Coming up, some Tuesday night playoff basketball and some football. Actually, a lot of football. Next. We're also brought to you by the Ringer podcast network, where I put up a new rewatchables. We did Jerry Maguire. It went up on Monday night. Me, Sean, fantasy, Chris Ryan van Lathan went for almost 2 hours. It was one of the first rewatchables episodes we ever did back in 2017. No categories and we did it again with a ton of categories. And we did it live on our recently launched YouTube channel, Ringer Movies, which you can subscribe to if you want to see live episodes, which we'll do every once in a while. Big archives for all the rewatchables we've done and the big picture, Sean's movie podcast. And we're going to be putting some, some shorts and some, you know, six to seven minute fun stuff. Who knows what's going to be on there. So subscribe to Ringer movies. Subscribe to the Bill Simmons YouTube channel as well, where we put up a lot of videos from this podcast with Fanduel. It's never too late to get in on the action this NBA playoffs. Don't forget, on Wednesdays all customers get a 30% profit boost token to use on any wager on any NBA game bet that night.

It is a Bill Simmons special, a profit boost token. Click the claim now button on the homepage to claim the PBT and apply the profit boost token in your bet slip when placing an NBA bet and if you win, you get 30% profit boost. There you go. Coming up, Justin Termini, our friend from SiriusXM NBA, one of my favorite, favorite, favorite channels, especially the drive time show with him and Eddie Johnson. He is going to join me to talk about Tuesday night basketball nuggets, Timberwolves, Knicks waxing the Pacers and all the subplots that popped up tonight. Then after that, our old friend Mike Lombardi is coming on because the schedule release in the NFL is happening on Wednesday and we wanted to go through the over unders that we thought jumped out to us. Who's overvalued, who's undervalued, which are the strangest lines. We went, I think 70 minutes. We talked NFL. And you know what? I had a great time. I really missed the NFL. I love the NBA. It's my favorite sport. But we have been in the NBA playoffs vortex. It was fun to talk football, by the way, not that far away from football.

Three and a half months away. Three and a half months. Is that possible? Yeah. Opening night is September 5. I cannot wait. I really can't. So you know what I can't wait for? Started this podcast. Let's bring them in. All right, tape this part of the podcast. It's after 10:00 on Tuesday night. Justin Termini is here. Our friend from Sirius XM, the NBA station that I love so much. We just watched Jokic throw a masterpiece at us. I don't know. You tell me. I thought after game two, I thought this had a good chance to be a sweep and that Denver was beaten down and semi broken. And this is what happens to back to back teams. 72 hours pass, they summon something, they figure out something, and from that point on, they flip a series in a way that I only have a couple historical examples of. What is the number one reason this happened to you? Cause now they're up three two heading, heading back to Minnesota for game six. But the series has flipped in the most unusual way over the course of a week that I can remember in a while.

Why do you think that happened?

I think maybe three different things. So I'll give you three, Bill, off the top of my head. One is Minnesota maybe relaxed a little bit. Two is the greatness of Nikola Jokic. And three, I'll place it on our industry, the media acting like Jokic can't play, acting like Denver's championship really didn't count because of who they were going through. And they're a team that wasn't going to be able to bounce back and they were diminishing what they did last year. And you saw Mike Malone or Michael Malone use that as motivation. And I don't know how much that played a role. I personally was disgusted in the way that it was covered. And I'm not talking about you specifically because you said sweep, but you gave, I think, a pretty logical reason. It was the health of Jamal Murray, right? Murray didn't look good, but other people were coming out and saying, well, this proves that what Jokic did last year was a fluke. Kind of sounded like he didn't deserve one mvp, nevermind three. And that's clearly not the case.

Yeah, it seemed. I don't know what happened to Murray last week from game two to game three, but, you know, he looks way better. Christian Brown. The last two games has really helped them. Gordon has been awesome. Game four and game five. But the, the big reason is Yokic. His computer super brain just figured out how to slow the pace down correctly against the Timberwolves. And then today specifically just picked apart go bear. Like, it was like, it felt more like a boxing match. To me, it felt like watching the superior boxer who, when they show the scorecard after ten rounds, and they go to, like, you know, Harold Letterman, what do you have? We had. I have it, ten rounds. Nothing. Joking, Jim. I just think he's dominated. That's what he was doing. He was just killing Gobert, the defensive player of the year.

To me, it seemed a little bit more like Tyson and Peter McNeely, right, where it's just like one punch and he goes down. Because I think it was, like, over pretty fast, and then, like, he wasn't the only people killing it. I'm looking at people on social media, and people are killing Gobert so bad that I felt bad for him.

Yeah, well, you and I didn't think this. Cause I think we've been riding in the front seat of the Yokage bandwagon, and I know I've been in my share of, like, personal life arguments about it, and some people were slow to come around, some people were begrudgingly admitting how good he was. But then as soon as this Minnesota series turned, like, you laid out in the beginning, it was like, up. See? Told you. Well, who'd he beat last year? Well, go look at the playoff teams they beat. They didn't beat anybody. Congrats. You won one title. A lot of people won title. We heard all this stuff. I kind of think he needed this to just kind of slam the door and, like, if they finish off this Minnesota series, God knows what's going to happen. But I feel like he needed this in a weird way because people still didn't believe. Cause he just doesn't look the part of this guy who's this generationally special basketball player. I don't. I don't think people can wrap their heads around it. And yet, if you watch it day in, day out, this is what he does.

He's the most consistent superstar. He's the most consistent, super duper star we've probably had since. I don't know what offensively, I mean, even, like, LeBron wasn't at the level. He's averaging 3013 and eight in the playoffs now for four years. You know, like, this is. This is just. I. You have to go back to the bird Jordan Magic era, really, for any of this.

Yeah. I mean, I've heard you say it before that you think he's one of the greatest offensive players of all time. And, like, I can maybe argue that there are guys just as good as him, at least during my lifetime. I can't argue that. There's a guy better than him? I wouldn't say there's anybody out there that I would say is definitively better than him. To me.

Yeah.

It was growing up in the eighties. You're looking at magic and Bird, where they got the combination of, like, I can score when I want to, but I also make my teammates better. It's Curry who kind of did it in a different way by his gravitational pull. And he made everybody better that way as well. Even a guy like LeBron or Luca, who are both fantastic, and Luca specifically is a little bit more heliocentric than LeBron. But LeBron's got the ball lot and doesn't necessarily make other guys better passers. And you saw it when you, like, grew up watching Bird, right? He made everybody else on that team a great passer. Jokic has the same impact where he gets the ball, he gets rid of it. And it's almost infectious outside of maybe Michael Porter Junior. But, like, look at the player Aaron Gordon has turned into, where it's almost like he's learned from, like, some of the passes that he made tonight, where he finds Jokic curl into the hoop, and it's like they're just on the same wavelength. And I think he's. He's helped them see the game in a different way. I think he's done that for all his teammates.

And I personally think that's what great offensive players do.

Yeah, and he brings us selflessness. Now it just sounds like we're throwing Yoko Koolaid at each other. But it was. It was a pivotal moment at the tail end. KCP goes and grabs the ball from him so he doesn't get the turnover. Cause this new stupid thing NBA teams do not relatively do when they dribble out the clock and take a turnover. Cause they're up 15 with 29 seconds left. I have no idea why they don't just shoot. But Jokic was about to get stuck with the turnover. And KCP ran over and grabbed the ball so he would get the 24 2nd shot clock violation. It's like. It's a little tiny thing, but shit like that matters to me. That's the kind of stuff you look at when you're like, how tight is a team? And then the other thing I noticed after the game, and we've seen this, there's only a handful of guys. And as much as I love Tim Duncan and I ride with Tim Duncan, I think he's the 7th best player of all time. I don't even know if he did this night tonight when somebody is so great during a game that you see the guys walking off and they're coming over to high five them, and they're just kind of like, holy shit, man.

Like that. They have that look on their face like, jesus Christ, I'm just honored to give you a high five right now. Very few guys have levitated in that territory where the people on their team, the coaches, the equipment managers, everybody's just like, I can't believe what I fucking just witnessed.

Yeah. I think specifically, maybe they even do that a little bit more after this game. Cause I would argue this was the best game of his career. I mean, I think you could make that argument of what the stakes were, right. And all the heat he was taking. Like, you got all the critics that are all over his case basically saying, like, all right, this is the first time you faced adversity. And, Bill, that's like, kind of what we love. Cause I know we're on the same wavelength. It's like you, like defending champions trying to defend the title, right?

Yes.

And then I also love. And it's the reason I was so angry with Durant for going to Golden State is I love to see when a super duper star has his backup against the wall and how's he going to react. Whereas when Durant went there, it allowed, like, curry to kind of pick up the slack. Or if Curry struggled and allowed Durant to pick up the slack, you never really saw those guys in that spot. They didn't have to be in that position. Whereas Jokic was put in that position. He's down zero two. He's got all these critics. How is he going to respond first time he's faced adversity. And I think it really is the first time that he faced adversity, because two years ago and three years ago, he had the injuries to Jamal Murray. There's no pressure on him. Last year, what, they go through the postseason, 16 and four, there was really never a tight spot outside of two two against Phoenix. Here is really the first time he's faced adversity throughout the course of his entire career. And guess what? He's passed it with flying colors.

Yeah, I remember a week ago, I led the. I led this podcast with like, hey, what if Minnesota sweeps? What are all the ramifications from this? And the last piece I talked about was yokage and saying, if he actually solves this Minnesota team, which is the best, that defense they played in game two was, I think, the best defense any of us had seen in 20 years, since the o four Pistons. It was like, if he can flip this, this will be the. This will be the thing he. This will be the thing in his back pocket that you just pull out. Anytime somebody is complaining about him, questioning him in wherever you want to put him in your pantheon, this will be the first thing mentioned 100%.

You didn't overreact there, too, because Eddie and myself did the same thing on our show where that individual performance by the whole team. But I'm talking about game two specifically, the best defensive performance maybe that we've ever seen. So you put that in the proper context when you were talking about it on your pod. And for him then to do that against the defense, that's that good. I mean, think about it. He went up against a defense that we're comparing, like 2004 Pistons, 2008 Celtics, the 89 Pistons, the 91 bulls. And he just went out there and had, I was the final line, 40 points, 13 assists without a turnover against that defense.

And Rudy Gobert shots.

Yeah, and Rudy Gobert's got the what for defensive player of the year awards. Now, whether you think he's worthy or not, the guy's got four. What is it? It's Ben Wallace and it's. It's, I believe Dwight. And it's him. So he's got. Or dikembe, excuse me, not so he's got the four. And he does it against him. He does it against them. It makes the performance even more amazing.

Yeah. And I still don't know why Minnesota decided not to keep playing like they did in game two, where they were picking him up full court, really pressuring him, harassing him, harassing Murray. I thought that was such a big part of their success. Maybe they couldn't sustain it. They couldn't sustain the intensity. Maybe Denver figured out something that I'm not smart enough to see on my giant tv. But even like today, I kept waiting for Nasrid to pick up Jokic, you know. Cause they started pressuring Murray. So then Jokic were bringing up. And in game two, especially, Nasrid was coming way up and just like just bothering Jokic and trying to get in his. And they just didn't do it. They let him kind of get into the spots he wanted. And the thing I love about his computer brain in this series was he figured out all the different locations on the court that were the best places to attack. Right? Like sometimes he would go high to the right and just kind of see what he needed to see and then kind of attack quick and then do that kind of hurly burly spin double triple spin move he does.

Other times, he would just try to post up go bear because he knew he could back him down. And I thought Draymond was interesting at halftime talking. I thought Draymond was good tonight. He's saying at halftime about, like, how is Colbert letting him back him down, back him backwards like that? Like they. He's the defensive player of the year. Why are you going backwards? But the point is, he just figured it out.

Yeah. The only thing I'll say about Draymond is Draymond's acting like he didn't get his butt kicked against Jokic, like, in round one a couple of years ago when Jokic didn't have any teammates. Yeah, Jokic kicked his butt, too. That's where he kind of hurt the hamstring, I think, in the final game of that series. And he was still fantastic. It took him about a game and a half to figure out Draymond back in that series. And then the other thing with Jokic, the two plays that stuck out to me tonight, and there's always. Usually it's a pass that sticks out. How about the lefty hook? I think that was in the first half where he gives you the lefty hawk. To be able to do that at his size is just freakish. And then the other one was the righty hook. I think it was over Gobert. When he's, like, fading away into the corner, he throws it high off the glass where it looked like he was off balance. I mean, so just the touch that the guy has on every single type of possession is just amazing.

I enjoyed Jamal Crawford tonight, but he brought up Hakeem versus David Robinson in 95, which was kind of the iconic. I'm now taking this personally, and I'm going to destroy your career playoff performance. The reason I. There's pieces of it with Gobert Jokic, but Gobert just isn't good enough. He's not in the Jokic class. The thing what made the Hakeem Robinson thing so special was Robinson was handed the MVP during that series. And Hakeem, just, like, his eyes narrowed, and he famously just laid the SmackDown from that point on. This is a little different. Go bear. The best they played in this entire series was game two. He didn't play. And I'm still not positive, you know, now it's like, I might be back in on my go bear trade. 200, maybe. What? Maybe I'm back in on that, on that take, but I just think Jokic is at a different level. I like the most when it was Nasreed and towns as the two bigs.

Against him 100% because Nas Reid and Eddie and I talked about this as well. He's a little bit more girthy. Right. So you saw what Jokic is. You should shove him right under the basket with Rudy Gobert, Nas Reid, he can't necessarily do that to Nas. Reese is not the defender that Gobert is, but that's something that he's unable to do in regards to like using his weight and with the Hakeem and David Robinson. Yeah. If he's going up against NBD's doing that, then yeah, you could, I think, use that reference that Jamal's talking about because Embiid's the guy that a lot of people still out there, I think even after this game, unfortunately, I don't know what they're watching are going to argue Embiid, but we talked about it on like one of the pods I was on with you several, several months ago. It's like the gap between this guy and everybody else in the sport is as big as it was at any point when LeBron was, was dominating the sport.

2013 range. Well, Embiid had 70 against the spurs.

He did.

That's a good bill.

I forgot about that.

I don't know how that compares to.

The gap is tightened a little bit after that point. That's just. That's right. I forgot about that.

I said this on your show, but I haven't said it on my podcast. After he won the third MVP and now what he's doing this series and assuming they can finish this off, they'll go to the next round. They're going to play OKC or Dallas. I just think to me, this is the western finals, this Denver Minnesota matchup. I think Jokic is in my top 15 now and I made the list and I have this whole group in the pantheon where it goes Hakeem, Shaq, Moses all in a row and they're like 1213 14. And I had Oscar and Kevin Durant at 15 and 16. And I just don't see how I can separate Jokic from Hakeem and Shaq and Moses anymore if he wins, especially if he wins another title or even makes the finals. Moses had that five year run on Houston and then the last year in Philly, three MVP's won a title. Shaq had the three straight finals MVP's and Hakeem for three years, maybe four, was out of control, won two titles and was just awesome. And this yokage run is as good as all those runs, I think.

Yeah. So I don't know if you saw it on TNT towards the tail end. They gave Moses an extra MVP when they were running through all the MVP's. They put up the graph, they gave him four on the graphic and they got magic and bird behind him with three. Yeah. So he's at three. But no, I agree with you there. And I would also say like the title maybe that he won and I want give Jamal Murray his credit. And we talked about this on my show with you the other day as well. But he won it with him as a sidekick. Like Shaq wins his three in LA. He's got Colby Bryant. Okay. He's a top ten to twelve player of all time. Moses as good as he was, what did he need before he won his first title? He's got to go to Philadelphia. He's got to team up with, with Doctor J, who's an all time Andrew.

Tony is one of the best players in the league that year.

Yeah, exactly. Killing the Celtics and Mo Cheeks, who, regardless of what you think should be in the hall of Fame or not, is still in the hall of Fame. And Jamal Murphy will probably be there at some point as well. It's really easy to get into the hall of fame. But like. Yeah, the sidekicks that he's won. That's why I don't know where you said you had Durant at like 15. I don't think it's any question that Jokic is ahead of Durant.

He definitely bumped them. Hakeem won the title in 94 where his best sidekicks.

Exactly.

That's why it was a hodgepodge. But that was also a pretty weird year for the league. That was the year MJ was playing baseball. Reggie Lewis had passed away. Like we, we just had. We lost some good players. The talent, it was kind of between two eras a little bit. Magic had just left, Berta just left. Um, but then the next year he won with Drexler jokic. I think I heard, I heard you guys talking about this the other day where he's never played. Jokic has never played with another all NBA player.

Yeah.

So Tom Haberstro has this on his sub stack where he ran through the list of guys through this point in their career. So basically, at the age of 28, how many MVP's did the guy or how many all NBA players did the guy play with? How many all stars did the guy play with and how many all defensive guys did the guy play with? And like, I think it was within a five or six year radius because DeAndre Jordan obviously made an all defensive team, but he doesn't count because he's well passed in sprint. He made an all NBA team as well did DeAndre Jordan, but. Exactly. And neither did Tom in the piece. And Jokic has played with zero guys. The average guy I think played with 14 of them to this point in this career, average guy played with 14. Jokic is the only one that has played with none of those. Magic played with the most at 32. Bird was second at 29. Jokic zero. So the point of like basically the article is he's had the least amount of help of any mvp since 1984. This is all 1984 on.

So we do the ringer hundred voting where we vote for the hundred players, which it's gimmicky, but it's fun to try to make a list and see where guys rank, right? So Mitchell, I'm sorry Murray is somewhere in that group with, you know, well, Anthony Edwards is probably past him, but he's in there with Mitchell and Fox. I had in the last time we voted, I think I had him 14th because I value the playoff thing.

Right.

If you're going regular season, he's probably not top 15. But if you're valuing how he can go up a level in the playoffs, so let's say he's 15. I had Aaron Gordon on this list somewhere in the fifties and those are his two best teammates. This is in the league. And going back to that Moses example where he's playing with Doctor J and Mo cheeks and Tony, I do think he should get a little more credit for his ability to lift everything up, which we saw during those no Murray seasons. He's just throwing a team on its back that would have been like a 21 team otherwise.

I mean, was Will Barton his second leading score like the next leading score behind him? I think one of the years when he did that, you know, a couple of other guys that are out of the league and with, with Murray. Like Murray hasn't even been fantastic in this postseason, let's be honest. I mean Murray was against the Lakers, had two good quarters maybe in, in the entire series. And then in this series he's been, you know, he's been so, so tonight he wasn't great. Couple of shots late to sort of make the stats look better. But Murray hasn't been the same player he was last year by any stretch.

He had a nice little stretch in game four that I thought was huge and he was good in game three. The Heat pack was, was kind of his signature moment of the series. And I know you guys talked about it too, but Brazil and I talked about on Sunday night, I just can't believe he wasn't suspended. I just. Based on the history of punishment for that kind of stuff, and if I'm a Minnesota fan, now that I'm down three two, I'm moving into full fledged. We got absolutely screwed. That guy should have been suspended. If you go back and watch the clip, it's kind of crazy. Like, towns could have easily stepped on that heat pack and gone flying and like hyperextended his knee or something. It's a clear one game suspension. So at least Minnesota has that to grab onto without question.

And like any player out there, it's the same thing with Mitchell Robinson. When MB pulled his leg like Mitchell Robinson should, went to the grounds and pretended like embiid shot him.

Yeah, he should have rolled around for ten minutes.

Exactly. And somebody should have saw that heat pad and like slipped on it. Now, granted, they probably didn't know that, you know, Jamal threw it. They were probably just surprised by it. And, you know, I think you talked about this, but it's got to go down if they win as one of the biggest what ifs in NBA history, like, he gets suspended, Minnesota wins that series, maybe the championship, maybe it affects Boston. Boston wins the championship, whereas they can't beat Denver. So, like, Minnesota is not the only team that should be ticked that Jamal Murray didn't get suspended. Like Oklahoma City, Dallas, Boston, like, anybody with a legitimate shot of the championship.

Or joke just would have put them on his back in game three and just. Just laid this back down, which would.

Have made the legacy and, you know, grow even.

The other thing I missed, as I look back on trying to figure out how much did I. Did I overreact after game two? What would I do differently? Edwards was so great in round one and the first two games around two that it really felt like, you know, the word that MJ initials were getting thrown around. We knew that wasn't. I don't like comparing anyone in, but that's how. That's how good he was. And you see, tonight he looked like a 22 year old kid. Tonight he made a ton of mistakes. He just wasn't that good.

Yeah. And 22 is why I'm not going to hammer the kid. And I hope that's not what other people in the media do. And I.

Almost 22 years old.

Exactly. And I. And look what he did in game four. I mean, for 44 five and five on, I think it was like 15 to 26 in the field, three of five from three. Like, he was amazing. His teammates didn't lift him. They really should have been up three one if his teammates came along for the ride. And I hope the rest of the media doesn't do that. And I almost feel like the media as a whole kind of put him in that spot where people have to criticize him because it's like, oh, he's Jordan. He's Jordan. And then people get defensive, then they rip him. See, I told you he's not Jordan.

He didn't do anything other than say, please don't compare me to Michael Jordan. Exactly.

If people are going to hammer him tomorrow, probably. I told you he's not. He's not Michael Jordan. But listen, the way that he accepts criticism, I think, is like, first class. The way that he handled, like, the loss the other day in game three where he's like, no, that's directly on me. Reggie Miller was 100% right. We got veterans that are 35, 36 that are pointing to their head coach in Phoenix and in LA that don't take responsibility, like Anthony Edwards took at the age of 22.

Yeah. The only people who should be getting hammered tomorrow are Tyrese Hallburn and Rick Carlisle, which we'll get to in the next segment. I'm still not sure Minnesota is out of this series. They're coming home for game six. And I don't know, I, for some reason, I can't count them out yet because we have seen them dial up the defense. So I'm not ready to say this is over, but I will say if Denver did flip this series and they're going to end it in six. I was going back. I was trying to figure out the great dig deep series flips we've had. And it can't just be like a team that was down and came back like the 81 Celtics. It's like that's. That's a comeback. That's not a dig. We're digging deep. Our. Our backs aren't just against the wall, they're through the wall. And then we turned it, and by the end of the series, we're just like, fucking tattooing the other team. The. The 2016 Cavs doesn't even totally qualify for this, but I think they have to be mentioned just cause game seven was so close. But game five and game six, they really spanked the warriors.

If you remember game four. Right. Right before Draymond punched LeBron the balls. Yeah, that was two one in Cleveland, game four, and the warriors played one of the best games of the entire curry era and beat them in their house. And the game was pretty much over when Draymond did the thing, but it felt like the series was over. And then the Cavs flipped it. The zero six Mavs is a really good one, where Dallas wins the first two and it's game three. And then Wade makes that big comeback. They get some calls, and all of a sudden, by game six, Dallas is a show of themselves. Right? So that, that's probably your worst case scenario. The, uh, the 95 Rockets fell behind to Phoenix two nothing, and they. And got waxed in the first two games. They were down three one after the fourth game, and then came back in those last three and one and seven. The 93 Bulls lost the first two to the Knicks and came back. And then I think my favorite one for this is the 77 Blazers, where, and where I'm going way back and people are like, what the.

Who's on the seven? That was the Bill Walton Blazers. They. Portland wins the title. They lose the first two games. Near the end of game two, Darrell Dawkins gets in a fight with Maurice Lucas. Somehow Doug Collins is the only one that gets punched. Dawkins goes, destroys the toilet in the locker room after the game, is mad the Sixers didn't help him out. And game three, that's it. Portland just runs them off the court for the next couple of games, and they win in six. It's pretty rare to see a team establish dominance, and then by the end of the series, they're getting their ass kicked. And I don't know if that's going to happen in this series. Do you think game six will be the culmination of that, or do you expect Minnesota to fight back?

I think Minnesota is going to play hard just because I love the leadership of, like, Anthony Edwards. I mean, Conley's a big player.

No, connie, tonight, you mentioned that earlier.

Yeah, because we talked, Bill, about all season, Conley and how important it was to go get Monty Morris at the trade deadline, even though it's not a big name, we're like, oh, that's important for Tim Conley to go out there and get. Just because they have no. Their offense falls apart down the stretch if they don't have Mike Conley on the floor. So, like, that was important. So the loss of him is obviously important. And here's the other thing. I think that maybe we, as a whole, overreacted to with Minnesota in saying that, you know, maybe they're the championship favorite. At one point after they were up to nothing is all season long. Their offense wasn't any good, specifically down the stretch of games. Like their clutch offense was bad. We get on the Celtics case all the time, but their offense down the stretch isn't great. I think they're returning down to, you know, they're returning down to the norm maybe over the last couple of games where we didn't see it in the first six. When they're going up against Phoenix, they're going up against Denver. This is kind of the offense that we saw during the regular season.

Season out of them.

Yeah, I think that's fair. Well, they lost by 15 tonight. We'll see. They at least got towns going a little bit. Conley, I'm sure will play in game six, and they're going to have to figure out a way to summon the game two energy again. I don't know if they will. Denver might have done it. I don't know how they did it. I really don't. But it's, it's a, it's going to be a feather in the yoke. It's cap got to take a break and we're going to talk Nick's Pacers with Fanduel. It's never too late to get in on the action this NBA playoffs. Right now, new customers get $150 in bonus bets with any winning $5 bet. That's dollar 150 to use on same game parlays, live bets, championship futures, boosts, whatever you want. There's no better place to bet all the playoff action in America's number one sports book. Just go to fanduel.com B's to get started. FanDuel official sports betting partner the NBA must be 21 plus, 18 plus in DC and present in select states, excluding North Carolina. Gamble problem. Call winning Hunter Gambler or visit G Dash help.com first online real menu wager only $10 deposit required.

Bonus bets are not withdrawable and apply seven days after receipt restrictions apply seat terms at sportsbook dot fandell.com. Nix Pacers an emotional game five as the Pacers dedicated the game to Tyrese Hall Burton, who apparently was kidnapped. Oh no, he played. My bad. I don't know what happened to him. I don't know what happened to Rick Carlisle in this game. I don't know why they had Nemhardt on Brunson for it felt like every possession, even though I know it wasn't, they just kept letting him go left. They kept letting him get whatever he wants. All the smart teams put length and size on Brunson and put 6668 guys, and just throw those dudes at him over and over again and just make him work. And Indiana is like, no, we're going to try this. And. And for a guy with a sore foot, he looked amazing. And for Indiana, like, they just looked like a team that had deer in the headlights. The crowd was awesome, and Brunson was amazing. And the legend of Brunson just continues to grow here. But for you, was that game the legend of Brunson, or was it. What the fuck, Indiana?

What are you guys doing?

I mean, it was the combination of both, but, I mean, I think you hit it right off the start. It's like Indiana went into that game almost like talking about, again what the media was saying where, oh, well, there's so many injuries in New York. We just blew them out in a game. We let him by 43. New York's going to roll over. Like, New York's done. They're fried. They can't win without an anobi. It's one injury too many. So it's almost like they went in there expecting the same thing to happen in game four happened. That happened in game four to happen in game five. And then they were shocked by the punch that New York threw. And then in regards to Rick Carlisle, I'm sitting there watching that game just like everybody else, going like, okay, the first two games, I'm like, why isn't TJ McConnell in towards the tail end of these games, guarding Johnson? Because he had so much success. Then, you know, Nemahard hits that shot at the end of it, like, what was it, game three where you're going?

All right.

Yeah, exactly. Oh, well, so that's Carlyle's, like, saving grace. That's why I have Nembard in the game. He can hit a shot like that. But the point is, Brunson's grilling them hard, and you got Neesmith and TJ McConnell at the same time sitting on the bench. At least have one of them in there guarding, guarding Brunson here tonight.

Come see outcome on him. Anyone? Six, six, eight. I think you want to try. I didn't understand it. I. I thought it was such a weird game by them. They're getting killed on the offensive boards, like, absolutely destroyed. The Knicks are out working them. And you could say part of it is energy from the crowd. And maybe the Pacers got a little deer in the headlights. But at some point when you're just giving up second chances over and over and over and over again, maybe put some different guys in, you know, that, like, maybe try Jalen Smith. Just keep trying. Guys who might be able to grab a rebound until you find one that can grab a rebound. Halliburton, I hate, like, being super duper, like, mean, critical about players, but that's an embarrassing game for him. This guy's on the Olympic team. This guy, you know, is being talked about for second team all NBA. And this was a game where your best player has to recognize the moment, the crowd, the energy of the other team, how well Brunson is playing, and being like, all right, I got this from our end. Let me take it.

He was 35ft from the basket. Nemhardt had the ball more than him, and it really, honestly looked like he didn't want the ball. I don't know what happened to him, but that, to me, that was such a bad game for him. And he, how he responds in game six is going to be, by far, for me, the most interesting thing in this game because that honestly was embarrassing for a great player.

Yeah, you brought up the Olympic thing, and I tweeted something out about that where I'm like, we're watching a guy who didn't make the Olympic team and Jalen Brunson go up and kick the ass of a guy who actually, at the same position, did make the Olympic team. And what bought, like, I was thinking about this as well as I'm watching this unfold because he was so, like, gun shy. We've seen so many guys in the past where maybe they don't have it going and they'll still continue to fire away and you get frustrated because you're like, that's a dumb shot where you please stop. You know, stop shooting. Like Russell Westbrook was it against the jazz a couple of years ago where he took, like 43 shots in a first round series and you're going, Russ, it's enough, okay?

Slow down.

It's not your night. Slow down. With Halliburton, it's the opposite. I'd almost prefer the Russ thing where, hey, at least the guy looks like he's trying and he's not being timid. Halbert, meanwhile, is kind of floating around out there. What bothered me the most isn't even, like, necessarily the loss for Hall Burton or, like, you know, the numbers in regards to, like, the points. It's the fact that he took, what, eight, nine shots, like, you got to play. Exactly.

He said in game one, I got to look for my own stuff. This game not only was not looking for his own stuff, he wasn't looking for the ball. At all. And they really needed him because the Knicks just kept scoring. Or if they didn't score, they'll get the rebound and score. And at some point they needed somebody on their end to settle things down. Really, it. Turner hit those three threes at the start of the third quarter. I think the game would have been over even sooner than that. But I, you know, the Knicks come out, they start McBride, Tibbs does the thing that I kind of like when coaches do, or like, this has been my best five by all the numbers. Fuck it. I'm just going to start it.

Yeah.

Because I think he knew, like, I need to get the lead early. I need to put a certain pace. Maybe we can knock them on their heels and, and, and, you know, who knows? But let's, we have to get the lead in the first quarter, which they went for, and they did, but it didn't seem sustainable. And it's like, all right, the Pacers can just weather the storm here. This team's playing five guys, basically, but then Burks comes in, starts hitting threes, Hardenstein's getting every rebound, and Brunson's making everything. And after a while you realize, all right, maybe this, maybe this ain't happening. For Indiana, who's their, who's their best five to you for Indiana? Backs to the wall. Who do you trust the most? If it's, if it's a one point game with seven minutes left, what five guys do you want out there? Cause I have my opinion on this.

All right, so based off tonight, I'm assuming that I have to take.

No, no, I just say, like, what five do you trust?

I was gonna make a joke saying I gotta put Halliburton on the bench based off tonight, but yeah, no, I would say Halliburton. Miles Turner, Siockham, Nismith. And, I don't know, I might put out. I mean, McDonald, I trust.

For me it's McConnell. Yeah, for me, it's McConnell. And I want five guys who I know are going to fight. Now, I don't know if Hal Burton, after tonight, I don't even know if he qualifies for that sentence. But the least scared guys, to me, seem to be McConnell and crazy enough nismith, because at least I at least feel like he has the energy. I still thought Isaiah Jackson was kind of interesting, but they need to go to the. Who is the least scared? I think at home they're different. They were different in the last series, too. And maybe they can extend this and get to seven, but maybe you got.

To throw Obi topping in there, if it's the least scared. I mean, this guy's throwing the ball between his legs in the middle of a playoff clearly is not scared.

Yeah, I had a bunch of friends at the Knicks game tonight. They said the crowd was absolutely out of its mind. Just out of its mind. And the, and the love for Brunson and defensenzo and Hart. And Hart. Steen, like, and deuce McBride coming in, who's been, was buried at parts of the year and then pops in and now he's starting. I thought his defense bothered Halbert. And this guy supposedly isn't a good defensive player. He's an offensive three point shooter guy. I just. For this to happen to them when they felt like, I talked to one Knicks fan today before the game and he was just like, this is so unfair. We love this team. Why do we have to have this many injuries? We beat that Philly team. That was a really tough series. We didn't get enough credit for pulling that series away from Max and Embiid and the way Ube was playing. And now we go to this series, you know, with these guys keep dropping and we lose OG right as he's playing the best ball of his career. Like, this is such bullshit. Why did this have to happen?

And now they have a chance to maybe get to round three and maybe OG is healthy next round. And this is the type of team that I fear as a Celtics fan just because of the effort thing on their end. Right. This is bad matchup for the Celtics from, just from that respect.

Yeah, it looks like they're playing two different sports right now. And like, honestly, do you think. I think they're going to go. Cause I can't see this Indiana team winning a game evident. That environment. It's like the best environment I've ever seen. Now Indiana as a young team is going to go on the road and win a game like that. I don't see, it seems.

Seems inconceivable.

Exactly. And, you know, the other thing you mentioned about all the injuries, that's part of what makes it fun. Like, one is, I love the fact that Tom Thibodeaux, like, I was listening in the car to the postgame the other day on our serious station, and they were playing the press conference, and Thibodeau, they're trying to get him to say like, hey, is it just one injury too many? You guys are so banged up. He refused to do it. He's like, nope, we got to throw our guys out there. We got enough to win no excuse to be down by 43. All this type of stuff. Then you're listening to Darvin Ham throughout the entire season going, oh, well, you know what? You got Jared Vanderbilt, who's heard, how the heck are we supposed to get into a rhythm? It's like, all right, so that's the difference between the two different cultures. So I love that from Thibodeau. And then you took. You talked about it the other day with, like, the Brunson and the performance on the foot, right? Like, it enhances what you. Like, how much you fall in love with the performance.

When a guy knows, like, think of all the memories like, that, you have a growing. It's like Jordan's flu game. It's Isaiah on the foot there in 88. In game six when he twists the ankle, you're a Celtics fan. Like, Bird's dealing with the back, and then he hits his face on the parquet and he goes down in 91. In game five, he comes back and it's like, that's, you know, it wasn't a championship or anything, but that, you know, when they perform with those type of things, you know, taking place to their body, you just love it.

Or LeBron with his broken hand in the 2018 finals.

Yeah, exactly. Where somebody else. No, that was self inflicted, right? Yeah, that was self inflicted.

Basically a broken hand. Brunson has moved into, like, he's past the Knicks pantheon now. He's moving into like, a New York athlete pantheon. If they can go to the next round and go toe to toe with the Celtics and we get an Excel series with Boston and New York in the eastern finals, and he can do at least somewhat of what he's been doing in some of these games. I mean, it's nuts to have. How many 40 point games does he have to now? It's five, I think.

So.

I think it's the same as, like.

Yeah, he's. I forgot. LeBron had eight in 2018. That's the crate. 840 point games at one playoffs. But the list that he was on with the 40 pointers, it was some of the best players of all time.

Well, yeah, and, you know, Bernard's on that list as well. And what he did in 84, and think about it, Bernard pushed in two rounds, so. And Bernard pushed Byrd, McHale, Parrish, like, the 84 Celtics, who eventually won the championship to seven.

And Maxwell, they had four guys that throwed him. So.

And if he's going to play at Bernard King's level, which he's doing right now, okay. And he continues to do that, he's not going up against Bird, McHale, Parrish and Maxwell next round. He's going up against Tatum and Jalen Brown. And, you know, maybe Chris taps for Zing is Derek White. Truhala. That's not as good as the 84 Celtics. So if he's as good as Bernard King was in 84, yeah, they might beat Boston.

It's great. It seemed like a great night. It would have been an incredibly fun game to go to. And I think if, if we end up with Boston, New York, I think we agree, from what we've seen from this Indiana team, it seems unlikely that they're going to win a game seven on the road because the game seven is when you're really pulling a team's pants down, you. You are naked in a game seven if you're young player. Even what we've seen in the OKC Dallas series, you know, Jalen Williams. I was talking to somebody about Jalen Williams today, who. I love Jalen Williams. Like, I'm the biggest Jalen Williams fan. And he's looked tight in these last couple games, right? He's in his head a little bit. It's like, well, why is that? Well, he went to Santa Clara. You know, he's never played in big games like this, probably ever in his career. And now he's guarding Luca and they need him to create offense in the fourth quarter. And he's in these big game. You're the only game on the tv and these crazy playoff crowds and you can see he gets a little tight.

That only gets worse when you get to a game seven.

Yeah. So I. And you know, so I would say, like, hey, look at Miami last year, right? Because they went into Boston, and I remember on the broadcast, you were there, right, in Boston.

Sadly, I was there.

Yeah, but they said in the broadcast, and I wish I was. Well, now I. In retrospect, I don't wish I was there, but they said it was like the loudest they had ever heard an arena on TNT. And you could speak to that better were there and you've been to some big games. But Miami didn't let that deter them. And they were on the precipice of blowing a three nothing series lead. But the difference is, is they've got the experience of, like Jimmy Butler, bam Adebayo. Guys that have been there before outside of Siokam, Indiana, just doesn't have.

Yeah, and they also had Tatum spraining his ankle on the second play of the game, which was like putting a pin in the crowd. Cause they're heading into now I sound like I'm making excuses, but they, they.

Never should have been down like Tom Tibet. No excuses.

Where do you stand on OKC, Dallas? You think that series is going seven? Do you think OKC grab control of the steering wheel again? Because I think OKC is better. I said to Rousseau on Sunday night, I thought OKC was going to win game four. I think it's going to go seven. But I don't think Luca looks like Luca and what they've gotten from PJ Washington. And then you look at the last two Jalen Williams games where he wasn't good and to think that this series is two two and OKC has a little momentum. I just think OKC has a better team and I don't know if that means they're going to win the series and they're young and if it gets to a game seven, you never know how the young guys are going to respond. But I don't think Luca looks like Luca. And the stats back it up.

Yeah, I'm not sure that OKC even grabbed the steering wheel even though they were awesome in the fourth quarter yesterday and, you know, shake it as Alexander was almost perfect as much as, like, Dallas just handed him the steering wheel. I mean, they have a huge lead in the second. Yeah, they're up by 14. They got 1223 from the free throw line. Like, again, you could get a bunch of seven bill you in 7th grade, I'm sure, could get a couple of buddies and do better than twelve or 23. And if they hit just a couple of them, they win the game. And then, you know, the supporting cast has actually done their job, the defense has done their job. What really hasn't done the job is the stars. And I know we're throwing all these flowers at Kyrie and, you know, deservedly so. He's dug in on defense. He's looked better. He's been unselfish, he's behaved for a couple of days in a row. So he deserves, like, some flowers there. But you're also supposed to be one of the more skilled players in NBA history. That's what we hear about every five minutes.

Twice in the last three games, he scored in single digits. You see your teammate there and Luca ailing. How about picking them up and being a little bit more aggressive offensively?

I'm about to defend Kyrie. Go ahead.

I mean, that's, that's. Are you joking? Are we? April 1. What's going on? Go ahead.

Speaker two. I thought KAsm Wallace, I tweeted this last night, I thought he flipped the game. And I think something happened in that game four, which I think is really good for OKC going forward. He was completely unafraid of Kyrie and picking him up at half court. He didn't. He didn't want any help. He would get mad if there was a switch, he would go back to get him. And Kyrie, who I always feel like thinks that he can go by anybody for better and worse. I felt like he backed off that one a little bit. I thought he had a lot of trouble with Wallace. And then if it wasn't Wallace, then all of a sudden it was Shay. Or as Jalen Williams, they. They never had like a weak guy for him to hunt. But I thought Wallace's defense, like, he's such a gem. I don't know where he's going to rank for me when I do the trade value list this summer, but I'm going to put him ten spots higher than he probably should be. And especially cause he's unafraid with the threes too. And I think that what they figured out in that game, finally, is that he has to be out there for them.

Yeah. He has to be a 25 minutes a game playing the last nine minutes of the fourth quarter. That's. That's who he is for that team.

Yeah. I mean, I suggested he start today and Eddie brought up the point, like, then you lose giddy completely. I'm not sure if they've already lost giddy, but the point is, is. Yeah, Getty shouldn't be getting minutes in case in, Wallace should be getting the minutes.

Right. Well, we'll see. I. I don't like where this is sitting for Dallas. Cause Shea is now the most reliable last seven minutes of the game. Guy of Luca is going to look like this physically. Who knows? Maybe he'll go to Germany for one day. But that. The thing is, you know, he doesn't feel good because he's bitching. I mean, he bitches more than any guy in the league. He's bitching even more than that now after like, just constant, constant dialog, just yelling, yelling, yelling. Because I think he's just pissed that he doesn't. He can't move in the same way.

So.

Speaker zero.

Yeah.

And it's the worst I've seen him, I would say, you know, ever like, have you ever seen Luke have a stretch like this or he's played this bad? I mean, it's the worst we've seen him in the playoffs ever. So, you know, if he continues to play like this. You built your team around the idea that it's going to be two stars and it's going to be defense. The two stars aren't going to put up huge numbers. You're not going to win. They kind of escaped a little bit because PJ Washington went nuts. You can't rely on PJ Washington to go nuts every game. So if that's the case, then you need big numbers out of at least one of those two guys. You can't have both of them putting up small. I mean, Chevrolet. Alexander by himself last night outscored him 34 to 734 to 27 on less shots. That can't happen. You got no chance.

Well, do you think we giving all this to all the trades they made and all the assets they gave up in this kind of moment, they're in the Mavs to just get bounced in the second round, that's pretty tough. Cause last year you don't make the playoffs at all. This year, let's say they lose to OKC. Now you're out. You didn't even get to the final four and you've given up all your future stuff. You're kind of stuck with this team except for the Tim Hardaway expiring contract piece. But you have a move. The move is to draft LeBron's son and try to convince Brian to come in for short money to try to win a title. It's going to have to be one of those. Because if I'm looking at the league, if I'm anybody other than OKC, Denver, Boston, or I'm blanking on Minnesota, those four teams, if I'm not one of those four teams, those teams are going to be really hard to pass because edwards is only going to get better. Boston's nucleus is going to stay intact and those guys are all either in their primes or right around it.

Denver's got Yoko. She's going nowhere. And OKC, with all the picks and all the young guys they have, they're only getting better. And I don't know, like I look at Phoenix, I look at some of these other pseudo contenders, basically, and I don't know how I get to that level. There's no move like there's no Lakers move for me. Oh, you got Trey Young like great. You're still losing in round one.

What about Reddick? Do you don't think Reddick would put him over the top? I think Reddick.

I mean, first time coach JJ Reddick. Yeah, I don't see that one either.

I know. I mean, I think he breaks down the film pretty well on the podcast there, so I think he could get him over the hump. But no, like, you take a risk, right? Bill and Cuban's done that before. I mean, Cuban, Kyrie, he did it with. That's what I was going to mention. He did it with Kyrie. Not only that, like, he won a championship and then said, hey, you know what? Like, I'm going to break that thing up because I want to create, like, a dynasty for the long term. And it blew up in his face, but. So he did it, then he did it with Kyrie. I wouldn't be shocked to see him do it again. And he's got to act in desperation mode because he's got an all time great in Luca, so I wouldn't be stunned at all if he did something crazy like that.

Well, and then you got the Clippers. That's another. Has anyone thrown out the Paul George for LeBron trades where LeBron gets to stay in LA and Paul George goes to the Lakers?

I have not done that yet. I think you just.

That's not out there. That's kind of a fun trade, though, right? I just don't know if LeBron would ever play for the Clippers.

Yeah, I mean, him and him and Kawhi. I think Kawhi called himself the king of the city when he first got there. But, I mean, something bad would probably happen to LeBron if he went there. Just like it'd be the first time he ever got hurt, right? Like, he's all this, this health record and it's like, you go to the Clippers, you're right. You're immediately by karma or whatever the heck it is, the basketball gods, you immediately have to suffer a major injury. So I think he's.

What if LeBron just said screw it and went to Cleveland on a minimum contract to try to win a title with these guys? You just put them in the Isaac Okoro spot.

Well, I mean, with this, the way if the east broke for him, the way that it's breaking for the Celtics this year, he wouldn't have any issue getting, I think, to the finals with that supporting cast. Yeah. I feel horrible, though, for Cleveland because he goes to that game and then all of a sudden the next morning you're waking up to, like, the Donovan Mitchell rumors that he's, you know, the Lakers are going to be at the head of the list and trying to get him. It's like Donovan Mitchell's got exactly. They don't have anything. But again, I guess just like with Anthony Davis, he could force his way to only one team and the team could cave. So not every team is Portland, where they play hardball and they're like, hey, we're just not going to send you where you want to go. So, like, that's the way that the Lakers are going to get somebody. It's going to be Trey younger or who I don't think is enough to get him over the top or Donovan Mitchell, some other star going, I'm only going to play for the Los Angeles Lakers.

I don't know why you do that at this point. They won the title in 2024, and I think we're at a different point in time.

Well, I think you do. Here's why I think you would do it, Bill, is you would force your way there so you could be blamed when things went wrong and, you know, LeBron would just point the fingers. Yeah, like, excuse me, I'm willing to take the blame. I'll go live in LA and take the blame.

Could I be the new fall guy for LeBron, too? Before we go, give me your 32nd take on the Celtics.

I have no fun watching them because, you know, when you're expecting the team to win, it just, I think sucks all the fun out of you. I think Tatum's getting disproportionate amount of hate. Like, people are treating him like he's James Harden. And this guy's resume in the postseason is awesome. I don't think he's been spectacular so far this year. But for a guy that hasn't won a championship at the age of 26 to go to the finals as he did in 2022, I've lost track of how many conference finals he's been to. But give me the list, Bill, of the people in the NBA right now who have given you 51 in a game, seven as he did last year, give me the list of guys that have given you 16 points in, like, the final four minutes of a closeout game where they could have lost on the road in Philadelphia after he's playing so bad, but he mentally can turn it around when he knows his ass is going to be on the line and torch Philadelphia last year down the stretch.

Give me game six in Milwaukee.

Exactly 46 in Milwaukee. Give me a guy that's done that. Give me a guy who for four straight games kicked Durant's butt on offense and also guarded them like he did a couple of years ago in the first round, like people treat him like he's James Harden or Russell Westbrook and doesn't show up in the postseason. He's beat Yaddis in a playoff series. MVP. He's beaten M beat in a postseasons multiple times. MVP. Durantes beat in the postseason series and dominated him head to head while he.

Butler, he beat me.

Butler, he's beaten. So I just don't understand the disdain for the guy, to be honest.

Two things. One is the three point shooting, which I covered a couple of podcasts ago. Like, he just hasn't been a good three point shooter for a couple of years, but carries his offense like he is like this elite three point shooter. He's not there. And it's just frustrating the more you watch it. That's one thing. The other thing is they still do it. I had a friend ask me today because they know, I know people at the Celtics are like, have you ever.

Yeah.

Asked people at the Celtics, have they run the advanced metrics on the. Walk the ball up the court, Tatum dribbles for 20 seconds and launches a three with 2 seconds left on the shot clock. And just put that on a loop with advanced metrics? Or just explain to him and Joe Mazzoa how bad this is and how, why are we still doing this? 50 playoff games in. And I just, like, I don't really have an answer, but there's no way anybody that does advanced metrics for the team or cuts tape. There's no, there's no video you could make of that play that make you feel good about it. So when you watch that Cleveland game last night, that game four, when they're just dying to let Cleveland back in the game, and then he walks the ball up and it's like groundhog day watching a team make the same mistake. That's where it gets frustrating. But then I was watching Haliburton and I'm thinking, like, I'm complaining about Tatum. I could have Halliburton, who's just standing 40ft from the basketball, not even asking for the ball. Like, I'll take Jason Tatum every time. At least he'll go get some rebounds.

I mean, you got a top seven guy. Okay? You don't have a top five guy in the league. You don't have somebody that like. And there's a huge gap between, like, the 6th and 7th guy. Heck, there's a huge gap. We talked about at the outset of the show between the second guy and the number one guy in yoke. But, like, honestly, like, the Anthony Edwards hype, I understand it. He's only 22. He's got a personality that's far more sellable than Tatums. Like, Tatum's a better player right now than him is like, what would happen to Tatum if in a game five he went out and did what Anthony Edwards did tonight? Now, again, I'm not going to hand Anthony Edwards, but maybe in the future. Anthony Edwards is better than Jason Tatum. He's not right now. And people are talking about like, he is.

He's an incredibly impactful, all aspects of the game guy. And that's what's changed over the last two years. This is why I always defend him. Two way. Two way player. He's a really good defensive player. He's one of the best rebounders of any forward in the league, 100%. He's a really good passer. He's become a really good cross court passer, slash kick passer, passer out of double teams. And there's some flaws in his game still. And it's like the. I always talk about that 90 ten thing, like with Westbrook night, you love 90% and the 10% drives you crazy. And Tatum's 10% for some reason is just a little more pulsating. But it's still a small part of his game. But it's just frustrating sometimes.

I mean, you mentioned, like Westbrook, a couple of other guys who have MVP's. Who would you rather have in a postseason series? Like maybe for a, you know, more exciting to watch Russell Westbrook in his prime, James Harden as his prime. I would take Tatum in a playoff series over those guys. Heck, like, he's been a better playoff player than Joel. Envy for sure.

He's. And he's worked on getting to the line, attacking when he can't make a shot, rebounding, protecting the boards and his passing, like, he has made himself a much better player, is 26. There's one last piece that I think we all felt like at some point, the last, like, could this guy be an MVP? I think he can that, which is how I felt two, three years ago, especially when he was handing it to Durant, that series. And now it's like, it's got to probably happen in the next couple of years, that last leap, don't you think?

Yeah, I don't know if he can. He can win an MVP at this point. I probably like you thought he could maybe a couple of years ago. One is, I guess he gets punished for the supporting cast. The thing I'd like to see him do, because you're right with the three point shooting, especially when it's like a pull up three, he's just not good at it. And he thinks he is. It's just like, dude, have you seen the guy's shoulders? Like, they're. They're massive. Like, go to the hole drive. And he's been. I think, yeah, post up drive. Like, go down on the block. Like, he's good at those things, but he's spending all this time hanging around the perimeter, which is frustrating. Yeah.

One of the things I love about Shay is like, yeah, I'm not that I'm a okay three point shooter, but I'm not great at it, so that's not going to be a big part of my game. And when he takes it, it's usually for effect. Right. It's almost like how the guys use the three pointer in the eighties, but it's that he would rather just slice and dice teams and take 1518 footers. And I want Tatum to get to that point where he realizes, like, the Drew Hanlon, step back three. Like, there's way more to your game, dude. Like, challenge yourself a little bit.

But he's.

It's frustrating. Cause I feel like he's so close to being the best forward in the league and he might even, you know, be in that conversation right behind Giannis. So we'll see. Maybe he can get it going these next two rounds and raise up one level. All right. Please tell. Please tell Eddie I said hello. I thought his excuses for Phoenix spoke for themselves. I'm not going to make fun of him here because I'd rather just make fun of him to his face. But I thought it was. He was definitely on the fire. Vogel trade.

Well, let's put it this way. His defense of Phoenix was worse than Phoenix's actual defense against the Minnesota Timberwolves. It was. It was quite pathetic.

Justin Turban, you. Great to see. You could hear channel 86 on Sirius plus the NBA app. What is it, three to seven?

It's four to seven.

Four to seven eastern time? Well, I'm on the west coast. I don't know when.

Yeah, you're only going to want to listen for about 15 minutes anyway before Eddie says, you know, something that drives you nuts, you're going to have to tune out. So.

Well, I called in yesterday, and as Eddie was making a point, I was at a Dunkin Donuts drive thru and I muted my phone, ordered my iced coffee, then got back, paid for the coffee. As I was making a point to you on the radio, I didn't. I didn't really feel like it was. It got enough press coverage. How incredible.

It didn't skip a beat. I mean, you know, listen, Eddie's making points all the time, and it sounds like he's eating a buffet, never mind. Just like, ordering one. Drinking during the show. Yeah, he's eating, drinking, you know, ordering everything on the menu, so. But he's really not. He's focused, and that's him focused, which is very concerning.

Well, tell him I said hi. Great to see you. And, and we'll see what happens with the, with the yokage, the Celtics, the Knicks. Really fun play.

I got to see you at MSG, though. You got to go to MSg, right?

I might excel it. It could be an excel series for me.

Very good. We'll see you there.

All right, thanks.

Thanks, buddy.

All right, taping this Tuesday afternoon, Michael Lombardi is here. The schedule releases this week, and I'm just going to do my schedule release rant for you. Lombardi, first of all, good to see you. I'm glad you're here.

Good to see you, too. Thank you. I appreciate having me. Nice seeing you. After the. He let me rant about the 76 ers. I'm over that. I'm moving.

Oh, yeah, yeah. We're going to talk 76 ers at the tail end. The schedule release comes out. Everyone gets so excited about it, they blow it out. There's shows, they leak out. Games. I'm in the camp, I just don't care. And I actually feel like from an over understand point, this is probably the last day to get numbers at a realistic price. Cause once the schedule comes out, everybody goes nuts. Like, oh, my God, they have three road games on a row. Oh, oh. They have the least rest and the stuff goes haywire. So I feel like there's 24 hours here for us to really talk about the teams for the schedule stuff makes it crazy. But do you like the schedule release? Do you care?

I look at it. I look at it completely different. I think it's ridiculous to evaluate the overall schedule based on win percentage of last year. I think it's a waste of time because their teams are all different. A, b, the new coaches coming in, that changes. And what happens if you play the jets and 22 seconds into the first game, the quarterback gets hurt? And you had that as a hard game, and now it's not a hard game. Right. So how do you really plan for that? But I think there are some things we can get from it. Number one, I think anytime you play a team that you don't know and you don't prepare for it in the off season, for example, if you're an AFC east team and you have to play an NFC south team who you haven't played for four years and you've gone through a bunch of coaching changes and all that, you have to prepare for that team in the off season and do a deep dive on it. And what complicates that is if they have a new coaching staff. So Seattle new coaching staff plays, they'll play somebody that they haven't known.

And if you don't prepare for that through training camp, through the OTA days, all that, you can get caught off guard. I think you look for that second. You have to look at who they play before a short week. So we know Buffalo is playing Miami on the first Amazon game. So who does Buffalo open up with? If they open up with a Pittsburgh or a physical team, that short week hurts you no matter whether it's early in the season or not, because your pad level is not going to be perfect, your fundamentals aren't great. You didn't take training camp seriously. So I think there's some of that. And then cold weather teams in the heat. In September, Buffalo place Miami, but the sun will be down, it'll be cooler, it's going to be humid as shit. But at least that gives them an advantage as opposed to playing them at 01:00 on a Sunday afternoon in Miami where it's 90 degrees with 100% humidity. So weather and scheduling, that's what I look at in terms of the whole thing, I think it's bogus.

Well, conversely on the weather thing, the warm weather teams late in the season. If like, Miami is playing at Buffalo in week 18, it's like, all right, that's not nothing, but. But I think it's probably the big picture of the schedule. Might be worth one win or one loss either way, depending on what you thought heading into the year. I still feel like there's an incredible amount of value now since the over unders came out. Some of them got bumped up by a win here when there we've had the draft, we've had free agency. I separated all my I have four categories for you, okay? And I'm just going to read you the four categories. These are red flag numbers that I there's six teams where I was like, man, why is the over under there? I don't get it. So I'm going to read you the six teams that I wrote down and you tell me if you had any of the six. Cleveland over eight and a half. There were eleven and six last year. Denver's five and a half. They're eight nine last year. Detroit is ten and a half. They're twelve and five last year.

The Chargers are eight and a half. They were five and twelve last year. Pittsburgh seven and a half. They were ten and seven last year. And they win ten games every year no matter who the hell is in the team. And Seattle with a new coach, the over under seven and a half, they were nine and eight last year. So Cleveland, Denver, Detroit Chargers, Pittsburgh, Seattle. Out of those six, which one jumped out of you?

Seattle at 7.5 is a no brainer. Okay? And let me tell you why. So Seattle has been 20 and 13 at home over the last two seasons, so they really haven't had a home field advantage. And why is that? Because their defense has sucked. Okay? They can't stop the run. They gave up 400 yards to Pittsburgh with Mason Rudolph under center, 30 points to Pittsburgh in week 17. Their defense, Pete couldn't get it fixed. You know, Clint, I think it was Clint Hurdle. I forget, I forget his name. He said D line coach. He's now in Philly. He wasn't the answer at the coordinator, so he's had problems with that defense. McDonald's going to fix it. I think Seattle underachieved defensively. I think when you look at them, they have three corners that can cover. They're good at safety. Their front got better with Murphy. They have Daquan Jones from last year at Denver. They're going to be a much improved team. And he's a really good coach. Remember now this guy took Kyle Van Noy and he took Clowney off the street, basically, and turned it into 18 and a half sacks. Okay? Now, they would say they were still great players.

I'm going to say that he helped.

Them well, and some, and some de back injuries, too, that they always seem to survive somehow when you're like, oh man, they're done. They'll grab somebody off the waiver wire. All of a sudden that guy's starting well.

The most amazing thing about Baltimore last year is they had the lead. They were plus 42 and first half point differential, and the opponents only were ranked last in the league in passing attempts against them. And why it makes no sense at all. And the reason they did that is because people were really worried about blitz and face and throwing it because he had so many blitzes from different combinations to create turnovers. I think he's going to be a huge help. They get their two tackles back who were hurt most of last year, cross and Lucas. That's going to help. They have two really good running backs. This is a good team. They won nine games with the worst defense in football. Right. And they should have beaten Seattle and they're going to get a home field. So to go over seven and a half, I like that.

Hold on. One thing on Seattle division fair to say not as good as last year. Arizona will be a little better. Rams are going to be about the same. But the Rams don't have Aaron Donald. I refuse to believe that's not going to matter. And the niners feel like, you know, maybe they can scratch one more year out of this, but the caps about to get them in a real way.

Well, the other thing about the Rams is you have to always worry whether staffer could stay healthy. And so, you know, when you have the Rams on your schedule, if he's on the team, like when he got hurt in Dallas the next week when they started Brett Rippin and, you know, they were easy games for you. Look, every. I think, I think Arizona, can they be better? I mean, look, Kyle and Murray wasn't good last year. Like I know he's coming off the knee, but he hasn't been good for two years. He's been under seven yards per attempt. He has this mythology about him, but once you rush him the right way, he can't. So I think Seattle's good. I think Pittsburgh. You can't ignore Pittsburgh, but they've improved defensively. They got a linebacker in the draft, Peyton Wilson, who can play. They've been looking to replace Ryan Shazier for, since he got hurt. Right. They have him and queen. They sign those guys. They've improved their offensive line. You know, they've got good receivers. Look, I don't love Russell Wilson, but I think eight wins isn't a hard thing for Mike Tomlin to achieve.

I think Jim Harbaugh makes Chargers instantly better.

I on the Steelers quick. I don't know if Russell Wilson is even a c minus at this point, but their quarterbacks last year were lower than a c minus. So if he can even be confident, that's fine.

Arthur Smith gets this bad rap for being a head coach, and I'm sure Super bowl winning GM Terry Fontenot thinks that it was all Arthur Smith's fault. Right? You know, but Arthur Smith can run the ball. He's a really good offensive coordinator and they're going to run the ball like Russell. They're going to, he's going to hand it off and they've got weapons and pickings. They'll be better. They'll be better coached, too.

By the way, I don't love Arthur Smith, but was it his fault that Desmond Ritter threw like 13 of the worst passes of the entire season last year? I can't totally blame him on that.

I mean, his name wasn't on the document that was released saying that they weren't interested in Lamar Jackson. I mean, like, who wrote, did that document just come out of flowery branch from the Super bowl winning general manager and Kaiser Sose McKay? I mean, like, who did that come from? Like, you know, you know, they all hide behind somebody. Arthur Smith gets blamed for everything. I mean, they've passed up through two great defensive linemen in Jalen Carter and Murphy. Right, to draft a running back and a quarterback. And they had a running back in Algier who averaged five yards of carry. But that's a horse of another color. I think the other thing when you're looking at these over under totals is you really, like when Jim Schwartz went to Cleveland last year, we said Cleveland was going to be better because of Schwartz. And I think you got to give coaching in the NFL a lot of props because the coaches can really enhance the win total. I think the Chargers are going to be tougher. They're going to win more close games. Herbert's going to be throwing less and more effective. I don't want to hear this bullshit.

Well, they don't have receivers. Okay, well, Mahomes didn't have receivers either. He doesn't have receivers now. Once Rashid Rice gets suspended, who's his receivers? Hollywood Brown, you know, the worthy kid, Kidarius Tony, who doesn't even play. So I think to me, just on mental and physical, I mean, the Chargers will be like the Knicks. They're going to be hard to play.

Well, Vegas agrees with you because they went five and twelve last year. And Vegas is basically saying if you want the over, they're going to have to go nine and eight for you to win that. And they've lost some dudes, you know, so this is because, you know, I. Nobody believes in the new coach theory more than me. Especially when you're replacing a bad coach. There's no better bet. Brandon Staley was terrible. So if you're putting a really confident person replacing Brandon Staley with somebody who can change your culture in one year. We saw it with I, you know, Peyton and Denver last year, what did Denver finish?

They were they once what they want seven.

They went eight, nine last year. And he hated his quarterback to the point that he basically shut him down.

And gave up 70 points in one game.

Right.

And bounced back from that.

I just worry about with the Chargers lack of explosiveness on offense, I know what he's going to do. I know he's going to just try to ground and pound low scoring games and all that. But the conference, the AFC, is just better than the NFC this year. If you, if you just list like all the AFC teams versus the NFC teams, it's tilted. It's, I would say two thirds of the teams I like are in the AFC this year.

I think there's no question. And look, I'm not saying the Chargers are going to win the Super bowl. They're going to win close games. You know, I think Detroit, we talk about them, you know, they paid all their guys, which was great. I mean, golf's the second highest paid quarterback. It's amazing, right? What a story.

What were the odds of that? Would you have said Ben Simmons versus Jared Goff in 2012 21? One of these guys will get another max deal. That would have been a tough battle.

I would go with golf because at least golf will throw the ball. Ben won't shoot, you know, but he looked nice in that picture you sent me. Whatever he was going.

I know every once in a while I torture Lombardi and somebody sent me the Ben Simmons at the mech Al and I was like, when do I want to ruin Lombardi's day? I even looked at the time of the day. I'm like, oh, this is right before dinner. This will really, really get him. Ben Simmons wearing a fancy outfit.

Oh, God, it's just so bad, you know? Like, I think Detroit's going to be better, but Detroit's going to be a target. You know, I was talking to a coach the other day in the league, and he has a really good relationship with Sean McVeigh. And they were having a conversation after the Rams won the Super bowl, and this guy said to Sean, he said, sean, this will be the hardest year of your life. And McVeigh was like, what are you talking about? He said, like, what? No. He said, no, it's going to be the hardest shit because you're going to be the hunted one.

You got the bullseye and you got.

The bullseye and everybody's studying your shit. Everybody's looking at your stuff. Everybody's breaking you down. I have a sense that's Detroit, too. Now, the one thing about golf, why he was successful, is it goes back to the belief of a team, if the quarterback is protected like golf is, with that good offensive line, he can look really good. He looked good for the Rams when he was protected, he fell apart when the Rams fell apart, when, you know, he didn't have the protection. So, you know, I think Detroit should win eleven. I'm not in love with that as much. The one I am in love with is Denver.

I mean, they went, they went twelve and five last year. So if you're going to lose that bet, there can be two losses worse. But people, they're going to be like the trendy Super bowl pick, too. What you said about Goff, maybe think of something when, when people do this with quarterbacks, because this is a Mac Jones defense. Well, if, you know, if he had a really good offensive line and he had time and it's like, what quarterback couldn't you say that about everybody? Yeah, it's like the Bronnie James thing right now where like, you know, if you put Bronnie with great teammates, you know, he's really going to thrive. That's he loves. If he's with a good team, he'll be better. It's like, well, as opposed to the other players, you couldn't say that about.

Don't get me started on that one.

That would just, is there a quarterback who's like, if his offensive line had been worse, maybe he could have taken off.

How about Caleb Williams? You know how many, I mean, unless the defense counts the five mississippi. How's Caleb Williams? He doesn't have a left tackle. The right tackle is a second year player who wasn't good. They weren't good up front last year. So I don't care how many skill guys you have. If the quarterbacks see Detroit was smart, they protected golf. If you don't protect golf, golf's going to fall apart. You know that. We've seen it. He's not, I don't want to say he's not tough, but he's not resiliently tough.

You can rattle him. You can rattle him, speed him up. But this is basically what the Rams did with Stafford, right? They were like, we actually want to get Stafford through a five month season. So he invested in the offensive line and just trying to be able to block for him so he can make it right.

So, I mean, look, I think Detroit's better defensively, there's no question. But I think Green Bay is good, too, and I think there'll be a target now with Chicago better. Yeah, I think Chicago is better. You know, is Minnesota better? I don't know, but I'm iffy on that one. The one I like a lot is Denver. Because just listen to what Sean Payton said after his, when they asked him his initial reaction to Bo Nicks. And he was glowing. But forget what he said, his face was glowing. And so what happens so often when you're in the league is when you go out to rookie camp, what you want to see is a symmetrical version of your rookie draft class. You want to see the first round pick look really good, better than anybody. And you want to see the 7th round pick being the worst player. Right. And you want to see that symmetry. You don't want to go out there and say, oh, fuck, the fourth round is better than the first round or what do we do here? Right. You know, and we've all had that happen to us. So, you know, he came into that press conference and.

Yep. What I thought of Bo Nicks, what I believed in Bo Nicks before the start of the season, before the draft. I see it. It's there. I'm good. And he won eight games or last year. Now, he didn't beat the Raiders in those eight wins. Think about that. He had eight wins and lost both games to the Raiders. He lost the opener by a point and he lost another one to him. So. And I don't think the Raiders are going to be very good. So there you go. I think five and a half. I think that's a gimme. I can't imagine Sean not winning more games than that. I just can't.

And it's minus 150 on Fanduel right now. But they were eight, nine last year with a really weird quarterback situation. The only reason I can think that the over under would be that low is that just they're paying so much money to Wilson. That dead cap hit. It's almost a historic level of a cap dent that maybe they're factoring that in, but I just don't see Sean Payton going five and twelve, especially not.

Not with this team. Plus, he's added to his defense. They gave up 70 points once they fixed the defense last year. They actually played pretty good. I mean, they go into Buffalo and beat Buffalo. Right. You know, I mean, they won game. He knows how to manage a game. Don't underestimate that. How to play the game. He may not have the best team, but he knows how to play the best on a certain day.

So. And then the last one I had was, oh yeah, Cleveland. Because Cleveland was eleven and six last year and the over is eight and a half, which is just spooky because they had a pretty weird quarterback situation last year that allegedly is resolved.

So now we got a new system, right? New quarterbacks coach, new whole offensive system. You know, I don't trust the quarterback. I like their defense, but they had no draft picks. They've done things in free agency. I think they can get to nine. I think since he's going to be much better, I think Pittsburgh's better. So I think the division is going to make it harder there. I would say if I get an order, I would go Seattle, Pittsburgh, Denver Chargers, Detroit, Cleveland.

Because the other thing with Cleveland is chubb. Oh, oh, he's in summer. Oh, he looked good today. But I. Do you come back from that knee injury in one year? Probably not. And then watch.

Plus they lose Bill Callahan, the line coach. You don't think that doesn't affect the team, right? I mean, it would be like the Eagles losing their line coach. That guy makes that thing go really that well. And so, you know, they let him go to go work with his son, which I get that completely. But I think to me that that's a challenge. I think that order, I'm probably the only guy high on. And we, when we talked about Seattle, we didn't talk about Sam Howe or Gino Smith. Look, they have weapons on that team. They're, I mean, Jigman in the slot, you know, Metcalf, Lockett, they're good, right? So. And Gino two years ago was good, but last year got the shit beat out of them.

I think Seattle is my favorite of those six. Just that, though, I don't understand why the number is the number teams, because I have other ones that I really like. But I think Seattle, I like McDonald's and Pete Carroll had an unbelievable career, but that team, there was some sloppy weirdness with them the last couple of years. It wasn't much different than the Pats, but I think the Pats, the defense and the infrastructure of the, of what they were doing, they were still in the games. They just had one of the worst offense go position, you know, and a lot of that was self inflicted from Belichick and some of the people he drafted, but they couldn't score points and then their kicker couldn't make kicks.

But like what you're talking about with New England, I mean, the step you, when you have winning program, you lose staff guys. And I think Pete staff wasn't at the highest level at the end. Neither was bills. And I think that affects you. I think that's hard to overcome. And I think McDonald will give them a breath of fresh air and I think it'll give a plus. If you're betting the over here, you're saying that home field matters. And I, and I've been in that stadium and it should be hard to run the ball in Seattle.

Right?

Because it's so hard to hear.

I'm going to give you another category, and this is based off something you did on your podcast recently. You asked. You asked Femi. Femi's married now. Still. Has he finished the Sopranos? What's the deal with Femi?

He's done. He's got it through. Yeah, he's going through.

I don't feel like his heart was totally in it. I feel like he did it just for you. I have two teams for you. The question you asked was, hey, we're going to have five terrible teams every year. This is how the league works. Everybody loves their team in May and June, but we know how it's going to go. There's going to be five shady teams. There's going to be a team that goes two and 15. There'll be a team that goes four and 13 team that's got three. So who are the five worst teams? The two teams that I think I feel the best about sucking are obviously Carolina and our guy tepper. They went two and 15 last year. The over under for them is five and a half. I can't imagine what on earth would make anybody go up. Carolina, six plus wins. I'm in. Here's my money. And then Vegas, under six and a half. That's plus 118. There's been a little Vegas buzz. I don't understand it. Like the damage of those Gruden drafts, which a lot of people have written about. And it is one of when. Then you throw in rugs, which, you know, I guess Gruden gets some blame on that because you're taking, you're rolling the dice on somebody that's got some character issues and then he has the worst character thing possible happen.

But when you miss that many drafts and you just have this chasm for years, and then this year you go into the draft and it's like, all right, we're going to fix it. We have a high pick. Let's take another tight end. So now they've spent their second round pick a year ago and their first round pick this year on two tight ends. And then the press conference after, they're like, no, no, it's good. We're, they can play together. And it's like, this is, you might as well have Julio Okafor and Joel Embiid and back to back picks like, we've seen this, you can play together, but you have holes all over your team. You're the last team that should have two tight ends. And combined with the Antonio Pierce, who the players are like, we love this guy. Let's hide. I have no idea if he's a good coach to me, that they have a little stink to them and then Carolina is obvious. But are those the two best bets to you to have a bad season, or is there anyone else you'd pick?

I put the Giants in there, too. I mean, how can the wire the Giants going to be good?

Well, I mean, Danny dimes coming off ACL surgery and then Drew Locke's backing them up. You don't like that?

I didn't, you know, I know they were trying to draft no running back. I know that. I completely buy that they were trying to draft all. I completely buy it. They got me. You know, they have me hook, line and sinker on that. Yeah, right. Look, I mean, why are they good? Tell me that. Their offensive line still isn't very good. They draft a receiver who's really good, can they get him the ball? Danny Dimes has an average over seven yards per attempt in his career. Can they protect them? And how good are they on defense? Because they sign. And Ryan Burns, he was on one of the worst teams in the league last year. Like, he's not making them any better. So I don't know. The Giants, to me.

What's their identity? Because so basically they're going to say, we have an awesome pass rush. We're trying to build our team like it's the zero seven giants again. Cool. Well, you, you have one skilled position receiver, guy who's a rookie. You have bottom seven, bottom eight quarterback situation in the league, maybe worse. Your offensive line is probably bottom seven, bottom eight. I just don't see it. The only thing in your favor is that the conference isn't very good. But, yeah. So if it was Vegas, Carolina and the Giants, that feels like a pretty good threesome.

Washington passed it. Passed the Giants to me. They signed a lot of guys. They've improved their core base of their team. Quinn will give them a one year bump. They'll get some energy. I mean, anybody can replace Rivera who hasn't said a word in eight years on the sideline. I mean, anybody can replace that, right? And then, you know, b, enemy destroyed the offensive team. I mean, he could have been arrested for malpractice, but he did this. If I was Sam Howell's dad, I would have gone and punched him the way he had my kid getting killed out there.

So one of the things I love about you is your love for Sam Howell, that he just was in the wrong system this whole time. He did get absolute shit kicked out of him and, and he kept coming back. Yeah. Yeah, he keeps, I wouldn't be surprised if he had a moment for somebody at some point. But yeah, they, they fit the new coach there. I had Washington in a later category because they had picks, Dan Quinn. So I, the Giants to me, are clearly the fourth, were the fourth team in that division.

I mean, let's go to Vegas. Like, so when you, you know, I've seen this happen before when the players don't like the coach and they clearly didn't like McDaniels, you know, or they weren't buying into the program. And then the new guy comes in, the substitute teacher comes in and you get that lift. But that lift doesn't last into the next season. It doesn't last into the next year. It has to have its own identity. And then you come out of the draft with a tight end who you have to now say, we're a twelve team, right? What are we doing? Where's our strength? We have no offensive line. Now, I know they've been signing guys. They signed Pete and they signed a bunch of guys after the draft, but I don't like, agree the Gruden has gotten, mayock, got a pass on all these horrendous drafts. They got a pass on them. And then Josh comes in and doubles down on bad drafts by trading for an older receiver, giving up a first round pick, which violates all beliefs that I have in terms of building teams. So it hasn't been like, they don't have a farm system.

They're not talented without a farm system. And then, and let's talk about it. Gardner Minshew, he's a middle reliever, three innings, four innings. Maybe once he gets to the fifth inning, you're coming out. You know, that's it. We got to get to the bullpen.

Is he Kelly Oubre or is Kelly better than Minshew?

I think Kelly is better than him because Kelly can have some magical nights. I don't know if Gardner can have a magical night. I've always said Gardner was a poor man's baker Mayfield. Like, I wanted Gardner on my team as a backup and then middle reliever. Four games put him out there. But once people understand what? Once people understand that Gardner can't step up in the pocket, they have them so when you have two guards, the Raiders currently have three guys on their roster that can only play center. Parnham is a center. The James kids the center, right. And then they drafted the Oregon center. So now they're going to put two guys, a guard that really aren't good guards. They're better centers, right? Like, I don't know, maybe the quarterback's just going to go to one, one center one time he's going to go the other guard, you know, make him snap the ball. So they're not good up front, they're not good in the middle of the pocket. And let's be clear here, like, I know Adams has got this great. He's not the same player he once was either.

He wasn't, he wasn't open in the same ways. I always judge the best receivers by. Are you when the tv cuts to where the ball is going, the guy, nobody is near anybody. Like Devontae Parker was the opposite of this. Every time they cut to Parker, he was basically carrying two guys on his back because he couldn't even get open by an inch. And it felt like Adams that agreed. Difficulty of his catches, you know, and I know he's a physical receiver and he's good and he's good in Spain, but all that, it just never felt like he was that open. And you mentioned Minshew, like, you know, was there a better situation for him than last year? He had an unbelievable offensive coach. They could block for him. You know, he's playing in a goofy division.

In a dome.

In a dome. And now, now he's like going to Vegas. He's got this weird team with two tight ends and they can't block. And I don't know, I don't, I don't, I, that should have been a Justin Fields team with a, with a.

Coach that, but they can't hire. They couldn't go Leghetc. They hired him as the office coordinator.

Yeah. All right.

So that, that eliminated field. So, you know, and I mean, Carolina, look, I don't, I mean, Carolina has to be better because they'll be professionally, no matter how bad Canalis is or how good he is, he's got to be better at the front. I mean, I said this last year, I did a radio show in Carolina in August promoting football done right. And I said, that is a disaster waiting to happen. That was as poorly coached team as I've ever seen. And the guy said, you just have a, must have a hard on for Carolina. I said, no, I'm just like, this is what you see, it's got to be an uptick. Now, does that uptick mean four? Does that mean five? I don't know. The south isn't very good, even though that Super bowl franchise, Falcons, is probably going to win 14 games. But I don't know. You know who's good in that division?

Frank Reich did a Monty Williams on the Panthers. He was like, nah, I don't know if I want to coach again. They're like, what about if we offered you this? Is like, all right, I guess I'll do it. And just an all time mail in by him. So Vegas, Carolina and the Giants. Before we take a break, is there one other team you would throw if that's the bot, if, let's say, let's create a bottom four. Vegas, Carolina, Giants. Is there a fourth team you feel like could linger in that vicinity?

Well, I mean, usually that fourth team is a team that, or a team that, you know, gets a quarterback injured that isn't very good. I mean, I think New England's going to be better, but certainly if, if they have to play may all year, where are they? There's a change in coaches. There again, now you're bringing in a coach who, you know, once you know, we've got a basketball, the whole tenor's changed. Right. And everybody's going to celebrate that. But I've lived this before, right? I've lived it. It doesn't work. It just doesn't work. Could they get the five wins? Look, if they have a better field goal kicker, they would have had seven wins last year as bad as they were. So I think they would be another team. You have to think about putting in here. I think their team is better, though. Their defense, if they're healthy, their defense was better. But again, he's, he's not in the building to coach the defense.

Right. All right, we'll take a break and then I'm going to go to my favorites with you.

All right.

Lombardi, my five favorite overs, and Arizona is one of them, and I would love for you to talk me out of it because everybody's on Arizona and it seems too obvious. And, um, Arizona over six and a half is one juice on that is already minus 160. Green Bay over nine and a half is my second favorite or not my side. This isn't an order. This is alphabetical. Green Bay over nine and a half. I just, I really like that team. I thought they could have won in San Francisco. I like how they built the team. I have no idea why they would go backwards. I know your buddy big daddy is probably coming up with a million reasons why they're going to go eight nine. But I'm a believer. Houston at over nine and a half. The only thing that scares me is it's super obvious. I didn't like that the line jumped by a win when they made the digs trade. Cause I'm not positive how impactful digs is going to be. But he moved the line from eight and a half to nine and a half and there's juice on that. And then the two wonders.

These are my favorites. Dallas under ten and a half, which I think you agree with. I just don't. We'll talk about them and then. But your guy font now Atlanta nine and a half is their over under. They were seven and ten last year. So the case would be that Kirk Cousins is going to be worth three wins. Fine. They threw away their first round pick, the 8th pick in the draft. They didn't use. They used it on a backup. The guy's not going to play. Their defense wasn't good last year. They didn't do anything about that. I don't understand why they're a ten win team. So let's start with them. What, what makes people think Atlanta is going to go ten and seven? Cousins coming off a torn Achilles, by the way, which with him and Rogers, it feels like people have just been skimping past that part. Like, oh, yeah, they'll be fine at the torn Achilles. They'll just heal it. Like, I don't know, quarterbacks, their legs, guys diving around their legs, guys falling around their legs. It's not like basketball where you can just come back. So, so Atlanta under for me.

Where do you have it?

Oh, I have them under. Not because of anything other than the fact that whenever a team, and I wrote about this in football, done right, whenever a team thinks they're one player away, they never are. Right. When you the Herschel Walker trade, we're one player away. You know, the Green Bay packers, let's trade for John Hadle. We're one player away. You're never one player away. And so Atlanta last year was one of the worst. They've been one of the worst pass rushing teams in the last three seasons. They play in a dome. They don't get very many people to come to the dome, but they play in there and it can get loud there. And so you would think they would have the ability to create turnovers with crowd noise, but they can't because they can't rush. They were 29th and creating turnovers last year. Right. And if you don't, if you think they have an elite defense. Baker Mayfield, a game in Atlanta, is down by four. He takes the team down the field and scores a touchdown late in the season when the, when the playoffs are still in balance. Okay. So, like, I think they've completely, and I don't trust Super bowl winning GM Fontenoto evaluate the team correctly.

Clearly. So you're not getting me. Plus, can Cousins move? How good is Atlanta's offensive line? Oh, if we get Pitts to play better. Well, Pitts hasn't played better yet. Pitts is not, Pitts is a player who, as you know, in the NBA, if, if there's not a creative advantage by moving them to position, he gets no advantage. So when he's out there, people treat him like a wide receiver, even though he's six, he's a big man, he's a receiver. He's not a tight end. So you're not worried about a weak side run game with him. So you can't, you're limited in what you can do.

What NBA players pits?

Well, it would be, you know, like, what you want is, you want, like when Scottie Pippen and Jordan, they could interchange all their positions. Like 1 minute he's this, 1 minute he's that. Pitts isn't elite at anything yet. He hasn't been an elite pass catcher. He kind of is a galloper. He's, you know, he'll make a play. To make the highlights, try to think of an NBA player who's like him. Like Tobias Harris.

That's what he's for.

Tobias, he's like, paid really well, but you're not getting a return.

The dollar, well, especially fantasy where he was getting drafted for multiple years with Kelsey, he's getting the same numbers, and.

I, but because people don't understand Kelsey, Kelsey's an elite wide receiver. He's an elite. He's not a tight end. He's an elite wide receiver. He's always been a wide receiver. Credit Kelsey for not taking wide receiver money.

Right.

He could have easily demanded, was also.

A third round pick.

Right? Exactly.

And fifth in the draft. So the way they built their team is just completely logical to me. And you saw it this year with the draft. Right. What happened with the draft this year versus other years, right. Where it was just everybody loaded up on offensive line quarterbacks and then a couple of the awesome receivers, and you saw guys like Bowers who I think would have been like the third or fourth or fifth pick a couple of years ago, but now people are like, the tight end. I don't know if that's as impactful as, like, getting a fucking left tackle that we have for the next ten years. Right? So Atlanta takes Bijam Robinson, I think. 8th. They already had a receiver. They take Drake London. 8th. He's probably, I would say, one of the least talented top ten receiver picks we've had in the last. He's not. He's certainly not like a game changer and then pits. You'd watch entire Falcons games like, is he out there? It's like the Tobias Harris day. I was like, wait, Pitts just caught a four yard pass. I didn't realize he was playing. It's like when Tobias hits a three, so, yikes.

Yeah. I mean, like, to me, it's like you wasted all these picks, yet. Jalen Carter staring in the face, you turn it down. You had Murphy or Latu staring in the face, you turn it down. Like, did they pay attention that the Kansas City Chiefs want to suit well with their defense, not with their offense? Did they pay attention to that? You know, and so I don't see it. Let me jump up to your Arizona one. Like, I don't trust Mary. I think Drew Petzik did a really good job running the ball last year.

With what you saw from them down the stretch last year. Cause they got a little frisky down the stretch.

I thought the tight end was really good. Trey McBride, I thought he was really good. But I think to me, defensively, they're going to have a hard time taking a jump. And I don't trust Murray. I don't trust. I think people understand how to game plan against him. If you look at his numbers the last three years, they have gone steadily down. Now you only need the seven to cash it, but, you know, I wish.

It was one win lower. That's why. So this is what I needed from you, because if it was five and a half, I'd be all in. The six and a half makes me nervous. Plus a shitload of juice. This is like one of the hot picks in May, which, I mean, I.

Would circle that and say, you know, and look, when has everybody been on it? When the juice is again, where you have to go with the juice. When does that ever work out?

The -150 how about Houston? Does Houston scare you at all? Because everything is lining up for them as the hot, sexy. Watch out for them. Yeah, a little like the lions last year, by the way, and that. And the Lions actually paid off they're.

Going to be the 101. I don't understand how that line moved from that eight and a half to nine and a half.

Because it digs. Because nobody watches football. Nobody, nobody actually watched digs in the second half of the year.

Or how about, you know, how long do we have to listen to Odell Beckham, how great he's going to be for Miami? Like, are you kidding me? I mean, did anybody watch Odell Beckham? I mean, that was that Marvel, Brock, Brock Oswald was the heist. That was one of the great robberies of all time.

Come on. Nothing's going to stop Osweiler.

No, but Omar didn't steal that much money in Baltimore than what Beckham stole. I mean, Beckham stole way more than Omar and Marlowe combined, so.

But, Juju, Smith Schuster, don't, don't, don't count him out of the combo. It costs them more to. More to cut him than keep him. Juju, it's one of the rare terrible. We can't even, like, get out of it contracts. So you're. Houston rushes the passer. Very good coach, special quarterback. And even if Diggs is their third receiver, there's. That's a still really nice third receiver to have. They're going to be able to run the ball. What, what do I not like about that team?

Their line is better than Chicago's line. They have a legitimate left tackle in Tunsville. They've got to get Titus Howard to play better at right. I mean, they, they got Shaq Mason. They've got the guard. I mean, they've got it. They can play better. And look, I think. I don't have any love for will. I don't think Tennessee is going to be with Will Levis under center. I don't think that's going to be. I think India will be better. I don't know what to make of Jacksonville because Lawrence hasn't taken, and I'm a huge Lawrence fan, so I either blew this, but if you're really honest with yourself, Lawrence didn't throw the ball down the field. He's Daniel Jones. He averages. He's never averaged over 7.2 yards per attempt down the field.

Well, what's scary about it is how about, how, how about all the capital they've spent on receivers for him, free agent and draft picks? They just did it again.

And they don't sign any linemen. Like, they think their lines good and they think it's all about the receivers. I mean, they got Ingram as franchise player. They paid Kirk a ton of money, right. They drafted this kid from LSU, Murphy, you know, like, seriously. And then they turn around. I mean, I know they didn't. They traded for Ridley. They let him go. But, but to me it just seems like they. I don't trust them. I really don't. I don't. So Jacksonville and are they good enough on defense? You know, now I think the guy they hired who was in Atlanta last year, Ryan Nielsen, I think he'll be a better coach than Caldwell, there's no question. So there's going to be that upgrade there. You're going to get.

Well, I know you loved as, as a football die hard old school guy, I know you loved the owner son showing up with a neck brace to try to continue his, his wrestling angle from the AEW pay per view a couple of days earlier. I know, I know. For the old school guys, they love that stuff.

I mean, how can they? We talk about a franchise that's unbelievably can't win.

I mean, you're just done when you're doing stuff like that, when you're supposed to be a serious professional football franchise. I can't take you seriously. I just can't.

So bad. All right, let's talk Green Bay. Green Bay I like. Okay, here's why I like Green Bay, because I think Green Bay is good. I don't love LaFleur, but I think he did a good job with love in the second half of the season, the first half of the year, he's protected him, but I think the addition of the new defensive coordinator, halfley, is going to make a huge difference. I think that was a good hire. Hafley was the offense that was the head coach of Boston College. He'd been around the league a bunch. He was in Cleveland with Kyle when Kyle was there. He's been with, he's been with Ciano at Tampa. Like, he's got a pretty good, he's got a really good defensive package. Was at Ohio State, was when they were good on defense. So like, I think they were going to be better defensively. They have talent on defense. They underachieved defensively. That front should have been way better than it was, and there were times where that front was really good, but it was so inconsistent. I think their offensive line is going to be better. Jacobs, look, I think I loved Aaron Jones, and I don't know what's the disconnect between Aaron Jones and the team because I thought Aaron Jones was the difference maker down the stretch.

I really do. But Jacobs can do a lot of things Aaron Jones can do out of the backfield, catch the ball. If he's in shape, which he wasn't last year at all, then it's a huge get ten. I think they can get to ten. I think you're going to, that's going to be a nail biter going down the stretch.

Really good team building by them where they have, I saw they have the cheapest wide receiver crew in the league and they have good receivers. They have a great quarterback who is still on a good deal just in general, like when you, when you can have a really good offense but not spend a shitload of money on that and the money can go other places, the success rate of that is usually like 90, 95%. If you could just stay healthy.

Well, that's what the Chiefs are doing. All the Chiefs are doing is we're going to pay Mahomes, we have to pay Kelsey, we're going to beg and borrow on offense, we're going to draft lineman, and then we're going to put all the money on the beat. We're going to draft the defense. And so now we're really good on defense. See, you know, go. Let's go back to Atlanta. One of the principles of Walsh was for you to win. For Walsh to win, you know, and this is when we had 14 games to be a 500 team. He used to say you needed to be able to get the, to have a good quarterback, to get seven wins, but you needed a pass rusher in the fourth quarter to win games for you. You had to have somebody to rush the passer in that two minute drive to put the game away. If you don't have that, like, you don't, you know, and Balta and Green Bay has rushers. I don't know if Arizona does, you know, I think Houston definitely does.

But we coach, though, right? Like, I thought Gannon did a pretty good job in the second half.

He was surprised. It was surprising considering that he was so vanilla in Philadelphia. Yeah, it was really.

They played hard for him. I thought that.

No, they did play hard.

We, we got to talk. We haven't talked Dallas under ten and a half yet because that's the one I'm probably the most passionate about for the unders. I don't if that team is named any other team in the league, I think that over under is eight and a half. But because Jerry and the Cowboys and they're on tv and dak, I don't think people understand just how horrific that DAC contract has been for them. Did you see that stat about how he's been? I think 151 million the last maybe four years. Just counting on their cap, it's by far the biggest cap hit any contract because the way they did it, they didn't give themselves any flexibility. They didn't push any money forward. And now it's just all hitting them this year on top of that. I didn't know. Wasn't sure how good they were last year. And they bring McCarthy back when everyone thought it was going to get fired. I just. I don't see any scenario where this team is better this year than last year. Year, I don't see it well.

And I'll add this. I thought they overachieved last year. I didn't think they were great last year when they went on the road. Everybody says they couldn't win a road game. They couldn't beat a good team. Right? Well, why do you think that is? You just think because McCarthy can't coach. That's not the case. They got Terrence Steele playing right tackle. They got ball first and goal with the six against the Eagles, and he can't block Hassan Reddick. And Prescott gets sacked. And the next thing you know, they lose that game. Like, they go to Miami. They can't protect them in Miami and they lose that game. I mean, so. And I don't think there is good now. I think Zimmer is a better coach than Quinn defensively. I think there's no question Zimmer will make them tougher. But do they have enough talent? You know, I mean, look, one thing about Diggs, he'll. He'll jump on any route. We know that. And Parsons is great, but who else is helping Parsons, right? See, here's the problem with Dallas. Every draft pick they made this year, from in the first to the third round, was an indication of the.

Of the. Of their problems with their team. And so when that happens, when the draft has to fill the hole on the team coming up, you can't do it. The draft is for next year's team. It's not for this year's team. It's hard to get those guys to play, though. They might start, but they can't play at the level you got to get them to play at. They're not ready to play at that level. So, you know, they draft these three guys, you know, like Maisie Smith. They drafted last year at the 26 pick. He gave him like three games, like four tackles. I mean, he was horrible, right? So now you need the left tackle to come through or you're going to move Tyler Smith over there. Now you need the center, who's a good player, bb that he played guard. Are you going to put him at center? Then you got the draft of the kid from, I forget, a small school to play defensive end. I mean, it's going to be a hard game for them. I just don't see it. I think Washington will beat them. I think Philly can beat them and I think they're vulnerable to anybody.

I mean, they got to go to Cleveland opening game. I think Cleveland could beat him in the opener.

Yeah. You look at the Cowboys season last year when everybody got excited about that. Midway through the year, they beat, they beat the hell out of the Giants. They beat the hell out of the Panthers. Congratulations to beat the hell out of Washington. Congratulations all. We're on a three game winning streak. They beat the Seahawks in that really fun night game where it's like, oh, dak, MVP. Seahawks didn't make the playoffs, by the way. Then they beat the hell out of the Eagles. And that was the one where we said, oh, Dallas is serious. We got it. But now looking back at the second half of the season with the Eagles, that win looks a lot less impressive. And then it, it, they never really captured the same momentum, but then they got absolutely destroyed in the playoffs. And the playoffs going, they're going to fire McCarthy. They're going to hire Belichick. No, they didn't do that. Well, are they going to trade Dak now? They're going to keep them? Are they going to new contract? No, they're not going to like, they have Ezekiel. How it is, they're starting running back.

Right now and they got, and look, you know, dak, you know, we know this about the NFC. There hasn't been a, there hasn't been a repeat champion in last ten years. It hasn't been eased. Yeah, the Cowboys, the east, the Cowboys have won five, the Eagles have won three, Washington's one two. The Giants haven't won any. But just say Prescott gets hurt here, you know, now we're talking about them being one of those teams who could be competing in a top ten pick because they're not that good. Cooper rush ain't leading them anywhere. And I know they're going to give Trey Lance a ton of reps this summer, but look, they still have to get lamb under contract. They got to get Parsons under contract. There's things going on in that building that haven't been resolved yet. And if they keep paying back like the Giants paid Daniel Jones. Then all of a sudden the resentment's going to come through. Right? And I don't blame that for all the stuff, all the ills, but at some point you got to make plays. It's like, it's like Atlanta. We have forgotten that Kirk Cousins sucks in big games.

Like that's ever since he did that quarterback series, everybody's kind of forgotten that he's not good at good games.

I haven't forgotten and I haven't forgotten that Dak never has come through either in any situation. They're the same guy. Um, Dallas under ten and a half is my favorite. I'm throwing two other quick ones at you. These are ones I would call trying not to. We're not going to get through everything because we're running out of time, but trying not to get seduced. Is this next category, Kansas City over? Under eleven and a half. The under is eleven and a half is even money right now. This was she rice thing is a big deal. And I, you know, Valdez Scanling, who turned into the boogeyman for Chiefs fans but actually made a couple plays in the playoffs, I, I actually still think he was open a lot. You could at least throw him the ball. He'd been in some games. I wonder if their receiver room has passed the point of competency because, like, even that Xavier worthy, that rookie they took. Listen, I went down this road a lot of times during the Belichick Brady era. You can't count on rookie receivers. What if he sucks? You're, it's, it's a coin flip. So there's a world where their receivers might just suck and bad as they.

Were last year, but look, they, they have to play the same. Like, I really, I said this today on my show, like, the Chiefs early in the year are going to be a team that they don't know who they are yet because if they think they're going back to, they're going to throw it around the lot and win. That way, no chance. They have to run Pacheco. They're going to have to win with their defense. Do they have a replacement for sneeze?

But think about what you just said. They have to run Pacheco. Like, that's that your road to twelve wins? Come on.

Well, you don't even. Nobody, nobody in America is going to tell me who the left tackle is. You know, I mean, they got the kid they drafted. I can't say his name in the second round. You think he's going to be ready to start at left tackle? They got the Morris kid who they drafted in the second round a year ago. Maybe they'll do it. Maybe we'll see it this summer. You paid Chris Jones now, Chris Jones, a great player, but you get 17 games and 60 minutes out ahead.

Kelsey, too. And you paid my homes.

You paid Kelsey. And then you said that Kelsey looked like he's 26. Every time I see Kelsey, he's on a plane or at a concert. Like, I don't know where, you know, like, I love Kelsey. I think Kelsey is an incredible person to take less money for being an elite receiver, but at 36, he's not the same guy he was.

Well, and the other thing is, he basically admitted during the playoffs, like, yeah, I had to take it easy during the regular season to try to save myself. For which I agree with, you're trying to win a Super bowl. It's the right move. But if we're just talking regular season and my only really good offensive receiving target is pacing himself to get ready for January, that makes me nervous.

Right? So, like, what people don't understand is a number one receiver has to draw coverage. You have to double him on every single play. Like, you don't double Drake London. Like, you just put somebody out there, right? And so it's like in the NBA, if you don't double the elite player or trap the elite player, that guy's going to score. Kyrie Irving only had nine points last night. That should never happen. He's too good, right? So. But we mistaken all these other receivers as elite. They're not like Hollywood Brown. Nobody is. He might make a play here or there, but nobody's scared of him. Nobody's scared of Sky Moore, nobody's scared of anybody. And so they don't have it. And they have no left tackle. The line's a little older. And I think what we saw last year when they, when they played against good fronts, they had a problem.

It could be one of those. It's like mid October, and so what's wrong with the Chiefs article? And somehow they'll end up ten and seven. They'll make the playoffs. Nobody want to play them. Buffalo is the other one. I'm zagging on this one. Normally, I am always under on Buffalo, and I think they're overrated and they missed their window. Now it's like they're over under ten and a half. They're eleven and six. Last year, I don't think the digs thing is a big deal. And they replaced them with a bunch like Curtis, Samuel and Valdez Scanling and they drafted somebody and I think they're going to be able to piece it together. And everybody seems to forget that James Cook became one of the four best running backs in the league during the second half last year. They still have Allen. They still have a good home field advantage. They'll probably clean up some of the coaching issues they had. And I think people are ready to pour dirt on these guys now. They still have Josh Allen. Like to me if he's healthy that's ten wins. I'm tired of betting against that. So the fact that it's ten and a half it's like could they get to eleven and six?

Why not?

You know here's the thing I think we also forget about Buffalo is that and somebody should tell Ryan polls this in Chicago. Buffalo tried to be an eleven team. One back, one receive three receivers, one tight end. And they play in Buffalo and they got the shit kicked out of by Cincinnati up front and they couldn't live that way. So they drafted Kincaid. And now with Dawson Knox there are twelve teams. And Cook came on last year and they ran the ball because Kincaid's like a receiver but he can block the weak side. So you have a run game with Kincaid out of in that game and so now you can. And so the effect of Diggs doesn't matter. That's why he was always pissed off because he wasn't featured anymore and he was declining. And so because of where they play. I don't disagree with you on that. I worry about them on defense because they're so little and they have, you know but look, Daquan Jones when he's healthy he makes them a really good team.

So the bet I like more than that and this on Fanduel might be different somewhere else but Buffalo to win the AFC east is plus 160 and Miami is plus 185 and the jets are plus 210. I have no idea why one person would think Miami is going to be better next year than this upcoming season. Last year I think they missed their window and then the jets did they change their coach and I didn't get the memo. Is it. It's the same coach, right? It's still Robert Salaam. I'm just checking.

Only in jet world could have come out that they were going to the, they were going to replace Hackett but not fire. Did you see that story?

Yeah.

So they were going to replace them but not fire them. And then what did they do? They did nothing. So they admit they have a problem but they couldn't solve the problem because they can't they can't fire hack it because that would upset Aaron. Like, how does that ever work?

I texted this to you. The jets are like, win now, win now. Aaron Rodgers is our moment. We're all in. We're trying to win a Super bowl. If you're all in, hire Mike frable. What are you guys doing? Mike Frable is available. Or Belichick, whatever. Well, Belichick would never work for the jets, but Mike frable, it's like, are you better off with Robert Sala and Nate Hackett, or are you better off with Mike Frable, who has already proven that he could coach against all of these dudes and would completely change your culture?

And do you think, you really think Rogers would have been upset if he had brought grable? Of course he wouldn't have been. Like, he would have understood that. Why are we so scared to make Rogers upset? Rogers is a smart football guy. Whatever you think of him and all the other stuff, he understands football. Like, he would have known. Like, he's got a see through Salah. Like, I see through. The guy's a cartoon character.

He's. I can't believe he's coming back. What more the Zach Wilson thing alone over the course of the year and took no accountability for it. I just don't think he's a competent head coach, and I feel pretty confident.

He'S proven you correctly. He's proven you correctly. I mean, look, you know, when he got that job, everybody, he was interviewing all those jobs and nobody wanted them, and Joe Douglas hired him, and he would. He doesn't get that job. He's still in San Francisco.

What's that saying that you love about when somebody's trying to tell you who they are? Believe who they are or believe them? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's Bill Parcells. When a player shows you who he is, believe.

I feel like Salah showed me who he is as a head coach at this point. I believe him. I believe you.

Nathaniel Hackett. And so why would I put my money in that? Like, why would I put, like. That's my view on Arizona. I believe what I see in Kyler Murray.

Yeah.

I don't believe he can carry the team. So I would have. I would have not given him the money. I would have said, but Michael Bidwell put the. You know, they're not doing that. I think that's going to catch up to him.

Well, we'll see what happens. All right, you got 45 seconds to tell us what you want to happen with the Sixers.

Oh, I don't I just don't want to be old.

That's your personal reaction is just a head shake and groaning?

Well, because I know they're going to sign a bunch of old guys, you know, and they could care less about culture or character. It's everything I hate about it. But so my wife says to me all the time, why are you rooting against them? I said, because I've seen this movie before. I know the outcome. You can't win like that. And so, you know, he's going to try to sign XY. But until there's accountability within that building, it doesn't matter who they sign. You know, the guy doesn't even got to shoot around. How do you coach that? How do you coach that? You know, he's, you know, he'll be healthy next. No, he won't. He's always injured. So, you know, I mean, look, it is what it is. We'll just sit back and watch it. They had their window. You talked about a window that was available. They just blew it.

It's funny though, the Kyrie thing makes me re examine all my thoughts on this, where it's like when somebody keeps showing you who they are, at some point you believe it. And then Kyrie just magically turned into this really good teammate.

He picks this other night. How about I'm going over to Hubie the other night, shaking Hubie's hand. You would have thought this guy would have had.

No, but he really helped them in game two, game three. And yesterday, one of the reasons OKC beat them was they fucking threw every guard they had. All they were doing was trying to take away Kyrie because they know Lucas hurt and they put Kason Wallace on him. And they were just, and I thought they wore him down a little bit. But I've been really impressed by him.

I think this about Kyrie is if he respects the, it's like Randy Moss, a little bit like Randy Moss didn't respect Ark Shell, had no respect for our shell. And so he wasn't gonna play. But he got the ball to, when he got to New England, he did. Right. And so he respected Belichick. If he respects the coach, he didn't respect Mike Tyson, Minnesota. Right. Like, if he doesn't respect the coach, then you're out. I think Kyrie and Jason Kidd, there's a respect there. So he'll take coaching, not criticism.

Right. Have you noticed? Because I know you're a big culture, team personality guy. It's one of your favorites. Um, OKC. Some of the stuff they do feels a little 2001 Patriots thing to me. Like, they won yesterday and SGA does the interview, but when he does the interview, the whole team's with him doing the postgame TNT. There's ten guys behind them, and they're just like, we're just like, we're all in this together, no matter what. Like, Getty's getting benched. He's still rooting for people. I don't know how they did it, but they built something that's team first. That's, like, basically impossible to do in the NBA these days.

Well, they drafted players who were team first, and then they, then they onboarded them into team first. Like, that just doesn't happen by accident. Presti got it. I mean, I spot Presti was in our building for two days when I was back there, you know, and so, like, he gets it, but he proves this point, which is really important. It takes talent to evaluate talent. Like, presti understands talent. Most of these guys don't understand. They can't see talent. So, so when you have the process and you can't evaluate talent, that what good is the process? It comes down to the evaluator. It comes down to that. And if you just want to look at numbers on an analytical board and you don't care about competitiveness, momentum or character, you're not going to ever get there. So, yeah, I think that. I think the onboarding of a culture is probably the most important thing. And I'm sure Oklahoma, in their building did that because even though they lost, they won 20 games two years in a row. They were committed to reaching a standard of play. They weren't committed to reaching a winning standard. They were committed to win, to the standard of play.

Meanwhile, in Philly, they were committed to being lazy. Just take the time off. There was never a standard set because the Hankey didn't believe in culture or character, so there's no standard. So there was nobody trying to get to a level. See, it's one thing to not try to win. It's nothing to get to a standard of excellence.

Well, then you have the third path, which is Phoenix, where they're like, we're trading everything we have. When we have a team of three guys and yousufnerkic as our rim protector and we're not going to have a point guard, and then if things go wrong, we're going to, who are we going to blame? And we can't trade anybody with any picks. So it's coach's fault. New coach, let's overpay the next guy, he'll be able to fix it, but they'll never be able to fix it.

See, I think to me, if I were Phoenix, I would have hired a young player development coach. Because the only way Phoenix is going to get out of this, it's not with Coach Bud, who wants to coach veterans. No disrespect to coach Bud. I don't know him, but it's going to be a guy that can develop the fourth, 5th, 6th and 7th and 8th man on the roster because nobody's going to be able to talk to one, two and three. Booker's already great, but who's going to handle four, five, six and say who's going to make them better? That's the only chance they have to get out of this. You think Bud's going to focus on four to eight? Of course not. He's going to. He's going to worry about people and he's going to worry about the big three. Well, the big three prove they can't win. They need four, five, six and seven to win.

The problem is OKC, Denver, Minnesota and Boston, who are the four best teams right now, and they all have players that are. They're in their prime or they're going to hit their prime in a couple of years. They have depth, they have guys that play well together, and they have one star who's, you know, can be like a connector. And if you can't compete with that, you have no chance. So I don't know. It's with that.

Let me ask you one last question. So if LeBron really wanted to win, why wouldn't he take 20 million, okay, and get another player and say, look, I'll make the money somewhere else. I don't need 50, you know, and if you draft brawny, great, okay, we got brownie on the team, which I, you know, I know Woj said that people are going to go watch brawny play in the G League. I find that hard to believe. They didn't go watch him when he played at USC, but that's a whole other horse of another color. But, like, why wouldn't you do that if you're committed to winning? How much more money can LeBron make? That's going to really tilt. He can make you do two more taco Bell commercials.

So this is the Kobe. The Kobe dilemma back in 2014 when he took that last contract and took up a lot of their salary cap, and he's like, why should I fucking take some money? That's their job, to put a good team around me, I guess with LeBron, the question would be, what is important to him? Whether does he want to win a fifth title? Is that the most important thing? Does he want to stay in LA? Because if he wanted to actually win a title, the move is like, you go to Dallas on the veterans minimum, right?

And you go silly.

You join. Yeah, but I, philly, I'm betting on Embiid. You and I wouldn't bet on Embiid. Why would LeBron?

No, but I want to bet on, like, I want to get away from Minnesota. I want to get away from Minnesota, I want to get away from Denver, I want to go away from Dow, I want to get away from that. I want to kind of just compete with Boston.

So maybe you go to me, go back to Cleveland then on a veterans minimum, and you join everything they have. But it's. That's the move for him at this point, because I think we have enough evidence now that if he's one of your 250 million dollars guys, you're not going to win the title. The team, the league's too good. You watch, like that. Minnesota team. Holy shit. You know, the way they fly around and then Yokage and. Yeah. Anyway, I'm sorry about the Sixers.

No good.

One of my least favorite teams. But I know that you never even got to have your one fun moment in the last ten years that made some of it worth it. It just was kind of disappointing.

But I've seen this movie before. I've seen it too many. I know. I knew the outcome. I knew the ending. It's just. I knew it ten years ago. It just happened, you know? And you get hooked into believing that these players are better, but once you see it, nobody can evaluate talent.

Well, thanks for coming on. And as a president, I'm going to send you a four foot frame photo of Ben Simmons at the Met Gala. You can just put that right behind.

You can have that right over there next to Bruce. I got a. I got a picture of Bruce over. I'll put it right up over there.

Met Gallup bed. We miss you. All right, Mike Labardi, great to see you can listen to Mike's podcast, read his books. I look forward to talking to you over the summer.

Thanks, Bill. Bye bye.

All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Mike Lombardi. Thanks to Justin Termini. Thanks to Kyle Creighton and Steve Ceruti for producing as well. You can watch videos from this podcast on YouTube.com illsimmons. Don't forget about our new Bringer movies channel as well, and I will see you on Thursday night when we start. I don't have 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 NEXtSTEP to 533 Four two in Arizona, 8887-8977 or visit ccpg.org chattinconneticut 809 with it in Indiana, 852 4700 or visit ksgamblinghealth.com. In Kansas, 8770 stop in Louisiana, md gamblinghelp.org in Maryland, 800 gambler.net in West Virginia, 805 224700. In Wyoming, hope is here visit gambling helpline ma.org or call 803 2750 for 24/7 supported Massachusetts or call 18778 Hope NY or text Hope NY in New York.