Transcript of An Epic Spurs-Thunder Series, Cleveland Survives, and the Knicks' Moment Is HERE With Zach Lowe New

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All right, Bill Simmons Podcast live on Netflix. Zach Lowe is here. We thought we'd be starting after the Cavaliers-Pistons game, but the Pistons had other ideas, and so did the Cavaliers. I wanted to mention new rewatchables coming on Monday. We did Borat. It was me and Kyle Brandt. Uh, it's turned into politically incorrect comedy month, uh, on the rewatchable. So we have that. Zach Lowe is going to be Tuesday morning, Thursday morning as we head into an absolutely awesome, uh, round 3. I'm very excited. The Knicks might make the finals.

Don't jinx it. Don't, don't jinx my Spurs and Thunder.

Spurs and Thunder. We're gonna talk about, uh, where this, this matchup ranks for us, but we'll start with, uh, Cavs-Pistons. So wrote down great win for Cleveland and, and Donovan Mitchell fans and supporters, decent win for James Harden truthers. Great win for the Knicks because they now have home court in the Eastern Conference Finals. They have 1, 2, 5, and 7. Where do you want to start with those?

What truth, what truth do the James Harden truthers subscribe to?

That he's one of the 40 best players of all time, that he's actually come up big in some playoff games. They just all happen to be in series that his team eventually lost. Bad luck against the Warriors a couple times. Four conference finals. I don't know. What else would they say?

I think we should start with Donovan Mitchell and yes, getting over the hump into the conference finals. I mean, he, he had, the stats are not overwhelming, but I thought he played awesome. And the 7 assists is to me the defining stat of the game for him. I just thought he like slowed down, played with a better pace, kept his dribble alive a little bit longer on the pick and roll, like looking actively for the big guys instead of like that, that, that overhead carry he does. It used to be like a once a game kind of thing and it, it became like 5 times a game as he was searching for his own points and playing a little frazzled. And I thought he was just under control, got the big guys involved. Game 7, Jarrett Allen showed up as a result. Evan Mobley played, I think his 4th really nice game in a row. And just like we get Cleveland Knicks, which is like the road not taken for Donovan Mitchell, the road not taken for the Knicks after acquiring Jalen Brunson and flirting with pairing him with Donovan Mitchell, who allegedly always dreamed of playing for the Knicks.

He's from here. His family is still all in the Northeast. His dad works for the Mets, on and on. So we get like that road not taken. JB Bickerstaff doesn't get to avenge his firing from Cleveland. And, and you know, I like the, the Cavs paid a high price for Donovan Mitchell. Like Lowry, Markkanen, the gap between Mitchell and Lowry, Markkanen and whatever your player rankings are shrunk dramatically since that trade and the 3 picks and the 2 swaps. And I think now you have to look at it as you paid full freight, but here you are in the conference finals with like a Knicks team that I think is gonna be the favorite. I will pick them to win the series, but they're not unbeatable. Like Cleveland, Cleveland has a chance in this series to get to the finals.

Yeah, I had Mitchell as the top story too. 9 years, 77th playoff game tonight, never made conference finals, which becomes a weird list when you've had a really good career and you've made small MBAs, but you've never made it past round 2. And probably, I don't know who the most famous player on that list is, but I always think of Dominique Wilkins when I think of lists like that and all the what-ifs with his career and how, like, if the Lakers had just taken him over James Worthy and if he had been able to get by the Celtics once or the Pistons, anybody, and had this awesome career but never even got to be in the Final Four. Felt like we were heading that way with Mitchell. Uh, Friday night, I, I just was stupefied by Friday night. I thought for sure the Cavs were going to win. I don't know what happened to them. They looked lethargic. The Pistons, they had so many turnovers in that, uh, in the Friday night game. And then today we were texting during the, near the end of the first half that Cavs had 2 turnovers with like 4 minutes left in the second quarter.

And honestly, that felt like part of the difference because Detroit's, Detroit's offense was so iffy. They really needed that energy stuff and they needed like the 2-on-1s and the, and the blocks and going the other way. And they just, just didn't, didn't get any of those today. And it, it's just a lethargic game all the way around. Cade wasn't good. Mitchell was the best guy on the floor. The, the point you made about the getting the big guys above, I almost wonder, did they look at the tapes of the first 6 games and notice that every time they drove to the basket, the Pistons bigs and Thompson were just flying at those guys trying to block the shots. And like they told Mitchell, when you go to the basket, look for Al and look for Mobley because those guys over and over again were rolling and it, and they seemed like they were unimpeded. So it almost felt like a football strategy flip of like, they keep doing this, zag this way. And Mitchell bought in. 'Cause it, the thing with Mitchell, there were, it was a storyline that he was averaging what, 2.9 assists in the playoffs?

That's terrible. He's supposed to be the guy who makes everybody else better and he wasn't, but he did tonight.

I think if they lost this game, and he had another game like that, the number one takeaway, I mean, all the big takeaways would've been the big picture Cavs stuff that we don't have to discuss now. Like, what are they gonna do? Is this the team of the future? Who do they trade? Kenny Atkinson? All that stuff is stable. But the biggest basketball takeaway would've been what happened to Donovan Mitchell's playmaking? Like, I thought this was gonna develop into a real strength of his game and it kind of had just disappeared in the playoffs. He was, he was not making passes that were there to be made. He was, he was not looking for them. He was just playing. I keep using the word frazzled. He looked a little, sped up and just not in his normal state of mind. And tonight he, he was really, really under control and really good. And a little, a little black hole-ish before tonight.

I felt like, just a lot like, like not that fun to play with would've been my take.

And, and outta sync sometimes with Harden. I mean, gradually starting in Game 3 and excluding the just inexplicable egg they laid in Game 6, 3, 4, 5, 7, you started to see the Cavs figure out some ways to, it wasn't pretty, it's not always artful, but to loosen up their half-court offense a little bit. It was sometimes hunting mismatches for Donovan Mitchell. It was using Mobley more in the pick and roll and they started to get like the Mobley to Allen big to big passing going on. It was finally, I thought, probably a little overdue starting Struis tonight and playing Merrill more and just having more shooting on the floor. Merrill, like, probably should have led the thing with Sam Merrill who came in and completely changed the game.

I've been calling for it, all serious. I don't, I don't know why they weren't playing him more. Do you think he was, Was he hurt? Like, I, well, he did miss a game. He seemed like such an obvious person to play more.

He did miss a game. I thought the Struce adjustment was gonna come sooner. And in Kenny's defense, that line, the initial starting lineup with Wade had a, had like a better plus-minus than I had thought of in, in the playoffs. But it's just the offense was so clunky.

I didn't like it.

Wade was not bringing enough defensively to really justify it. I thought they could have reorganized their rotation a bit, but it's what happens in the playoffs, man. You shrink your rotation, you gotta stretch for answers. These are, this is, you know, the Cavs. For as ugly as it's looked at times, 7 games and 7 games and they're here and they had to negotiate 2 of the 5 best defenses in the NBA this year. It's like not always gonna look pretty, but they found just enough to squeak those series out.

Yeah. So the big adjustment was starting Macho Man Maxie Struce.

I saw, I saw you, I saw that comp. Yeah, that was fun.

Macho. Yeah. Hopefully that'll keep going in the, in the Knicks series, but sorry, I dropped my message. Other than that, it just looked like they took care of the ball and Mitchell played better. Those were, those were really, that was really it. 'Cause Friday night was, I was really surprised and stunned, but Detroit did seem like they got the Reed, the Reed-Durant combo going. And then today it was gone again. And we'll talk about Detroit later and what Durant's worth and all that stuff. But for ugly loss for Detroit, how bad?

Wild. Like just a reminder that it's a little as, as predictable as the NBA is compared to other sports leagues in terms of who generally wins and advances game to game. It's like, wait, Cleveland won 3 games in a row and just got obliterated in game 6 in the most dispiriting way possible at home. Detroit's riding high, they're going back home, you know, they're like game 7 and they get obliterated at home. It's like it, it can swing in wild ways even if it doesn't seem that way sometimes.

Yeah, it's turnovers and threes basically. Seem to be when you have two teams that I think a notch below the highest level that we have going in the league right now. Who the hell knows? For Detroit, how bad was that loss for you? If I gave you a scale of 1 to the 2022 Mavs-Suns game, how bad? That, that's a 10. That's 10.

I'll go, I'll go 6.5. I mean, I, I think we saw in the first round that this team was its regular season win total probably inflated a little bit how good they really were. And all the sort of concerns we had about their viability as like a real Finals championship team came to bear in the series against Orlando, which by the way, I think Orlando probably wins if Franz Wagner doesn't get hurt. And also they blew, I agree, a horrendous Game 6 of their own at home.

So I think we win because we did that podcast with the scariest ceiling playoff teams when we had Detroit 11th and their fans and media got mad at us.

Well, I mean, and just, I'm, I'm going 6.5, maybe 7, 'cause it's a young team. It's a rising team in a lot of ways. Like again, this is a team that had an over-under, I think in the high 40s before the season started. And, and here they are going toe-to-toe with Donovan Mitchell and James Harden and Evan Mobley and Jared Allen in the second round. It's great season. But Jalen Dern, another invisible game. Tobias Harris, 0 for, from the field. He's a free agent. You've really got a, you've really got a tough question. Tough, tough discussion to have with him. And just the center rotation completely fell apart again at the— where after Jalen Dern looked reinvigorated, we were texting over the weekend, like the biggest, the, the biggest possible positive sign for Detroit going into Game 7 is maybe Jalen Dern got over whatever mental hurdle or whatever was happening to him. He had a pretty good—

he did not.

Yeah.

And then he's missing layups and everything around the basket.

And then Isaiah Stewart, for what felt like the 4th time in the series, is just throwing guys like judo, throwing guys at the foul line and picking up these crazy fouls and JB Bickerstaff's like, dude, cool, you're the tough guy on the team. Can you play basketball? 'Cause if you, if you're not gonna play basketball, we're bringing in Paul Reed.

6 minutes for Isaiah Stewart tonight. So I would go higher than 6.5 for the Pistons for 3 reasons. One, you have this impossible to figure out Durant contract thing now. I mean, I don't know, he just got outplayed by Jared Allen who plays, who makes, you know, 28 $29 million a year, right? So you can't pay Dern more than that, even though I voted for him for an All-NBA team. I don't know, you— we've seen this in, in, in football and we've seen it in basketball where if you overpay somebody who's not a dominant guy, that's the quickest way to screw your team up for 3, 4 years. It's AKA the Bradley, the Bradley Beal paradox, a par—

paradox, paradox, PIB, dilemma, whatever.

Bradley Beal paradox. I just couldn't in good conscience pay that guy more than $33 to $34 a year.

Oh, I think if you're, I think after this series, if you're Jalen Duren's agent, you might pretend to protest what you just said. Like, oh, that might, might place a phone call to Bill Simmons being like, oh, blah, I gotta do the, the thing where I protest but secretly you're like, I would take that. Like, that's like, we, I was talking, so Dyson Daniels, $25 a year.

Jalen Johnson signed for, I thought, I think we all felt like it was a little low, right? 30 years, I think 5 for, 5 for $150. So he's somewhere in there, but I wouldn't feel good about going over $30 for him after that series. I don't feel good about paying that for centers in general because I think the perimeter guys are more important unless it's Jokic or Wemby.

I will say I thought his defense was pretty solid throughout the series. Offensively, he was exposed as kind of not ready for the, for the playoffs at the level that the Pistons need him to be ready, which is a really high level. Second round against a really good team. Like you, it's got, it's high level stuff. And you know, the perimeter, the perimeter game, like every time he takes a mid-range jumper, it's a win for the other team. And I think he'll get better at that. Yeah. He's only 22. You can't repeat that enough, but like, I don't know. What the market— I mean, the Bulls are the team with cap space that has the obvious hole at the position, but I just don't know that anyone is blowing Jalen Duren's market away with any kind of offer sheet. Now, agents, as we saw with Miles Turner, are super creative of like magicking up sign-and-trades and crazy deals. But, you know, I— the center—

Lakers-y? Lakers-ish?

I mean, we'll see if they have any cap space. They have this $50 million possible cap space, and it depends on a lot of different things. LeBron, Rui Hachimura, how quickly they signed Reeves and all that. But he, he would be, I mean, at the very, very high end of what the Lakers could, could go after.

Sure. I mean, you know, so that was my first thing. I have two more things for, for being bummed out if I'm the Pistons. The second is what happened to Isaiah Stewart, where I, I think he became a liability as the playoffs went wrong. He was one of my favorite bench guys in the league this season, and I don't know if Since the fight, it never felt like he got his impact back the way it was before the fight, where it felt like he was coming in and just swinging in games and adding on to Dern. And I just thought he got worse in the playoffs to the point, seemed like he came at it, seemed like he was yelling at a couple coaches and they cut away from it. But I think he's an obvious trade piece for them making $15 million a year. There's great rim protection things for him. Maybe he needs to play more, but just in general, I thought That was a guy that seemed like he was one of the better contracts in the league and just was MIA. So that's two. And then the third one is just that they punted on the trade deadline, which we talked about at the time.

Their big move is Kevin Huerter, who didn't play tonight, who didn't really play all series. And I don't—

he had an injury in fairness, but yeah, there was no universe in which Kevin Huerter was gonna suddenly be playing 22 minutes a game off the bench in this series.

Did he even— he wasn't, he didn't play one minute this series, did he?

He got in at some point. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, whatever. So they kind of punted on that and we talked about it and we said, hey, they, you know, it's a marathon, not a sprint. They're using the same Presti logic of let's try to build and we'll pounce when we pounce. I don't know if you have a chance to get into the Final Four, that means you're 4 wins away from the finals. I certainly think they, they've had a lot of success against the Knicks and they really needed that second scorer, which is what we said in February. You're putting all your bricks in the— you're putting all your eggs in the Tobias Harris basket. And he was 0 for 6 today, and they did not have that other scorer they could trust. Lavert had the one hot game in the series. You know, they'd have Jenkins would hit a 3 every once in a while. Robinson, who did not seem healthy to me. I know he made a couple 3s, but I felt like he had some back thing. I was watching how he's walking. He looked 100% to me, but they were just missing that second whoever it was. And I don't know if I was a Pistons fan, I'd be mad about that.

Yeah. I mean, you know, I was talking about this with some people at the combine and you hear this like, well, I mean, ironically they got, they get to swap picks with the Timberwolves in the first round of this draft because they took on Mike Conley and the initial salary dump, or they were involved in that. And ironic, I say, because you hear a lot of people say, well, I mean, like they could have gotten in for Kobe White or Io Tsumu or a guy like that. I mean, they could have, is that getting them over the hump? Is it worth it? But it's definitely, definitely would've given them a better shot in this series. 'Cause we, like, we all knew they were light on secondary creators. And I think honestly, like, I think it, it, Cade had to have been exhausted by the end of this series because he just has to do everything. And the Cavs, I think, probably switched too easily against Cade. Like, they gave him Harden, they gave him Donovan Mitchell, they gave him Merrill, they gave him whatever matchup he wanted. They'd never really trapped him when he got those matchups.

And a lot of where people were calling for that, and I understand that, and I think they could have done a little bit. I bet what they were thinking was, look, we're just going to make him dribble 8 times and take a 14-footer. And yeah, it's going to be over Donovan Mitchell or Sam Merrill, but we're not giving him the easy stuff and the easy passes. We're just going to wear his ass out. And like what he was doing, what is he's, he, no one in the league is carrying a bigger load, I don't think, than Cade Cunningham in the playoffs.

2 MVP votes from people today for him.

First place, first place MVP votes.

First place MVP votes. Yeah. So I have a lot of Knicks fans in my life. I know you have even more. And they've been asking me for 2 weeks, who, who do I want to play? Do you want to play the Cavs or the Pistons? And my answer, at least for the last week, is you're going to beat either team. It doesn't matter. But I would rather play the Pistons because I, the Cavs still have this ceiling thing that they, the potential of what they are is still more dangerous than what the Pistons are to me, which is a team that just has too much trouble scoring. And the Thompson piece of it, Thompson, who, you know, steals and blocks some offensive rebounds, 3 incredible defensive plays a game, like clearly somebody who can be one of your best 5 guys on the floor and be really impactful. But if you don't have enough scoring, and especially This was a Pistons team. If they fell behind 15, it felt like 50, you know? And I, I just feel like if I'm the Knicks, I would've much rather played that team because I'm better than them anyway.

I could just outscore them. Cleveland, who knows with the two bigs. You mentioned Mobley earlier. I, the last, the three of the last four games, I thought he was really, really, really good. Like as, as much as I've enjoyed watching him play, just total package, like defending the rim. Some good passing, was aggressive, wasn't afraid to shoot his 3. Did you feel like he went up a, a tiny notch or am I crazy?

No, I mean, look, the scoring numbers are, I don't think he cracked 20 unless he did tonight. I haven't checked the final box score in, in any of those games. I just thought he played really solid all-around basketball. Yeah. And I, I think the series started to turn when the Cavs had him more involved in the pick and roll and like used him as a passer more. Yeah. And used him as a hub more. And I think like that's not gonna be, sexy statistically, but I thought he made all the right plays and, and it got him just, it got the ball moving a little bit. And for a team that was like 29 assists tonight, they've been dead last in assist rate. Wow. In the playoffs for most of the playoffs. It just got the ball moving a little bit more and it invigorated him. Like there was a moment, I think it was in game 4 where he dunked on Isaiah Stewart, like dunked on him hard. And I'm like, where is this every other game? Like, why is this a rare thing? Like this level of nastiness and aggression. And he played that way.

The rest of the series, I kind of agree with you. The Pistons swept the Knicks in the regular season. They blew 'em out, if not all 3 times, in at least 2 out of the 3. There are guys missing on both sides in, in most of the games, but they, their physicality bothered the Knicks. They just beat the crap out of the Knicks. The Knicks were not ready for how physical Detroit played. Obviously in the playoffs, your state of readiness and your willingness to engage in that kind of stuff is gonna be way higher. The Cavs, like you love the trick-or-treat analogy for players. The Cavs have a little bit of that in them where they for a quarter will find this groove where the Harden-Mitchell thing is more complimentary than it is. Like they, they amplify each other a little bit more than they do usually. The bigs are rolling. Struess or Merrill are making shots. You're like, oh my God, this team is awesome.

They're defending the rim.

Yeah. And, and then the next two quarters it'll just be a little bit like sluggish. And so they do have that kind of like, oh, if that team pops a little bit more than, than often than not, then yeah. They have a chance.

They've also really, I think Merrill, Sam Merrill has really emerged as a possible like MSG playoff villain.

Okay.

I could see him going in and being unafraid and hitting shots. Schroeder, who was +12 today, was it at least, eh, 2 turnovers. Schroeder was a turnover machine the last couple games. Last couple games have been so rough to the point that he almost seemed like unplayable in game 6. Like, I was surprised they kept him out there. But, you know, with Macho Man Maxie Struce, Harden, Mobley, Allen, Mitchell, and Merrill, I at least know I have 6 guys. And then Wade's like a 6.5. At least he has some size.

It's—

they'll, they'll be able to land some punches on the Knicks. But if I'm the Knicks, this is— I mean, this is easily, easily their best chance to make the Finals since 1994. I think it's nice. Sucks. They're way better than, they were way better than either his teams. What do you think the line is for the series? I'm going to Fanduel right now. Uh, before I look, I'm going to say Knicks minus 300.

I was going to say 250 or 230 or something like that. So, okay.

Uh, the answer is minus 240.

Okay.

Plus 190 for the Cavs. You win that one.

I win.

That's why you're Mr. Gambling.

And I, I win. I win. Yeah. Me and House had 9 different bets going on this game tonight. That's what I, that's what I do. And I won by Price is Right rules, which I respect in my house.

Yeah, you did.

Like, but my wife does not respect Price is Right rules. She says that's stupid. It should just be whoever's closest. I respect the institution that is the Price is Right.

I like Price is Right's rules as well. Brunson -170 for final, for conference MVP. Mitchell's 3-to-1. Towns +950. Harden 20 to 1, OG's 22 to 1, and then Evan Mobley sitting there 33 to 1.

All right, got it.

Not against it.

Gotta get, get my app, get my app up.

Not again, not against that one, because that, in my opinion, Mobley will be the, that's the Cavs guy to watch in a series like this. Yeah, he's awesome. That's a, that's a differentiator for them.

I'm going to dig in a little bit tomorrow. Obviously it's a quick turnaround. Game 1 is Tuesday in New York. I will hopefully be there. And, but I, I'll dig in on the matchups a little bit, but the Knicks, OG Anunoby practiced and said he's feeling much better and this is not like the hamstring injury from 2 years ago. That's a huge thing. I just think they're better. I think they're a better team. They, they, they, I think we're 2-1 or 3-1 against the Cavs this year. Now I will say the last time they played, I've said this over and over again, I think the Cavs figured out a little bit something on who should match up with who and how all that should work defensively and, and gave the Knicks a little bit of trouble. And I think they've, they've discovered a little bit of, of that kind of stuff. But the Knicks are just better. And like, to your point, I'm surrounded by Knicks fans. They are absolutely giddy and I'm like, you should be giddy. This is by far the best chance. I like, I'm, I never thought I would ever have a hometown finals as long as I would be doing this.

A finals where I didn't have to travel for half of it. I just never even deemed it possible. I just never, which of these teams is gonna suddenly be competent enough to actually win 3 playoff rounds. This is by far the most likely it's ever been to the point that if the Knicks don't win this next series, I think it's gonna be absolutely crushing for their fan base and that their, their whole organization.

I don't know how crushing it'll be because they had the will to live for the rest of their lives crushed out of them by the Halliburton shot and that Pacers comeback. So they're, they're already dead inside.

I can't believe you, you have to mention that.

Like they're, they're dead inside. They have, they, they have no emotion left.

How about the Paul Reed shot, by the way? Can we just, from, from, from Game 6 that hung on there? It was like a golf shot that just hung on the lip for 5 seconds.

Yeah, it's like Tiger Woods where he's doing the fist pump after. We're gonna take a break. Couple more storylines for that Cavs-Knicks series in one second. One second. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. The Conference Finals finally is here. We are down to 4 teams. Think you know it'll go down? Take your shot with FanDuel. Get closer to the action. And as you know, I've been telling you for years, FanDuel, the best place to bet the teams, players, and plays during the NBA postseason. Build the same game parlay for a shot at a better payout, or try live betting and jump into the action after tip-off. Or just follow me and my picks, cuz every once in a while I'll put them on social. Download the FanDuel Sportsbook app right now and play your game. 21+ select states or 18+ DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Game problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER, call 888-789-7777, or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn. For small businesses, guess what? Every hire matters. Luckily, there's LinkedIn Hiring Pro. Great name. It's designed to help you hire with confidence by surfacing only the right candidates.

And guess what? HiringPro streamlines the entire process from drafting jobs to shortlisting candidates and conducting AI-powered screening interviews. And its conversational interface lets you describe what you need in plain language. Hire right the first time. Why not just do it the first time? Get started by posting your first job for free at linkedin.com/simmons. That's me. That's linkedin.com/simmons. Terms and conditions apply. So one thing I was thinking about with the Knicks and the Cavs, and it's, it's off of Minnesota falling short in their series about these little windows that teams have, the, the can't get over the hump teams, the teams that they win a few playoff series, they might even make a conference finals. They have like a 3 or 4 year window. And they just can't make the Finals, right? And I think the most— my favorite example of this team ever was the Mark Price Cavaliers that with Daugherty and Nance and all those dudes, I thought those were really, really good teams. It's really unfair that they never made a Finals. They had some bad injury luck. You know, they obviously crossed paths with Michael Jordan at the worst possible times and the Pistons, and then Price got hurt.

And, but I just thought that was a really good team. And you look back and you're like, oh, that was an era, but they never got over the hump. And I think the Knicks and the Cavs are like that right now, where the Cavs, they've had this Mitchell little mini era here where they, they were able to get lucky with Mobley being there and being able to draft him. And then the Jared Allen trade, you're basically getting him for nothing. And then, you know, Garland initially turned him in, Harden. But this is their window right now, I feel like. And then the Knicks, same thing where they, they went all in with the Bridges, they, were able to dump Randle at the perfect time. We're gonna talk about him later. They get Towns. That trade turned out really well. And this is the window right now for them. And this, this is why when I think about this series, like, for one of these teams, whoever loses this, I don't think it'll be a, well, we made the conference finals. I think this is like, this was our fucking chance to make the finals. So there's real stakes here that, not that there isn't always stakes for the conference finals, but I feel like this is like a 4-year road to this series.

Yeah. I mean, look, if you're right and one of these teams comes out feeling disappointed to the point where they view change as necessary, like certainly the Bucks are hoping for just maximum disappointment around the, the top whatever teams in the league, including these two teams. And it is like, I, I talked about this last week, like if, imagine if Cleveland comes back and wins the series and they did. Like, what does that mean for Harden's future with the team? It seems to solidify, right? Does it solidify Mitchell's? But like, you're right, if they just get rolled, if one of these teams, it, it's different if you go to 7 and it's just like both teams played really, really well.

It's a heroic, awesome series.

And they're like, you know, it's a tip your cap kind of series. But if it's 4-1 and we get exposed on the glass, like Mitchell Robinson 4 years ago exposed us on the glass, or 4-1 and KAT has another existential crisis week, like the KAT thing goes back this way where he's fouling and like all of a sudden you just can't recapture whatever it is you had against Philadelphia. And at the end of the Atlanta series, like, you're right, there could be, there could be certainly disappointment to the point of like, all right, we gotta pivot. I, I, I, I mean, we'll see how it goes, I guess.

The, the problem with some of this stuff, I remember you talking about this when Dame was leaving Portland about like, they made the 2019 Western Finals. That's a win. They were one of the four, you know, teams left. But the whole Dame era in Portland, I don't look at it as like, oh man, they were rolling. You know, we, we go back and we, we look at that Western Finals as like, ah, it was a little fluky. The Houston and Golden State was really the Western Finals that year. But that was an era. And I was thinking about the get over the hump teams. The grit and grind Grizzlies is a great one.

Made the finals. I mean, made the, the conference finals.

Made the conference finals, right? They put some series together. They had some upsets. It was a distinct era. They could never get over over the hump. Lob City Clippers.

Oh boy.

Paul George Pacers. Your favorite, the Coach Bud Hawks Blazers. The Harden Rockets is probably the most successful example of just a ton of success but never actually made the finals. The Celtics, pre-COVID Celtics, basically '16 to '20 where they made the Eastern Finals, I think 4 to 5 times.

That whole era in the Eastern Conference.

It's weird. Yeah.

It should just be, it was just Cleveland and a bunch of whatever.

Yeah. So, and Knicks and Cavs now, and then, and then the Wolves. And we'll, we'll talk about the Wolves later because I want to do what do you do. But sometimes, like, being one of the Final Four teams is okay. I think we just overreact to where it's like, we didn't win the title, what do we do? And it's like, I don't know, man, there's 30 teams in this league. There's a lot of good players. It's like, if I'm the Cavs, I'm like, all right, this was pretty good. We were down 2-0 in the second round. We made it. Like, maybe let's cool the jets on, on all the panic stuff. Now, if they had lost tonight, I would've had 5 trades for you.

I, I, I totally agree. Making the conference finals is really hard and there's only 4 teams left and you're one of 'em and you've learned something about yourself. You're gonna be better off for it the next year when you're in the playoffs. And you know, you were doing the hump thing. Like, I was like, where's the hump? 'Cause a lot of these teams you were mentioning made the conference finals but not the Finals. And I, I guess that the hump is the Finals. That's, I mean, that's like, and again, like, what are you gonna tear down a Conference Finals team? 'Cause now you have decisions to make and the salary cap forces you to make decisions and all that kind of stuff. But it's, it's hard to get that far in the playoffs. And you know, I mean, the West is just a completely different animal. Like Minnesota loses to San Antonio in the second round of the playoffs. I'm supposed to panic about, now there are things to panic about, like Julius Randle disappearing is a thing. To panic about. Rudy Gobert kind of sneakily disappeared in the last 2 or 3 games.

Sneakily?

Well, I mean, he's—

that was a catastrophe.

Okay. I was trying to be nice for Rudy because everyone just— it's just, he's just the punching bag at the end. No, I know he's a punching bag, but that's what I'm trying to be nice. I'm trying to be nice. He's being bullied. He's been bullied too long. I'm trying to be nice to him.

Putting that aside, if I'm Minnesota, I'm really scared that one of the people I have to go through in my conference, Victor Wembanyama, just completely annihilated by center. To the point, I don't know what to do with that.

To the point. And Stan was making it on the broadcast that they were, they, and I had talked about it last week too on my pod, they were rejiggering their rotations. The Wolves were to have Rudy in the game only when Wemby was not in the game.

Not good.

Or, or limited. Yeah. So look, but it's hard to make the conference finals. The Cavs are pretty young and yeah, I don't know why there was something else I was gonna say and I forgot, but it's, it's, it's hard to make the conference finals.

With Detroit. So we talk about, they're obviously not panicked.

They're young.

Dern's 22, Cade's in his mid-20s. There's a trade for a second scorer. Let's, let's try to get Cade some help.

No question.

There's probably a, there's probably a Kawhi Leonard conversation. There's probably a, we don't have enough to get Jaylen Brown conversation, but let's at least kick the tires. There's a, Hey, do we make our version of the Desmond Bane, um, Mikal Bridges trade for Trey Murphy and see if New Orleans is interested in that? But I think it's somebody like that. I think it's, I think they have to find a reliable second scorer that is not Tobias Harris. I thought Tobias had a good season. Um, and I actually really liked the way he played the regular season, but the, the playoffs speak for itself.

Unfortunately, the question that you're going to have to face is what's the salary that you're throwing in. I mean, you can throw in all your picks, I guess, and that's pretty valuable. Throw in all your picks, all your swaps. They got everything. But I got to get up to a number, right? Like, if I'm— the names you're mentioning, I got, I got to get up to even a big number.

They have Robinson, who's $16 million a year the next two, but he's only $2 million guaranteed this year, so they can get out of that. Um, they can— I think they could trade Stewart pretty easily, and I think that's somebody that—

but just throw Jalen— you just threw Jalen Brown's name in there. The Boston Celtics are not trading final MVP Jalen Brown for Isaiah Stewart, Duncan Robinson, and a bunch of Detroit first-round picks. Like, that's— you're not getting a guy like that.

They're not. And the problem is they're not getting Kawhi or Trey Murphy for what they have to trade anyway.

I think—

unless—

I don't, I don't—

unless Thompson is involved.

Well, they're not doing that. They're not doing that.

And but that's the other thing, they have to figure out, do they, do they extend Thompson? Do they give him, you know, do they jump the gun on the RFA season and, and take it out, basically.

I mean, look, we could get a lot of pretty un— I mean, we had the 4 guys who just hung in restricted free agency forever last year because there just was nothing out there for them. We've seen the Rockets already play pretty tough with some of their internal free agents and just say, we're not giving you the max. How about this? And if you don't take it, we'll just be happily negotiating against you in restricted free agency. Yeah. And I think more teams should do that. I mean, I hate restricted free agency. It sucks for the players, but it's a rule. And I don't think teams have adequately taken advantage of it. And I think it's really like if you can chip $8 to $10 million a year off some of these contracts, again, it sucks for the players, but it's a weapon that you have collectively bargained to have. And I like—

it also really hurts the flexibility of being able to fix your roster. Once you do that extension, you're poison pill.

Look, we're just— these are just the rules I have to live in. I can think about other rules, but these are the rules that exist now. And under those rules, like, I'm not extending Asar Thompson now unless he's willing to take a pretty big discount. And because if I'm, and if I'm Asar Thompson's agent, I'd say like, oh no, I want the max. It's 25%. And like, then we're not negotiating. Then we'll go to, we'll take it to restricted free agency.

If, if Asar Thompson's agent asked that or said that, I would cut a 45-minute video of him missing 8-footers and be like, we're not giving you the max. And here's our 45-minute answer on that.

Well, I think that would be—

Can he make an 8-footer? I, I think they make an 8-footer.

I don't know if that would go over well. I think that would be perceived as rude.

What, what were the backyard basketball one-on-one games between the Thompson twins like?

Ferocious. I wouldn't want to be a part of those games.

Just incredible defense. Is that why they both can't shoot? Because the other one was so great defensively, they never figured out how to make an open shot.

Just 4-hour games and people like, we gotta eat dinner. I, I know it's 2-2 to 11, but we, dinner is ready. It's getting cold. Can we just call it at 3?

It's like 2, 2 cheetahs just fighting, unable to gain upper ground on each other. I'm gonna just quickly give you my— I had some Cleveland content in case they lost about what would happen. I was really excited about some of this. I wrote down in all caps, LeBron is looming. I think we can close the door now for the LeBron comes back to Cleveland. Hey guys, I'm a former champ. I'm here to help. What if they lose?

What if they get swept? I mean, I don't think they would. What if it's 4-1 and it's just, it ends like with Wimper, really? Just close it. You're just closing it.

What's the golf like in Cleveland? Because I think that's gonna be the number one determiner for him.

Probably not great for a large percentage of the year.

I think he has to stay in California. Yeah. I had some Mitchell trades though.

Okay. Wow.

Let's say, how about this? If Mitchell gets swept, if they, if the Cavs get swept, but I'm just trying to figure out what his value is. Fourth pick Chicago is, Chicago's not doing that, right?

I would think not. New GM, new lease on life. Let's get it. Let's get a cornerstone.

New guys, young guy. But Brooklyn's 6th pick, which I think is for sale.

They were the first team that came to my mind when you just started.

So 6th pick, Traore and a future first, call it in. Sacramento, 7th pick with Levine, and I get another Sacramento pick. And then Atlanta, 8th pick with Dyson Daniels. Something there.

He'd be very good on Atlanta. I mean, he'd be very good anywhere, but there would have been a really interesting discussion to be had of Donovan Mitchell, almost 30, eligible to sign just one of these extensions. That's just going to be a just gigantic amount of money if it's a max extension going into his mid-30s with a playoff record that I think, by the way, has been a little bit underrated as he's come under some scrutiny in this series. I think he's been pretty goddamn good in the playoffs and there's been a couple of series the last 2 years for the Cavs where he felt like the only one, he was like the bus driver and just, just, just the only one that was really up for a fight.

Orlando Game 7 was a good one too, and he was great tonight.

And, and, but there still would've been interesting discussion, like, you know, small guard, 30 plus 30 into 33, 34, 35. I wanna pay him $70 million and he is never made the conference finals. And that discussion is at least forestalled for now.

The bigger issue for me with that kind of money is, do you make anyone better? Which he was not doing during the playoffs, but he did tonight. I did get, uh, got an email earlier today from Alex Taylor. This was before we knew the result, who said, being a Cavs fan is a lot like having an elderly relative you're taking care of. I always have to watch and I'm rooting for them, but I kind of can't wait for this shit to be over with. That's a dark email.

That is. Yeah.

I think that's where the Cavs, that's where the Cavs fans are mentally, I guess.

I needed a trigger warning for that. That was awful. Alex Taylor.

Geez, Alex Taylor. And then this one I got before Game 7 from Britt Pierce about watching James Harden push off on every drive and flop all over the floor. The best playoff moment this year has to be Dean Wade slipping on Harden's sweat spot and Tobias getting the runout dunk. The referee should be embarrassed for allowing this shit for two decades. That would've been, if the Cavs had lost, that would've been the signature play, but they won and now nobody will remember it.

There also would've been like, I'm sure there was an understanding between James Harden and the Cleveland Cavaliers about what would come next when he has this player option for next year. Yeah. And the Clippers, there was clearly an understanding about what would and would not come next with the Clippers. And when there's an understanding of that nature, James Harden tends to change teams and find one where he finds a better understanding. But if they had just flamed out in this series, and by the way, he was 2 of 10 today. It's not like he covered himself in glory in this game. He just didn't turn the ball over a lot.

I liked it. I thought he was good. It was 2 for 10 was deceiving.

I, I, I do think like, and again, I'm sure they've already kind of talked about it, but I like, can you just, I would've been like, can you just opt into your player option and we can just wash our hands of this? 'Cause he's getting old. He's getting old in front of my eyes.

I don't think that's what happens. It's, I think the player option's '43. Yeah.

No, he's, it's what's gonna happen is he's gonna, he's gonna opt out. He's gonna opt out and get a longer deal. But I'm saying if he, if they flame out in the series and he goes down like he's gone down at other game sevens before, if I'm the Cavs, I'm like, I don't know, man. How many more years of this? Like, I know we traded Garland.

Yeah, but don't you want to do, what if it was like 27 and 27?

Is he going to take that? I guess, I guess he would.

But he was in the, what draft was he in? 2009?

He's old. He's getting old.

Is anyone, it's just him and Curry from that draft now, right? Is there anybody else from that draft?

I don't know. You're better at the draft stuff than I am. I think that was, but, and you do get to, you do get to have him as a trade ship in case you have one of those meetings that doesn't go well and then he gets traded to another place.

Well, the question is, is this the third straight team he felt like he was wink wink promise something that then did not materialize?

Yeah, I did. I didn't sense, I didn't sense a lot of empathy for Darryl Morey from the James Harden camp when the news of Darryl Morey's firing was rippling through the combine in Chicago last week.

I want to invite Darryl on my podcast and just pour truth serum into him, get him to tell all kinds of stuff.

Would the painting of Harden be in the background? Do you think he still has the painting? Remember the Ramona Shelburne wrote that piece and it was like, sit in the living room, stands this painting of commissioned from this artist for this amount of money, and it's James Harden doing this. And then it's a quote from Darryl being like, yes, he is my muse. We will be forever connected. We hugged on the tarmac all those years ago.

Well, when he has his podcast on the Ringer, maybe James will be one of the first guests on the Darryl Morey Show.

The Darryl and Doc Show.

The Darryl and Doc Show would be amazing. I don't— I don't think that one will happen. I don't know if there's a lot of—

the mismatch part 2, the mismatch 2.0.

Yeah, that would be more than a mismatch. I don't see those two getting together for a pod. Um, all right, Knicks, Knicks-Cavs, let's do it. Are you— well, you'll do Tuesday morning, so you'll be able to do a pick on that series, so I won't step on your podcast. Listen to Zach's pod.

I'm gonna pick the Knicks. I'm— there's no amount of film study or whatever that I'm doing tomorrow that is going to make me pick the Cavs. I'm picking the Knicks. It's just a matter How many games?

I would lean right now toward Knicks in 5. Um, just because I think Mitchell will have one game when he goes nuts. That's usually, usually what happens with him. He'll have one game where everything goes right, would be my guess. But I don't, I just think the Knicks, it's weird. I, it's, we have 3 classes of teams this year, not 2, as we get into the Final Four. 'Cause we have this OKC-San Antonio all the way up here. I think we have the Knicks here, but puncher's chance of being able to hang in a series against either of those teams. No question.

Absolutely.

And then probably the Cavs here. I think those are the 3 levels.

Yeah, I think that's fair. I think the Knicks, I think the Knicks could win the championship. I wouldn't bet on it. I wouldn't pick, I'm not gonna pick them over either of the Western Conference teams, but I, if you told me it's a 25% chance they could win one of those series, that sounds reasonable to me.

I think the Knicks winning the championship, Oh, this is gonna get cut out of no social media video. I, I'm fine with it. I think the Knicks winning the championship is the biggest thing left in any sport other than the Bills, Vikings, or Detroit Lions winning a Super Bowl. And I probably left out another team where their fans are gonna get mad at me. But when you think about the Knicks not winning since '73, but the generations of fans and the drought of 20 years. And it— there's just so many parallels to me with the Red Sox pre-'04. The, the, just the emotion that will come out of that, we cannot— I don't think there's another basketball team that would have it. And there's some that it's unrealistic because, like, the Sacramento Kings, as long as they have the current owners, will never win the title. So we can't even be like, oh, and Sacramento, it's like we'll never know 'cause they're not gonna win Phoenix a little bit just because of all their tough losses. But other, I just think the Knicks have the most fans. New York's the biggest city. We have generations of fans going back to the '50s and grandfathers and great-grandfathers.

And that, I just think it's the biggest thing we have.

I, well, look, I mean, outside the arena is already a complete shitshow after every game. And I mean that mostly affectionately, but also like leave J.R. Smith alone and leave poor Brian Wijnhorst alone this year if he comes to town. It's already insane there. And yeah, I mean, they're the Knicks. I mean, this is, they are an absolutely iconic team. They are New York's team and New York is a big gigantic city. I would throw out like the Timberwolves-Vikings twofer in Minnesota would be pretty huge.

Well, how about this? Minnesota hasn't won a title of any kind since '91. And I don't even think the Twins, I don't even think they've been in the finals in any sport. Since '91. I'm pretty sure that's true.

I mean, my North Star—

I think it might be like a—

history is a little muddled.

But the thing is, like, I know there's been a bunch of teams that have had droughts or have never won at all. Like, the Maple Leafs fans are listening to me right now, like, what about us? So just the Knicks are the biggest city in America, like, they have the most fans. That's the point is, like, they've had 53 years of just getting their teeth kicked in, and they have just a shitload of fans. So that's That's why I would make that argument.

Can I give you one more that I—

the Mets are at 40, by the way.

I, I'm aware. And we beat the Yankees today and come from behind, bottom, bottom of the 10th win to take the Subway Series yet again. Can I just throw one other team at you?

Yeah.

I, I am curious to know what modern Atlanta would feel like if they got a team that they really felt like this could be a championship team. Like the, the Bud Hawks, I think everybody knew they're gonna run into the Cleveland Buzzsaw at some point. And this was like a very fun team at a very fun story for like the basketball seed, right? Like, oh, they pass the ball and they do all this cool stuff with Korver. Like, what if they got a, like a cool ass dude? Like, like Jalen, I mean, Trey Young was, but then like Anthony Edwards, whatever. Don't get, don't do that.

Like University of Georgia, Georgia native, Anthony Edwards.

But had, and had a team where you like actually believed that it's, that seems like they would go crazy there.

That would be a pretty good one. Hey, listen. Lots of teams haven't won. Indiana, get back there after the Halliburton coming so close and Halliburton going down. Like, that would be another one. But, um, I just think the Knicks have the— they have so many fans. It's something— but I— you and I, I mean, it's a little less fair for you because you're in the vicinity.

I'm in the heartlands.

We just— I just know so many Knicks and it's like all they want. This is it. Um, all right. I'm going Knicks in 5.

Okay.

It's my pick. I don't know what the odds are. Let's, uh, let's talk Spurs-OKC.

Oh my God.

You, um, you were asking me what I thought the most anticipated series has been since you and I have known each other, which was 2011. I tried to hire you, it didn't work out, and then you finally, finally came to Grantland the next year. Um, and you sent me all these series that you thought were in the running for most anticipated playoff series.

Trying to, trying to get my headspace back into what it was, what it felt like before those series started.

Yeah. Kirk and I talked about this for a scratch on Tuesday, and I said that I, I felt like this was the biggest series in 8 years, but I didn't really put a ton of thought into it. And then when you and I were talking about it, I think the weirder thing to me is that we haven't had like a mammoth series like this in 8 years. And I don't really know all the reasons for that because I do think we have a lot of talent in the 2020s. I don't know if it's bad luck or I, I don't really have an answer, but I know that this is, this feels like the single biggest series we've had at least since the first Cavs-Warriors one. But what would you, what would you go like, what, what was the top 5 that you landed on?

So first of all, my theories as to what you just, the void that you just talked about. I have a few theories.

Will you let's hear it? No, let's go. Let's dive into it. I'm curious.

I think the pandemic fucked up like 2 and a half seasons. They just didn't— not that they don't count. Don't do— don't— Lakers fans, I'm not saying that. It just didn't— they didn't— the games didn't feel the same, obviously.

I'll say it.

Well, no, don't be—

the Lakers games are in a fucking bubble with cardboard cutouts of fans. Like, that was insane.

And then the next season there was attendance restrictions all over the league. It just didn't. And then I think the parody, like, we've had 7 champions in 7 years. We just haven't had these like two colossuses who are rising next to each other and meeting in the playoffs over and over again. 60+ win, just like juggernauts. And now we're gonna have that. I'll give you my top 5. I made my top 5.

Wait, before you gimme the top 5.

Yeah.

I have a point off your point. 'Cause I'm glad you brought up the COVID I think that would've been the best and biggest and most anticipated series, but we didn't get it 'cause COVID would've been Lakers Clippers. First Kawhi year, second LeBron year. They were the two best teams in the league and we were headed that way. And I remember the weekend before all the COVID shit happened, and I think they might have even played that weekend. And it just was clearly, I remember doing a podcast that Sunday and it was like, this is it, man. We are headed. We've never had the LA versus LA collision course. This is fucking happening. Kawhi was the reigning Finals MVP. LeBron had his fastball back. Like Davis was there. We were heading for it. And it didn't happen.

Streetlights over spotlights. They had, the Clippers had the whole ad campaign that was like, we're the anti-Lakers of LA.

It was great. And it just immediately was over for, for 2+ years. We never had the awesome Nuggets kind of, oh my God, Nuggets series either. And probably the closest was that, that first battle with the Timberwolves when the Timberwolves ended up beating them in Game 7. But there wasn't the anticipation for that, like with the Spurs.

Yeah. The Nuggets.

Anyway.

The Nuggets are in a, a bunch, like a bunch of my honorable mention top 20 anticipated series. Like I think Thunder Nuggets last year was like, that was a pretty hot series. But again, it wasn't like, it was earlier in the playoffs.

No, you need like, it needs to feel like this is the Finals right now. There's big legacy altering stuff. I have two of hopefully the two best guys in the league, but at least two of the best three or four. Like you gotta check a lot of boxes with this, which is what this series does. So what do you got?

My top 5, I did this from LeBron signing in Miami until now. Top 5 most anticipated series. I sent you a list. I have like 20 finalists. My top 5 were, I'll go in reverse order. Number 5, Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Western Conference Finals, 2012. It was like the old guys versus the young guys. The Spurs had acquired Diaw at the end of that, like a middle of that season, and they were on like a 20-game winning streak going into that series. Or they killed the Clippers.

Killed them.

They, I think they had won 20 straight games after going up 2-0 in that series. Yeah. And then the Thunder were like, oh, we're just younger and more athletic and we're actually ready. And they just wiped the Spurs out 4 in a row. So that was number 5.

But by the way, on that 2012, which was a great basketball season and it was right after the lockout, so it was all condensed, sped up, and there was just a lot of basketball happening. That's right. And the, the thing that sucked is we lost Derrick Rose at the beginning of that playoffs, but we had, Chicago, Miami, Boston on one side, and then we had this Lob City team that came outta nowhere 'cause Chris Paul ended up on the Clippers. You had this proud Spurs team trying to get their throne back. You had OKC, you know, ascending. And then you, you had, was, there was one more, right? OKC, Clippers. No, that's it. Those three. So we had 16—

and then Grit and Grind Memphis was like floating around there.

Yeah. Look, kind of lurking. But, But yeah, that was a, I, I thought both of those Thunder series, because Heat, Heat-Thunder in the next round was also really great. But I like the non-finals for this.

Okay.

I'm with you on that one.

Number 4 most anticipated series, Warriors-Thunder Western Conference Finals 2016 ends up being the Klay Thompson Game 6 series.

Just so I had that higher. I had that second on my list.

Okay.

No, because it was 73-9. It felt like it was Durant's last. Maybe he was getting outta there. Maybe he was going to Washington. Maybe he was going to Boston. The Golden State buzz had started, but most people didn't know whether to believe it or not. But it just felt like there was something momentous happening ahead of us.

I'm not done with that team that year yet on my list.

Great.

Number 3 out of a bunch of candidates from this 2-year era. The 2014 Finals, Heat-Spurs 2. I think just the happiest I've ever been covering basketball was being at the back-to-back Heat-Spurs Finals. Just so many awesome players, awesome storylines. The vengeance storyline in the second one, that the one, the 2014 one after the Ray Allen shot the year before broke the Spurs' hearts.

And it, it, Heat favored for that series too, which people forget.

I think that's the air conditioning game is in that series.

Oh yeah.

Where the air conditioning goes out. I honorable mention, I just think the Spurs, the Spurs-Thunder Conference Finals from that year is also awesome. That's my number. That's my number 3.

By the way, Clippers, Clippers-Thunder that year was awesome too, right? Wasn't that '14?

Honorable mention. Not so awesome for the Clippers, but honorable mention. The Clippers had quite a dramatic playoff run that year with Donald Sterling happening right before. Yeah. Number 2, the 2016 NBA Finals. '73 win Warriors, LeBron and the Cavs. Just the, the, the rematch after the first one had Kyrie injured, Kevin Love injured, and it ended up being not quite a fair fight as the Warriors won their first title. And number one, just slightly over that, 2018 Western Conference Finals, Warriors versus the Rockets team with Chris Paul and James Harden. And they switched everything and were built to beat the Warriors and actually had 'em on the ropes. The Durant Warriors, the invincible Warriors that had gone 16-1 in the playoffs. The year before. I think that was my number one.

It's a great list. So I had, I had 5 of the 6 bolded. The one you didn't mention that I think has lost to history and was fucking awesome was Warriors Rockets 2019 when Durant was hurt. And it felt like it was, we were headed toward the end of this Warriors run that was awesome. Weren't, probably weren't getting Durant back. It was Houston's best chance to take 'em down. And then Curry had that incredible second half. I think it was game 6. What do you have, like 30 in the second half?

I think it's one of my favorite. I think he might have had zero in the first half. And it, it's also not just one of my favorite Curry games, it's one of my favorite Curry and Draymond together games. 'Cause they just run the same two-man game on the right side of the floor over and over again down the stretch. But they do 6 different things out of it in 6 different possessions. And the Rockets just don't even know what the hell hit them. And it's one open shot after another.

18 Western Finals is a great one because it kind of did feel like the Finals. The LeBron had nobody left on the Cavs that season. That weird Celtic team that didn't even have Kyrie and Hayward almost made the Finals, came within a couple mysteries. And a couple, we had the, like a thousand mysteries, a couple hundred, but we also had the Chris Paul, could this be it? And then he gets hurt in Game 4. That was an awesome series. For this decade, you, you wrote down Clippers-Mavs '21, Bucks-Nets '21, Nuggets-Suns '23, Sixers-Celtics '23, Wolves-Nuggets '24, Nuggets-Clips '25, and Thunder-Nuggets '25. The only one I think could be in the discussion is Bucks-Nets. But I, I can't remember when the injuries started, but it was Giannis coming off two straight MVPs. It was your greatest theoretical team of all time, the Nets. It kind of felt like whoever won that series was making the Finals. And as it turned out, it was the correct assumption 'cause the other series was Hawks-Sixers, which was the end of Ben Simmons's career as we knew it. But Bucks-Nets was, I think we were excited for that and then the injuries just started coming.

Yeah, we were, I, I was trying to remember, trying to put myself back into the space of like, I, I must've been pretty pumped for that series.

COVID was back at that point. It was just that '21 was weird. I don't really remember a ton from '21.

And, and by the way, I now remember as I'm going through the whole list of my honorable mentions, the very first one on my honorable mentions list, or chronologically, is the 2011 NBA Finals Heat-Mavs. And we were talking before about how making the conference finals and losing should not be treated as some catastrophic failure where I have to upend my entire team and pivot in a different direction. And what I forgot to say, and now remember to say, is that Mavericks team is the quintessential example of that. Yeah, they tweaked here and there, but they failed in the playoffs over and over and over again with Dirk, often in high-profile ways. And they just took the attitude of, it's not that bad to be a 50 to 58 win team every year. And just be good and good and good and maybe hit great in the right year where we get the right matchups, the right chemistry, whatever. And maybe we'll win a title. And they won the title. And it's one of the most beloved title teams of the last quarter century of the NBA. They are the poster team for, you don't always have to like blow it up or trade 3 people when you're running into a wall in the conference finals or wherever over and over again.

So what are the '22 Warriors the poster boy of? They're, they're, they won the title anyway, even though they should have made trades and they didn't because they were doing the two timelines bullshit.

Well, I think they're the poster thing of like, if you have a top 12 player of all time, wherever you think Steph is, like you should, and he's in his prime, just like, just keep trying to win. And they did.

Basketball was really good from '12 to '14. We just had a lot of good teams and a lot of good players. I think the 2010 Celtics-Lakers rematch Dwarfs all of these. I think for a variety of reasons, it also feels like, uh, it feels like the end of basketball and the start of this new era of basketball. Ironically, in this new decade when the threes started to come in and the new Durant moved up and Curry and all these, LeBron went to Miami. It just feels like basketball shifts as a sport. And that Celtics-Lakers series, incredible anticipation. But also feels like the end of a specific generation at the same time.

I remember thinking at the time, and I was not at, this is 17 years ago, whatever, 16 years ago, not as well versed in like the early, early history of the NBA as you were then I am now. So you can talk about the '69 Finals, whatever.

Great.

I remember, I remember thinking at that time, could you make the argument that this Game 7 is the biggest game in the history of the NBA? Celtics, Lakers. Lakers trying to like close the title gap. Kobe, the Big Three Celtics going for one last ring when it felt like they should have had another one and never did. And just, I, I, I don't think that was a crazy, I mean, I, we, we, I'm sure we could go back and find other candidates for such a lofty designation, but it had to be up there.

Yeah, there's a, there's a couple finals that I think levitate above the rest of 'em. 2016 is definitely like that. I mean, that's, you could argue that that might be the biggest one.

No, I'm just saying at the time in 2010, I was thinking, is this one game? Obviously, yeah, 2016, that, that was—

no, but I'm saying going into certain series and being like, wow, there, the stakes just feel higher right now. That's why, like, if we get a Game 7 in this Spurs-Thunder series, oh my God, I think we're gonna feel that way, right? Because on this, I know Wemby's 22, but I don't care, man. He's 7 foot 7. You like, you, you gotta take it year by year when somebody's got that kind of size. And I just, I'm always nervous about injuries with him. And then OKC, you know, you just never know. It's really hard to just put title seasons together. It's hard to keep everybody happy. They've done a great job of it. Presti famously, and some of the stuff's starting to come out a little about how he approaches player evaluation and stuff, but really thinks about personality, chemistry, wanting to build these guys that are all gonna pull for each other. That's why he sees somebody like Jared McCain, he just grabs them. There's like a certain type of person that he values, and they probably had the best chance of anyone of having a long, long run with a tail without any disease and more stuff happening.

But, um, well, you talk about stakes, like Shay just won his second MVP in a row today. It was announced.

Yep.

If he, they go, if they break the—

Shaum somehow scooped everybody, but was it a scoop? Did we, did anyone think Shai was not winning the MVP? Is there one person?

I'm sure. No, but I mean, I don't think it was a surprise, but I'm sure the league and its broadcast partners preferred that to be, or the other broadcast partners preferred that to be outed a different way.

Yeah, that wasn't great.

But, but if they break the no-repeat streak in the NBA now and he wins another Finals MVP and they're still pretty young, I mean, like, the historical stakes for him and for this Thunder team are now very big. And they, they will begin to put, if they win another title and they break the no-repeat run, they will begin to put themselves into position with another title, whether it's next, like if they win 3 out of 4 or 4 out of 7 or something, they will get into some pretty big historical discussions. And like, that starts now. That starts with like this, this title. And this is the first time They mean they've, it feels like they've barely participated in the playoffs. It's been so easy for them. Right. And now, now we're here.

Yeah. Back-to-back finals MVP: Jordan, Hakeem, Shaq, Kobe, LeBron, and Durant. That's the entire list. And then back-to-back regular season MVPs: Russell, Will, Kareem, Moses, Bird, Magic, Jordan, Duncan, Nash, LeBron, Curry, Giannis, and, and Jokic. Giannis' second MVP. Gotta, gotta reinvestigate that one at some point.

Well, look, no one reinvestigates an MVP race like you. I mean, you got a whole team under you. You got—

I think I voted for Giannis, but I, but now it's like when they always talk about that LeBron won enough MVPs, that might've been the shaky one that he should've taken. I think he finished second.

I got, I, I'd have to look back. Yeah.

I don't know.

I, I remember voting for Giannis both times.

So anyway, the, the, the people who have done the back-to-back regular season and Finals MVP, it's not a, not a long list. Also, speaking of MVP, Jokic got second place. He, he officially top 2 MVPs 6 straight years. Him, Bird, and Russell. That's the whole list.

Wow. I'm surprised. I thought it would be a little closer in the, in the voting than it was.

Yeah. 83 first, uh, first placers for Shea, 10 for Joker and 5 for Wemby. So you thought Joker would get more votes? Who'd you think was gonna get more votes?

I thought Jokic would snag like 10 more first place votes or would just be a little bit less of a rout than it was.

I have a segment I didn't tell you about called Spurs OKC Legacy Check.

Okay. Well, let's check some legacies out.

Just mentioned Shea.

Okay.

He's really going for something unique here with the back-to-back and Finals MVP and Real MVP. Chet has— there's seeds of the Wimby feud going really since like 2023. It's like, is something's here that doesn't seem like these— there's a lot of love between these two guys and now they have a chance to really go at it. I think he's solidified himself as the second best Thunder guy. He's probably the second best defender in the league, second best center. He's their best chance to maybe nullify Wemby a little bit. I don't know if Wemby can be nullified. It might be impossible.

Well, he's definitely not the—

Let's not punch-head stuff here.

He's definitely not the second best center in the NBA.

Oh, I'm sorry. Joking. Yeah. Third best center. My bad.

Yeah. I mean, this goes back to before. You know, they were even in the NBA, the international basketball scene. There's a lot of, there's a lot of Wemby-Chet history. And I'm just going to say like, just let's see how Jalen Williams looks before. I mean, it doesn't really matter. They're both awesome. But before we definitively say that Chet has now surpassed him as the second best player in the Thunder, I mean, this was a dude who was like, oh my God, is he going to, is he going to steal Finals MVP at the last minute here? Is he still in the league? Yeah, he's going to play. He's ready.

Oh, I forgot what he looked like.

Well, you get ready. He's going to look— you're going to see him again.

He was on my legacy list. I wrote Jalen Williams hyphen. Were you here? I guess he was there.

Do you not remember the finals last year? He was unbelievable.

I know, he was awesome. I had him like 12th in my Ringer 100. Just like to see him play. Can he play some basketball? Legacy. Sam Presti.

Okay.

I think a title, getting by this series and then the next series, I think officially, um, he becomes one of the great GMs of all time. I think it's just official.

Yeah.

You're talking Arback and West and Riley and Jerry Krause, pick anyone. But, um, to put that whole Durant run together and not have it quite get there and then do what he did with this decade. It's, it's, he's certainly been the best GM in the league for how many years now? The one that people point to?

Yeah.

I mean, 15?

I don't know if it's quite that long. It's a very long time. And there's indisputably, he's in the, going to go in the pantheon of the best ever to do it.

Yeah. AJ Mitchell? Best contract in the league? Bordering on one of the best this century with the way he's playing, making $3 million a year. Ridiculous trade bait or keep bait for them. And in my opinion, hold on to your horses, Zach Lowe.

Yeah.

The single most important Thunder player in this series.

Thunderer.

Single most important Thunderer for this reason. The Spurs are gonna go small and do that 3-guard thing and try to do speed and unleash their pit bulls. And they need Mitchell to be really good. They need him to be as good as he was the last two rounds. They're going to have to play lineups with him and SGA together and a defender and might even have to go a little smaller. And he's just going to have to be good. He's going to have to do what he's done. And we haven't seen him do it at this level. We've seen him do it in the regular season. We've seen him do it against in series where they were much better than the other team. This is a whole other level. So we're going to find out.

I love that you brought him up and I think you did for exactly the right reasons. I think it's very much worth noting that he missed 3 out of the 5 of games the team's played this year, and you felt his absence in the games he wasn't there. Just the secondary ball, the more ball handling you could, I mean, the Spurs secret sauce against the Thunder was we have a ton of ball handling and enough that we can A, get into the paint against your defense and B, not collapse in a hail of turnovers. 'Cause we have reliable guards and that's what you feast on. But the Thunder can play similar lineups now that AJ Mitchell has become AJ Mitchell to this degree. And I think we're going to see, like, I've been waiting for the Thunder death lineup all year and we've barely seen it. And it's Shay, AJ Mitchell, Caruso, Jalen Williams, Chet Holmgren at the end of some games or in crunch time of some games. It's, we've had glimpses of it. One of the glimpses was in one of the Spurs games. I was rewatching all of it. I think that's an awesome lineup that if we, if we see everyone healthy, we'll see a little bit more of it hopefully in this series than we've seen.

What's the lineup again?

Shai Mitchell, Jalen Williams, Caruso, Chet. It's like, I want to, I want to close. Can I close?

So I have enough defense with Caruso and Chet, just super, but I have a little more offense than 3, AJ in the Dort spot, 3 super dynamic ball handlers in Mitchell, Shai, and J Dub.

And just, I just think it's like, look, there's no Dort, so you lose a little heft, right? And there's no Kayson Wallace who's sort of your defensive ace in the hole at all times. But just something to watch for.

'Cause the other thing with the Spurs is this is a fun series for them because they can play the Wemby with smaller guys lineup. They can play 'em with 3 guards and a swing, you know, could play 'em with 3.5 guards, whatever they want. And it's not like OKC would be like, okay, we're going big and you're making it. They're just not gonna be able to do it. So I do think the guards versus guards thing, which was a huge advantage for San Antonio OKC has the guards, so I have Mitchell. Alex Caruso, Role Player Hall of Fame is like in reach now for him.

Absolutely.

This would be 3 titles for him. I think they really need him in this series specifically because, um, I want to see who do you think guards Harper for them?

I mean, I think it's going to, all of these are just going to be a combination of tons of different people depending on who else is in the game.

Uh, for instance, let's say, let's say end of the game, they go Fox, Harper. Kessel, Bessel, and Wemby.

I mean, they rarely play that. They, the Spurs rarely put all three of the guards on the floor together. It just, it just hasn't happened very much this year. But sure, we can, we can speak that.

They were doing a little more in the playoffs though.

Just a little, but not very much. 'Cause Champagny plays a ton. Keldon Johnson plays a ton.

Yeah.

And yeah, but so, and like, I, well, this is the, I mean, this is the interesting chess match of the series is right. Like I think we would, The Thunder are awesome in any configuration, and we have not seen hardly any of Hardenstein and Holmgren together against the Spurs with Wemby on the floor. So those, those two, the double big, the best double big they have.

It's that you can't, you gotta play shooters.

They've only played 33 minutes against the Spurs in 5 games. And it was really only in 3 games. And if you go back and watch, a lot of them were against Cornette and Harrison Barnes because Wemby came off the bench in 2 of the games that they played. And so they start and Wemby comes in and like when it's Wemby Wemby is the only big man on the floor for the Spurs and Chet is the only big man on the floor for the Thunder. I just think the chess match that's gonna evolve over the course of this series is gonna be fascinating, starting with do they guard each other? And if so, how often? Because the Thunder have put Chet on, you know, Harrison Barnes, Keldon Johnson, basically not Wemby. And the Spurs have kind of toggled between Wemby. Sure, you can guard Chet, you can guard anybody, but we like, you have, like guard Caruso and Rove, guard Dort and Rove. Like, I, I just think that chess match is gonna be super interesting.

And will Dort guard Wemby?

Everyone got it.

Something that will happen.

Dort guarded Fox a lot. So their base alignment when it was one big versus one big, if they're, if they had one that was used the most frequently, it was like Dort on Fox and Jalen Williams on Wemby to switch that pick and roll. And, and they would have the bigs elsewhere on the floor. But Dort will guard Wemby some. Caruso guarded Wemby some. Like they'll throw everybody, they'll put Hardenstein on him now and then. Like particularly I think when the, the starters are against the starters, it's just gonna be super interesting to see who guards who.

It's gonna be, I, I don't, I'd love to know how many people OKC is gonna actually settle on as the series goes along. 'Cause they were basically playing 10 and sometimes even 11 in the last 2 rounds. But I think that gets narrowed down. I think they probably end up at 9 would be my guess, right?

That's usually what it is. I'll tell you, I can't tell if it was because OKC was, you know, like AJ Mitchell was out for a bunch of games, a couple of, 3 of the games as I mentioned. And, and, but like a guy that saw a lot of the floor against the Spurs in the regular season games and who has not played hardly at all in the playoffs is Kenrich Williams. And I, I, I do wonder if he's someone that they look at as, do we try him at the 5 a little bit, or we like his shooting at the 4 next to Chet. He guarded Wemby a bit. I, I wonder if he's a guy that is gonna get a shot to play a little bit in the series.

Wemby, I have for legacy as this would be the single craziest ascent since 1977, Bill Walton.

Pretty much.

If you're just like, hey, I'm gonna actually win 4 straight series and take the title here at age 22. Harper is definitely moving into that 1981 McHale, '83 worthy, '88 Pippen, 2003 Manu and Tony, where this is just a guy at the beginning of his career who is also a huge chess piece and is somebody that I genuinely think he has a chance to be a Hall of Fame, like, top 50 guard. There's a house and I were talking about the other day, like, like I was there when young Jason Kidd showed up and, you know, some of the best guards of the last 40 years I've seen the beginning stages. I just think he has it. Like I would bet anything.

I don't think that's a daring bet. He had, he absolutely has it. He's going to be a star. There's a world in which I, this was a popular debate question as meeting everyone at the combine was best player from that draft in 5 years and 10 years. Is it automatically Cooper or is it Harper? Those were the two.

Can't say automatic anything.

No, I think people would refer to the size that Cooper has, but I, I think Harper being the best player in the draft is in play. And by the way, all the love Harper's getting is incredible. Like, he's incredible. And the Ginobili comparisons, they're lefties, they come off the bench. Ginobili's mentoring him. It's an amazing story. He has totally stepped up in the playoffs. Steph Castle's averaging 26 and 5 on 49% shooting. Yeah. And 44% on 3. And just being a gigantic pain in the ass to everyone at every position on defense. And he's gonna guard SGA a lot. And like, I just can't, I just can't wait for that. What a show that's gonna be.

I had Kessel as the next legacy guy. I wrote down horrific haunting of the 2024 top 3 draft.

Oh my God. What a sliding—

it's horrific at this point.

The Reed Sheppard, Steph. I mean, for teams that have— all of them, I had them first, but, but, but for teams that have massively high stakes, like are ready to win big right now, the Rockets and the Spurs. The Spurs didn't quite know that they were gonna be ready this fast. Like that's a huge sliding doors moment in like the, the coming history of the West.

Brutal. Cornette and Barnes. I was gonna say, when, when are we champs?

I was literally gonna say, when are we gonna get to Cornette's second title? When is that coming up?

And Barnes. How about Barnes?

Well, but you, okay.

Darren Fox escaped from Sacramento. This guy was playing on the Vivek Radhadaev Kings 18 months ago and now has, is in the best series in 10 years.

I just watched the Jailbreak, the Jail Blazers documentary on Netflix.

Yeah.

Escape, Escape from Sacramento sounds like the next Netflix or Amazon bestseller. Basketball mini-doc.

Just, Mitch Johnson versus Dagnall, the most boring great coach matchup in NBA history.

Sure.

Can anyone name 3 things about either of these guys?

Mitch Johnson went to Stanford and Mark Dagnall coached at—

Mark Dagnall, Leventer, Massachusetts. Leventer, Massachusetts.

I know that.

Mitch Johnson, son of John Johnson.

Yeah.

NBA champ, Seattle. Ended up on the Celtics in 1976. Celtics, and something got screwed up, and I can't remember what happened. The trade got voided or the signing, something weird, and they actually had to trade him again to Seattle. But during that brief time, looked at my mom and dad's condo, came into the condo because we were selling the condo, moving to another house, and John Johnson, remember, the Celtic, walked through the condo, and 6-year-old me almost had a heart attack, or 7-year-old me, however old I was.

Yeah, what a—

that's, that's my most exciting Mitch Johnson story for you.

That's all. It's a lot of information about Mitch Johnson's dad.

Do— how long could somebody spend with Mitch Johnson and Dagnall together drinking beers before something fun would happen? 2 hours?

No, I bet not that long. I'd like—

because the Lemonster is going to come out of Dagnall at some point.

Everyone get— you get a couple people a couple beers in, it becomes a fun time.

Um, one of my college roommates was from Lemonster, Chuck LaPasta.

La Pasta.

Chuck La Pasta.

All right, shout out Chuck.

And then last one for me for legacy check, Adam Silver.

Okay.

The Spurs-Knicks series is sitting right there. This is your biggest rating series since 2016. Wemby versus the Knicks.

What, what a—

pull some strings.

Remember when the Spurs were the boring killers of ratings even when they were like, yeah, just immaculate. Yeah, basketball team. And now they have freaking like, I— nobody can take their eyes off this dude. People who know nothing about the NBA are asking about him and watching these games. And by the way, I'm like, we're, we've barely scratched the surface on just how awesome this series could be. I mean, we were texting, like, I looked it up because I'm like, man, the Spurs, every loss they've had in the playoffs has been like, Wemby got a concussion.

Wemby didn't play. No, they have 3 asterisk losses.

Yeah. Wemby got ejected. And I looked it up in the last, since February 1st, And look, everything says the Thunder should win, right? It's experience versus youth. The Spurs haven't taken their lumps. Back-to-back champs, number one seed, all of that stuff. And their record's incredible. And it's absolutely terrifying to not pick the Spurs because since February 1st, the Spurs are 37-3 playoffs and regular season when Wemby plays at least 15 minutes in a game. 37-3 in half a season. It's at, they just don't lose when he plays.

A real game.

They don't lose any games anymore.

Feels like they're just up 20 all the time, but you could say the same about OKC. Yeah. I'm picking the Spurs.

Okay.

They are— what are their— what are the odds for this right now?

Let's see.

So they are +220 for the series. I'm taking it. I would do Spurs in 5, 50 to 1, or Spurs in 6, +550 for value.

But these, these are bets. Are you just picking them to win the series?

No, I'm picking the Spurs to win. I'm just saying that the value I like are those two. I think, I think asking the Spurs to win a Game 7 with how young their team is in OKC is a little ambitious. I think it has to be in 6. I like, and Van Gundy mentioned it today, it's a great point. I thought Van Gundy's been really good the whole playoff. Shout out to him. Two-man booth, clearly his destiny for broadcasting. Three-man, didn't like him. Two-man, great. Made a great point about the rustiness thing. We see this every year. We always forget the team that's been playing and is in the groove and, you know, can just go from one series, they always have an advantage in game one over the team that hasn't played. So I think the Spurs I really think they actually have to win Game 1, um, to win the series, as goofy as that sounds. And I think they are going to win Game 1. And, uh, so that one on FanDuel, Spurs to win Game 1 in the series is +450. So I like that bet too. But I think the Spurs are going to win, Zach.

I, I just think they've caught lightning in a bottle, and this feels like '77 Blazers to me. I'm tired of thinking about The teams from the past and how you gotta learn and take your lumps. And I just don't think it matters. They have a 7'7 guy who's outta control and a bunch of pit bulls, and they absolutely struck oil with this Dylan Harper thing. Like, this is to get those 3 guys in back-to-back drafts. This is the kind of fluke you need to win a title when your best guys are 22, 21, and 20. And I think it's gonna, I think they're gonna win.

I, I, I said it on Christmas, the Spurs can win the championship. Championship, and they absolutely can win the championship.

I— oh, and I forgot one more thing in my pick.

Okay.

The Jalen Williams thing is, I know he's going to be back and they feel good about it, but I think it's a weird variable to introduce into the biggest series of the year, and I don't think it's going to be seamless. And I do think OKC has too many guys. I don't know about all the roles with all those guys, and they can— I know they have great chemistry and all that stuff, But I don't even think they know who their best 5 to 7 guys are. Whereas I think San Antonio knows, I think they know exactly who they are, what lineups work and don't work for them. And I just think they're gonna win.

These are all great reasons to pick the Spurs. You don't even need great reasons to pick the Spurs. They won 60 whatever games, 37-3 in their last 40 games when Wemby plays more than 15 minutes. I mean, it's an unimpeachable pick. They can absolutely win the title. I'm going to pick the Thunder in 7. The Jalen—

I respect it.

The Jalen Williams thing is not a worry to me other than is he going to get reinjured again? I think he probably could have come back earlier had they felt any kind of pressure at all from either the Suns or the Lakers and they got to sit him out for a long time. I do, I still will like defer a little bit to the experience factor and having been through these moments of like big total stress, although the Spurs seem completely carefree to the point that Wemby was like, yeah, I'll kick a game by elbowing Nas Reed in the head. Like, I don't really care, we'll lose this one. We're gonna be fine. I just want to elbow Nas Reed in the head 'cause I'm fucking annoyed at everything.

Yeah.

And I look, they have a Thunder, got a lot of guys. I, they have a ton of continuity, so I don't think reintroducing J Dub is gonna be that big of a deal. And they're just gonna have to make some decisions. Maybe it's a big versus small decision. Maybe it's like not an Isaiah, Isaiah Joe series. Maybe it's whatever. They've already done it with Aaron Wiggins too. And whatever, 37-3, you can make, there's a similar record sitting out there for Oklahoma City and its last like 40 games with Shay or something like that. It's scary. This is a, the, what the Spurs did to them in the regular season was legit. I went back and watched all the film. You can definitely see Shay looking uncomfortable, looking like this is my pet This is my pet jump shot. This is a pet move I do every game and that don't happen anywhere. But the guy on me is a pretty good defender and like I see that the giant arm there and I know he can jump really far and get to, and like you would see him pull out of shots that he makes in his sleep.

But I think I, look, these are two awesome teams. I think Oklahoma City has home court advantage. They're more experienced and I do think they probably have a little bit of an extra gear that they've been waiting and saving in reserve for a series like this. So I'm gonna defer to the champs and pick Thunder.

I totally respect that.

And my second, as long, as long as we're being full disclosure, my second backup pick would be Thunder in 6. Like this is not a case where I'm picking Thunder in 7, but I kind of don't, it's wishy-washy and it's 50/50. I would, I'm picking the Thunder to win the series. So I think I would go Thunder in 7, Thunder in 6, maybe Spurs in 6 is the third most likely outcome, but I'm going Thunder. Thunder.

We both agree long series. 6 games is +210 on Fanduel and +220 is 7 games. And that's another way to do it. You can just bet both of them.

What's sweep? +1,200 or something like that?

Oh my God. Spurs sweep is 25-to-1. Thunder sweep is +550. Oh, I just don't see it.

Oh, that's a little lower than I would've expected.

Okay. Seeing 5 is +290. Okay. Seeing 6 is +470. It's pretty strong actually.

Can I just give Mitch, can I just give Mitch Johnson a little love for this?

Yeah.

I mentioned how like teams have obviously all season gone back and forth with putting their, their centers not on Wemby and Oklahoma City has done that quite a bit. And Castle is now like the guy that they try to do this with. And Castle has just been like, you think this works? Like, this isn't gonna work. How about I just shoot 45% from 3? And when I'm not doing that, how about I just barrel to the rim with all the space you're giving me and I'll score 32 points in an elimination game. But he's been the guy that like Clingan guarded Castle and on and on. Mid-season moving Harrison Barnes to the bench in favor of Julian Champagny I mean, it's one of the most important mid-season adjustments a coach has made in a long time. It completely changed the Spurs because Harrison Barnes was the safest guy to put your center on. And Mitch Johnson had to go to Harrison Barnes, who was having a nice year and making a ton of corner threes, but starting to slow down, be like, hey man, and is a bigger, better defender than Julian Champagny. Bigger for sure, better in certain situations.

And say, we're gonna start this unproven, like relatively unproven shooter over you because we just have to maximize Wemby and you're, you're too safe of a hiding spot for these other centers. They can roam off you. They don't have to guard him. And our goal just has to be, we're going to make it as hard as possible for you to finagle the matchups with where your center is on the floor. And like, it's Julian Champagny. It's not like some, like, 10-year veteran with a track record. And Harrison Barnes ate it and he took it and he remained productive. And now he's barely playing because that's what happens in the playoffs. And it worked and it was like not, not a gutsy move, but it was like a, it was a big like seismic shift in how the Spurs are, are guarded.

I think it's a good one. Minnesota quick. This is another thing for my San Antonio case.

Yeah.

I think Minnesota was really good and I think San Antonio just kind of broke them as the series went along. Specifically Randle, who just, his brain broke during that series.

It's a rough, rough playoffs.

Edwards wasn't 100%. They used some stuff against Minnesota. You know, obviously they were relying on Conley a little too much. Gobert was eradicated in that series. But I actually thought it was a more impressive 6-game win because they really should have just swept them. You know, Wemby gets kicked out of the one game. I don't know, that game 1, looking back, like they, if Champagny just hits the 3, they maybe they win that. But I really like that Minnesota team, which brings me to what do you do with them? Minnesota, Randle has 36 this year, or this upcoming year, and 33 the next year. Gobert is 36 and 38. They also have to figure out Io. And DiFroncenzo is 12.5 expiring next year. I don't think Edwards or McDaniels goes anywhere. Do you buy anything that this team got a little screwed up up holistically when everybody was getting shot for 3 minutes there when they thought they had a chance to get Giannis?

Not really, because you, you didn't hear a lot of that when they were kicking the shit outta the Nuggets in the first round. Like, it wasn't a pro— it wasn't a problem then against a team with, right, you know, one of the 2 or 3 best players, minimum 2 best players in the world. And that when you lose, then it becomes a problem all of a sudden. But against that team, it wasn't a problem. What's a problem is Julius Randle's been in the playoffs 4 times in his career and 3 of them have been complete disasters. And one of them last year was, we thought, okay, got over the playoff hump after just, I think he came into last year shooting like 30% for his career in the playoffs and had a great playoffs. And he reverted right back to what he had been in the first 2 runs of the playoffs. That was, that is that because of the trade stuff? I don't really, I don't really buy that. I think what really submarine them was Anthony Edwards wasn't 100%. Io wasn't 100%. DiVincenzo tore his Achilles and they stopped playing Bones Hyland. Like they just kind of ran outta, ran outta guys.

And then Gobert had 4 points combined in the last 2 games of the series. I think it's a good showing for them to, with all that injury stuff, to take 2 out of the, off the Spurs, I think is a perfectly fine showing. Doesn't feel good.

So they can, they can put together Rando and DiVincenzo's expiring. He's not gonna play next year. If he plays, he'll won't be back till April. And you could take back somebody else's big money problem if you want. Okay, like, you could be like, all right, we'll take Zach Levine's last year.

Why is Randall— why, what is that doing for me?

I'm just, I'm just pointing out they could put those contracts together if they wanted to change something. They could think about something like that. Somebody's big expiring Um, which would give them more trade flexibility in December, January, February, maybe, than what they have. Um, I don't know what you do about Gobert after that Spurs series. Uh, and who knows, they, it might be a get over the hump thing like we talked about earlier where they had their run and this is kind of where they are and now they're clearly just going to be behind San Antonio and OKC for the rest of the decade and that's where we are.

You know what though? I get, again, like This is a franchise that from the last couple years of Garnett to the one Jimmy Butler year just sucked, sucked continuously and sucked in every possible fashion. I mean, like a little flirting with like, we're all, we're 500 with Ricky Rubio and Kevin Love. We're like a fun team to watch, Nikola Peković. But like, they just weren't good. They did nothing in the playoffs. They had the one Butler year, they lose in the first round.

Bad injury luck with Rubio, bad injury luck without Jefferson.

And just like everything goes wrong and then they, but the Butler thing goes haywire and then you're back back, not quite to square one, but back to like, we gotta figure out what the hell we're doing with this team. And now you've been in two straight conference finals and a conference semifinal where you win two games off Victor Wembenyama. Like, this is just indisputably an awesome three years for the Minnesota— like, all of their fans should— are elated by everything that's happened.

With all of that said, you can't bring Randle back.

Well, what are you going to do?

You have to figure out how to trade him for somebody else.

Well, this was the— this was always the mystery of they're in on Giannis, they're in on Giannis. They're one of the teams that's like in, in last 72 hours still in contact with Milwaukee. And I never got how that was gonna happen because they don't have any, they have very minimal to no first round picks to trade.

I never believed it. I never understood. I believe they were getting him, but I, I, I believe, but McDaniels would've had to have been in the trade for them to have any sort of assets to then give up for Giannis. I think.

Well, yeah, I don't, I don't know. Again, I don't know how, but yes, if there's a person on their team who's getting you multiple good first round picks, that's who it is. And you know, I don't, I just don't know how they're going to do it, but if they were trying then they'll surely try again.

God, I hate bringing this up. Can we talk about Giannis's trade value for a second?

This is your favorite, one of your favorite topics. So go ahead.

Well, we're going to be talking about it for the next 4 to 5 weeks. He was in the news this week because Miles Turner gave that interview talking about—

that was, that was pretty—

I have no problem saying this because he's not going to be on my team like next year, so here's some tea I'm going to spill.

Um, or it's just like, hey man, they paid me $25 million a year where I didn't have a lot, a lot of other options. I'm just happy as a clam. This is all great for me.

I know he's stunk this year though. I can't really find the team for Giannis. I thought this was going to be a lot easier last year. If we were doing this a year ago, I think we had multiple suitors. And just, just kind of talking to people and hearing from different people about this, I'm really surprised how lukewarm the market is for him. I don't think people feel like this is a home run, this will change my franchise. I will now have a chance to win the title. It was telling that San Antonio and OKC wanted no part of them when they had the most assets. It seems to me that the team that would trade for Giannis would be a team that needs to take a little bit of a hail Mary or has a really short window. And that rules out a lot of teams. I, you know, my dad and I have kind of landed the, we hope it's not the Celtics. That's where I've landed. After looking at this from every direction.

I don't know. Simmons colon awful announcing tomorrow. Simmons colon I don't want Giannis in Boston.

Get that guy fucking outta here. I don't know. I went through all the stuff, what, 2 months ago about the year 14 and after big guys and how, how kind of creepy the stats were and how few guys even were able to put up 20/10s and the injury history hit in the last 5 years. And it, it just doesn't, something's just telling me to stay away. And I know some teams will talk themselves into it, but I just don't know what he is worth. I don't, I can't figure it out. So what have you're, as you talk to people in the league, what are you hearing?

So I, I mentioned this last week when I got back from the Combine that it, like the thing comes out from Shams that the Bucks are quote open for business, which we already knew that they're gonna be open for business. Jimmy Haslam came out and said, we're gonna be open for business. Is, we want to do it before the draft if we're not going to sign him, or if he's not going to sign, whatever. And it just like, there's a, it's a, it's an interesting paradox because there's a general con— I mean, everyone was in Chicago. I saw a million people.

Yeah.

There's a, there's a general assumption that he will get traded because that's just what happens, right? Like when the toothpaste is this far out of the tube.

Yeah.

And yet no one can really identify the team that fits the right package of like, we have stuff, a lot of stuff that's going to entice Milwaukee and we're going to be good enough to justify sending out all that stuff when Giannis is here. And I said this, I had, I met up with a very high-powered agent who knows things and we were just shooting the shit and I said, so what's your bet on Giannis? And he said, you know, I'm just, I'm going no trade. I'm in the contrarian zone. I think I'm going no trade. I think he's going to be on the Bucks. And I was like, really? Why? He's like, I just don't know what the team is. Who's the team? Go through all the teams, find the team. And it was like a fair—

I heard you say this.

It was like a fairly convincing argument that I still, but didn't sway me. Like, I think he's going to get traded still. And that's why I said after all that, if I just had to bet, if you made me like pick a team, that is it. If I had just had to guess. If he's traded, where is he traded? I would put Miami as my number one guest team because they fit the Hail Mary thing you just said, because they have just enough stuff that if they threw it all together, the Bucks could sell it as like, hey, we got, we got a lot and maybe we can reflip this one guy we got and like get another thing. And, but I don't feel great about that package, whatever it is.

If I'm Milwaukee, Portland would be the other team and I don't even know if you'd want to go there. The other stuff—

good thing is at least he's not a two-way player so he can travel to all the games, right?

I think he's fixing that though, Dundon. He didn't— he went on Game Over with Rich and Max and said he thought it was more like hockey.

And I saw that. I saw— I didn't realize all the players went to the games.

Yeah, well, he learned. He learned a valuable lesson. Um, some of the stuff we keep hearing, everybody seems terrified about the injury history and the miles on the body. Right? Using almost like a running back in football or a car that has a ton of miles on it that's gone cross-country. Just wondering if I get Giannis, how many years left am I actually getting? There's also the stylistic thing. If you already have a best player on your team, how is that person gonna fit with Giannis? A guy who likes to have the ball, who likes to be at top of the key. How do you, how does that fit with somebody like Jason Tatum? Right? And then, you know, there— I, I think everybody loves Giannis the guy. I think everybody thinks he's a great guy, but there's some, there's some stuff that comes with Giannis, right? He's got multiple agents, he's got, uh, he's got the two brothers, um, he's been the superstar in a, in his own team now for 11, 12 years, probably used, accustomed to certain treatments And it's just, it's risky to bring somebody in like that. We've seen it not work in the NBA where it's like, I'm a big star, I'm walking in, this is now my new team.

And sometimes it doesn't work right. Even when Dame came to Milwaukee, it was rocky there for a year. It was a similar situation. So I think we're, I think we're both looking at the same team and, but would you, would you kind of Hail Mary situation?

Would you say You still expect him to be traded though?

I do.

I do too.

Because, um, here's what I think has changed. I think it's become acrimonious with him and the GM. I think him not playing at the end of last year. I, I, I don't think it's on good terms.

Well, look, I mean, the Miles Turner stuff got kind of a chuckle from people, but That was real shit, man.

He was basically saying the dude was never on time ever without saying who it was, but we knew who he was talking about.

And like, oh, I mean, I didn't realize, I, I, did he not say who it was? Did he not, did he just say it's the best player or whatever?

Yeah, he, there was some dancing around, but you could tell who he was talking about. I mean, that's, and he certainly wasn't kind to Doc either.

That kind of stuff annoys whoever it is annoys players. Like I've heard stories about we had to hold the plane because this guy was late and everyone's grumbling 'cause they have dinner plans when they get to the city or like the The guy was late for his massage table appointment and it like had created this whole backup that ruined everybody's days. And when the guy, if, if it, if he's talking about Giannis, like when the, you just, if you're the best guy on the team and you're the franchise guy, you can't do that stuff. Is not acceptable for someone. You have to be the other way. You have to be the guy who sets the standard for the rest of the team.

There's one other team that I think we have to mention, and it ties into another theme that I've been wondering about. About if there's going to be punishment against the Clippers, should they be moving fast right now and trying to trade their picks in case they're worried that they might get taken away? And if you're going to do that, like, do you just, could you just trade the number 5 pick for Giannis right now?

And just, we're trying to win a title with Kawhi and Giannis and Garland and—

Yeah. I think they would have the cap space to do it. They could put a couple expirings there to make it to make it work and basically try to jumpstart if they feel like a punishment's coming. Because I think the, the feeling is we're gonna have a verdict pretty soon.

The sh— I, that would shock me if only because, I mean, I was there when it happened and I, and I saw other people, like, they just feel like they got a new lease on life with this pick. I mean, just a new— okay. A, a, that it completely changed everything about their franchise and it would just absolutely blow me away.

So who are the other Hail Mary teams then? I guess you could say if Cleveland gets annihilated by the Knicks, maybe they're in that zone.

But that's what I was gonna say.

Would you trade Mobley for Giannis straight up at this point with the injury history? 'Cause I don't think I would. I'd be, I don't think that's a smart move.

It's, it'd be, I don't know if I would do it honestly, but it, if like a couple years of Mitchell plus Giannis is, is interesting. Yeah.

You're short your 2-year. Yeah. That's like a classic 2-year window.

Yeah.

I'd be very nervous to do that.

So yeah, how the playoffs play out is a big part of it, right? We haven't mentioned Houston and then you have the other kind of older Hail Mary teams who may not have enough to get it done, like the Lakers and the Warriors and teams like that. Right. But who else?

That's it.

That's it.

Rockets. I mean, would you trade Sengun and another contract for Giannis and throw some picks in? I don't know if I would do that. The only other one I could think of is Brooklyn. I do not, as we said before, I don't think they're keeping their 6th pick. And is it like a 2-part move where move 1 is Giannis, move 2 is something else, and you go in on 2 stars and now you're in the mix in the East?

Well, that's the thing with Brooklyn is like they, they've been floating around the rumor mill like this with Giannis for a long time. And the question has always been like, what, what, who is Giannis going there to play with? And given his age and his injury history, you don't get a year to be like, we'll find another guy. Like that year you have to have your team them ready to compete at the highest possible level. The 6th pick is super interesting. Like, I haven't heard a lot of buzz about the Nets and the 6th pick yet, but they're just in the range where everybody's a guard and they just drafted a million guards. And, and not all of them are playing— like, your guy Burrys is not a, is not a point guard, so maybe he would fit there. But it is an interesting place for them to land.

He can't— and they draft— Akef or Wagner have to— has to be 6th. They just have the most value and they don't need either of those guys. I also I think all the intel I've gotten is that they don't want to have another rebuilding year. Like they want to be good. They're tired of this. And the Nets are in a weird spot. The Tsai family, who I think everybody thinks are great owners and it's like a first-class team, they have this awesome WNBA team situation where they sell out, people love it, there's real energy in the arena. And then they have this Nets team that's just punted and they're playing in the same city as a team that's about to make the finals, barring something crazy happening. I don't see how they don't try to—

I had someone make the best possible pitch to me about the Nets at the 6th pick, and he was just— I don't even remember who it was. It was a front office guy on another team. He was just— he didn't know anything concrete. He was just saying this is what they should do. He was like, I don't even care who they took in the last draft. They should take Acuff because he would just be like the ultimate draw. Like the hipsters would be like, this kind of is a cool undersized guy who does cool stuff. Like he would just fit what they just give them a buzz, give them some hipster like street cred. Like he would, he was just like, fuck all the guys they just picked. Maybe they'll develop, maybe they won't. They should take Acuff no matter what if he's still there.

I agree with that. 'Cause, 'cause he has real Kyrie potential and you have to investigate it. But yeah, so if we're talking, you know, the draft's still 5 weeks away, but I do feel like we're in range now. It's May 17th. The draft is in 5 weeks. And I think some trade stuff is, is starting, you know, for sure. The Celtics are certainly looking at it. I think the Celtics, whatever— I've talked about this already, but whatever they decide to do with Jaylen, I think would be— I don't think it's a Giannis move. I think it's more of a, can we get 2 pieces for Jaylen, some salary cap relief, and maybe somebody that makes less money than him 2 years from now type of thing. But I would say they're way more likely to keep him than trade him. Him, you know.

I would— I, I do think it's more likely that he's on the team next year than not. Um, yeah, I don't, I don't know anything more than that, so we'll see.

It's a weird situation. Well, it is past midnight your time and you have to get up early tomorrow, so we have to go. Anything else? Did we cover everything?

I think we covered everything.

Best thing you heard in Chicago that you didn't talk about on your podcast?

Oh God, I talked about a lot of it on my podcast.

Seems like a lot of people were there.

It was crowded. It was, it was, everyone's always there. It's one of the great, it's like Vegas, but in a shorter period of time and in a normal city and not Vegas, which I, I do like Vegas a lot actually. But I, I'll have to think about that. I have nothing.

All right. So we have, we have Knicks and we have Spurs. We, I have the Spurs. You have OKC and we both have Knicks. Yeah. Okay. Um, thanks to Cahal and Eduardo. Thanks to Zach Lowe as well. Don't forget, new rewatchables for me tomorrow. Borat. Very nice. Really fun one. Um, and then I'll be back on Tuesday night. Zach's gonna have a new podcast on Tuesday morning after game 1 Spurs-Thunder, which should be an all-timer. Zach, great to see you as always.

It's, it's gonna be a blast. Thanks for having me.

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