The Bill Simmons podcast brought to you by Fandil Sportsbook. We are also brought to you by the Ringer podcast Network. I put up a new rewatchables last night. We did Crazy Stupid Love. It was me and Van Lathen and Chris Ryan. Had a great time. It's all foreplay until next week when we kick off CR month. All Chris Ryan movies that he loves. We're going to start with Sicario on Monday, 6: 00 PM ET Live Live on Netflix. You can actually watch us do rewatchables in real-time live. It's going to happen. Sicario, me, Chris Ryan, Sean Fentacy, and can't wait for that. We also launched a new podcast last week that I forgot to tell you about on this podcast. I was actually the first guest of this podcast. It was called Wait a Second. It's hosted by our old friend Jason Concepcion. It dives into the things that you text your friends about that you go, Wait, what's going on? What happened? Last week, we did surveillance. We talked about the ring camera Super Bowl ad and Savannah Guthrie's mom's house recording the outside, even though she wasn't paying for it. Basically, are we being watched all the time was the conceit last week.
Each week, it's going to be some topic that as you're reading about in the news, you go, Wait, what's going on here? This podcast is going to work. I am 100% convinced. It's already one of my favorite Ringer Pods. It was really fun to go on last week. Check it Subscribe, follow. Wait a second on wherever you get your podcast, including, hopefully, Spotify, because Spotify has a great podcast experience. Coming up on this episode, Tate Frazier, J. Kyle Mann, two people that love college basketball. We're going to try to figure out what's going on with the top three in this college basketball season heading into the NBA draft. Darren Peterson, AJ DeBança. I call him DeBança, it's DeBança, DeBança. Now, there's arguments about how to I'm calling him AJ and Kam Bouzer, who should go first? Also, what the hell is going on with Peterson? Diving into that, we're going to talk about some Spurs pistons and the Spurs ceiling as well. But a very fun basketball combo. Then the Duke is here. Billy Kyle wants to fill us in on what we should be looking for in spring training as we head toward the baseball season, which baseball with a lot of momentum right now.
We're going to talk about all the things we're looking for. Basketball It's all baseball. It's all next. We're going to take a break. Pearl Jam, and then Tate and Kyle, next. The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. The football season may be coming to an end, but things are only getting started on the court, on the hardwood, on the wood, as some people call it. Fanduel, the number one choice for same game parlay is live betting and much more during the NBA season. Don't forget, with FanDuel, you get paid instantly when you win. Download the FanDuel Sportsbook app right now and play your game. 21 plus in President Select States or 18 plus President DC, Kentucky, Wyoming. Get in a problem call 1-800-Gamber or visit rg-help. Com. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg. Org/chat in Connecticut. All right, Tate Frazier, Kyle Manor here from The Ringer. We have deliberately not done a lot of college basketball in this podcast, or really any, because until football ends, I don't throw myself into it. Then I belatedly catch up. I start watching. I start studying YouTube. Congrats and thanks to all the weirdos who put up the crazy detailed YouTube clips.
, by the way, of all the prospects. I really enjoy those. This is the toughest top three or four that we've had in mid-February that I can remember for the draft. This has only happened a couple of times where there's arguments. Even if you look at the FanDuel Alliance, Peterson has dropped down a minus, I think minus 125 to go first. De Banza, we're going to talk about that. That's actually the correct pronunciation. Tate's going to talk about that in a second, is now plus 130, and Booser is a long shot at plus 750. These are great arguments. Very few drafts tape where you could make a case for three guys going first. We had this with Palo and Jabbari and Chet, I think was the last time. This one, it almost seems more violent because of the SuperDuper star potential. But can you remember a draft like this?
I do think it is 2022, the last time that we had this conversation. I do feel like there's a Risa Shay test here that's happening where it's like, how many of these guys would have gone number one in We're definitely at four, maybe against the five, depending on how you feel about some of these other guys like Mikael Brown Jr.
Tough week for Risa Shay. Shox fired. He already lost his job in Atlanta.
I'm just saying, I think that's the test to see what you have at the top of this draft. Each one of these guys is very unique in their own way. I got to see them all at the McDonald's All-American game last year in April. I got to see them in practice, got to see them hanging out with each other, how they interact with each other, how they treat each other. It didn't feel like at that time, the top four was Nate Amint was in the spot of Caleb Wilson, and Caleb was lurking in the 5, 6, 7 range. I think Caleb has swapp with Amint, and now Amint is more in that situation. But the way that they looked at each other, it was Darren Peterson, seemed like the alpha dog of the group. We can get to that. But De Bança, De Bança, which we can talk about that as well, is obviously in the mix. And then I'm coming around on Kam Booser because I say that with a little bit of- Sure, that's tough Tate.
Yeah, that's your thing. Jesus.
But I did like him just as a kid and just the way he carried himself. I do feel like he's Mr. Consistent. Yeah, those four guys are all in the mix right now.
The worst thing we ever did to Tate was when he was producing stuff for us, and we had him helping out with JJ Reddick's podcast. It was honestly a psychological experiment. I think it made a broken Tate a little bit. I don't know if it was the same for a year after. Kyle, where do you stand on this being the The hardest one to predict? We're near the end of February now, so we should have some feelings, and yet we don't.
There's a real Neapolitan ice cream thing going on with these three guys where it's just like, you could legitimately argue for... It's tough because Tate's right. They absolutely do. They do separate things well. There's the steadiness of the Kamboozer that people... He lulls you into a sense of it almost being a boring efficiency. He's good, but he's really good at a lot of different things. There's the electric scoring of Darren Peterson. And then there's the throwback ISO, just bullish way that Ajay DeBança plays. The DeBança-DeBança thing is really funny because Tate and I have joked about this. On BYU's website, they had recordings of the players saying their own names, and his voice on the site said DeBança. So they internally and their family must have had some agreement about this is how we say this. But yeah, I mean, over the course of the year, in the summer, I I'm just talking myself into, gosh, I could see Kambooser just being a universal donor and helping so many different teams. You see the dogganness of AJ Devancer. See, I did it again.
Devante-we'll just call him AJ.
Yeah, AJ. The thing that I love is this used to be a foursome, Bill, and Cooper was a part of it. And these guys played it. We didn't have any instances of like, man, we'd love to see these guys head to head. They played each other over and over and over again. They're all incredibly competitive players. That's what's really fun about it is if you get a top three pick, it's a legitimate possibility that all three of the teams in the top three could come away being like, Yeah, we hit a home run.
Peterson had one of the best high school tape everything that I've ever seen. He has now become the polarizing guy of this whole process for a variety of reasons, which I think we have to dive into because this is why we're doing this now. I watched the whole game last night. I'm studying everything he's doing. Compared to the high school tape, he doesn't seem like the same guy. Wherever you stand on, we talked a little on Sunday about there's a competitiveness question, and I think this is the one thing as I get older and I study these draughts, the competitiveness has to be the number one thing. Even beyond the athleticism and talent and uniqueness, do you actually give a shit? Seems to be the most important quality, which AJ has. I don't know what his ceiling is going to be, but you can just tell. When he's going to go to the pros, he'll play as many minutes as it takes. Now, Peterson, there's so many theories on this, and I think we have to talk about it because he doesn't look like the high school guy. He looks 20 pounds heavier. He doesn't seem as explosive.
You can't say he's 100% hurt because if you watched the first five, six minutes of that game yesterday against Houston, I thought some of the stuff he was doing defensively was high, high, high end, the way he was moving around screens and pics and sticking with guys. I was like, This guy doesn't seem hurt to me. Then Then in the second half of the game, he started to look like he was 30 years old. I just don't understand it. It seems like his body tires out. Tate, if you had a theory, I know Kyle has one, but if you had a theory on what's going on, what is it? Because everybody's been trying everything.
Well, I talked to his dad at the McDonald's All-American game, and I do feel like the dad, Darryl Peterson, is obviously involved in the process. I do think that there is a two horse race that's happening as far as perception versus reality, and they feel very Content. Also, you throw in Matz, who's his agent, Matzubara, who is an Adidas guy. And there's just a lot of smoke, and I'm not sure there is a fire, but it's a lot of fog if it's not smoke. And it's very hard to read between the lines as to what they're trying to do. I think He had the AJ match up in that first half where he has 18 points. Does it so methodically easy. You're just like, wow, this guy is the guy. He is the number one pick. There's no doubt about it. Then he sits out in the second half, and that is the story of Peterson this season. It's like, just when you there and you're like, Oh, I understand. I see the vision. I saw him in person against North Carolina, against Caleb Wilson. Caleb played great. Peterson played great. He had the quietest 22-point performance you've ever seen.
But it's just so easy and smooth for him. Now, I do buy into the injuries. I don't quite buy into him being able to dictate his time. On Monday night, that was the first time I saw Bill Self actually coaching him, and he fit into the game. It was the first time that it wasn't like, Okay, Darren, you do whatever you want and we'll fit around you. It was like, No, we're going to play how we've been playing without you, and you're going to play off the ball, and you fit in with us. And I actually was encouraged that he fit in, and he ended up hitting a huge three late in that game, sealed the game for Kansas. So that was encouraging to see that he can do both things, right? He can be A1, or he can be off the ball and fit into a team setting. But yeah, there's just a lot of conspiracy. I think some of the stuff that's been speculation has been incorrect. But again, nobody really knows except for Darren and his dad and his agent. So we all sit here and wonder what's going on But as far as his competitive fire, he's very competitive.
He wants to be the number one pick. And I think that's one thing that I feel like has been really incorrect when it comes to people talking about him.
Well, I'm sure that's true, but we also haven't totally seen it, right? Right. But if he wants to be the number one pick, I don't know if this is the way to go about it. And there's a million conspiracy theories we could do, Kyle, here. We could do the, he got a big NIL deal and he was supposed to play 26 games to get all the money, but he's not healthy enough to be 100% for all those games. So he's pacing himself. There's that. There's actually something medically wrong with him, and they're not being honest about it. Or an interesting theory, because we've all played pickup basketball in our lives. His demeanor is the guy that's like, I'm out here to sweat a little bit and run back and forth, but I don't really care about the game that much. When we've all played with those- He's the actual pro at the run.
Yeah, he's like, I'll turn it on when I want to.
Yeah, and it's like, I know I'm the I'm the best guy in the game. If we actually need me, I'll be here, but I'm really just going to run up and down and try not to get hurt, which I've never seen somebody do as an audition to be the number one pick in an NBA draft. What's your theory, Kyle?
I would say the dude that comes down from lifting for a game after all the real hoopers have been running for an hour and a half and he glides. He's like, Come on, man. It's been picked apart. The photo that got tweeted of him at a distance from the huddle, a lot of people correctly waved in and were like, he was checking into the game. It just got ridiculous. And I was going to say, Tate, you said something. You said a lot of interesting things there that I think we should go through. But the first thing that I think you said, and this is the entry point I think that's the most interesting, that courts, conspiracy bill, in my opinion, which is the idea that they are trying to do something here, which is like, and I think that runs counter to the idea of, is it about being the number one pick or is it about a destination? Because that's a factor with some of these teams at the top, because it's... Well, let's just start there. I mean, do Do you think that it's... Is there value in the pride of being the number one pick?
Because I think the money leaving itself out in terms of his deals and things like that, because that is the starting point for me.
Yeah, the one thing... I've heard so many different theories. And by the way, this is one of those things that everybody is talking about in NBA circles, but a lot of it hasn't drifted out into the podcast yet. But I think it's about to start because we love nothing more on podcast than to just pass along things we've heard. The dad's a big part of this. And The theory that he wants to go to a team that doesn't have a star yet, and they're... We haven't really seen anyone do this in a while. It's almost like the football strategy of... It's like what Eli Manning did. It's like what John Elway did. I don't want to go there. I'd rather go here. We've never really seen an NBA top five guy do that. I wonder if he's going to be the first where he's like, Actually, I'd want to go to Brooklyn. They don't really have a face. I'd like to go there. That's the team I want to go to. It's like, What about Indiana? No, I don't think so. You have Tyrese Halliburton there. What about Sacramento? You don't have a face in Sacramento.
That's interesting. I wonder if that's a piece of it. But again, this is all conspiracy theory stuff. That's why if you're cutting out clips from this and putting online, we're just presenting theories. I don't know what the truth is.
Don't aggregate him, please.
We're pinning things to the board right now. I don't want to be aggregated. We're not connected.
There's no string connecting them. We're just putting the pictures on the board and you guys can connect them however you want.
Here's the only thing we know for sure is if you watch the guy in the high school, the best games, and there's been really good clips of, Here are the best high school, slash A. Anytime he went against somebody awesome and you watch him in those games, it's not the guy we're watching in Kansas. It's just not. He's gone in the basket in a way different way. He's more competitive, he's more vocal. I don't know. Is it possible, Tate, that there's some pressure stuff with him, too? Because some of his quotes have been weird. He had this quote a couple of days ago. He described himself. He was like, I don't really know what's going on with social media. He was like, I'm an antisocial loner, was the quote. It's like, okay, we've seen that work with Kauai. That might just be his personality. He might be a Kauai type. But that also did not totally seem like his personality in high school. So there's more going on here.
It definitely is. It's also strange. If you're trying to sell yourself, like you said, to be the franchise guy, the face of the franchise, saying I'm an antisocial loner, is it really the best sales pitch for that unless you are Kawhi Leonard. And even then you have people that pick apart Kawhi and say that he doesn't do enough to be the face of the franchise. And I do feel like with Peterson, it does feel like there's a lack of joy that is happening right now with the way that he's playing. And maybe that is a bit of the frustration of all the outside noise and a lot of speculative talk. And it doesn't feel like he has really any say. This is the first time we've heard him speak. Myron Metcalf went there, did a nice reported piece, and got some actual quotes from Darren Peterson. That's the first time we've heard Peterson speak. Other than that, it's been Bill Self speaking about the situation, rumblings of a Just putting out different graphics being the obvious choice for number one pick, right? But it's never been Darren Peterson saying anything. So it's the first time we've heard from him.
I do hope that he's doing okay because, again, when all the outside noise is around you, it can temper and change who are a little bit as a person. I know that's a tough place to be in, but you mentioned it. They were both in Brooklyn there, AJ and Darren, and Brad Stevens is in the building, all the different GMs are there watching them in the practice. And it felt like they were happy to be in Brooklyn. I do feel like maybe there could be a little bit of a ploy there for them to want to be with the Brooklyn net. If I want to buy in and maybe take a bite of the conspiracy pie there, Brooklyn would be one for those two guys. Yeah.
If we were doing conspiracy destinations, It would be Peterson, Brooklyn, and AJ in Utah. Yes. Who's been probably helping out funding some of his...
They've been funding his career since he was in 10th grade. Yeah, at this point.
I mean, these kids are so young. I have to mention this as a parent of a 20-year-old and 18-year-old who's watched my kids go through so many different changes and evolutions and up and downs. I can't imagine having a kid in the middle of this process just being dissected like this. It's nuts. With that said, we have to dissect it because this is one of those you're getting fired if you get this wrong drafts, right? You have the number one pick. You're De Bança. Let me give you this stat. I nerded it up today. I was checking all this different stuff. First of all, he's averaging 24, 7, and 5 in 40-minute college games, and he's getting better as the year went along. I actually think his last few games, some of the stuff he's doing is stuff he wasn't doing as comfortably two months ago. There's only three players ever, freshman or sophomore, who have averaged 24, 6, and 4 in a college season. And the Aja right now is one of the three. The other two are Larry Bird and Pete Maravich, Oh, good company. That seems relevant. That was Bird's second Indiana State season.
Danny A.
Just passed out as you said that. I know.
Well, but here- Squirted himself with a spray bottle. This is also crazy Booser, who's averaging 23, 10, and 4, who's really a good passer, and I can't wait to talk about him. The only freshman, sophomore ever to average 22, 10, and 4 in a college season are him and Larry Bird. So So when you talk about which draft is better, last year's top four, this year's top four, and Flag certainly would be in the mix with these guys. And Hey, Knipal has been awesome. I love Harper and I love Edgecom. I love that draft. The ceiling, would you say, Kyle, a whiff higher with this 26th class from a superstar standpoint, or would you say it's even?
This one as opposed to last year?
Yeah.
I think this one's higher. But the cluster at the top is really good. Gosh, I wanted to say this because I know the three of us have this in common is from USA Basketball, this is one of the most incredible cluster of players coming into the system at the same time. Aj will have a choice, I think, for which he's been playing for Team USA. He played for... I forget. He played for... Anyway. And then Edgecom, obviously, is not in that group. But on that front, they're really good. Are we done with the basketball side of Darren? There were a couple of the things I wanted to add for you.
I just wanted to set the stage for everybody. We're talking about three guys that Peterson from an on paper standpoint is just the best guard prospect we've probably had this century since we're going back to like, Vince Carter. I just don't think we've had somebody who has tools him. From what we saw in the high school stuff, we haven't seen it in Kansas. De Bança is like, he just seems like he's 29 years old. Then Booser, any team that he goes to, he'll be able to figure it out and fit in and be good. You can't be like, Oh, if he goes there, that'll suck. He'll be fine. But Peterson, we just don't see guards like this that are this good and can just get to 25 points without breaking a sweat. What else has impressed you just with the positive stuff in Kansas?
I wanted to affirm what Tate was saying about him being... And I think that the Adidas thing has played into it where a lot of the guys are on the Nike circuit, and Darren was always to the side on the Adidas thing. He was never... He wasn't at the Hoops Summit, and they were all there. And it was like, Well, this isn't... Peterson's not here, so we're not getting a perfect read on this. But I've always gotten the impression, I think he's got even has a Michael Myers tattoo. So he thinks of himself as this stoic, quiet killer. That's how he sees himself, is absolutely married to working out. He sought out one of the best shooting player development workout guys when he was in high school. That's what he's about. It seems like this is probably really all deeply uncomfortable for him. Speaking of the high school part of it, you were talking about, everything that everybody I've talked to has affirmed that that's what he's about. The high school tape is very different because I wrote this down. Peterson, the flow of the way that people have thought about him was, he was a downhill, crazy athletic, explosive guard.
People were like, if he settles for threes, it's not a super win, but it's more of a win than him getting into the paint. In college, you've seen it, the clips really support it. He doesn't have the burst, he doesn't have the explosiveness. We saw little instances of it in the first half against B-Y-U, and he just was like, I'm going to dunk on the whole frigging team. And he did. But I wrote this down. His shot distribution, only 14 % of his shots right now are at the rim, and almost 41 % are above the break from three. So he's playing like a movement dribble shooter right now when that is not who he is. He's like a ball screen operator who can score at all three levels, and he's still crazy effective, efficient. It's just interfacing it with Kansas hasn't been perfectly seamless. And an interesting thing is, Kansas is still really good. So If that ever clicks into place, they're going to be good. So I just think it's been really bumpy, but he's still been a pretty remarkable shotmaker, one of the more talented shotmakers I've ever seen in college, to be honest with you.
That college profile you're mentioning, that ties into what we said before about the guy playing pickup and just going back and forth and taking shots and not really trying to not get hurt, basically. But that's what jumps out. If you go back and you watch his high school stuff, Tate, this guy's like a Rose Westbrook of going to the rim, getting into the paint, bouncing off people, combined with the shooting. The shooting, worst case scenario, this guy is going to be... He'll be the best fourth guy in a starting five of all. Just somebody that you can't leave him open. He'll be fine, and he can defend. But the ceiling of this is just so much higher. Is there another guard you can remember since you've been following college basketball that has more skills than him?
I was going to say Rose, to me, it's like, but Rose was so violent to the basket that it's just such a different... He was so demonstrative and sending the message. And so was John Wall, where they were just like, watch this. You know what I mean? You're never in Westbrook, too. It's like, well, here's what I do as a guard. I am going to be a different type of point guard than you've ever seen before. And Darren seems like there's the deep end of the pool, and he's in the shallow in, and he's just walking around. We're just like, Hey, are you going to dive in down there? We want you to dive in and see what you can do. And let's really get into this. And I do feel like this is the first time we've seen Bill Self push him. He had a three in that game, and Bill Self finally got on him to get back on defense. And Peterson looked at the bench like, Did he just say something to me? He almost gave him a little bit of a death there.
He went to go take me out, and then he was like, Oh, I can't say that right now.
To me, that will be the best thing to happen to Peterson, where it's like there's no tiptoeing around anymore. You're in the midst of this. You're already in the trouble waters. Let's go ahead and swim. There's time to do this and there's times not to do this. But I mean, Embiid had the same agent, and Embiid was trying to get talked out of playing in the NCAA tournament, right? So it's not like Bill Self hasn't dealt with this Adidas situation before. I think he does know how to handle it. Peterson, as far as the other guards that come to mind, he is unique and very special in his own way. But I do think that he has more of a gear to get to as far as getting to the rim and getting down. Yeah, those stats that Kyle was talking about, it's like, let's just go ahead and show that to everybody. Also, he's playing off guard right now. I think he can be a one at the next level. Council is the one for this team right now. So he's almost playing out of position, too, which is another encouraging sign, I guess, because you're like, Hey, we can use him in different ways.
Yeah, it's interesting when They'll get defensive rebounds. You would think he would always be the one they look for to get the ball, but this team's so loaded. A lot of the times, they get a rebound, and he just jogs up the court like he knows they don't need him. It's a really fun team to watch. In a weird way, when he's not on the court, it seems like that lineup is almost like, I don't want to say better, but it's just like they really let loose when he's out. Then when he's in there, they're constantly trying to shoehorn and to figure out what he is and what he's doing.
They're all looking at him out of the side of their eye like, Does Darren want the ball, this possession? They're like, Do we run our offense or do we give Darren the ball? It does feel like that.
Sometimes he'll just be like, I'm just going to hang out over here, guys.
You nailed it, though. I think what's interesting about this situation is that odd as it is, I think ideally they were going to build this around him, is that he's demonstrated something really interesting about his skillset, which is he can play as a movement shooter and be a dominant pick and roll guy, which is That is not common. You mentioned Russell Westbrook. If Russell Westbrook could shoot like Darren Peterson, he would have been a top 10 all-time player. I'm not even joking. Right now, he is 47% on catch-and-shoot threes, and he shot a decent amount of them. His mid range touch is crazy. I noted this because I'd watched a lot of clips of him in a row. His shots go through the middle of the basket. This guy has a beautiful arc on his shot. And he had a couple of plays against Steven DeBança, where he was just like, I'm going to make this crazy, crazy You get tested shot in your face. There's a little Anne Edwards in there. I mean, he's an interesting... He's explosive, like Tate was saying, but very, very skilled.
The stoic thing, we've seen stoic guys. It's fine. I'm not worried about that. The cramps part and trying to figure out what's real and not real. Would you have you been able to find out about that, Kyle? Anything interesting?
The term full body cramps was sent my way.
I asked around about that. What does that even mean? That's like what you get in Mexico when you get food poisoning.
I don't I got Montezuma.
Yeah, I have full body cramps. I'm pooping every hour.
I took that as, I don't know that that's a medical term as much as maybe there's been cramping in a couple of areas, and we round it up to that term because apparently, if it's actual full body cramps. That's a serious medical thing. I think it's probably there's been some cramps. I don't know if maybe you get into the weeds of indicting medical people on staff and things like that. And I'm not qualified to do that, obviously. But I think it's contributed to a lot of discomfort for him personally, too. So you just mix that up into a big stew. And Bill Self has had to masterfully prod this from a lot of different directions. And we've gone through the evolution of him being extremely defensive to coming at it and trying to motivate him in indirect ways, I think. It just strikes me like the missing variable is we've traced what it is. And I feel like there's some motivation. That's where I'm leaning at. And I I think that's why I thought it was interesting that you said that first Tate, because it's like, medically, can we figure out what's going on with him?
No. But we can't deduct what his motivation might be. I think that might be what it is. Yeah.
That's why I said on the podcast Sunday night, that's the thing that scares me is if it's some competitiveness question, that's when my red flags go up. If he's got hamstring cramps or they're trying... Maybe he's this generation's version of Kevin Johnson on the Phoenix Suns who just could never... He pulls hamstring every year. They could never it out. But if it's a competitiveness piece, I don't know. We're going to take a break and I want to go through some of the draughts where we've had the hardest trouble figuring out stuff. I think the history of the draft is instructive of that. Then we got to talk about AJ and Boozer a little more, too. The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by Fanduel. Fanduel is putting you in control right from tip off. Choose your reward. You can be bold, play it safe, take some chances, whatever you want to do, whatever your style You're in control. You can bet on the NBA draft right now. If you think De Bontza is going to be the number one pick, right now, he's a slight underdog. To be a number one pick, grab him.
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Learn more at autiusai. Com. I went through the last, basically everything in the 21st century, trying to figure out the toughest number one pick calls I'm not talking about the Risa Shay, Anthony Bennett. We don't know who the number one pick is. I'm talking about when there was ceiling and basement stuff and trying to navigate shit. The worst case scenario was pretty bad. The best case scenario of getting this guy is this, and we have to talk about this. I think Weisman, even though he didn't go first in 2020, was a good one for this, where we just had no... What did he play? Three college games. He was dominant the year before. There was no March Madness. They couldn't interview him, and it was COVID season. But there was a scenario where this guy was the next dominant center, at least maybe what Duren is for Detroit right now, a better version of that, a better passing version of Durin. It was like, Shit, I can't pass that up. Faults in 2017 was a good one because his team wasn't winning ever. We just penciled them into number one in December and that's where we all decided.
Then there was some Tatum buzz building and some Lanzo buzz building, and Fultz's team never won.
That's two. Wasn't there intel about Fultz that was similar? Keeps to himself, he's a little uncomfortable. Just bringing that out. Yeah.
There was one team that he interviewed with where he asked about if they had Chick-fil A in the city, and they said that we don't have Chick-fil A, and he was visibly bummed out. They were like, That's a That's a true story. Ben Simmons, 2016. Now, he played 33 games for OSU that year, but punted.
Just hated his life the entire time. Seemed miserable. He did a documentary about it.
Yeah, the team wasn't good. He was doing that documentary, and there were red flags, as good of an athlete as he was, there was some stuff that was like, What's going on with this guy? Embiid in 2015, this was all health-related because he would have been the number pick that year. He gets hurt. Then it becomes a question of, well, can we still take him first when he has this foot injury? And he goes third. Kyrie is my biggest miss of the 21st century with the draft, 2010. Played 10 games for Duke. I think I thought maybe it was Derek Williams. I forget who I had. I was like, he can't take Kyrie. We don't even know what he is. This is where I think is the most instructive for Peterson. I want to circle back on that. Oden in 2007 were a franchise center but kept getting hurt, had some knee stuff already. Then '04 with Dwight Howard versus Okafor, where one guy in college winning the title. The other guy is just playing in high school in the south. How do we even know? The Kyrie thing is the interesting one because the Kyrie people were adamant this guy was the best guy in the draft.
Throw away the Duke season, whatever. The high school tapes went out and Kyrie was as good as advertised. I wonder, Tate, does that just with Peterson here? Where we've had these college years that have thrown us off the scent with guys. Rondo is probably the most famous one, where Rondo, where he was versus where he landed outside the lottery and then became. But there's been guys that have just done damage to themselves in one college year. Is that what's happening here?
I do feel like Kyrie is a good one because Kyrie had this unique elite skill, which was finishing around the rim. I think everybody was so confused and confounded by the fact that he was able to finish at such a high level with both hands at the size that he was at. So everyone's like, there's no way this translates. And then you start digging deeper and you're like, well, Rod Strickland is his godfather. He's got all this basketball acumen behind him. And then everyone talks themselves into it. And you got all these different basketball people that are like, it's a different guy, different story. And that's what Peterson has behind him. It's like every time you want to poke a little bit of a hole in it, there's people that come to his bat quickly to be like, no, this is a different type of talent that we have here. I think Wiggins was a little bit weird, too. There was a lot of stuff with Wiggins where it was just like, are we sure this guy can be a franchise guy? He's a little bit off. I'm not really sure what we do with him.
So maybe that could be another example where he's just a supreme talent, but not quite the face of the franchise, Mr. Personality, that you would suspect. Aj is that guy. And that's why if you're doing the sales pitch, AJ is going to do a lot better pitching himself as, I'll be the spokesman. I'll do this, I'll do that. Darren doesn't have that mentality. But as far as natural neck and natural ability, I feel like Kyrie, John Wall, that era of guards from 2008 to 2011, Darren Peterson is of that ilk of guys, and he's very special in that sense.
Yeah, Kyle, it feels like Peterson, when you read about the old draughts, and it's like, wow, all those teams passed on Kobe. Then as the years passed, people were like, I wanted to take him, and Calipari talked us out of it. Team by team, everybody, there's half the people now are like, No, I wanted to take him. The reality is he fell to 13, and now it seems crazy. We've had this a bunch of times with guys where guys It falls out of the top 5 into the top 10, 13 range. Donovan Mitchell was a really good one. I was like, Why? He's really not going to go in the top 10? This guy's clearly good. What's happening here? And then everybody feels stupid. I think the problem with the Peterson thing is this has a chance to make people feel all time stupid. If you get thrown off the scent by this weird college season he's having, but this guy basically becomes Kobe crossed with Derrick Rose as a pro, and you're like, Yeah, I didn't take him. And then it's like, Guess where are you going to end up? On NBA TV or doing the podcast with us.
And that's the issue, right?
I could say something blasomest probably here. I think he's a more talented shooter than Kobe was at the same age.
I don't really- I think that's probably true.
Yeah. I think that's what makes it interesting. I don't doubt his skill level at all in the same way. The thing that maybe potentially that we could look down the road is maybe this is a sign of complications with him in terms of how he interacts with teams or contract type things or destinations. He's trying to move on from the XYZ destination quickly. I We could see us wringing our hands about those types of things at the deadline. It's like, oh, he's annoyed again. Maybe this is a sign of those types of things. You mentioned over the years, it's like there's a lot of different categories for those. I don't know that they all fit in one box. It's like there's structural things that we didn't see. There's the micro fracture thing that just a lot of guys fell prey to. Oden was one. I think Oden, I've said this over and over again, would have been good. I don't think he was a boss. I just think his body just couldn't do it. He was in that Sam Bowie category. And then there's the trends in the early 2000s with the Dirk thing where people were chasing that and overlooking obvious talent, like Paul peers and things like that.
And then there was just the fog of lack of information. A Kobe Bryant would not happen today because we have access to all the high school footage. There's no VHSs, there's no I have them, you don't. Everybody has access to all the information. So this one just feels a little bit more of a... It's hazy in the sense of we're just trying to look into the will hunting, like no one can know the depths of Darren Peterson. It How can we know? There's a lot of things that I think teams are going to be interviewing and trying to find out about him personally and making a call on that are hard for us to speculate about.
I think Edwards was a good example of learning from history where it's like, You know what? This guy's really good. Let's just take him. He's got the competitiveness. He's got the athleticism.
His teammates also loved him. I was at the Maui Invitational, and Georgia was terrible, but his teammates were like, We love Anne.
Anne's Everybody loves Anne. I talked to, like I said, I told Tate this, I think. I talked to Tom Crean, his college coach, last spring, and I was like, What was the story with that? What was it with Anne? He was like, Anne had never watched basketball. He said he liked football because he had just watched football more. He's like, He literally just had never watched film, and we would talk about it. And eventually, you can see it clear as day, the NBA. He started watching the NBA, and he's so phenomenally talented that he figured it out because that was a weird one to figure it out because he was just like, What's going on with this dude? Does he care?
Yeah, and plus, they weren't able to work out people in person. In the '80s or '90s, Weisman goes before Edwards. They just screw that up. I promise you. Whatever draft it was, they would have screwed it up. Well, I promise you a hot take. I think AJ has to be the first pick. That's where I've landed. I wasn't there in November, December, and I wasn't even totally there in January. I think it would be insane not to take them first. This is a sure thing. The This upside that you could potentially have with Peterson, this chance that you basically might be this best guard of the last 20 years type of potential versus what we know we're going to get with AJ, I can't believe some of the stuff he's doing. Some of the offensive stuff he's doing is high-level stuff Jason Tatum couldn't do until year five. One of the things I like that he does, he does that. They'll space out for him, which they don't really do in college, where he's basically doing a foul line post-up on somebody, he'll back somebody down. The cool thing is he doesn't just have one move off this post-up.
He can do the turnaround to the left. He can do a turnaround, follow it to the other side, or he can do a spin, go to the basket, and he can spin in the basket on the other side. So he basically has four options from this one spot on the court. He's 19 years old. Nobody should be able to do this. Not to mention he's the best Every athlete in every game he's in, he rebounds, he plays defense, he wants to be out there competing. I sound like I'm getting paid off by the by the B-Y-U, you talk through. I'm not. I just think like, I don't know how you pass on him. I can't believe he's an underdog to go number one. I think this is crazy. He has to be the number one pick. That's my take. Tate, your thoughts?
I think if Brad Stevens had the number one pick, he would take AJ. I observed that at the McDonald's game and how much he was watching AJ intently, not just on the basketball court, but how he was maneuvering around the room, how he was talking to people. Obviously, he's a Brockton, Massachusetts kid, so there's a little bit of a connective tissue there to the Boston Celtics. But even then, I think the Celtics were like, Hey, if we end up in this lottery situation, what is AJ? Does he fit in our world? It just felt strange to me. I was observing Brad in that room and how he was watching AJ, and that stood out to me. Obviously, like you said, Utah is in the bag for this kid. They want him desperately. If they the number one pick, there's no doubt in my mind that they would take AJ number one. I don't think that Peterson would be upset if that were to happen. If it was a Utah situation, he'd just be like, Okay, that's their guy. I go where I go. I'm okay with that. But when you watch AJ leads college basketball and scoring, I feel like he's not talked about enough.
Richie Saunders goes down with a torn ACL. He's going to get even more of a shot diet. He's going to get even more usage, so he's going to take it up even more to a different level. It's like, if you haven't watched, go check him now. Honestly, one of my favorite matchups this season, outside of the Peterson matchup, was when they had an exhibition game. It was BIO North Carolina, Caleb Wilson versus Ajay DeVanza. These are two guys that are very competitive, that took it very personally. Internally, and they went at each other pretty hard for an exhibition game, and that fired me up. You know what I mean? This game doesn't really matter, but they played that like a tournament game. So as far as the makeup, you need someone that wants to be the number one pick. That was the whole thing with Palo, right? You meet Chet, you meet Jabbari, you meet Palo. There's one guy in that group that believes internally he should be the number one pick. That was Palo. Chet might say it, but I don't think he believed it. And Jibari definitely didn't want a piece of it, right?
So take the guy that wants to be number one. Aj wants to be number one. That's a part of his whole makeup and the way he's pitched himself to everybody. So I think that plays a big role, too. And you want an elite wing. He's an elite wing. He's right there in front of us.
And he's a three, four. I think he gives you all this flexibility. I like I think that he can actually run offense already. We'll see if he can do that on the NBA level. But I think even since I saw him beginning in the season versus now, I see a difference already. And that's even what happened with Cooper Flag on Dallas this year, where if you watched him in the first week of the season versus now, he's a completely different guy. And then if you look at the tank of Palooza teams, where you have the Kings, Indianapolis, the Nets, Washington, Utah, the Hawks, Dallas, Memphis. He fits in with all the teams and is like a truly terrifying Indiana Pacer.
Oh, man. They all want to go to the Pacers.
That's the nightmare scenario for the East is AJ goes to the Indiana Pacers and you just put him with Halliburton and Siakam and all those dudes. Kyle, have you noticed, especially the last, I don't know, two, two and a half weeks, AJ just going up a level? Because it seems like now, he's playing tonight, unfortunately, but as we're taping this for the game, he just seems like he's a 30 and eight now every game. That's where we're heading.
I mean, yeah, huge usage. I mean, I think he's pushing 33% usage. That number might even be higher since Richie went out. Richie might need to be a player, too.
I thought it was 37 when I just looked. Yeah, it's insane.
37. But I mean, the questions that I've had about him are, he's obviously a really talented isolation score. You mentioned him. You could make a highlight reel that's five minutes long of him just dribbling with his left hand to 14 feet, hitting the guy and just shooting that little shot. I wanted to see him over the course of the season as teams load on him doing that, for him to make those little passes to Kaba Kata, who's their big guy, who's really athletic. Just those are the areas where he can expand. But I think the arc of this has been interesting for me is when I initially watched him, I was like, oh, this guy's an incendiary athlete. I don't know that that is the intrinsic thing that's interesting about him as an athlete. I think his balance and he has really interesting herky-jerky pace in the paint that at times will rouse thoughts of like, there's a little bit of Shay in there. He's got some weird odd footwork when he gets around the basket. I personally think that that is the thing that he's going to be able to lean into and make himself a maddeningly tough to deal with scorer.
He wants to dunk on everybody. I love that at all times. You mentioned the teams. I think this is the most interesting thing. So let's say the Hawks end up with that pick AJ is on the board. If they still... Not that you make any decision based on like Kuminga, but they're going to have such an interesting cluster. Cluster of 6, 8, 6, 9 guys. This is ball boy. I've gotten the impression that from talking to people close to Darren, that Darren is more likely to say, I'm interested in being the full on brain of this team. I don't really want to play with another superstar. I want to be the center of the universe. Whereas AJ, people that know them both, have told me that But A. J. Is probably more likely to fit in with an Indiana, which is interesting because A. J. He likes to have the ball. And is he willing to be quick off of the ball to play with a Hallibur?
And I just think that's an interesting wrinkle in this. One of the ironies here is if he goes to Utah and he's with marketing and triple J next year. That's the perfect front line. I love that fit for him. I like the fit for him anywhere. Tate, he can face up and go to the basket left or right. I'm amazed that he can go left as easy as he does already. He's got a floater already. I mentioned the post-up stuff where he can swing either way in the turnaround or go to the basket. I don't mind his three-pointer either. I think we'll see when you move it back to two and a half feet if it's the same, but he seems pretty comfortable doing it. He's competitive as hell. The defense is there. He rebounds in traffic. I don't know what he's missing. I don't I don't really understand how this is a debate when you have the other guy that we don't even know what's going on with him. I get it, you could get seduced by the high school things. But if my job's on the line, I'm not risking it when this guy's a sure thing, and I think he's a sure thing.
Yeah, the only two knocks that I would have on AJ are very fixable at the next level, which is his handle, which can be a little loose at times, but we're also not asking him to specifically initiate offense all the time. He can rip and run.
He's 6'10 also. You got to be fair. Yeah, true.
Comparing him to other 16 guys, he's got an elite handle. But again, for what he's trying to do with his shot creation, that's one knock. Then help side defense, which I just feel like is a team issue that team defense is going to solve that at the next level where it's like, Hey, you can't be this lapsed on certain possessions in certain moments. And he does have a little bit of that. But again, he's 19 years old. You can write both of those off. I feel like the only two knocks are two things that are going to be fixed at the next level and adjusted at the next level. And as far as someone who really wants to be better and be in the conversation and be a part of a bigger growth potential, I just feel like he is that guy. He's going to be in the dunk contest. You know what I mean? You're just an MBA and you're a business. This is a guy that's going to sign up and agree to do all this stuff and want to be a part of the show. And this is show business at some level.
The business is good, the show is good. And like you said, that's why it's a shirt thing.
Well, that's the funny thing is the way it was setting for him, even when he went to Utah to play basketball in high school and it just seemed like he was making decisions for money only. The way it's played out with Peterson this year is what I thought was going to happen with AJ, where it was like, Oh, we knew all these red flags. It's almost like they switched bodies. I just think, listen, Peterson can flip this, but right now on February 24th, I just think it's insane that AJ wouldn't be the hands-down number one pick with what we've seen, and especially that he's getting Booser.
We didn't even mention Booser. Booser 3.
I was testing. I really like Caleb Wilson. I'm not just sucking up to Tate. I know he's going to be a good NBA player. He can't really shoot, but he does so many other good things. We know he's going to go in the pros.
It's going to translate.
It's so good around the basket. Then if he adds a shot and he adds a little 15 footer, it's a bonus. But the competitiveness is there. I just really like him. Booser, though, I don't know how he falls lower than third because it's like, oh, which guy could fall out of the top three? I think this will be the one, two, three in some order. The Boozer piece, it's been funny now. Are people just dinging him, Kyle, because it's a Duke thing in this is what we do with Duke guys, where it's like there's a lot of yeah buts with Cam Booser, and I don't really understand it because from what I see, the dude, every game gets his stats. He's always around the rim. He hustles. He He really gives a shit. He's a good passer. I wish he was two inches taller. He's not. Maybe there's an athleticism piece that's 90% there, not 100, but just there's no way he's not going to be a good pro.
I think people are misidentifying his player type in a way. When they see him, they're like, okay, bully College 4 or 5. They're like, he's Jared Salinger, Tyler- Hansborough is a good one.
Yeah, he gets the Hansborough tag.
But it's the case with him. He's extremely multifaceted. I mean, his shot has really, really improved. I mean, he's not going to be making movement threes, but his set three is really good. I thought that Michigan game, Tate, I'm sure you watched that one, was a really interesting game of him going up against an NBA-sized frontcourt, and he just big boyed him, and he also was playing out in front. He, to me, maybe doesn't have the wow factor of the... It's a little bit of a quieter, winning production, multifacetedness, a thing that he has going on, where I personally think, and I've said this from the beginning when I was really trying to think of a comp for him, I think that he's a cross between a Kevin Love type and an Al Horford, whereas he may not hit the highest highs of the shot making brilliance in the things like AJ and Darren might. But I think he's a guy that's going to win and just win for over a decade. And I think if you look at the types of teams that are in the lottery, you plug him into Washington. Washington is instantly going to become a play-in level team, maybe, or more.
I think Charlotte was my dream for him, but that's not going to happen. They're too good. New Orleans, Brooklyn. Indiana is the one. You put him next to Zubox next year. He's going to be... He will be ready to roll next year. I've been telling my Pacer fan friends this. He's going to be ready to roll immediately. So he could help every team.
Yeah, I think he's an instant 16 and 8 guy in the pros. And a lot of it will depend on who's the five that he's playing. Washington's really fun because he'd get to play with Sarr, and there's a little inside outside action with them with Saar as the three-point shooter, but rim protector, and then Boos are doing all the other stuff. Tate, I know this is just killing you that we're talking about a Duke guy for this long, but can you make the glass half empty case for him or no?
Look, it would be the safe, not sexy pick, but at the same time, I got to interact with Kim, and I just came away thoroughly impressed. I mean, he and Caleb did their interview together with me. These are two guys that played on the EYBL circuit together. He was always the one. Caleb was always the two. They were ribbing each other, talking about Duke, North Carolina. Caleb was like, I can't wait to get at you next year. Kam's just sitting there like, Yeah, sure. I'm looking forward to it. Just a very chill kid. I'm like, What do you like to do in your free time? He's like, I like to hang out with my girlfriend and play golf. I'm like, oh, you're speaking my language, man. I like you. And as far as the fundamentals of what he does, plays off two feet. You mentioned Canipel earlier. Look how Con Canipel has been able to impact impact the team, impact winning, and be so fundamentally sound that he's able to make an impact on a team. I think Cam has a little bit of that. I like the Kevin Love reference. I was saying a Paul Milsap, maybe.
And again, these are just like, they're not exact.
Don't insult him with that. Come on, faith.
Yeah, he rebounds better. Yeah. But I see what you're saying.
Rebounds better. Yeah. I mean, just like it has some of that touch shooting the basketball. He's obviously a modern level big because he's able to stretch out to the three-point line, which is nice. And as far as winning, the guys wanted every single level. So that's why it's a sure thing to me. And I'm even at the point, Bill, I'm not even a hater on the kid. I'm like, when you have the volatility of a Peterson and you have the AJ, does he fit with my team situation? If a team like the Spurs or some good team gets thrown up into the front that already has a franchise guy in their opinion, why not take a Kamboozer who's only going to be additive and can also still get to a higher ceiling? I feel like there's going to be a situation where maybe teams are going to say, why not Kamboozer? And he might even bump up a little bit higher than we suspect. So that's where I am with him because when you watch him, he just dominates. And the Michigan game broke it for me to see him do that against Mara and Moraes Johnson.
Two, one athletic guy, one supersize giant, and he was able to still handle and manage and get his numbers. So great passer as well. We haven't talked about it.
Really good passer. I wonder if Canipel is going to open up this wave of where teams just start to value more. Like, That guy's really smart and knows exactly where to go and where to be and what to do on every play, even if he's not involved. Because that was what we liked about, and we really like Canipel going into that draft last year. I love Canipel.
I got a Canipel jersey. I'm all messed up. This is news to me.
For what school?
Oh, my God. I try to forget the deflated dupe. That's what I'm trying to do.
Do you remember Luther Luther?
I started texting Kyle about in January, February, during that Duke season. What's going on with this guy? Who is this? And he seemed like it was a little Westbrook-ish where he was always in the 8 to 16 range in the draft. And then all of a sudden, by the time we got to the draft, everybody agreed like, Oh, yeah, that guy's going to be really good. And then he ends up going forth. I think the same thing with Booser. The more you watch him, he just knows where to go and what to do. The guy I was thinking about was David West for him, earlier David West. It's not Warriors David West.
Young David West.
New Orleans, David West. But a little bigger. But he's one of those guys that there's a fast break and the guy misses the layup. It's like, Oh, he missed it. And then Boos is just laying it in. He's always in the right spot, which I think when you think about the smarter teams that are going to be in this draft, like Indiana, that's the guy. We keep mentioning Indiana, but it's important because that team made the finals last year. They added Zubats. They're going to get Halliburton back, and they might get a guy who is just immediately a transformative starter. I was thinking about even watching Tatum and Brown, the first two years, the first year they were on the Celtics, the rookie years. In Jalen's rookie year, it was like, Yeah, there's something there. He's a good athlete. I could see it. It wasn't really until year two that he even really started to look like Jalen Brown. In Tateum, the first year where you could tell he was good. We basically had him in the corner like he was Sam Hauzer. They didn't run plays for him. He didn't really know how to initiate offense.
He was a good defender, rebounder. These three guys are so far ahead of where we were. Kyle, why is that? Why are the guys... Why do they seem further ahead? Did we improve AAU or what's going on? Because this was last year with Cooper, too. Cooper comes into the league and he's running an offense at age 18. I don't really fully understand this.
I have some broader theories as to why that is. I think my biggest theory is just that I think... Picking the direction I want to go with this. I think I've said this on this show before. I think basketball video, like access to it, I alluded to it before with the high school thing. I just think kids have access to quality information earlier and earlier. And I think that they are learning... I think that they're learning skills that guys had to source in different ways. You either had the benefit of knowing someone or having a good coach or just... Those things have become more available to everyone. And I think that we're just seeing talent double. We're seeing talent in the league.
So it's like a preparation thing? Yeah, I think so. Like advanced metrics across the video and studying what your weaknesses are and just getting better immediately?
Information about what's a good shot, information about moves. I think guys emulate efficiently. I just think those things are cleaned up. I don't know if Tate has an opinion on this. This is one of my big theories about basketball in general, is that I think that's why kids are better younger, is that they can study I did study great examples earlier. Overall, I think it's just brought the intelligence of the sport up, in my opinion.
It's like when I had Khan on before I gave him a ride back to this hotel, we did the pod.
That was great.
I wanted to bring that up, but I didn't feel like I was in on the bit.
I love to hear that.
But Khan was saying how he loves the advanced metric stuff, and he was like, I was looking and I realized I suck from one of the corners. I was like, I do? Then he basically like, All right, I got to work on that corner. Were I think 25 years ago, Michael Olo Candy wasn't like, Oh, maybe I shouldn't shoot that lefty jump hook. What are your theories on this, Tate?
I'm with Kyle. I think they do get the information right. We have the Kim Palm, the Torvick. Everybody's going and watching their own tape and have people helping them break it down at this point. But I do think this crop of, especially US players, have all been around each other in the USA basketball system. It's like skateboarding early on. You started seeing guys do and you're like, I'm going to try that. You know what I mean? Or I'm picking up a little bit of that. I do feel like that's what's happened with this group where De Bantz is seeing something that Flag is doing to get to his spots. Then he's initiating it and putting it in his game. They've all made each other better, and That's when I was at the McDonald's game seeing all them. It was funny to see Braden Burries, who's in Arizona, who's great. He was watching Darren Peterson do his individual workout. They're all in the same crop with each other. And not that that's anything different, but But I just think in general, there's a lot of talent in this two, three-year window, and they've all made each other better, and they all are very competitive against each other.
So I think Kyle is right as far as being smarter about it. But I also think as one person does something, like what Cooper has been able to do, they all are trying to climb that same mountain. And I think that's really... It's great for USA basketball. We need a new group to come in and be great. And I do think that we have that right now.
Well, that leads me to the second take I was going to unleash you guys. This is a test driver. Think about this the next time we could talk about I've talked about age limits for Team USA for the Hoops. 26 and under. That's just our team in 28. Can't be 27 or over. We just built it around Ant and Flag and basically these draft classes. We just have this young fighting machine of dudes that just, let's go, let's roll. I'm glad Kevin Durant wants to play for Team USA for the fifth time, but let's move on. Let's get some of the younger guys Let's get some young blood in. I think the experience is so great for them. I would love to see a team built around all the guys that we've had, basically in the 2020 drafts. Just, let's do it.
Kate Cunningham, Anthony Edwards, Backcourt. That's a team that I want to see.
Flag, Chet. The top three from this draft. Let's bring Caleb Wilson off the bench as a 12th man. I just think that would work. Hey, before we move on from this draft, there's a bunch of really fun guys from 5 to 10, and I have a favorite, which is the third thing I haven't told you guys, but who's your favorite in that 5 to 10 range, Kyle? Is it still the Louisville kid? Because I know you love the Louisville kid.
I like him. I have some just like novel favorites that I argue for a lot. I mean, Kingston Fleming deserves a mention from Houston. We have an interesting case in this class where we had a couple of guys who were off the main circuits and were playing on those extra circuits who weren't as visible, and they got undervalued, and they just shot up the board. Kingston Fleming is one of those. Keaton Waggler, Waggler at Illinois, is another one. There's a sneaky one for Kentucky. We could start with Michael Brown. I think it's pretty likely. Tate, I don't know how you feel about him, but movement shooter. He's a little skinny, but he could really pass the ball. He strikes me as somebody that he would fit really well alongside another star. He's got interesting size, about 6'3, 6'4. But yeah, those are guys in the projected in the top 10 that I think are interesting Interesting.
Tate, who's your favorite?
I saw Wagler in person on a Saturday. I went to that Illinois-Uclaa game. And Wagler is one of those guys where he does take some head scratching shots at times where you're just like, I'm a little worried that he can't get a better look than that. But a lot of times he makes those step back through. So you're like, I'm intrigued. He's got great passing, vision. And that's why Brad Underwood, who had never seen him play in person, gave him the offer. I've seen him drum up boards right now. There's another guy that I think you'd really like, Bill, and he's not in the 5 to 10, but he's probably in the late lottery. Breyland Mullins at Yukon. If you're just one of those teams like a Magic, that just wants a shooter, a specialist type. But I do feel like Breyland has more to his game than he's really shown. At this point, he's Getting better and better, getting more usage from Dan Hurley, getting more trust from Coach Hurley. Got to meet his family, was a big fan of them, and they're just like an Indiana. You're talking about Knippel a little bit.
I feel like a Mullins could be one of those guys where it's like, We just got a smart, really good sound basketball player that can make a lot of shots for us. So he's another one I would throw into that group that I really like, Late Lauttery.
I'm still working on this. I've only concentrated on the top four. But now that football is gone, I can really start watching the college. There's one guy I really like, and I don't know if he's polarizing it. I know nothing about what the take is. He's in the top 10. I really like the Arkansas kid.
Oh, yeah.
A-cuff.
I think that kid's got something He's got FU mentality, that's for sure. There's something about him that I'm just... I'm in. I want to see him a couple more times, but he's a guy who could explode for 50 in any college game. He's a sequence guy where it's like He gets hot and you can feel it. I like that he's easy three-point shots, but he's also paint shots, but he can also get to the rim. He's listed at 6'3. He seems like maybe an inch taller than Kyrie. But I think March Madness is going to be fascinating this year. We have so much talent in the March Madness this year. But he's the one that I could see just bumping off. It's like the one-eight matchup, and he just single-handedly takes down somebody. I'm I'm watching him. I think he's been my favorite in the top 10 outside of the top four.
Yeah, he's more the steadiness thing that we were talking about before with Booser, where it maybe isn't as... It's not as flashy at times, but he's absolutely... I think he's one of the smartest guards that Cal has ever coached. I think he's right there. Tyler Ulyss is another one who just had the disadvantage of being really small, but he's really, really sharp. He's an orchestrator. You mentioned sequences, and I think that's really something that he's great at. He sees things ahead of time. When teams switch coverages, I've seen him do this multiple times. He's like, he'll look at the floor and be like, it's not that there's a guy open immediately, but A-Cuff is really good at seeing the board and being like, okay, I know if there's a screen here, you space here, we're going to get a after this move. He thinks a couple of moves ahead. He's really savvy, man. I could see him being... As people reach for the flashy, shiny objects, 10 years from now, we're like, damn, Darius Aacuff is just maybe not an all-star, but he was a winning player for a decade.
Great name, too. You could hear either Iron Eagle or his son be like, Aycuff for three. I haven't done nearly enough work yet, but as I told you guys before the pot, I like the I don't care that he's undersized. Flory Bedunga. That guy's going to be an NBA player in a rotation.
From Cocomo, Indiana.
I don't know if it's the older I get or whatever, but you could just clearly see who the NBA players are. Sometimes it's like, That guy will be in a rotation. I don't care that he's two inches too short. He'll be like, Oh, shit. O KC took him at 38. Should I be shocked? Before we go, San Antonio, Detroit was last night. Did you see it, Tate?
Yeah, I'm locked in.
You saw it, too, Kyle.
Man, oh, boy.
We're inching closer and closer to the... Holy fucking shit. San Antonio could actually win the title.
It makes no sense. It's 2012, OKC territory. We're like, this is for real. We got to take it seriously.
Yeah, and it's probably even like 2011, OKC, where that was the year before the year. Wemby wasn't even good and got the shit kicked out of him and must have fallen 20 times and didn't have good stats. And yet I thought he completely dominated the game. It was crazy. That was the worst game I've seen Kade play since they were having the losing streaks. And what he is able to do to these guards over and over, he did it to SGA, he did it to Kade. These guys that are used to just, I'll either shoot three or I'll go to the basket, I'll get my little 12-foot floater or whatever. And when he just removes that and you can watch their brains break in real-time, where they're like, Fuck, I don't have that shot anymore.
They didn't think it was possible to climb up.
I thought that was possible, but it's not. So I don't know anything anymore.
And then they have to move back three feet and it screws up the whole offense. And then, Castle going forth is one of the draft tragedies of the last 20 years. We were talking about it during the drafts. We all were like, This is stupid. These teams are going to regret this. But the stuff that he's in these big games where he's really brings attitude. I just think he's a way better offensive player than I think anybody could have guessed this early, combined with their bench.
He out Detroited Detroit last night. He totally did. Holland and Asar and Kaden, those guys who puff their chest out and hit you first and things like that. You could tell he took that game personally. I'm reading into it a little bit, but going at Cade on offense, he was a dog last night.
I don't overreact to it because they don't have Stuart. So that wasn't like, if that was a finals preview, then you can't because Stuart is so important to Detroit, and he's another tough guy. And he would have even helped their game plan even more instead of, let's just beat the living shit out of Wemby for two hours, which I still don't think San Antonio is going to win the title, which isn't a hot take because they're like 10 to one to win the title. So it's not like I'm going out on a limb. But I do think the physicality of the play-ups is going to be my question with Wemby because you can see the strategy now. It's even in off-ball stuff. There was that one play, it was in the first half when they were waiting to throw the ball and Duren's just hitting Wemby and they're fighting for this one piece of turf. Duren's just leaning on him and elbowing him and pushing him. That's just what teams are going to do. I don't know if he's going to hold up this year. He might be two years away from that. What do you think?
I don't know if the Sinners all have a group or they all have a conversation together, but I do feel all the fives in the NBA. A text, right? Yeah, a text.
A Sinners group text is great.
I How many should do that? They're all trying to convince Wemby not to play the five. If you watch any of these games, anytime that he's at the five and he's matched up against another five, they're just trying to wreck him as much as they can to be like, You really want to play the four. You don't want to play the five with us. You're not strong enough to play with us.
You don't want to be down here.
He's trying to AD him.
They're trying to AD him, exactly. They're trying to get him out of the pain and be like, You don't want any part of this. I do feel like Wimby has been... He's been taking a beating, but he does bounce right back up, which I think is the really encouraging sign, and he It seems like he's okay with dealing with it. I got in trouble because when the Hornets fight happened, I said Detroit reminded me of some fake tough guys.
Oh, boy..
Hey, man. I like Diabate. Diabate got roughed up by Duren, and he met him with the same amount of fire. Then obviously, like you said, the enforcer beef stew came off the bench and made sure to send his own message. But without beef stew there, it did feel like a little bit of that, a tinge of that. I really Detroit team. I would say they're probably my favorite team right now in the NBA. I enjoy watching them play. Kade is one of my favorite players. Just watching him when he was younger to see what he's turned into. But that was the first time I saw Kade, like you said, Bill, get really shook by the space he was not able to dominate because of his size, and it was because of WMDBE. And I thought we were maybe overrating WMDBE a little bit just because everybody was like, I mean, is he going to be the youngest MVP ever? Is he going to win a finals in his first year? And that's a lot to put on someone, but he's there. There. He's absolutely there. I think at this point, we can accept that fact.
Yeah, it's why you can't totally... You do the MVP conversation and you just compared two guys' stats. There's other stuff that goes into it. This is what I was saying about Jalen Brown on Sunday. Jalen Brown is guarding the best guy on the other team a lot of the times this season. When he's wrecking offenses and big games, that has the biggest X factor of any MVP conversation.
He had a play last Last night, I sent this to Rob because we were both watching the second half. He didn't play great in the first half, but he definitely responded to that physicality in the second half. Him and Duren going at it was really interesting. But they were in this play that you see a lot of NBA teams run where Kade's at the top and he passes it to the left, and it's an empty side, basically, pick and roll. And Dennis Jenkins, who's been great, comes across it, and he's got Duren in the dunker spot, and the center is put in this position to play two people. Wimby literally just kept his hand next to Duren and was just like, This is not going to happen. You're not going to throw this lob. Did it all the way to the basket. And Dennis was like, All right, well, I guess I have this layup. And I looked at the time marker, and the second didn't change, just how quickly this happened. So Wimby is flat-footed. He rotates his body and blocks Dennis at the high point where no one ever blocks shots. And you see these guys repeatedly be like, That's a goal ten.
And you go back and watch it and be like, No, it wasn't. Miraculously, it wasn't. Wimby just... He can play. I was talking to somebody about this where Wimby's drop coverage soft show in ball screens is as effective as... He doesn't have to switch all the time. He can give guys a pad and give them this false illusion like you did with Kade of like, Oh, this is there. And then Kade sees it a couple of times. Usually, the pistons are the people making people think about things other than basketball. And the Spurs were just like... It was a really interesting title checkmark thing for them last night, I thought, where they were like, Yeah, we're tough and we're good on offense, and they have a lot of stuff.
Yeah, especially because they blew the lead. Detroit came Detroit took the lead. The crowd was incredible. I mean, the Detroit games are some of the best crowds we're getting in any sport. And San Antonio just figured it out. Plus, our guy, Harper, Kyle, I always get excited when he's a little bit involved. In some ways, I almost wish he was on a bad team just so he could be what's going on with Flag, where he just gets to test drive stuff all season and there are no stakes. But I think he's figured out how to fit in more and more as the years gone along. I'm fascinated by them. Wemby, three times a game just does something you just you forget that he can do. Like these alley-ups where he doesn't jump. I'm not used to them yet.
He caught one.
I I'm not used to the experience of that yet.
Yeah, he's just like, boom. It's like watching somebody on a Nerf hoop, and I can't get used to it. And then the way he's challenging shots in the paint, I'm just not used to it. So I can't imagine what it would be like to play him. I do think I said It's a Sunday that I just don't think Detroit as a four-round team makes sense to me with how much is on Cade. You saw it last night. He didn't have it. They figured him out. There was no second guy to help with the offense. They don't have that yet. Whereas all these other teams, they always have a plan B or a plan C on offense. I don't see the plan B with Detroit. It's really like Tobias Harris. I just don't think that's good enough for four rounds, but that's my Anyway, that was some game. We got an OKC Detroit this week, too, which I think is Wednesday night, but that'll be a good one as well. All right, guys.
We need SGA to come back so we can have a real MVP conversation. The '65 game thing is ridiculous. If it keeps us away from having a de facto default MVP, I'm not going to be happy, Bill. I just want to put that out there.
It's good for Wemby the longer he sits out. That's true. And Cade. Yeah, and Cade.
Detroit Spurs play again, March fifth. That's going to be a good one at San Antonio.
All right, fellows, I'm going to have you on again in a couple of weeks, and we can do a little update. We'll see what happens with our guy, Peterson. But comment, can you hear me on the Ringer NBA show? Tate Frazier, not only on Ringer gambling show as we head toward March Madness, Tuesdays and Thursdays. But the hit show of 2025, Ringer tailgate. Oh, yeah. One of the most important video podcasts ever created. Unleashed Joel Anderson on the planet as the comedy Comedy figure of his times. But you're keeping that going all the way through the draft, right?
And once a week, sometimes I send them the rundown and they have a... Joel has a different plan for what we're going to talk about. So it's a beautiful thing. We never know what's going to come up. Joe has so many stories. And Van is living his best life. So it's a lot of fun with those two guys.
Well, we're going to take a break, come back with somebody else who's on that show. The Duke, Billy Gill is next. So thanks, guys. Good to see you. And now it's time for today's With The Assist segment presented by State Farm. In basketball, you can have the best player in the league. It doesn't mean he's going to win the title. He can't do it alone. He's going to have to lean on teammates, coaches, even fans to push them to be better. And we've seen some pretty iconic assists over the years. In the second half of the 2010s, you had Steph and Clay. You had KD joining the Warriors at some point. Denver, they win the title. It wasn't just Joket. Jamal Murray was huge that year, too. Okay, see, last year, SGA, then J-Dub steps in every once in a while. You need some help. You might even see with San Antonio this year, with Wemby, but also Steph Castle. Like basketball, life is easier with great assist. State Farm is here to dish one your way. They're not just an insurance company. They're a teammate who's on your bench ready to listen, assist, and help you get the right coverage when it matters most.
State Farm, with the assist, coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability and eligibility vary by state. All right. The Duke is in the house. Billy Gill. You can see him on the Ringer NFL show. You can see him on Ringer tailgate with Tate, who is just on, and he loves baseball. I am going to start doing a little more on baseball in this podcast. It's slowly come back. Hopefully, we're not going to have a debilitating three or labor strike later this decade. For now, we have baseball. And I gave you an assignment. What theme did we officially decide on? Where did you land?
I was going to say it was a very loose assignment. It was like, let's come with a list of five things, maybe seven, maybe eight, maybe nine, maybe things about spring training. So with that direction, I tried to piece all of that together and see what I could come up with. So what I did was I went over what happened last season, and then what I did was I think I created maybe a cheat sheet of eight or nine things that I feel like if you know headed into spring training, you can be caught up with what's going on in the world of baseball right now. Or you could fake it just enough to your friends. Well, they think like, Oh, this person is really paying attention.
So conversation starter/I'm fooling people at cocktail parties, including the one guy here who really follows baseball. And I'm going to prove I can hang with them even though I only have these nine things.
Yeah, you just need a couple of nuggets, I feel like, that you throw in there. And we could do maybe a thing per team or whatever that you have. You just throw that out there. So what I did was, I don't know if you still do this, Bill. So I like the actual magazines, the books, the research. So I went a little bit crazy. When I got the Lindy Sports Base Book.
Oh, look at that. Yeah.
I went through. I took some notes. I went through all 30 teams. If you want, we can just pick some teams at random. If you don't like any of the topics, 178 pages of team previews we went through.
You're talking to a guy who still buys the USA Today Sports Weekly during spring training to follow the fantasy baseball. Yeah.
They still make it. I love that. Do you baseball forecaster it at any point? No.
Do I need to?
I mean, it's very in the weeds on advanced metrics. Base Forecaster is more so for fantasy, but the thing with fantasy is it's all speculative, right? You're just guessing. So you can spend all these hours. This poor Ron Chandler writes this book every single year. I think this is the 26th, 20th, whatever edition it is. And he's been doing this forever. And someone gets hurt, and none of that matters. So he goes around, he talks to all these people. None of it really makes a ton of difference. But I'm on a revenge tour this year, Bill, in my fantasy league, because Because I think this is the 20th or 21st season of our fantasy league. And I started out strong. I won two out of the first three championships, and I haven't won anything since. And yeah, we're getting to the point where I think that I can do it. My wife doesn't believe in me. She's asked me to quit. She successfully got me to quit the COVID year because she told me... Yeah, COVID year, I took off, which was a big mistake because she said, you're going to give them a buy-in, you're going to lose, you're going to get upset, you're going to be mad at your cousin.
My cousin is the Commissioner, but he's a bit of a scoundrel, and he changes the league rules every year. There's a bunch of lawyers in the league, so they'll send out their own new league rules, but it's all in legalese, and it's 40 pages long. And it's like, I get the gist of it. I'll figure it out. Every year there's new rules. Every year there's cheating of some kind. I'm the only person in the history of the league who has had trades vetoed. It's happened to me on two separate occasions. And are they spiteful moves that I'm making? Yes. But do they fall within the spirit of other moves? Absolutely. Because my thinking is in fantasy, if you're going to do something outrageous, where you make a trade where it's clearly very one-sided, why not just go big? So I would make trades or attempt to make trades where I'm trading essentially my whole roster and I have three team deals, four team deals. Do I have to reach out to the other teammates because they've given up on the season? I have to get their passwords to approve them? Maybe, potentially, I'm not going to admit any But these always get vetoed.
So I'm very upset with my Commissioner.
Wait, is it a keeper league or is it just every year it's a new team league?
That's another situation because it's fluctuated back and forth different versions over the years. We're now finally settled on we're doing categories. It's a keeper league. You can keep the players for two years. So you have drafted them, you can keep them twice, and it's four rounds higher than you drafted them for the previous year. So if I draft someone in the 20th round and I want to keep them next year. It's the 16th round, the following year is the 12th, and then after that, they're in free agency. You lose the pay. Yeah, exactly.
I'm in a 40-player AL Keeper League where we do a draft, and you can keep a guy It's two years. You can keep them two, three, four more years. It's $5 more every year. It's insane. I've been in it all century. I haven't won in over 20 years. I'm partners with my buddy Hinch, and I really care about it. And it's a colossal waste of time.
Well, that's the thing. It becomes a full-time job. Like, fantasy football is... It's like fantasy football is the most popular of the fantasies, right? Anyone can play fantasy football. You basically just set your team. Yeah. And you don't really need skill. You just draft your team, just make sure that When there's buy weeks, just swapping people out, whatever. Baseball is like a full-time commitment.
Well, throw in a minor league draft. We had a couple of years ago, we had the number one pick, and it was between Marcella Meyer and Anthony Volpe, the Yankees shortstop. I spent more time on this decision for three weeks than I did on the Ringer. It was really important. Hinch and I just texting. We're texting features we read on each guy. It was pathetic. Not a shame.
The thing is, it hurts me how much I end up caring, and I see how me caring impacts my family negatively. So I want to say that if I win, I'll just be like, let me go out on top. But I know I'm going to come back and I'm going to have to defend the crowd. I'm never going to quit. I regret quitting the one season that I did because my wife was like, you're going to give them the money. They're just going to get mad. They're going to cheat. You're going to be screaming. You're going to spend... Because I remember we were in Washington, DC, on a trip. I was like an internship up there, like PTI, whatever. And I spent multiple days just with this little notebook on an inflatable couch that I got from the grocery store, like one of those composition notebooks with this squirly stuff on the cover. And I'm just trying to figure, how can I trade this person? How can I trade that person? I execute what I think is a perfect trade. It gets vetoed, and I'm just cursing out my family members. I have other cousins that are in this league as well.
My dad was in this. He got kicked out because of apathy. It's a very serious league.
It's a very serious league. Our league, most of our fights are that somebody made a trade without shopping the same offer to other people. It's the same fight every year.
There's no honor in my league. You never really make the people available to everyone. There's inside trading here. There was a situation where we had to kick people out of the league, where one of the iterations of this league, it was the first time we were going to do Keepers, right? Yeah. So we had a guy that was a friend of ours from high school. He was a lawyer, and he had been a lawyer intern, whatever it would be that they're called, where they're just starting up at the law firm. So he was in our league. He was related to us. Paralegal.
I think so. I'm helping.
It doesn't matter. Yeah. So anyways, so he comes in. He's not paying attention at all. He trades all of his good players to his lawyer boss, who's a friend of ours. And then the explanation was like, no, it's a keeper league, so he got this back. So this person is going to be worth something like three seasons. So this is actually a good deal. Except he ended up leaving our league. They changed the format the following year. So none of those people were keepers. It was just cheating from the beginning. Honestly, it's bullshit. Every year, it's Bullshit. Something happens. Someone's trying to pull a fast one over someone else. We have a corrupt Commissioner. No one wants to stand up to him. It's nonsense. But I can't give up because I need to win this league. I need to get back on top and feel alive. I feel like it'll bring me back to I'm old now. I have kids. I don't have the same energy. But you still got it. I wake up and I feel like I'm missing something. I think that what I'm missing is a fantasy baseball championship, and that'll get me right back on top and bring me back to where I was 20 years ago.
I was in a league where the guy traded Muki Betz for three guys who sucked. Oh, no, that was real life. That was the red side. My bad. I got mixed up for a second. Anyway, Let's go. What are your things? What's your number one thing? Give us your conversation starter, your cocktail party helper.
All right. Well, so before we get to the cocktail party helpers and all the conversation starters, last year, great year for baseball. A plus. Record numbers. World Series, incredible World Series, setting records, 30 million viewers. I think Game 7 had 50 million viewers. They're doing this thing now where they're combining viewers in Canada, the US, and Japan to say, wow, 50 viewers watch this combined across the three countries. And it's like, we've never measured anything in television across three countries. But if that's what we have to do, okay, fine, Major League Base. It was a great game. Game tying, home run, game winning, home run, plays at the plate. It was awesome. I thought, and I don't know if you were the same, I thought at the time that the Blue Jays going wouldn't be best case. That for viewers, it would be like Yankees, Dodgers, again. But Yankees, Dodgers, that'll be doing it. But I I didn't take into account the three country factor that I didn't know that we did in rating viewers where Canada would be involved. And then, of course, Japan is involved with Shohe. So it ended up being great for the game.
Attendance has been up, length of game has been going down, but there are changes coming to baseball, and that's one of the things that we're going to get to.
I thought it turned out to be a great World Series. I was dreading Dodgers-Yankees because that would have meant the Yankees could potentially win the World Series. Just having them out of it was great. But I think the thing that changed last year was the Dodgers becoming this monolith, almost like what the Mahomes Chiefs were like or the Braady Pats. They moved like the Kobe Shack Lakers or the Warriors in the 2010s, they moved into this thing now where they're now this unbeatable champ, this thing we can all measure against to try to beat, which I'm pro. I like that when we have a team like that. You don't like as much.
It's not that I don't like it. I think last year played out well for the Dodgers because they didn't struggle, but they didn't run away with it in the regular season. They didn't win 100 games, so it wasn't like they're going out there, they're winning 115 games. It's not close. They almost lost the World Series. It took seven games. They could have lost it in six. They could have lost it in seven. So the Blue Jays taking them to that point, to the brink, extra innings, and then they win it. It was fine. It was good. It was an exciting game. It was It's like, okay, well, this feels like someone can get to the Dodgers because surely the Dodgers can't just spend every offseason throwing all of their money. They already spent $700 million on one guy. Obviously, they're going to run out of money at some point. They can't just keep up this insane spending, right? Well, they did. They continued the insane spending in the offseason. They just continued to do whatever it is that they want. So we'll see how it goes. I mean, the West is... The Padres can maybe...
Padres can put up a fight here. The Padres are a perennial disappointment underachiever, though, right? I feel like we're told every year, this is the year the Padres are going to do it. And now we've just somewhat given up on teams overtaking the Dodgers in the West.
What's the NFL version of that? That looks awesome on paper. I mean, it's probably the Buffalo Bills. Yeah.
I mean, the Bills, you feel like it's always going to be their year. The thing is, there's no Dodgers in the NFL right now. It was the Chiefs.
It was Chiefs, yeah, but it didn't last.
It's done. I mean, it lasted as long as it could, but everybody just got old.
Well, the Dodgers, so they get the Mets closer, Dias, and they also get Kyle Tucker. Just add that to a two-time champ. That sucked for the National League. It spun the Mets out was the other fun part of that.
You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to fast forward to number nine, since we're already talking about on my nine things that you should talk about here in conversation.
This is the last thing. We're going backwards.
This is the last thing here. Well, just because we're already here, so we might as well get to it. Actually, this is number eight. So this is, what are they doing? What exactly is going on here? And the teams that we're trying to figure out what exactly is going on here are the Dodgers, as we mentioned, because the Dodgers continue to spend money. They continue to do whatever it is that they want to do, right? They give $240 million to Kyle Tucker. Why did they do that? Why do they give him $60 million a year? Aside from the fact that they can, what is the actual explanation for why the Dodgers are giving that money to him? He wasn't that great last season. He had like 20 home runs. He had like an 800 plus OPS. He's good. But $60 million seems like you should be a game changer, which he wasn't really. So what are they doing?
So it seems like with these shorter contracts, I was talking to a Dodger fan A friend of mine about this, where in the old days, you'd give the pool holes contract, right? It was like, what was that? 8, 10 years, whatever it was for- 250, whatever. And the last half of that contract, you're screwed. It's like, fuck. We got four good years out of this. Now we got to ride out these next four. And the Dodgers are just like, We'll overpay you now, and we'll get out of it after four years. And maybe you're a 35 million or $40 million a year guy. We're going to pay out the extra 20 a year now. Hope you're If you are good in your prime. And if you are, it's a bonus. If not, we're getting rid of that money during the contract, and then we don't have it hanging over our heads six years from now. Seems like the strategy. I'm not against it. It's just weird.
Yeah. I mean, they also signed the best closer out there. So they're set. They didn't have a closer last year. Yeah. They had Taylor Scott, who ended up being a disappointment for them. So wherever they had minor weaknesses, they no longer have any of those weaknesses. So The Dodgers just continued to spend money. The Giants decided, you know what we're going to do? We're going to hire the University of Tennessee's head baseball coach this year because we don't really know what it is that we're going to do to keep up with the Dodgers. Buster Posey's there. He's in charge. He fires Bob Melvin after a 500 season. And he says, You know what we're going to do? Let's hire a college coach that's never coached at any position in Major League Baseball. What are the Giants doing here?
That one I I did not understand. We've seen this happen in NFL, and the results are mixed, to say the least. But it reminded me a little of the Steve Spurrier. It's like, This guy's good. Maybe it'll translate. Keep your fingers crossed.
Well, it's like when Saban went to the NFL, right?
Yeah, that's another one.
Which didn't really pan out, I guess. Another one that's going on because the NL West right now, it's just everyone's trying to keep up with the Dodgers. And the only reason the Dodgers are on here is because of how much money they gave Kyle Tucker for 22 home runs and 71 RBI's. Is The Rockies decided, we had a terrible season last year. We need to change things up. They notoriously just hire from within. We need to go outside of our organization. So for the first time in 26 years, they hired outside of their organization for someone to run the Rockies. And the person that they hired was Paul D. Podesta. Paul D.
Podesta- Checkered history.
He's been out of baseball for 10 years, and he most recently was with the Browns as their chief strategy officer, where he decided, you know what we got to do? Let's sign to Sean Watson to the worst contract in the history of the NFL.
And trade pics for him.
Yeah.
Let's completely handcuff this organization forever. And the Rockies said, you know what? We just saw Moneyball. Maybe Paul D. Podesta, we can bring him in. He can do something here. He can figure this out. Except, again, he hasn't been in baseball for a decade, so he needs to catch up to what's happening in modern day baseball.
Yeah. So maybe somebody was He was trying to zag in the front office. It's like, yeah, he was ruining the Browns. This seems stupid. And then somebody was like, yeah, but if he had been in baseball this whole time, maybe he'd be the single best guy running a baseball team. So we're buying low. Maybe he was just in the wrong sport. They do it that way.
It's the perfect division for things like this to happen because, again, you have the Dodgers at the top who are going to dominate this division seemingly. You have the Padres who can threaten them. You have the Diamondbacks who seemed like they were a nice, fun, young, up and coming team a couple of seasons ago and then gone back to 500, more or less. So if you're the Rockies, I guess, why not try anything? And if you're the Giants, why not, I guess, try to think outside the box when you fire your long-time manager.
The problem is you're going against the Dodgers who basically have revenue streams from two massive countries happening at the same time, California and Japan. And And then the Padres. So the Padres are for sale now, and they're going to go for over three billion. I didn't realize this. They have a revenue of $550 million a year because they're the only team in San Diego. And they just leverage everything, and they just print money. Those are the two teams you're competing against.
They're in the top 10 in spending. I think they're second or third in attendance. They have money to spend. They're just not spending it. They also just resigned their President of Base operations, AJ Preler, who's like, some people love him, some people hate him, but he always goes for it. They resigned him. So that might have been a gift on the way out where his future was up in the air and they said, you know what? This guy has been loyal to us. We're going to sell the team. Let's lock him in or at least get a nice payday on the way out if they decide to fire him.
People care about Dodgers, Padres here, the Dodger fans. The Padres as a rival and the Giants as a rival are real. I mean, the Giants is a whole other level. But the Padres are a real rival. Then that's something that reemerged this decade, which has been pretty fun.
But do they have to win to actually be a serious rival? Could they just be the annoying little brother for the Dodgers?
That's what they are. Yeah, that's what they are. They're the annoying, kicking them under the table all the time.
They play the game close, best of 11. They get to nine, and then it's like, all right, we've had enough fun here. Go back to where you were.
What's your next one?
All right, so here are noteworthy things that happen the first weekend of spring training. So this is like you show up to a cocktail party this weekend. You walk and you say, Hey, did you see this? This is where we were supposed to start, but we got to number nine, so we had to talk about it. Yeah, we'll figure it out. Anyways. So noteworthy things that happened the first week. Tony Clark, out as Major League Baseball Players Association Union rep.
A lot of fascinating things about this one, including the crazy beard he had.
Yeah, he secretly grew that long beard. He had to go T for a while. What was that? It grew out and he decided, you know what? To keep going all white on the beard. I I like it. I mean, I can't grow that beard, but I like it for him. It's a good look for him. It was long.
It was almost like an old hillbilly gym wrestling beard crossed with... I don't know what. So he had an affair with his sister-in-law, who we had then hired for the players union, and that became the problem.
Yeah, that was an issue. And as you mentioned, there's a looming lockout coming after the season, December first. If they don't reach a new CBA, there will be a lockout. And it's a bad look, I guess, to have your union rep be involved in extracurricular activities while you're trying to renegotiate a new CBA. So they had to get rid of him.
That was a sorted one, too. Did we ever figure out which side of the sister law family was? I think it was the sister of his wife. But who knows? But, allegedly, all this is a legend. I'll just say a legend over and over again. But, yeah, I think it was the sister.
It's safe, and it's one of those things that on the way out, knowing how delicate the situation was, no one was really like, Can Can we just... Tony, before you go, can we clear up brother's wife, wife's sister. How exactly did this work out here?
Tindal could have put odds on it. That could have been fun. I would have wagered on it. But yeah, so Tony's out. He's a beloved Red Sox opponent because he hit the double in one of the ALCS games in '04 that would have been the go-ahead run in extra innings, but it bounced into the right field stance. Guy had to stop at third. It was the Tony Clark. So we've always enjoyed him after that because he did that for us.
All right. Tony Clark is out. Also happening. First game this weekend, Yankees had a sewage leak that took over their entire clubhouse. It was going into the team's store. They had to close off sections of the team's store. The clubhouse is all carpeting. That probably ruined all the carpet. That stuff, yeah. It started in the bathroom, just bad plumbing situation. I don't know if this has anything to do with the Rays played their entire season there last year where the Yankees have their spring training, but it didn't affect them. They went on to win 20 to 3 against the tigers. So that was a short term annoyance.
And they have some prospect that's throwing like 103. I don't know if you followed this guy.
I don't understand arms, I guess. Just human arms and how they work now as opposed to how they used to work back in the day and how people are capable of just regularly hitting 103, 104. And They just go on living their lives until they blow out their elbow and have Tommy John, and that's their career.
But that's the thing. '99 was super fast 20 years ago. '99 was like, wow, that guy's throwing '99, and now that feels pedestrian.
I was impressed with a '97. If I saw a '97 on the old scoreboard, there was actually individual light bulbs that are orange or whatever color. You'd wait, you'd turn and see, wow, that one seemed fast. You'd look up, you'd see how fast it was. It hits like '97. I'm like, wow.
You haven't heard the conspiracy theory that they jack up the radar gun a little bit? That has been out there.
That's out there. I have one that I heard from the former Marlins team President who put it out there when When Brad Penny was on the mound, they would intentionally lower the speed of his pitches because they wanted to amp him up and get him to throw harder. So he'd be out there and he'd be throwing as hard as he could and he'd look up after every pitch. And it would say 93 when it was really 97, 98. And he'd just get pissed off and he's like, I got to throw harder. He'd just throw even harder the next time.
And then he blew out his elbow and it wasn't. I was going to say, weird that it didn't last long term for Brad Penny. Yeah, no rules on that. All right.
Okay, so there was a sewage leak. Weird triple plays have returned. I don't know if you saw this game. I think this is a game that involved the Orials or one of the teams. I don't know. Where it was a hit, and then they decided to throw in. He decided to try to go for two, tag him out at second base. There's two runners on third base. They tag the guy out that went from second to third because they're both standing on the base. So the back runner is automatically out. The lead runner then decides, you know what? I guess I'm out. So he walks off the base. Triple play. So we're still trying to figure out the rules. These are the things that happen in spring training. So you can talk to people about the weird triple play that happened. Also, home run leaders. Pete Alonso already has two home runs. And I don't know if you saw this. Home run leaders. It came out today. Darryl Strawberry. Have you seen this, Bill? No. Darryl Strawberry, today, I believe it was in the New York Post, said, Pete Alonso is going to regret leaving the Mets.
So Darryl Strawberry and Pete Alonso are already somewhat beefing. They then had to go back to Darryl Strawberry and get clarification on what he meant, where it was like a half apology, where he's like, no, no, no. What I really meant was, is I was in his position. And when I left and I could have been an all-time leader for an organization, that's a special thing. So I think he's going to look back one day and he's really going to regret leaving, not being an all-time Mets leader in something. Even though it seems like the Mets didn't really make that much of an effort to keep Pete Alonso. They could have locked him up last season. They ended up not doing it. He was a free agent. He signed a one-year deal to come back. I think there was an option that he opted out of. And this year, they also didn't give him money, which is weird because the Mets have just about as much money as everyone else. So if they really wanted Pete Alonso, they could have easily signed Pete Alonso, but they decided to let him go, which is weird because I think the last five seasons, he's been top five in home runs every year.
Here's the thing, though.
It's not weird because this brings up one of my favorite theories. Okay. I don't know if I've introduced this on the pod. I think runningbacks and people who could only be a first base or DH, very similar what happens to them in the market when they start hitting their early 30s. Because people don't... It doesn't seem like they want to tie up a ton of money with the guy who could only play that position who might actually get worse. And then you're stuck. Versus if you get, I don't know, a wide receiver or a tight end or something, you feel it's a little harder to find those guys. Versus running back, you could just cycle in these second round, third round, fourth round, pics. The Red Sox were in this situation with Kassas, who's young. But it's like, well, if we double down on him, now we're stuck, and now we have no flexibility with spot. I think teams like having the flexibility with first base DH is my take.
Steven Cohen just seems like a weird guy. Do you see he also came out and he said there will be no captains on this team?
I did see that. I didn't understand that.
I don't either, but I don't understand it in that I'd never, growing up, considered captain a baseball thing.
Do you think I should designate a captain for the Ringer? And if I did, would Van quit if he wasn't named Captain?
I was going to say I feel like Van has to be high on the of who you might designate as captain of the Ringer.
He'd start calling himself the Captain?
He's on a lot of shows. If we're going to be on usage rate, Vans pretty high on there. He really is. He could be a captain. I mean, Joel from tailgate would be offended if he wasn't captain.
That could cause problems on the tailgate show. Maybe that's why Steve Cohen didn't want a captain.
He made it seem like... I think he said, there will never be a captain as long as I own this team, which also seems like, why do we have to be so definitive on this? It's like, Captain's a dumb thing, but why are you taking such a strong stand on this captain?
Why is he offended by captains?
I don't know.
I don't know. All right.
Yeah. What else are we got? Other early home run leaders, Aaron Judge has two home runs for the Yankees. Home run leaders. Yeah, he's sticking on there strong. Here's a fun thing that you can talk about with your friends. Clint Hurdle released a book this week. Really? He also has been very, very active on Twitter this past week with his book coming out. It's called Clint Hurdle: Hurtleisms: Wit and Wisdom from a Lifetime in Base.
Wit and Wisdoms.
Yeah, Wit and Wisdoms. It essentially is not a poetry book per se, but it's a lot of just nonsenses. If you go on his Twitter account, you will see his last five or 10 tweets have been things that have really just cut on. And it's just things that pop into his head that have absolutely... They're nonsensical. They're somewhat related to baseball, and he then will quote himself. Also, if you follow him, Clint Hurdle is following absolutely anyone out there. He followed me today. He's following anyone that interacts with him on Twitter. I don't know that he knows how Twitter works. But one tweet that really caught fire yesterday was him saying, We can measure everything with radar guns and analytics, but none of these can measure guts and nuts.
Guts and nuts?
Guts and nuts can't be measured. There's no analytics for guts and nuts, according to Clint Hurdle.
Well, you left out that this book is only 144 pages. Is it a book if it's under 200 pages? That's a borderline pamphlet.
I think it's more... If you look at it, I can't figure out what it is, but when it says wit and wisdom, it seems as though it's just not poetry, but it's nonsense. His last tweet was, Don't take the heart out of the player. Don't take the heart out of the game. Let it be. Clint Hurdle.
Multitasking makes me multimediocre. That's another- Clint Hurdle.
I'm also pretty sure these hurdles are things that he took from other people.
This could have been the whole podcast. Why did we even need to do anything else?
They never care How much you know until they know how much you care. Clint Hurdle. So if you want and you want to get an early holiday gift or whatever, some friends, Clint Hurdle wrote a book of hurtleisms that you can give. Tough love is still love. Clint Hurdle. There's no chance he invented tough love is still love. I just find it hard to believe that Clint is giving him credit for all of these sayings.
Showerwell is another one he has?
What does that mean? I don't know.
Shower well.
Shower well.
Shower is super important. Yeah. Oh, man. I'm definitely getting this book now. It'd be funny if it became a best seller.
Clint Hurdle. Herdlisms. Go get your... I think it's available now. Sounds great. So go support Clint. All right. So now you're all caught up. Now you can tell people what happened this weekend in spring training, baseball. And you'll feel like you're not out of the loop.
That was good.
So here's something that's going on. Big change in baseball this season. Something that everybody he's going to be talking about. Abs, Automatic Ball Strike Challenge. Are you familiar with this, Phil?
I'm so glad you brought this up because I don't think people are going to be prepared for this and they're going to be watching the first game going, What's going on?
There's a lot of confusion, and it happened It ends very quickly also, which is one of the good things about the situation. They tinkered with this last year in the All-Star Game some, which was cool because they had a lot of the players miced up. We saw it in a Major League Baseball game for the first time in the All-Star Game. They've been doing it in the minor league for a couple of seasons now. The way that they're doing this is if you're unfamiliar with baseball and just how this is going to work out, but you're super familiar with tennis, this will make sense. Think about in tennis where you see whether the ball is in or out, and they go and they say there's a challenge and everybody looks up at the screen, and then within seconds, you see exactly where the ball hit. That's basically what they're doing with balls and strikes this year. They're giving each team two challenges But if you win the challenge, then don't lose it so you can keep challenging. Now, a lot of things are going to happen. There's only three people that can challenge. The people that can challenge are the pitcher, the catcher, and the hitter.
So a coach can't challenge, a manager can't challenge. I can yell to challenge the ball or whatever. Second baseman can't challenge. Only pitchers, catchers, and hitters can challenge. If you keep winning, you keep being able to challenge. Today, there was a game between the Blue Jays and the Yankees where they had one team, no lie, had nine or 10 challenges, and it was getting ridiculous because they challenged the second pitch of the game to make it a 2-0 count, the first hitter of the game, where I feel like during the season, we're not going to see that as much.
We were on such a good pace. Why did they have to tinker with this?
The good thing is it's quick. You see it instantly. So you see it and you move on. But I feel like there might be unintended consequences. And it's so precise. It'll say this pitch, you see the graphic, it goes by the side, you see exactly where it was, and it'll say this pitch miss by two-tenths of an inch, which seems impossible to actually calculate. And when it's like that nitpicky, why don't we just let it go and not hold up the game? But this is what we're in store for. Now, one of the situations that's going to as a result of this is there's going to be teams that are constantly doing this. On the broadcast, they've removed the strike zone. So you can no longer see during games this season, the little box live where you see if it's a ball or a strike.
I don't like that either.
Now you go back to the world where you're dependent on the camera angles in each stadium being different, and you have no idea what's a ball or strike based on the angle, how far it is behind home plate. Is it further left, the center? Is it further right, the center? So you're going to have no idea in real-time. You're going to have to depend on this. But I'm assuming they did that because they want to protect the integrity of the game from the Astros of the World who will probably have a TV in there where they're just watching the game and they see the ball in real-time in and out. But here's another thing.
I'm glad you pointed to the Astros on that. They still haven't got enough shit. Anyway, keep going.
I hate the Astros. I got to tell you, there's no grudges I hold longer than baseball grudges, especially grudges from my early childhood. I'll really to hold on to for absolutely no reason. There's this guy, Richie Lewis, who pitched for the Marlins when I was six years old, and we went to this autograph signing at Champ Sports. He was a relief pitch or something. The guy sucks. But he went out there. He had his fancy Oakley's on. He was one of the four guys, the first season of the team that was signing autographs. And he decided not to sign autographs for certain things. And he didn't sign autographs for me because I guess the line to close or whatever. And I remember my dad as a young boy, my dad said to me, Billy, no matter how successful you are in life, never be a Richie Lewis, who's too good to spend time with the people because one day people aren't going to care about you. They're not going to care about Richie Lewis. And you're going to wish that you had signed that autograph. So never be Richie Lewis. Richie Lewis, wherever you are out there, screw you, buddy.
I haven't forgotten this thing that happened.
This is weird. That was also a Clint Hurdleism.
Was it? Yeah. Never be Richie Lewis.
Never be Richie Lewis. I don't know how that happened.
Classic turtle. Here are some unintended consequences. I think of ABS, right? If you have a situation, you no longer have the strike zone, so you're not going to see that. You also have catchers whose entire career is based on framing and tricking umpires into thinking this is a strike when it's actually a ball. So you have Alejandro Kirk from Toronto. He just signed a long term deal. He's fine. You have Austin Wells, who's a master framer. He'll be fine because he's good offensively. But you have the Austin hedges of the world in Cleveland, who's not great offensively, but he's loved by pitchers because he's great at framing and he's great at turning balls that are either right on the zone and it's a ball into a called strike or just holding it firm and not moving too much so that the actual strikes are called strikes. I feel like the Austin hedges of the world, the players association, shouldn't have allowed this because we now are going to be losing Austin hedges. Because if you're hitting 160 and your skill is framing and the hitter can just challenge every time he He knows it's a ball that you're making it a strike, there's no purpose for you in Major League Base.
This sounds like a baseball movie. The best pitch framer in the league, they changed the rules on him. Now he's got to figure out how to make an impact. It also meets a girl.
I was going to say in this movie, they kick him out, and then he has to... He's down on his luck. He's now working at a pizza place or something. Then something happens and someone calls him for one last chance. Then there's the scene where he's in the cage. He's like, Man, I got to just get above the Mendoza line. If I just hit 203, it may be majorly baseball.
I need something else. It can't just be the framing anymore. Yeah, he learns to be a better baseball player.
All right, so there's that. And then here's another unintended consequence that I wonder if we're going to see. This could lead the umpires to treating a lot of this the same way NFL referees treat things, where it's like, okay, there's holding on every call, but I can't call everything a hold, right? So I wonder if you have a catcher that's back there that says, you know what? I really want to show up this umpire today. I'm going to challenge this. I wonder if he then starts like, let's see if you challenge every play. Let's see how many of these you're willing to challenge in a row on borderline pitches. Are you going to be doing this six times in the third ending, six times in the fourth ending? We have a situation where we could have vengeful unfires here who are coming after teams because they're not liking being shown up because they're only human, right? They don't like that they're going to be shown up. I, someone, I don't know how you feel about this. I like the human element of baseball. I like when you can have things. You didn't have replay that would overturn absolutely everything.
That's how I feel about basketball. I think it's okay that we have this with goal tending now in basketball where that It can't be reviewed.
There's crazy goal-tending, though.
It can't be reviewed, and it's like, it's okay, we'll get over it. Whereas we're painstakingly reviewing these other parts of the game, and I don't like it.
Well, they stole from us in doing that. They don't think of the unintended consequences. When they went to the fact that they have the replay review and you can't come out and argue it or automatic ejection, we lost the Bobby Coxes of the world. We lost the Lou Panelas of the world. We lost the Beatrix that made baseball fun. The guys that would go out there and they'd cover home plate with the dirt. You'd have the... Minor league took it too far as they always do, where you have the coaches crawling around on the mound, throwing Ross and Basley grenades. That was too much, granted. We went a little bit too far in the Minor Leagues, but they're trying to get called up to the show, too.
So The posture was good for those. I liked when the managers would go up and they do this with their arms so they can get really close, but it's not physical. And you just do this.
You don't bump. You can move your head a lot. You go like this. Maybe a little spit doesn't come out. Maybe some spit. It doesn't to come out.
A little spittle.
Just a little spit, but an unintentional spit so you don't get ejected from the spit. And then you also had that as a tool to light a fire under your guys. When you go out there, you're like, look, I know you're right. My guys are struggling here. So I just call you MF for this and say this about your mother or whatever. Just say the right things to get yourself tossed down. The guy's like, wow, man, coach really has my back. I'm going to go out there and we're going to rally around. Richie Lewis blew a game for us. We're going to rally around this and we're going to come together. We're going to win this game.
Then we're going to shower well.
Yeah, and then we're going to shower well. Huralism.
What else do you have? Want to zoom through this? We have eight minutes left.
Wow. Okay. We got to go fast. All right. So there's some new bodies. Minute 52.
We're cranking. Well, we did a lot of fantasy baseball.
New bodies. All right. So what are you thinking? It's not new places. It's not new faces. There's plenty of those. But new bodies in Major League Base. Roman Anthony, number one new body that's out there.
Roman Anthony came in. So new Body Watch is a big fantasy baseball thing.
You got to keep an eye on this. So he comes in, he gains 15 to 20 pounds of muscle. However, he recently had a stomach bug where he lost 10 to 12 pounds because of the stomach bug. So we're coming in maybe somewhere between three seven pounds heavier in muscle than he did last season. Keep an eye on Roman Anthony. See what's going on with him.
This is my favorite Red Sox player, so I'm concerned. I don't like the cycle of I put on a lot of weight. Oh, I hurt my back I heard this other thing. And then the next spring training where it's like, I put on too much weight last year. I needed it like, sleek down, and now I feel better. That's what I hope doesn't happen with Roman Anthony.
Well, the thing is, so here's someone that you should be concerned about. Elie De La Cruz put on 15 pounds of muscle in the offseason. Elie De La Cruz is a guy who is a 5-2 player. He can hit for power, but he could already hit for power. He had a stretch, I think, last year from July until September, where he didn't hit a home run. So he decided, I need to put on some weight. But he also went down from 60 plus stolen bases two years ago to 30 stolen bases last year. Now he's added 15 pounds of muscle. You have to think that's not going to help him with his stolen bases. He also switched The Managers at one point where they were like, run whenever you want. And then last year, the manager is like, you have the green light, but you don't always have to go. So this is one where the 15 pounds may not work in his favor. Then we can skip some of the other guys. We don't need to know everybody. Keep an eye on Vladimir Guerrero.
It should be a website, though. It should be like, we should be able to look this up. Leader by pounds. New bodies? Yeah, new body pounds. I would click on that.
Okay, so new bodies, two more that we'll go to. One of them, Vladimir Guerrero. Vladimir Guerrero on Instagram, not too long ago, put out a before picture, and then he put an after picture, and it said seven weeks in the lab. And there was no noticeable body difference that I could tell between picture one and picture two. One of them, he was just down like this. The other one, he was posing. So whatever sag he may have had didn't exist anymore when you strike the pose. So I'm not exactly sure whether he gained or lost weight in the offseason. I know that he signed a big contract that he's taking care of. He also could have just been making fun of this situation and showing like, Hey, It's on the back. It doesn't matter.
Oh, like a parody account. Well, also using the lab makes me nervous because sometimes that ties in with the 15-pound weight gain. Probably want to use the word lab.
15 pounds is not the most severe weight gain we have. That goes to Zack Veen in the Colorado Rockies organization who gained 43 pounds this offseason in muscle. He comes in with a career one home run. He gained 43 pounds in muscle. He credits this to getting and he's no longer dealing with substance abuse issues, but he comes in 43 pounds heavier than last season. In case you're wondering how will this play out, he has already hit a 468-foot home run this spring. It seems as though his 43 pounds of muscle are being used productively.
So that broke the record of Kamil Nanjani, who was the last person who put on 43 pounds in three months of muscle?
We don't talk about that enough. Remember that?
He just suddenly jacked. Now he's doing direct TV commercials so he can look jacked.
I'm sure he's a very lovely man. I don't know this, but almost disgustingly jacked, if we're going to be honest. It's almost a turn off, if I'm going to be honest. It's too muscular, especially where he was coming from. I get it. His jaw is now ultra defined also. It's a little bit too much.
I don't think muscle and comedy really necessarily mixes. I felt that way since Joe Piscopal, way back when. The muscle was, I I don't need my comedians to be jacked.
You need to be more relatable, I feel like. Be like the every guy. Be like the Joe and a Hill.
Like Glad Guerrero, just posting the same photo of himself and claiming he was in the lap.
Exactly right. Okay, here's one that you're going to hate, the World Baseball Classic. This is something that's going to be going on in spring training. You need to keep an eye on just because... Injuries. In the game that I was telling you about, there's injuries, there's also weird roster situations going on. But for the next three weeks, some teams are to be without their team, essentially. So today, the Yankees played against the Blue Jays, and between the two teams, including Minor Leaders, 24 players from the two teams combined were leaving to go be on World Base Classic rosters, including the entire starting infield for the Blue Jays. You have teams that also exist just because they have to, I guess, this late in the game. But the Puerto Rican team, almost no one got insured. So half of their team can't even play. So any stars that you were looking forward to seeing from Puerto Rico, Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa, Francisco Lindor, they didn't get insurance. So they are ineligible for the World Base Classic. It got to the point that Bad Bunny came in and offered to pay Carlos Correa's insurance to play in the World Base Classic.
And they were like, no, Bad Bunny, but thank you for being very patriotic, but that's not how this works. You can't pay for their insurance. Now, they also famously, Puerto Rico, lost Edwin Dias last year, or last World Base Classic in 2023 when he was celebrating a walk-off win and then ended up missing the season. He bounced back ultimately. But World Base Classic, it's going to be exciting for about two weeks, but there's a lot of weird things that go on. There's potential injury situations. Tarek Scouble is going to pitch for the US, but he's only going to pitch one start for the US. And the start that he's going to have for the US is not being saved for the later rounds. It's going to be in game two of the tournament against Great Britain. And then he's going to be going back to the Dodgers, which seems like a waste of Tarek Scouble, but they're very deep in pitching. You have Paul Skine. So I think that what they're doing is just getting a ton of aces, having them pitch one game each, and then sending them back to their team. So that's, I guess, your very quick World Base Classic refresher.
Oh, and Shohe O'Tani, who won the last World Base Classic in that moment where he pitched against Mike Trout. It was like, wow, what are we going to do here? One run game, top of the ninth thinning. Is Trout going to Who's going to win? He ends up striking him out. It becomes his famous moment. Japan goes on, wins, beats United States 3-2. Shohe O'Tani will not be pitching in the World Base Classic. He will only be hitting for team Japan, but he will be pitching this year for the Dodgers. So While he's not pitching in games, he needs to be throwing bullpen sessions with the Japanese team to get ready to pitch for the Dodgers once the season starts. So the World Base Classic is confusing things a little bit, but it's fun if you can get into it for two weeks.
Ohtani minus 135 for MVP on Fendal. Really? It feels like any time he's around, even that's just a bet because he's two guys. How does anyone beat him? You'd have to have the greatest season of the last 10 years to Trump that.
It's his first season that Dodgers are actually going to get a full season of the two Ohtanis where he gets the 760 million or whatever it was, which, by the way, I get it when it's two players, but giving people 600 million, 500 million, 700 million now who are only playing one position, I don't get. I get that Ohtani reset the market as to what the annual value is, but he's one of one where he's two players, essentially.
Well, this is why we're going to have a long, ugly labor dispute.
Yeah.
Because I think the owners are like, What are we doing? Kyle Tucker just got $240 million. What are we doing?
Well, that's why he was in What's the West doing? Kyle Tucker. I don't understand. They can't lock out. Like, baseball, with the momentum that they have, they need to figure it out because if they get a lock out here- To never underestimate baseball being dumb.
This has been my entire life.
All right. I want to reaward the manager of the year from last year if we can. Are we allowed to retroactively- To relitigate it?
Interesting. I don't know if it's allowed, but let's do it anyway.
Okay. So last year's National League Manager of the Year was Pat Murphy of the Brewers. Here's something that you can talk about. I'm starting to think that the National League manager of the year should have been Rob Thompson of the Philly's. The reason that I think it should have been Rob Thompson of the Philly's is the Philly's were 30 games over 500. They won the East very easily. The next closest team was the Mets who had a meltdown. They finished 13 games behind the Philly's. The reason I would give him manager of the year now retroactively is the Philly's appear to be in shambles. They had Kyle Schwarber, who was runner up for the MVP. They re-signed him. But outside of that and some pieces here and there that they've added, Bryce Harper is feuding with Dave Dembrowski, who is the President of Baseball Operations. Dave Dembrowski, at the end of the season, said that Bryce Harper's season, while he was an All-Star, was not elite. Bryce Harper then got upset by this. He said, I thought that we were supposed to keep things in house. Why is he going out? Why is he saying this publicly?
Bryce Harper, who loves social media now, who does all kinds of things where he has this weird diet and he cooks all these different things, put up something on Twitter in December where he was in the lab, if you will. He was in the batting cages wearing a shirt that said not elite on it. So he was clearly taking a shot at Dave Dembrowski. It has since been resolved, allegedly, where Bryce Harper says that he and Dave Dombrowski You have spoken and it's water under the bridge. They're going to move on. But you have one of your highest paid players and superstars here feuding with the President of Base operations, who I also hate, by the way, just because, again, childhood grudge. Dave Dembrowski came in. We win the World Series in '97, '98. He trades absolutely everyone. Then he goes, How do you feel about Dave Dembroush? How did you get a World Series? Did you feel positively?
He did. He mortgaged everything, but we did get the World Series. So he technically did his job and did what he promised he would do. But I wouldn't say he left the team in great shape.
That's what he does, though. He leaves the covers barren after. He'll win a World Series.
Honestly, he's like an Adam McKay movie. It's like the Dave Dombrasky where he has this objective, and hopefully you get it. And if you don't get it, you're screwed afterwards. Okay. Interesting way to play it.
I never considered him the Adam McKay of baseball. Also going on with the Phillies and why Rob Thompson should have won manager of the year. Nick Castillano essentially got kicked off of the team. So he, last year, got in a disagreement with his manager in a game in June. He hits a grand slam. They win a game. He comes to Miami. He's from Miami. He has family in the crowd watching the game. They pull him from the game, give him a scheduled day off, and he decides to come back with a beer into the dug out. Where he's then going to go and he's going to call out Rob, and he's going to give him a piece of his mind. Now, other Philly's teammates say, What are you doing? They take the beer away from him. They send him back. He's then bench the next game. No one hears any of this went on until about a week ago when they mysteriously released nick Castellanos. They owed him $20 million. He ends up signing with the Padres for the league minimum. You're wondering what exactly happened here. Nick Castellanos puts out a post on Instagram where it's a hand-ridden note explaining what happened.
And then he labeled it the Miami incident, which the majority of people had no clue even happened. So he outed himself on the Miami incident. Then all the players were asked about this. This Rob Thompson somehow has his President of Base operations feuding with one of their biggest stars. He has a player getting bench in the middle of a game, coming in with a beer, fighting with him, kept that under wraps for six months until they could quietly release him. And then he apologized on his own about the situation. I guess, fearing that he was going to be outed. This guy did an incredible job because all of this while they finished 30 games over 500 and easily won their division.
And had to deal with all the crazy Philly fans and people like the Bundo and Sheil and Chris Ryan just bitching about their team every day.
I hate Philly's fans. That's another one. We don't need to get into that today, though, I suppose.
I don't even think Philly fans like Philly fans, though.
I have a theory, and I wonder how you feel this. I feel like if you actually love your team, you have to hate your team, right? But no one else can hate your team. You should be able to pick apart your team and get frustrated and just absolutely hate them. You hate your star players. You hate everyone. But if someone else comes in like, Oh, your team sucks. My team doesn't suck. What are you talking about? And then you go after them. But to actually love your team, I feel like you can't actually be happy.
You just described every single NBA team reddit page where they bitch about their team constantly. But then if a national person comes in and says something, it's like, How dare he? How That's the theory. You made that Brandon Ingram comment?
That's the theory behind Dave Dombausky. He was just saying this and being critical of his guys to try to light a fire under him, which I don't buy. I don't buy that either. Dave Dombausky sucks. That guy's the worst.
All right, give us a last thing, and then we got to go.
All right, last thing. This is something that if you say out there, people are going to hold on to. We'll burn through the evidence. We don't need to get them. Last thing, watch out for the Pirates. The Pirates finished last season '71 and '91. This is a team that seemingly, with the brewers in their division, with the Cubs in their division, they're not going to go on a serious run. But they added a first basement and Ryan O'Hern from the Padres. They added a second basement and Brandon Lowe had 30 home runs last season.
I had them on my keeper team.
Are you keeping him for next year?
But not because he's in National League. We lost him. He crossed over into the other portal.
We're out. How do you handle that? If you have a keeper, you don't get a compense to carry a pick or something.
It's like he got wiped out in the war. He's just done.
Wow. That's sad. It's sad. Are you going to miss him?
Yeah. Not really. All right.
So they got Brandon Lowe. They got Marcelo Zuna, who hits home runs. They got Jake Bangam, who's a power hitter. Last year, they only had pitching, but they didn't really have any hitting. So you had a situation where Paul Skine had horrible run support. He had a horrible win-loss record because he was never getting any runs to support him. This year, they upgraded the offense. They have the top prospect in baseball and Connor Griffin. Shortstop. Last year, he hit 333, over 900 OPS, 21 home runs across different Different levels in minor league baseball, 65 stolen bases. This is one of those where, honestly, I didn't want to tell you about him, and I don't know if you're the same way, where I feel like I find someone that certain people know about. I'm worried that people in my league might see this and then say, You know what? We need to go after this, Connor Griffin. And then they might get him. Also, didn't mention him earlier because I was saving him till the end. Connor Griffin also leads Major League Baseball in spring training home runs. He has two home runs this season already also.
He's cranking it. Keep an eye on Connor Griffin. Paul Skine is there. Mitch Keller is there. He signed an extension. Jared Jones is coming back from Tommy John's surgery. The rotation is going to look good. They also have arguably the best pitching prospect in baseball, Bubba Chandler, who had a 31 to 4 strikeout to walk ratio He went 31 innings last season. And his name's Bubba, which is a great baseball name. Huge win. Keep an eye on these pirates. I'm telling you, they're going to be pesky. I'm not going to say that they're going to win the central, but this is a wild card team if I've ever seen one, Bill.
Eighty plus wins on Fando, plus one, twelve. You can get Frisky and go 90 plus wins at plus 5, 20 or take them for the division at plus 6, 50. See, I like having the one random team in the National League to root for every year. I usually bet on one team because otherwise, I wouldn't follow the National League at all. But if I have a team, I'm like, All right, I'll adopt this team this year. So maybe that'll be my team, the Pirates. Plus, you get Skins.
Yeah. I used to do that with the AL just because I'm an NL guy. So I used to say, I could I'm going to root for this team. And it was like, if I was in that city that year, if I went to a game in Baltimore, I'm like, I'm going to root for the Orioles this year. I'm going to root for the A's because I like Seth, but it's also keep an eye on the A's. We don't have time, but keep an eye on the A's.
No, the A's are loaded. They have a bunch of young dudes.
They have a lot of young guys. I just wonder. The thing is that the park that they play in that minor league park, it's great for their hitters, but horrendous for their pitchers because the ball just flies out of there.
Yeah, they're over and over for wins this 75 and a half.
What were they doing, by the way? We need to get into this today, but they moved out of Oakland to move to Las Vegas where they don't have a stadium in place yet. They're in Sacramento, just in purgatory. Why did they do this? Why are we here?
There's things that happen in baseball, and it's been going on my whole life that there's just no explanation for it. It's like they basically didn't want to take shit for being in Oakland anymore when they were going to leave. So they were like, We'll just go over here. It was like a divorce dad moving out and just grabbing any apartment just to get away from the house for two years.
Very strange. But they're stuck in it. They're stuck in this house.
They don't have a new house yet. I'm also dubious of baseball in Vegas, but that's a story for another time. I'm not positive. I know that it's going to be indoors. It's not going to be outdoors with people are baking, but I'm just not positive. Baseball in Vegas makes sense.
The tourists are going to come after the pool parties and after the sphere to go watch the A's play. I don't.
I don't think it's like the NBA where it's like, Anthony Edwards is in town. Wemby is in town. I don't think baseball works that the same thing. A lot of times, it's like it's the Royals and it's a Wednesday.
Well, also, if they're in town, they're in town for three games. We'll go to the third game. Then something came up. I'm not going to do that.
I'm dubious of this. You're going to come back for the start of the season. We'll do some preview. But so this is another thing with baseball. I never know when the season starts anymore. Now it's March 25th range.
Yeah, it's last week of March. I know The thing is they also have a weird thing. I need to see because I'm not sure if they have the international game that they start on, that they have some seasons where it's like, here's an international game in Japan, and then they come back and then those same teams go and play two more spring training games after games that actually counted. And then the season really starts. But it's like last week of March.
Starts on March 25th. Yankees, San Francisco. Taking place in San Francisco.
Okay.
Yeah.
There you go. That's on Netflix, right? That was one of the things. There's baseballs on Netflix this year. It's on Peacock. It's all over the place.
It's all over the place. It's like every sport now. Part of the fun of following the sport is trying to figure out what channel it's on for the first five minutes. I'm just figuring out the NBA in mid-February, end of February. It's like, oh, it's Monday. It's a Peacock day. It's just setting this in my head. All right, Billy Gill.
It's Prime Fridays.
Billy Gill. Great to see you. Thanks.
Thanks for having me.
All right, that's it for the podcast. Don't Don't forget rewatchables. We did Crazy Steep in Love, Me, Mina, and Van. If you missed it, if you didn't see that, that one's up there. For this podcast, thanks to Kyle and Tate. Thanks to Billy. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well. I'm going to be back here on Thursday with one more episode. See you then. 21 plus in President selects states for a Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Start Casino or 18 plus in President DC, Kentucky, Wyoming. Opt-in required. Rewards are non-withdrawable. Restrictions apply, including bonus and token expiration, leg requirements, and max wage or amount. See terms at sportsbook. Famedu. Com. Gain me a problem, call 1-800 Gamble or 1-800 My Reset. Call 888-79-7777 or visit ccpg. Org/chat-in-connect, or mdgamblinghelp. Org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelp-line ma. Org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts, or call 877-8 Hope, NY, or text Hope-N-Y in New York for Louisiana. Call 877-77-7867.
The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by J. Kyle Mann and Tate Frazier to preview the NBA draft by looking at some of the top prospects before discussing the Spurs' ceiling this season (3:40). Then, Billy Gil joins the pod to discuss fantasy baseball leagues and preview the MLB season (01:16:59).
Host: Bill Simmons
Guests: J. Kyle Mann, Tate Frazier, and Billy Gil
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