Transcript of Biggest 2024-25 NBA Concerns With Zach Lowe

Coming up, it is football season, so of course we're going to talk basketball for 90 minutes with Zach Lowe next. We're also brought to you by the Ringer podcast network. We put up a new rewatchables last night. And it was a banger with a capital b. That's right. We did the original John Wick movie. We had already done John Wick too, but ten year anniversary of John Wick's coming up. So we said screw it. Me, Chris Ryan and the one and only Shay Serrano. That's right. Our old friend Shay came back. I'm thinking I'm back. Yeah, he's back. And we had a great podcast. You can watch it on our Ringer movies YouTube channel as well. If you subscribe to us on YouTube, if you don't subscribe to us on YouTube, for God's sakes, what are you waiting for? Ringer movies is the channel, the Bill Simmons YouTube channel as well, where we put all the clips and complete episodes from this podcast. And we do guess the lines with cousin Sal live on Sundays. So it's football season. I haven't talked basketball in six, seven weeks and the season is suddenly a little more than a month away.

Zach Lowe and I, we had to reunite and we talked basketball and it went for an hour and a half and we're going to do it right now. First, our friends fresh off their Fenway park appearance, Pearl Jab.

All right.

We're taping this on a Tuesday morning. My old friend Zach, Lois here, we used to work together at Grantland. He is still at ESPN. We like to do home and homes once in a while. I haven't talked basketball on this podcast and like basically since the, the Olympics. All of a sudden the season is within, what is it, a month?

Media days. In 13 days. Bill, as we're recording this, I don't.

Understand how it snuck up on us so fast. But what, what's the thing you're most excited about before we go negative?

Most excited about? I think the west is just, I have questions about everybody except Oklahoma City, at least in a regular season. I think Oklahoma City is just going to be a nasty regular season team. Everybody after that, like, everybody has put Denver, Minnesota, Dallas in like sharpie as 2341 of those teams at least is going to be disappointing. Just, that's just the law of averages. I have questions about all of them and like some of these, like Sacramento, what's happened in there? Pelicans, like have a weird high, high ceiling. I don't know where the floor is. Is Lakers Suns. I think the west. Someone is going to sneak into the top four. My pick would probably be Memphis, but we'll get. I just think the west is. Is really fun, top to bottom.

I'm excited for just a better league. I didn't really like the season last year. The more we got some distance for it with all these dumb injuries and disappointing teams, and then I just didn't think the playoffs were that good. And then they kind of owe us. They owe us a good season.

I've heard you talk about it, and I think I talked about it once, like, what was the. What was the best playoff series of the entire playoffs?

That's the thing. I mean, probably from an entertainment standpoint, it was Philly, New York. Right.

And that would. That would be Minnesota.

Denver was Minnesota. Denver was most dramatic. But the games aren't games I would want to watch again on hardwood classics. Dallas OKC was really good.

Dallas OKC was underrated. Almost every other series, minus a highlight here or there, was pretty forgettable, like Nick's pacers. Look, just war of attrition. Not that. Not that. Not that interesting. Nick Sixers would be my pick.

Yeah. Cause then you think of all the guys who were either hurt or coming back from injuries or all the teams that were compromised, the fact that we had a champion that didn't even really play a high intensity, awesome game until the Indiana series, and then they beat Indiana and Indiana, and it's like, here we go. And Indiana was a team that everybody was discounting for months and months and months, but I don't know, it just never got there. So I feel like they owe us. I feel like the season's going to be awesome. Like, when they left Giannis, I talked about this. When they left Giannis off of Christmas day, I was like, oh, here we go. This is good. Like, we have so many good teams that Giannis didn't even make Christmas day. Um, but that's not what we're talking about today. We're gonna talk about the NBA. Things we're worried about now. We worry.

Draft.

Yeah. And it doesn't even have to be a draft. We can just alternate back and forth, and if somebody takes somebody else's, that's fine, but, um, now that we're. We're not landing the plane on. On opening night yet, but now we're kind of within, you know, 40 minutes, the flight attendants telling us to maybe get ready to hand the little tv things back. Get your stuff, make sure you don't leave anything behind the number one thing you were the most worried about heading into this NBA season is.

Yeah, I had a no brainer, number one pick for this draft. You could go a few different directions, but for me, it's the Milwaukee Bucks. Just everything. Milwaukee bucks top to bottom. Disaster season in just every possible way. Last year coaching higher gone bad. Mid season coaching change slash podcast retirement by Doc Rivers doesn't write the ship right? Writes some things about the ship, but not the whole ship. Another Giannis. Another Giannis playoff injury wipes out, wipes them out in the first round. Middleton's injured off and on all year and Dame, just rough adjustment on all levels. Much rougher than we thought after the just earthquake of a drew holiday trade. That was their way of saying this other iteration of our team that won a championship, it's hit the ceiling. Like, we can't, we can't get back to the finals with this group. We need a jolt. We need a change. This is it. Juice the offense, bring in one of the greatest point guards of all time. Greatest. One of the greatest shooting point guards of all time. Easy chemistry with Giannis. It just, the story just writes itself. The whole season is a mess.

Dame is even injured in the playoffs and now everyone's a year older. Middleton is going into potentially the last year of his deal with the player option in 25, 26. Same is true of Portis. Brooke Lopez is going to be a free agent. Gary Trent's here on the minimum. I don't know how that's going to like, I'm optimistic about that, but he, he's like, this could just be a waystation for him. I. Everyone's a year older. The injury questions, particularly about Middleton kind of remaindeh and New York got better. Philly won free agency. Boston just rampaged to the title and brought everybody back.

I don't know where Cleveland locked up everybody.

Cleveland, Orlando, Indiana are coming from like the other side of the, the other half of the conference, all on the upswing. I don't know where this team fits in, in the Eastern Conference hierarchy. I do know that I, only Philadelphia would be in the conversation for me as team with more pressure on them in the eastern conference because the honest domino is always just going to be sitting there and the team just gets older around him. They haven't found a young player that's even kind of remotely interesting so far that Giannis can look at and say, well, like, in five years, that guy, that guy's going to be awesome. And I just, I don't know how this season is going to go. I have no. I have no feel for it.

And the GM tried to take the Pistons job or wanted to, and they ended up keeping them. That part was weird. They have a draft pick in the first round. He ends up taking a young guy who can't help them. This year I have the same concerns. But you could go glass half full on them, too, right? You're from hell. Last year they trade drew. He somehow ends up on the Celtics, who become awesome. They get Dame, who we find out after the season hasn't worked out in the whole summer leading up. Cause he was so afraid to get hurt before he got traded. And he comes in, he's going through a divorce and he's just terrible. Middleton kind of back and forth between whether he was healthy or not. Their bench was disappointing and the honest stuff before last season was real, like, whether people want to believe it or not now, they didn't know whether he was going to ask for a trade or not, and that's something that happened. So now you're looking at this season and it's the same kind of thing. I know he committed to them, but that team's old.

What have you heard about Middleton's just. Just his body, the double ankle surgeries.

The double ankle surgeries and the knees.

And it just seems like his lower body is going on him. And, and to me, that's the biggest issue of all for them.

I mean, I've heard that they're. I haven't checked in. In a while, but I haven't heard anything that, like, he's not going to be ready, you know, to start the season or early in the season. I don't think, like I said, I haven't checked in, but. So I expect him to be okay. But I have heard concerns about, like, does he have any chance on defense anymore? And, you know, this is a team that's going to ask him to. To guard real guys and, you know, the defensive infrastructure around Giannis and Lopez, which is a great place to start any defense is not what it used to be. The bench is like Pat Connaughton fell off a cliff last year. I don't know what the hope is for him, but look, I. I make the glass half full case to people all the time because I just can't write off a team with Giannis. If Giannis can just avoid these freakish injuries before the playoffs. Cause the guy is like the freaking Terminator and Dame is still, I expect Dame to have a better season. So there's like two ingredients right there. Coaching stability should help.

I mean, the record under doc was worse than it was under Adrian Griffin, but the Adrian Griffin thing was a disaster. Like, it's easy to make the glass half full case. I can't write a team with Giannis. I just can't write them out of, like, they can't win the east or whatever.

They also stole some minimum salary guys that I didn't. I didn't think we had that on our bingo card. They got three guys who are going to be able to play in a playoff series for them with no money whatsoever to spend.

Prince Trent. And who else am I. Who am I forgetting?

Prince Trent. There's a third one. They got a third guy. See, it's. It was so stealth, I can't even remember who it was.

But my point is, as I make this glass out full case to people around the league, no one, no one is, oh, Delano. I love Delano Wright. I'm like the line Wright fan number one. That's a great signing I make. But I make this case to people around the league, coaches, front office people, agents. No one's buying. Everyone's like, they like, stop me halfway through. It's like. It's like someone trying to sell me, like, optimum, trying to get me to come back and get my cable, deal with them. I don't need. I don't. I'm canceling. I'm canceling. I'm out. You don't have to give me the spiel. I'm sorry, guy. I know you have to. It's like no one's buying it, and I can't. I mean, they're just. I just hear they're old. This iteration isn't going to work. I'm like, okay. I'm stunned at the level of pessimism about the Bucks, but they would top my. I don't know who you had it or what entity you had in the top slot, but for me, they were an easy, like, number one.

So Middleton played 33 games in 23, put 55 games last year. The minutes were low. It's 24.327 for the last two seasons, 15 a game. Just that it feels like he's at a different point in his career.

Good, good. Playoffs again. The glass out full case involves Middleton averaging like 25 a game in the playoffs against the short series, against the not short, six games against the Pacers. That's all was. But he had to do a lot and he was pretty good.

But this is a tease. 33 this year, and this is a team when they go against younger wings, you're just terrified for them. And Giannis is doing everything, but, like, let's say they're super disappointing. Let's say that we're in, we're heading around Christmas. They're not going to be in the Christmas games, and they're like, one or two games over 500. What? Like, what's, what's, what if is the fear that Giannis would be like, I don't want to go down like this. I'm still in my prime. You guys need to fix this or send me somewhere. Like, I don't even know what the moves are. I guess they have a lot of expiring deals. So then they, you're in the mode where you have to take a big swing for, you know, somebody else's problem that's expensive. And then that goes down a whole other rabbit hole where you're like, oh, we didn't even really want to do this, but now we don't really have a choice. And we've seen so many teams fuck themselves up long term at that. I just don't know what the outcome is if they don't do well that doesn't involve Giannis rumors.

Yeah. I mean, Giannis is locked up ironclad through 26 27, so this season and two more, which is great for the Bucks. That extension was a coup. It's one of the reasons why I still defend, I'm like, the last person defending the Damian lawler trade. Apparently today you're, you're defending it.

Wow. Is there even one more person for the support group or. No, it's just you. You're just showing up at a coffee shop by yourself.

It's just, it's just me. There are some, there's maybe a chat room with some anonymous people who are afraid to reveal their identities because they're ashamed. But it's, it's, it's mostly just me, and I still defend it because I do think offensively, that team they had Max was.

Yeah, I get it.

What had maxed out. I thought it was worth a shot. The price was pretty high.

And can you defend the part that drew how to end up at the Celtics? Well, I mean, in the chat rooms.

I've said before, like, I would love to know not what they knew, but how hard they tried to make it. A three team trade at the time.

Without a guess that it was happening. Yeah.

You can trust anything so that they could just say, anywhere but Boston. Anywhere but anywhere but Boston.

Only way to do that is if the Clippers had been involved in that trade from minute one and then you're, you're just, you know, he's going to a team that's going to keep him. But I think they were, you know, Drew was kind of blindsided by it. I mean, he's talked about it. I think they were so worried it was going to come out that Drew was even in the trade that they were just like, you know what, we're just going to do the trade. And then Portland and then hopefully I, it felt like they missed red. I had heard they felt like he was going to the Clippers and they didn't see the Celtics piece coming, which I think is crazy that they didn't see that coming.

I mean, everybody knew the Celtics were going to get in it, right. As soon as the, as soon as the drew, sweet. They, but it just, you didn't even, it was just common sense. The clippers were definitely in it. I think the heat tried to be in it, but the heat lasers relationship was, let's say not at a strong point at that, at that moment. But to your point, it's still not good. And to your point, like, if they are, if it, if it is looking like, all right, you know what? It's just, it's not happening. Giannis is locked up, but I don't even know what the move is because.

Middleton is, by the way, nobody is locked up anymore. If Giannis wants to get traded, he's going to get traded, and that's what the league is now. If he decides I don't like this situation, that's it. This is how the league goes.

That's largely true. You at least have the leverage of years and time on your side. In any case, where the guy has been years. Middleton's essentially an expiring contract. Lopez is basically an expiring contract. The move would be dame. And I've, I've said before, like, I'll bet you Miami would revisit that, you know, the failed dame talks before, but that's what, what am I getting back that makes Giannis happy? If that's, if that's my concern now, if he, if he comes, I'm, if I'm, if I'm here for the long haul, like you need to recoup some draft picks, you get Tyler hero, whatever, whatever fake dame trade return you want to, you want to speculate about like, I'm cool, that's one thing. But it's a, it's a tough, they're, they're, they don't have, they can't compete with other teams for a big name player that comes available via trade. They don't have the picks, they don't have the young players. I don't know. This is all the reason why there would be number one on my anxiety draft.

They are definitely there's no scenario going into the season where they can be consider to be one of the top three teams in the east.

If you go, you're just writing it up. There's no scenario.

Word from fandom odds Celtics for the conference are plus 155, the Sixers are plus 440. Now we can talk about them later. The Knicks are plus 440 and Milwaukee seven to one. So they're like firmly in the fourth spot, at least from a betting on.

Everyone has written them off.

Like not me, I haven't written them off yet. I still feel like Dame has a big comeback here in him. It's very possible last year was just the year from hell from him. I at the same time was not bullish on Dame with what everybody wanted to give up on them last year because of the small guards moving at a different point of their career. I think there's cases to be made both ways and I feel like we're going to know in the first couple of weeks of the season is like, oh shit, this looks like 1997. Dana Barrows or it's like, oh, this looks like 2019 dam again. All right, so my number one pick, which I thought you were going to take, and I got to say I'm a little surprised.

The Denver Nuggets, ooh, they're, I mean, they're in my. I guess I've talked about them a lot, so I don't want to overdo it. But they're in my top. They're in my top five. I would say not, not number one or number two.

They lose KCP, who granted, if you watch, if you look at his playoff stats, it's not devastating, but it was a guy who was a proven defender. The Murray extension coming off his playoffs and then the Olympics and whatever is going on with him physically that makes you gulp. Gordon's got an extension coming. They've been passed at least as a regular season team by OKC and Dallas and Minnesota and maybe one other team. This is a six year run already. One title, one round three. That's it. They've had zero 60 win seasons. They've had the guy who's been, it's either him or Jan. As for who's the best player in the league since LeBron finally dipped a little, Jokic turns 30 this season and I guess my question is, are we ever going to have a great Jokic team? Because this team, they won the title and they had that great playoff run, but they've never had a great start to finish season. They've never. They've never been kick ass great for nine months. And with a guy like Jokic, especially if you compare him with some of the greats in history, which I think.

I think for both of us, he's in the top 15 of all time now. It's just a little weird and a little unlucky that it's never happened for him for nine straight months. And the Murray thing has a huge piece of that. Murray gets hurt at the worst possible time and misses two postseasons. Last year was a complete fluke. I don't understand what happened to them. They have a 20 point lead at home in game seven and just completely fall apart. Fluke is maybe the wrong word. Whatever that was. That was one of the most unusual game segments in the history of the league. And then afterwards, all the stuff they're talking about is, yeah, we were dead. We were exhausted. It's like, go look at the history of the league. This is, teams have played four or five finals in a row. People have been having 9500 game seasons for a quarter of a decade or a half of a decade. The warriors were in the finals every year from 15 to 19, playing 100 a game, 100 games a year. The huge bullseye, every building they go into, they're like rock stars. There's no way the Nuggets had it harder than that.

Warriors team. And I don't really know where this goes, but I don't like where we are.

So they did go 16 and four in the playoffs here. They won the title. Obviously, they played a couple. A couple play in teams. So you're saying never had a great. A great year, a truly great jokic team.

They've never won 60 games in a season. That seems impossible, but it's 100% true. You know, they've been grinders, they've been up and down. It's a team that, especially last year, that felt like they were down 1015. They'd come back, they'd figure out how to, you know, steal games in the fourth quarter and then the playoffs that went away. And I just. I'm just nervous. Cause as you know, Yokage, I think, is Jokic and Curry are my two favorite non Celtics. And I just hope we're not on the downside of the mountain with this Nuggets run already because they don't have a lot of moves. It's the Lakers move is the one port, the porter moves, the one kind of big move they can make. Other than that, I don't know what the moves are.

Well, the porter thing becomes interesting if and when Gordon gets an extension because then the team is just going to become so prohibitively expensive because then, like, you get into Christian Brown's deal comes up and Peyton Watson's deal comes up and are all these guys still on the team? Something is going to have to give because the Kronkes just aren't going to pay like 30 million over the second April, whatever. It's going to be 30 million over the tax every single year. So, but I don't, like you talk to people around the league about Michael Porter junior and his injury, like kind of lit one of those seasons on fire. He and Murray lost the season together, lost a postseason together. I don't, people don't quite know how to value him because the on ball aspects of his offense just haven't really developed at the same, at the same, at the rate that people had hoped. He's, he's on offense, he, you know, he'll give an offensive rebound. He's good cutter, but he's not doing all that much off the dribble. So he's, he's in this perfect ecosystem for him where he has the greatest passing big man and one of the five greatest passers of all time, probably just, and this offense that's built around movement, it's absolutely perfect for him.

Nobody really knows how that would translate. His defense is average on good nights.

Worse, he's got size, which helps him.

Like for whatever, a very tall shooter, which tends to age really, really well. But he's not like the tall shooter in the, the classic Durant dirk mold where it's like, just give him the ball at the nail, let him work. He rises up like, that's just the fail safe. I think, like the Denver one is a great pick. They're relying on youth. I wrote about this a couple of months ago. They were dead last and three point rate last season, three point attempt rate. They lose a good three point shooter in KCP, they elevate a mediocre three point shooter in Christian Brown. They sign the worst high volume three point shooter in the history of the NBA. And Russell Westbrook didn't mention him.

I left him out of my case.

Well, there, but there is a line somewhere where you just have to take more threes than this or else you can't win four playoff series in a row in 2025. The math is, is too difficult.

There's one other issue with that. We didn't talk about Murray yet. The, the more miles they put on Yokage in these seasons, his three point shot starts to go sideways, right? And that's what happened in Minnesota. That's even, he carried over to the Olympics and teams were, teams were just like, go ahead, man, knock yourself out. They're almost trying to jedi mind trick him.

Well, by far the least, it's by far the lesser of all possible evils that Yokovich can inflict on you.

Right? So in some ways, it's like in the NFL when there's some really good offense and a quarterback that does certain things and then defenses eventually figure out, all right, we'll just, just do this. And if you make them, you make them. And with the amount of miles that he had last year because they couldn't take him out, you know, and the bench isn't, is, you know, I know they have some young guys they're counting on, but it's just the ecosystem we have now in the league where you're just not going to have deep, awesome teams anymore unless you're in this situation like the Celtics, where you're just going to spend a kajillion dollars for an eight man rotation. So the Westbrook piece, we've seen how many teams now try to talk themselves into this. We had Houston, Washington doesn't really count because they wanted him for 40 minutes game and a lot of stats. The Clippers, the Lakers, this is yet another team where, where there's a case you can make. Well, he's going to do this. Then Jokic is off the floor and Westbrook's energy and we can run stuff through him. His rebounding, like, he did some good stuff on the Clippers and then in the playoffs was an abomination.

Like, he became unplayable in the Dallas series.

I mean, I remember watching those games. Like, I just, like, what is he, what is he doing? Like, I don't know. He was so deranged. He was on tilt the whole, the whole series. And like, yeah, like you said, denver is a bad free throw team. Okay? He can like, just rampage to the rim and maybe get us some free throws. Sarri will probably be there. Back up five. So he's a shooting center, a lot of space for us to attack. And it worked out for the Clippers for like the first two, three months. It was a feel good story. Like, I just don't think it's going to be a game changer for them in a positive way. I like the best case scenario is it doesn't hurt to, I think like Russ doesn't hurt and buy and buys.

Them a couple of months, which I think Sarge is like this, too. There's these November December players where you read like the athletic story and December 10, it's like Sarge is really fitting with the Nuggets. And then you get to April and he's playing four minutes a game and they seem to have a few of those. But Murray's going to determine this one way or the other. If Murray's, if Murray's not back to where he was two years ago and whatever is going on with him continues, there's no chance the west is too good and it's too much of a burden on Jokic. I think. Speaker one.

Well, the extension was a clear, I mean, you have to interpret it as a vote of confidence in him because they didn't have to do it now. They didn't have to do it before the season. They could have just saw how he played in the preseason, saw he played early this season. They could have taken as long as they wanted to do it. Like I've argued, there is no plan b for them. I don't know what the trade would be to extricate themselves from this extension in this situation. And I love Jamal Murray, but they did have the luxury of time and they decided, no, we're just buying. We're going all in now on Jamal Murray. We're going to going to go all in on a bounce back year. And I will like warning to everyone, including us, he gets off to slow starts every season. So, like, Jamal Murray's track record suggests that on Thanksgiving he's going to be shooting like 37%, 33% from three. The world's going to be. That's how it goes every year. And so I'm not going to panic if he's off to a bad start, but if it's like January, February and it's like, where is, where is like, can you give me some glimpses of playoff Jamal Murray?

Because that's, that's the whole thing. Everything else. Like, I even think the KCP thing, it's not awesome that you've lost Bruce Brown and KCP and Jeff Green, but, but I have some faith in the young guys and I just have overwhelming faith in Jokic to make everything work at its highest possible level, just provided he has just enough baseline talent around him, which has to include a pick and roll partner who is ready at go time. Like my take on the Nuggets, I. There's some, there's some internal stuff that they've got to sort out. But I think, I don't know man, I stole my pick than the mate to finals this year. If they can figure out enough things. I'm not as worried about the KCP thing as most people are.

I'm not as worried about it either. But combined with the Bruce Brown and you think about how important those guys two years ago, it's just. There's undeniable that it's changed. They have the, they're tied for the third best odds for the conference. OKC is plus 320, Minnesota plus 450 and Dallas.

Have you decided? Have you made a fight? You haven't. It's too early to make a finals pick, right? Like you haven't made like your the.

Only thing I did, I was in Boston for like mid August and I bet on the OKC to win the conference and the one seed stuff just because the odds hadn't caught up with the regular season. I did regular season stuff with them and then the conference stuff and now the odds have become the right odds. But I felt like they were a little off there. So I mean, the big inefficiency is Memphis, which was I think 22 to one to win the conference. That's down to 16 to one. But I feel like a crate.

I feel like a crazy person about Memphis and maybe they're on my list of worries. So let not worries, but like I'm so bullish on them that I feel like a crazy person.

It worries you how much?

No, I have, I have a specific thing that every time I'm like head over heels about Memphis and like hammer the over like they could be the number two seed. There's one thing that I keep coming back to, but we can get to that later.

Let's take a break. And then, then you go. Next kick off this NFL season with a win on FanDuel, America's number one sports book. Right now, all customers get a profit boost every single NFL game day. That means you can pump up your gridiron winnings multiple times a week. Fanduel, tons of ways you can get in on the NFL action, bet on money lines, spreads, player props and much more. I'm kind of staring at the Pats on Thursday night. I gotta be honest, even though they just lost their best linebacker, I feel like they can hang around on that jets team. So there's some fun alt stuff you can do. There's some same game parlay stuff you can do. We're going to do a million dollar picks on this podcast on Thursday. Stay tuned for that. Me and Joe House there's super simple live betting on FanDuel. They have lightning fast bet settlement. They have instant withdrawals. Fanduel all they're doing is making betting on the NFL easier than ever before. Just visit fanduel.com b's and I and you can download Fanduel today. You must be 21 plus and president select states or 18 plus and president DC opt in required bonus issue as non withdrawable profit boost tokens restrictions apply, including token expiration.

See terms for both offers at sportsbook fando.com gambling problem. Call win 800 gamble or visit rg dash help.com dot all right, coming back Milwaukee and Denver are the two things we are the most worried about heading into the 2024 25 season. What is your second pick?

So maybe this wasn't as high on your list because it's a little bit of a cop out, but number two on my list was Joel Embiid's knee.

I had it. I had it later, but I had the same thing.

I've been talking about this in relation to back when flashback a year and the whole Philly situation seemed a little bit uncertain. Like is this going to, is this going to hold together or is he going to be the next guy that asks out? And you've talked about various places he might have asked out to go to and then Max, he blows up to have a great season. Embiid scores more than a point a minute. They're cruising until he gets injured, then they get Paul George and fragency. Everything's all settled. And I was talking about like, can you really throw the five first round picks, four swaps best young players for Joel Embiid, who is maybe the best player in the NBA when he's healthy but gets hurt all the time. And this was before Jonathan Kaminga fell on his left knee and he had a meniscus injury and both his knees have been injured I think multiple times. The left one has definitely been injured multiple times and it just is beginning to feel like an inevitability that at some point in every season he's going to have an injury and it's no longer just the for a while it was like the freakish injuries.

Like Pascal Siakam breaks his face, he has the eye socket injury. There were a couple others like that in the playoffs. Now it feels like the lower body stuff is starting to pile up and maybe again this is a cop out. But this is a team that's obviously all in for this season, having signed Paul George. And then they did a great, we all agree they did an amazing job in the offseason, rounding out the roster with Caleb Martin and some smart minimum signings. They're, they are tailor made to make a mid season trade to upgrade the three, four spots in the rotation. And, you know, they have KJ Martin's contract, they have picks. Like, everything is riding on this season and it just, it all, like it all falls away if Joel Embiid gets hurt, and he seems to get hurt every year and the repetitive nature of them is, is very worrisome to me. And it's frankly the reason why, like, I'm not going to pick them to win the east, I'm not going to pick them to win the title. Because Joel Embiid getting hurt feels like a more likely event than Jason Tatum getting hurt or even Giannis getting hurt, which sounds crazy because Giannis has missed the last two playoffs with injuries or anyone on the Knicks getting hurt.

No matter how many minutes Tibbs plays everybody all the time and they all got hurt.

Me getting hurt, I feel like I'm, like I, I play tennis all the time. I feel like I'm a better bet to stay healthy. I had Joel Embiid's body as one of my things. I just think he's had too many injuries and I don't think he's in shape and we haven't seen him really in shape. And all you have to do is go back and look at the videos of him during that run when Jimmy Butler was on the team, or look at him the first year when he played the 31 games. Go look at him against Kansas. He's carrying so much more weight now on top of all the injuries that he has. It's a recipe for disaster in the NBA. We've seen it too many times. There's, the league has changed, we shoot more threes, the defense is better, there's better scheming. I get all of it. But one thing that has never changed is physically, if you've had a lot of injuries and you're not in good shape, you're going to keep getting hurt. And that's been the case since the 1950s and it's going to be the case with him. And I'm with you.

I think when you're in the playoffs, that is a nine month run. And when you actually get to the playoffs, that becomes ten weeks, the highest intensity possible. It favors the younger guys. It's bad for the older guys. It's bad for the injury prone guys. I keep thinking about Blake Griffin. When I think of Embiid, where Blake Griffin had all these different injuries, some were, you know, bad luck in his legs, others were like, he had. He broke his hand punch in the equipment manager, but all of a sudden he had like seven or eight injuries. And if you're out of your up, it was like, oh, shit. And then the Clippers were like, we're out of the Blake Griffin business. Were trading him, and then his body broke down a year later. And I just think with centers, I'm with you. I. I get it. On paper, those three guys look awesome. There's so many reasons why it might not work out, and there's a couple of reasons why it could. I. There was a lot of thing that surprised me was that you, you thought he's the best player in the league when he's healthy.

I just don't think he is.

I mean, I said maybe. And last year, healthy Joel Embiid was. What he was doing offensively was absolutely outrageous. Like, look, I was early on the jokic train. I've been saying Jokic is the best player in the NBA for a long time. Last year it was very close because his scoring was just absolutely outrageous. His turnovers were no longer, his passing was better. Assistant turnover ratio is better. So when Paul George signed in Philly, there was, there was some Paul George, like, schadenfreude is too strong of a word. But, I mean, even windy was like, how many times is Paul George going to change teams? And we're all going to go crazy about it and it's the biggest story in the NBA. And what does it lead to? That was this is Whitney saying, like, how many playoff series wins is it led to, like, what, what did, what does it amount to? And, yeah, Paul George has some not great playoff moments, notably in the bubble and then last year against Dallas, he was not good. Not good enough. I have no anxiety about Paul George as a Philadelphia 76 eR, even in big playoff games.

Like, he's going to be the third option. It's a perfect role for him. The pressure isn't the same. All my sixers anxiety is about Embiid. That's, that's the only, that's the only reason I'm like, this is not like my pick to make the finals. It's all about his body and the one thing that they can control. He can control his conditioning. He can't control the bad breaks that he keeps suffering on the courthouse. They and he together can control the dude. This 65 game, like, we're going for the MVP. We got to make all it. Like, that stuff has got to be over now. The only thing that matters is we just have to get your body as best. We have to maximize our chances that April 15 comes and you're ready to go at the highest possible level. Everything else has to be secondary to that. And I'll bet you, having not talked to his people or whatever, I'll bet you there's some agreement internally on that.

He played 39 games last year. I thought in the playoffs, I mean, at the Olympics, he just looked really slow compared to where he was. And I know he's totally in shape, but that's.

I was going to ask you about this. You're a huge Olympics basketball guy.

I am.

You're a huge. And I think you. I think you have been, like, 1 million% vindicated on your, like, was it Booker who didn't. What was the team USA? The player who didn't play Team USA one year? And you had a whole thing about, like, do these guys not realize the opportunity that they had?

Booker? Yeah. Yeah.

And you got. And you got sort of tisk tisked around the Internet for, like, you know. And I think you've been vindicated because that experience clearly is helpful. It clarifies some things about where you stand in the league. It exposes you to all these different great players. It exposes you to a different kind of pressure on a different kind of stage. It exposes you to, like, I got to figure out this different game where the three point line is closer, the spacing's all different, the officiating is different, all these variables that are different for me, and I was what I've been dying to ask you and be mostly disappointment for Team USA other than the one game he was brought there to play and the one game he was brought there to win, which was the semifinals against Serbia. And I have said this already on my podcast. I think. I wonder if we're going to look back at that, at the whole summer of the NBA, the whole offseason of the NBA, and say the single most important thing that happened was the way Joel Embiid showed up in crunch time as Team USA was about to get booted out of the Olympics.

And I don't mean that he scored some points and played good defense and, like, battled Yokich one on one. I mean that after kind of, like, you and Rossello talked about this, too in the playoffs, kind of hot potato in the ball. Sometimes against the Knicks in crunch time, he was more secure and hungry and like, give me the goddamn ball. I'm good. I'm going to make this happen. I'm confident, I'm steely. In the fourth quarter of that game with so much pressure on him. Cause, you know, if they lose that game and he has a shit game, it's not going to be great for Joel Embiid. It's not gonna be great for Steve Curtis. That could be great for anybody. Yeah, I honestly, I was watching that game being like, this is, this looks like a different guy to me. And if this, if this is a transformational moment for him, maybe that matters more than anything else other than the injury stuff. I was curious, but what. Where did you watch that game? What was your reaction to it?

So I had the same reaction watching it live, and he was really smart. Cause he knew Jokic had the four fouls, and he just started attacking him, and he knew that was going to work. Then I rewatched it, and, you know, the irony of that, of that game and that team in general was that some of the reasons that they were down big points were by some of the guys who ended up bringing them back, like Embiid, that they just got killed on the offensive boards. When Embiid was out there, you know, LeBron and Curry couldn't guard anybody.

It almost cost him the game. Rebounding.

Yeah, that LeBron, Curry, Embiid defense, it was just a three point shooting contest for the other team, basically, and then they figured it out down the stretch. But I'm with you. That I thought it was. He just doesn't have a lot of moments that you can point to where it's like, the fuck, it's fucking nut crunch time. Can you make a couple shots for us and the Knicks series? I know he wasn't healthy, and that's unfortunately probably going to be his autobiography or his biography until he flips it, which he might this season. But the title of his autobiography would be, I know he wasn't healthy. Dot, dot, dot. And that's just, he's been one of the bad luck guys in the history of the league. But I do think part of it is on him because he's not in shape. Get in shape.

He did have a couple of massive scoring games in that series on one leg, including a 50 point game. He has a buzzer beater in the playoffs against the Raptors. Remember that crazy three on a sideline, out of bounds, plays first round like nobody really cares. First round, game three. Put you up 30. Whatever.

Defend his playoff resume. It's not. You're not.

No, no, I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not trying to do that. But that did feel like that serbia game felt like a moment that in a sports movie would carry over into the next season. Like, like in the movie, he'd get the ball late in game seven of the second round against Boston, and then there'd be like a flashback to the Olympics on the right block against Jokic and everything on the line. And then we'd flashback to the movie and he'd use the same move and make the same facial expression. That's what would happen in a movie.

I'm going to go my next one I'm concerned about. I'll save the Celtics. Well, this gives us an excuse to talk about the grizzlies. John Moran. So the odds are dropping. They are the stealth sleeper in the Western Conference. John Moran has played 257 career games. He's 25 years old. He's made round two once. He's played 70 games the last two seasons. He's made 1 second team on NBA. And we've gone so glass half full on this. I include myself cause I think Memphis is going to be really good. I love that. I can't wait. Cause you don't watch college. I can't wait until like November 10 when you're texting me about Zack Edie. You're like, holy shit, zack eady. I love this guy. It was just a really good pick. He's going to play for them. They're getting all these guys back and they were really dangerous two years ago and three years ago. And ja had a couple of playoffs. Here is he had a playoff series where he averaged like, I think high thirties. He had two, I think two postseasons where he was around 30. And I just think we're penciling that guy back in.

But he's had a really tumultuous two years. I have no idea where his head's at. And the history of the league says this could go any way. He might, this might be who he is. He might just have a tumultuous career and we'll look back at him and we'll say, oh, man, you know who is awesome? John Morant. And his legacy will be Twitter videos where it's like Jabra Ant was a problem and it's just him dunking on people.

I thought you were going to say his legacy was. Was going to be another kind of another kind of video.

Well, that too. And just like, what could have been guy or all the shit that happened in the last two years has put him in the frame of mind where he's like, you know what? This Anthony Edwards thing, he's kind of took the spot that should have been mine. I'm coming back hard. I have my shits together. I got new people around me, and they're going to be awesome. I'm worried about the tumultuous side in that. We're just sad by December, they're like, oh, my God, I can this guy stay out of his own fucking way? So I had, that's why I have them. Second.

It all, it all makes sense. I mean, I guess. I guess Ja Morant's availability is a cop out in the same way as Joel Embiid's health is. Right. Like, it's an obvious thing to be worried about. I guess. I guess I'm less worried about it because he came back last season and he was awesome and he made crunch time shots. Remember that game against the Pelicans? He had a massive shot, a game winning shot. Um, and he, and then he had, then he hurt his shoulder, which is just a thing that happens, right? He seemed to re, he seemed to reintegrate himself into the team pretty easily. Uh, and you said stealth, like, they're the stealth sleeper in the west. There shouldn't be anything stealth about them. We know that when they have morant and Bane and Jackson and a decent supporting cast, they win a lot of games. The playoff record is just okay. Remember that insane series against the Timberwolves in the first round the year they made the second round? And then the Dylan Brooks LeBron stuff happened and they were summarily dismissed by the Lakers.

But you know, but you know why I said stealth? Because until recently, the Lakers had better odds to win the Western Conference than Memphis did, which is just insane. That's like, do people watch basketball?

I think the first time I checked their over under on ESPN bet, it was 44 and a half. And I was just like, how? What's I get? The west is super deep, and so all these teams are going to beat up on each other. Win totals might be deflated as a result of that, at least outside Oklahoma City. I just think there's nothing stealth about them. My worry is, so I did go in and watch Ed college stuff after they drafted him some.

Oh, good.

And I see exactly what they want in him. Like, the screens, the short roll, the monster offensive rebounding, and the size and the motor. The motor is what everybody loves about him. It's like the free throw shooting, the ability to get to the line and make free throws.

They, you know, the other piece of that that you'll love, he's an end of the game we're up to we, and we're going to get fouled. The other team's going for a steal. Just lob it up to him and he catches it and gets fouled.

Big, big guys who can shoot, big guys who shoot 80 plus at the line are just, are just such a valuable thing to have around. It's just, it's a lot of pressure on a rookie to, to go in and potentially be, I think he's the front runner to be their starting center if, if not already written in, in, you know, Penn in the starting five. That's just a lot of pressure, particularly defensively where they're going to move him around so that, you know, maybe Jackson can roam around and protect him. Maybe they hide him here, over here when Jackson can guard the point of attack, whatever it ends up being. And Jackson, in a big, burly center has been a formula that's worked for them. It's just, it's just a lot of pressure on a rookie. That's it. That's all. Maybe, and maybe given his deep college experience and all that, he's the perfect rookie to walk in and accept that kind of pressure and thrive on it and not care about it. Obviously, his offensive role is going to be a lesser one than it was in college. That's probably good, but that's, that's the only word I have, is like, you don't, you don't see a lot of potential top three to four seeds, which is what I think Memphis is.

And if you want to call that a contender, fine. I think contender to, like, win the whole thing is, is a step too far for me at this point. You don't see a lot of teams like that being like, yeah, we're going to start a rookie and play him 28 minutes a game or 25 minutes a game. It's just not a thing that happens very often.

Yeah, I guess the counter would be he probably could have come out a year ago and got this extra year, so he's almost coming in. He's like a second year guy versus a first year guy. Their over under went up to 47 and a half, by the way. Yeah, I'm taking it all the way up to 50.

Would you, would you have preferred for the fit on this team? If we're just chasing wins this year and next year. Would you have liked Klingon or Ed as their, as their rookie center?

Either. Either one. I think. Yeah. They just needed somebody with size. Is this a Brandon Ingram team to you?

That has been. That. That was. That's been floated to me. I don't. I don't think so. I don't sense that that's a thing. That's.

Is there a Brandon Ingrid team?

I think it's going to. It's going to be. I went through a lot of the teams that people around the league have suggested to me, like, like the Clippers had been suggested to me. I didn't sense that there was anything, anything going on there. The heat. I've pitched the heat before. I think you have to. I think it's going to be a. I mean, this is one of my worries is the branding Ingram thing for the Pelicans? Like, what the hell is going on there? What is this?

Yeah, they had New Orleans, too. We can do that quick.

So. So he's still on the team. I'm not sure how likely that was when they made the Duchonte Marie trade. Cause now they have all these ball handlers and. No, no. I mean, tice is their most experienced NBA center and he's undersized as is. And it's. They seem to be just like, we're going to start Zion at center. Even, you know, they, they might say, well, Herb Jones is taller than Zion, so Herb Jones is a center. Whatever. It's just a strange team. And now they have this thing hovering over them. He skipped the informal minicamp thing and had the Instagram whatever, you know, passive aggressive Instagram video. Is he going to mope? Is he, is this going to be.

That would be a good website. Passive. Passive aggressive hoops hype, just, just posts of passive aggressive things NBA players are doing. But it's an unforced error. This starts back at the end of the season when Griffin, for whatever reason, is just like, yeah, we got to make changes. We're going to do stuff. And then the Ingram stuff starts immediately. And then they shop him around the league all summer and sixpiring contract. Nobody wants him.

He's somewhat.

They're in.

He's somewhat of a victim of the, the Cooper flag slash. Everybody wants to be in the top five of this draft. So none of the bad teams, which could in theory be like, yeah, we have assets. We'll buy on. What is he, 26, 25? Whatever he is, we'll buy on a young guy who's borderline all star, whatever you think of him. Wing position, everybody needs. Like, they're like, none of those teams are super interested in helping their win totals this year and next year.

But yeah, he might be a good stats bad team guy or good stats mediocre team guy. Cause he needs the ball a lot. And, you know, it's. It's interesting that golden state Kerr had him on that, that one total no.

Go because of that.

Yeah, it's a no go because they were like, oh, this isn't the type of player that succeeds in our system. He wants the ball. I don't think he's going to succeed on this New Orleans team with all the shooters. And now you add Murray. I mean, my concerns were beyond Zion and Ingram trade machine and the fact that he's going to be in every trade. Murray's not exactly like Jason Kidd in the mid two thousands. Like, he's going to get his. McCollum is going to get his, Zion's going to get his. Trey Murphy is going to come off the bench. He's going to want some.

Why?

Why on this team?

Why can't we get Trey Murphy into the starting lineup?

What?

Like, we can't? How about just can't. We can't make CJ McCollum a six man. It's like, impossible to do.

Why can't we get Trey Murphy an extension? That's the other crazy thing about them. Like, they're just like. Like, if we were the GM's of the Pelicans, I'm pretty sure we would have locked down Trey Murphy right now heading into his fourth season. Right? It's like, let's not even fuck around. Or you don't lock him down because maybe he's the best trade chip you.

Have, or you just don't lock him down because he might come off the bench and we might be able to squeeze him a little bit in restricted free agency in the summer because no one's going to have cap space and whatever.

But this is the problem with that. Cause I get that, and that's totally logical if you're running a team. But now you're Trey Murphy, and I'm pissed. You're playing. You're playing for an extension. Now my minutes are going down, and I feel like the team is, like, deliberately trying to lower my value. Um, it's just not. I don't. There's a lot of subplots on this team. So he's unhappy. He's probably unhappy. I'm guessing Ingram, definitely unhappy. Dejante Murray comes in this is my team, Zion. Hey, this is my team. I'm Zion Williamson. There's just a lot going on and they have no center. Tice is going to be their starting center. And Zion, those are their centers. What are they going to do when they play like Embiid?

I don't know. Start, start.

They like the European League jokic. There's going to be ten centers that they're going to have to have some sort of answer, too. And I just feel like this team's been snake bit, you know, you think like Zions, you talked about that embiid moment in the Olympics. Zions having this incredible game against the Lakers. Like, he is taking it to LeBron athletically in a way that we just, he just made LeBron seem like he was 50 years old. And then he gets hurt. The game's not even over. He can't make it to the end of the game. So I don't. To me, New Orleans is out in the playoffs. I don't have them in the playoffs. I'm going to keep working on this, but if I had to pick eight teams, I'm not sure they're one of the eight. There's much going on. I don't like it.

I think we need to change the way we pick, like playoffs. I think we need to pick like a top six and then everyone after that is. So maybe that's in the play and on the play.

Yeah. The new school playoff. What do you think their odds are to make the playoffs right now? Because we can look this up. So they're minus one, at least on Fando -188 to make the playoffs, which seems way too high to me because you got. I got OKC. I have Minnesota, Denver, I have Dallas. Put those in. Memphis, Phoenix. Now have. I'm in the Sacramento New Orleans Lakers gold State Houston group, maybe the Clippers. And, I don't know, it makes me nervous. Let's. Let's take a break and then we'll keep going. Now it's time for a special part of today's episode sponsored by my friend, NFL Sunday ticket on YouTube tv. NFL Sunday ticket awesome features to help you stay on top. All the action, like Multiview, another friend of mine where you can watch up to four games at once or layer on stats of fantasy abuse to track your favorite teams and players. By the way, when you bundle NFL Sunday ticket in YouTube tv, you get access to every game every Sunday. That's the most live NFL games all in one place. Local national games on YouTube tv. NFL Sunday ticket for out of market games excludes digital only games.

Device and content restrictions apply. And good news for me because YouTube has crowned me their CMO, their chief multi view officer to help pick the top four games of the week that you should watch with Multiview. And of course they loaded the early games yet again. There's three easy ones, Chargers, Steelers, two, two and O teams, two similar teams. I like that matchup. Two good coaches, two teams that I was bullish on before the year. So we got that Texans, Vikings another two and o battle and two teams that have been chucking the ball around Sam Darnold resurgence year. I want to see it. And then Eagle Saints would be the other one. The Eagles coming off on Monday night loss, the Saints two and o leading in every offensive category. So those would be my top three. And then I think for the fourth one, maybe we go Bears Colts, Anthony Richardson, never know that guy. Caleb Williams, can he finally put it together against a defense that hasn't been that good. And I think that would be my fourth one. So thanks again to our friends at YouTube TV. Don't miss a moment of the action.

Watch every game every Sunday. When you bundle NFL Sunday ticket with YouTube tv, sign up today@YouTube.com. b's. The other thing is you can add the games to your library and then just go back and watch them. It's like just having an instant recording of whatever. I tortured myself and watched the Patriots, who should have beaten Seattle. I watched that one because my YouTube tv taped it. Local and national games on YouTube TV NFL Sunday take Fry to market games excludes digital on the games device and content restrictions apply. All right, we got to do the Celtics.

I can't wait to hear what you could possibly be worried about. About the Boston Celtics.

Bizarre Tatum Summer. True. Porzingis health. He's back in December. Is he, are we, are we sure he's December? Because there's two Celtics teams, there's the one that has Porzingis on it, and then there's the one that doesn't during the regular season. So when they say December, I'm just going to assume February. You know, they just won a title. Everyone sacrifices when you win a title. Everyone's just looking out for the greater good of the team. Then you win the title. This is the premise of my entire book, the disease, disease Amora. For Pat Riley. It's just the sacrificing isn't as sacrificing once you actually win the title. So I'm worried about that. The east is way, way, way better right. You have at the top. Knicks way better. Philly is going to be better. Miami is still kind of lurking. Milwaukee is still kind of lurking. Cleveland, Orlando are sitting there like it's, it's just not going to be the same. And then the celtic sale is, is a pretty interesting added piece to this because that thing's going to move fast. I don't think people realize how fast that's going to go like that.

It's going to be November. That team's going to be sold. Wow. That's what I think. I think it will be mid November. The process is in the middle of it right now. They're finishing their books. They get the books out to the prospective buyers, kind of have a sense of who the buyers are, what it is, and it's, is this going to be the Pagluka group that wins? It is going to be an outside group. If it's an outside group, those people are all bringing in their own people. So now you have this organization that felt like it was probably in the safest spot of any of the 30 teams. Right. They had the most continuity. They have people that have been there 1520 years. They're at the finals thinking like, this is great, man. We have this nucleus. We're all here. We have so much continuity. And then all of a sudden there's going to be this sale and the league wants 6 billion for it, which I talked about on a pod, I don't know, last month, and they wanted to tie the expansion stuff. So the league's going to be really pushing.

They're going to be pushing buyers. They're going to be turning over every stone. And it's just a lot of uncertainty for a team that should feel like they're in an awesome place. They just won the title, this is great. And instead they might have a new owner in like December. I think they're going to. And wick's done this thing about how it's going to be this staggered thing, and I'm still going to be in charge. Like, I don't know, man. I'm not signing up for that one. Like, for that being true, because we just watched that happen with Cuban. I'm going to run the basketball operations. We saw it in the finals that the new people are running the Mavericks at the finals. The new people do not want the old people around. And that's going to happen, I think, with the Celtics. So whoever buys this team, if it's not the Pag Luca group, that's just a giant, giant monkey wrench to bring into a title defense season. We have sold the team. Here are the new people. They're bringing their people, and it makes me nervous, but the Tatum piece makes me the most nervous because I don't know what happened to his outside shot, and I don't know if you have any insight on that.

I don't, other than I'm not going to worry about it until it becomes a thing in the NBA for like a month. Um, so let's talk about the sale. Six is the number. I mentioned it over the spring, summer, whenever this broke. Like, that would be the high water mark. I think that's high. I think that's going to turn maybe. Maybe, like a bidding war emerges of such frothiness that we get there. But I've, from what I've heard, that's going to end up being a little high. I agree, but maybe, but maybe. And then you mentioned Padluca. From what I, what I've heard, he's deep in this, obviously. Like, are you rooting for him to get it just for the sake of stability? Is that the best possible outcome for the 2025 Celtics?

I think if you're a fan of it, and I'm going to sound like I'm in the bag for this, I have no horse in the race. I'm just a fan of continuity. And the fact that he's been there this whole time, I think it's super icy with Wick and Pag Luca right now, too, which I don't know whether that affects whether he gets or not, but his son, everybody likes that he went to Duke and it's.

He was there when Tatum was there, was he not?

Yeah. It's a situation where sometimes this can go horribly when it's like, yeah, I'm going to take over and groom my son. And it's, and it's like, oh, my God, the son actually seems like he's pretty good, and the buzz on him is excellent. So, you know, and a lot of the minority owners that are tied to the Pagluka team or the, the people that, a lot of them are already there. So from a continuity standpoint, that feels the best. I'm with you. I think the six seems high because you don't have the arena.

But if the arena situation is a disaster for the Celtics, it's a disaster.

And it's not a disaster because their lease goes to, like, 2034, and that's plenty of time to build your own thing. I thought some of the stuff Cuban has said recently I thought was really instructive and interesting about how when he took over, the NBA was moving to a technology phase in the early two thousands, and that was a huge advantage for him. And then he's like, now we're in a real estate phase, and I'm not as equipped to succeed in that phase as I was in the last one. Now, that might have been part bullshit, because we still. Nobody really fully understands why he sold the Mavericks. I still don't have an answer for that, but I do think he's right. Like, I think what happened with the warriors, wherever they bought the team at a crazy cheap price. Ten tupled it, 20 tupled it, whatever it was. But then realized, we need our own arena. We need everything to fund through us. We need a place that we're the centerpiece of. We can have concerts, we can have all these events, and the real estate of it, all the tax breaks from it is great.

Whoever buys the Celtics is going to have to think that way. And there's a bunch of good locations that they came up with during the Olympics, when they had the Olympics bid for 5 seconds. There's spots to do it. You're just gonna have to pay money and greet some people. One of the groups that I think is possibly involved is the group that brought the Olympics, that the bid that fell through. They're, you know, construction, building people, but I don't know how it's gonna play out. There's always a casino option. The casino is super successful there, and I don't know if the win group has the pockets. I don't think they do. But it could be stem with somebody else. They want to build an arena next to the casino. But the point is, anything you read or hear about this, other than some people circling it, which, like I talked about the Bezos thing, there's people circling, but nobody's going to know until they send the books out and they get the process going. And there could be a wild card or two. I would. My bet. If I. If I gave you over under five and a half, would you go over under?

I'd go slightly under, yeah.

I'm thinking five five two to five four range. Yeah, but you know how this goes with rich guys. If two people want it and it starts up and up, and I know.

Pac, same thing with contract extensions on guys like Trey Murphy, the line gets held, and then the deadline approaches. All right, what's an extra 4 million to get this done and keep tremerphy? Okay, fine. Just, boom, done.

And then the other piece is, you know, the stuff with, with Wick and his dad. I. That story is going to come out at some point. I don't think the right version of this story has come out yet, but I think that's been the biggest head scratcher of this whole thing because, you know, the IRV, the legend, like, rich guy legend all time, like, great businessman, just revered and made one of the great investments of all time. And that's somehow sometimes how these guys think, you know, where that's like, I 20 tupled my investment. I am disciplined with this. It's time to get out. They have Epstein, who I think owns 15% of the team. I assume he's going to sell because he did his job. He 20 tupled the investment. He's going to get the fuck out. So it's a lot. My point is, it's a lot of flux with the Celtics team, that this should be a happy thing. They're defending the title we should have, and instead there's five variables already.

So that's what I'm worried about, the basketball stuff. I'm just going to assume that Tatum will be Tatum and this will all just be a random slump, blip on the radar, whatever. The disease of me, the disease of more. I can't remember which one it is because I think it's disease of.

I call it disease of Moore, but then some other people say me?

I just don't, you know, I hadn't even thought about that with them because who wants more? Like, Tatum and Brown already get a ton. White and Holliday are unselfish and have been paid and just play the way they do. Porzingis is just out there to shoot threes. They play this and post up switches like we saw in the, in the finals when he went bananas over. Over all the Mavericks defenders in game one. And they play this five out, fast moving system that just seems to lend itself well to ball movement. And Tatum and Brown still get their 25 plus a game. I just didn't think about that for them. I didn't think about that for. Ziggas is hurt, but they still have Horford, Cornette Keda, who's pretty good.

He's gonna be. Is he 40 yet? It's like 35. Like, how many ageless.

Ageless.

What's a realistic minute limit for him? Yeah, look, they have white and holiday, who, if they aren't the two most unselfish guys in the league? They're in. They're in the first team all NBA for whatever list that is. You have Horford. Same thing. Um, there's a lot of the. Joe Missoula, I think, had an awesome second year. And I think even when Tatum was struggling during Olympics, Missoula flew out to France to. To kind of make sure everything was okay. Like, that guy's locked in, knows his roster. I think the jump he made from year one to year two has been astounding. People love that dude, you know, going for the days of my dad, and I called him second row Joe. Like, he's been amazing. There was a list of some, some website had a list of the 30 best coaches. And he was like, 11th. It's like, how is this dude 11th? They. They just won 80 games in a season.

I'm worried about. I had him third coach of the year.

Anyway, I'm worried about the Tatum thing. I want to see him. You know, I talked about this on the pod last month, but. But going back and watching his shot as a rookie versus where it is now with this hitch that he has, and I. Eddie Johnson had a theory that maybe he put on too much weight, which has happened with NBA. Too much muscle. And sometimes guys get muscle and it kind of changes how they shoot. But I just. It got to the point of the Olympics. I mean, he was zero for 16 from outside. That's.

You couldn't make a stat.

He could not. They couldn't play him. That was the reason he wasn't playing. So anyway, what do you have for the next one?

We can go in a number of different directions for this one, depending on kind of what team you want to hit. I just kind of want to talk about this team, so I'll pretend they were higher on my list. I got a lot of small worries about Minnesota. That adds up to me just being like, all of the signs should point to Minnesota being a very sensible finals picked. Conference finals broke through. Beat Denver on the road in game seven. Great series from towns, at least shooting wise in that series. Made big shots. Shot 40% from 350 percent from the field against the juggernaut, the defending champion, the team we all picked to win the west last year. Yeah, they lose the conference finals. There's the Lucas shot in Rudy's face. Just bad series. Towns is bad again, whatever. But everything's descending upwards. They have the ascendant young superstar in the NBA in Anthony Edwards, a guy who wants all the smoke in crunch time. Exactly the kind of player you want handling the ball late. Every. Everything's pointing up, and yet I just. I just get a little. I just have a little anxiety.

I have anxiety about everyone in their rotation after their top seven guys. So they have a good, great starting lineup. Then they have Nas Reid, six man of the year, and Nikhil Alexander Walker. And after that, it's the kids and Joe Ingalls. That makes me a little nervous. Like, I'm counting on the kids.

Done for three years. Yeah, well, he's got.

And you can talk. You can talk me into Joe angle shot 43% last year. He's got great pick and roll chemistry with Rudy. That's cool. Mike Conley is 37 on opening night, will be 37 by opening night. They can kind of get lost offensively when he's not on the floor and he's 37.

And they're relying on the lottery pick for the other minutes.

Talk about weird summers. Talk about weird summers. Rudy Gobert got benched by France and, and made fun of by pretty much everyone who has a platform in the NBA. I mean, it's a little ridiculous, but. And was, was the Rudy cat fit? Was that real last year? The offense still wasn't great. By the way. He's eligible for an extension right now. Is that going to be a thing? It's like, I still think the steak can make the finals. They should get far in the playoffs. I'm just. I guess what I'm saying is I'm more worried is too strong a word. I'm more cautious about Minnesota than everything about their timeline suggests that I should be.

You made a great case. I wrote down the year after where they had this great breakthrough moment. And sometimes we see in the league that you almost have to take a step back before you then make the next step forward. Ant Mania in 2024. I'm concerned about, like, he's gonna be the star of this Netflix show. I'm sure he's gonna be in a bunch of commercials. He's gonna be all over the place. He's a real attraction. I think he can handle it, but I wanna see it. Is Gobert playable at this point against certain teams? Did the league kind of unlock how to attack him? And then Towns, you know, Towns is almost 30 at this point. He kind of is who he is. They're relying on that lottery pick, dealing him to actually play big minutes. I really like him, and our college guys were big fans of his, but he's still a rookie trying to create a rookie. He's a rookie hard conference, and they're going to have a bullseye on them, and they're not going to be take them to anyone by surprise. So that would be the case.

So I have a bunch of things that, like, I'm more worried about than I'm. Like, I'm more worried about the heat than I am about the Timberwolves. I'm more worried about Zach Levine's future, whatever it is, than I am about the timber. So I just wanted to talk about the timber. I'm more worried about the Suns than the Timberwolves, but I wanted to talk about Minnesota, so I elevated them.

I think as basketball fans, it would just be. It would hurt the most that the Timberwolves weren't as fun as they probably should be this year. Like, the heat, they had their run, and it might be I had them down, you know? Um, for all the reasons you would think. But I think with, uh, Minnesota, I think we're kind of counting on them. I think the league's counting on them. I think the league is really counting on it. Um, and you could feel it during the Olympics. He's got the respect of the older guys, which is really important. Um, and I think for people like my son, he turned into a guy, like, casual NBA fans under 20 are like, I like this guy. This is my guy. I'm. I'm adopting him as, like, for, you know, my not. Not on my favorite team guy. I'm going to go with, let's take one more break, and then I have a double pick. I'm going with both LA teams, Zach.

Just. Just lumping them. Lumping them together.

There's a world where they're. Neither of them are playoff teams. I think if you were going to isolate it, if you made me pick between. Who are you more worried about? Just the Clippers launching this new arena that by all accounts is incredible. And they're launching around a guy who doesn't play and a guy who doesn't play defense. And it's like, come see us. Or JJ Reddick, who I think is in the least enviable coaching situation of anybody in a long time. I guess Missoula, after Emma got fired, that was tough. Like, holy shit, you talk about being thrown in the fire.

Wait, wait a second. Just ask your old podcast buddy, Doc Rivers. There's nothing worse than taking over a teammate.

I wouldn't wish that upon anybody. I know.

It's. I can't. Following Adrian Griffin in the middle of a season for a team with Giannis and Dame, I just can't imagine a worse fate.

Yeah, well, JJ might have a worse fate. This. This team's going to be. Cause what happened is you have LeBron and ad who had ten weeks off for the Olympics. Basically had to play in six games. Played really well, and I was guilty of it. I said it after the gold medal game. It's like, shit. When you watch these guys play at this level, it makes you think, like, why can't the Lakers put a championship team around him? And then afterwards, I was like, why did I say that? Because part of this league is you got to play for nine months. It can't be like, hey, we got to ramp up for six games. You gotta ramp up for 95.

And also, their fifth starter. Their fifth starter is not Devin Booker.

Right. Right. And they don't have, like, all NBA guys coming off the bench. The brownie thing is gonna be super weird. It just is. It's gonna be a story day after day after day. On top of the fact that if this team doesn't do that well.

Wait, wait, wait. What? But what? Like, do you think that continues to be true?

Yes.

If and when he's just in the G League and he's over here and, like, we're not talking about the South Bay Lakers on NBA today, or maybe we will be. I don't know. Like, do you think it remains a thing?

Do we think he's going to be in the G league?

I I would think so. I would think for.

I think JJ guaranteed contract.

That's fine. I I will be very surprised if he doesn't spend part of the season at the g league.

Listen, you get clicks and you get paid views. If you put any story with Bronny in it for basically from the preseason on, that's just how it's going to go. You saw a glimpse of it in summer league, and then that's how it's going to keep going. And if he's not playing for the first ten days, then that becomes a story. Is brawny? Is JJ burying brawny?

He's 100% playing in the opening game so that they can have a moment together. Like, right. That hat, that's going to happen. Like, so they pass to each other, whatever it ends up being.

It's. It's one of the coolest NBA situations we've had, and it's also going to be one of the weirdest because, like, imagine being on the team. Like, we saw a glimpse that there was already grumblings about the summer league team, about how everything was built around trying to get Bronnie to succeed, and some of the other guys are like, what the fuck? Um, I just think it's going to be a story. I'm going to try to avoid the story as much as possible because I don't really care. I think the more interesting thing to me is what does LeBron have? Is he even a playoff guy anymore? Can you play enough games? Can he play more than 55, 60 games in a season with all the miles he has? Will ad, ever be that healthy again? Is there going to be a difference between Darvin Ham and JJ as a coach, was Darvin a scapegoat for last year? The Laker fans were out on him. Palinka was out on him. But really, what, what were you going to do with that roster anyway? It was pretty, pretty strange. So there's that. And then the Clipper side is just, you know, it's a team built around Kawhi Leonard and James Harden, who are in their mid thirties, though.

Who do you think will have a better record of the two if you had to pick?

It's a great question. I probably would pick the Clippers because of their role. Guys that now. Now I don't know. I don't know. Who would you.

I pick it. I would pick the Lakers. I'm good. I would.

Because if LeBron plays 60 games, it's probably the Lakers, right? They'll go like 43 and 39. Well, it. Does either of those teams have a chance to win 46 games?

Yeah, I think the Lakers do. Really? I don't. Yeah, I think they do. I think those two guys, if they have health like they did last year, which is a big if, I think those guys are. Are that good.

Well, how about the flip side of the question? Which team has a little basement? It's the Clippers.

Oh, like the glass half.

The glass half empty version of the Clipper season is like, the glasses actually empty.

Yeah, you. The glass has smashed. My daughter threw the glass off the table and it smashed on the floor.

The glasses smashed. People are stepping on it. There's blood and Sam Prestige just in the corner with a broom going, I'll clean that up for you.

Hey, I am pessimistic about the Clippers. I've been pessimistic about the Clippers since the offseason unfolded the way it did. I still don't really understand what they did with Paul George. I saw Ty, God bless ty lu. He's a great coach and he's, he had, you know, in a story that we had om young Masook had it about, like, I can't wait to prove everybody wrong. I'm like, cool. I don't see it. So I will be one of the people that you prove wrong. If you indeed win more than 40 games or whatever if you're a 500 or if you're better than 500. I just don't, I don't see it. Well, the why we'll get hurt from.

The Olympics was rough.

Kawhi will miss games and harden with a bunch of okay players around him. I just don't see it. The Lakers, I think what's not being talked about about the Lakers in all the focus on bron and ad and bronze age and can they stay healthy to the degree they were last year? And then the brawny thing and the JJ thing. The Lakers depth terrifies me, but I like, I like their starting five. I'm not a D low guy, but I still like their starting five. I think it works. D low Reeves rui Lebron ad. Assuming that JJ starts that lineup, which he should, who's, who do you trust after that? Like, after that, it's Gabe Vincent, who missed basically all of last season, and then a bunch of guys who are either totally unproven or proven to be guys that probably should be at the very back of your rotation if they're helped. Like, even Jared Vanderbilt, who lake our fans love. Okay, like, can we fast forward to the point where he gets played off the floor in a playoff series? Like, after that, after him, it's like Jackson, Hayes, Dalton, Connect, Hood, Shafino, Max Christie, who I'm optimistic about, has proven nothing in the NBA there.

So everyone focuses on LeBron and ad. I think he is going to play, but he's got to earn minutes. You got a, you got a decent contract. Like, everyone focuses on LeBron and ad. I'm like, man, if Austin Reeves misses 20 games, I like who's taking those minutes? That's what, that's what scares me more about the Lakers almost, than the fact that LeBron is about to turn 40 years old.

Well, you didn't even mention the other hallmark of these LeBron teams is if it starts out slow, everyone's in trade rumors by thanksgiving. And then it's just, we're just in trade. Rumor season with the Lakers from, I would say thanksgiving all the way through till we actually had the trade deadline. And every guy on that team is, except for maybe ad is not safe.

And they have the two picks to trade. They have connect, who would have trade value, though. They love him and JJ. JJ's already drawn up plays on the whiteboard during the draft for Dalton. Connect, which is cool. He can really shoot. I don't know who the guy is that they're, that they're you know, putting all those chip, putting some of those chips in for. I've kind of joked before or said before, like, I think Jeremy Grant makes some sense for them just because I don't think, like, that.

I don't win them the title well.

But I don't think when Portland gets religion, I don't think the cost of Jeremy Grant is going to be that high. I don't think they're getting this, like, mother load for Jeremy Grant that they think they should get. And so when the cost gets to a point where the Lakers can meet it, but then you're going to have to trade, like, a real salary or two to get there, and I don't know who that is. Like, that, the late, that the Lakers could, it's not like you could just trade Rui Hachimura. It's like, oh, this guy's a meaningless $18 million. No, he's like a starter on your team that you need. So I don't know what the move is. Like you can sit here and talk about at any of the potentially distressed star players that want out or borderline star players. I don't know that any of them are available or even helped the Lakers that much like Zach Levine, changing your life as a Lakers, if they could even mechanically do that trade, it's not.

Really, I mean, really, the move would be to go the other way because I don't think they have any chance of winning a title with this team. You go the other way and you shop Davis, but they're just not going to do that.

See, I have, I. I don't think they can win the title. I don't think they're a contender, really. But they will say, like, no chance.

To win the title.

I have so much respect for LeBron and ad that you put them up against pretty much any team in the west in a, in one playoff series. Like, yeah, they could steal this series. Like, they could do a round.

Yeah.

Yeah, they could, man. Even like, last year. Now, this is a totally different Thunder team that I think is going to be a juggernaut. But remember last year, all the buzz was like, oh, the Thunder, Dave. The Lakers would really be a dangerous opponent. And for the Thunder, I would have picked the Thunder in that series. But that's neither here nor there. Like, you just like, they'll just steal some games and then they'll steal a series. But I keep saying this on tv. It's a boring, it's a boring take winning three playoff series or two playoff series, whatever it is. Is just such a much different animal than scrounging your way to four wins one time. Like, it's just so hard to do.

It's the same issue. The world. Yeah.

It takes so much endurance. It takes so much stamina. It takes so much depth. Like, I just don't see any world in which they can do that as presently constructed.

I guess the big disappointment for me the last few years is I just don't feel like ESPN was covering the Lakers. Do you think maybe they'll do more content in the Lakers this year, or is it just going to be like it was last year?

I'm going to predict we do a little bit less content on the Lakers, but maybe not. I don't know.

Um, what do you have for your next pick?

I can go. I can go anywhere with this one. Um, should we talk about Julius Randall? Maybe? How about that?

They were going to be my last pick, so let's do it.

Like, what, what's going to happen with that? None of the diversions.

Don't want to hear it. They don't want to hear it.

Well, because I don't think it's something that's going to, like, derail this team that's destined for greatness or something, but it's a big piece of their team who, one way or another, they need talent. And he's talent, and he can score and he can get buckets. He improved in a million different ways last season before he got hurt. I love the way he was playing off of Brunson. A little more active defensively, a little more active as a passer and off the ball, but he's a $29 million salary slot that they either need his talent or down the line. Not thinking beyond this year, that needs to turn into something, and I don't know what the answer to it is. And, you know, just anytime you go into a season where a guy's eligible for extension, he doesn't get it, he's going to be a free agent. Likely as a result is, and he's been a two time all NBA player on your team, a really, really good player. That is just a thing that you have to monitor.

There's that he's going to be in trade rumors if they start out ten and eight or whatever. There's also the, I'm not sure who their finishing five is. And whoever gets left out is probably going to be like, what the fuck.

Could change night tonight, right?

Brunson, Bridges, and Nanobi are all out there. Randall Hart, defensenzo Mitchell Robinson, two of those four, depending on the matchup defense, who is awesome last year, who now might be a 20 minutes a game guy. It's like, what the fuck, man? I was out there killing it for you guys. Now I'm basically coming off the bench Eddie Howe style. I'm just monitoring it. It's something I've been teasing my Knicks fan friends around a lot. I also think they're, you know, not rocket science. They're really going to miss Hardenstein. He was super important for them last year and provided something that they no longer have in any capacity. I don't trust Mitchell Robinson stay healthy at all. I think he might be a worse health bet than Embiid.

They will, they will address this center thing one way or another. It may, this may, it may be via trade. It may end up having to involve Randall. But I don't, I don't know, I don't, I don't even know what to expect.

Speaker one as many centers I keep because you hear this New Orleans too. It's like, oh, well, they'll get a center. It's like who go through the 30 rosters? What center are they getting? You want Deandre Ayton.

Dominating. I like Robinson and Achua as a platoon. I think that's fine if they, this is where the Bridges trade. I think an under discussed element of it is he's a big talent injection in terms of just all around talent, including offensive creativity, like what he did in Brooklyn at least the first half year he was there. He fell off a little last year that was like legit secondary creator on a good team stuff. If that carries over, they have a little more leeway in terms of what they can get. Like you mentioned Hardenstein and what they can't replace from him. Defensively, he was amazing, but his passing, his floater game, he was a release valve for them offensively that they in theory should need less with McHale Bridges there as a secondary, third creator, whatever. And Tibbs. There was a Q and a with Tibbs today on NBA.com comma, where he cracked the door open to playing Randall at the five more.

I think they're going to have to.

And the reason, and this is something Nick's fans have talked about, is Ananobi is so good at guarding above his size that he can actually be the five on defense. So Randall doesn't have to guard the big centers of the world. And maybe that's the way this door finally gets unlocked and that changes their minutes patterns for everybody that way. In a way that might make sense. I think the Knicks are going to be awesome. Like, I really love this team.

I cannot wait to watch them. I'm with you. I'm nitpicking on possible ways that could go wrong. But one thing I like is that there we always talk about how teams feel like they have to do this, need to finish their team in July and this is a team that they're going to start the season. They're going to be totally fine. Their defense is going to be really good. They have one of the ten best offensive players in the league, maybe even higher than that in Brunson. You can kind of move along and see what's missing and then what? By the time we get to January, maybe, maybe you'll know. I. I'm really excited to watch bridges and in and over together and I think they're going to be. I think the Celtics Knicks games this year are going to be fucking awesome. This is like, if you're building a team, it's exactly the two guys you would want to throw at. Tatum and Brown.

You know, I thought they were the second best team in the east last year. I said it basically the whole season, especially after and obey. I think they were the biggest threat to Boston last season. Boston is never going to have a play like the fact that Boston got through the east without playing any of New York, Philadelphia and Milwaukee. And I know all those teams were injured. That's just an incredible run of matchup. Whatever. Not luck. It's not luck. It's just like the chances of that happening. We talk about these four teams all season long and one team wins the east and doesn't have to play any of the others is just crazy.

Crazy. I actually looked up, I was trying to see what the biggest wind drops were for any finals team who won more than 64 games with 64 or higher. It was the 2008 Mavs dropped 16 games from zero seven when they were like 67 and 15, whatever. And then the warriors, the we believe.

Warriors just broke them.

74 Celtics. Oh, that team didn't make the finals. The 2001 Lakers was 1192, Bulls was 1014, Heat was twelve and the 84 sixers dropped by 13. So the Celtics won 64. I think even if you're going super pessimistic and Porzingis doesn't come back till February, them dropping in the mid fifties is just historically, unless there was a major injury about as low as it could possibly drop. So my point is like, for the one seed, I wonder what the Knicks have to get to to actually challenge the Celtics. Cause I'm just super dubious to the poor Zingis thing when they throw out December. I don't you, when you hear this stuff now, don't you just add like four to six weeks when you hear a date like that?

So, yeah, especially when you have the luxury of the talent that the Celtics are going to have. Like, there's no need to rush back. By the way, what was the most stressful segment of a playoff game for you as a Celtics fan last year? Was there ever a moment you were, like, legitimately tense.

When they blew game four the way they did, even though I thought they were better than Dallas. But the poor Zingis injury, having no idea what to expect from him. There was part of me wondering, what happens if Luca just scores like 29 in the first half here in game five and it becomes one of those, like, 2012 Celtics Miami game six LeBron situations where the best part on the court just is awesome in the first half. And now we're down 18 heading into halftime with the thought of going back to Dallas. I remember walking around that day, I did like a three and a half hour power walk all around Boston. I just. The nervous energy of like, I just don't want to fucking go back to Dallas. And I think everybody felt that way and you could feel it in the building. And then when they came out and Porzingis looked pretty good. I mean, what Porzingis did in that game, it's going to slip through the cracks of history, but that was incredible. The guy, guy just had a surgery that's going to take him out six to eight months, and he played on it and was pretty effective, especially in the second half.

So I think that's for me, his.

Game wonde was an all time, just, just bonkers crowd moment to, like, coming out into the arena late. Crowd goes crazy, and then he just. It was the best stretch of his entire career. He was blocking shots, hitting trail trees, dunking on people, blocking dunks. I can't. There's one team that I cannot believe we haven't talked about.

What is it, the Suns?

Is it too obvious?

I actually, I isolated the Suns into just Kevin Durant because that's. What else are you going to worry about? Well, we're at this. I feel like this is it for him as an elite guy and a good team, just with the age he's at, with some of the injury history he's had. And you can make excuses for the last couple years in all these different ways, but it was a bed that he bought and chose to lie in and, you know, was responsible for just about all the decisions for it. But now that, the fact that they got Tyus Jones on top of having to play all together for a year, the fact that Booker and KD had that Olympic experience together, the fact that the west. None of us know what to make of the west. OKC is clearly the regular season favorite, but I have no idea who's in play for number two. And then just like, where his career is, I feel like he needs one more awesome season. Cause it shouldn't take the Olympics for him playing well to people like, oh, I forgot Kevin Durant was this good. It kind of felt like he had fallen into that hole, right.

He'd become a. I forgot he was this good guy. And just as a lifelong Durant fan, I would love to see him have an awesome year and I'd love to see the Suns be good, but I don't know if realistic.

So you said something interesting in there, which is you have no idea who to pick for the number two seed in the west, which goes back to how we opened this episode where I was like, the most interesting thing to me is everything below Oklahoma City and the regular season standings in the west. Because I, like you can put all you can say, all these teams are the clear top four. I just don't think it's going to unfold that way and there's going to be an interloper from below somewhere. We've talked about Memphis. I think the Suns are maybe being underrated a little bit as one of those potential interlopers because of the bad taste, the playoff, just obliteration by Minnesota. I mean, they were awful. There's no way around it. Minnesota destroyed them, bullied them, made them look helpless. They won 49 games last year despite the big three, barely even, not even getting, I don't think, to half a season in games played together well. Every team's got to have a. Like their three best guys. Whatever.

Durant, Booker, and I'm out. I never want to hear the word big three again. Now putting Bradley Beal in a big three is just offensive to big two.

And Bradley Beal playing only. Thank you. Only like half a season together, they won 49 games. That's a lot of games. They upgraded a point guard. That's a meaningful thing. They brought back Royce O'Neill, Mason Plumley's legit backup center. Like they nailed the offseason. Given what they had to work with, I think they're going to be a pretty goddamn good regular season team. My concern is just how small they are and I just don't know how you create a good enough defense out of this roster. We didn't even mention bud. That's a, that's a huge hire for them, but is a really good regular season coach. He's a good coach, period. And he's been an even better defensive coach than offensive speaker three.

Motivated, but he's motivated.

He's ready. I think they're a dangerous, like, oh, we could like the Suns are the three seed. That's interesting. The Suns are like two games out of the two seed with two weeks left to play. I think that's totally in play.

The Suns are 23. I can't believe they started out this hot.

Could see 23.

I don't know, but like, if we had like a weirdo 1st 20 game team, they're definitely one of the candidates.

But I just don't know how sustainable it is. Over, like you said, the number of games it takes to make a legit, deep playoff run and I don't know defensively, just how, how they raise their ceiling to a level. They're going to need it to be well.

And then the, how much they're leaning on Durant to be a two way guy at this. I mean, Durant, that, oh, seven draft, were you, were you even writing basketball in zero seven?

No, no.

Like think how long ago that was. My son wasn't even born during the 2008 seven draft and he just drove out of my driveway this morning. That's how old Kevin Durant is and has some injury stuff on him, too. I felt bad for him with the foot on the line. What was the foot on the line thing where everybody.

There was a football. Something happened in football.

Yeah, the first football game of the year and Isaiah likely's foot was on the line. It was like, oh, here we go with 24 hours of Durant stuff. But everyone had the same thought and that became his legacy in Brooklyn. Was that his? And by the way, his foot was. I went back and watched it. His foot was really in the line. Have you gone back and watched that game ever?

No, I would like to at some point.

It's a fascinating one because they basically have the game in regulation. If they can just make one more play and they can't and it gets to OT and Katie's just dead at that point and they can't get any more offense and. But I'd kind of forgotten. I've been watching. I always do this during the summer. I watch some old games just to get my brain ready for the season. But also, I was on an airplane on Saturday and they were running 2006 game six, Miami Dallas for the finals, a game that I don't think I've watched since I wrote about it. And it was riveting. And you can't believe how many mysteries there were, how many just wide open guys just bricking. It's like there's Jason Williams for three that's off the mark, Gary Payton from three off the mark and just people bricking threes. But Alonzo mourning was the key to that game. Came in, he blocked like five shots and was like a maniac. And Wade was incredible. And then I went on a whole wade kick, and I'm like, you know, Wade's the most underrated star of the 21st century. That's where I circled back on JetBlue at, on a Saturday night.

Are you tired? Are you, like, tapping the guy next to being like, well, maybe there was nobody Wade? Yeah. Like, true. Like, Dwayne Wade, most underrated. Not even, not even proper.

Not. He was, he got to the free throw line like 20 times. But the part I forgot was, they're up three. They foul Wade, he misses both free throws. Dallas gets the ball back for another three, and Terry misses and Miami wins. But that, that Miami team was like, it's just a team we'll never see again, where it's Antoine Walker, Udonis Hasam, who's awesome in that game. Morning and Shaq, they're just playing like big guys everywhere. With Dwayne Wade, they get washed up. Gary Payton, it's just a team that resembles no team we would watch in 2024.

So let's talk about the foot on the line game for a few again, because it's framed as this ultimate what if moment. And I think the assumption baked into that framing is that, well, if that's a three, the Nets win the series, and the Nets then win the championship. And if they win the championship, what does that mean for this hardened Kyrie Durant core that then flames out so spectacularly just a season later? And I get why that it's framed that way, because the next round, they're going to play the Hawks, who are this upstart. Like, how did the Hawks get here? Oh, that's right.

Yeah, they're going to be the Hawksley.

And then the next round is the Suns, who are just kind of like, surprise, not surprised, but like, they just got way better than people expected, way faster. But, but people, I think, just, just skip a little bit, just screwed on by the fact that Kyrie was out with an ankle injury. Remember he landed on Middleton's foot. I think he was. He wasn't in that game. Is he, is he coming back? And Harden was playing on one leg and give him a ton of credit. He was giving them everything he had. He was huge in game six to get that to game seven.

Playing on one, Joe Harris was basically dead.

That was the other, not making a lot. So what state are the Nets in if they do get through that series? And do they have enough to win eight more playoff games against opponents that. Yeah, no one is going to really remember the, you know, that Hawks team.

I never thought of it as the Nets title because the title probably already went out the window when those guys all got hurt. To me, it was a Durante legacy.

Just the Durant thing.

Just the what ifs of that career, which I think he probably has the most what ifs of anybody because there's an alternate universe where he's in year 18 of on the Seattle Supersonics and he's the most popular athlete in Seattle history. There's the what if at the Clay Thompson game. There's the what if.

I can't go down this one with you.

I can't.

There's just two. It just never ends.

2019, he is the best player in the league and it's not close. And he's tearing through the playoffs when he just gets hurt in that clipper game and then the 21 thing with the foot in the line, which, if he had beaten the bucks by himself, that would have been. That would have been amazing. That would have. You wouldn't have been able to say shit about him. So, yeah, it's, you know, I'm obviously been accused of being a Durant defender, and I'll admit to it, I think his. I don't think there's ever been a forward like him. And I just think his career, some of it self inflicted.

One of a kind.

One of a kind and just terrible bad luck. And then we watch them in the Olympics and people are like, oh, Kevin Durant is amazing. It's like, yeah, he's been amazing this whole time. Anyway, we are going to take this to your podcast. I think in two weeks, something like some other gimmick by then, camp will.

Be going on, media day will happen. Brandon Ingram trades I'm saying there's no Brandon Ingram trade by then.

If you were Denver, you wouldn't. You wouldn't have at least a meeting about Porter for Brandon Ingram. You wouldn't get the staff together. Hush, hush. Just be like, can we talk to.

I would get the staff together.

I think that's a. Get the staff together, at least.

What about the pelicans?

You. You bought. You have that with the Zion injury possibility. I don't know. I kind. I kind of like Porter.

We all know what Ingram needs to do to be. To be functionally a number two or number three on a great team, which is just shoot more threes and play a better defense. And, like, that's just like, he doesn't. Hasn't played that way in the last couple of years. He plays like. Like DeRozan and Durant and Kobe and the mid range gods, which is just not quite at that level offensively. Although he's really, really good. I think he's actually become a little underrated because the most recent memory of him is just getting smothered by the thunder coming right off of an injury. And I think branding was pretty goddamn good. But yet he's got to. Even if he stays on the Pelicans, he's got to do those things, and we just haven't seen that stuff anyway.

He's a fear of me, of mine, as with the Miami Heat, because I just feel like they're sitting there waiting that they purposely did nothing. They're just kind of sitting there, and they could go in 19 different directions, including in the tank, where all of a sudden butler's unhappy.

How bad do the Heat traders get? And I'm not saying the Heat are going to be bad. I said last week on my podcast, like, I think the Heat are even a little better than people giving them credit for, but I'm just, from your standpoint, when do you stop being scared of the heat? Of if they're like, five and 30 years?

It's like the Friday the 13th part nine movie where you're still kind of scared of voorhees. He's got, like, a potbelly. His head's been chopped off twice now. I'm still. I'm still a little afraid of him. Plus, they still have bam.

I'm not saying you shouldn't be afraid of this. I just feel like you're very scarred by the heat Celtics battles of the past 15 years.

I still cannot believe tatum sprained his ankle on the first play of that game. Seven. I just want to know what the alternate universe is. If he doesn't sprain his ankle in that game, what happens?

Bummer of a game was a bummer.

Bummer of a game.

All right. Yeah. We'll do this again in a couple of weeks on the old low post.

Zach Lowe, great to see you. Glad all as well. Can't wait to see on ESPN talking about the Lakers. I'm sure there'll be some segments and I'll see you on your podcast in a couple of weeks.

No comment. See you soon.

All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Zach Lowe. Thanks to Steve Cerude and Kyle Crane for producing. As always. Don't forget, subscribe to the Bill Simmons YouTube channel and you can watch clips and complete episodes from this podcast. New rewatchables as well. John Wick, you can listen to it. You can watch it on the movies YouTube channel. I will see you on this feed on Thursday. Must be 21 plus and president select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and president DC gambling problem. Call 100 Gambler or visit rgh dash help.com, call 188-78-9777 or visit ccpg.org chat in Connecticut or visit md gamblinghelp.org. in Maryland, hope is here. Visit Gambling helpline ma.org or call 803 2750 50 for 24/7 support Massachusetts or call 18778 HOPE NY or text Hope NY in New York.