Transcript of An NBA Mini-Mailbag and All-Star Picks, Plus Kon Knueppel Stops By

The Bill Simmons podcast, presented by FanDuel Sportsbook. We're also brought to you by the Ringer podcast Network, where I put up a new rewatchables on Tuesday night. We did What Lies Beneath. It was me and Mally Rubin and Chris Ryan. Get it wherever you get your rewatchables podcast. You could also watch it as a video on Spotify. This is my third BS podcast of the week. We had football ones on Sunday and on Monday, I have another football one coming on Thursday as I try to go 05 again with my playoff picks. Please go against me. Today, we're doing basketball. Conca Nipples coming up later. At the very top, I am going to do a little mini mailbag and my NBA All-Star pick. So that is next. The Bill Simmons podcast is presented by Fanduel. Fanduel has got it all. Same game parlays, quick bets for jumping in live. They have your way. Go check out your way. You can build the bet that fits your play, your way. Plus, don't Check us out on the NFL Playoffs, one of my favorite times of the year, all month long. Download the Fanduel app or head to fanduel.

Com/bs to get started. Get ready for the playouts. Let's go. Must be 21 plus, President Select States, 18 plus in DC. Kentucky and Wyoming. Get in a promo call, win100gambler. Or visit rg-help. Com. Call 888-789-777 or visit ccpg. Org/chat in Connecticut. All right, this isn't an official mailbag. It's a mini mailbag. I really just wanted to do my all-star starters and reserve pics and just He bounced through what I was thinking. But I thought it was a chance to sneak in some timely mailbag questions. These were questions that were sent into bspodcast33@gmail. Com. First one came from Rob from Long Island. Then in parentheses, it says, Via the Cape. So he went from the Cape to Long Island to each his own, I guess. He said, With the recent Jokaj injury, I was wondering if the NBA went too far with the 65 game minimum for awards, which has been a controversial topic. He said, he suggested, what if all players were eligible for awards, but if you don't play 65 games, you become eligible for contract incentives. He had another thing about a sliding scale for MVP points. I keep getting questions like this, and it keeps being a topic, and It's interesting that Jokuj was the catalyst because I think people realized how absurd it would be to have a award season where Jokuj wasn't represented.

And as I've said many times in this podcast, for whatever reason, I care about this about as much as anyone because it all goes back to when I was working on my book, the All-MBA stuff was really important trying to figure out a snapshot of the year. This is why I've been so fanatical about they changed the rules. You can basically vote for 15 guards for the three All-MBA teams. I'm not doing that. I like to obey at least some of the things that went through the first eight decades of the league where big men mattered in awards, wings, guards. We had all types of players. So I care about this stuff. And Here's where I landed on this, because we could have had this conversation last year. There are other players that got hurt. For some reason, Jokuj became the catalyst because he's having the best year of his career. He is one of the best players of the century and is now in the running for top 10 best players ever. If he plays 59 games, 60 games, whatever, and he's not on an NBA team, it's just going to seem stupid. I don't mind the '65' game thing, and I don't want people to forget the premise of why that was created because the league was under the gun a little bit with guys just skipping games and people paying to go to a Clipper game, a Warriors game, a Celt game, a Nets game, whoever.

They thought somebody was going to be in town and they go to the game and that person just doesn't play for rest, to rest a minor injury or whatever it is. They're really trying to incentivize teams and players not to do that. So I get it. I think 65 games is fair, and I think we should keep it. I do think there should be a wrinkle that if you have a specific injury that you're knocked out, and we could say it's 12 straight games, it's 14 straight games, we can even say it's 15 straight games. But let's say 12, because 12 is basically three weeks. If you miss three consecutive weeks with an injury, maybe that drops from 65 to 60. I don't think the problem with what's happened here is that Jokuj, who's a durable guy who is available for just about every game and is reliably there. If you're paying to see the Denver Nuggets come to your town, pretty good bet, Jokuj is going to be there. We're penalizing him for something that he couldn't control, which was he had a serious injury that knocked him out for a month. So if Jokuj plays 60 games but misses 17 in a row, I still think he should be eligible for all MBA.

That's what I would do. I would have a 12 plus straight game, knocks you to a different tier, where now you can get to 60 and you still I think that solves this yokeage issue. That's my first one. Next email is from Samir from Brooklyn, via Boston. A lot of Vias today in the mini mailback. He said he was switching between the Boston and Indiana broadcast for Celtics Pacers, and he heard Brian Skalbrini call Pritchard, unlike any player he's ever seen. Then Quin Buckner, who's the Indiana guy, called Pascal Siakam, an All-Star. Samir asked, Why haven't we had a booth that pits local color commentators against one another so they can bring each other back down to Earth? Instead of having neutral boosts for national broadcast, we could have color commentators from each team saying most unabashedly biased things possible while the other says things like, Wait, you just called an average player in a last place team in All-Star. So Homecourt gets the play-by-play guy who's desperately trying to keep the things moving. Then you have the color guys from the local markets fighting it out. I love this idea They always talk about what is the future of alternate broadcasts.

Normally, they're pretty terrible, or you're just going to end up watching the normal broadcast. The Manning cast is fine. I always watch Buck and Akemen. I have no idea why anyone would watch the Manning cast when I could just get the game on a bigger thing. All cast should have some bent. If I'm in the playoffs and all I have is the national team, I should be able to watch a broadcast with the Celtics announcers. If I have the Patriots game and I don't want to hear Romo. I don't even know who's doing the Patriot. I actually don't think it's Romo. It's Collinsworth. But let's say I hate Collinsworth, and as you know, I love Collinsworth. Let's say I didn't like Collinsworth and I want to hear the Patriots announcement, that should be an alt cast for that. I like the idea of an alt cast where it's basically a regular season, free for all between the two color commentators for the two teams. I think that would be pretty funny. They would just be incredulous with each other for two and a half hours. I don't blame these guys for doing it, though. They have to ride on the team plane.

They're incentivized. If the team wins a Championship ring or something, they get a championship ring. So they really do think it's like, we, that's why they get so bent out of shape with the calls. But it would be funny to just pit them against each other. Marcus in Temecula, via Phoenix has a question about the Phoenix Suns. He said, Last year's Phoenix Suns, most unwatchable NBA team of the decade. I think that actually might be right because we've had bad teams. But when a team hates playing with each other, that's way worse to watch. He said, Slow, old, predictable, stagnant offense, no defense, no chemistry, ISO ball. Overall, disgraceful effort, professional basketball team. I agree with all that. Then he says, This year's Suns is an absolute delight. Fast, young, unpredictable, flowing offense, intense defense, amazing chemistry. Objectively, it would appear that the Phoenix Suns have accomplished the George Kistanza, Just do the opposite of your instincts with great success. Can you name another team in NBA sports history that succeeded with the Kistanza theory? And is Dylan the actual human Kistanza to Bradley Beale. A lot to work with here. The Suns Over Under was 31.

5. I went under. Michael Pina on the Ringer wrote some... He was doing an increasingly crazy predictions piece. One of the predictions was that the Suns would have the worst defense in the league. Just those two small events, Pina making a crazy prediction, and everyone on our podcast, I think going under, has now turned the Suns fans into the You believe in us. It's us against the world. It's like, Well, you're over and under. It was 31 and a half wins. Nobody believed in you. And this is a great story. You have an awesome coach. You play really hard. Guys like Gillespie showed up. Brooks treats every game like it's a game seven. I think all this is awesome. And the crazy thing about it is it was a complete 180 from how wish to be a built the team McBeanworth. He did the new owner syndrome. I got to do something fast. I'm going to trade everything for Durant. Let's get Bradley Beal. And Just he's trying to put it together like it's a fantasy team, and now he's attempting to put it together like a real basketball team. I think to just call that a Kistanza belittles how cool it is that they pulled off all the stuff they pulled off.

The biggest thing is they hired an awesome coach, sure not. I was texting somebody in the league about this today, about it feels like we have more good coaches than we've ever had before. A lot of them are younger. A lot of them are analytics-based. Nets, Rapt There's Celtics, Suns. You're going down the line, there are just these young guys that come in and you watch the teams. They have a specific identity. They have players that fit that identity. It's really cool to watch. If you're going to talk about, is this an actual way to do something, a Kustanza, where you just go against yourself. The obvious next team to try this would be the Sacramento Kings, a team that has been the most pathetic franchise of the century, I would say, by NBA purposes. I wouldn't say that lightly, but I think it's true. Probably in the bleakest situation they've been in a long time where they just have not a lot of assets and a lot of contracts on Tradeable. Basically, everything is gearing toward, can they get a top four lottery pick now? And yet they're still playing all these veterans trying to win games.

I don't understand what the Kings are doing. There's a million things we could say about the Kings. Could the Kings go Kistanza and what would that mean? I think that would basically mean they just ask Vivek what to do. He gives their recommendation, and then they just do the opposite. That would be the full Kistanza, and also a pretty good idea for a franchise. So it worked for the Suns, even though I think it belittles how much smart thought they put in everything. But I think the King should be the next Kistanza team, and I like the theory. Next one. This is a text from every single liquor fan friend that I have in my life because I've over the last two hours. It's some combination. I just did an amalgam of all the text I've gotten. You're an evil genius. You launched this game over podcast with Rich Paul and Max Cameron solely so you could destroy the Lakers, and it's working. First of all, I'll never do that. As much as I despise the Lakers, I would never use a Ringer podcast to try to bring that down. That feels like bad karma.

It feels like something bad would happen with the Celtics. How dare you on that? This podcast has made a lot of news for the Lakers stuff, especially this week. If you haven't listened to it, it's Rich and Max. They've known each other forever. It's a really good podcast. I won't call it a fear, but my one question with it was, is Rich going to be candid? He's still an agent and a power broker, all these things. Tied to LeBron, obviously. Is he going to be candid? Is he going to be candid about the Lakers? He's been He's incredibly candid. I was walking around LA on Monday listening to it, and all of a sudden, he's talking about how the Lakers need Jaron Jackson. Then it's like, well, they would have to give up something to get him. Maybe Austin Reeves, if they don't want to pay him. It sounded like my podcast, but Rich is LeBron's agent. I love it. I think this is great. And by the way, this is what's happened with podcasts the last 10 years. We've had players like Draymon and those type of guys have started, Paul George, Jalen Brunson.

All these guys have podcasts where they just talk about their life and they talk about the sport like their fans. And now Rich is doing it, but he's the most powerful agent in the sport. It is fascinating. I couldn't be more delighted that the Ringer is involved. If it's caused trauma for Laker fans and disarray behind the scenes, I can't say that was the intention, but it's a pure delight to me as a Celtic fan to just to watch this happen. So, yeah, unintended consequence, but I've been really enjoying the podcast. Go Rich. Next question. Speaking of Rich, it's a LeBron question. It's from Sam. And Sam says, he's trying to figure out what would LeBron have to do to pass... It's a long email, and I'll just try to summarize it. Basically, if you get six rings to match MJ, LeBron is at 2 Miami, Cleveland, 2020. So he's got four? Yeah, four. It's behind Kobe. I mean, MJ, six, Kobe, Duncan, five, LeBron, four. He's asking basically what would have to happen for him to get the last two? And does it count if he's a coach or a GM or even an owner?

My short answer would be no. I think he has to be a player. I I think he can win the post-playing career. Mj, by all accounts, pretty horrible basketball owner. No offense, MJ. I think you're the goat. You're the best basketball player I've ever seen. You were a bad owner. You just were. So he can beat him in the NBA player afterlife as a GM owner or whatever. I don't think that's going to be hard. Let's say he leaves the Lakers and he goes to Cleveland. Sam's thing is, could he be a six man, lead the bench? What if he even won six man of the year and maybe finished some games for a team and won the other two rings? Would that discount the rings at all? I don't think so. I didn't feel that way with Karl Malone when Karl Malone was going for a ring on the '04 Lakers. He wasn't one of the two best players in the team, but he was still a really important player on the team. If LeBron went to Cleveland, became a six man, closed some games, they two more titles, that's six rings. I'm sorry.

It doesn't just take one player to win a ring. It takes about nine, and there's four or five crucial ones, plus the coach, plus the GM. I think That would count. I wouldn't feel like he was chasing it. As long as it was organically, he was really part of the team. The last part of this question is, would success in a basketball role other than player significantly alter his legacy? I think it would because we just saw it with Jerry West. Jerry West was the logo. Jerry West was one of the eight best basketball players of all time when he retired, maybe one of the six best. Even in my book now, he's in the Pantheon. He's one of the top 15 still. But then he had this whole other career as a front office executive that made completely change his career. So if LeBron chooses to go that way, I think it would affect him. Next question is from Tyler. If Linsanity happened in 2026 instead of 2012, would it be a bigger story, smaller story, or no difference? I think smaller. There was a 2012, whatever was happening with basketball in the internet, basketball writing, Twitter, There were all these variables, and we were right in the middle of it.

It was the first year of Grantland, and it was really when... It felt like just a lot of things were changing. It was post lockout. It was accessible clips. It was the You could actually go on Twitter and watch a dunk that you just heard about or somebody forwarded you. There was really good basketball writing. I think my favorite time ever for journalism was that early 2010s where we just had blogging still mattered. Long-form journalism was still on the internet. There were a lot of good writers. There were people willing to take chances with their voices and their angles. And the insanity was perfect. And that was some of my favorite stuff that we I wrote at Grantland that year. I remember Jay Kang had some good pieces. I had a bunch of fun writing about it back then. We had a bunch of NBA people that wrote good stuff. And just general, it just felt like it fit into everything that was happening in 2012. Now, I just feel like there's so much stuff going on all the time. I don't know if anything would cut through like that in the same way. That's my answer.

I might be wrong. All right, next question from Will from Summerville who asked, I got a bunch of these, too, about the Celtics traded for Jaron Jackson. There were rumors that they were interested. I'll just say when there are rumors about the Celtics being interested in players, I never believe them because nothing leaks from the Celtics ever. When they traded for Derek White, it's not like that was being rumored for a week or a month. I always feel like they're very stealth under the radar, and then shit happens, and then you find out about it. So when I hear stuff like, The Celtics are interested, I just tend to not believe it. The Jaron Jackson thing is interesting, though, because Memphis clearly should be trying to trade him and Ja and just reboot and completely start over. Will said as a Celtic fan, he likes the idea of adding his elite rib protection and floor spacing. I'm out on this one. I'm not a giant Jaron Jackson fan. I liked him when he was in the 25 million range as a center, but his next four years, starting next year, 49, 50. 5, 52 million, and then 53.

5 million player option, which I'm just going to guess he's picking that up. I don't love when big guys don't rebound. I actually think he needs to be next to a center. Like why Zack Eady was so interesting when he got to play next to Zack Eady or when he got to play with Steven Adams in the past. Three-point shooter. I don't really love his low post stuff. To pay that much money to him and now Jalen and now Tatum, that's my team. I can't get out of that. So that leaves the Celtics with no outs. There's trades that they could do. They could definitely do the Simon's contract with Hauser, with Luca Garza or something. You could patch up the contracts, take the extra money and pull it off. But I would I must be against it. I would not want to do this. And with that side, if they end up trading for them in two weeks, I'll talk myself into it in about 10 minutes. But right now, I'm against it. Next question. Matt Edwards in Richmond, Virginia. Is Hillary Swank the Steve Nash of multi-Oscar winners? Or is Steve Nash the Hillary Swank of multi-MBA MVP winners?

Also, who should be more offended? It's from Matt in Richmond. Obviously, you came to the right place for this question. I would say I'm the perfect person in the universe to answer this. I think Steve Nash should be more offended. I say this with all due respect to Hilary Swank, who won two Oscars, two best actress. Not a long for two best actress Oscars. She went for Million Dollar Baby, a movie that if somebody gave me on Blu-ray or 4K UHD, I would throw in the garbage. Only wanted to see that movie once. I'm still mad at it. Then she went for Boys Don't Cry, which is a really good independent movie. She's great, though. Here's where this falls apart, though, because you could say, Well, then Nash won his two weird MVPs. It's just like Hillary Swank winning two Oscars is weird. Nash winning the two MVPs is weird. Here's I'm sure that this goes off the rails. The rest of her career just doesn't add up to those two Oscars. Really, it's one of the strange IMDbs you've ever seen. I think probably the third best movie she made was in Omnia, which I really like.

It's on the rewatching list. Christopher Nolan, Robin Williams, Al Pacino, who can't sleep the whole time. I can't sleep. Next three, maybe The Hunt, Logan, and The Core for movies you'd ever want to see again. It falls off fast. Plus, she has The Next Karate Kid, which is how we got to know her. Not a good movie. Then she had Season 8, 90210. She joins as Carly, the waitress who works at the Peach Pit and has a kid and falls for Steve Sanders. They wrote her off the show. Steve Nash does never... I guess you could say The Suns traded him. When they I think it was Kevin Johnson and Jason K. They had too many point cards, and they traded him to Dallas. That's the equivalent of being written off a show. But I would say not being able to find chemistry with Ion Ziering in season 8 of a long-running TV show. They had to send her away. It was one of those things like, My mom got sick. I have to leave. And she was just gone. I think Ion Ziering might have even cried for a brief second. But Nash has nothing like that.

And then Nash's whole career I mean, Nash was one of the 10 best point cards of all time. I have him low 40s in my pyramid, somewhere in the 40 to 44 range. I can't remember where. The 05 Suns, and then that whole seven seconds or less Suns, widely credited, and rightly so, for saving basketball. I don't think you remember how terrible it was to watch basketball back then. It was just the defense and the shit. It was just everything Everything was a rock fight, and the Suns opened the doors for that. Then the 2010 Suns team, which I think really could have made the finals and had some bad luck in the Lakers series. But he was in the title mix there for five or six years in a real way, plus with the '02 and '03 maps, he was in there. I just think he had a way better career. I think Steve Nash should be more offended. Mark Atkinson. I get this question a lot, too, about basically upon Tatum's eventual return, are you at all worried about the Celtics falling into their old habits of walking the ball, playing not to lose them in the games, iso ball, that stuff?

Because everybody loves watching the Celtics team. So it's weird because one of the things people seem to think is that they're playing with more pace, which technically when you watch it, eye test-wise, it seems like there's more pace, but they're 30th in pace than the NBA. It's not like Tatum is going to slow that down because he's not. I think the difference, the part What they need to figure out is more of this is being initiated by Derek White and Pritchard and then Simon's when he's in through the guards, through Jalen Brown. The big guys that come out and set picks for them are just better at it. Kata and Garza How is Tate going to fit into this new identity? To me, it's a good problem to have. He's taking minutes from guys like Shireman and even somebody like Hauser. Hugo Gonzales, who's one of the best plus minuses in the league, but he'll probably lose some minutes. But Tateam, they're going to ease him in when he comes back. He'll play probably two nine-minute parts of the half. With his defense and his rebounding and his scoring and the fact that he was probably the fourth best player in the league when he went out, I'm not worried about this.

Could there be a little Tate and Brown stuff? Who knows? Is there a little AlphaDoggie? We'll see. But the team that's currently constructed is not winning anything. They're not winning a title. Tatum might change their ceiling a little bit. So please don't overthink this, everybody. Next question is from Aaron. He talked about, recently, we did that mailbag thing about NBA when I had Mahoney on the NBA mailbag about NBA awards for players that were best at certain skills. They basically named after Steph Curry, who, year after year, was just by far the best at shooting. Aaron says, You could take it even further and recognize the best weirdo skill each year. I love this. As sameness takes over the game, let's recognize niche skills that are never captured in box scores. For instance, T. J. Mcdonald's ability to continually steal the inbound's pass, which he just did the other day and actually, you won them a game. He does this sneaky, almost like he's hiding in the bushes and then ponces out. It's amazing to see people continually fall for it through the air as if tape didn't exist of him doing this all year long.

So that's from Aaron. I love this. So I was thinking the weirdos go finalists, and I just did this. I probably left out two people. I'll be interested in Zack Lo's take. Maybe Zack Lo will tackle this as well in his podcast. Weirdos go finalists for me. Mccono and the Inbound Steels. I think Alvarado had that title for a second. Then McCono just took it back. Derrick White, Guard Blocks. The best player prop you can do is the Derrick White block with any other result you want from something game. He always gets one, especially if it's a big game, guaranteed. He has another weirdo skill, which is the same one. Dave Jacobi can back me up. Jacobi, if you're watching or listening, back me up. Derek White, really good at breaking up two On-ones and three-on-ones, which is its own basketball skill. And not to toot my own horn, not to compare myself to NBA star Derek White. But I was really good at breaking up two-on-ones and three-on-ones. And Jacobi saw it for years and years. You just lay low and then you use quick hands and you try to strip them before as somebody makes it.

You play possum with it and then you jump on it. And he's one of the best I've ever... The best ever at this was Jason Kidd. Jason Kidd was either he would strip the guy, he would draw a charge. It was almost like if it was a two on one or three on one and Kidd was the guy back, you felt like Kidd had an advantage. There's never been anyone like that. White is really good. I would throw him in there, guard blocks or that. The Jokage, 70-yard, one-handed passes in there. Pritchard's end-of-the-quarter shots, I wish he was a little better at this. I really wanted to put this in there because they run. Anytime there's four seconds left, they always have Pritchard, they cut it out. He's really good at getting the shot he wants, but he's been cold lately. I don't think he'd win. Then this might be too good of a skill, but Michael Porter Jr. Coming off a pick off balance, almost like he's 45 five degrees floating and being able to straighten up and shoot is unlike any other... And he's been doing it, by the way, since the Nuggets.

He's just shooting them more in the nets. But that's the one that always makes me marvel. I just think it's so freaking hard to do that. And when I watch him play in the nets. I'm always like, How does he do that? So I think that counts as a weirdo skill, but I would say Pritchard would be minus... I'm sorry, McCano would be minus 180 to win that award. Ricky Bracket asked, Since it appears an NBA team is nowhere close to coming to Seattle, I have another idea. Let's make Seattle University an awesome college team that becomes the city's team. Couldn't a rich guy basically buy a coach and some awesome players and make them one of the top 10 teams in the country? Short answer, yeah. I love this idea. This is one of the best ideas we've ever heard. Seattle is not getting an NBA team anytime soon. If anything, if they do expansion, it's just going to be Vegas and that's it. I don't see Seattle. I don't see it happening. I'm sorry. The Seattle University just rejoined the WCC, which is the one with Gonzaga, all those teams. Pepperdine is in there, whoever.

Just blow everyone out. Rich guy. There's rich people in Seattle. Just go in. All of a sudden, Seattle U, people are buying the merch. Great idea. I love it. I think Elja Baylor went there, too. Rename the arena, the Elja Baylor Arena. This could work. End of the game situations. Amir Sure writes saying about how do we fix close games turning into a free throw parade. What if we make fouls in the final two minutes result in three free throws instead of two with that strongly discouraged intentional fouling? I was there for three free throws to make two as a kid. I think it was the 1980 season somewhere around there. A complete abomination. Please never do that again. I would go the other way. In the final minute, if a team is up by four points or more and they get fouled, they go to the free throw line. That first free throw, if they make it, counts as two. And we just keep the game moving. And the guy gets credit for two free throws, even if it's on one shot. If he misses the first one, gets to take the second one.

It's still an advantage to the shooting team, but I really think that would move it along. How about this? Find me somebody who disagrees with that idea. We're going to have less free throws. I think Everyone's like, great. I would also... You cannot call a time out after a time out. I've been saying this for 20 years. I think I've been saying it ever since I've become, no timeouts after a time out. We're good. Chris Leary asked about the Where did you come from Award, which he really liked for... That was my idea for the most improved player. Instead, do a breakthrough player, the Where the fuck did you come from award? He tweaked it to, Could it be a guy last season who had no chance of having his own shoe But now as we're voting for the awards, he actually now has a chance to have his own shoe. I thought that was pretty good. He said people like Jalen Johnson, Stefan Castle, etc. People that before the year, he would have said, No way that guy's going to have a shoe. By the end of the year, like, That guy might have a shoe.

It did prompt me to look at all the people who have a shoe, and I was stunned. Lebron, Durant, Jha. I'm not sure how much longer Jha is going to have a shoe. Giannis, Booker, Wemby has one. Cade's got one coming next year. That's all with Nike. She's at Converse. Jordan Brands, Luca, Tatum, Zion, Russell Westbrook, probably coming to an end soon. Adidas, Harden, Edwards, Dame, Donovan Mitchell. We're already at 16 players. Curry is a free agent right now, but he'll have one soon. C. J. Mccollum is Lee Ning. Kauai is at New Balance. Austin Reeves is at Riggerer. 361 degrees, 361, whatever you call it, they have Eric Gordon. Puma has LaMela Ball and the Scoot Zero, which matches the number of minutes he's played this year. Then Ante has Clay Thompson and Kyrie. That's a lot of guys. It's almost like the ones that don't seem to have one are Jokage, which is hilarious, who's been the best part of this decade, hands down, doesn't have a shoe, and a couple of others. But I like that idea of, Oh, he might get a shoe now. It would be a fun, goofy I'm keeping track of all these at the end of next year.

All right, two more. Next question. This is from Mike Grande, and he has a theory in the best trade of the year. It's a conspiracy theory. So he's activated a conspiracy bill. He mentions how Halliburton hurt his calf in the finals of game two. The Pacers traded their first-round pick that year for next year's first-round pick to Atlanta right before game five. And he hurt the calf even more in game five. And he's wondering, did they do the trade as an insurance policy for exactly what happened. Everyone keeps saying they got lucky. It was a cat move. Mike Grande thinks they did the deal as insurance in case something worse happened to his calf that they knew he was playing on. It was too risky, and it was almost like an insurance policy. I got to be honest, even Conspiracy Bill wants no part of this. It's good. He appreciated it. He likes the way you're thinking. You're thinking outside the box. You checked a lot of Conspiracy Bill boxes. Staying away from that one. Not staying away from this one, from Marcus in New York. My friends and I are 30, and we're recently talking about how crazy it must have been when the NBA Finals were interrupted by the OJ car chase.

I could tell you it was amazing. I've talked about this before, but I was in Porechester, New York, at my buddy Jim Grady's house with him and our buddy Camp and a couple of other people. We were drinking and we were going to go out and we ended up watching this finals in the car chase and we never actually went out. We just could not believe that OJ Simpson was being chased around. Marcus asked, Who would be the 2026 equivalent to OJ from a fam talent standpoint to be in this exact situation? His first thought went to Barkley and Shaq. Then he asked if it was a basketball player interrupting the Super Bowl, if you need a cross-sport interruption, if it was Shaq with the Super Bowl cut away. He goes in a lot of directions here. Then asked who the least famous talented athlete they would cut away from the Super Bowl to if they were in a car chase like OJ. He said, Carmelo might be the border. For basketball. He thinks the news waits until the commercial break for Carmelo. But if it was Dwyane Wade, they cut away during the game.

And then he asked for my lines. He said, football, breezes the line, baseball, pool holes. Great question. If you're using the OJ blueprint, because OJ was massively famous, you can see OJ behind me. See that? See that poster right there behind me? It's a spot-built OJ poster, and it says the juice is on the loose. It was made well before he actually was on the list. It's a super famous athlete who remains super famous after they stop playing. That would be one. It would have to be a complete suppress, goes without saying. It would have to be somebody that everyone likes. That's a tough thing to say in 2026, but there's a like test that you could say. People that you're just instinctively like, I love that guy. We all loved OJ. In the '70s, '80s, early '90s, especially with Naked Gun, we were all in him. My colonies, none of these are the winner, are Charles Barkley, Serena Williams, and Jason Kelsey. I was really proud of the Serena Williams idea because You think it's male, but what if we switch over? Everybody loves Serena Williams. Serena Williams, Charles Barkley, Jason, Kelsey, nominies, and none of them are the winner because the winner is Peyton Manning.

It's clearly Peyton Manning. I think they would cut away from any sporting event if Peyton Manning was trying to escape the police after a murder involving his wife and a waiter. I don't care what the... It could be the Oscars. It could be anything. They're cutting away to Peyton Manning in the white Bronco. Cut offline, guys. I have Wade for the NBA, David Ortiz for baseball, and ironically, Eli Manning for football. I thought that was funny. It all came around with the Manning brothers. I'm pretty sure this will never happen again. I think the OJ Car Chase, which was the most unbelievable TV experience I think of my lifetime. It's in the running. I'm pretty sure it's not replicable. All right, we're going to take a break, and then I'm going to do my All-Star Picks. The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by Fanduel. The divisional round, I call it round two, is where the NFL's best takes center stage. And with everything on the line, FanDuel is turning on playoff mode. I wish I could turn on playoff mode because all customers get a profit boost pack every NFL playoff game day waiting for you in the app.

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Availability and eligibility vary by state. All right, I'm back. I'm going to quickly go through my All-Star Picks. Thanks to everybody who sent in a question, by the way. It was fun. It was a mini mail bag that somehow ended up being almost 40 minutes. So classic me. All-star Picks. I'm going to try to make these really quick, and then we could bring in Con Knippel. We had to hand in starters today. For the West, I did SGA, I did Joker, I did Anthony Edwards. I think those were the three that had to be in. No question. Don't need to make the case for any of them. My fourth was Steph Curry, who is averaging 29 a game, 47% field goal, 39% from three. He's Steph Curry. And selfish say, I want to see him in the game, so shoot me. It's basically him versus Jamal Murray and Devin Booker for that spot. And I thought long and hard about giving that to Jamal Murray because I think he's been amazing this year. He's been 25, 4, and 8, 48% shooting, 44% from three. He's been awesome. You think about last year, early November, how depressed everybody was about how bad he looked.

He just signed that contract and it felt like he had sunk cost potential for the Nuggets, and now he's come like a bat out of hell, and I really wanted to vote for him. But Curry's one of the 10 best players of all time, 12 best players, whatever your list is. He's in 10 for me, and he's having a really good season, and it's It's not his fault that he's on this weird warriors team that he's on. Fifth one, you could have talked me into Murray for this spot, too. It's a begrudging one. It's Luka Donchik. Clearly has to be on this, averaging 34 a game, 34, 8, 9. Typical Luka season. It's tailed off a little from the ceiling of where it seemed like we were going to be a couple of months ago, first month of the season when it seemed like it was revenge Luka. The defense is really bad. The monoball is really bad sometimes, too. I'm not positive he's that fun to play with some nights, but as a force of nature, I don't know how you don't have him on there. West Starters, SGA, Joker, Ant, Curry, Luka, I I don't think any of that is that controversial.

For the East, Giannis has played enough games, I think, to be on, so I'm putting him on 25 games. Then Jalen Brown, if he's not out, I don't know what we're doing. I think he's an MVP candidate as well, averaging 30 a game. One of the many reasons why the Celtics are a two-seed. Three guards I have after that. I have Maxi, Kade, and Brunson in that order. It's interesting. Some people have that ordered a little differently. I might go Kade, then Brunson, then Maxi. I would have Maxi first. I think what he's been able to do on that kookey Sixers team where you never know who's playing night to night. The most reliable other player they have is a rookie. You never know if Embiid is playing. You don't know if George is playing. It's just a bizarre team. And night after night, he either brings that... They're down 10, and he'll just max it up for two minutes and bring them back. He's relentless. I think he's been really good at the end of games. Unusually good at the end of games, especially because you know he's probably shooting. I don't know how he's not the first guard out of all those guards.

Cade has been great and is the biggest reason Detroit is good. If you want to say Cade over Maxi, that's fine. But both of them have to be on there. Then Brunson as the third guy. Brunson's still looming if the Knicks can get going as MVP candidate. Yannis, Jalen, Maxi, Cade, and Brunson for that. Reserves for the West. This is what I have. I have four locks for me. Jamal Murray, Devin Booker. I still have Schengen, and you could feel Schengen when he wasn't in those Rockets games. To have a big guy who's 22, 9, and 6. I just think he's the one that tilts the Rockets, so they become really unusual and really hard to play when they just seem like they have too much size and too much Once you remove him out, they seem a little bit more normal. So Murray, Booker, Schengen. Then Wembeya has to be on there. I don't care that he's played 25 games. I don't care that he's probably going to get to 1,800 minutes for the season, whatever he ends up in. He's 24 and 11: 03. He's three blocks a game. They played the Celtic Saturday night, and he was on a minute limit.

Every minute he was out there, it felt like they were going to go on a 10-nothing run. The stuff he does on defense, which you don't need to hear me expound on it for 10 minutes, but it's the most important defensive thing anyone's doing. He's in everyone's head at all times. Even Jalen Brown, who all year was able to get any two-point shot he wanted and able to go to the basket anytime he wanted. There was a couple of times he was just like, I'm pulling this back out. But Wemby stuffed him in the second half on one play that Jalen has gotten it all year. Wemby is like, No, thanks. He tilts the floor in all these different ways so that a 12-footer now becomes a 15-footer. Then offensively, it's getting better and better with figuring how to use them. It's the Celtics, they won the game by just going to Wemby over and over again right around the foul line and have him shoot over people. It feels like he's going to make it every time. So he has to be on there. That's nine. I tilt All-Star toward the proven famous guys sometimes.

Everybody's got their own method for it. But to me, KD has to be in. Average in 26, 5, and five. There's good advanced metrics with him, too. And eye test-wise, end of the game, still seems like he's 95% of where he was seven years ago. It's amazing. You have to have him. Abdiah on Portland doing 26, 7, and 7, keeping them near 500, which makes no sense at all. And it was a team that when you thought in the West was just going to have no chance just because how lopsided the West was, but he's been... I don't know where this one ranks on biggest goddamnets for the Wizards that you've had this century of just like, God damn it. But he's got to be way up there. Then the last one I have. On the bubble, before I say who I gave the last spot to, Kawhi was the toughest cut. I just think the team record disqualified him. It's not his fault they're 16 and 23, but he has been on the team the whole year, and they're 16 and 23. As good as he's been for the last month or so, somebody's going to get caught and it's going to hurt.

Brooks was another one because he's the tonesetter of that Suns team along with Booker and I just love what he's doing game to game and how competitive he is. I think the culture that he brings in really matters. Never thought I'd say that about Dylan Brooks. Chet Holmgren, sure. It's just weird to only have one OKC guy. Ahmed Thompson was another one as a two-way guy, also averaging 18 a game, marketing with the scoring. Then I would add Fox in here until about 10 days ago, but I felt like he's gone backwards a little bit. Castle is another one. I don't think they've done quite enough. My 12 spot goes to Randall on Minnesota because that team has really rounded into being an actual contender. Randall is now at 22, 7, and 5. He's 50%. They're plus 6. 2 when he plays. I test-wise, him and Edwards, I just like them together. I really feel like they figured out him, Gobert, Edwards, and just how those three guys work. I really enjoyed watching Randall this year, and I wanted to reward a second guy from that team. I would rather go Randall than Kawhi. I think if you switched Kawhi and Randall, I don't know if Minnesota has a better record with Kawhi.

I'll just say that. Plus, he's not as reliable as a third ability standpoint. So that's who I have. Sga Joker, Ant Curry, Luka starting, Murray Booker, Schengen, Wembe, and then KD, Abdi, and Randall. That's in the West. In the East, already said as the starter is Maxi, Jalen, Cade, Brunson, Yannis. Mitchell was the toughest cut. He's got to be in there. He's averaging 30 a game. Week after week, just a Cavs team that seems like you're on a double date with a couple that you're driving home and you're like, Oh, man, you think they're going to break up? That's how you feel about every Cavs home game. Jalen Johnson has to be on there 24, 10, and 8, and they traded Trey Young to make it his team. We'll see if he could deliver. Scottie Barnes, 19, 8, and 5, 50% shooting. Some bully ball defense, some bully ball stuff in general. There's a physicality him that he's always had, but I feel like he's channeled it better than ever. He's got to be on, and Toronto is He's the biggest reason. Jalen Duren, up to 18, 11, and 2 this year, 63% shooting, and a physicality and an intimidation presence.

Just an old-school, you could see him on the 2004 Pistons, which is the highest compliment you could play. He absolutely could have played on that team in one of those spots, and you wouldn't have lost a beat. I love how competitive and hostile he is in a good way, not a bad way. So he has to be on for me. I had to put Michael Porter Jr. On. He's averaging 26 a game, 8 rebounds. I look at it this way because I think they have the worst record of any All-Star I've put on. I'm deliberately zagging from my same Kauai take that I had earlier, but there's less all-stars in the East, so it's more defensible. If it was in the West, he wouldn't have made it. There's been 8-9 this year where he's just been the best player in the court, or he's going against somebody who is a top 10 or top 15 player and matching that dude, which is the same case for Jalen being an All-MBA guy and an MVP candidate. You have to have a guy like that in the league now because the league is so deep and so good.

You need your... And Abdi has been the way for Portland and Cade has been the way for Detroit. You go through. If you don't have that guy, you get in trouble. That's the case for why Sacramento is in trouble, among many other reasons. They just don't have that guy to match the other good guys. Porter has just been... If you didn't know anything, if you were in a coma for the last five years and you just watched this season, you watched him play, you would have thought he was a five-time All-Star or something. It doesn't make a lot of sense. I think he's an incredibly important trade piece, especially if Golden State can get him, which I've talked about earlier. If Golden State can get him, I don't think they win the title with him, but it raises their ceiling and he's exactly what they need, somebody who can create his own shot, another three-point shooter, another variable, heat check eye, everything. If they can get him, interesting. All right, two spots left for three guys. Norman Powell on the heat, basically 500 team. He's 24 a game and has played with a massive chip on his shoulder all season because he can't believe the Clippers traded him, and I've really enjoyed it.

Plus 2. 6 as advanced metric for on-off. Towns 21 and 12. Catch him on the right night, seems great. Gets a little gamey every couple of weeks. You'll watch a game with the Knicks every once in a while, or it just doesn't seem like he's interested I wasn't guarding anybody. Zack and Mahoney, Zack's podcast last week, they talked about him. Whatever Zack said, I agreed with where it's like, it seems like he should be an all-star, but something's holding me off. I feel the same way. So we'll just complete the exercise here. Bam and Mobile are out, by the way. They're not even in the bubble. The third one is Derek White, who the way to ding him is he's only averaging 19 a game and he's shooting 40%. And part of that is because if you watch the Celtics, there's times when the plays break down and whoever has the ball with four seconds left just has to put up a bad shot. He's plus 8. 2 on off. More importantly, they have the second offense net rating in the league. Miami has the 21st rating, for example, with Powell. If you're saying, well, Powell is a better offensive player, what happens if you switch White and Powell?

What happens to those two teams? Are the Celtics still the second best offense? Is Miami better than 21st offense? I don't know. It's an interesting thought exercise. I think towns, unfortunately, has to make it because you really only have for bigs, Giannis and Duren, and that's it, and you have too many guards and forwards. The next probably could get to. It comes down to White and Powell. If White was shooting 44%, 43%, I'd feel better about it, but it's like 39. 7. It's right on the cusp. I think it's almost like if this was the MVP voting, I think he would be higher than Powell. But if we're just talking about All-Star, somebody killing it, and Miami doesn't have an All-Star, the Celtics already have one. I I feel like a homer if I gave this to White, as I joke about all the time. I like to take my vote seriously. My heart says it's Derek White, but my heart also says that I might not be thinking about it rationally. I'm going to go Powell. So Maxie, Jalen, Cade, Brunson Yana starting. Mitchell, Jalen Johnson, Barnes, Duren, Porter, Powell, Towns. Toughest cuts, Derek White and Kawhi.

I think if anyone gets injured, so we're already going to have Jokeage I would say probably going to miss the All-Star game, but somebody will miss it between him and Wemby. Then maybe Kawhi makes it anyway. Then maybe Derek White makes it if there's an injury in the East. But I think that's the list. Those are my All-Star picks. Thanks for listening. Thanks for hearing me pontificate. We're going to take a break and come back with Charlotte's Khan Knipel. All right, we're taping this on a Tuesday afternoon. The most efficient rookie in the history of the NBA is here, Khan Knippel. Do you know that?

I did not.

Yeah, you're shooting stats and all that. You're very efficient. Try to be. People have been comparing you to players from the eight decades of the NBA, and they're like, You know who's really efficient? Khan. You passed last time I had you on the pod, people still didn't totally know how to pronounce your name, who are NBA fans. Now, it's like, I don't feel like you get any knouples.

Yeah, we got it set now.

And you're having a really steady, awesome rookie year, which I don't fully understand because you're youngest podcast guest we've ever had. Really? Yeah. My daughter was the youngest, but she's May 2005 and you're August. August. Yeah, so you beat her by three months.

You beat her in a couple months. That's awesome.

But yeah, I don't understand why you seem like you're 27 years old in these games. So what is it? How did you fit in so easily?

Yeah, I don't know. I definitely have a more mature game. Just growing up playing in adult men's league all the time. My dad's run a men's league in Milwaukee for 20 years. So I had to develop that aspect of playing off the ball that youth basketball doesn't really get you nowadays.

Just trying to fit in?

With the whole AAU world. And the Instagram trainers and all that stuff, it becomes more about one-on-one skill and stuff. But playing in that men's league, I think you learn to grow and be more physical, how to move off the ball, all those things that are really important today's NBA.

And rebound.

Rebounding.

That was the one thing I told you before the season. I said, Don't forget to rebound. You're like six a game.

Yeah, almost. I'm getting down there. I think I'm about five now.

Well, now your whole team's back. I've been watching a lot. It's been my favorite league Pass team. And even though your record, you're like 12th in the East, but you've been in a lot of these games. You haven't had LaMelo the whole time. Lamelo is somebody I think I've changed my opinion on 100 times, but he's looked awesome lately. It's the first time you can see team like, Oh, this is what the team could look like, right?

Yeah. And we're playing our brand of basketball. We want to play fast, we want to play unselfishly and together. We're a good rebounding team, and we could hang our hat on that on the offensive end. I don't know if you watch Diabate at all, Moussa, but man, he's just all over the glass every night. It's a fun brand, fun brand of basketball to play.

Yeah, everybody seems like they give a crap.

Yeah.

Likable team. Good future. All right, we did generic basketball stuff. I want to dive in a rookie season. So you go in, train to camp starts September. You've never had a job before, really. Does Duke count as a job? I don't know. I guess you're getting an I. O.

Money. It still doesn't, though. You're in class and that's fun.

So you have a job. All right, walk me through. Do you buy a place? Do you rent? How did that whole go? How did that whole thing go in Charlotte? What do you do?

Yeah, I rent.

Okay.

Yeah, got a nice apartment.

Do you have family member, anything, anybody with you, or are you just on your own?

No, I'm on my own.

On your own? Interesting. No roommate, nothing?

No roommate. By myself, which is obviously first time ever, which I've enjoyed. It's cool having an own space. I was worried about that at first, but that's new. To do it when you're 20 is a little bit earlier than others. But I'm in a nice part of Charlotte, a lot of young people, growing city, so good spot to be.

You're just so much more impressive than I was as a 20-year-old. We moved off campus when I was 20, and I was sharing a room with my buddy Jacko. We had two beds, and we lived with two other guys, and we thought we were really-We had a blast, though. Yeah, we had four people crammed in a small two-bedroom place. We thought we were really living it. You're by yourself, living in Charlotte. All right, so training camp starts. Did you get a car? Did you lease a car?

No, I bought a car.

Okay. So you buy a car. Are you a cheaper guy or are you an extravagant guy?

Probably say cheaper. I got a Ford Explorer.

Right. Oh, that's smart. Okay. All right. So practice starts. You're fitting in. Do you feel like the rookie or people nice to you? What's happening?

Yeah. We got a great squad of just guys that embrace you right away. Sometimes it doesn't happen. Obviously, we have a younger team.

Which is good for you, I think, right? Yeah.

And we have four rookies. So you're coming in with three other guys, going through the same stuff. But also just the vets on the team being really receptive to a rookie is not something... Giving us advice is not something you see on every team, so I hear.

Well, plus you were part of this incredible rookie class. I can't believe how good it is.

It's a good group. It's fun to see the success around the league every night. That's a good group of guys. Hopefully, it continues that way.

And how many of them have you known since you were 13?

I was a little bit later on the... The circuit? Yeah. I was playing UIBL, but I'm from Wisconsin, and I wasn't getting really invited to some of the bigger camps early on. But you're aware of the guys and playing in the Nike circuit, you play against a bunch of the players. Played Dylan Harper, Liam McNeely, all those guys we'd play on. And Derrick Queen, we played on the circuit.

So you see the Queen stuff where they trade the future pick for him. Everyone goes nuts, including me. How can you do that? Well, I didn't like that. I didn't even put a protection on it. But then he starts playing and he's just as good as he was in high school and college. And then people are like, okay, I didn't love the trade, but he's really good. Yeah, and his game just translated to the NBA, it seems like.

He was awesome in high school. Yeah. We're playing in the NBA. Mpa has their camp in Orlando. Every time he threw it in there, it was like, basket. Obviously, super skilled. He's having a heck of a year.

And then Dylan's fit in on a really good Spurs team. Yeah. Flag's been... I mean, that's your guy. Yeah, he's awesome. Pretty strange Dallas situation for the most part. He's following that trade. Kyrie's not there. Davis has gotten hurt multiple times. The seasons start up badly. They're playing a point. Were you surprised they're playing him a point card? It seemed like a big ask.

Yeah. I mean, I think for your first 10 games in the NBA, try to figure it out, I feel like it's tough. I think he definitely embraced it, embraced the challenge. But that's It was tough to do playing out a position like that. It was your first time playing in the NBA at all. But I actually thought he did pretty solid.

Yeah, it was in a weird way, probably not the greatest experience, but then also a great experience because You're literally thrown into the fire. You have to make all these decisions with the ball. So there's no way some of that. But you had the opposite. They put you in. You're doing all the stuff you're good at. You only have to worry about that. I don't know. I thought it was a little unfair, but it seems like he came out of it all right.

Yeah, he's playing great now.

Is there a Duke text thread with all your old guys or no?

We do. It's Coach Carwell, Ceewell as assistant, and he'll text us on a group chat at certain points. When we were in Cleveland, me and Cian went over to Thierry Proctor's place for a little bit. Just hang out and enjoy some time together.

Well, the most fun thing you did was you brought your entire team to your house, which went viral for two days. People love that for some reason.

Yeah, we didn't think anything that it was that big of a deal. I think people like knowing that NBA players are normal and that you would just go to somebody's house when you're on the road.

I don't think people think of the players like that sometimes.

Right. We were on the plane and obviously I'm from Milwaukee. So Grant's like, Where are we going to eat? Grant Williams. I was like, Well, I'm going home. And they're like, We're going to the cons house, I guess. And then I thought about it. My parents were like, Invite whoever I was like, I think I'm going to invite the whole team over. So, yeah, the guys came.

So what did your mom make?

Fajitas, chicken fajitas. Oh, wow. Yeah. There's a nice Mexican grocery store in Milwaukee, El Rey. So she got all the fixings and everything from there and just in the crock pot. And the guys enjoy it. We don't get to do stuff like that very often, especially when you're in Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland, it's cold. You don't really want to get out of the hotel. So that was a good experience for us.

When I talk to different coaches, players, whoever, they all say the schedule was so unforgiving with not being able to practice enough, not be able to actually do anything. You're in LA right now. You have a game Monday against Clippers. You have a game Thursday. You actually have a couple of days to hang out, maybe even have a practice, work on some stuff, relax. The schedule doesn't really work that way.

Yeah, It's interesting. I can't even remember the last time we had practice in our facility in Charlotte. It was probably two and a half weeks ago, three weeks ago.

Yeah, that's not good.

Just with how the schedule changed where you're basically playing every other night. It makes it so hard to practice because your body can't really physically handle practicing on the in between day when you play every other night.

It needs a catch up there. The good news is the travels. Can you imagine doing in the '70s when they had- Yeah, on the train. Flying like coach, doing trains and stuff. That would be crazy.

Yeah. Then we're in Converse.

Yeah, wearing the shitty sneakers, all that stuff. Eating cheeseburgers at 3: 00 in the morning.

Smoking cigarettes at halftime. I don't know how guys did it.

Yeah, it's a little better now. Yeah, so you played 39 games. The season started, I guess, October 24th range. So it's like 39 games in two and a half months.

Right. And we played 39 games at Duke last year. That was a whole season.

Are we in Rooky Wall? When is the Rooky Wall? Is it 50 games or 40 games? I can't remember. Somewhere around here.

I'm not sure.

Did you feel it yet? Do you feel it in your body?

Honestly, I feel like it's more mental than anything else. It just gets really repetitive. It's just the same thing like your shoot around again today, going over to the gym in the morning. I think that finding a way to embrace that and enjoy that every day can get tough, especially for younger guys.

Well, you have the wild card. You play with LaMelo, who is such a wild card game to game and can go on these... I can't imagine what it's like to play with somebody like that. I mean that in a good way. You just don't know when he's going to go off. He had that game the other night when he had 33 off the bench. It definitely seems like he has his bounce back. Yeah. He's got his first step and is starting to seem unstable again. But we haven't really seen a stretch like this in a while where he can just stay healthy for four months. But when you're playing with him and then you're seeing the other guards in the league, it feels like, athletically and talent-wise, he's with those guys, right?

Right. Yeah. He's doing a really good job. I think training staff just trying to manage his minutes to maximize the amount of games he can play. That's tough to do. When he's starting It's tough to get in a rhythm sometimes when you're going 28 to 30 minutes. You're going to come out. There's some times in the fourth quarter when you want to be in there and affect the game. So he's been battling that. I He's been really locked in this year.

Have you gotten to the point playing with him where you can tell when he's about to go off? You can notice when he's feeling it on the court, almost? Yeah.

And there's just some situations where he has the ball, especially in transition, where it's just like he has those alley-ou passes from like half-court. It's like, how do you throw that when Brandon Miller's at the free throw line? And he's throwing it, but it's like a quarterback anticipating just some of those plays he makes. Pretty head-scrashing.

Yeah, and then you had Miller come back, and he's shown flashes of like, if you catch him on the right night, it feels like he's going to be an All-MBA guy. And he could rebound. In a weird way, a really nice compliment to because you guys both rebound, you guys can both shoot threes, you can both handle the ball and play without the ball. But I like the combo.

Yeah, I think he's a really talented player and just the athleticism and he has some of that chase down block stuff, too, that he can just make plays like that that a lot of guys can't make just with his frame and his athleticism. It's a fun group to play with.

Yeah, he seems easy to play with. Yeah. Like, All your bigs know where to go and what to do. It's a fun team to watch. I'm not even sure. I'm sure in the summer when they try to add to it, figure out what's next. I'm not even positive. I'm sure rim protection would be something, but for the most part, it's got a nice nucleus.

Yeah, I feel like when we have all our guys playing, we're in a good spot every night.

It's a good upset team. It's like one of those teams, you'll be like a giant underdog somewhere, and I'm like, I don't know. They got all their guys. Watch out for them tonight. All right, so you're going through the league. You played just about it. You haven't played the Celtics yet.

I haven't played the Celtics. They're one of my favorite teams to watch.

Yeah, this year has been good.

Especially on film. We were watching Because they played the Clippers recently.

I went to that game. Okay. We killed them.

Yeah. We were watching with Jelen Brown, right? He had 50. We were watching them just defensively and how they guarded Kawhi and Harden. And they just have a bunch of guys that are always in the right position defensively. So we were just watching them, how they shipped off the ball. It was a good game. Good game to watch, just how they got to the clippers.

So is that part of the process? You guys tried, because you have a really good coach. We had him in Boston for a little bit. But if you're playing a team, you watch a game where somebody did something successful against that team and try to unlock what they did? Yes.

We have a bunch of clips that we'll watch together as a team, just But I think in general, just as a player in the league, if you know who you're playing on the schedule or just catching a game, because we all get league pass. Just catching a game of who you're going to play is always good and see what they want to do. Seeing it for a whole 48 just as a watch.

Seeing your hotel room at one in the morning, just zipping through the NBA app, trying to watch where you're watching. Yeah, that's got to be so much easier than the '70s or '80s.

Yeah, the tape delay.

Well, yeah, you got a tape delay. You have no games were actually on. If you had to queue up something, you would have had to go into some video room and they would have had to have the projector showing you clips.

Yeah, I mean, it's the video guys that we have do a really good job or even, I don't know, Synergy. Have you heard of Synergy?

Oh, yeah. You just look up.

I want to see all of Payton Pritchard's shot attempts or whatever. Right. And you can watch them all.

Well, you You can scout yourself, too, right? You can look at every single time you dribbled off the pick on right in what you did.

Yeah. Each move, hotspots on the court, all that stuff is really interesting.

It's the league. I was trying to figure out my All-Star stuff because I have a vote. And I always write down everybody's points, rebounds, assist stats, and then their shooting splits, and I'll do PR out a couple of things, and I just put everybody on a list. The shooting stats are unbelievable now. Yeah. It's It's like, and you're the poster boy of this next generation of that, just efficient everything, where everybody's high 40s field goal.

Yeah.

Somewhere between 38 and 42, 3. 78 to 85 free throw. And it's like everybody. Like, Max, he's 31 a game, but all his shooting splits are really good. It's not like he's a volume shooter. They're good shots.

Yeah, I think the shot quality throughout the league is a lot better.

Yeah.

Where it's just an emphasis at the rim shots, at the rim twos, free throws, and quality threes.

Open threes in the spots that you know are the right spots. Right.

And then I call them shots of mastery. So a guy like Harden, his step back, it's a shot of mastery. Or like a kawaii mid-range fall away. Those type of shots that are really maybe not efficient for everybody, but for certain guys.

You have one of those. You have the right around the foul line, like when you do the hard dribble and you come back a little bit.

A little fade away to the left.

Yeah, that one, that feels like your shot.

Yeah, I like getting to that spot.

It feels like that 2. 15 footer is coming back. Jalen reinvented himself this year with that. He added two moves and he became an over 50 % 15 footer guy out of nowhere.

If you can add one of those shots in between, you just become a little bit harder to guard. Keep you honest, and you can shoot really efficiently. Those are good shots.

Yeah, it felt like the league was two, three happy there. I mean, there's still a bunch of threes, but the pace is... There's just more shots.

Yeah, the pace is crazy.

Pace is crazy. Denver was at 124 a game before Jokuj got hurt. You think that would have been inconceivable 20 years ago that anyone would average 114 a I like it. I think for the most part, they've really figured out the rule stuff. I'm sure when you're out there, how slow the last five minutes go must be annoying, with all the timeouts and reviews and Yeah. Just trying to stay, keep your energy.

The challenges and all that stuff. But I think the challenges are good. I think they're a good addition.

Your pro challenges? Have you played the FIBA where it just goes like soccer on us? You haven't played in that year, right?

No, I haven't.

You'll probably be on one of the teams we have pretty soon, I would guess. I predicted you for the '28 Olympic team. You were my dark horse when I went on Zack's spot. Yeah, I saw that. And he got the, whoa. Now I'm feeling like I might be in on that one.

We'll see. We'll see. That'd be awesome.

You're at a good pace. That'd be one of my better predictions. My football pics have been shit this year. That might have been my only good prediction.

Yeah, that'd be pretty sweet. Yeah. I'll prove you right on that one.

But yeah, it It does seem like there's more twos. The games are more interesting. There's more big guys, too. I feel like we have the most big guys we've had in 25 years.

Yeah. The small ball thing was getting real popular there for a bit.

You can't do it anymore. Yeah.

You got to have a good big.

Even you guys, the question with Charlotte, even being competent this year was like, well, who's playing center? They traded Mark Williams. But you've patched together. We did it with... I say we like, I'm on the. We did it with Kata and Garza. Kata has been great. All those guys do. They set picks and they protect the rim. They can stretch it. Kata knows he can't shoot threes. Garza shoots threes a little bit. I don't know. It's your generation is coming in and all the big guys know how to play 20 feet from the basket instead of just clogging the lane. You know what I mean? Something has shifted.

Yeah. I think just from an earlier age, I think guys are learning to play basketball in an applicable way. It's maybe future levels or higher levels of hoops.

Well, the big guys want to shoot threes, right? Every big guy you ever play with probably wants to shoot threes.

Wants to stretch the floor and affect the game in that way. I think we're moving in the right direction basketball-wise.

Can we go through some of the guys you played against without getting you in trouble? You played Yannis a couple of times already. What's that experience like? I mean, there's no way you ever played against a seven-foot alien who's just made out of concrete before, Yeah, just so strong. Did you bounce off them ever? Did you have one of those plays where you just got swatted like a mosquito on a windshield or something?

He has a little chicken wing that he gets guys with, and it's really hard for the officials to see.

What is it? Explain it.

He loves going baseline. So he's on the baseline and he'll get you with a high elbow. If he gets you up and- To push you back a little bit? No, he'll get it around your body and It's quick. So it's hard for the officials to see. And he's really good at it. And that chicken wing just gets you off and it'll get you baseline. It's really hard to stay in front of him. And then obviously in the full court, how he's mastered the gather rules and all that stuff. It makes it really hard to guard.

It makes one of us because I have not mastered the gather rules. I think I'm too old. I think it's a travel 90% of the time. Every time I travel, I'm caught.

Yeah, it's one of the things I've really had to work on that I've gotten better at is we've been working on the low pickups, but as soon as you put that second hand on the ball, that's a zero step, the step you're on. And then you get two more. Then you get two more. It's a different footwork. It's a little bit tricky to learn, especially coming from college and high school where they're calling Euro steps of travel.

Yeah.

But yeah, I think the way he does it, especially in the full court, how he can throw the ball to himself and then gather. And it looks like it's three steps, but it's not.

Well, we're taping this Tuesday. You played Hard in last night, who's another one who's... I don't understand how he does it, where it seems like he's going 12 feet with five steps, but it's two steps because he used to gather. Yeah. And he's going right, left, right. You can't even keep track of what he's doing.

Yeah, it's a gray area, too. And it's really hard sometimes to appreciate. And the guys that are good at it and work on it all the time becomes really effective.

Lamelo's got a little bit. He'll throw it out from time to time.

He'll throw in the slow step, too.

I didn't see the Cooper game last night. Did you have to guard Kawhi at all?

I was going Harden.

Oh, Jesus. What was that like?

It was good. It was fun. In the third quarter, they put up, he moved in a ninth. Oh, yeah. All-time scoring. So they put that on there. I'm like, Man, this is pretty cool. Un Unbelievable. Guard in a top 10 scorer ever. No, it was great.

Who's been in the league almost as long as you've been alive because he was 2008.

2008, yeah. So I was three. Unbelievable.

Yeah.

It's wild. Wild how these guys can reinvent themselves. Like, Lopez, too. Her pen, Lopez last night. And even him, that's a guy who's reinvented his career to be able to play.

Yeah, him and Al Horford. There was a couple of them, they were back to the basket guys who just flipped it.

And like, awesome All-Star back to the basket guys who can reinvent it themselves, shooting threes, stretching the floor. Just stick around and be effective.

Did Harding get you at all last night? Because you're trying to play him a in a certain way, right? And he still gets the shot he wants anyway.

Yeah, he got me with a foul, too. Oh, he got the flop? No. I had my hand in the... I got my hand in the cookie jar. And he did the... And he went right into the three. You got your hand out here and you got me.

It's probably my least favorite call. I just think that should be a foul. I don't think you should get free throws for that. Yeah. But there's a bunch of things I would change officiating-wise.

It's really hard because the guys like him and Shay, the way they... It's a skill. It's a skill. You feel the guy's hand on, you just rise up and get somebody's hand caught in there.

Have you played OKC?

Yeah, we put him twice.

So did you have to...

I got a J. O. Williams a lot. But you get switched on Shay a couple of times. Then you're like, Shit. He's really hard to guard. You just got to stay solid. Stay square, keep your hands out of there.

I'd be so scared because you'd think you would get him, and then he can do one more spin or a second step, and then all of a sudden, he's going another way. He's like plastic man.

Got to stay down on the shot fake. Got super long arms. Guys are really, really skilled. It's fun to compete against those guys.

Yeah, we have... Maxi is another one who has just become almost impossible to guard. And we have Jordan Walsh. I say we like them on the team. And it was one of Jordan Walsh's breakthrough games. He figured out how to defend Maxi for two minutes. I don't know if it's sustainable, but he just unlocked what to do. Maxi was getting bad shots. He was like, Oh, my God, somebody unlocked Maxi. And then Maxi probably fixed it the next game. But when people have the three moves, they can do it anytime, and you just don't know what they're going to do. And then that's it. Those are the best scores in Brunson's like that, too. Yeah.

Brunson is... We played them twice as well. He's different than some of the other guys because all of his stuff is... A lot of his stuff, I should say, is off two feet. Yeah. And the pivots and the shot fakes, which is... And it's almost like he's posting up at 16 feet. He's crazy.

It's like this herky-jerky stop and start bouncing off you.

And he's 6 foot tall and strong. He's got a little different Different herky-jerky game. But he's just as fun to compete against as any of those other guys.

Did you have Ananobi and Bridges defending you that game? You must have.

Bridges, Brunson guarded me a little bit. I don't think Ananobi played when we played them both times.

Who was the defensive player? We were like, Oh, my God, I'm in the NBA.

First time we played OKC, Cacen Walsh.

He's a nightmare.

Yeah. They had a tough game. It was a back to back. We just played the Bucks in Milwaukee, came back home to play.

That unit, great game in the Milwaukee game.

Good game. We lost in overtime. I played 40 minutes. It was a tough one. It was one of our first back to backs.

And then you have to play OKC.

We can play OKC at home. Off the flight, we get in at 2: 00 because you lose the hour coming back to East Coast.

Yeah, that was tough. Kaysa and Wallace is waiting for you with a fork and knife.

Yeah, and I don't think Melo played because it was a back to back, and he was resting, so it was a tough one. Oh, my Lord.

Yeah, and they have Dorts. No prize either if he decides to dial it up.

He's huge. He's jacked.

And then Caruso is doing the swiping and everything and bouncing.

Yeah, they're a tough defense.

Yeah, it's weird because they- Hardenstein is so like...

Because we played him the second time in LKC, and we beat him.

Yeah, that was one of the upsets of the year.

Yeah, we He played great. But Hardenstein was out, and he makes such a difference for them. He's physical on the glass, just defensively and what he can do in the pick and roll defense, and what he does offensively, too, running all the dribble handoff actions and Zoom actions with all those guys. He's a really important piece for them.

And you played Joker, right?

Yeah, we did play Joker. How was that? Yeah, he seemed like he wasn't even trying that hard. Yeah, he always seems like that. You look up and it's like 29, 13, and 9. Yeah. He just moved at a certain speed. He was like 30 seconds left in the fourth quarter, and it was like, he just dominated the game.

Right. He seemed like he was jogging around We played them, too.

Murray had a really good game. He had like 20, 25 in the first quarter. Yeah. Jokić was just impressive.

I have Murray. Every week, I do my all-MBA team because just as a process because I'm one of the few people that actually cares about the shit who has a vote.

How do you feel about the non-I've decided I don't like it. The positionless?

Oh, I hate the positionless. I always try to make it look like at least somewhat of a basketball team. Yeah. Even if it's not necessarily a center, I have to have a rebound. I can't have four guards. I really want to have a wing forward. I try to have on each team.

I think it's a disservice, too, where you can just get five guards, and it's of a disservice to the history of the game. You look back at the '80s or whatever. I agree. You got three centers or Andrew Bogots on third team. You're not going to see many of those anymore. I don't know.

There's really there's guards, there's wings, and there's bigs. I feel like each team should have at least one of those three positions, and then you can go nuts with whatever else you want to do. Or two guards, one wing, one big, and then you can get wacky with the first spot. It should be five guys that could conceivably play basketball together. For me, I still have Schengen on my second team, all NBA. I don't think he's been one of the best 10 players in the league, but I think he's been the second best center. He's going to make the team for me. But yeah, Jamal Murray is definitely going to make it for me. We're halfway through the year. Especially what he's doing without Joker is nuts.

Yeah, they're playing well.

They came in and kicked the Celtics ass. I'll tell you that much. I feel like the guards are as deep and scary as we've ever had.

I mean, there's like 30 good guards. I think there's like 30 capable All-Star guards. It's insane.

Yeah. Even you see teams like Garland, who doesn't have an All-Star case this year. But even if he had his own team, I feel like he would probably be putting up 22 and nine on his own team.

Yeah. We played them a couple of times, too, and he's quick. He's tough to stay in front of, and he's got all the boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, handle stuff.

Have you played Indiana?

Yeah, we lost him twice.

So you had your first McDonal experience.

He's unreal. He's one of the hardest guys to guard.

He's another herky-jerky, weird, can't-figure- him-out guy.

And he's so low to the ground. His center of gravity is so low. He's really hard to stay in front of. And then he has that rise up mid-range 10-footer where he's got the ball way above his head like that. He's really hard to guard.

It's brought back the golden age of these guards that can go in the paint and bounce off people and do footwork stuff. Like, Pritchard does this, too, now for the Celtics. He's so silly. Mccono does it. Brunson does it. There's a few guys in the league now. I don't know where it came from. And nobody wants to foul them because they're always going to call it when you're trying to foul a little guy. But yeah, Mccano, they beat the Celtics last night in a very frustrating Celtics loss. And it was like, you realize how good the league is because they're finally healthy. They made the finals last year. They're in Hallibur and they're in Miles Turner, but they still have a lot of the DNA of last year's team. It's like they're not easy to play. Yeah.

And they play hard. And Carlyle's Obviously a great coach. Yeah. We lost them at the buzzer.

And then they go-I watched that game. It was a little defensive mixup at the end. It was frustrating. I'm always reading for the Charlotte franchise. They're my League Pass team.

We appreciate it.

Yeah, I was like, Why don't you switch out? Don't say the team because I don't want to get you in trouble. But did you have an NBA experience yet where you played a team and it felt like the team didn't like each other? Or there was a the vibes were off and you could just feel it on the court?

Mason Plumly says that half the battle in this league is having everybody still like each other in February. That's a great quote. That's what he says.

So maybe you're not there yet. Maybe you'll see it a couple of times.

Yeah, I don't know.

Maybe you'll see the Thursday night. But yeah, we're right around the time when some teams start getting gamey because either you're not as good as you thought you're going to be or you're about to start tanking. Guys are in trade rumors. You guys, you haven't had any trade rumors stuff with Charlotte, I don't think. You're one of the few non-playoff teams. I haven't seen anything. But there's other teams that the names are just... It's like trade season now.

Flowing around, yeah.

It's great for a content of people like me.

Yeah, that's got to be... Just ignoring the noise is a skill that I think teams have to have to keep it together and still compete at a high level every night.

How online are you? But it's tough, too. How online are you? Are you Are you checking this stuff? Are you going to NBA, Reddit, places like that?

I don't have social media on my phone anymore.

Great idea.

Just deleted it. Really smart.

See, this is why you're the most efficient rookie in NBA history. You deleted social More so just like, I don't want to be scrolling on my phone and be like, Oh, there's three hours that just went by.

It was more so for that than anything else. I've been off it for almost a week and a half now because it was a recent thing.

That's a good New Year's resolution.

Yeah, I guess it did fit around that time. But yeah, I've been off it a little bit, but obviously keeping up with podcasts and stuff like that is something I like to do.

So you listen to some of the NBA stuff?

Yeah. Nba, NFL. I got a big sports podcast listening. I listen to a bunch of stuff.

I want to talk NFL with you in a second. We got to talk about a couple more players. You played Kawhi. Yeah. One of the strangest games. I mean, he's one of the top 30 players of all time, but the shot release, the line drive shots.

Yeah, line drive. It's a strong shot.

Quick release.

Yeah.

Physical as shit. Crazy hands on defense.

Dribbles the ball harder than anybody I've played against. Really? Just pounds the crap out of the ball. It's weird. But I mean, he doesn't lose- Doesn't speak? Yeah, he didn't say much last night.

He's not talking shit. He's not there to make friends.

No. But just one of the more impressive players I've played against, just the shot-making ability.

Yeah, Kawhi is back.

All business.

They're 16 and 23, which before they were 6 and 20 or something. So they're like, I I don't know. They're not out of it.

They're on a good run here, too.

Yeah.

He's unbelievable, and you got Hardon still, too. They're just really tough to guard.

What about Minnesota? Did you play them yet?

We played them early. No Ant.

So I Well, if you're ready for somebody to talk shit to you, he's your guy.

He'll have some. He's great for the league.

He's been awesome.

It's good to have a guy like that. I didn't get the chance to play against him, but he was talking shit. I could see him in the corner. He was talking Talking stuff a little bit, which was cool to see.

Well, in '28, it'll be you guys leading America against France and Germany. Be the two of you. I love the way they I've been playing lately. Randall, I think, is going to make my all-star team. Gobert, if Wemby doesn't get the limit, the 65 games, Gobert is probably the defensive part of the year. But I like the way they're playing. And it's been unbelievable. I mean, he's just a top five guy now by whatever list you have.

I mean, this is a shooter, too.

Like, doesn't miss.

Yeah, he's shooting 10 threes a game.

He's shooting a great %.

It makes like four of them. Yeah, it's ridiculous.

And he's been clutch. The thing I love about him, and I think LaMelo has this quality, too, actually, these guys that really do think they're the best guy on the court, they might even be wrong, but they think it. He He definitely thinks he's the best player in the league. I think LaMelo, sometimes you can see he just thinks he's the best guy on the court. It doesn't matter who else is out there. But I do think you need that if you're going to actually try to win the title.

Yeah, for sure.

He plays OKC. He's like, I'm definitely not afraid of these guys. I think I'm better than Shay. I'm better than all these guys. We're going to beat them. And he really does believe it.

Yeah, he's exuberant.

Confident.

Very confident. Like I said I think it's just good for the league to have a guy like that. Super confident. Talks his game. He was in hustle when he was young. It was a good movie. Yeah. He's great in it. I just think having guys like that in the league is really good for it.

I think Wemby has that, too. They beat Boston on Saturday night.

Yeah, I think Wemby thinks he's the best guy in the world.

He came back in with three minutes left, and they just kept giving it to him, and he just kept scoring. He had a real disdain for the... It was one of those.

Yeah. On opening night, who were they playing on opening night? I forget. Or the first game of the season, who were the Spurs playing? I forget. We had 40 Rockets?

Yeah, somebody.

Something like that. I was like, Oh, my God.

You played him yet?

No, we haven't played the Spurs yet. It's like, Oh, my God, the league might be in trouble.

I think the league is in trouble. Yeah, I think so. We'll see. He's so freaking tall. I worry about him over the course of 10 years. How do you stay in the court? There's no room for error with guys his legs.

Yeah, everybody's around his legs. Yeah, everybody.

Yeah, he looked... That team is really scary.

Yeah, they're very good.

Because way before your time, the 1986 Rockets, your guy Bird, wasn't your guy. You're a Milwaukee guy, but he's my guy.

He's one of my favorite players.

When you got? Okay, good. We were supposed to play the '86 Lakers in the final. So it was like heading this way. We'd put them in '84, '85. And then the Rockets had Hakeem and Ralph Samson. And they just killed the Lakers. Just out of nowhere, they just beat the shit out of them. And it was like a mismatch, and they were just too big. I do wonder if the Spurs can do that to a couple of teams in the playoffs where they just Where they're a little bit ahead of schedule. Yeah, I think it's in play. We'll see if they're healthy. Trying to think, what are the other great players? You didn't play against Jalen yet. That's coming. And then Joker. I think we covered everybody. Was there anyone that- We played Luca.

We played the Lakers already.

Did you have to guard him?

A little bit. Not. Just a couple of switches. Not really.

He's one of So it's like you just can't talk shit to.

Yeah, he's talking the whole game.

You almost have to go the other way and be like, Luca, it's an honor to meet you. I can't wait to play basketball against you for the next three hours. And just butter him up.

He's great, though. Some of the shots, some of the difficulty of the shots he was taking and making against us. Just 19-footer, one-legged off the glass. It's crazy. Yeah, he's really good. Reeves was really good, too, when we played. He had an off-night shooting, but, man, before the calf strain, he was having a heck of a season.

He's another one of those guys who just knows where to go and what to do. Did you have a, Holy shit, I can't believe I'm playing against this guy, Who was your hero growing up, or did you have one? Do you have a favorite that you had to be in the court against?

Our third game of the season, we played the Wizards, and we played Middleton. Middleton was being from Milwaukee, one of my favorite guys. And so most of our staff Charles Lee was an assistant for Bud in Milwaukee. So most of our staff was in Milwaukee, and they're like, oh, yeah, they're all saying, what up to Chris Middleton? I got to meet him after the game. And that was the first time after that, after a game or something. I talked to a guy That was pretty special for me. That's awesome. Just because I'm rooting for him all the time growing up. Something as simple as, I'm just like, Nice to meet you. Appreciate all you did for the city.

He was a good basketball role model for you, too, right? It's like completely additive player. Right. Knew where to go and went to do it.

Defended. Good shot maker in the mid-range, three-point shooter, knows how to pass, knows how to play. He was awesome.

Are you ready for all this All-Star Weekend stuff? It's going to be in LA.

Yeah.

I assume you'll be in the all-rooky game. That's the most efficient rookie in the history of the league. I think they're going to invite you.

Yeah, I think that'll be cool. I can't remember last time I watched the Rising Stars game.

Yeah, I might have wagered on it a couple of times. That'll be the only reason.

A little gambling.

Yeah, I might have some money.

It'll be sweet. It'll be cool to get out there with some other rookie guys and see them again.

Well, it's good because it's the The way the league goes, you start there, get to go to All-Star Weekend, you're like the wide-eye little baby of the league, and you get to go through. Then by year five, you're an All-Star, and you're like, Oh, remember that time when I was the wide-eye rookie? Now I'm used to this. You get to do it. Then you'd be the grizzled guy trying to make it one more time, try to have the long career.

That would be sweet.

The last time you were on, we didn't really dive into your brothers. I was told that it was one of the great of my podcast year last year. This whole...

By who?

This whole... One of our Ringer guys, Jay Kyle Mann, who's obsessed with the Knipel family and thinks you guys have a chance to potentially have three to four NBA players conceivably.

We'll see.

What's the proper... So how many brothers are there?

Four. I have four brothers. Five of us total.

Four brothers, and all of them are good at basketball.

Yeah.

So what are the ages?

My brother Caiger is a junior. Kinston is a sophomore. Cash is a freshman, and Kidman is in eighth grade.

Do the high schoolers play together? They're on the same team?

All three of them are on the same on the Varsity team.

The eighth graders in the 8th-grader is on...

He's just the middle school.

The law of professional sports says the eighth grader is going to be the best one. Because that's what I put in, Drake May.

Because when I started getting in the gym every day, I was in fifth grade and He was five. So he's been shooting and getting shots up since he was-And he's just trying to catch up with you guys.

Every day since he was five. Yeah, he's annoying. He's like, Get out of here. You're not big enough to play yet.

Typically, the youngest is supposed to be the best. Yeah.

That was the Jake May thing. His brothers were great, great, great athletes.

I'm sure you've seen the video of the draft video? Where they're like, pretty boy. That video was great.

He was a good hooper, too. Yeah. Did you ever see the videos of him playing hoops?

Yeah, high school? Yeah. He's He's from Charlotte. He's Myers Park. He's a Charlotte kid. So he's a Hornets fan. He wants to come to a game.

No, he's a Celtic fan now. We've corrupted him. We brought him over. So what are the heights of the brothers?

Caiger is 6'9. Yeah, he's huge. It's way taller than me. Kinston is 6'6. Cash is 6'2, and Kidman is 5'10. Yeah, Caiger is a big boy.

So 5'10, eighth grade. Yeah. 6'9. Yeah. 6'9? Yeah. So is he a legitimate big man or is he a 6'9 shooter?

No, he's a shooter, stretch forward, super long arms, guard the best player. Another He's one of those guys. On the other team. Yeah.

So what is his... Is he on the list? I should have researched this. I actually wanted to find out from you, but I didn't want to cheat. But is he on the list? Is he going to play high div one?

Yeah, he's He's got a couple of offers. Butler, DePaul. He's gone a couple of visits. Purdue, Marquette, Xavier, they're at one of his high school games. So we'll see. He's only a junior, so he's still got a little bit of time. We'll see how it keeps getting better.

At the worst case scenario, you could just have your franchise guy for a team and just all your brothers have contracts with it. They're all with it. You just have the three guys.

A couple of times.

They're a 15-man roster. There's just like their four canipples on the team. So the young one, 5, 10, eighth grade, that's the one with the most pressure because of the younger brother thing.

Yeah, I guess we're putting that on.

Yeah, I'm going to throw that on him right now. How's the family after the Packers thing? One of the worst playoff losses of the decade.

Yeah. Still reeling for it. I wonder how many of those... Did you put a list together?

I did it on Sunday night. I went through 20 losses.

20 losses? How many of them were Packers losses?

No, I did all the Packers losses. Oh, you did all the packers? All the terrible ones they had on... I mean, they were on five in overtime games.

Yeah, I was putting that together in my own notes. The one in Seattle is one of the worst. I was like nine or 10.

Yeah, because even that involves... When the onsite kick gets involved, that goes to another level.

Onside kick, I think of... Well, Morgan Burnet had an interception in that game with five minutes left.

Yeah.

And he slid down with 30 yards of running room in front of him. He slid down and my grandma, who's a Vikings fan, was watching the game with us. It was like, looks like the packers are going to the Super Bowl.

And my dad was like, no, shut up. Don't put that out there.

Yeah. There are a lot of playoff heartbreak. I think of the Cardinals when Rodgers had the two Hale Marys. Yeah.

Then what was it? A fumbled shutdown or something? That was the Fav. Fav had a fumbled shutdown to end his thing.

Oh, no, that was Roger's first game in Arizona.

Was that Roger's? Yeah.

So you had two horrible losses in Arizona in the playoffs. We had the- You were too young for the Freddie Mitchell, fourth and 26.

That was abominable.

My dad has horror stories about that one. I think of Roger's last playoff game in Lambo, block punt, countdown for San Fran. And then there's just ones where he just got smoked by Atlanta, San Fran, where he mostared at 200 yards. I think this one is to the bears.

This one was way up there.

This is top two.

I think the only difference with this one is I don't think anyone thought it was a Super Bowl team. But you It goes to the bears, so that...

It would have been a successful season with all the injuries went if we were to beat the bears in the playoffs in soldier field. I feel like it would have been successful considering the Parsons' injury and all that.

Tucker Kraft.

Tucker Kraft.

Yeah, I said to Sal, it's weird because the packers have won two Super Bowl's in the last 30 years, right? If you're the Jets or the Bengals, you take one of those, you're made. But you've also had all these awful playoff losses, and the packers never get thrown into the tortured fan base list because you won the two Super Bowl's. But then you had all this other pain.

Yeah.

It also means the most there. It's like...

Yeah. To have Farvin' Rogers, the two of the top five quarterbacks ever, depending on how you want to look at it. To have those guys, each of them gets one, but you feel like The window was open. Basically every year, they were the quarterback. That's tough. Tough feeling. I was talking to one of my teammates. It's like he's a Panthers fan, and they've had a couple of Super Bowl losses. But when you're out of the playoffs, you You'd much rather be in the playoffs, like rooting for the packers in the playoffs every year. But it's way more painful to lose a game away from the Super Bowl or just a heartbreaking way in the playoffs than it is just like, Oh, we missed the playoffs. You want to be in those situations as a fan. You want to be in the playoffs. But sometimes it's like, All right, we missed the playoffs. It's a little more painless.

You're walking me through where I might be on Sunday after Pats Texans, if the Texans defense kills the Pats. I actually think the Pats are going to be in good shape, but maybe I love them.

Yeah, Brable is awesome.

We have a great coach, and I think our quarterback is legitimately has a chance to be one of the great ones.

Yeah, it's crazy how quick that happened. He's awesome. Drake Mays is awesome.

Good demeanor, too. But it's interesting. The way the teammates talk about him, I think you almost have to... I always look at that stuff when the other guys are like, This guy's special. This guy is a crazy competitor. I love that. They just go out of their way to say these things. And after a while, you're like, Maybe they're saying this for a reason. I've just seen this in the past. Usually, the guy's special when the teammates are...

You know what I mean? I love how he deflects in the post game. Oh, yeah. Just the MVP chance. And he's like, I think those might have been for Baker. How he deflates or you're leading the league in passing yards. And he's like, That's because we haven't had a buy yet. I love that stuff, too.

Yeah, he's not Not remotely cocky, but he's crazy competitive, which is a good combo. But he's definitely not one of those... Humble confidence. Look at me. Look over here. We'll see what happens. Everything's heading toward Josh Allen potentially coming to New England for the Super Bowl, who's the mountain that they now have to get over as a franchise anyway. He took the braided spot. But it's really fun football season. I'm getting killed in my picks, but I've enjoyed the games.

Yeah, it's been good, and It feels with everybody we have left, it feels like I'd feel good about anybody winning it, whatever team.

It's a goofy season.

Yeah, it is.

Tell me the story about you trying to find out what the packer score was when you were playing.

Yeah, we were playing the jazz.

Killed the jazz.

Yeah, we were up by a bunch. But I watched the whole first half, and it's 21 to 3 at halftime, so I'm like, great mood.

So you're playing during the second half?

The packers game. Yeah.

Our game starts- The air game is happening and the second half is happening. Our game starts.

We're up huge. We're up like 77, 38 at halftime. It was a blowout. And so we have an assistant coach who's a packers fan as well. The game was over later in the fourth quarter. We're like, Yo, what's the score? And it was like, You guys are down four. And with a minute 40 left, and we were What? We were up 21 to three. Yeah, that was probably one of the worst feelings. I got a bunch of Shire from Duke as a Bear's fan. I'm getting all these text. He's talking shit? Yeah, just kicking me while I'm down.

Come on.

Yeah. What a jerk. Yeah, definitely a brutal night. After we win by 60, I'm like, That was great.

Did you have any Bear's fans on the team? On your team? No.

That would have made it worse. No, no bears fans. Well, Drew Peterson, Celtic, is a bears fan. We waived this year, but he texted me after the game. I was like, I hate you. I'm glad I didn't get to see it.

It would have been tough. You have two first downs in that last drive. You're up three with the ball. They have two timeouts left. You're in there at 21. It's like there's no scenario where they should win the game at that point. You're either running the clock or you're killing enough clock that they can't do anything.

I don't know if you saw the graphic about teams being up 10 points with five minutes left and the record.

Yeah. Weren't they the second one ever to blow the lead?

Everybody since 1970 is 300 some and two or one. And the packers this year were six and three. We lost three games this year with a 10-point lead with less than five minutes. Jesus.

Did you ever play football or no?

Yeah, I played in high school. Played my freshman year.

And then you realized the bill ticket was hoops. Yeah.

Which is tough. That's how it goes nowadays. Yeah. More specialization.

Football is a tough one, though, because there's some wear and tear you probably don't need.

We run the option, too. Yeah. The quarterback gets hit every play. I played QB.

You played QB? Yeah. Interesting.

Yeah. So you're getting hit every play.

Could you do any little side flag football stuff with the Hornets? Could you have a game? Couldn't you guys ?

Organize a flag football game? We should. That would be awesome.

I'd love to see LaMelo running.

Oh, he could throw the ball.

How about Miles Bridges would be crazy, too.

Yeah, it'd probably be a pretty good tight end.

Lamelo be the other QB, so you go back and you get Brandon Miller.

Lamelo and Connaughton can throw the ball country mile.

I forgot the Connaughton piece. Yeah, Connaughton, I think, played, didn't he?

He played baseball. That's what it was. Pitcher. Yeah, we'd have a couple of good arms.

You guys have a couple of really good vets on the team. The whole concept of a vet, I think, is I've been around the block, I've seen some things. Let me impart my wisdom. And yet, most NBA teams forget to put vets on teams with young guys, but the Hornets did not. To Plumly and Connaughton, who've been around the block.

Plumly, Connaughton, even Grant Williams.

Grant's been around, too.

Those guys have been great.

Seeing some things, been in some different situations.

Yeah. Taking us under the wing, too, and treating us just like any other teammate, which has been great. Not really getting the rookie treatment of go away.

Right.

Carrying bags. Yeah, which has been great.

Connaughton won a title. Anyone else won a title? I think that's it. I think that's your only title guy. Miles didn't win a title.

No.

Charles Lee won a title.

Yeah, Charles Lee. Most of our staff was in Milwaukee or Boston. That was a good hire. Josh Green was in the finals, but he didn't win. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Connitan. Milwaukee, baby.

What's going on with the ladies? Is there time?

Do you have a girlfriend? I got a girlfriend.

How long have you had a girlfriend?

Three and a half Oh, interesting.

Where is she?

She's at Marquette. She's a freshman at Marquette.

So you're long distance relationship? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah.

How's that going?

Good. Yeah, she's great. She comes down as much as she can.

Were you expecting that answer, Gahal? Long distance with the Marquette student? I wasn't on my bingo card.

Yeah, we went to the same high school.

Yeah.

Yeah, she's great. During break, she got come down a couple of times. Yeah, she's awesome.

Maybe you'll end up like Jake May, marrying his sixth grade girlfriend.

Is that what it was? Yeah, that's what it was.

They met in 6th-grade. Sixth or seventh grade, yeah. They just stayed together ever since. The Pats fans loved it because they were like, Obviously, incredibly loyal guy. The bake miss or whatever. Yeah. She's cool. But it's like, well, that means we'll have him for 20 years. 20 years, he's a loyal guy.

He's a loyal dude. Yeah. That's a great call.

So long distance girlfriend. Wow.

Yeah.

So you're on the road, a little Face-Timing?

Face-timing.

But then when you go into Wisconsin, she can come to a game?

Yep. Go to Milwaukee. She came- Chicago, she can come? Yep. She came to the game. Yeah, it's great. Getting updates. She loves pictures of the hotel room. All that stuff is cool to her. The nice resort that we're in here in LA. We did a tour of Sony Studios today, so we're getting pictures of the car from Ghostbusters. The original. Oh, yeah. Or the the RV from Breaking Bad, so send her all that stuff.

And you said you'd never been to Los Angeles before.

Never. First time.

Is there any other- It's a shame. La is great.

Yeah, it's really nice. It's January, and I was walking on the beach.

Well, you can see why all the NBA players end up coming this way, right? Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's why they've signed all these free agents.

Right. It's the best time when everybody looks forward to the trip. Yeah. Come out here. That's been nice so far.

The other big trip that everybody loved but doesn't exist anymore was the Portland, Seattle, Vancouver trip for some reason was a popular one. And then I guess Texas would be a trip, but I don't know if that's as exciting.

I have a funny story about my mom. She knows basketball, but she doesn't really keep up with professional sports like that. So we were getting my passport. I had never been outside the country. So before the season, we were getting my passport. Because we played Toronto early in the season at Toronto. She was like, All right, when do you play Toronto? We got to get this. I was like, We play them in November. And she's like, Okay, what about Vancouver?

She thought they were still around?

She's like, Yeah, they haven't been there since, I don't know, 2000.

Maybe she was factoring an expansion.

Yeah, maybe we were going back to Vancouver.

That was the last thing I wanted to talk to you about was the parents thing. Because you have a pretty close family, parents. How much do you check in with them? Do they check in with you? I'm trying What would you think of what I would be like as your dad in this situation and be mad. We didn't hear from Khan. He played last night. He even sent us a text. How much parent maintenance is involved here?

My mom, she works for me. As far as...

Handle now your off-the-court stuff?

Yeah, off-the-court stuff. She really helps out with that. She comes down a decent amount to help take care of things at the house or at the apartment. She does some of that stuff, but they come down probably for a game once a month, maybe.

Are they sending tips? No. I watched the Wizards game last night. What were you doing in the third quarter?

Crash the offensive glass. What are you doing? No, they'll text me before every game. My mom will just be aggressive, play hard. Dad will say something, light them up, DM up. He always text me that, text all of us that. They'll hit me with that stuff before the game.

And then they're going to all their kids' games, too. Yeah.

It's awesome every day. My brothers have a high school game tonight. In the family group chat, light them up, DM up, cash, kinst, cage, whatever. And then it'll be the same thing if I'm playing or Kidman's playing. So, yeah, that's cool. But no more tips, really, anymore.

Did you win a title when you were there?

In high school? Yeah. Yeah. Senior year, undefeated, 30 and all.

Wow.

Yeah. So we won my senior year. They won last year. So my brother's-What school is this? Wisconsin Lutheran High School. So my brother was on both those teams. They went 28 and 2 last year. So they were 58 and 2 in two years. And they have two state championships, so Cater likes to brag. He didn't even play his freshman year, but he likes to brag. I got two losses As many rings as losses. Yeah. They have another great team this year. My cousin's on the team.

Your cousin?

What the hell is going on with this family? He's a stud. He's going to Northern Iowa. Then the coach's kid is on the team and they all play. So it's a heck of a high school squad.

Did you get used to the eating schedule and playing at night and all this stuff and traveling? When do you eating dinner at 11: 00 at night, all that stuff?

Yeah, we had a team dinner after the game last night, and it's 11: 30, but it's 2: 30 on the East Coast. You're barely adjusted. I'm waking up at 5: 00 AM out here. But no, the eating stuff, it is different because I was never a big... I wouldn't eat much on game day. It's like you play 82 games, you got to eat food.

Because you don't want to lose weight. You don't want to be skinny.

I've got a good operation where I'm always eating a big brunch after shoot around.

There's not really time to work out, right?

Or it's almost like recovery stuff. Yeah, a lot of recovery, but we'll lift before and after the game. It'll be split in half because you want to take advantage of the day is where it's like, this is a high effort day where we're playing a game, so we're going to lift on game day, and then tomorrow will be a complete off day.

What's the right number of... What would be a crazy number of minutes for you How many minutes did you play this year?

When we had Brandon and Melo out, there was a couple of games I played 40.

But I'm saying for the season, How many minutes is like-Total?

Yeah, it's like-total minutes or just minutes?

It's like 2,400 realistic for you?

I don't know what the math is.

Hold on. I'm looking you up. You're playing 32. 5 a game. You played every game.

I missed one.

So you played 39 of 40? All right, so if you're on a pace of 80 times 32, it's like 2,500 minutes. It's impressive. It's a lot.

Yeah, I was ticked. I missed that game.

Why did you miss the game?

I sprained my ankle pretty bad in Orlando.

I saw that. I thought you were going to be out for three weeks.

Yeah, we did a great job. Training staff did a really good job. Did you fly to Italy? It wasn't as bad.

And the Kobe jet?

The Kobe jet. No, it wasn't as bad as... I broke both my ankles in middle school. So every time I roll my ankle or sprain my ankle is pretty bad.

Playing basketball, you broke your ankles? Yeah. Jesus.

It feels like that pain. Because your mind just does that or it feels like that sharp pain. I thought I broke it right away. But then as soon as I could put weight on it, I was like, okay. That's the tell-tale. If you can't put weight on it, you probably broke it.

Right.

So I missed that game. I had missed the game in high school or college, so I was ticked.

Oh, man, you're putting together the... Who's the street guy now? Bridges.

Mikhel Bridges.

Did he cheat, though? Did he do the thing where he came in for one minute?

He did.

I'm against that. Ac Green started that.

You're just coming in first.

Josh Allen did that.

This is a Laker guy started it.

Classic Laker just starting some dumb... Yeah, Josh Allen did it. He came in for one play and left.

Yeah.

And I was like, come on. What's your theory for all the tendon injuries? That we're having in football and basketball and all these calf strains and Achilles stuff. Is there something we're doing wrong?

They're being really careful with it, too. If a guy has a calf strain, now they overreact. We're shutting you down for a month.

Yeah. They just did that to Reeves. Reeves.

Mason Plumly had one in the offseason.

So you think they just know more about it now, that they need to be more careful than they used to be?

Maybe, or they're just scared from seeing it happen. I think we are playing a lot more possessions in games and the pace. Everybody's playing fast.

But it's happening in football, too.

Right. I don't know.

I think it's a combo of- You think it's maybe the specialization?

I've heard that where it's like guys that played a bunch of different sports are more durable because they're using different muscles in high school. I don't know. I've been playing basketball for basically year round for I don't know, 10 years. It could be that, maybe. I don't know.

I think basketball... I argued about this with Eddie Johnson, the former NBA player, because he has that serious NBA show. We argued about it once because he's like, Basketball is not harder to play now. I'm like, Dude, watch how much running there is. I guess there's no way to really measure it. They'd have to have somebody measure all the games in the '80s versus now. There's no way you're not running more now because you have to run out on defense.

Well, you just look at the possessions. We're playing way more possessions than teams did in the '90s. No question. And then you talk about the spacing. We get a rebound. Most of the time, it's like sprint to the corner for the spacing. So you have to be in really good shape with sprint to the corner. And you're doing that 30 more possessions.

But then on defense, you have to sprint to the corner to go get a shooter. Right.

And so you're just covering a little more surface area. I was looking at something that the guys that cover the most ground in the League, it was top five. I was running two and a half miles. And that's just a game. You just run into the corner.

The fucking refs are getting hurt now. Phil Kennedy just got hurt.

Yeah.

It does seem like way more running than it used to be.

Yeah, a lot more possessions. I think that might have something to do with it.

Because if you watch the '80s and '90s games, stuff's packing in. It's more physical, but there's more time to... You're playing, but you don't have to move as much. Now, I just feel like guys are chasing. They're chasing guys around pics.

Yeah, I mean, if you watch '90s, early 2000s, it's like Mark Jackson's bringing up, backing down, running the show. All right, we're going to dump it to this guy in the post. Everybody spaces out a little. No matter who it is, like Latrell's pretty well in the post or something. It's like posting up your three-man, your four-man, your five man, and everybody's watching. It's just a different type of game.

I got to say it's amazing to watch now. I was there for all of it, and now when I watch it and I see the spacing, I'm like, How How did we not know?

I just think of this, yeah.

How did we not know that you're posting up Mikael and two other guys can just jump down on him because the shooter is 10 feet away from him? Why did he not just move back? What were they doing? But they just didn't have any idea.

Yeah, it is different. Then it's so much harder now to compare. You're in the business of comparing eras.

There's no way to do it. The stats are all fucked up now.

When you came out with your book, too, you didn't really see that coming either. It was hard to. 2010. 2010. You could still compare '80s to 2008, Celtics. It was a similar game.

Yeah, I was thinking about it. Somebody sent me a good email about maybe there's four different eras and you just have to... There's the era before Russell, then there's the era from basically Russell all the way to when the league's merged, '76. Then it's basically '76 to when Curry has his first good year.

Yeah, all that's a big area.

All that, the stats make sense. Pace of play, some seasons are fast, others are smaller. But around 2013, '14, it shifts. It's almost like, Once Horford and Brook Loba start shooting threes, the game's different.

I think I saw something like the Warriors' offensive efficiency from that 14, 15 season is middle of the pack this year.

It'll be 17th.

Which is unreal. We're even now at a higher efficiency from 10 years ago.

The thing that stands to me, the Celtics had the second net offense this year so far. We'll see if it drops down a little. But no Tatum. When you look at the team and it's like, this is one of the 20 best offenses in regular season history with the guys we have. I don't know. But they've just figured out all the math and the possessions and the pace and the right shots and crashed the offensive boards.

Guys know how to together. Yeah.

The offensive boards is a big thing for- It creates extra possession. Efficiency stuff. Yeah. It's more shots, defend, don't care if you give up a fast break basket because the offensive rebound is more important.

Yeah. We'll see. We put a huge emphasis on crashing the offensive glass. Yeah. And so you'll have a wing like me is getting one offensive rebound a game or one and a half, getting a hand on a ball. All that stuff is important. Just gets you maybe one more, one more three or one more opportunity to shot.

So Doc Rivers, his last couple of Celtic seasons, when they almost made the finals in 2012, but they were an older team. And one of his rules was, We're giving up offensive rebounds. We don't want to give up fast break positions at all. So it's basically one shot, as many people back as possible. It's completely different than what you do now. Now, Doc's coaching Milwaukee, probably telling everybody to crash the boards. But, yeah, I don't know. I think it's the math. I think they just figured out some shit with basketball. We just didn't have this stuff 20 years ago.

Right. The analytics, like basketball, baseball. It's harder in football.

If To figure out. It's almost like defense came back a little bit in football.

Oh, yeah.

Definitely.

I mean, just how they disguise. It's just harder for quarterbacks now to decipher defenses. But it's a little bit hard. Like the analytics decisions are harder football because at the end of the day, you still got to go execute. It could tell you to go and go for it on fourth and two. We should go for it, but you still got to go out there and get the first down.

Yeah. This first round, which you probably missed because you were playing, but they were way too fourth down heavy in this first round. The bears. It burned some teams. The bears were on four and fourth down and one somehow, or one and five, whatever they were. Yeah. Yeah, we'll see. Did you learn anything from all the analytics about you of things not to do? Do you think about that stuff?

Like I said about the synergy, I tried to look on that a little bit. What your weakness is? Yeah, or just like, man, there was like halfway through the season, one of the corner threes was like below average. Really? And I was looking at it. I was like, one corner, I'm 56 %, and the other corner, I was like 38. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. It's evened out now, but it's...

Yeah, because that could just be a small sample size.

Smaller sample size, but I'll look at that stuff and it's interesting. You can see in different areas where you rank, and it's just a scale of excellent, very good, good, average, below average, poor. So you can look at that stuff to maybe get a...

It's the Get a grasp. Oh, my God, I'm poor. I'm in the poor category. Do you look at five band lineups and all that stuff?

I looked at that a little bit. I did that in college. There was an Evan Maya did something that I was looking at, but I enjoy that stuff. It's interesting to look at. I look at different players to see who's really good. Like, Shay's is unbelievable.

Yeah.

He's like green everywhere on the.

Yeah, he's like plus 18, no matter what the lineup is. I like looking at the three-man stuff sometimes because sometimes there'll be these weird combinations of players.

Combinations that are good. Yeah. That you wouldn't expect.

Well, with the Celtics, you would expect it's like Kata, Brown, and White altogether. Now, they play a lot of minutes together. But with those three, you can fit any other two around them. If you have those three, we're going to be good. But sometimes there'll be ones that surprise you. There'll be ones where, okay, see, we'll have Wallace, Dourt, and Caruso. It's small minutes, but their defensive rating is 88.

Incredible.

You're like, Yeah, that makes sense. Those guys are like three pitfalls trying to bring the ball up. All right, we covered everything, I think, right? Yeah, I think so. Rookey Wall hasn't happened yet. Girlfriend's still going. You're on pace for 2,500 minutes and incredible efficiency. Teams coming together. Lamelo has got his mojo, it seems like. And you get to play the Los Angeles Lakers in LA. It's amazing. Lebron James.

Can't get any better.

This could be his last year. Who knows?

Yeah. That'll be sweet.

All right. Well, congrats on everything. It's been fun to watch.

I appreciate it.

Thanks for having me. Trying to think when we do the third pod together, I don't know what the inciting incident will be. We did one before you got drafted. Now we have one halfway through your rookie year. We got to figure out the next for the trilogy when that is. Maybe that's right before the playoffs or something. First payoff, if you can make it. Probably not this year, but maybe-We'll see. A year from now. All right. Thanks for doing this. Yeah.

Thanks for having me.

All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Khan, and Gehow, and Eduardo. Don't forget, rewatchables, one up Tuesday night, What Lies Beneath. Don't forget, I have another podcast coming on Thursday, a football podcast. That'll be the fourth one of this week. You will You'll be able to watch it on Spotify. You'll be able to listen to it wherever you want. You could also watch it on Netflix. So please watch it in one of those places. I will see you in 24 hours. Must be 21 plus in President Select States for a Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus in President DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Gambling problem, call 1-800 Gamble or visit rg-help. Com. Call 888-79-7777 or visit ccpg. Org/chat-in-connect, or mdgamblinghelp. Org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelp-line-ma. Org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 877-8 Hope-Ny or text Hope-Ny in New York.