap next year. What happens if Kawhi just misses next year? And then James Harden does the James Harden Harden thing, and all of a sudden now they're the 13 seating the West.

Yeah. And then the lottery hits.

Really tough. I'm sure they didn't make the decision lately. The other piece with it is that they trade for Harden, who they signed today for 35 million a year for two years. I'm not saying they picked James Harden over Paul George, but when you trade all that stuff for James Harden, then he's the one you end up keeping. So now you basically traded Paul George, the first that you gave up in cap space for James Harden, which is a bad trade. And then today they signed Kevin Porter Jr, which I was just like, What are you guys doing? They do Clippers just seem like they're the old Clippers again. But this is why the team's been cursed since they moved to Southern California. It's never worked out ever with this team.

Not great. I'm glad that you have season tickets, though, but not great.

I'm not glad I have season tickets.

Well, you should have just... I mean, at this point, you should just get Lakers tickets.

No.

It's a better environment.

Let's take a break. We have a lot more to cover. I wanted to play two-word NBA, but do you want to talk about Clay first? Because it seems like you have a lot of Clay thoughts. Because the Clay era is over, and he's at the time we're taping this, it could be Dallas, it could be the Lakers, I wouldn't rule out OKC. Who the hell knows? But we did put an official bow on the greatest shooting backcourt of all time, one of the great backcourts of all time, one of the great runs we've had in the modern NBA. My takeaway watching from afar was, it seems like the right move for him. It's time to go. That last couple of years, it was just one bad thing after another. He's starting, he's benched, he's carrying himself like they're the champs, but they're not the champs anymore. It's just like, classic change of scenery guy. Classic.

So I think he'll thrive.

You think he'll thrive? I don't know if I'll go thrive. Well, what are you going to- You're more bullish than I am.

If I could tell you he shoots 42% from three and gives you 18 points a game, would you consider that thriving?

I think that guy's gone.

But I think he shot well. The handful of bad games and the narrative around Klay, like you said, bouncing back from the bench to the starting lineup. Here's his numbers. What did he shoot?

He had 18 a game, 39% from three. But here's the caveat.

Okay, I'll take that.

They really needed his scoring. And because he was Klay and because they had the history with him, they were over and over again trying to get him going, trying to get him involved. Wherever he goes, if he goes to Dallas, he goes to the Lakers, wherever, he's going to be a complementary player. He's not going be... I just think he's moving into that Ray Allen 2013 heat stage. He might be out there in crunch time. I don't think he's going to be an 18 points a game guy. He turns 35 in February.

He has an average... I mean, he average 17.9. You don't think he You can give you 18?

But let's say he goes to Lakers. He's not scoring 18 points a game in the Lakers. They have too many guys.

Okay.

That's down to 10.

Or if he goes to Dallas and Dallas is trying to score 130 a game.

More I would think 12 to 15 would be the range.

12, easy. 12 is four.

The advanced stats with him weren't great. I think that was one of the reasons they weren't exactly devastated to lose him.

That's good.

He was 267th in net rating last year. Got benched a couple of times. I was looking at his career. From 2015 to 2019, when they made the finals all five years and they won three and came very close the other two. Then he ends up getting hurt in 2019. He played 386 regular-season games and 104 playoff games. He played 490 games in five years, 98 games a year, almost 17K minutes, and then his body breaks down right at the end of it. But he played more games of minutes than Curry did, than Drayman did, and had two of the worst possible injuries you could have as a combo, ACL Achilles. The The fact that he even came back and did what he did last year was great. But I think this is actually good for him to move into this new phase.

Okay, I do, too. I'm rooting for him. I think you're right. Classic change of scenery guy. The Ray Allen heat would be perfect. The other part of this, though, let's say we agree that it's good for Clay. Steph is on the record no less than maybe a dozen times this year saying, I can't see myself playing without Clay. How How do you think this is going to affect Steph?

Steph retires?

No, I don't. I didn't see it. Now he's imagining it.

My take is I think they knew this was happening since the middle of the season. I think they knew that that was probably the end of the road. He turned down 48 for two years before the year last year.

I don't know. I think it was money. I thought it was a respect thing.

Well, that's the thing. I was going to play two-word MBA with you. New gimmick. Feel free to steal this.

All right. Two-word MBA.

Two-word MBA. My two words for Clay Thompson, salary envy. They made the classic mistake. Jordan pool, here's your extension. Drayman. Drayman, here's your extension. Clay, we'll talk after. He's just immediately offended. It's like, Really? We won four titles together. Where's my extension? What about me? That's basically what started the pool dream on thing in the first place. I think once that started, you get into the why them, not me, and you're down. When you've won titles with a guy and you're not taking care of them like you're taking care of some of the other people. It's hard to come back from.

Okay, so then what are the warriors doing? You're letting Clay go. You're letting Chris Paul go. You're competing for a championship. You're making some huge move.

That's my next two-word MBA. Coughlin's law.

I know it's a cocktail reference.

Everything ends badly, otherwise it doesn't end. This is how it's supposed to end. Here's the thing. If we did Conciliary for the Warriors, what would we tell them? Blow it up. It's over. You're not winning the title. It's done. You won four. It was a miracle. You got 2022. It's over. Start Start thinking about how you can build around Curry for the next part of the decade. This is a gap here. Throw it away. That's what I would say.

I mean, you're probably right. Just such a bummer. I don't know. I felt like, yeah, I'm just bummed out about this one. Just bummed out about it. I don't know why. It just feels like I'm just a little bit upset of this is the team that has defined the generation. Now it's just ending with a bit of a wimper.

Now, we have the Celtics.

It's been done, I guess. Yeah.

Here's how I'd put it. First of all, they won four titles, which is amazing. If they made the Paul George trade, rumored, I don't know what was in it, but I assume I assume Komingo was in it. I assume Chris Paul's contract was in it. Probably a pick, some other stuff. The Clippers just didn't want to take all that additional stuff, and it fell through. But if they had made the Paul George trade, I was trying to figure out where I would have put them in the picking order for who wins the title, right? The top five to me is almost unassailable. That's a top six. Boston, OKC, Denver, Minnesota, New York, and Dallas, I think, are the top six. Then Milwaukee is seven with a chance to jump.

You had OKC in there?

Yeah. Boston, OKC, Denver, Minnesota, New York, Dallas as your six. Milwaukee is right there. They're in the lobby. They're reading a Sports Illustrated for Kids from nine months ago, waiting to get called into an office, but they're still in the lobby. Then the next three would have been Indiana, Cleveland, Philly. Now, Philly is getting Paul George, so maybe Philly is eight. But I think Golden State with Paul George would have been in that mix. Now, I'm looking at them. I have them 19th.

19th?

Yeah. I have them after Memphis. I have them after Houston. I have them after Sacramento.

I think Houston... I'm sorry. I think Memphis and the Lakers are tied at 13th because we did a story last week. Tied at 13th.

That's funny. I had the Lakers at 14th. I had Orlando 10th, I'm sorry, Orlando 11, Phoenix 12, New Orleans 13, Lakers 14, Miami 15. And the Golden Station is not better than any of those names. Memphis, Houston, Sacramento, Golden State. I think they're right there with the Clippers for that 19th spot, and I would give Golden State, but they're closer to the bottom than the top.

Yeah.

I just don't know. If I was a minority owner of the team and Lake up is like, Hey, guys, do you want to pay the luxury tax? I'd be like, No.

So what are you doing? You're trying to buy... This is a gap year to try to free up money and get somebody else to play with Steph?

That's my next two-word MBA answer. Trade Drayman. Right now is the time. Got to do it. You just got to. You got to rip the bandit off and just do it and talk, step into it and explain to them like, We're going to not be good for one year, and we'll make it up to you.

Okay, we've already done that a few times. I'm done with that. This is what I would say, how come LeBron gets to compete for a Championship every year? Why can't I? Why do I have to take these huge gap years?

Here's the answer, because you never push us and prod us and work the media to make it so that work under constant pressure to do stuff because you're Steph Curry. You don't do that stuff. So we're going to take advantage of you.

I mean, that's not the answer I want to hear, but I appreciate your honesty.

Basically, so what could they get for Draymond? Could they talk the Lakers into Rui Hachimora in that hood, Shefino, in a 2029 first for Draymond?

I wouldn't do that.

For who?

For Draymond, I wouldn't do that at all.

But I'm saying this is all part of a bigger thing of, We're not going to be good this year. Sorry. This is how it's going to go. So let's just not be good.

If I was Steph and I didn't have enough my morning coffee, I'd be like, While you're at it, why don't you grab some offers for me, too? If you're blowing up the team and trading all my friends in the core of this team, I'm just trying to get to the playoffs. And I think it's the same with LeBron. Get a team good enough to get me to the playoffs and let us do our thing.

This team did not make the playoffs last year with Chris Paul and Quate Thompson.

How did we do the year before?

They lost in the playing game.

Two years, three years ago.

I don't know. But I guarantee you these are the conversations they're having. It's like we're closer to 30 than we are to one. It's the reality of the situation.

Then if you're going to blow it up, don't keep the best player. I'd be mad if I was Steph. What's the point of me playing out the string like late Kobe era Lakers? I'm there. I'm on a... I'm just finishing my career here.

He got his '22 title and immortality. Now it's a question of... It just to me seems like the era of titles in Golden State is... It's not over, but it's on a hard pause, and it's going to be impossible with the team they have.

So when Draymon got thrown out, was it the magic game? Is it the magic? Yeah. When Draymon got thrown out and Steph put his jersey over his face and it looked like he was crying, why do you I don't think he was crying?

Because- I don't think he was crying. I think he was so upset that it's just been two seasons from hell, basically, since they won the title. I think he was probably just frustrated. I don't think he would cry at anything unless it was the end of the sad movie where it's like that movie with Mark Wauberg with the dog, King Richard, whatever it's called. Did you see that? It's the sad.

No. No.

It gets emotional at the end.

Don't tell me. So either way, he's very emotional about it. They actually ended up winning the game. But to me, that showed like, I still want to win and I want to compete.

I'm not here to just... Of course he does. Yeah.

So how are you How are you going to sell me on like, We're going to rebuild. How? We're not sure.

We're going to trade your other favorite player. Look at their team compared to who they're competing against just in the West. No, I know. Like, okay, see, if they get Hartenstein combined with they got Caruso and SGA and Jalen Williams, and Chet. They have no chance against that team. Denver is Jokuj, who owns them. Minnesota, who was really good last year, and then on top of it, just added Rob Dillingham, was going to be super fun. Dallas, who has the best part in the conference other than Jokuj, and who's loading up as well. They're not in the conversation anymore. At some point, if you can't... We went through this with the Patriots, that Brady's last year where it was just clear that it was over. It got super clumsy with how they handled it, but we all knew it was over. When it's over, it's over. I don't see any way back unless they reset.

Well, then play it out.

The last year- I think you're right, though. I don't think they would trade Drayman even if that's the move because of the curry piece. I think that would be the one where it's like, All right, this is too far. That's my guy. I can't trade him.

I'm ready. We run a thousand He plays a game where we just know where each other are. He gets me open. It's fun playing basketball with him. I'm not just here to... I'm not going to carry the team all by myself.

Does Draymond get more or less erratic as the months pass here? Because it's been a pretty erratic 18 months stretch. I wonder, with age, does that get better or worse? We've seen it go both ways. We've seen guys get goofier. We've also seen guys mature later in age. Either way, he cannot have the year he just had.

It's a great question. I assume he's going to be locked in. He wants to compete, too. I assume he's going to be locked in, but maybe he has to dial up a level of intensity because these games don't have as high enough stakes.

Here's my next two-word. Do you have any more warrior stuff?

No. We're waiting for Chris Paul to the- Wait on Chris Paul.

Next two-word NBA thing. Lebron's sigh up. So LeBron's going to take less money. This came out today. He's going to take less money if they get a free agent that he wants. He's not running the Lakers. The Lakers are running themselves. They hire the coach themselves. They're doing all the draft pics themselves.

Yeah, he doesn't even weigh in on that stuff.

He doesn't weigh in at all, even though they hire the guy he was doing podcasts with. And then Rich Paul, as Rizel pointed out last week, was like, If we wanted them to take them at 17, we'd tell them to take them at 17. So now we have, LeBron will take less money if... So does that mean there's a list? Did he give a list of four people? He's like, I will take 15 million less a year of Clay Thompson, Caldwell Pope, and it's like two others. But then he could be like, But I'm not telling them what to do.

No, I'm just telling you I would be willing to take less money. Also, does the free agent then have to take less money?

My point is, why do we have to pretend he's not running the Lakers? How long do we have to do this? How long? Give us a date. By the way, he should run the Lakers.

Well, I thought he should coach the Lakers.

Yeah, I thought they should have hired Maverick Carter as the coach, and then LeBron just told them what to do.

I think LeBron is player coach. I broke that takeout several times. Everyone was like, nah. I'm like, Everyone says, No, it's not going to work. And then I would say, Why?

Why? He said seven coaches in the last 12 years.

He's the smartest basketball player. Maybe we've ever had one of the smartest basketball players we've ever had in history of the league. Let him cook. He knows all the players. He knows all the plays. Let him run the show. It would work. I was like, Well, the substitutions. No, he'd be fine.

It's just weird that nobody's just admitting what the reality of the situation is for just all this stuff. Even as people are doing gymnastics, trying to... I thought it was cool that they took Bronnie 55. That's great. But then people are doing the gymnastics of, Well, that first day in the combine, and it's like, just stop. They took him because he's LeBron's son. Why are we doing this?

We also did well in the combine. It's cool.

He did well for one day. Next two-word thing. Unless you have any, I think the Lakers could actually contend for a title takes you want to get.

I don't think that at all. No, I think they're the same as last year. I am a little bit worried, no one has talked about this, Bill. Are we worried about the Olympics taking a toll on these guys?

Oh.

If the Lakers start- I like your concern in your voice.

The way you delivered that was shows on my spine.

I see a take coming down the take highway of the Lakers, where the league, like I said, throw some good games on the Lakers early schedule. And the Lakers start slow. It's like, the Olympics.

Yeah, maybe it was a mistake.

A lot of extra games. Ad was out there. We won the gold. That was great and all. But it's going to be a slow start, especially after they went all out in the in-season tournament, and then they would go, Oh, in five or one in six. It was the in-season tournament.

It was how hard the in-season was. Yeah.

And it hurt them. All of a sudden, you're playing Denver. So that take is coming around down take highway?

I guess, and we're going to have a lot of time to talk about it, I guess they basically have two different versions of the Olympic team from an identity standpoint. I don't know which identity is going to win because you have the old generation guys, the LeBron, Durant, Curry, you have all those guys. But then you have this young up and comer generation. You have 12 guys, and you have five spots, and you have 244 40 minutes total. I just don't know how it shakes out. I don't know who plays Crunch Time. There's going to be some absurd stuff, especially if Kawhi doesn't play, and they have Derek White. Derek White will make it if Kawhi gets scratch. You have Derek White and Drew Halladay. It's like, you know who could probably shut down? The really shifty dude from some country we've never heard of? Those two guys. It's a team I would not want to coach. I'll just put it that way.

No, I thought, have you looked at... Oh, you tweeted Team Canada. I got this take from you.

Yeah. Team Canada looks- Although Zack Eady got scratched. I was sad. Oh, he is? Yeah. I thought Zack Eady would have been a monster.

He's coming off the bench for three minutes. Especially taking the ball off the run, that little- Legal goal-tending stuff?

I like that.

Team Canada scares me.

Well, I had the Lakers 14th on my list, but we'll see if they get... The Connect thing was great for them. You might be able to actually play a little bit for them next year. Defensively is the issue for them, which is so funny that people are like, They need shooting. They need shooting. It's like, That's not how they won in 2020. They won because of LeBron and Davis and defense. A couple of people made some shots.

They have a rookie head coach. Maybe it'll work. Maybe it won't.

I have more stuff, but let's take one more break. All right, I have a couple more two-word NBA things for you. Title Curse?

I like that. It's like Jeopardy, where you just put it out there and I have to guess.

You have to guess. I'll take the 2019 Warriors for 200, Bill. So the Warriors were the last back to back. Next year, Durant and Clay went down. 19 Raptors, Kauai leaves. 20 Lakers, never recaptured it. 21 bucks. It felt like Giannis was poised to win multiple titles. Now they feel further away than probably they have five years. 22 Warriors, tailspin. And this leads us to the 23 Nuggets, your Nuggets.

The KCP thing hurt today.

I don't know who's coming in. It was Bruce Brown last year and KCP this year. And I get it. You look at his playoff stats and it's like, yeah, our J points a game. He shot 32% from three. We could probably replace that. But that's not the point. He fit in with those guys and he was an excellent defensive player.

It's tough. I don't know who's filling that role?

They have some young rookies that they're keeping their fingers crossed on. Not young rookies, young players like Watson, Straff or people like that.

Yeah, I guess so. But I still like KCP.

Christian Brown, he's been good.

Christian Brown, he did okay. Did it look like he was ready for big-time playoff minutes? No, I would have preferred Bruce Brown back.

They would have said that about half-court shot, Payton Pritchard a year ago. Now What's he doing? Taking five steps and sinking 55 footers in final scans.

I would like Denver to find one more guy that can create their own shot.

You mean like a Russell Westbrook?

Thank you. If Russ signs and can just run the second unit, I mean, this would be ideal for him. This would be ideal for him. Well, it sounds like- Is it done?

They did the mutual interest tweets.

I love those. I like that. Any eyeball tweets? If it's not an eyeball tweet- Last night, people were tweeting, Kevin Wilds and Bill Simmons have mutual interest in appearing on a Sunday Night podcast together. And I just put the eyeballs out.

Here's my take on Russ. You've probably done this when you've been out with Jacobi. You know how people do fireball shots?

Yeah.

It seems like a great idea and super fun. So you want to do fireball shots? Yeah, let's do some fireball shots. That'll be fun.

Some multiple? Okay.

They went maybe another round later. It's like, Yeah, those are tasty. Fireball shots. Sure. Then an hour later, you just feel sick.

Yeah.

I feel like that's the narrative of, We'll bring in Russ. He can run the second team. I thought Russ was pretty good last year for the Clippers for the most part until the when he was reprehensible. Isn't he a little fool's goldy at this point? Nobody has ever made this work where it's like, We're a really good team, and then we'll have Russ, and Russ will come in, and this will work for eight months. We just haven't seen it yet. We've seen it work for four months.

Yeah.

You like the rebounding.

I love the rebounding. I love the intensity, of course. The idea of, can anyone unlock? How can you be super intense and not great on defense at the same time? It's this odd thing. If somehow that can get unlocked later in his career, maybe.

The one thing with him that he did during the Clippers game, which I talked about on the pod, especially the first half of the year, was he would just come in and completely change the energy of games. And maybe Denver is thinking he could do that. It's a tradable deal. It'd be like four million because he. I would do it.

Think about Denver would also give up these leads sometimes. There's a point for having the MVP on the floor that we couldn't... I don't like it, just rooted for him, but now I'm on the team. Denver couldn't stop the bleeding. Mavs come back, regular scene, that's Spurs come back.

Guys, stop.

It's just the energy was wrong. If Joker's off and Jamal Murray's off, then the other guys are definitely... Aaron Goren is not going to just be like, All right, let me just get to the line and get a free throw. No, he's not going to do that. But if Russ could come in like, All right, it's Russ time. I'm going to grab an offensive rebound and get one and get fouled. There's something to stop the bleeding, I think that would be helpful. So, yeah, I'm all in on Russ.

This would be for Russ to play with Jokuj. He would be moving up the ladders of most great teammates somebody has had over the course of a career. That's a great point. You think back to like, he was with Durant. Durant and Harden. Yeah. Then he was with Paul George, and then he went back to Harden, and then he played with LeBron Davis, and then he played with Kawhi and Paul George and Harden. I think he played with Harden three different times, and now he's going to play with Jokin. She's basically played with 80% of the meaningful guys from the last 15 years.

That's pretty good.

And he's won one finals game. I don't mind it for four million.

I love it. I feel like there would be more teams that would want to grab him for $4 million.

Here's my next two-word thing for you.

It's a great guy to have in the building.

Let's see if he can guess this one. Eighth grade.

That's the only hint?

Yeah.

Is it about some long-term pick, like somebody's first-round pick?

No. Is currently- I just think the NBA... My biggest criticism with the NBA is They're like a bunch of eighth-grade girls. Far too often for me, having went through it with a daughter, were just these little slates and people getting pissed. It's like, You guys are professional athletes who make a shitload of money. This is an actual Brian Wynhorse quote today. A shout out to Windy Air guy. When they signed Kauai to that deal, they never told Paul George about it. With the insinuation being he's had his... I don't know. He's been perturbed ever since. It's like, really? We're doing this? They paid Paul George $220 million.

You know what? I'm going to start. I'll maybe do half baked ideas later in the show. I'm going to give you a quick one right now. I'm going to comment I'm in like Winston Wolf in Pulp Fiction, and they're going to call me the communicator. Before front office does anything, Hey, call the communicator. And I come in, and in a tuxedo, and I run through a quick checklist. I'm like, Hey, did you tell your star player? Did you tell the star player's agent? Did you tell the wide receiver? Did you tell the quarterback you're about to do? Did you tell Wosh? Did you tell Wendy? And we're When I have it all coordinated so that the wide receiver is not getting traded and you didn't hear about it. You heard about it right before. How come you can't weigh in? It's always a mess. And these guys can never figure it out. And people get their feelings hurt. Not Anymore. I'm the communicator.

No, you know how they have for movie sets now? They have the Intimacy Coordinators. You're the emotional coordinator.

Yeah, but I have to be on set. What are you about to do? We're about to sign this deal. We're about to offer the deal. Not yet. We're going to get everybody on Zoom right now.

Maybe it's just the title's Intimacy Coordinator. You're just on the set.

No, I think that's probably too much. I'm just a bell communicator. I'm meant to. All right.

I like that. That's good. More two words. Sunk cost. Chris Haynes reported this today. The Bulls offered Zack Levine for CP3 and Wiggens.

Yeah, what was the deal there? Why didn't they do that?

And the warriors were like, No, thank you. Which tells me that Zack Levine is now untradable in a sunk cost because you had the warriors who were like, We have more money than God. We've paid the luxury tax every year for seven straight years. And we can basically, because we're losing Chris Paul anyway, we could turn Andrew Wiggens into a guy who's scored 25 points a game for the nine years. No, thanks.

That was a strange one.

I think that speaks to his value, though. It makes me think the Bulls are going to be stuck with him. Either way. Let's do Chris Paul and Wemby.

Oh, yeah.

So Orlando gets KCP, and I'm super excited for our guy, Cerruti, because I'm thinking Chris Paul is in play now for Orlando, and they're 50 to one on Fandle right now. It's like, I'm not saying they'll win the title, but 50 to 1. Wow. Yeah. Could they be like a two seed? If they got Chris Paul and Palo jumps, Franz learns how to shoot threes, Franz takes over the Olympics, Germany has a couple of upsets. There's a roadmap for stuff to happen.

Holy cow.

But then Chris Paul goes to the Spurs, and that was even more delightful and more exciting.

I love this. When they were tanking, they won 22 games. Then they get the best prospect since LeBron, and they won 22 games.

Well, they really tried hard to lose those 22 games. They had no point guard. They played G-Leaguers for the last six weeks of the season.

So what does success look like? Now, they have Castle, I love from Yukon, but they traded Dillingham. So it felt like, all right, are we not? We just tell them we want to just still send stuff towards the future.

By the way, I'm glad you brought that up really quick because I did I did the pot on Wednesday night and I didn't like the Dillingham trade. And as I've had time to marinate it and think about it, it actually makes me mad. I don't know why they didn't just keep them.

Now they have Chris Paul. I like it. Well, one rookie, one veteran.

You know what would been cool? Chris Paul could have taught Rob Dillingham how to do stuff like he did with Shay Gilgis Alexander for that year. They had an OKC together, and Shay was like, That was the most important thing that ever happened to me being with Chris Paul for a year.

I love it. But what does success look like for Wemby? Be basically last year's Rockets like, Hey, we might make the play in.

We did this Ringer Top 100 thing, and I had Wemby at number 10. I was like, I'm just not ever not having him in the top 10 for the rest of my life if he's healthy.

Who's he sandwiched between? Do you know? Do you remember?

I can look it up. I had him. He was the head of Donovan Mitchell, Wemby-Yamma 10, Davis, 11, Durant, 12, Mitchell, 13, Jalen Brown, 14, Jamal Murray 15, and Bede was nine.

Okay. Where do you have Jalen Brunson? You have Brunson top?

I had Jalen Brunson, six.

Okay, good. Yeah.

Good.

Yeah, I like that. I think that's fair. He could hit top. I'd have to do it. I think he could easily move up, though. He'd be better than Embiid.

You know Kevin O'Connor, who works for the Ringer? He had a couple of insane Wemby takes. I almost texted him to make sure he was all right.

It's hard to have a take that's too high on Wemby.

Well, he texted 26, 12, 6, and 4 for Wemby Yama this season, all-star on the defensive part of the year. I'm like, All right, I can buy that. But then he said, I could be underestimating him. By the second half of the season, Wemby might be at 32, 13, 8, and 5. I'm like, Okay, I'm going to send you some time and all.

It's a lot.

Could he do that at some point in his career? I'm going to say yes. But in year two with the team he has, I'm going to say no. That's really hard.

We went and saw him at the garden, and he was thoroughly outplayed by Hartenstein. Thoroughly outplayed. But that was early in the season. Then, I don't know, when he turned the corner, he figured it out, and he just kept figuring it out All the way to the end of the season.

He's like AI. It's like how AI can figure out- Oh my God.

It's 100 times better than it was last week.

Yeah, he was... That stretch he had in that last game that ended up knocking Denver out of the one seed. When he scored the 17 points in three minutes, that was like, holy shit. So now he has a point guard. Castle will be awesome for them immediately, at least on defense.

Yeah, He's out here working with Jamal Crawford. I think he's going to be unbelievable. But what's a fair expectation? Am I allowed to be disappointed if they win 30 games? I think so. I'm having a hard time, this all-time great prospect. I know LeBron didn't make the playoffs early on either, but still.

The history is it happened sooner than you think. And that was why I was so bullish on OKC last year, where I was like, I thought they were going to win 50 games, the whole thing because it usually moves faster, especially with young legs. They're healthier, they're more durable. I had San Antonio, when I did that, tears. I had Memphis, 16, Houston, Sacramento, Golden State, Clips, San Antonio as my next six. That's why the West is so hard because you think none of those are even the top teams in the West. The teams I just rattled off, you have OKC, Denver, Minnesota, Dallas, There's four. Then you have Phoenix, New Orleans, and the Lakers. There's seven. Then you have Memphis, Houston, Sacramento, Golden State, Clips, San Antonio, just for the eight seed. What success? Probably 35 wins and some fun upsets, right?

Thirty-five wins. I want more. The Rockets went 41 and 41. You could be the Rockets. They had a nice little win streak. You should be just as good as the Rockets. Got a great coach. Now you've got a veteran.

I don't know if the Rockets had more though. Yeah. Although the Rockets might go backwards this year because your guys, Schengen's coming back and it's Jalen Green's team now. It's going to be a tug of war. It's going to be like New Jack City.

No. It'll work perfectly. Don't worry about that.

I don't know. We'll see.

Do you see the Schengen for Durant trades started to pop up?

When did that happen?

That popped up like, that was a little Woj. That was a little Woj, peripheral Woj. I don't think Woj ever mentioned it, but then if People took that and splintered off Shin-Gun for Durant. I started to get nervous.

I was thinking that was the one, the warriors are never trading Curry. Just going to say that. But if Curry ever I had, You guys have to trade me. It's less teams than you think, but Houston would have a godfather offer possibility because of all the picks they have. They have Sheppard, they have Shingun, and all their wings. They could just go. He'd have to Draymond would have to be in the deal. It would have to be the two of them, but they're never trading Steph Curry. I think the Warriors would rather just suck every year than trade Steph Curry, and that's how they should feel. That's how we would have felt about Larry Bird way back when. I'd rather suck and have Larry Bird retire with us.

Yeah, and that's why it hurts Clay's feelings, though. That's why.

You know, though, I'm glad you brought this up. I did the research on this. I wanted to figure out because I think Clay is a top 100 guy. He made my pyramid.

Yeah, Number 77. Top 100 all time.

All time. I looked up how many top 100 guys played for one team their whole career, and it's about 30%. The guys move. You had the top level of the MJ, Russell Bird, Magic, Kobe West. Those guys don't move.

You have a check with Jerk and Elgin. You don't count MJ moving? You would give that one.

Oh, I guess I have to cancel that one. Yeah, I don't count the Wizards, but I guess I have to. All right. Sorry, MJ, you're out. You're out. But then it's basically every tier, half of them. But then when it gets to the guys over 50, In the Clay group, it's really only Reggie Miller, Joe Dumars, Manu, and Tony Parker were the guys at his level that actually just stayed the whole time. A lot of times, these guys bounce around and we're just... It's how it goes. Even Pippin played with Portland and Houston and Chicago.

Yeah, he need to go get his money. This is just... All right, that's Clay. I'm just bummed out. I'll be happy when he's doing well.

Well, I'll tell you where I'm not going to be happy. It's if he goes to the Lakers because I love Clay Thompson. I don't want the Lakers to have somebody I like. There they have Austin Reeve, so I like, and that's been tough enough for me.

I think I would like to have him. I would like to see what JJ draws up for him. He's like, Oh, Like just JJ with just a pure shooter. It's like, Oh, this is my favorite one. Clay, do you like this? He's like, Yes. Great. Also, this will be, to your listeners, the dumbest reason ever I want to see Clay on the Lakers. Also just want them in a yellow uniform. Just yellow. She uses yellow jersey. It's like, Oh, yeah. I like that. Good. Cool. Gold.

That's perfect. Rudy says that Woj said LeBron James called Clay Thompson right at 6:00 PM. He's not running the Lakers.

He's just calling them. Check in.

How are you doing? But there's another Clay Thompson piece, which is why I think the Lakers would have the inside track is his dad.

Yeah, I think that's nice.

Yeah, I think that's a significant... Everyone's like, Oh, I could go to Dallas. It's like, If he can go to the Lakers, he's going to the Lakers. That's the only way. Leaving Golden State, same way if Curry ever leaves the Warriors, I think it would be Charlotte.

God, I know that would be a nice story, theoretically, but that'd be horrible.

Team on Charlotte? Charlotte's coming back, man. They hired a good coach. Got Brandon Miller.

Okay, I guess so.

The only other free agency things I think we hit every single thing that happened, right? Did we miss anything? Oh, there was a couple of funny ones. Valenceunis went to the Wizards for 3 for 30, which I just loved. We always need a weird one. We're like, Wait, what? Who went I thought three for 30 was actually an okay deal.

Pretty good deal.

Yeah, tradable. Quickly went to Toronto, resigning for five for 175. And I honestly don't fucking know what Toronto is doing. That happened before today, but they're selling out a 460 million for Emmanuel quickly and Scottie Barnes. I probably would have not signed off on that. And then the other weird one was Patrick Williams back Chicago for five years, 90 million.

What is Chicago doing?

I just don't- What are they doing? So I thought that was pretty strange as well. And then the only other thing we didn't talk about was the DeJante Murray Pelicans trade, which I really liked. I thought he was exactly what they needed.

I 100% agree, but I don't know what to think of the Pelicans.

They need a center, and they need to trade Brandon Ingram, and everybody thinks they're trading him to Sacramento for, I guess it would be like Harrison Barnes and Kevin Herder and Picks, and you're basically dumping them. They lost Daniels in the Murray trade. They lost a couple of their weaker Picks. Their team right now, Zion, Murray, Herb Jones, Trey Murphy, McCollum, Hawkins, Alvarado, and Ingram. Alvarado. They have no size at all.

What's Hartenstein doing? I'm just keep on- Well, that's the other thing we should talk about is the biggest thing that will happen is if OKC gets Hartenstein because we can talk about all this.

This guy moved here, this guy's here, Clay's going to be on this team. But if they end up with Caruso and Hartenstein this summer with the team they had, with how close they were to beating Dallas anyway in a series that really came down of, I said, four rebounds and one dumb play in the corner and two made threes. To me, they're the favorite in the West. Because now you have a complete team.

I'm not ready to say that.

You have a top five guy, and Denver's weaker. Minnesota, we'll see. We'll see what Dallas does. But just right now, I'd have OKC as the team I felt the safest about. You're probably right. Because I thought they were right there with Dallas, man.

Yeah, you're probably right. I'm still in a Denver malaise.

Let's talk about that. We'll take one more break. Denver, malaise, then half baked ideas. All right, so I know we didn't hit absolutely everything, but I have a podcast Tuesday, and I'll try to do Winners and Losers for anything we missed. Let's talk about the Denver malaise, because I think both of us are seeing this the same way. It talked about a little on the title course stuff where Milwaukee had this window with Yannis. Then they jump and they do the Dame trade and they hire the wrong Coach, and last year's a throw away, and now they're really on the clock with that. I don't feel Denver still has that foundation of those four guys that play really well together. But KCP was the fifth. Now they're going to play roulette with that swing spot. But just in general, it doesn't feel like they're adding. It feels like they're surviving with what they have. I think all of us are looking at it going, You guys have Jokuj. What are you doing?

Yeah. But I don't know what move they're exactly supposed to make, but it seems like we're in an odd time in the NBA where all of the MVPs, the last guys who have shared the MVP, Joker, Giannis, and Embiid, are all on the outside, looking in for either their second Championship or first if you're in beat. And you think it's going to be Celtics... Well, not. You think it's Celtics and OKC right now as your one, two?

Yeah. If you're looking at the East, it would be Celtics, Knicks, and then we'll see what the Sixers and Bucks look like. If you're looking at the West, it's OKC, Denver, Dallas, Minnesota, all clumped together and pick who you think is the safest bet, whether the one seed will matter with them. But I think OKC getting there, a little like what happened the 22 Celtics. The experience The experience they had last year is going to really help them. And solving the Getty issue, which I think was a real issue for them because he wanted to start and they had a little bit of a chemistry thing. They fixed that. If they can get Hartenstein, I feel like that's as complete of a team as we're getting in the West. And they have some good advantages because SGA's contract is still cheap for a superstar. Jalen Williams is still on a rookie contract. So is Chet. This is very similar to that 2012 window they had with all those guys.

I like going back to Denver. I like the idea that Denver is like, We just won. We're fine. We just need to get healthy. If Jamal was at full strength, we probably win again.

Yeah, we were 20 in a game seven, and we blew it because we ran out of gas.

Yeah. If we were healthy, we'd be good. And we ran into... There's an element of that team getting smacked. Was a game... What game was it? Game six, they got smashed? Yeah. That left a bad taste in my mouth. And then giving up the big lead left a bad taste in my mouth. So is that just bad luck? Is that just injuries or does that need to be remedied through a personnel decision. And maybe that's for us. Maybe I'll feel fine. Now, if I'm be honest, on the other hand, like, Man, all these guys are making moves. What are we doing? We feel like we're even further away than we were last year.

Yeah, their first round pick was weird this year where they took It's like this total project who probably can't help them for a couple of years. And meanwhile, the Lakers got Connect, who can at least come in and make some threes.

I'm going to believe in Jamal Murray once he's healthy. I think I might get back on the Denver train, but not ready to make any official predictions.

Would you say he's, I think, got one more year in his deal?

He hasn't signed yet. I assume that's getting done. I assume this is all a format. That hit your worried meter?

I just didn't I realized it was one year left. You never know what these dudes... The variable of having won the title, to me, takes all the bets off the board. I know it's great to keep winning in the same place. In his case, he plays a role with Jokuj, but I just think when people have rings, they just think slightly differently about it.

The Kyle Kuzma factor is like, yeah.

Yeah. What are they chasing now? They're chasing the security, as much money as they can make. I assume he's going to stay, but what if Jokuj is like, Yo, man, two years from now, I'm retiring from the NBA and I'm going to be riding horses in Serbia. That's my plan. Yeah, good. Me and my brothers are opening a bar. I just want to give you a heads up. 2027, I'm out of the league. So Jamal Burry is like, Cool. Thanks for telling me.

That's good. Let's go hard for two years. I'll extend for three years.

I'll do a one-on-one.

Yeah, we'll be fine.

Are you buying the Knicks?

Yes, 100%. One A hundred %. It's a team that... You know what the Knicks remind me a little bit? How... And this is a half-baked theory, so you can refine it. One of the things that makes football great, the Ravens play like the Ravens. Whether if you were in a coma for the last five years, you would wake up, you're like, Oh, yeah. Ravens football. That's great. Sean McVay is doing his thing. And the 49ers are... I mean, they've changed a little bit. 49ers are playing like 49. Tibbs is coaching a team that feels totally unique in the NBA. We're going to play everybody more. We're going to play tough defense. We're not building the roster through basically stars, blind dates. We're like, No, we're taking a bunch of friends, and we actually have proof of concept at Vilanova. So I like that it's a signature look and feel of a team that reminds me of football.

Can I zag?

Yeah, go.

Julius Randall, how are they going to figure that out?

Not sure.

Not sure. He's like, Hey, I'm a 24 and 10 guy. What about me? This whole Villanova thing is cool and all, but I'm over here.

Hey, go wild. He's always getting invited to watch the Wildcats. He's like, No, guys, I don't.

Yeah, I'm not.

I'm more of a Kentucky man. I'm not a Kentucky, yeah.

Now, that's what I'm going to be doing all summer because the Knicks fans, and I'm really happy for them. I was thinking about my friend Goldman, who died in November 2018 and just saw nothing happy at all. Then within a couple of years, this flips. Now it's one of the most likable, not only NBA teams, but probably one of the most likable New York teams in a while. Oh, yeah. I don't want to give my Knicks fan friend shit because I'm really happy for them. But at the same time, if they're chest puffing too much, you just throw the, So what's going to happen with Randall, you think? And then they're just like, Oh, I'm fine.

There's something else in its simplicity of just like, We show up to work every day to play.

Yeah, we roll up our sleeves. We're playing like, well, Bridges is like, I haven't missed a game since I was eight years old.

It's just like, yeah, we play. Why? Because I'm not going to miss a game. You guys need me. The fans are for us every game. So it's just really relatable and awesome.

Yeah. Bridges is... I mean, he's even more durable than Jalen and Tatum, who are the most durable wings of the week. Bridges just literally doesn't miss games ever.

It's going to be great.

It's going to be great. Yeah, it's good. The best thing when you think about next year, which I think is going to be really fun in a lot of ways, just from the unpredictable angle. Unfortunately, the Lakers are just going to dominate everything, which I just guess we all have to accept Even today, ESPN did their free H-C special, and the first 15 minutes were about the Lakers. I'm like, Hey, Paul George, any info? But you produce shows like that, and the Lakers are the red meat, right?

Yeah, the Lakers, the marquey franchise. Cowboys, Yankees, Lakers. That's it. Can't come up. I get it. Everyone's interested in the Lakers. Everybody's interested. But it'd be nice if the New York got to be at that level. It's New York.

Well, when I think about this season and the West is going to be so much fun with all these great players. And then you have this, assuming Paul George, we still don't know if he's officially signed, but you have this Celtics, Knicks, Sixers battle now with stars. And every game is going to feel like it matters. And it's just going to feel like out of the '70s and '80s when those teams were going at it with each other. We haven't had the three of them going at the same time. I don't even remember the last time.

Can I say one final thing? It's so weird. We've done this whole podcast for, I don't know, almost two hours.

No, it's hour 15.

Hour 15, sorry. If I was Yannis listening to this podcast, I I was barely mentioned. I'm probably the best player. I have a ring. I had an off year, off two years. He didn't.

He had a really good year. His team had an off year.

Yeah, my team did. It just feels like he's just on the outside looking in here, and it's just... It's just strange. It's like, It's going to be Philly, New York, Boston. What? I'm the best player in the conference.

It's the same problem the Lakers have and the Warriors have, where the league has gotten so young and athletic. When you look at the Knicks and OKC and the Celtics, it's like, How do you compete with that? If you don't have wings and athleticism in that way, that's what's going to sink the Lakers ultimately. Clay looks great on paper. Oh, cool. We got Clay. But they're still going to have the same problem they had last year, where they're going to have trouble defending basically anybody. You pick Tatum, Luka, Durant. They don't have anyone on the roster who's going to be able to handle those guys.

If I were to be honest, I'm like, go back to stars. I'm a movie stars.

Well, he needs a Dame. Ensemble cast movie stars. No, he needs the Dame all time comeback season. I went through a divorce last year. I got traded. Doc said on my podcast how he wasn't in shape over the summer in the right shape because he was afraid he was going to get traded. So you just have Dame now in Rocky IV Log cabin mode, and those two guys just lightened it up. I'm with you. I think Yannis is a maniac, and he's just out of the dialog now.

Underrated at this point.

Where do you What do you think they rank in the Eastern Conference for betting odds right now? What do you think they are? I'm going to look this up as we're talking.

I think they are- You think they're third? In the Eastern Conference, it goes Celtics, New York. I mean, yeah, I guess they're third.

Celtics, Knicks, Sixers, plus 460 right now. Knicks are plus 420. Knicks are plus 135, and Milwaukee is 7-1. And Cerruti's Magic down to 20-1. A little magic action. Yeah. Wow. With a magic. Caves, 20 to 1. Heat, 24 to 1. Don't count them out. Heat Culture. I'm actually going to count you guys out. Thanks. Caves, 20 to 1 as Well, in Indiana is down to 20 to 1. There you go. Do some half baked for us before we go.

Okay. I need my intro music.

It's half-baked. Thank you.

I was on a city bike the other day.

Yeah. And taking over New York City.

Yeah. So I'm an electric city bike, and I'm in the bike lane, and there's a guy walking in between cars, and I'm not going to slow down necessarily. So I just hit... They have a little bell there. I hit the bell. Beep, beep. He's a construction guy. It looks a big guy. It looks a little bit of a tough guy, but I'm sure we would have been friends if we had the opportunity. He turns, looks at me, walks past me. He says, Nice little bell. I'm like, Buddy, it's not my bike. It's the bell that comes with it. It's just biking etiquette. I didn't say this, but he just dressed me down.

All right, so I have that story. So you felt inadequate about your bike?

I didn't choose the bell. It's the bell that comes with the bike, and I didn't want to yell at you. Hey, watch it. Excuse me. There's no way to do it. The bell is the way to go. I'm looking out for you, friend. Okay, so you have that. So put that to the side. That's the back story. Then I'm walking through the grocery store, I see Liquid Death. Have you seen Liquid Death? Yeah. Without a sponsor or anything. It's just a can of water. It's a can of water where they put a huge dose of macho-ness on top of it. So the guy's like, Oh, wow, that's not a bottle. What is it? It's a can. It's got a skull on it. They got mango in there. Great. I want to combine overly macho-ness that we actually need, I guess, because Liquid Death works, and my Bell. I call it just fog. I mean, there's exists, but foghorn. It's like a Patriot's third down horn going off for a bicycle. For bicycles, your car, if you're walking, whatever you have it.

So it's like a necklace? I could just squeeze it?

No, I think it's just small. It's AI.

It's AI.

Ai figures it out.

My iPhone reads my mind and blares it.

When you start to get fired up. You can play it at home. I just want more of a foghorn that's not like the orange thing at the Olympics. You don't want that. That's too loud. I want a nice, A low-level foghorn coming out of a Nantucket Lighthouse. That's what I want. Sounds tough. Sounds like I'm on a tug boat. That's what I want for my bike. Foghorn.

That's really good. Why don't you add the liquid death aspect, though, and call it death foghorn.

You know what?

Sinister foghorn, something. That's what you're hearing. It needs to be macho foghorn.

You know what foghorns were prevented?

Foguhorn.

Liquid death. You don't want to hit the rocks, drown. All right, next one. That was a good one. I was on Instagram. So this is a combination of... Think about this as I tell the story. A combination of Airbnb meets seamless.

Okay.

I was on Instagram, it was some old grandmother, someone took a video of their old grandmother making pasta from scratch. She had the eggs, and she had the dough, and she was cooking it up. She's about 100 years old. I said, That looks delicious. There's no chance I can ever eat it. I don't know this lovely old lady. I wish there was an opportunity for me. So this is Airbnb Meats Seamless. I call it Somebody's Grandma. Now, Somebody's Grandma is just an app you have on your phone. And there has to be somebody who works for Somebody's Grandma in your vicinity. And they drive around to all the grandma's houses if they're a part of the system, say, what are you making? When will it be ready? A little extra income for grandmas who want to just cook and provide delicious food. They say, okay, that's great. And then it all shows up on an app. You can order it just like seamless, but somebody's grandma made it for you.

It's literally somebody's grandma.

Literally somebody's grandma is making this food for you. The driver, whoever it is- It's like a goop, but with grandmothers. Well, Well, what's goop got to do with it?

It's just a brand. I don't know what goop is. I just know my daughter orders goop because she thinks it's healthy. I got goop for dinner.

Goop?

Yeah, goop. Gooneth Paltr's thing. My daughter always orders from Goop because she thinks it's healthy. There's no evidence that it's called Goop. No, they do food now, too. I didn't. I thought it was sweaters and candles. Somebody's grandma, it's like, Oh, I might get some eyeballs.

Yeah, just go to somebody's grandma. Be fantastic.

That's a good one. Can I do a quick one?

Yeah, go.

Friday night, I had two parties.

Okay.

One birthday party was a dress-up party.

Like a costume or just like a tie?

It said cocktail attire, which is always like... No idea. Yeah, you just say it could go any direction.

No jeans, I guess.

Then the next party was more of a hangout party. Our plan was to go to the cocktail attire party first and end up at the other party.

But what are you doing for clothing?

Well, for me, it's easy. I'm a guy. But for my wife, she goes into this, just in the closet in this vortex of what to wear. I'm just dreading her because my daughter was gone. I'm just dreading her asking for my opinion because I know whatever my answer is, it's going to be the wrong answer. She comes out in the dress and I'm like, It's a great dress. Is it too fancy? One of the eight biggest mistakes of my life. What are you doing? Is it too fancy now?

There's no answer for that.

Now, it's basically CNN is breaking in and being like, We have a situation at Bill Simmons' house where he just asked his wife if it was too fancy.

What are you doing?

Now she's mad. Then she's like, Now things are getting thrown around. She tries something else on, but she's reading my reaction. I'm like, I don't want to. I'm tapping out. Now you're like, Perfect. She's like, No, you started this. Now I'm an asshole. Then my daughter comes home, and then my daughter saves the day and comes in, walks her off the ledge, figures it out, and Even in the Uber, my wife's still mad at me for answering an innocent question. My thought is, because my daughter's in college, so she's not always there to smooth things over, how you had your... We talked about intimacy coordinators on movie sets. You have your emotional coordinator with the sports teams. I don't know what the title of this job is, but it's like there's a big party, and it's almost like an Uber. You order a very pleasant, nice, friendly woman to come over and just be there for your wife as she tries on things for 25 minutes. It's like an Uber.

Yeah, so it's not even like a stylist. It's more of just- No, it's support. It's support. That's great. Could it be done over FaceTime? How they have therapy over FaceTime.

I thought about that. Yeah, maybe it's a better help. It's like better help fashion, something like that. Yeah, it's FaceTime. Yeah, that's good. I like that. See, that's not even a half-baked idea. That's a full baked idea.

That could probably be an AI, too. You could just have some bot just be like, looks awesome.

Like a bot goes, that looks too fancy for a cocktail attire. You are showing too much of your shoulders. I don't Anyway, half baked idea. All right, what's your next one?

This is my last one.

By the way, I know Kyle loved that last one because I've had conversations about him about how psychotic the dressing stage is. Right, Kyle?

All right. My son's playing baseball, and he's 11. So he's got a pretty small glove. And And when the ball gets hit around in Little League, it's just chaos. Now, luckily, now we're in All-Stars. Everyone's catching the ball now. But early on, it's just like, the kids, it's very challenging. The little ball. Well, one of the reasons it's challenging, because everyone's got gloves from 1908. You look out there like Shoeless Joe. But as baseball is always looking to add offense to the game, and the pitchers are throwing 100 miles an hour. Now, what are we going to do? Are we going to lower the mound? We already got the pitch counted. So just bring everybody's gloves back to old school. Small little gloves. Because then Russell is playing first base, and someone gave him a huge first baseman's mitt. It was unbelievable. He was doing great. Junked up, grabbed one, snagged one out of the dirt. I'm like, This is great for the defense. I'm glad that you're out there. But if you hit the ball, I'd be a little bit upset. The kids should be out there with a tiny little glove. So just smaller little gloves.

Smaller gloves just in general until you're 16.

No, in Major Leagues.

Oh, just the whole time?

The whole thing goes back to smaller gloves. Is anyone paying attention to these gloves? They've just gotten bigger and bigger and bigger.

Remember this happened with hockey goalies? No. Where all of a sudden their pads became so gigantic, like the goals went down, and then they had to regulate how fat the pads and all the padding were.

Yeah, that makes Just bring the gloves back in.

See, I like this. Also, they should do this with tennis, too, because the tennis, I think making... If you look at the tennis rackets from the '70s, they're just smaller and it's a little more challenging. I think it would be more fun if we had those.

Of smaller rackets or just you don't like the composite rackets where it's like everything's based around the surf?

No, now it's bigger head, everything. You can't even compare. What McEnroe played with, McEnroe is like a God when you go back and watch tennis, when you I could think about the rackets he played with and Borg.

Smaller gloves, smaller rackets. It works.

I have one more half-bake for you.

Okay, go.

Do you like making popcorn? I think you're watching a movie. It's like, Oh, yeah, three-minute popcorn.

Okay, this is a great question. I'm going to say I do not like making popcorn.

Does anyone in your family like making popcorn?

Yeah, Russell makes a lot of popcorn in the microwave.

Simmons family loves popcorn. Amazing, we don't have a popcorn sponsor on the Bill Simmons podcast because we love popcorn. But when you make the popcorn, so you make it for three minutes, right? It gets super hot. You open it up, you basically burn your fingers, the steam comes out.

It's dangerous.

Pour it in thing. Not all the kern pop. You eat the thing, and then at the end, there's 50 little kernels left. Then it's like, do I eat one of these? Do I chew them?

You're afraid you're going to hurt your teeth. I'm like, I'm going to give that one a shot.

When I was doing Countdown with Magic Johnson that year, when we did the Sunday morning Countdowns, he used to have this guy bring Jamba Juice for him. The guy would bring this big Jamba juice, but then there was this little extra cup of Jamba juice. It was like that. I didn't know Magic well enough initially, but then after a while, we're like, Hey, what's the deal with the small cup? Why do you get both? And he said, Because once upon a... I was watching them make it, and they would just dump out the rest of the Jamba juice. He's like, If I'm paying for a Jamba Juice, I want to get all the Jamba Juice. So if you're going to throw that away, give that to me. That's what I'm paying for. And I was like, That's why you're a billionaire, Magic Johnson. You think of stuff like this. With popcorn, so I make the popcorn, it should come with a side little mini popcorn bag pouch that's attached to it. And I rip it off. And then when I have the kernels left, pour the kernels back in, seal it, and I get the extra 40 kernels.

This is the extra popcorn for everybody versus just dumping the kernels.

But are they seeds that didn't germinate? If we were to use a garden- I just think the way we're doing popcorn with microbeams.

Yeah, it's just like 80% of them make it and 20% of them wanted to make it, but there wasn't room in the bag. So I'm giving those guys a life.

But you think those guys have another chance? Yeah, I do. See, I feel like those guys are DOA.

No, I think they have a second chance. I think they wanted to pop, but for whatever reason, it didn't happen. The underdogs, you want to keep that chance. So a popcorn pouch. So it's like popcorn, but then there's this little side pouch. You just peel it off.

It's very small. It's almost like a dessert, like a digestif.

Yeah. Who's going to turn down the popcorn pouch? Like, Hey, there's actually more popcorn.

Does it have the same flavor? Does it feel like a second chapter? It's exactly the same. Exactly the same. Because you don't want those going to waste. I mean, it's something. It feels like it's definitely something.

That is a perfectly-It's a perfect half baked. It's half baked baking. Yeah, everything.

Literally half baked idea.

But the cousin of that is people put the M&Ms in the popcorn, but we've never figured out how to just have... You When you go to the movies, you buy M&Ms, you buy popcorn, then you pour the M&Ms in the popcorn. It melts, but not really. Nobody's been able to solve putting the M&Ms in the bag when you're microwaving the popcorn and it has M&Ms in there. They would probably melt all over the bag, but there's some sweet spot that nobody's invented yet. That's like a quarter baked idea.

If that ever happened, with M&Ms baked into the thing that you put in the microwave, but they don't melt?

The reason I have hope is because we have AI now that can write entire term papers for our kids. We should be able to get this M&M's popcorn thing.

Ask AI. Ask AI if it's even possible, or is it like a perpetual motion machine? It's just like, no, it's totally impossible. I'm done with AI.

When we hang up, I'm going to ask AI if it's possible to win another title with Steph Curry.

I wonder what AI would say. Ai is just going to take over the world.

Can we find out? Yeah, this could be the last bit. Hold on.

The undercurrent this is I'm done with hearing about AI. Hey, AI, can you make me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Nope. Okay, sure. But you're going to take over the world. Got you.

So what should I ask AI?

Has Steph Curry's Championship window closed? Talking with AI.

It said, It's certainly possible. They have a strong core with Curry, Clay Thompson, Dramal and Green, and Andrew Wiggins. Come on, AI. Come on, AI. However, winning a Championship depends on various factors, including team health, chemistry, and competition. If they stay healthy and maintain their high-level play, they have a good chance to contend you for another title. I disagree. This is why humans are better than AI.

I mean, we're still rolling.

We're still rolling. We're still crushing it. We're still Maybe not in debates if we're over 80, but we're still crushing it.

In general, humans are having a great ronder.

In general. All right, Kevin Wilds, watch First Things First tomorrow to see how much content he steals from this podcast. Give me a couple.

Yeah, Kyle, give me a Give me the recording because I got to get some stuff down before it goes out. I got to tweet some stuff.

Good to see you, Wilds.

All right. See you, buddy.

All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Wilds. Thanks to Kyle Creighton and Steve Cerruti as well. I'm going to do one more podcast this week on Tuesday. You can watch videos from this podcast on the Bill Simmons' YouTube channel. And new rewatch was coming Monday night, The Naked Gun. You'll be able to watch that on the Ringer Movies. Youtube channel as well. I will see you on Tuesday.