Bill Simmons Podcast. We are live on Netflix Sunday night. Zach Lowe is here. Uh, I don't know where to begin, but this was an awesome sports weekend because we had a 2-day WrestleMania. I know you don't care about that. We had hockey started today. We had just a devastating Bruins collapse in Buffalo. First Buffalo home playoff game, I think first Buffalo playoff game in 15 years. Wow. And the Bruins just fell apart in 7 minutes and it was just pure delirium in Buffalo. And then we had 10 basketball games in the span of 52 hours if you count the 2 play-ins. Do you get numb by the end of this? 'Cause I, I feel like my brain's like a little scrambled by the time we got to the 4th game tonight.
Usually I do. But I'm feel, I'm feeling crystal clear this weekend. I don't know. I don't know if it's the schedule. I don't know if it's actually like, I, I slept last night pretty well, but I, I'm feeling good. I'm feeling less, I'm usually fried and I'm not fried right now.
Well, we had, we had some blowouts with Chubb heading into the playoffs. Everyone was thinking this feels like chalk round one. This was like all the Ringer gambling guys were all like, what, what's gonna be the weird series? What's gonna be the upset? And the logical one seemed to be Houston Lakers. Do we trust that Luka's not gonna be back for round one? Like Houston's weird. And then all of a sudden KD gets scratched, so that series goes haywire. Then today, Orlando-Detroit. You and I, we were texting with a bunch of people today and you and I, you mentioned it first about, eh, Detroit, Orlando, something with Orlando. I don't know. You sniffed it out. How did Spock sniff this one out that Orlando is gonna be the big upset?
I mean, Detroit, you know, the long layoff, Cade coming back from the collapsed lung. Orlando looked awesome against Charlotte in the last playoff game. And I, they just have oscillated between this like, we're dead, we're dying, break up the whole team to like, oh my God, this is the team that everyone thought we would be when our over-under was 58.5. And some people like this idiot right here took the over.
Yeah.
And I just, once they beat Charlotte like that, I was like, maybe they'll just carry this momentum a little bit further. I don't know what this means for the rest of this series, but super impressive start by them. And yeah, it's been such a weird, we've been ready to break up that team 25 different times and here they are up 1-0 in the first round.
Rock bottom on Sunday and then on Wednesday. On Sunday, they lose to the Maine Celtics. The G League Celtics basically beat them, capped off by a Luka Garza-designed, um, Dirk Nowitzki in-your-face 3 that basically swings the playoffs, gives, gives, uh, Philly a home game in the play-in. Then they go and they play that play-in game on Wednesday. and they're awful and they just stink. And the next day there's this TikTok that somebody did about Paolo. Did you see that? It was like, it was like top 5 worst plays of the play-in. First honorable mention, here's Paolo Banchero. And then he would go to the next one and he'd be like, and then the former number 1 pick of the whatever draft. And each time it was a different intro, but it was just a series of terrible Paolo plays. I don't have TikTok on my phone, but this got sent to me over and over again because it was on social. And it was basically Thursday was basically the Palo punching bag day. Everybody's like, that's it. Magic suck. It's all Palo's fault. They're going to fire Mosley, blah, blah, blah. And they killed Charlotte on Friday.
Like they killed them. And it was this defensive thing that they put on where it was like, holy shit, where'd this come from? It captured my attention. I didn't know if they'd be able to sustain it. The thing that was stunning about tonight, Zach, or today, I guess, um, they basically took Durant out of the game. I voted for him second team All-NBA. He was like an afterthought. He, he might as well have been a backup center, and they really bullied him and didn't let him get any of the pick and roll stuff. And Pistons moved back to being the Cade-centric team that was our biggest fear with them in the playoffs. It's like Cade or bust. I don't know how they did it in 2 hours.
Yeah. Worst case scenario for the Pistons, right? It's like, it's Cade and like, who else? Anyone else gonna create any offense? It's, we don't really know who to play down the stretch of games. Do we need to take Asar Thompson out because of the spacing issues? Can we play Thompson and Durant together heavy minutes late in the game? Karris LeVert played 4 minutes. Here comes Kevin Huerter. It was like exactly the sort of nightmare scenario. Yeah. Jalen Durant had the one face-up basket in the second half from the right wing. I think he spun and put a layup over Wendell Carter Jr. And I was like, oh, I haven't seen that like the entire game. Yeah, that was the whole story of Cade's absence was Jalen Dern stepping up. And I think they barely, the Magic had a smart game plan to just take everybody else out of the game and make Cade do everything. And part of that was they switched that Cade-Dern pick and roll over and over and over again. And Cade, and Cade beat it. He would beat Wendell Carter Jr. off the dribble now and then, and then they just swarm him and say, hey, you gotta either shoot a contested shot or pass to one of these non-shooters.
What we're not giving you is Jalen Duren on the roll. And the times that they tried to give it to him on the mismatch on the other end of that switch, they just swarmed off everybody else, deflected the pass. Suggs was everywhere. They just didn't get— let him get any easy buckets. They didn't let that pick and roll get rolling in a way that unlocked anyone else on the team. It was nice for a coach that we've all given a lot of flack to all year, deservedly so. Jamal Mosley, it was a solid, solid game plan from him today.
I thought they played like an A+ on Friday. They were really good today. I mean, first of all, they basically only played 7 guys, like guys 8, 9 played, I don't know, 7, 8 minutes, but they basically went with the 7-man rotation and those 5 guys, you know, Suggs has been, the minutes have been all over the place this year for him. Even in the playing game on Friday, I think he played 22 minutes, but he played 36 today. And really looked like the Suggs from the guy that basically got that giant contract. Just a two-way, all over the place, most annoying player possible everywhere, hands touching everything.
So they had that.
Paolo was way more in control. You know, they, we've seen this with him sometimes where he looks better in the playoffs than the regular season. I don't really understand that. Franz looked healthy and Carter yet again, because he looked good Friday night too. You watch Carter, you're like, all right, that, that's— there's something there. So you watch all of it together. I always think of the playoffs— I thought about this yesterday watching Atlanta and the Knicks too— when you watch the two teams and you're like, if I didn't know anything, if I didn't know the seeds, records, do these teams seem around the same level, right? And Atlanta seemed like a hair below the Knicks but seemed like they could play with them. We're gonna talk about that game later. This game, it was like you wouldn't have known who the 1 seed was and who the 8 seed was if you came out of a coma, right? If you just woke up, you missed 6 months of the season, you were like, who's the 1 seed? Was it Orlando? No, no, it was actually Detroit.
Well, Detroit, you know, all the things they do to exert their will and their physicality on everybody else don't work as well against Orlando. 'Cause Orlando's as big and strong, right? And nasty as the Pistons are. And you said, you said a key word, which is health. Anthony Black is back and Franz Wagner is back. And like, maybe that's just part of what this is and why we didn't see this team together the whole year. When Suggs is in and out of the lineup, I've called him the sort of skeleton key of their team before. Their starting 5 has been good all year when healthy. They're just never healthy. But they played so goddamn hard on both ends of the floor.
Totally.
They played with so much force, so much speed, so much decisiveness that part of me was like, and I mean this in a sort of backhanded way, like, Are they like the least accomplished flip the switch team in the history of the NBA? Have they been like waiting to play this hard all year and they just barely scrounged in by the 8th seed? 'Cause this was a completely different team than some of the, the, the, the bad lay an egg games they've had.
Yeah. I thought Friday night what they did to Charlotte, just, it wasn't just a 30-point blowout. Charlotte over and over again, they weren't getting shots off in 24 seconds or they were getting terrible shots. Like, They demolished an offense that was a top 5 offense for most of the season, right? The last two-thirds. And then today, same thing. They took this play with Cade and Duran that's worked all year, that was like the bread and butter for this Pistons team, and they just blew it up. I was looking at the shooting for them. So they shot 30% from 3 in the Friday playing game. They shot 29% from 3 today. So you can't look at it if you're like, ah, it was a little fluky with Orlando. It's like, Actually wasn't that fluky. Like they kept on Friday, Charlotte only had 7 offensive rebounds. Today Detroit only had 6 offensive rebounds. So basically they're playing good defense. They're not giving up offensive rebounds. They're taking care of the ball. And you talk about the flip the switch stuff. To me it's like when you hit rock bottom, like they hit, I, I'm a big believer of this, especially in football, like teams trying to tell you who they are.
I felt like they were trying to tell us who they were in that first playing game and in the Celtics game against the main Celtics where it's like, we're ready to, we're ready to go to, to the offseason.
It was, we're ready to go to Cancún. It was borderline 1, 2, 3 Cancún.
Like it was, it really was pretty bad. And for the most part, when I see that, I just quit on the team completely. So I can't even imagine what it's like to be an Orlando Magic fan right now. 'Cause there's no way after the Philly playing game, there's no way anyone could have believed in Orlando after those two games, right? So now it's like maybe that's what happened. They had to hit rock bottom. Maybe they had some great team meeting that we don't know about, but they're a completely different team. And, and I, I, I have to buy into it.
I mean, they were flying on defense. How many Detroit possessions, even ones that ended up with baskets or drawn fouls, were, went like haywire halfway through though. There's a loose ball, there's a deflection, Detroit picks it up and they reconfigure and everything's okay. But they were, like just flying around and on offense, like this has not been a good offensive team in quite a long time. They set real screens, they changed sides of the floor with decisiveness. They like, they ran into the catch at full speed. They cut hard, like they did everything with such decisiveness and force. And it wasn't like the most sophisticated, pretty offense, but they executed their stuff with just vigor and force. And it was like, where has this been? Why have you not played like this the entire year? I don't understand. But if they play like this, this entire series, they absolutely have a chance to win it.
They were, I think, +350 or +330, something like that, to win the game today. For the series, Fanduel still has them +172. I think that's a mistake. I actually, to me, this is a 50-50 series now because if Orlando, now granted, maybe that's stupid because maybe in game 2 they're just gonna go back to being the Orlando from a week ago. But I do feel like the switch might've flipped. And here's the thing, Zach, we've, we saw this 3 years ago with Miami. Miami finished, they were 44-38, the 2023 Heat. They were 13-12 in their last 25, and they lost the first play-in game. And we were like, it's over. They're done. Fuck it. Fuck, fuck the Heat.
They were on the ropes in the second play-in game, right?
So they win the second playing game and then they beat Milwaukee, the Knicks, and Boston all in order and made the finals again as an 8th seed. So it's conceived, basically there's a track record for this.
Well, there's one, there's one record of it.
Well, it's for 3 years ago. It wasn't like it was in 1977.
I just wanna be clear. Are you positing that a Magic finals run?
No, I'm not.
Is coming now. Okay. I've, I was about, I was about to be a little, I'm not.
I'm just saying it seems inconceivable, but we just lived through this 3 years ago. The difference is that Heat team had actually accomplished some stuff and made the finals in 2020 and had Jimmy Butler, et cetera, et cetera. But this, to me, I wrote this down in my notes. This is a really good example why I think the 1 seeds in each conference, it should be 2, 2, 3, and not 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, or however we're doing it. There should be some sort of advantage for being the 1 seed. You look at Detroit, they haven't had a mean— I'm not making excuses for them 'cause I didn't think they played well today. And I thought, I thought Orlando exposed real holes for them that we'll talk about in a second. But they didn't play a meaningful game for what, 2 and a half weeks. They had the 1 seed in the East locked up, then they just had a week off. They're bringing Cade back in trying to feel that out. And they really haven't played a game with that kind of intensity that meant something probably in a month. And meanwhile, Orlando's been in this groove of, they had to turn it up in Boston in that fourth quarter when they realized they were losing the main Celtics.
They lost. Philly was a playing game in front of a hostile crowd, then Charlotte to get into the tournament. And then today, like, they're, they're kind of in the groove, whereas Detroit isn't. So if I'm Detroit, I'm like, well, that kind of sucks. Like, we're at a, in a weirdly, we're like at a disadvantage.
I've actually come to disagree with you on the 2-2-3 format.
Okay, let's hear it.
If only because this— I agree that the number 1 seed should have a little bit more benefit to it than it does now. I think that might skew— I mean, I'd have to think more about it. I think that might skew it too much because the NBA is already the most predictable league in US professional sports, and extending the first round series from 5 to 7 two decades ago sort of decreased the upset chances. Like in a 7-game series, the best team slash healthiest team is likely gonna win. I do though. So I would keep the 2-3-2 or 2-2-1-1-1, however you wanna do it. I do think that you should at least get to pick your first opponent. And I know the NBA scheduling people will be like, it's impossible. We can schedule an 82-game season with all these matrices and Emirates Cup and all this stuff, but we just absolutely cannot do that one thing because it messes up our ability to schedule the playoffs. 'Cause this is a case where I think Detroit probably picks Philly. Instead of Orlando and it has an easier time and your Celtics then get Orlando. So I, I just, I'm trying to split the difference a little bit, but I, by the way, I do agree with you.
I don't think Detroit played very well today. They, they were like a little frazzled. And if you want to look at the frazzledness of it, like those plays where Paolo was isolating on the wing and they would load up their defense to him, like shade to him and just forget other guys were just standing by the basket. Yeah. And just, oh, we could just give the ball to Jalen Dern, like very basic. Help the helper kind of stuff and they just let go. They just were like, I, they were a little frazzled, I thought. And I think game 2, they will not be as frazzled. History always suggests that a, a big home favorite that loses game 1 tends to rout the other team in game 2. Yeah. So I'm expecting Detroit to even the series and then it all feels different, but we'll see.
You became like a bringer gambling show post there.
Okay, well good.
The history, the history of game 2. So one of the things with Detroit we were worried about, they never did anything at the trade deadline.
Well, Kevin Herter was like their fourth best player tonight. They did something at least.
That's my point. Instead of like going all in and trading some real capital and trying to get somebody and strengthening that spot, Kevin Herter was the answer. So Herter plays 18 minutes today. Ron Holland plays 10. Javonte Green plays 4, Levert plays 4, Duncan Robinson plays 26. And that position, you know, they always had probably the worst guy on the floor compared to the 5 Orlando guys. So I thought that was, that was not great for them. And then the, you know, Tobias 5 for 15 again. We've kind of seen this from Tobias and when the, when the lights get a little brighter. I thought he had a really good season for them, but he's gotta do better. But this is, not a great matchup for him. He's going against two forwards that are better than him.
I thought he had a good playoffs last year too against the Knicks. That was a good showing for him in terms of his toughness and his rising to the level. But it did feel, he was 1 of 7 on threes. I think it felt like he was 1 of 15 on corner threes. 'Cause they were all open and just like, he just gotta knock down 2 or 3 more of 'em. And I, the other minutes thing I would look at, you mentioned you added 'em all off. Asar Thompson also only 25 minutes. And this is the thing we've been harping on all year with the lack of shooting that the Pistons have is when it's go time, he, he, he might be the best perimeter defender in the entire NBA. And can you play him 35 minutes a game? Or is the spacing with him and Durant, and then they, they had Beef Stew and Durant playing together a little bit and that was a little clunky. Like, is, how can we figure out the equation? And it's not good that in game 83 it's like, all right, I guess we're gonna close crunch time with Jenkins and Herter and maybe Beef Stew for a little while.
And like 2 starters, 1 starter, 3 starters. Like, do we even know who to play right now? It's, that's That makes me a little nervous.
I'm glad you mentioned that 'cause that was the last thing I wanted to talk about. This is a shocking game 1 collapse at home. And in crunch time they had Jenkins and Cade playing together, which I bet they haven't done more than— how many times could they have actually probably done that this year? Finish games with those two?
Finish, I don't know, but there's a decent sample size of minutes in there. They're +10 per 100 possessions or something in a decent sample of minutes. But yeah, but again, it's a different—
The finish of those two, Duran wasn't out there, Stewart was the center. Herder was out there. It was just, it was just odd. This is the number one seed. They almost won 60 games. I, I listen, I was on texting with my dad for two days leading up to the weekend about who would we rather see, you know, Orlando or Philly. Who would you rather want for that 7-8? And I was like, I don't want to see Orlando even though they look so bad in that Sunday game because they're physical. You know, there's cheap shot potential with them. I just think Philly with no Embiid. Just feels like an easier ride for us, right? And then Orlando looks like shit in that game. My dad's like, I told you we should have played Philly. And then today he flipped again. He was like, I told you Orlando would've been a problem. Like, my dad can't remember what argument we've had, but Charlotte versus Orlando, when you see how teams were blowing up Charlotte, I'm sure Detroit's now looking at that like Con was clearly not 100% healthy. I'm sure Detroit's looking at that like, man, that could have been a lot easier of a series.
We were way more physical than them.
I hope Detroit is looking at none of that and just looking at themselves and looking at the standings and looking in the mirror and saying, let's just come kick the shit outta this team in the next game. We've won 60-whatever games. Like, this isn't about them. It's not about Charlotte. It's not about who we could have played and wah, wah, wah. If we could pick our opponent, let's go out and kick some butt.
I'm more concerned than you.
I'm not unconcerned. I'm just like, let's, like, if, let's think if they win game 2, The series starts to feel a little, you know, these swings go up and down. I'm not gonna go crazy after game 1. I expect them to win game 2. If they don't, then obviously it's full-on panic time.
I'm more concerned than you because I don't like, normally when we have an upset like that, it's like, oh, somebody shot 20 for 48 from 3, or, or the best guy on the other team got in foul trouble. There's some sort of dumb variable. This was, there was no dumb variable. Orlando just played way better than them and they were tougher than them and weren't afraid of them.
And the fact that they weren't afraid of them and took 19 less free throws, by the way.
Right. The fact that they weren't afraid and weren't surprised at all what was happening would be the thing that scared me. I think this is going to be— I just can't believe Orlando 180'd us. And by the way, they might just 180 us back. That's how Detroit gets back in the series. Orlando just turns into the team from 10 days ago. And they have some injury guys too. Like, I don't know if I trust Suggs to play, be healthy for 2 weeks. I don't know if I trust Franz.
Who knows?
Um, the other one that we watched tonight was Spurs-Portland, and, uh, it, you know, wasn't surprising. San Antonio won pretty easily. The color-coordinated sections— I have some thoughts.
I, I loved it. You, you're gonna be a Grinch on this?
Yeah. Yes, I am.
What do you want? You just want— what do you want? Just one color all the way around?
You've won 5 titles as a franchise. It's not the time for gimmicks. Act like you've been there before.
Every franchise does this though. They usually just do one color. Is it just the multicolors that's sticking in your craw?
I felt like I was at a parade.
Oh my God.
They haven't been— every section was a different color. It's been 7 years. They won 5 titles. They had Tim Duncan. They had one of the 10 best players of all time who was there at the game, probably wondering why everybody was in a different section wearing a different t-shirt.
He wasn't wondering because they're the Fiesta colors. He was wearing the shirt. Manu Ginobili was wearing the shirt. You're like Kramer at the AIDS walk. You don't want to wear the ribbon. You want to, you want to—
this is one of our championship contenders. I don't know. Uh, Webby, I just—
horrible take. Just a horrible take.
That's fine. I don't, I don't put the t-shirt on. I hate the t-shirts. I don't understand the t-shirts. I don't like when the Celtics do them. I just like old school basketball. I don't want to be dressed like everyone else by section. We've lost our minds.
You want no, you want like just the old school organ playing? No music, no songs.
Yes, that sounds great. Old school organ sounds amazing. I like the sound of the, of the sneakers screeching. I'm just old. Uh, he did win 5 titles, so I don't know if he needed, needed, uh, gimmicks. Wemby just has an edge to him. He really just seems like he wants to destroy everybody. It's a pretty great quality for the guy we're pinning our future of the league hopes on. Uh, very Jordan, Kobe, everyone is my enemy. I'm not here to make friends. I really want to embarrass whoever I'm playing against. You can feel it tonight. Pretty good game. Had a couple good stretch, had a stretch in the fourth quarter where he's like, I'm on NBC, I want to put on a little show here. Good times all around. I was impressed by Portland though. I thought they kind of hung around and, and got some punches in.
They were frisky. I'm sure you were thrilled with Scoot's 7-for-11 performance. He looked very calm, very collected. They just don't have enough offensive talent. They're a team that's geared toward getting to the rim and they're facing a guy who's just not gonna let you get there or unless you want to get embarrassed. And so they're gonna have to make more jump shots than they're capable of. They took, 38 threes tonight, which for them is quite a lot. They made, they made 10. And good first test for the Spurs, I thought, like a nice physical, like, gutty team who's not afraid. They're gonna throw some different defenses at you. They threw the mat, different matchups at Wemby and different times. And then they played super small with Grant at center. It was just like a fun, like, all right, we're gonna, we're, we're not, we're not leaving a lot of cards in our back pocket for this one. We're gonna throw everything we have at you and try to win one game here.
Yeah. I think, I think game 3 at Portland will be a nice little mini test for them. Be a good crowd. Portland will be fired up. And I think Portland's pretty good, man. It's, it's hard to believe they're a 7th seed. 'Cause I think if, like, if we had done your draft, I don't know if they would've been the 7th team drafted for the, the 1 seed got to pick who they were playing and then the 2 seed did.
Oh, I see.
I think, would you, if you were San Antonio, would you have wanted to play Houston or Portland? You definitely would've wanted to play the Lakers if you didn't think Luka was playing.
Well, that, but you're letting me pick anyone. I'm just, my draft is I just get to pick from the play-in tournament, in which case I probably would've picked Phoenix over, over Portland based on how they're coming down the stretch. And Phoenix just isn't healthy with Grayson Allen and Mark Williams and all that. But yeah, Portland is a pain in the ass. They're physical, they're tough. They have a lot of weird, like-sized personnel that allows them to do a lot of different stuff on defense. Scoot's making shots like they're— the— Thibel has completely changed their defense since he got healthy. He's just a complete menace to society out there. They're just not fun to play against. You're gonna feel the Blazers.
Yeah. So Scoot was— how many turnovers did he have? 3?
3. You'll take that.
27 minutes tonight.
Sign it up. One turnover every 9 minutes. That's fine.
Looked pretty explosive.
He did.
I'm gonna talk to my business manager tomorrow, make, make sure my position is still Still stable. One thing on this, there's a lot of stuff going on around the Cheap Blazers owner. And I know you talk to people in the league about gossipy stuff like this from time to time. This guy has been a fascination of mine for a little while now, culminating with the, the story about how he didn't wanna do late checkouts for everybody a couple days ago.
I did, I did.
Everybody had to check out.
I forgot where that came out.
They're all in the lobby. I forget who had it. So you had that. Today the big story was that he didn't pay for the two-way guys to go to the game.
Yeah. Sean Hyken.
San Antonio. Yeah. That the three two-way guys, including Caleb Love, who actually like helped them out during the season and, you know, had like a pretty decent impact for them. And they told all those guys to stay home. Then there's a lot of stuff that's been going around really for the last three weeks about that they lowballed Splitter. That they don't, that he has this theory that you shouldn't have to pay a lot of money for a coach. Maybe he's gonna target somebody who will just be happy to take the job. This is a guy who just bought the team, who spent, Tom Dundon, who spent $4.25 billion on it. And I guess spent all his money on the team and now, now wants to cut back on everything else. It's a pretty weird way to start your new ownership. I will say that.
Look, if I am a young, if I'm like a 34-year-old high school basketball coach in the Portland area and I'm doing some really wacky stuff, like we're pressing every time, we're taking 75 threes, I'm scheduling a meeting. I want to get in there and be like, half a million bucks.
I'll, I'll do it.
Right.
I'll do it. I'll do it for $200K.
Here, here, look at, look at, look at all the crazy stuff that I'm doing with my team of guys. I don't even have a 6-footer on the team. We're doing crazy random stuff. Give me, I'll, I'll do it.
Oh, hmm.
Boy, will I be, will this make me like the smartest guy in sports? The most interesting guy in sports if I hire this guy? Yeah.
He's like, I, I could kind of see it from his point after if he's has like, if you're having drinks with him one night and he's having cigars and he's telling you about his plans, he is like, hey, this whole thing about paying a lot of money for coaches, how come 12 of them get fired every year and I have to pay this guy $4 million and this guy $5 million? What? Why wouldn't I just zag on that and just pay like a million? I'm gonna fire the guy in 3 years anyway. You'd be like, okay, Tom Dundon, it's a good plan.
Yeah.
I mean, go for it.
What, remember the famous high school coach in Arkansas who never punted? He was like the first guy to never punt.
Yeah.
If there's anybody in the Pacific Northwest doing something like that in basketball, get in, get in a room with Tom Dundon right now because Tiago Splitter's done an awesome job. I think he should be the favorite to be the coach. I think I wouldn't even mind if they just gave him the job right now. I don't know if they're gonna offer him enough money to make it worth his while. It's just because there's gonna be other jobs that open up and the rumors going around are interesting. But yeah, just high school coaches in Portland, get out there.
Why does it still say acting coach for Tiago Splitter? He's been the coach since game 2. He's been the coach for 6 straight months and the other coach sold his house. And got indicted.
Well, just in case, you know, can we just call him the coach?
Like he's been the coach for—
also, the Blazers are 42-40 with like pretty weird personnel, a low offensive ceiling. Scoots missed a lot of the season. They've had injuries up and down. Jrue Holiday's missed a lot of the season. Jeremy Grant, the Jeremy Grant Time Lord, is just a walking 40 games of basketball. He was great tonight. And here they are with like a real identity of defense and toughness and building around Denny Avdija as like the point, point forward. And they play super hard. I just, tonight, I mean, they're not leaving a lot of strategic cards on the table. They're trying a lot of different stuff. And, and I think he's done a great job. And who, who else do you want to be the coach?
Their picks, they have, they own, oh, their first goes to Chicago this year. And then they get some of these Milwaukee swaps, 28 and 30. They get swaps, they get Milwaukee's first and 29. They have some good assets. They're pretty good salary cap situation except for the Jrue contract. And if I was a Portland fan, I'd feel good about all of this. But now we just had El Cheapo took over the team. I don't think they've had their, they haven't figured out their arena thing yet. And this guy's like, you know, Donald Sterling had some good ideas, not the bad stuff. I'm just talking about the ownership stuff.
Don't go there. Don't go there.
The way he cut costs was pretty smart.
Nope. El Cheapo.
El Cheapo. By the way, Portland fans, feel free to take that.
Here's the bright line you cannot cross as an NBA owner. You want to nickel and dime the coach? Okay. Like, I don't think— doesn't seem great. You want to like skimp around meals and all this stuff? Like, fans aren't really going to find that stuff out. What you can't do, and I don't think anyone has done it, since, who, who was it that sold the pick? You cannot sell your first round pick. You can sell seconds for a couple million bucks. If you sell, if you trade your first round pick for cash, you should be kicked out of the league immediately.
This year, when was the last time that happened?
It's been about 10 or 12 years, I think. And I'm blanking on which, which pick it was.
Well, Sarver was the most famous one. Remember that? Yeah. He, he, he basically sold the Luol Deng pick for, it was like the 7th pick in the draft.
Well, and they dumped, they dumped all these picks to Seattle in trades that helped the Thunder become what the Thunder are. Like, step one.
That was bonkers.
And the other thing, we're saying this, we're sort of making light of it, but I think as longtime old, I'm old, you're old NBA fans, like, this is a franchise that we actually care a lot about. The Blazers are an awesome franchise. They're up there all by themselves now without Seattle. They have a fun history. They have incredible fans. This is like, yeah, let's make sure we take care of this, this fan base.
It's pretty brutal. 'Cause you, but the thing I'd be worried about just in general with some of these teams is these teams have become so expensive that people are leveraging themselves to, you know, just to pull it off. And then they get it and now they're looking at it like, well, shit, we can cut here, we can cut here, we can cut here. And it's like, that's not how the NBA works. Like, you, you gotta spend at least a modicum of stuff not— cheaping out on a coach is insane. If that's like really the strategy, that's insane. Now, with it, there's bad coaches every year. There's, there's bad hires. We've seen situations like the Suns paying 3, 4 coaches at the same time. That's also insane. But to, to be like, this is like a strategic advantage if we go this way and I'll be able to save 11— coaching is the one place that there's no cap. This is just like a straightforward, you know, this is a luxury basically for your team. If you're gonna, if you're gonna cheap out on that, that's a bad sign.
Agree. And boy, are they up against a tough opponent in the San Antonio Spurs and Wemby, who just had 4 different highlights today that were outrageous.
Well, he, including near the end when he almost dunked from his head was behind the backboard basically. And then it looked like he was, it feels like he's really a threat to get seriously hurt by the backboard twice a game.
I, it, he's very tall and he jumps and his limbs fly around, but that transition thing where he, he went around the back on Deni Avdić, then he hit him with the righty in and out dribble that he spun back to his left and like, it wasn't even a dunk as much as it was just like he jumped and his hands were in the basket. It was like, I don't even know, like, what am I supposed to do now? Well, how can I go on with the rest of my day when that happened?
Well, I'm gonna rule out Portland for Giannis. I know I mentioned that to you a week ago. This, this guy doesn't even want to pay a coach. I'm pretty sure he's not gonna pay for Giannis and his two brothers to be on the team.
Can I shout out? No, I mean, I didn't, I didn't, I was, I, I was with you on the, like, they could be a third team in a Giannis trade or a fourth team.
I did not see Giannis, uh, it would be funny if he traded for Giannis and then refused to fly Giannis's brothers to the playoff game. That would go well.
How about just not even sign? Like, what about not signing them? I mean, the Bucks ended up— they had all the, all the brothers, Alex, Anthony.
There's a fourth brother though. They didn't go all in. They went, they went mostly in, but there was still one last brother. I actually thought—
what, Costas, head coach of the Blazers? Discount head coach? Oh, interesting.
You just do Thanasis.
Yeah.
Yeah. 'Cause Thanasis seems to be the one that Giannis is like, kind of, that's his real conciliatory. So you hire Thanasis. Yeah. Pretty fun. Okay. So if you had to pick, we're gonna talk about all the other games in a second after we do a break, but if you had to pick the upset heading into our break that we're about to take, would you go Houston or would you go Orlando? Uh, I mean, uh, Lakers or Orlando, I should say.
I, I just, I'm still parking the Houston-Lakers thing over here 'cause the injuries make it so weird. So I'm just like, I wanna see more of the series before I really digest it. So I'll, I'll just say Orlando for now. Kudos, kudos to, kudos to the Magic. Great showing the last couple games.
I really respect and appreciate what Adam Silver and the NBA did staggering out that Lakers-Houston series.
When's Game 2? Wednesday.
I, it's going until like July.
Tuesday.
I think, I think Game 7 is July 15th. It's just going and going and going. It's going on forever.
Well, the first round's always like that though. There's always, this is, this is the time you mentioned like Orlando has injury risks on their team. This is the round where it's like you get extra days off for Jalen Suggs and Franz Wagner. And if he were healthy, Joel Embiid. But alas.
Well, so tomorrow we have Toronto, Cleveland, Atlanta, New York, Minnesota, Denver. 3 really good ones. And then, uh, they, the Lakers play on Tuesday, so they push that one for the 3 days. And then the next one is Friday. Just classic.
I love it. If the Mets—
I would have done it too.
If the Mets are still on a losing streak by game 3, of Lakers-Rockets. I might, that might be it. I might be drinking on the Sunday podcast with you then at that point.
That'll be really exciting.
Yeah.
Well, next Sunday we'll be coming off, ironically, Lakers-Houston Game 4.
Great.
That'll be the next one. All right. We're gonna take a break. We're gonna come back and we have 6 other series that we have to dive into next. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA postseason is here and FanDuel knows the only thing better than watching your favorite team win is winning along with them. FanDuel, the best place to bet the teams, players, and plays during their playoff run. Build a same-game parlay or try live betting and jump in after tip-off. Don't forget, with FanDuel, you get paid instantly when you win. Download the FanDuel Sportsbook app now and play your game. 21+ select states or 18+ D.C., Kentucky, or Wyoming. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER, call 888-789-7777, or visit ccpg.org/chat.
Connecticut.
It. This episode is brought to you by PayPal. We've seen some legendary athletes don the number 4 jersey. Now I can't name names, but you guys know who I'm talking about. In fact, if you look at my studio, there's a, a framed picture of one of my favorite number 4s. He played hockey. Anyway, you know what else is game-changing for PayPal? Pay in 4. No fees, no interest, no impact on your credit score, just the flexibility to pay the way that works for you, and it's available at millions of online stores. Pay in 4 with PayPal, subject to approval. Learn more at paypal.com/payin4. PayPal Inc., NMLS 910457. All right, we're going to talk about the other 6 series. There's a lot of fun questions. We'll start with the West. We're Lakers-Houston. Houston was a -900 favorite when the odds came out for this series and started steadily dropping. And then there was this mystery Kevin Durant injury that I didn't know about till yesterday. When did you find out about it?
When it was reported. That's all. Yeah.
You did a nice job of hiding it. And then of course you knew the Lakers were gonna win even though they were +2.5. LeBron had a classic game manager game. Luke Kennard stock continues to rise. And more importantly, the Rockets just doing exactly what you would think you would, they would do in this situation. Clogged toilet offense, just inexplicable. I, I, I, I don't know why they weren't pressuring more. I didn't understand really anything they did. I thought it was a worse Rockets loss than a better Lakers win, if that makes sense.
A little, a little bit of both. Definitely the least watchable of all the games so far. It was a rock. It was like, it made a, a rock fight is an insult to rock fights. But I just want to point out a couple of things. Do you know how hard it is to lose an NBA game where you take 93 shots and the other team takes 66 shots?
Yeah.
You take the same number of free throws. So that's not the reason the other team is taking so, so more, fewer official field goals than you. The other team takes 19 3-pointers total in the year of our basketball gods, 2026, and you get 21 offensive rebounds and you lose by 9. That's, that is mathematically improbable.
And congratulations to the Houston Rockets for pulling it off and felt like they were outta the game the whole fourth quarter, even though it was not a blowout. Also led to a text from my dad in the third quarter, Zach, just, I hate the Lakers, was his text. He was just furious that it worked out this way. He thought we were gonna get rid of them in round one, and that's not how it's happening.
Well, tell your dad, tell your dad, buck up. Like, what's the downside? They get a little time to get healthy. Maybe they get a little frisky, a little interesting. I mean, do you wanna watch this Rockets team play for two playoff rounds? I don't.
I don't. Here's what I did tell my dad. I love that the Laker fans are getting sucked in here. So Luka gets hurt, it's like, we're done. And now yesterday, KD goes down. LeBron looks pretty spry with a week off. Ayton looked alive. I mean, alive is a bonus for him. And now they're like, man, if we could just, we get by Houston, Luka comes back, Luka versus SGA. He's had success against that team. I love that they're talking themselves into it. It's great. I love watching it from afar.
You're already, you're already gonna just rule out Phoenix's upset chances against the Thunder looking at, looking ahead to the second round.
I am gonna rule that out. I, I'm gonna rule it out vociferously. I have some Houston questions for you since you're, you're a smart breakdown basketball guy, dude. That's where you made your bones initially.
Sure.
All right. Question number one about the Rockets. Why do they use Shengun like this? Why?
Like, like how? Like just, just, hey, there's 11 on the shot clock and nothing has happened. Can you just dribble from 20 feet out and maybe something good will happen like that?
Yeah. We, we're gonna try to use you like Denver uses Jokic, who's the best offensive player probably of this century. Can you just do an imitation of that? Why don't they put him near the basket? Why don't they have him posting up, drawing double teams? I don't understand anything with how they use him.
Well, also, like, can you, can you do that? But also with no shooting around you at all so that there's just no passing angle for you to go to. It's just traffic everywhere. Every kickout option is like, I mean, Amund Thompson took 2 corner threes last night where it was like, I guess this is just all we got. Like, I guess we just gotta take this one. I, you know, look, they're starting Reed Shepard, which is a good, he took a million threes last night. They just need to run that pick and roll combination more, especially when Durant comes back. That's their only like oxygen on offense other than transition, which the Lakers did an okay job at limiting and offensive rebounding, which they got a lot of. And it just like, sometimes it feels like that's just their offense is just throw it at the rim and we'll get it. And that's all they got. And it's just too many possessions where there's just no concept of shot clock spacing. There was one, I can't remember when it was, it was in the second half. Shingun and Reed Shepard ran an inverted pick and roll on the right side of the floor, which is a great idea.
Like that's a good idea. Your two best offensive players, your best shooter, like do it, do all that. Reed Shepard popped open, like screened and flared out. He was open except Shingun couldn't get him the ball because another defender, I think it was Vanderbilt, rotated kind of into the airspace where the pass might go. And the reason Vanderbilt could do that and leave the other side of the floor was that 3 Rockets players were almost like standing on top of each other in the left corner.
They're clustered.
And so, and so Shingun had nothing, nothing to do but just keep dribbling. And there was still 12 on the shot clock and it was as if 12 was the same as 2 and like, okay, I guess we can't do anything else. Shangun, just do something. And I don't even remember what happened, but it wasn't good.
Out of all the playoff teams, they're the one that gets like the most, like Legler was doing the Rockets game where just a couple moments where you just hear the disgust in the announcers' voices. We're like, oh, I don't, I don't really know what, what was going on with the spacing in that play, Mike. So you have that. They're really tied to Thompson, and I think Thompson's excellent, but I think you could also argue that with the state of the Lakers offense without all their guys, maybe you should have more shooting and try to outscore them and maybe at least give 5 minutes of Shengun surrounded by 4 shooters and just see what it looks like. I would throw that in.
I don't know. Do they have 4 shooters? Is that even a feasible lineup for them?
I mean, well, Jabari and Reed, can you get, are there 2 more anywhere? Is, I mean, what was the holidays?
Easton was 7 for 7. They do have a holiday. It's Aaron Holiday. It just, you do have to remember like Fred VanVleet, like the lack of guard play other than Reed Shepard on the team is astonishing. And Amen Thompson is not a point guard. He's just an Amen Thompson, which is great. That's what he should be for now. No VanVleet, no Durant. And I was thinking like when you're, if you're Ime Udoka, your two best offensive players right now by far with Durant out are Reed and Shingun. Yeah. Do I stagger them? Which is what he opted to do. And I think one of the reasons he opted to do that was if I put Shingun, one of the, one of the things that I was thinking about, maybe the reason why you wouldn't do that rather is if I put Shingun out there without Reed Shepard and without Kevin Durant, like what, who is running a pick and roll with him? Who is like opening up the office? So it's, they just have so, and, and Finney-Smith has just given them absolutely nothing. He's supposed to be one of these shooters that you'd put out there in a lineup like that.
They just don't have it unless they're gonna play guys that aren't playing.
Why don't they run more high screens with Reed and Jabari was my next question, or any sort of action with the two of them. It just seems like I always watch Jabari and I go, I feel like there's more there. And I don't think the Rockets agree with me and that's why they use him this way. But I personally feel like there's more there. Maybe I'm the one that's wrong, but I don't understand that either.
Probably. I'm guessing if we went back and looked at the personnel, the Lakers would switch it. And so they just, that doesn't mean you give up on it, right? Like you can slip out of it, you can fake screen and, and flare away. There's ways to do something else when you know the team's gonna switch it. I did think it was notable that, um, both teams know that the other offense is gonna hunt respectively Reed Shepard.
Yeah.
And Luke Kennard. And both teams, I think very smartly, did not have those players guard each other because they're the only real dangerous shooters. I mean, not the only for the Lakers, but the dangerous shooters on the floor. So they put better defenders on those. So if you're gonna put those guys in the action, guess what? We're gonna switch as many as we can.
Third question. So I would've gone, if it was me, okay, I would've gone into the series. If I'm Houston, we don't have Kevin Durant, you know LeBron is gonna try to do his LeBron game manager thing. And I thought he, he had a really fun game yesterday. Good throwback. He did kind of early '90s Magic Johnson type game. I just would've been like, hey, I'm Ben Thompson. You're stuck to this guy for 2.5 hours. Like if you're gonna play, your only job is to make sure LeBron has a really rough 2.5 hours and feels like he's 41 by the end of this game. And that's it. And I didn't feel like they did that either. I, between Smart and LeBron, I would just 94 feet it with everyone I have. Just put miles on them, make them work, you know?
Well, the only time they were doing that is if you watch, if you go back and watch when Bronny was in the game, right? Al Ivy on Houston's bench was saying, press him, press him, press him.
'Cause he can't shoot every time.
But it was interesting with LeBron, like they put a Kogi on him to start the game and like a Kogi starting is a problem. It's just another guy that teams are gonna ignore even though he shot it well and he's got some bulk to him. Anyone else, like LeBron kind of made Tari Eason look not strong enough. And I think the same thing would happen to Ahmed Thompson, except he's a better athlete. He can get up vertically a little bit, but I think he would just overpower him and old man put him under the basket. By the way, kudos to old man LeBron taking back-to-back hook shots late in the game last night.
That was fun. I would take my chances with Thompson and just hope the young legs and the athletic ability would do it. We'll see. I mean, this would be a catastrophe for Houston, and I don't even know how they would go into the summer if they lose this series when they— there's no Luka and no Reeves. And this even— I know they lose KD right before, and it's a little bit of a weird event, but they should still— come on. And if you, if you come out of this getting bounced out of round 1, to me, they've moved to the top of the panic playoff team list. I'm ready for a coach firing. I'm ready for a trade. I'm ready for— they have some picks to move around. I'm ready for basically anything with them.
Well, and not only that, like, if, if, if the Lakers are ever able to get those guys healthy, they become at least a more interesting second round opponent for Oklahoma City than this version of Houston. Now you could sit here and say, wait a second, we have no VanVleet and we have no Durant. Well, the other team has no Luka and no Reaves, and they at least seemed like prepared for how to play without those guys a little bit. Yeah. They have LeBron, they have LeBron who's a genius. I get it. But it just the lack of just any idea of what to do was disturbing. Can I give LeBron kudos for another old man thing?
Yeah.
Really wonderful performance at, he's allowed to do the thing where he shoots and he makes a basket and he thinks he gets fouled. And he points at the ref. And the point is like when other players do that, it's a T because the point is, the point is like you specifically were supposed to be in the line of sight to call that foul. But he does it so politely, like he just sort of nods at the guy and the guy nods back and LeBron's like, okay, then he gets away with it. No one does anything. It was just very polite pointing back and forth multiple times in the game.
So you think Jayson Tatum should start doing that? Because he does the sarcastic laugh shrug thing and they hate that. They hate that.
They usually hate the pointing because you're not only saying bad call, you're pointing out, you're pointing specifically to the one of the three that was supposed to make the call you think should have happened.
My big question for this series, if KD, whether he comes back or not, if he's not 100% KD, if he's a limited version of himself, whatever, what do you do if you're, what's your number one thing to do if you're the Rockets? 'Cause if you watched them all year, He played basically every game. I think he missed 4, played 36 minutes a game. He brought the ball up for them most of the time, especially in the fourth quarter. He, they ran the whole offense through him. And on the fly, I just feel like it has to be Shengun at this point. But you pointed out earlier, if they don't have the shooters around him, you just collapse on him. I, what is it? Is it just cross your fingers and hope Breach Sheppard turns into the third pick of the 2024 draft? What's the move?
Well, I mean, Reed Shepard, he took, he took their kind of shots. Yeah. I think you just have to maximize the 3 of those guys on, they're like a good triangle of functional offense. Like 2 guys who can handle the ball in the pick and roll, a roller who can pass, you can invert it, you can post them, whatever. Those 3 guys, although the numbers are just good, not great with them on the floor, that's a roadmap to like the ball can pop a little bit instead of this just station to station. Everybody who gets it holds it and looks around. For 3 seconds. By the way, total minutes played leaders for the season: Amen Thompson, Houston Rockets, 1. Kevin Durant, Houston Rockets, 2. Jabari Smith Jr., Houston Rockets, 5. Ime Udoka is becoming like Tibbs 2.0 in, in like a lot of ways right now.
He did this with the Celtics too that year. He played those guys big minutes. I listen, I thought their biggest mistake the whole year was yanking Shepard up and down out of the lineup, in and out. They, you never got a feel of, You know, if they were just going to actually say, all right, dude, here are the car keys, let's go. And clearly Udoka didn't love the defense and then was frustrated with them. But now they're in a situation where they actually need him. So you have that classic basketball move of, I know I yelled at you a lot and I benched you a few times, but hey man, let's get past this. Let's move forward. The LeBron piece of this, one last thing, you know, he shows up in 2018. Weird first year, kind of isn't even on the team the second half of the year.
Then kind of like, I like where this is going. I like this. I like this take that's about to come. Second year, it's gonna hurt you a little bit.
I think second year it feels like LeBron's on the Lakers, but then COVID hits, bubble. Third year seems good.
Wait, you just, you, wait, wait, wait, is it, you just yada yada the NBA championship?
Well, they didn't get to celebrate it. I'm, I'm talking about, okay. I'm going to the part of, did LeBron ever feel 100% like a Laker? Or did he feel like LeBron James who was playing on the Lakers? Right? Whereas like Kobe, Magic are like Lakers. And I always felt like there was a Kobe, I've talked about this before, a Kobe-LeBron tension. There's a lot of Laker fans who are just like, I love Kobe. LeBron's not a real Laker like Kobe was. This whole run this way, it was one of the first times I felt like, ah, you know, LeBron's been on this team 8 years. And they've kind of watched all these different versions of him and the crowd and just the general atmosphere was kind of like, this is fucking awesome. I'm so glad LeBron James is on the team. I don't know, there was just something, there was a little bit of a tip last night that I, I, I don't know, maybe I'm crazy. What do you think?
Well, I think it's just undeniably impressive that last man standing is 41-year-old LeBron James. And that's not to say that, that's not to say that they're like, it's anyone's fault that Luka and Reeds are injured. They're just injured. And here's this guy. Okay. Hey man, we thought the team kind of passed you by. You willingly in the last 30, 40 games of the season took a backseat and now we need you. We're calling on you again to summon everything that you have left in your LeBron number one option tank, even if it might just be playing bully ball in the post and occasionally going out on a fast break. And he's like, yeah, I'll do it. How many minutes you need? 38 tonight in game one. I'll give you 38, like whatever. Like, and I'm not gonna make big histrionics about it. I'm just gonna come out and play and play really well on both ends of the floor.
I think where we were in January and February versus where we are now, we're in a much better place. With him and, and just the Lakers, the 8 years that he just spent where it felt like it was going really badly there as it was clearly like, man, can this just be Luka's team? Thanks for everything, LeBron. We're ready to move forward to, we kind of need you, buddy. And we've really liked how you've played the last 2 months. And this would be a nice little fitting if you could, if you could just, just buy 2 weeks for us. Luka can come back. Pretty interesting stuff. I can't believe he's still doing it the way he's doing it too. I think he looks the most athletic he's looked like in 5, 6 years. And there's gonna be a game before Luka comes back in this series where they're gonna do— I, one of my favorite games he ever played was that Game 7 of 2018 in Boston when he did the, he played the whole 48 minutes and controlled the pace of that game about as well as anybody has ever done it. Like Jordan in Utah in Game 6, in '98 is the best I've ever seen it.
Just, I, I need to do exactly this for us to have a chance and control every moment of this game the way I'm doing it, or we're not gonna win. And LeBron was like that, that game. And I wonder if there's a, he's not the same guy he was in '18, but I wonder if there's a little bit of a variation of that that he can do in a Rockets game where it's just slow and you know what I mean?
There also could be still a game in him where The jumper is going and he's getting switches and he just makes like 5 of 7 on step-back threes from the left wing in his sweet spot, right? Like that, that game, like, like a little like lower lift and penetrating into the paint over and over again. Like he'll, you might have a game like that in him too. I mean, would you, if, if you, I think I picked Houston in 5 and this was before Durant, the Durant news came out, maybe 6, I can't remember. Would you, what, what was your pick and what would you pick now?
I thought it was a stay away at gunpoint. I would've pit, put Houston, I would've picked them in 6 or 7. But you knew that, you knew the Lakers were going to win one of the first 3 games and you knew Houston was going to blow a stupid game. So I thought it would be 3-2 after 6 and figured Houston would win. I did not put any money on this series. I didn't put them in any parlay. Like, to me it was a complete stay away because I don't trust Houston. I haven't liked the way they've looked all year. I don't think they're well coached. I don't think the personnel of the team makes sense. And I just, I thought it was a blowable series, but I also didn't feel strong enough about the Lakers. I think LeBron gets credit too for whatever Ayton is doing lately. Like, and JJ gets credit, a bunch of Lakers get credit, but Ayton looks relatively salvageable now. And I laughed the entire summer and offseason, and we talked about it when we did the over-unders with House, like, oh, this is hilarious. They're talking themselves into Ayton. The Laker fans are like, hey.
And I don't know, he's— when he tries, he's a functional center. I think he's like 10th or 11th in rebounds for the season, or 12th, something like that. It's not, he's not terrible, I guess is my point. I thought it was a ridiculous signing, so maybe I was wrong. I don't know.
I, I was like one of the only people who thought this was gonna work, and then it looked like it was very much not gonna work. And by work, I kept saying by work, I mean like 16-8, 15-8. He ended up at 12.5-8, but like he has good stats. Not bad. He's never gonna get fouled. He doesn't want to, he just doesn't want to finish strong at the rim. He's gonna spin away from it. He's got his foibles, but he has good touch and he's a decent passer. And if he just does this thing, just roll and make short jumpers, make floaters, make layups, he should walk in on a team like this to 15 and 8. And he didn't do anything spectacular in game 1. He just like made easy shots for a giant guy.
Is Sengun Yanis As the focal points of a trade more or less realistic to you than it was a week ago?
More for sure. I mean, if, if they melt down in this series, I think, I think, I think the stock has gone way up on that one.
OKC Phoenix, which was a pretty catastrophic blowout in Game 1. Big question for you. Will Dylan Brooks make it out of this series alive? What happens as the ship starts going down? And he gets more and more frustrated, what is he capable of?
Well, will he talk to the media if there's, if there's a conflagration? Remember he did, that was the whole thing. Oh, he got, he got into stuff and he was like, eh, I don't wanna talk to the media. Like, I do, I do like, I, I mean, you would know this. Was there an over-under for how many minutes into the series before he picks up a flagrant foul? We did not get to 5. He picked up a flagrant foul immediately. At least I'll say this, like he took 22 shots tonight that OKC's defense and just reminded you that as great as they are in the regular season, they hit the frenzy switch when the playoffs start.
Yeah.
And it just is like, what are we even supposed to do? And when you get into that mode, what you end up doing is like, I guess Dylan Brooks is gonna take 22 shots and most of them are gonna be like contested leaning twos, right? On the pick and roll, which is not what you want 'em to do. But yeah, it was like, you know, they had their flagrants, dueling flagrants. Hardenstein got a very similar one and You know, it's, he'll get into some stuff and it's just, is Dort gonna engage? Are we gonna get like the Brooks Dort, like I'm waiting for it. Yeah, it could, it could happen.
But it's a little like in a hockey series when the two enforcers are just skating around, you're just kind of waiting for them to be on the ice together. Phoenix goes from beating Golden State on Friday night and Golden State looking old and creaky the whole game to then going into this OKC buzzsaw less than 48 hours later. I wrote this down.
Okay.
I think Chet is clearly OKC's second best guy now, whereas last year was 2A, 2B with him and Williams. But, and I mean best guy by, I think he is easily their second most important indispensable guy now. And when he's really good, like he was really good today, that's when they look the most unbeatable. So I was like, hmm, I wonder if the splits back this up. So they're in the regular season, they're 56 and 13 when he played. In the 56 wins, he shot 57% and 38% from 3. And in the losses, he shot 49% and 26% from 3 and scored 3 more points a game in the wins. I mean, it's a small thing, but I think when he's playing good and he's shooting 3s and they're going in, it's kind of like, oh, what now? What do we do? You can't go small ball against them when they're, when he's playing well. And 'cause I was trying to, I was watching them today trying to think like, what would the Celtics do against this team? They'd probably try to go a little bigger, but ultimately end up with Tatum at the 5 and try to go a little smaller.
But if Chet's playing well, can you even do that? So I don't know. To me, he's the clear number 2 now.
I mean, I, I, I get what you're saying and I think a, a lot of that has to do with Jaylen Williams having missed most of the season and a bunch of really good wings sort of emerging right in his stead that makes him feel They can cover up for him when he is not out in the same way they can't with Chet. I do think his size, Jalen Williams' size on the wing and his two-way play and his ability to make, be a secondary creator is gonna emerge as more and more important. But the thing with Chet that is, I've said this before, is like, you know, Phoenix is starting small against their double big lineup, which means a wing is gonna be covering Chet. It was Dillon Brooks at points, it was Devin Booker at points. And you know, he's not gonna be the backdown powerhouse guy against those guys. That's just not what he is. But he's really gotten better and it was one really early in the game, I just face up, spin, rise up for a jump shot from 13 feet away that you can't touch. I, you're not even in my line of sight.
He's really steady and good on that shot. And then you throw in the defense, by the way, that Shea block today when he rotated over and got Iguodala at the rim.
Yeah.
I mean, I hate to be the guy that's like, that one thing is why he's the MVP. To me, that epitomizes why I give him the slightest edge over Joker in the MVP battle. It's like, he's this, that is a, sensational defensive play and he's got one or two of those like every single game. That was an incredible, incredible block.
Okay. C has the 12th pick. Oh, thanks to the Clippers losing. And you haven't thrown yourself into this draft and don't normally do. It's a really weird draft because there's a top 4 of guys who all have All-NBA potential. And I think if you said how many of the top 4 will be in the All-NBA, The over-under would probably be 2.5, and I would go over. But then 5 through 12, there's a bunch of really good guys too, and most of them are guards. And usually when there's a cluster of guards like that in a row, not every team needs a guard, which means one guard who you feel like should have been 6 or 7 is all of a sudden available at 11 or 12. It's a little terrifying that they're— Golden State at 11, OKC at 12 can get like major, major dudes. But the thing I was thinking, if you're them, would you try to move up? Is this the moment where you try to cash in the picks overload and some of the players you have and do the 150 cents for a dollar kind of trade and try to move up from 12 to the top 4?
Because they have the assets, including they have 12th and 18th this year, uh, they have a bunch of future picks, they have a pick swap with the Clippers next year. Doesn't look like they're getting that Utah pick this year. And they have a bunch of their own picks. They have some really good young players. Wallace could be on the table potentially. They could think about that. But would you, would you consider that? Or would it depend on how the season turned out?
And the target would be almost like just like a, a, a top whatever pick in the draft that's, that almost restarts the salary clock in some ways. And that's, that's the sort of issue that they're going to be dealing with. Look, anything's possible for them. They for sure will and have looked at trades like that in prior drafts. They'll do it again, I'm sure, in this draft. And all you're doing is getting me very excited for my favorite event of the year, which is the lottery.
And by the way, you're going again. This is like your 15th straight year.
You can't keep me out. You can't keep me out.
You love bad GMs.
If the NBA ever tries to keep me out, I'm going like the Bobby Valentine in the dark skies. Yeah, no, I'm with Ernst Young. It's just me, Mr. I'm Ernst. And by the way, Topić, their last two first-round picks, Topić and Sorber, who everyone forgets, but they just have gotten, they haven't been able to play. They have these other two like first-round picks just sitting there. It's unbelievable.
Yeah. I was looking at the teams that could go in the top 4 trying to figure out who would actually be receptive to a trade back to try to pick up a bunch of assets. That's, um, it would be really hard for me to trade out of this top 4. But if I was OKC, if they were trading up, I think the guy they would target, knowing nothing, um, just how Presti thinks, would be Caleb Wilson, the North Carolina player who's probably going 4th, who I would describe— if you watch like a 12-minute— have I sent you the YouTube clips of him yet?
Not yet.
I would describe his YouTube Here's the best possible version of him in a 12-minute clip. Sean Kemp in the mid-'90s crossed with Chet.
Oh my God.
Yeah. No 3, he can't shoot 3s, but that kind of athleticism and rim protection and just like electric. Yeah.
You had to pick a Sonics guy, huh?
Yeah, I did. I had to pick a Sonics guy. But, but I do wonder, is this the year they'd take a swing? And then the other question is, would J Dub be on the table or Wallace? But we'll find out. The only other thing I had was Phoenix. I think they boosted Jalen Green's trade value enough in, in that Golden State game and maybe even in this series that now you can think about, can we turn him and other stuff into— can we roll the dice with Ja Morant or something like that? Do we even want to do that?
Oh, oh no.
Do we even want to do that? But like somebody, or Zion, would you, Is there a roll the dice guy that you could use Jalen Green as the lure for and try to go with a higher upside who's not a guard? It's their problem. Their best 3 guys are guards.
Zion's an interesting name. It was also interesting to me that Joe Dumars came out and just said, we're not trading him. Stop asking us. I'm like, I don't understand. It was like, it was like, why? Remember, I think it was Chris Haynes tweeted like a month before the trade deadline, hey, Pelicans just closed for business. They're not trading any of these guys. I'm like, wait, what? The trade deadline's in a month. Like, why? You're closed for business. Is this some bizarro, like, very transparent— actually, we're open for business if you make us a better offer. Why are you announcing all these things? But yeah, Jalen Green is a roller coaster. Look, the Suns are just at a massive talent deficit in this series just in terms of shot creation and offense and shooting. They just don't, they just don't have enough. I'd be, I'd be mildly surprised if they won a game.
It's gotta burn Golden State a little bit. Cause they couldn't even play 2 games in a row without looking, without Porzingis and Curry both looking like they had just played in a 7-game series, even though they'd played 1 game on Wednesday night. But I'm sure they feel like, eh, we're probably, if we were healthy, we're probably better than that team. OKC Phoenix, would you go sweep?
I picked sweep. That was my official, my official pick was OKC in 4.
My favorite bet, my favorite parlay bet which I posted yesterday, was OKC and Phoenix to be end in 4 or 5, and San Antonio and Portland to end in 4 or 5, which combined was like even odds. I thought, I don't see any way either of those series goes to 6. The West series that is good, and I thought was the best game that we've seen of, uh, of the first 6, um, Denver-Minnesota. I thought Minnesota played really well and they lost. So if you're Minnesota, I mean, the, the big thing for, for them is Edwards doesn't look 100% healthy.
I think that's fair.
I'd say he looks 90% healthy, but there's a little piece missing that, you know, I don't, I don't, there's the recklessness that he doesn't have because he's obviously not 100% healthy. I really liked how they played. I thought that was one of the best Go Bear games I've seen in a while. Thought he was excellent. And I thought they went toe to toe with them the whole game. And I thought they really made Denver have to play well to beat them. I thought that game was awesome. Like, to me, these are two of the best 7 teams in the league.
It's a fun matchup. This is the rubber match of 3 playoff series. Everyone now knows that in the last 3 years they've played 29 times. It's 15-14 Denver. It's an awesome stat.
Wow.
I thought they played a decent game. I'm a little lower on, on how Minnesota played in Game 1 than you are.
I didn't— What didn't you like?
I, there were, I thought Randle again had just an up and down game where a couple lapses on defense that I didn't love. A couple, they did.
That's happening every Randle game though.
Yeah, they just, they weren't as clean defensively as they're gonna need to be on some of, on some of Denver's best stuff. Ant was just like okay by Ant standards. I didn't think they played a good, I thought they played like a B, B minus game. I thought Denver also played pretty well. It was a gritty game. That was a gritty, like Denver had to dig that one out. It was not easy. Jokic had a bunch of turnovers early, including the one where he just rammed into Gobert like 3 times. He was like, I'm just going again. I'm going again. Right. And then did just lost the ball. Yeah.
Minnesota, Denver shot 10 for 36 from 3. So that's the one thing if you're Denver, like we can do better than that. But I thought everything else, I don't know. I, I really like that Denver team. I had, I thought the best, I don't know if they're gonna win the title, but I thought the best value bets heading into the playoffs were Denver. Denver to make the Finals, Denver to play the Celtics, Denver to play the Knicks, stuff like that. The case against them is that this road is gonna be so difficult. And I think Aaron Gordon now, I don't mind saying this one weekend into the playoffs, Aaron Gordon now has become the number one, oh God, is he gonna get up? Is he okay? He's become that. He went down 3 times yesterday. And my fear with them is, can you get, 10 weeks out of Aaron Gordon.
I think that's everybody's fear. I've called his lower body the biggest X factor in the league this year because yeah, they're even if they had Watson and not Aaron Gordon, they're just a completely different team when Aaron Gordon plays. The, the power and force that he brings on both ends of the floor, the vertical aspect, the chemistry with Jokic, like there's just, Payton Watson does a lot of stuff really well. He does some stuff offensively that Aaron Gordon can't do quite as well. He guards point guards and, and smaller guards better than Aaron Gordon does at this point. He, he just, there's just no replacing what Aaron Gordon brings, the level of force and just monstrous offense and defense force that he brings. It's just, it, it, so we'll see. I mean, it's one game. He did go down a few times and that's my number one concern about them too. He's definitely a long slog, man. It's a long slog. And like, they're set up for, I mean, we'll see how this series goes, but like, they don't, they don't have like a, hey, we might be able to wipe them out in 4 or 5 on the road map for them.
And that's why I was higher on how Minnesota looked yesterday than you, because some of the other stuff they can fix as the series goes along. But I thought from a physicality standpoint, in a Game 1, we saw these Game 1s where somebody can— teams usually throw like a good quarter and a half, and then as third quarter, all of a sudden they're down 15. You're like, what happened? You know, that Cleveland game yesterday, I was like, what happened? It was a 2-point game, now Cleveland's up 18. Um, I thought Minnesota knew what they wanted to do, were really physical. Um, I thought Gobert had a great plan against Joker. Joker still ended up— what do you have, like 25, 14, or 11, something like that? But he really had to work for everything. Um, they threw everybody at Murray, and, uh, and I thought they were really— Randle was a nightmare for a lot of the, you know, some of the weird stuff that he was doing. But I like the physicality he had with Gordon, where he was like like really trying to big boy enforce him a little bit. I think my sense from them is they feel like we can be really physical with this team and maybe have an advantage with that.
So from that, they accomplished it. I just don't know if Ant, I don't know if they can beat Denver if Ant's not 100%.
Yeah, they need him to be on par with Jokic, who's the best player in the series. And he was good and he had moments, like he had, he made the right reads outta the pick and roll. Most times they put 2 on him. And he had a couple moments where one where he split, I think Jokic on the pick and roll and went up and made a lefty layup that left the, the crew astonished. And then he had one where I like when they do this, when they, he had Aaron Gordon switched on him and instead of running a second pick and roll and everything, they were just like, you know what, you, he can't stay in front of you, just iso. And he blew by him and I don't remember if he drew a foul or, or made a layup or, or both. But he had, he had moments. But, and they need Randle like one, want just to play. They need Randle to be a legit, like, this is a guy that was in the All-NBA conversation for a couple of years, made a couple All-NBA teams. Right. And to your point about Gordon, anytime he has anybody on him other than Gordon, he's gonna have to win that matchup.
Whether it's Spencer Jones or Cam Johnson or even a smaller player. Like he's just like, Gordon is a beast. The other guys, he should be able to move around and, and then start kicking the ball out a little bit.
The other good thing for Minnesota, Ayo looked like he belonged in the series and was at the speed of it, and it's probably gonna close for them. I thought it was interesting with Denver. Brown played 21 minutes but was out there late and was pretty important down the stretch. Like they were using him as a ball handler and, and leaning on him. And which, you know, that's a guy they didn't have last year. But so they played 9 guys. Valanciunas only played 7 minutes and Jones played 9. So they're really going 7. And Joker played 40. It was, it felt like sometimes in a series the game ones feel super important, then other times they feel like a tester. This one felt like Minnesota was going into it going, we can steal this, let's steal this, let's steal game one. So I'm excited for game two. I have a confession for you.
Okay.
Um, on Tuesday I did my award picks.
Yeah.
And I did MVP and I did this. This long thing about how I couldn't believe I wasn't voted for Joker and SGA, and I was trying to be fair and rational about it. And SGA, they won 10 more games, they were the 1 seed, and he was the best clutch player in the league and 4 straight 31-point seasons. And, but then I was like, I just can't believe I'm not voting for Joker. I, he had the best offensive— I've never seen an offensive season like that. He's one of the best players, and So anyway, we, we ran it, we cut it as a video, and I watched it on social media. And what I saw was a person who was confused and didn't have a lot of conviction in his choice. And I was a little embarrassed by it. I was like, I'm doing gymnastics not to pick Jokic, who is the best player in the league and is the most valuable to his team player in the league. And instead I'm doing these mental gymnastics because SJ is on the best team and he's fucking awesome. And look, either guy could be the MVP, and Wemby could have been the MVP.
It was an awesome thing. So anyway, because the league did their stupid appeal thing where they didn't tell us that we could even vote until Thursday, I had 3 more days to think about it. Got the text on Friday, send your picks in, please, from Marc Broussard. I voted for Joker. I changed my pick.
This is like—
I did, I did a La La Land Moonlight. I changed my pick. I was like, what am I doing? How can I not vote for Joker? And, uh, and I feel, I, I feel not awesome about it because I thought SGA had an awesome year too, but I just think Joker's the best guy in the league. I think he means the most to his team.
What a plot twist. He was dead the whole time. Unbelievable.
I know, um, I know.
The question is, did the play-in— this might be a little too, too close to home.
No, 'cause neither team was in the play-in.
No, no, no. Did, did the play-in change your Rookie of the Year vote?
It did not.
Okay.
The play-in did change my Sixth Man of the Year vote 'cause I was 50/50 with— I had Hawkins over Keldon Johnson, but then Miami lost on Wednesday and I was just like, I, I'm gonna have the Sixth Man of the Year for a team that couldn't even get to the last round of the playing game. And I, I switched it. So that's the league's fault. They should have made us vote for the playing games. Keldon Johnson, a fine choice.
Great choice.
Very important guy on a 61-win team. Uh, leader of the clubhouse. I felt pretty good about that.
I didn't— you know, I voted Cooper Flagg, right? I don't have a ballot, but you know, I picked Cooper Flagg. Am I gonna get docked salary or anything?
Cooper Flagg's a great choice.
Is my Uber rating gonna go down mysteriously?
We love that. We love Cooper Flagg.
4.72. Okay.
No, we love Cooper Flagg. Um, I thought that was, that was the thing. The arguments were great this year. I haven't thought Missoula Bickerstaff was a really good one. You know, the only one that was a no-brainer was Most Improved and Defensive Player of the Year once, once Wemby became eligible.
Yeah, Missoula, the Missoula Bickerstaff argument is a no-brainer to everyone. It is not, is, is a no-brainer to Joe Missoula who doesn't want, even want the award, right? I think should be mandated to throw it in the garbage if he gets it.
Did a non-campaign So you did a pod after they announced the Luka and Cade were eligible. I got a great email from somebody, um, that was the best solution I've ever heard for this 65-game rule from a, from a listener named Gray McCoy. This is so obvious. I can't believe we didn't think of it because how many pods have we done? Like 10? How did we not come up with this? Why can't the 65-game threshold be tiered? Why is it all or nothing? I would propose 65 games and up eligible for All-Awards, 62 games and up, 62 games eligible for second or third team All-NBA, and 60 games eligible for third team All-NBA. It's a great idea.
This is not much different from my campaign from the second that they enacted this silly rule that it should not apply to third team All-NBA. Specifically because All-NBA is what counts for the Supermax stuff. And third team, again, I've said this over and over again, I don't want to get stuck in a situation where I'm just throwing out names. Kevin Durant played 55 games, but Julius Randle played 66, and like the whole world knows one guy's better than the other. But I guess I like, let, at least for third team All-NBA, let me put the guys who we all knew that season were the best guys. So not that different from that idea. I, I just, do we want more? How many, how I'm gonna, how many charts am I gonna need to figure out who's eligible for what award? I've, someone's gonna have to build a flowchart for me with these kind of proposals.
Well, think about it this way. 65 and up, every, you're eligible. 62, that means you missed 20 games and you probably shouldn't have been first team anyway. You missed one fourth of the season, you know? And then maybe third team, we could say it's 55 and up. But I like the idea of the tiers. I think it's smart.
So Kade got to 64. I was gonna say, I thought Kade was at 62. He got 64.
But I voted, so I put Kade on second team 'cause, you know, I thought he, he, it was a battle with him and Jaylen Brown anyway. He was ahead of Jaylen Brown before he got hurt and then he missed 4 weeks. So I don't, I don't know. I didn't feel bad about that one.
That's a fine, that's a defensible choice. That's probably what I would've done without looking at it in, in complete detail right now. But that's probably what I would've done. Yeah.
So the tier thing is good. I like the minutes thing too. I think if we're over 2,000 minutes, maybe you're at least eligible for second team, but I, they should experiment with that and, and, uh, and try to figure that out. All right. The 3 Eastern Conference series we did not cover.
Okay.
And we could go fast. Boston, Philly. Um, Philly hasn't beat Boston since 1982, which didn't stop their fans from chanting, we want Boston during the playing game. A mistake.
Uh, no, no, stop. They want to get in the playoffs. That's what they want. Should they want the— should they lose and say, we want Detroit and risk it?
I would have done it. I would have done a see you Sunday commercial.
Uh, you gotta be nicer to the Philly fans.
I don't like the we want Boston. Don't go on my chalkboard. Okay.
The Philly-Boston thing invented beat LA in the '80s. It was one fan base to the other team encouraging them. It'd like to be a little nicer.
I was there and I didn't like when we did it.
Okay.
It's like, what are we doing? Why are you telling these guys? Why are you supporting these guys? Tatum was the story from this first game.
Oh my God.
From, holy shit. His rebounding, he had 11 rebounds in this game. It just seems impo— like if you're looking at like props when for these games you're doing like same game parlays and stuff, it kind of seems impossible for him not to get 10 rebounds. He's around the rim all the time. He looked awesome. Jaylen had a bad first half and then came along in the second half. My dad went to the game and called me after Giddy 'cause he thought Jay, he thought Tatum just looked awesome. The only small subplot with the Celtics right now is Vucevic and whether when we get to this next series when he is gonna play, he had a really, really, really awful second quarter stretch. And like he was going for a dunk, lost the ball.
That was, I actually, I'm giving him points for that. That, that was entertaining in a game that didn't have a lot of entertainment. I like it.
Doesn't grab rebounds anymore. He's always trying to tip rebounds. Like he's just slow around the basket. I don't ever feel like his 3-point shots are going in. Now the, the thing is he's rusty. He had a broken finger. You, you need to see this series whether you can play him. But I really wonder, is Garza just gonna be, when they get to that next series, is it gonna be Garza? Of time.
Maybe I have to go back and rewatch the game cuz I, I kind of liked Vucevic's minutes today. I think this is a good matchup for him. I think this is the kind of bulky guys that they got him to play against. And he had a couple contested box outs against Drummond, who's a bear. I thought his defense at the rim by his standards tonight was like pretty good. He got, he just got big and vertical. And there was that one no call, I think it was with Edgecomb that ran into him where it was like, I, I didn't mind the no call. There was one Maxie shot that I think he just might've blocked around the rim. I thought by his standards he played pretty good defense at the basket and that this is the kind of size matchup that, that they got him for. But yeah, I agree. I mean, Garza's a better shooter. He's been very good all year and I think it'll be matchup to matchup. But I didn't, I didn't mind Vooch's postseason debut.
First half was bad, second half was better, and they have 5, 6 days to figure it out. Philly couldn't make a shot. They're gonna have one of these two games, these first two games of Boston, you knew Philly was gonna throw some punches, so it'll probably be game 2. They can still run after breaks. I think Paul George looks pretty good.
He does.
Like, if you're talking about maybe trying to convince somebody to take him in a trade and attaching assets to it, I, I don't think it's as inconceivable as it might have been in October.
You're just putting all these guys, all these teams after one game, you're just putting them right into the offseason.
I am.
Just wait, he's right, you're gone.
I don't think it's a mystery that Philly would trade Paul George. Like I'm not breaking news.
It was very sad for me as someone who has been, you know, I, this whole era of Philadelphia hinky on basketball is just the most bizarre era of any team in the NBA. It was sad that it's come to listening to the worst contracts draft and it's just a one-two punch for Philly. Just, just Embiid, Paul George picks 1 and 2. Just made me a little sad for Philly fans.
Thank God for Jakob Pertl, 'cause he might be crashing the party next year. Boston is in a great spot. My big question for this series was, was that just an absolute godsend that Orlando lost to Philly in that play-in game? Because then you watch Orlando and Charlotte against Charlotte, and all of a sudden they were the defensive beast that we thought they might be before the season and really physical. And at the very least, so you're going to have some bruises and you're going to feel an Orlando series, which I'm not sure that's the case with Philly. I think that was a pretty good break that they got Philly instead of Orlando though.
I, I think we talked about this last week that, you know, you asked me who would you rather play and I said if Embiid's not playing Philly, because at the very like Orlando, now that they're healthy with Anthony Black and Franz Wagner back, they, they have, they can go 7 deep in good players. Yeah. It doesn't always mesh well. It's ugly. The coaching thing is a little bit of a mess. But they have an upside that I just don't think Philly can get to without Embiid.
No, they even like, you need like a 43-point Maxi game and somebody else making 7 threes to win in Boston, I think.
So, well, 4 of 23, you're just DOA. You have no chance. Like that's what they shot from 3 today. The, the makes and the attempts, you just, those 2 numbers, you have no shot.
Toronto-Cleveland felt for the first half like, huh, okay. And then Cleveland blew 'em out in the second half. Pirtle looked awful. I guess the big question for me in this one is, did round 1 break perfectly for Cleveland where you get to skip Atlanta and play Toronto? You hopefully get to play Detroit after a really physical knockdown drag out Orlando series, and then you're playing whoever's left with Celtics, Knicks, hoping that, that's a knockdown drag out too. On paper, this played out perfectly. And then you have the Mitchell piece, who I thought Mitchell was awesome yesterday. He was in the running for best guy of the weekend. And you did this when we did our Most Intriguing Draft. You took him first. And you said like, this is the, if there's going to be the moment, it should probably be this year or around this year where if you're going to elevate it to that next level, it's, we're ready. It's time. He had that look yesterday. So. I don't think they're gonna make the finals, but I will say it's broken nicely for them.
I also think it has broken nicely for them. Atlanta's better than Toronto and has a higher ceiling than Toronto does, particularly without Quickley. And they just, they just don't have enough juice offensively. I think they're, they're actually, their half-court offense actually produced at a rate that surprised me when I looked it up today. 'Cause it just felt so hard. Everything felt so hard and they got no turnovers, no fast breaks. Like that's the stuff. Stuff that they, that they feast on. But yeah, I think Atlanta and, and I think Cleveland has a good, for a team that endured a lot of roster chaos throughout the season, I think they've figured out a lot of things about their rotation and when the two bigs should play together, when they shouldn't, who should play with whom. Both small, big guards just should go with other guards. They have, and, and part of that is that Struis has really rounded back into form. I, I think it, yeah, they've got, they've got some holes on the roster like wing size, traditional wing defense and all that. But they at least, I think, have a good sense of what their identity is and what their rotation should look like.
I think that really showed in the, in the first game. And nice, nice to get off to an easy, easy one for them.
Strus is important. That guy's been in some big games over the years and as recently as 6 weeks ago, we weren't sure if we were gonna see him. I guess my big note on Toronto, which I just think, you know, I, I, I just don't think Toronto's a very good playoff team. I do feel like Ingram has a lot of advantages against them. And he only took 9 free throw, 9 field goals and 10 free throws yesterday, but only 9 shots. And I thought Cleveland had a lot of trouble. Whoever was guarding him, I just felt like he could get a shot against everybody and I didn't really understand why they went away from him. So I, I bet we see more of him. RJ Barrett's gonna have to get downhill and get to the basket. There's some moves for them to make, but ultimately I, do we know about Quickley? 'Cause they need like that wildcard, you know, heat check guy.
And he's been upgraded to questionable right now for Game 2 is the last I saw. And look, without— I said this before in previewing the series, without him, that means we're gonna see more Jamal Shedd, which is, which is good for their defense and bad for their offense as well as Shedd shot the ball in, in, in Game 1 because they do, they run a lot of like in pick and rolls with Scottie. And the point guard both directions. And Shedd is just treated like a non-threat to score. Teams just stay closer to Scottie. You're not gonna get the ball to Scottie, like take your floaters, whatever. Quickly at least is a threat all the time. He had an okay, he had a pretty good season, I thought. So I think they just need his, his wildcard nature. The other one is like, you know, do they come to a point where they start CMB over Pirtle and just say we lose some size and we lose some rebounding, but we gain the ability to switch everything. And CMB was looking looked pretty ready for the playoffs.
Yeah.
And Pirtle, Pirtle looked not good on either end of the floor.
I can't see Pirtle's plus-minus, but I bet— I guess it was a zero.
Zero, plus zero, you know. But I don't think, I don't think that— yeah, I don't think he looked— he didn't, he didn't contain the pick and roll on defense, which is what he's out there to do, and he brought nothing to the table on offense.
And Grady Dick, I guess, is just— what happened to him?
Well, that's— I was actually thinking about that 2 minutes yesterday. He got, he's lost, he hasn't been in a rotation for a month.
No, I know. So he's just, that's it.
Well, I mean, look, Jacoby Walter has played, has outplayed him and I thought is a good option for them defensively in the series. But if you're thought, if Quickley can't go again and you're just like, we just need shooting, it would not be surprised, just surprise me at all if they dusted him or even Jameson Battle off, just like run around it. If you can make a few shots, we'll see what happens.
I picked Mamouf third in my sixth man of the year. He did not live up to it yesterday.
Hawkeyes second. Do you go Hawkeyes too, at least?
Yeah.
Or did you take him off? Okay.
I did Hawkeyes too. I thought sixth man was really rough this year. I was even trying to talk myself into Jenkins on Detroit, but he didn't even average 10 points a game. But he was at least a conversation with how he finished a year.
I think that the best bench guys, I, I thought Hawkeyes and Keldon Johnson were both very good, but neither of them are like blowing you away as a candidate. No. And I think because of it, and it's because a lot of the best bench guys just played like 52 games and 1,200 minutes. Like Caruso, AJ Mitchell. I, I heard Stan Van Gundy say he voted for Mitchell Robinson just 'cause game to game, that's his impact. Isaiah Stewart, just like, it's hard to give one of those guys an award when another guy's played like almost double the minutes and played pretty well.
Toronto, Cleveland. Did it make it nostalgic? Did it make you nostalgic at all for NBA TV, what we used to have?
I, I'll tell you what it made me nostalgic for. That game, Toronto-Cleveland, that matchup, and then LeBron making the fadeaway from the left side of the floor and like looking at out at the crowd being like, ooh, that was nice. It did make me nostalgic for that one game in Toronto. I was at that game where he was just like, you know what? I'm just gonna clown the whole franchise. I'm gonna clown the country. Yeah. I'm gonna clown the city. I'm clowning all of Canada. I'm just gonna take one ridiculous, and they got increasingly more ridiculous. Like how about from 23 feet? What if I took a turnaround fadeaway 3? And fell in Drake's lap on the sideline. Would that be funny? Let me try that one. It was just so humiliating. And those two events together, I did get a little LeBron nostalgia.
I got nostalgic for the bad NBA TV commercials, the half-hearted halftime studio show, just all what we used to have. Speaking of TV, Amazon had all the games, all the play-in, and then the first three Round 1 games. Really interesting. Um, thing I never considered. So we went over, uh, Friday night, went over to some friend's house and I was like, I'm only going if they have the game on. They're like, no, no, we're gonna have the game on. It was my wife's friends and my friends too, but we're gonna have drinks. Like, I need the game on. Okay, cool. Get to the game. I was like, oh, we forgot to put the game on. What channel is it? It's on Amazon. Took 5 minutes. Oh, Amazon? Wait, what do we watch anything on? And now it's like they're trying to figure out the Amazon and the Apple TV. They're logging in. And I was getting— I got a bunch of emails about this this weekend from people who were traveling, who were like at hotels, or they're in bars and the bar didn't have it. It is this unintended consequence of the streaming era I never really thought about until we got to the playoffs, that we've just, as a society, we have to get together with the streaming revolution and make sure we're covered as a society.
And I'm talking friends of friends, friends that are casual sports fans that maybe don't care, but, you know, like, I'm coming over. Um, hotels, sports bars, wherever you are, for sure. Like, just make sure you're logged into Amazon and make sure you're logged into Peacock and just get your shit together, everybody. That's my little PSA.
I don't have any issues with it, but I am a streaming oversubscriber. I just am like, we'll just have everything all the time and waste money because, you know, I like the smart people are like, well, I'm done with that show. Cancel Apple TV. I'm done with that show. I'll pick it up later. I'm just like, I just, let's just like, I just want to have everything all the time.
Well, I got shut out of Amazon for one of the playing games. It was like, your account's using too many devices. Devices. I'm like, huh. So start— I went into the settings and I'm shutting down devices. And it turns out both my dad and my daughter were watching basketball on Amazon and glommed onto my account. And then my dad's like, well, I don't want to— I, I always jump on your things. I don't— why do I have to pay for the streamers when you have them? That's just the attitude of people 75 and up. I don't know why he can't pay for Amazon, for for $9 a month.
I think you just gotta kick your daughter off, that's all. Like, you're the, you're the boss.
She's in charge of me 25 years from now when, um, you know, God only knows what's gonna happen to me physically. It's the kind of thing like—
she'll hold it against you.
You have the same thing with your daughter. Yeah, someday they're in charge of us. I always wanna like, yeah, do the right thing. Um, all right, quickly, uh-huh, can we run through the 4 teams with a case of what do you do? The 4 teams that got bounced from the play-in.
No, no Hawks-Nicks. We're just not, not gonna do Hawks-Nicks.
Oh, we didn't do Hawks-Nicks. No.
My bad.
Yeah.
You, we don't have to.
I just said, no, I really wanna do Hawks-Nicks. I was in my notes and I just forgot to do it. My big question for you is if Nah gets going, is this the series?
Sure. Yeah. I think I picked Knicks in 6.
That's what I had.
I think the Knicks played, I think the Knicks played one of their better defensive games, if not one of their best defensive games of the season in game 1. I was super impressed with them across the board. Atlanta didn't even shoot badly from 3. They shot 38%. But yeah, I mean, Naws 6 of 17, Jalen Johnson 8 of 19. There's definitely some room on the table for them. I think, I think they'll, you know, like I would pick the Knicks to win game 2 and then Atlanta to win game 3. And then game 4 is where it gets a little, a little spicy. You know who was not spicy in that game? Some pretty, I am overwhelmed by all of this moments in 2 minutes for Zachary Rechausche that I did not particularly enjoy. For the Hawks.
You didn't like his 0 for 3 and his miss of a 2-foot layup and the realization of everyone yet again that they could have just taken Castle with the first pick.
And they played 7 guys basically. Yeah. If you don't count Risacher and Mo Gay was one that, and played 11 minutes. So, you know, I thought the Knicks played really well in that game. That if I'm a Knicks fan, I'm super encouraged by, by how they looked.
If they had Castle instead of Risacher, would you think the Hawks were gonna win the series? That's a pretty nasty team.
Yeah, I would. Yeah. I mean, if that's, can you imagine that? That's a lot of defensive players to throw on the floor at once. It would make the Knicks' lives so, I mean, we've seen Castle guard Brunson and KAT in the same game and guard them both pretty well. Be pretty useful player.
I had Castle first in that draft.
I'm not always right, but did you end up putting him a third team All-NBA?
No, 'cause Luka and Kade bumped him out.
Yeah. Yeah. Everyone, everyone got eligible.
I put him first team all day. That was where, uh, interesting. That was where I moved. And I put Wallace too. And I know I'm going to be in that minority on those votes, but I, I really think those two guys are absolute animals.
Who's going to argue strongly against their inclusion? They're awesome.
You know, it was a bummer. I had no place for Kamara. I couldn't. Neither did I. I couldn't find a spot for him. And I kept like trying to, can I bump this guy? Uh, no. And I, I feel terrible.
I know that hurts you is as number one Portland Trail Blazers fan. You've really, really repaired whatever was, whatever, if there was still leftover damage from your relationship with Portland fans from years and years ago, you've really gone out of your way.
I think, what was the— I'm trying to remember, what did I do to the Portland fans?
Well, there was soccer, there was soccer mom jokes.
Too many McCollum trades.
Yeah. That, that one. Yeah.
Soccer mom jokes. Forgot about that.
Yeah. You've really mended fences. You and Justin Verrier should get together and talk about his garden and, uh, everything else that's going on in Portland.
Knicks-Atlanta is a really good series, and I really wish Atlanta was playing Cleveland because I thought that, I think Atlanta could have beaten Cleveland. We'll see with, uh, Alexander Walker because, um, the Knicks are just so confident and comfortable in these fourth quarters, and it's the big fear if you're a Celtic fan. I think the Celtics have a better team and more talent, and yet they're going to have to win these fourth quarters, and the Knicks are really, really, really good really confident and really comfortable the tighter the game gets. And I think it's really hard to win an MSG too, even despite— there was when they started to come back and the game's over and it got to 8 and all of a sudden you could feel everybody with the Halliburton thought bubble at MSG.
Aaron, is Aaron Neesmith in the building? Is Aaron Neesmith here?
It got quiet. For like a split second. The announcers missed it. I thought, uh, I know Van Gundy was on your pod recently, and so I'm not sucking up. I think he's been excellent this year with announcing.
He's awesome.
And I think the key with him was he's just, he's a two-man booth guy. Way better if it's just him and the play-by-play guy and he can just do his thing versus like having to share the ball. I thought, I thought he was all over. What was that? He did that game, right? He did. Yeah. Yeah. I thought he was all over that game and all the angles and like picking up stuff in the moment the same way we would if we were watching on the couch. Like, ooh, Ricochet. Yikes. Might not, might not be able to put him back in.
And like, like Jeff, he's very good at translating like X's and O's stuff into quick TV-friendly, like, oh, that's what's happening. Like in the last one, the thing I'll, I'll watch in game too is, you know, Atlanta late in the game made the switch. That I was sort of wondering when they would do it. They took Okongwu off KAT and put him on Josh Hart and put Dyson Daniels on KAT. 'Cause KAT was just killing them with the spacing, his passing, the two-man game with Brunson. And that meant they had to move CJ McCollum onto Mikal Bridges. Like there's all these domino effects of just like, what do we do with KAT? Do we put our centers anywhere but KAT? 'Cause he's making pick and pops, he's rolling to the rim, he's doing KAT stuff. So that would be, and, and that's the kind of thing that Stan sees that on possession one. And in 8 words can describe like why they're doing that.
Right. Yeah. The Celtics are gonna be in a weird spot in round 2 if, if that's the series because weirdly, Keita is putting Keita against Robinson is just better. And I wonder if they're gonna try to either go a little smaller against Towns or maybe try some Garza or like what they're gonna do to try to use Towns against himself, basically. But they, the, the big switch the Celts have for round 2 would be Tatum at the 5 with Brown, with a shooter, and with the 2 guards, and then make Towns basically have to guard a shooter no matter where he is. But, uh, I thought that was a good mix.
The NBA just released its award finalists. Do you want to do, do you want to hear them or no? Do you care?
Awards finalists for, well, we know what MVP is. How many are there? 3?
3 in each category.
So we can, who is the 3rd for Coach of the Year?
Uh, Coach of the Year is not listed here.
Um, so MVP was the 3, Rookie of the Year was Edgecomb, was 3rd?
Rookie, Rookie of the Year is also, uh, being announced, uh, later. We have 6-man, Most Improved, Defensive Player of the Year, and Clutch Player of the Year. Oh. Those finalists have been announced.
What was clutch?
Who was the third guy? The three finalists are SGA, Anthony Edwards, and Jamal Murray are the three finalists for clutch player of the year.
No Brunson?
Brunson apparently snubbed, if I'm reading my email from Marc Broussard correctly. Wow. Really good sign for Pistons fans. Asar Thompson is the third finalist in defensive player of the year along with Chet and Wemby.
I voted for him.
Sixth man of the year, surprise third finalist. I would say, I would classify this as a surprise. Jaime Jaquez Jr., Keldon Johnson, Tim Hardaway Jr., the third finalist.
Wow.
For Sixth Man of the Year.
Jesus.
I want to know that.
Let's play what do you do really quick and then we'll go. Golden State, they have Curry at 62, they have Butler at 56.8, and Draymond at 27.7. So not a lot of flexibility there. Both of those last two are expirings. Horford, Santos, Pods, Melton. Moodie at 12.2 out for next year under contract. They have the full mid-level, they have the 11th pick in the draft. Unless, unless, unless they get a little lucky, they get a little Adam Silver fairy dust on the pick and they move up to top 4, 10%. I don't know what you're implying. 10%. Well, I'm just saying, if we're doing the— let's do a fantasy draft of who, if they did rig the lottery, who would, who would they rig the lottery for this year? Golden State with the number 1 pick. Uh, Porzingis, free agent. GP2 is a free agent. So my, what do you do here? If I can get LeBron and do the Expendables, I draft a guard with the 11th pick. I, Phylon for them would be unbelievable. The Alabama guard who's like just high IQ, um, leader, defensive, but also can beat guys off the dribble.
Burris, if they could somehow get him, would be amazing. The Arizona guy. Um, can I throw a Jimmy Butler, Moody, and our 2027 first top 4 protected for Sabonis and DeMar DeRozan trade at you?
No, you may not. I would, I would, I will not give you permission to do that.
You don't want, you were just rejecting it, but that must have helped.
I'm rejecting the concept of it. I'm rejecting all of it.
Two expiring contracts and my top 4 protected pick, and I'll take Sabonis and DeRozan off your hands and you can do a full rebuild. No, no, no. Who says no?
I say no. And the Warriors say no.
The Warriors say no. Okay.
It's too, it's too much money. Um, let me look at Sabonis's contract. Cause it doesn't look—
it's not as bad as you think. It's a couple more years. Yeah.
I just don't know.
The Rose isn't expiring.
I just don't know what that's doing for me. Like I've gotta live in a world where I'm actually trying to give Steph Curry a chance to be 2-2 with the Thunder and the Spurs and the Nuggets next year in the second round. Like that's, that's what I'm trying to do. Like I need, I need Differently than that.
Okay, so give me your solution. What are we doing?
Well, I think, I think we're gonna do, see them do all the stuff that we think they're gonna do, which is, can we get LeBron? Um, uh, is Kawhi Leonard potentially available? They, we know they've looked at him, but we have 4 first-round picks to trade, more or less. And is, is that enough to get in the Giannis conversation? I'm not sure, but I think it's, it's all that because I just don't, you know, everyone's going to construct their fantasy Curry deals and this and that.
I just don't, they're not trading Curry.
I don't see it happening. They also have a coach that was pretty open about like, hey, as we've been talking about for months now, like, I may not be here next year. And so that affects a lot of— they've gotta figure that out. And, and 'cause if Steve Kerr is the coach, you've gotta, as we've now learned, you probably should use that high draft pick on a player who's going to be able to function in Steve Kerr's system now. And not do what they did with Kaminga over Franz Wagner.
Or you trade that 11th pick.
Or you do that.
And you add a couple other picks, maybe try to get like a, like a Trey Murphy type.
Sure. I mean, 'cause that's our only goal, right? Our only goal is, hey, wouldn't it be awesome? Game 5 in San Antonio, it's 2-2 next year, just in the second round of the playoffs, in the first round, just like what, just fun, fun for another year.
Butler could be stretched, which I don't think they would do. Um, 56.8, so you could stretch it out over 5 years, and I think it would cost them $11 million a year. Um, I don't even know why they would do that, because I don't think it would create enough cap space to do anything crazy. Probably better off having him as an expiring, or maybe they hope he comes back. Um, the LeBron piece will be the fun part of this, because I do like the idea of the old guy team. And kind of leaning into that. Is Porzingis somebody you'd bring back?
I think they'll look at it cuz I, I just think the market for him is gonna be very cool based on his availability issues. So maybe it's a 1-year deal, maybe it's a 1+1. The number's not too big. He does add, and you could see glimpses of like, this makes sense. So shooting 5, we've not really had this in a little while.
And then, and then he was hurt on Friday. He was limping around and it was like, what happened? You played 1 game and you're already hurt.
And then they got a Pajemski extension staring them in the face. Pajemski had a good year for them. I, I, I'm interested to see how those talks go.
Yeah, there's this new version of post-last CBA of, uh, yeah, we're actually not gonna extend you, let's just play it out. Which has not gone well really in any situation that we had. It went poorly with Cam Thomas, although there are reasons for that. It went poorly with Kaminga. I've always wondered why you had to do the extension if you didn't want to, because all they become is eventually an unrestricted free agent and nobody ever has cap space. So I do think that teams have a little more leverage, which I've realized, but, uh, yes, agreed. It's weird. I like Sabonis for them, and I know I'm in the minority, and I know there's some people that are out on him and think he makes too much money. But if you're, if you're looking for the right guy to be with Draymond, One of the things for them is rebounding, right? I think he's high IQ and you could run offense through him and put him at top of the key. I think he can post up. I think you can play him and Draymond together. I think he's expendable in Sacramento for 100 reasons, including the fact that the rookie looked good for them, their rookie center.
And Maxime Renaud.
Renaud, who can't guard anybody, like literally anybody. But at least you could talk yourself into— no, no, he, he does not play defense. He doesn't. All right. It's bad.
Gotta, gotta, you know, just, just be nice. Give, give him a nice thing.
He's a rookie.
You know, his hair's flopping around. He's trying real hard. Let him, let him be.
Well, this leads to the next one, which is the Clippers.
Wait, can we just stop on Sabonis? Like, so Sabonis, I understand everything you're saying, play the split game with him in the post, all the stuff that he does, but Sabonis plus Draymond plus Butler is like a lot of guys who no one's guarding.
But Butler would have to be in the, in the Sabonis trade.
All right. So you're throwing him out.
Yeah.
Okay. Okay. Anyway, what was the next one?
Well, Clippers, it's just, do we keep Kawhi for another year? It's too hard to predict what they're going to do because it all depends on this Indy pick. If they get 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, they're getting a blue chip guy. There's this draft's awesome. They could get Acuff at 5. They could get Burrys. They could get Wagner, the Illinois kid. Them getting in that stretch probably means you could trade Kawhi or Garland or trade back and try to get more assets. Like, it would just open up a lot of— like, I was thinking if they got the 5th pick from Indiana, which I think the lowest Indiana can go is maybe 6th because they could drop 4 spots. That's it. So if they got the 5th pick and Dallas got 8, could they drop back 3 spots with Dallas? Because Dallas would want the best guard. Take Burris, who would be perfect for them with Garland because he's a 2 guard, and get more assets from Dallas and then kind of be ready to roll. I think they would be thinking about stuff like that. They're probably one of the more creative front offices, right?
That Zubac trade was really creative.
Creative?
Yeah.
Is that the word you want to use?
I want to use creative. Creative front office.
Yeah, they're creative.
They're a little outside the box. But I could see them if they got the 5th pick from Indiana being— oh, I see where you're going. Yeah. Yeah. They're creative. Listen, they can be creative in a lot of ways.
Um, um, there is a case to be— so, so it's a very interesting situation, right? Because again, for the next whatever years, they don't control their pick, right? So they can't tank or they, they can't get— reap the benefits of tanking anyway.
So there's a swap next year with OKC. Somehow this Paul George trade, it's just never going to end. It goes on forever. It's like herpes.
And Garland, you know, $42, $45 million the next 2 years in his prime. Like, you're kind of designing a team that's living in a couple of different worlds. Like, you have Niederauser, who's a good young center. You and I both like him. Yeah. Matherin, I think, is like TBD if he's on the team next year. Did not, did not finish the season well.
He's an RFA, so they could just do basically the Kuminga to him next year. Kawhi Leonard.
Well, he's not under— he's a straight free agent though. He's a restricted free agent this summer.
Right.
Oh, I see what you mean. They could just 1+1 him or something. And then you could argue like, even if they are kind of semi-designed to be competitive now and Ballmer always wants to be competitive and they don't control their pick, I mean, my choices with Kawhi are ride it out, extend him again. Or like, is he, did he just have the healthiest season he's ever going to have again? That's right. And do we need to move off him now?
I'm trading him. The problem is he knows where the bodies were buried. If bodies are buried, that could suck.
Who knows? Who knows the conversations that have taken place?
Not accusing anyone in any direction. I'm just saying they've gone through a lot, them and Kawhi. I would trade Kawhi. I don't think he's, he's for what he did. What was it, his year 15 season?
Something like that.
Yeah. 2011 draft. He averaged 28 points a game and played 65-minute games. I'm, I'm, if the Warriors are like, we still want Kawhi, I'd be like, great, give us the 11th pick back. Let's go.
Do you, did you have him second or third team All-NBA? Kawhi?
I had him second team. Yeah. So they have two variables here. One is that Indy pick. Is it gonna be 5 or, Basically, are they gonna be picking 5 or 6, or does that roll over to 2031? And then, are— is there gonna be repercussions from the aspiration thing or not? And we still don't know. We still don't have a decision on that. Um, so too hard to decide. But Kawhi for Butler, with the Warriors throwing in a pick or more stuff, does fit under the cap. Butler makes a little more than Kawhi, but you could do that.
I think, I think the Clippers, if they ever got to this discussion where they were going to trade Kawhi or even think about it, and the teams that called on him are not really sure they were ever thinking about it at this past trade deadline. I think they would treat him not as, I think they would say he's an All-NBA player. We want, we're not trading him for an injured player and one first-round pick, even a good one. We want multiple first-round picks and like we want not quite a trove of everything because, because there it's Kawhi and he's old and there's a lot of baggage. but I don't think they're gonna sell like low-ish on him.
The other two teams are Miami and Charlotte. Charlotte's in a great spot. And Charlotte, I don't think we need to belabor this one. They have the 14th pick, they have their own first in '27, they have a top 2 protected Dallas first in '27.
Great Dallas.
They have an unprotected Miami first in '27. And some really good things all around. I think They're, they're kind of riding with LaMelo either way. I think he's there next year even if it ended pretty weird. And they have Miller and Khan making a combined $25 million. They have Bridges as an expiring. They have Bridges, Williams, and, and, uh, Grant Williams and Josh Green are basically like $52 million of expirings that could be used for a Giannis trade. By the way, Charlotte, a little closer to Greece. Um, You're gonna make a face when I say this, but I thought, well, no, I just like that Greece proximity. That's a little closer. Just saying it's closer.
It's, it's on the East Coast.
Well, then Miami is the other team that got bounced and they're just a no man's land team. They've, they got the 13th pick in the draft, but for the most part, I don't know, Norm Powell, I, I think that contract probably slid backwards as the year went along. They had Bam Hero and Wiggins for a combined $110 million. Um, they have this Jović extension that kicks in next year for $16.2 million. Good luck with that, guys. I wonder if these two teams are the answers to each other's problems.
Okay.
Is Bam Adebayo on the table? I could offer you Bridges and Grant Williams.
He'd be so good there.
Oh my God, I could give you your 27 firsts back. Now you have it unprotected. You have all your firsts again. I could give you my 14th pick. I could give you that Dallas pick. I could give you a 2029 first. Here's everything I got. Give us Bam. And now I have Bam, Khan, Brandon Miller, LaMelo, and some role guys. Let's fucking go.
Bam is from North Carolina and he has a family and friends that go to every Charlotte game.
You'd like it.
He'd be, he'd be so good there. It's a come to Jesus moment for Miami, right? Because Bam's the captain. He's the last guy they want to trade. He's the personification of Heat culture. And that's all real. They all love him. You saw how they reacted to his 83-point game, his mom being on the floor, all that stuff. But they are at a moment where they just can't deny anymore that this is all they are. They already didn't extend Hero and that, you know, just continues to be an ongoing thing. Jović didn't pop. Ware's good, but the Ware-Bam fit is always going to be—
Ware's fine.
He's fine. Like, I'm not sure what he's going to be, but I just think that fit is going to be a little clunky here and there all the time. Hawkins is fine. Jakučunas looked good, but like, you're not— this core is not winning you anything and they have to know that now. There's no hope for it.
And you're in a conference with Detroit Boston, the Knicks, Atlanta, who's gonna get a top 10 pick, Charlotte. You have Washington that might win the lottery, et cetera, et cetera. You, from an asset standpoint, I'm starting to get really scared if I'm Miami.
I love that you threw Washington in there. That was very nice of you. You're, you're slandering Maxime Renaud, but you're gonna give the Wizards some props.
Well, they might get, they might get D'Abansa. Who knows? They're gonna get one of the best guys, right?
But, but the other thing Miami has to—
why are you defending the Kings? You called them the Hindenburg in October. Now, now you're like, I just, I just like, I, I feel bad.
I mean, you feel bad. I've had Reynaud first team All-Rookie, so I'm just like, gonna be— I might get, I might get his jersey or something.
I don't know.
I must—
do you like him because you could probably score 20 points on him if he was guarding you?
My jumper is actually looking pretty good right now. That was mean. The other, but the other thing for Miami is, look, we all know who the best player that's potentially available this summer, like the best, best guy, the blockbuster guy is Giannis, right? And we We know that Miami has flirted with Giannis before. They were one of the teams that was in whatever was going on in February. But you also just have to ask yourself, is, is if we get to the end of that and we get Giannis and everyone's gonna be celebrating, hey, we didn't get Dame, we didn't— well, we got Giannis, and I'm left with Bam and Giannis and Davion Mitchell.
Yeah. Where do I— and also Bam and Giannis, what is that?
So like, I don't know. And then the other path is, no, we're just going to build it slow. We're going to do what we do. We're going to build it slow. We have a lottery pick. We're not going to do anything exuberant. We're— but then you're okay just being like a nice frisky team next year. I don't, I don't, I don't know what they're okay with and what their appetite for risky in either direction really is.
Bam's going into year 10. He is going to turn 29 years old.
Next season, he, he'd be so good in Charlotte. I'm so jealous that you thought of this idea.
Giannis is 4 years older than him with even more miles 'cause he came into the league sooner. And I think you could make the case for what the cost would be for Giannis and Bam's probably 80 cents of that, right? And Bam's younger and more durable and a better fit for Charlotte.
I think less than 80 cents.
Maybe 60 cents, whatever it is. But if I'm Charlotte, I would rather go for Bam with my young guys. 'Cause if I get Giannis, it's like now I'm beholden. I did all the work on this, you know, a few weeks ago on the pod about like some real historical concerns, like he's gonna be able to stay in the court in the right ways. Whereas Bam, I know for at least year 10, 11, 12, 13, I should be good. At the very least, the next 4, he'll be at the same 2010 level with the same excellent defense. And I don't know, I just think these two teams make sense as trade partners.
There's also a Jaren Jackson Jr. thing with Bam's contract where we all, well, I mean, I think I'm a little higher on Triple J than you are, but like everyone agrees Bam is a really good player. Like there's just no debate that Bam is really good. There is some debate about, oh, hey, $50 million, $54 million, $57 million player option. Like, is, if I got good value, like I think the, I think the Grizzlies got the best value they were going to get, right? For Jaren Jackson Jr. on the contract that he's on. And Bam is like, is the 3-pointer real, semi-real? Like if it doesn't, if it proves not super real, how is he gonna age? Like I think there's some chance that if you can turn that contract into similar return to what the Grizzlies got for Triple J, that it would, it would be, it would age as like a pretty good trade. I just know that Miami has it in him. He just means that much to, to what their franchise is.
It's a tough one. This is the problem with the league. You don't want to be stuck in the middle, but you also want to have the guys that your fans can wear his jersey and they play for the team for 15 to 20 years. But, you know, I look at like when the, when the Celtics cut the cord with Pierce and KG, which was just cold-blooded, but it was the best thing they ever did. Right. And Danny, out of anybody, was always willing to think that way. And I think if the path is to nowhere, which I think it is for Miami, I think you really have to think about how do we blow this up? The fact that Charlotte owns their pick, to me makes this a lot easier because then it's like, all right, we're throwing away one year, we're getting all these assets back, and we can at least talk ourselves into this.
There's also the variable that if you're a team like, because I think it's a lottery protected pick next year, right?
And then no, that happened this year. Next year it's, I think it's free next year.
I'd have to look. There's also the, what do the lottery rules look like? Because if you're a team like Miami and you think the odds are just going to get severely flattened, which I think is the most likely outcome, you all of a sudden maybe don't mind as much if we are a 41-win team or 42-win team because we, we like, there's not as much benefit of being super, like the middle has become more profitable. I think, I think all of these teams are grappling with how soon are these changes going to come because we need to to start planning, like, these kind of directional pivots?
If I'm Charlotte, I feel great where I am. I have a lot of flexibility. I didn't like how the season ended. I don't think Con was healthy. Orlando played the best game they played all year. There was a lot of things that went wrong. They took a big lead early. The big thing Charlotte has to figure out is, where do we go with LaMelo? We're actually trying to win multiple playoff And I don't know the answer. He does some perplexing stuff game to game that is fun during the reg— is he an 82-game guy or a 60 or a 16 to 20 game guy is what they need to decide with him. I thought he had just some head-scratching crazy moments in both games that made me really, really wonder, like, is this somebody you're giving the car keys to?
Oh, stop making driving analogies with Lamelo. You're just walking into, you're walking into it.
Yeah, I'm, I am setting myself up. I did wonder, like, did Con's back get hurt? 'Cause I didn't have him adjust the seat, move it back a little bit. Maybe the seat was too high up. Maybe it was my fault.
I just don't— look, LaMelo had a— you called it the drunkest game of the year. It was severely intoxicated. And LaMelo's last 90 seconds was like a whirlwind of, I just don't even understand what they won. I just don't understand what's happening. But Con was not playing well. Miller was fine. Their offense is just a different beast with Lamelo on the floor. He defended much better this year. He's only 24. He's only 24. Like he's, he's still like entering his prime. I think his contract is fine. I think trading him would be, it, it just depends what you would get. But I, it's, it's hard. Like I'm not, I'm not messing with this right now if I'm Charlotte. I like these 3 guys together. I want to see more of it. I want to see Lamelo's growth continue. I, I'm not messing with it.
I'm not messing with it either. I would have some concerns after those last two games. I would, I would just be thinking about it all summer, like especially watching the playoffs and watching these four rounds and just certain things that have to happen if you're a really serious playoff team. Can you have that kind of volatility with your best guy who has the ball, who's like, I'm just gonna take this 30-footer right now, even though there's 30 seconds left in the two or that game, I'm just gonna take it. Makes me nervous.
The 2 of 16, the 2 of 16 from 3 or whatever it was in that Miami game was like a little oof. And then the fouling Hero, the turnover. Yeah, it was, it was a lot. It was, it was absolutely a lot.
All right, Zach Lowe, even though the Mets season is in shambles, you're gonna be doing your podcast Tuesday morning and Thursday morning. Thanks to Michelob Ultra. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well. New rewatchables coming on Monday. We did Kindergarten Cop. You watch that one with your daughter yet? Too violent. Your wife doesn't like violence.
I haven't. I remember being very fond of it however many years ago it came out.
It's tremendous.
And then we don't know what's in— yeah, I don't know what's in there. And like, there's got to be stuff that's aged poorly, but maybe not.
I don't know. And then Ghostbusters the week after.
Oh my God. Yeah.
Turns out that was a successful movie that a lot of people have seen. Um, so that's all coming. Anyway, I'll be back on, uh, on Tuesday. Zach, I will see you next Sunday. We'll have a lot more playoff clarification back then.
Let's go.
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The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Zach Lowe LIVE on Netflix after Trail Blazers vs. Spurs to recap all the NBA playoff Game 1s (0:32). Then, Bill explains why he changed his MVP vote, discusses what the eliminated play-in teams should do in the offseason, and much more (01:12:17).
Host: Bill Simmons
Guest: Zach Lowe
Producers: Chia Hao Tat, Eduardo Ocampo, and Chris Wohlers
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