Transcript of Game 7 Fever in OKC, NBA Lottery Reform, and a Mega-Mailbag With Rob Mahoney, David Jacoby, and Joe House New

The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. The Conference Finals finally is here. We are down to 4 teams. Think you know it'll go down? Take your shot with FanDuel. Get closer to the action. And as you know, I've been telling you for years, FanDuel, the best place to bet the teams, players, and plays during the NBA postseason. Build the same game parlay. For a shot at a better payout, or try live betting and jump into the action after tip-off, or just follow me and my picks because every once in a while I'll put them on social. Download the FanDuel Sportsbook app right now and play your game. 21+ select states or 18+ DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER, call 888-789-7777, or visit ccpg.org/chat. Connecticut. It is Bill Simmons Podcast. We are live on Netflix. Rob Mahoney is here. We're coming right after a game that I'm frankly shocked by the result. I'm not shocked San Antonio won, Rob.

Yeah.

I'm shocked that it was a blowout, especially at halftime. It felt like they hung around, hung around, hung around, hung around, and we were gonna have this awesome second half. But my first question to you, so game 1 of this series, game 1 of, of Knicks-Cavs, which was that awesome Brunson game, the comeback, and it was just basketball bliss for 20, 24 straight hours. We haven't had a good basketball game since. Cousin Sal's plus— Cousin Sal is that 9.5-point thing that he does where it's 9.5-point favorites. I bet 7 straight 9.5-point favorites cover, and we just had bad basketball. So what happened? Did we just— we paid all the taxes for those 2 games and that's it?

I think some of the games in this series have been better than the final score. We're at least getting like 3 really high, like well-played quarters often from these teams. They're just one critical stretch in which one or the other pulls away. But yeah, it does feel like we sold our souls or something. Like we paid a, a heavy cost. We got the great weekend of historic basketball and now we just all have to deal with the consequences.

I thought today would be the makeup for all the crappy games we've been watching. But you're right, this is like good bad basketball.

Yeah.

Because there's so much chess going on. To watch San Antonio do this twice to OKC in 3 games basically. I thought, I thought OKC was gonna win tonight, but I thought it was more because of the Cassell-Fox thing, which I just couldn't, I couldn't get that outta my head. How I didn't think Fox looked right the last couple games.

Has not.

And he looked bad tonight. And I didn't, I didn't think Harper looked good either. And then Harper was awesome today. And you think like Wemby had that just, you know, lights out classic Wemby first half. But Harper was the other piece of it and they were still up 7. And if you had told me they're gonna get these two first halves from these two guys, I would've thought they were up 20. Didn't matter. They ended up blowing 'em out in the second half. So what happened? What, what did you think the number one thing was?

Yeah, that's the thing. I think based on the first half, it felt like the Spurs were winning, like technically winning, but the Thunder were hanging around as you mentioned, and they were just like gutting out enough possessions to make you think, yeah, okay, if there's any turn in this game, if there's any change in the momentum, if OKC comes out in the second half and their offense looks any cleaner, then this thing could really break their way. It turned out the opposite was the case, which is the Spurs completely tightened the screws and just, yeah, suffocated all life out of the Thunder offense. And it's been one of these things that's been flying a little under the radar in these playoffs, that the Spurs have just been the single most dominant third quarter team in the entire postseason. And it's a weird thing to think about a young group. We're used to thinking about, you know, the juggernaut Warriors in that capacity, maybe, but I think it's an incredible credit to Mitch Johnson. Like, the Spurs are so young and a bunch of 20-year-olds in like a tough stretch are not going to be able to figure out the tactical adjustments of like exactly how they need to pivot strategically.

But you take a break, you let them reset, you give them a couple of talking points and a little bit of film, and they come out and they just throw like an absolute haymaker against the defending champions. It was amazing to watch in the third.

And you know, the other thing What you just said about San Antonio was true for OKC at the end of these halves. And you could feel it coming in the end of this second quarter. They're just like closers in the last 3, 4 minutes of the second. And it's like, oh, they were up 4, now they're up 18. What just happened? Or they're down 12, now they're down 2. What just happened? And San Antonio kind of rode that off too. I think OKC got it to within maybe 3, but then it ended 7 at halftime, which I thought was big. So in the third quarter, 20-0 San Antonio run. OKC had a 7-minute drought.

Yeah.

Where they went 0 for 14 at one point. There was one point where they were 6 for 26 from 3. I mean, one thing we learned from them last year, if they're not making 3s at all, no, anyone can beat them, especially if, if you're home.

But, and this seesaw has been crazy over the last 4 games. 45%, 18%, 44%, 24%. Like that is, a wild level of like erratic offense when Shay has also just been like really inefficient from the field. And like they, they are reliant on at least one of those things breaking for them to win.

So if I'm, if I'm a fan base here in this game, there's two choices. What am I most nervous about on each side heading into Game 7 after watching these first 6? Because for me, it would be for OKC. I didn't, J Dub didn't exactly instill a ton of confidence in there. AJ Mitchell's just gone. I don't, I don't think we're seeing him again. And that second creator thing, which didn't bother them in game 5, but did bother them in this game. But the 3-point shooting would be the thing that made me nervous. For San Antonio, if I'm a fan of them, it's Fox. And then it's just like, which Wemby am I getting? Cause Wemby was the big winner tonight. He had the makeup for the Game 5, which I still don't know what he was doing in Game 5. He did the, the, uh, the Van Damme hard, hard, uh, hard foul demand at the end of Game 5. Put out the hit, turned into Martin Kove in Karate Kid. Um, and then didn't talk to the media. God forbid you do that. We need your boring quotes. But basically it was awesome this game.

The Spurs are 3-0 when he is awesome in this series. Is it just that simple for the Spurs? Is that what I would not be nervous about if I'm a Spurs fan? This guy is showing up for Game 7. He's the next one.

I think what you would be nervous about is he was awesome in this game, but Oklahoma City took away the vast majority of anything going to the basket. They blew up a lot of the lobs going to Wimby, any like straight line hits in transition they were able to take away. He put up a ton of points because he made a ton of jumpers. And granted, I would never want to be on the other side of that bet. Like, are you willing to bet your season and your title defense on the idea that he won't do that again? Wouldn't be me. But if you're going to play like a gamble here of something, you have to give up something to Victor Wembanyama. And late in a series, if you're the Spurs, you just have to get a little used to settling for whatever is left, right? The other team has schemed away the 3 best things you have going on every possession.

Yeah.

If what's left is Victor Wembanyama shooting over the top of literally anyone in front of him, both from 3, and then we saw him in this game kind of get to some of those like mid-range into the elbow, into like little turnarounds in the paint. If that stuff is gonna be available to him, I think you're fine with it. But it's not the same as, you know, the 97% accuracy of a Victor Wembanyama dunk.

Right, right.

Well, they were doing one thing I noticed, they were trying to set these little sneaky picks for him that would then send him flying down, not for a lob, but just to get near the foul line. So I don't know, that was the one experimentation thing that seemed like it worked a few times. But I just thought it was such a weird OKC performance. Shay, Shay didn't get involved at all in the first quarter. They missed a ton of threes. There were a lot of like Lou Dort threes. I think he took 5 in the, in the first half and they're playing all those hockey lineups and it felt like he never found a lineup that had the right rhythm. And I don't, what, what is your OKC lineup that you like the most? Obviously has Caruso and SGA out there. Do you like when they go 2 bigs? Like what's your favorite of all the options?

I do think it has both bigs and it has Caruso and Shay. I think at this point it is Jared McCain. Like I think J Dub is so limited. You know, he is trying to gut out these like quick bursts of playing time that they're giving him, but when he tried to do something with the ball, it just kind of went nowhere. I don't expect much more than him being a decoy. We've seen like Isaiah Joe get played out of the rotation. Actually, I think Kayson Wallace is a decent option for that fifth spot too. He had like a really ballsy game during the, the really difficult parts of it in particular. And when you're thinking about a Game 7, that's the criteria, right? It's like, Who, who is up for making the absolutely brutal, relentless play that's not gonna look pretty, that's not gonna pan out, that's not like the thing you would script up, but ultimately who can come away with those balls. And I, I'm gonna, I'm gonna change it and go from McCain to Kayson Wallace on that reason alone. I think I, I, I want one more dog in that fight if I'm the Thunder.

What's the ideal Thunder final score of a Game 7? Is it in the 110s? Is it like a 92 to 85? Because if you're going for like your all defense kind of side, then you're gonna see more of Kayson Wallace. I thought he was really good tonight. I mean, he had 2 plays in a row where he just took the ball from the Spurs. He had 3 threes. I would've wanted a little more from him, but I wonder like, do you just do threes, rebounds, bother Wemby, and then just hope SGA gets 30 and you can kind of eke out one of those 99 and 92 type games?

I think like Game 7s almost always turn out that way regardless of what you want. But all 3 Thunder wins have been in the 120s, right? Like, and some of their losses have been among the lowest scoring offensive output games of this entire era in terms of what they're scoring. So it really is a feast or famine thing. And I think a lot of that is Shay who, I mean, he looks so uncomfortable in this game. I can't remember the last time we saw him settle for this many shots. And there's just like a layered deep, like a layered defensive impact where The Spurs are so good at denying him the ball, and you saw it with Castle, but you also see it like Devin Vassell doing it, you know, Champ Penny doing it. Basically anyone who's cross-matched or switched is taking like shaving time off the clock and taking some life out of the Thunder offense right off the bat. Then when Shay does get the ball, he has to chart where Wimby is at all times. He has to be extra careful. And then he ended up with so many like late clock bombs in his hand that he just had to hoist up.

It's I, it, it really is an uncanny thing seeing a guy who's so used to playing at his own pace all the time, playing basically this entire game on somebody else's terms.

I have no feel for the series at all. I think I've picked 5 of the 6 games wrong, and every time I think I have a feel for it, it zags the other way.

Yeah.

And I, this one is like, basically you just have to guess if Wimby's gonna have an awesome game or not. And if he has an awesome game, it just seems like San Antonio is a better team with the OKC injuries. So he's one winner tonight. Devin Vassell.

Fucking love Devin Vassell.

Just for this whole playoffs, I, you want to pigeonhole him as a 3-and-D guy, but I almost feel like he's a 3-and-D plus.

Oh yeah.

Like he's, he's a level over a role player, but he's not an all-star, but he's in that nice, nice zone. One of the things I love about— he should have gotten a tech. It's been a tech all playoffs. They didn't call it tonight, but when he blocked Chet, he shoved him and then talked shit to him, which has been a technical foul this entire year. It's, it's for 20 years. Literally the first time this year they didn't call it because I think the refs are after the Tony Brothers massacre that happened in Game 5, which I was being really— I had legs on after Game 5. I was really careful talking about how I felt about the refs because I just thought it was an apocalypse. But after that, it really felt like the refs were like, hey, we want to let the players decide this one. We don't, we're not here. Just do your thing. But that was a classic Vassell play where he brings a lot of fuck you to their, to their team. I really trust him. I trust him as a number 4 guy.

I don't know how many like movement shooters you could say that about, right? These like skinny, like lithe, lanky guys who are running around ball screens, catching on curls and shooting. He's like, how many 6'5 shooters legitimately play bigger than, than they do all the time in the way that he guarded Chet tonight? He guarded Chet and, and that's not the first like fuck you block he's had on Chet in this series. He comes up with huge defensive plays. He comes up with big time, like contested defensive rebounds. He, he's like the antithesis of the archetype that frustrates me the most. Like the empty stats, like I put up 18 on jump shots, but I give you literally nothing else is like, those are among the most frustrating players for me to watch. Devin Vassell will give you maybe not that kind of scoring output every night, but he does so many other little things all the time that feel instrumental to a series like this one. Yeah.

I always call it like, I don't know, he had 13, 14 and it was a loud 13. Mm-hmm. Right. His points, his performances are loud. And I think Castle's like that too.

Yeah.

Castle's one of those guys you look as like, does he have like 30 points? And it's like, no, he has 16, but he's all over the place. He had 9 assists, I think today too. I think with Facel, he's been thrown in these trades for 2 years, right? It's like, oh, Trey Murphy. Oh, well, if he, if they went after Giannis, well, put him in. He's just always the constant because he's making like $25 million a year. He's good, but you can always feel like you do better. I think he's kind of the perfect fourth guy for them.

Yeah.

I mean, really the issue, if you're thinking about upgrades all summer, With no matter what happens with them, you know, in Game 7 and even in the Finals, Fox is going to be the big question. If they lose this Oklahoma series, he's going to be the one everyone points to and how hurt was he? Was he healthy?

Oh, he's clearly hurt. He's like, he can't really move very well at all.

And seems like he has no lift.

And the Thunder are basically betting like, we don't have to take him off the ball very seriously. Like, we don't really have to respect him in the corner. We don't have to rotate out to him super hard because we don't think he can beat the closeout. If we just put a Lou Dort in front of him, we'll mostly be fine. And they've been pretty much right about that part of things.

Yeah, he doesn't have that little drive into the lane, that little spin move backwards for that 13-footer, the little 13-foot turnaround, just doesn't have the lift anymore. Another winner for the— oh, go ahead.

I was gonna say Harper is a huge part of that too. Like, to the extent that De'Aaron Fox feels expendable, which is a crazy thing to say about a player as good as De'Aaron Fox. I think some of it comes with the fact that Dylan Harper is already so good so quickly, and he's going to have massive expectations on him at all times, I think, because he's one of these guys who you see him just breaking down the best perimeter defenders in the sport one after another.

Yeah.

If you can do that, there's always going to be that tension of like, why can't you do more? Especially coming off of a game like Game 5 where he was invisible. Like, you, you would not recognize his presence in that game. You would have to double-check the box score to make sure he even played it. And then he comes out in a game like this and he's just in front of everybody, turning the corner all the time, looking super aggressive. And I think he can kind of turn that up whenever he wants to. That's the most terrifying thing about him at this stage.

And seems healthy finally.

Yep.

I don't, I didn't feel like he looked like him in 2, 3, 4, and 5. He was awesome in Game 1. He was awesome in this game. Took the spotlight off of Fox, who stunk. Another winner tonight. Garbage time, San Antonio put out the Triple Towers. Olynyk, Biamba, Plumlee.

Yeah, we're waiting.

It was the first time we'd seen that. I didn't even know they would do that. It was almost like in hockey when it's like a 6-2 playoff game and they put out the fourth line with like all the guys can fight and they're just kind of skating around in case anything happens for a couple minutes. That was the vibe I was getting. Nothing happened.

It's a different kind of high drama, but we all escaped unscathed somehow.

Wait, were you surprised how they use Biombo as like a stretch, stretch 7? I don't even know if he's a stretch 5. He's just 25 feet from the basket for no reason.

Given that Bismarck Biombo's in the NBA in 2026, nothing else can surprise me.

It's amazing. Um, another big winner, NBC. They get a Saturday night Game 7. I actually thought their crew, which I think has been pretty up and down because the two Reggie's Reggie and Jamal Crawford feeling it out. But I thought they did a good job tonight. Jamal Crawford, he had a couple great points tonight. Like when he, like J Dub had a turnover, like where he fumbled the ball out of bounds.

I have like this one too.

Yeah. And, and Crawford said, yeah, that's what happens when you're rusty. The, the hardest thing to come back is your ball handling. I'm like, oh, okay, nugget, I'll take it.

It's an incredibly astute point. And we should also say exactly the thing that Jamal Crawford, one of the great ball handlers in history, would say. It's like, yes, your thing would be the to go. But I do think he's right. Like, it is where you feel clumsiest coming back or where you see a player like J Dub just looking a little out of sorts, a little out of rhythm. Like, how can you ask a guy to jump into a series this competitive and this brutal? Like, this was an incredibly physical game. Bodies were hitting the floor all over the place. Not in the Zapruder level analysis of flopping kind of way, but in the like, people are getting—

No, this is a rugby game.

Absolute rugby game. A skirmish and a scrum to get every loose ball. And you're just throwing J Dub out there and being like, I guess see what you can do. It's, it's a lot to ask of him.

That was another reason in the second quarter why I thought OKC was going to come back. Because once the refs were allowing 3 bodies on the ground for half the plays, is that what OKC wants? They have Dort and Caruso and Hardenstein and, and, uh, J-Will. Like that, that sounds great for them. And they have SGA who's good at navigating that stuff. but it turned out to be way better for San Antonio.

Yeah.

I think weirdly AJ Mitchell is a winner. Thought they really missed his ad-lib offense, second ball handler, take the pressure off, off Shaq. 'Cause otherwise you're just looking at Jared McCain who, yeah, you know, who has been, I would say considering for what they gave up on him, like a revelation in these playoffs. But this was a lot doing this in San Antonio against a crazy crowd. They really needed him to be awesome in this game. And you know, he's a second-year guy.

I really do respect with McCain though. I mean, he's a crucial ball handler for them right now, as you mentioned, and he will actually go at Wemby in a way that other guys won't. And he'll just see kind of like, if I bump him just enough, can I get a layup up? Can I get something up on the rim so, you know, Chet or Hardenstein can clean it up? He's aggressive in ways they need him to be aggressive. He's just not quite up to the level of doing that as a driver right now. He's clearly a flamethrower shooter, and we've seen the, like, the Thunder tap into that when they really need it.

Right.

They need the ball handling right now more than they need the shooting.

All right.

So when we think about Game 7, which is 2 days from now, we've gone every other day and we've, both teams are a little banged up. We've seen the Wemby, you kind of know in the first quarter with him if he has it or not from a, I'm all over the place, I have the eye of the tiger, or wow, Wemby looks tired and it's just one of those two worlds. This is a Game 7. It's hard to say who has the most at stake in this game 'cause it's a Game 7 to get to the finals. So technically everybody has something at stake, but Wemby knocking out OKC, being down 3-2, knocking out the back-to-back champs, a team that won, what did they win? Like 132 games in 2 seasons. And him basically, if they're gonna win, he's gonna be the best player in that game.

Yeah.

And at age 22, I had the 4 of the 7 best games in the series and we won 4 games to 3. And now here we come, New York Knicks. You are now on our— like, I feel like he has the most at stake, even though if it doesn't happen this year, we'll just be like, oh, it'll be fine. It'll happen for him next year. Who do you think has the most at stake?

Yeah. I mean, Wemby has the most to gain probably for that reason.

That's what it is.

Most to gain.

Most to gain, but not a lot to lose. 'Cause you're right. He, I think right or wrong, we will expect that he has a lot of time ahead of him to be in series in competitive situations like this one. The most at stake. I mean, it— the Thunder are in such an odd place overall, just in terms of their reputation and like their place in the basketball consciousness. It's like they're defending champions and they get a lot of respect based on that, but clearly they're not the most liked team in recent basketball history. And I wonder if they lose a series like this one, and let's say next season is also a challenging one for whatever reason, like you can see their story taking a really sharp turn. I, I don't think that's what's going to happen. I kind of do expect that OKC will win Game 7. I don't know that we're really in a position to predict anything at this point, given the way this series has gone. But within that, the idea of Shay coming out of this series shooting like 37% from the field in a, in a round that even though the Thunder are injured, they lose.

I could see there being a lot of questions and a lot of interrogation about just like them and the construction of their team and what they should be moving forward.

And there's some, do we have the right team to battle Wemby? We just lost to him and that the Spurs aren't even really the Spurs yet. We would open a lot of questions, definitely a lot more like, oh man, we're already searching for answers here. We just won a kajillion games. I know. We won the title last year and now, now we have to question ourselves. I think from San Antonio's side, I'm trying to think like, Ranking dudes who would have to come through. Mm-hmm. Because Game 7s, they're slower, they're uglier, they're more on the rock fight side.

Yep.

What we have seen though in recent years is road teams being able to go on the road and winning Game 7s, which in the old days you just won Game 7s at home. That's just how it went. And then that started to shift. And now every once in a while we seem to have these Philly at Boston. Mm-hmm. Dallas at Phoenix. We have these ones where they're not even just winning on the road, they're killing teams on the road.

They're just eradicating them.

With that said, I do feel like the home court has mattered unusually in this series 'cause it ramps up the defense on both sides. The 3-point shooters are gonna be a little more comfortable at home. San Antonio, for the guys that have to come through, one of Vassell and Champagny.

Yes.

I need a 4 or 5-3 game from one of them. I need Harper to play like he did today, period. I need Fox not to suck like he did. I don't need him to be good, but you can't suck. You can't go like 1 for 10. And I need Wemby to be closer to where he was in the 3 wins than the 3 losses. What else needs to happen for them?

I think they probably need another stretch like they had tonight where they look really good in the minutes without Wembanyama on the floor. Like, this was one of the first times where that really broke for them in this series.

Yeah.

They looked confident, they were hitting shots, the ball movement was really good, the energy felt right. And that's an area where, like, Keldon Johnson has become a really important player for them in this series from an energy standpoint. And as Fox has kind of faded into the background, and when Harper was hurt, Keldon was one of the few guys who was consistently driving for them. Yeah. So I, I would say he's pretty important for them too in sort of counterbalancing the upswing of OKC's role players at home.

Well, we have Thunder by 3.5 on FanDuel as our Game 7 line.

Yeah.

Today's Game 7 line or Game 6 line was Spurs by 3.5, and I think the last game was Thunder by 3.5. So it's just basically whoever's home is, that must be the, uh, established home court advantage from a referee standpoint. So if it's, if they're not calling stuff like they did today, usually I would think that helps OKC, but today it really helps San Antonio. Yeah, it feels like the kind of game when there's a million fouls is always better for OKC. We'll see who we will get today. We had Zach Zarba, I forget who else, but I'm sure we'll get James Capers is probably the best ref they have, maybe Mark Davis, but hopefully it's not another Tony Brothers '80 foul situation would be my, my one guess.

We simply can't.

But can Dort and Caruso unleash the, you know, the Bruise Brothers routine? Are they gonna be allowed to do it? Are they gonna ramp up their stuff on Fox and Harper? And does Wemby have it in him this early? Yeah, I think, because if he does, we're going to have 4 days to talk about a Spurs-Knicks Finals and it's just going to be a Wemby fest. You're going to have this new, the new generational superstar here, and then you're going to have the most famous team we have other than the Celtics and the Lakers trying to win their first title in 53 years. And it's going to be about as good from a, from a hype Finals as we're going to have.

Well, it's already been a Wemby fest. I mean, have you been listening to this podcast?

Have you listened to the group chat?

Like, it's, it's all we can all talk about because we're, I mean, games like this are why, you know, it was a totally different kind of dominance than I think a lot of people were calling for. There was a lot of like, how do you get Wemby closer to the basket? How do you get him attacking more? Turns out he can just beat you this way too on some nights. And if he's going to be hitting step backs against Isaiah Hardenstein, that might just be it. Like, that just might be your season right there. I really can't wait for this. I, I do think as far as the OKC, like, balance of all that physicality and what the refereeing looks like, even if they're giving a lot of leeway on that stuff, I think Lou Dort just has to play less. Like, the self-destructive possessions that we've been talking about with this game, there were like maybe 5 to 7 of those in the first half alone between the hijacking possessions from 3, like looking off of swing passes that he should have made and taking his own. He, he like flopped really badly on defense, like trying to sell a moving screen that then led to a wide open 3.

There were just so many possessions like that where I think in a Game 7, you can't leave anything to chance. It needs to be like a Caruso playing 36 minutes and a Lludort playing 10 to 15 minutes. Like even this felt like too much.

2 for 11, 1 from 9 for 3 in 22 minutes. It was minus 9. Even if you look at all his games in May, he's only scored 10 points once. 6'3", 10, 6'5", 8, 0, 275. Eye test-wise, doesn't look like the same guy from last year. He's a little bit older and he's like a running back or a tight end who has a lot of miles on him. And he has a team option on him next year that I'm sure is weighing over his head too. Like, you know, he's playing for his next contract and I don't know, he just has looked out of sorts this whole time. I thought, I've said this before, I thought he was the reason, him and Caruso were the reasons they won that game 4 in Indiana, which I think if they lose that game, I don't think they win the series no matter. I don't think we get to a game 7 against Haliburton.

And it, and, and in Porzingis' defense too, like they really didn't need his scoring until this point, right? In the first 2 rounds, like the Thunder were doing just fine, like going basket for basket. Shay was scoring at a much higher level. Chet was a more kind of like versatile unlocked offensive weapon. Although he's kind of, he's kind of tilted up as the series has gone on, I think with the offensive rebounding in particular. But they're just in, in these games where everything goes to shit for them, they're so desperate for offense. And Lou Dort is, he is contributing to the strangulation that's happening there.

Yeah.

I don't love plus-minus, but even in the game the other night, 18 minutes minus 4 in a game that they won by 13.

Yeah.

And then what was he in this last one? Yeah. Minus 16 in 17 minutes. I'm with you. I wonder like, This is one of the things, I mean, I love so many things about a Game 7. You're just making different decisions than you're doing all year.

Yeah.

It's like you're not there to, you don't care if feelings are hurt in a Game 7. It's like, hey, Lou Dort, you're gonna play 8 minutes tonight and that's just how it's gonna go. Hey Caruso, you might play 32. We'll see what, what Wemby can pull out of him from a, from a minute standpoint. I don't really understand his, how he's tired one day and then not tired the next, but when I saw him dressed What was he dressed like? Like a monk today?

Yeah.

What was that outfit? It was, I think it was like a throwback to, where did he go to talk to the monks? Tibet. Shout out to everyone from Tibet with that outfit. It was really something. All right. So your prediction, or you don't want to predict?

I think OKC will win. I don't feel great about it. Clearly the line between these two teams is very thin, but then varies wildly in terms of what the actual margin of victory is. I think for me, the shooting of the role players tilting back OKC's way, as it seems like it just will when they go back home and every other game, uh, the nerves kind of playing into their favor, having been in games like this before, and specifically for Shay, like when it comes down to who do you feel confident will have the lift and the balance in their game in those moments, I, I do think you tilt a little toward the experience of someone like the Thunder in this case. And I do think that guys like Chet have made just seen enough of a, a change over the course of this series. He's, he's been good defensively pretty much the whole way through, but he's finding enough ways to score where I'm like, I can kind of see the whole picture of a Thunder win coming together, even though based on tonight's game film, you would never expect it.

Who do you think the Knicks want to win?

I think the Knicks want the most injured version of the Thunder to win possible.

Like a banged up, worn and torn Thunder.

Yeah, I don't think even with how they played in the regular season and the Cup with the Spurs and all that, both of the teams, the Knicks and the Spurs, were in such different places then. The idea of grappling with this version of Wemby is such a unique challenge and such a daunting one that I, I, I don't think anyone necessarily wants that versus the Thunder are a great team, an incredibly formidable defense even still. But you see the state that J Dub is in. You see that AJ Mitchell isn't on the floor and you see kind of like what that does to their offense to lack any kind of supplementary options whatsoever. I think the Knicks would, would prefer that sort of matchup than trying to figure out the Spurs.

I'm leaning OKC as well. It would be unusual for a team this young to come back from 3-2 and win a Game 7 against, on the road against the defending champs. But you just made the point, these aren't really the defending champs if J Dub is just gonna basically not be playing.

Yeah.

I mean, I, at this point, like whatever he was doing tonight, I'd rather just not play him and ride with the guys I have. Mm-hmm.

I wouldn't be surprised if game 7, he plays that like first 3-minute blip and then you never see him again. You know, like they, they try it for a second just to see if there's any more like traction there. But if it looks like this, I don't think he can play much in that game.

Unbelievable stuff. Um, Zach Lowe and I are gonna be going live on Netflix after Game 7. So my Sunday night pod, um, this weekend is going to be a Saturday night pod. Um, we're just gonna, just gonna go for it. We'll see how it goes. Before we, before you and I go, Rob Mahoney, the lottery reform thing, House and Jacoby and I are about to talk about that after the break. Um, and I'm gonna give my thoughts then, but the lottery reform. They really went for it. They did a bunch of stuff. There was one piece that we didn't talk about in the next segment that it looks like the second round is going to reverse in order from—

I didn't even see this.

Yeah, I— now it hasn't been confirmed in the reporting yet, but it was one of the things they voted on that basically if you have the 16th pick, you'll have the first pick in the second round. And, um, my spoiler alert, my thoughts were All this sounds great until we end up with the 1993 situation of the Magic winning twice in a row.

Yeah.

Do you, do you like this 3-2-1 thing?

I like elements of it. I think there are so, there are parts of it that especially in the transition feel super clunky and maybe borderline unfair to some of the teams that have been operating under the assumption of the league as is, as they try to put their teams together. Like the Grizzlies in particular are in such, they get such a raw deal because of the trade that they made with the Jazz, where they have the Jazz's pick. Like, I feel like most of the other widespread overhauls of a system like this in NBA history are usually stationed a couple years out for exactly this reason. It's like, okay, we gotta let the pick protections expire. We gotta get through this cycle of transactions, and then the changes will start. I applaud, like, a more urgent dealing, but the trade-off for that is like, I don't know how you could explain this to the Grizzlies. They're like, oh, I'm sorry. I know you thought you were getting what was gonna be like a top 5 pick from the Jazz potentially in the future. but you're just fucked.

Well, and then the other side of it is like, you're Indiana, you trade your first rounder this year that you lose because of the protections, and then you trade your 29th first as well. And then all these rules come in, and now that 29th first is a much better pick than it was. I feel like the picks that really weren't like from the shittiest teams that were that next level of like playoff teams or fringe playoff teams, like if you have like Miami's first round pick. Yeah, right. You have Golden State's first round pick, or who knows, even the— having the Celtics pick in 2029, all of a sudden those picks gain value.

Yes.

And, and then the other piece of it where normally, like, the Celtics had those Nets picks a couple times, and there was one year when, uh, I think it was the— I can't remember which one of them, but Brook Lopez was just on a heater, and it was like, we're gonna get the top 3 pick from the Nets. And then Brook Lopez was just going nuts for like 2 straight months because the Nets had nothing to play for and they played into a little bit of a later position.

Yeah.

Now it's like you could have a team's pick, they could play into that 4 to 10 spot, and now you have better odds at the pick anyway. So I, I don't know, it's—

there's—

they really, really blew this up in ways that I don't even know what all the ramifications are going to be. I'm surprised like you that they didn't wait a year and just say like, Maybe even with the top 5 protection or whatever, you know, and the can't win 2 years in a row. Why not start that in 2027?

We've seen it again with almost every other giant rule change in the league. And I mean, this is going to have, I would think, massive repercussions on the trade market in general for exactly what you outlined with the picks, right? Like any mid-level team is going to talk themselves into holding on to a pick because it could be immensely valuable under this new odds standard. And so I'm like, I'm cool with that as somebody who like, I like talking about the games more than the potential trades. But I hope the league is okay with the fact that so much of the interest in the NBA is driven by who is the player your team can get. And I just think we're going to see fewer trades as a result of this. Like, it's going to really sap a lot of the energy out of, or really the ability for these teams to deal with each other if it's all just player for player and there's really not a lot of sweetening involved with the picks.

All right, we're going to— I'm taking a break and then Hassin Jacobi are coming on. We're going to do a mailbag, but we talk about lottery reform at the top. Uh, more importantly for you, not only can we hear you on Group Chat on the Ringer NBA Show, but you're going live on Sunday for, uh, for the, the season or series finale of Euphoria. We are not sure.

Unclear.

Season finale, series finale, we have no idea, but you're gonna be live on our Ringer TV YouTube channel, you and Joanna Robinson.

Yes.

What's that, hour and a half? How long do we think this show's gonna be?

I think it's confirmed it's over 90 minutes. Uh, so yeah.

Oh my God.

We're gonna be going live at 8:30 Pacific. Come along. Maybe every character will be dead. Maybe we'll be setting up like a weird backdoor pilot season 4. I don't know what's going on with the show anymore, but I can't wait to find out.

Is that— they, they can't torture Jacob Elordi anymore because he's been killed off, right? Can they torture his corpse?

Spoiler alert, if you're not caught up on Euphoria, it's not going well for Jacob Elordi right now.

Just kidding.

Well, it's, it's gone terribly.

It's true.

I don't think it could go worse.

Correction, it's going very well for Jacob Elordi, who no longer has to be like doing acting in one room by himself on the show anymore. But for Nate Jacobs, is, uh, he's having a rough go.

I'm— you guys are bigger— you and Joanna are bigger fans of this season than I was. My daughter is glaugh-heff-ful on everything, so she's like, no, no, it's good, it's good. I don't think it's been good. And I think you can really feel them filming in different parts of, you know, you just— you know what I like on a TV show? When the best characters are all together for scenes.

Imagine it.

Yeah, a little radical. The other thing we're doing this weekend, because I'm on Saturday night with Zach Rewatchables now moving to Sunday, and we did, uh, 2001. So that is coming as well. 2001: A Space Odyssey will now be running Sunday night for Rewatchables. Rob, thanks for staying up with me. Great to see you. We're gonna take a break, come back with, uh, House of Jacoby.

Thanks, Bill.

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Learn more at paypal.com/paymonthly. All right, we're recording this part of the podcast. It is before Game 6 of Spurs-Thunders, so if there's an Artest melee situation or something crazy, we didn't know about it. The lottery reform came in today, guys. The 3-2-1 method. There's gonna be 37 balls total. The bottom 3 teams will get 2 instead of 3. They're, they're calling it the relegation zone. They can't fall lower than the 12th pick, from what I can gather. And I don't know if I like this or not. I like it more than I did a month ago. But I still feel like House's Wizards, for instance, if they would— if you had tried the whole year, how many games would you have won, House? If you'd really tried?

20-ish. I mean, with this, with the original roster, with CJ McCollum, because McCollum, they went on a stretch where they won 5 of 7 games at the end of December into early January. Like, hey CJ, great to see you. Thank you for everything. They literally traded him after that, that stretch of success. But I have a more important question, which is to, to, to Kobe, which is You know, how many times has he tried the 3-2-1 method with his wife?

Has he ever been in the relegation zone? The answer is yes.

I've definitely been in the relegation zone.

Well, here's the thing. You mentioned the, the, the McCollum trade. So one of the benefits of this, I guess, would be that we're going to see less deadline trades and giveaways, and we're going to see less of just Anthony Davis getting traded for nothing. Or like what the Bulls did. If I'm the Bulls, like, do I trade the Sumo and I do, I trade Kobe White if it's not really technically gonna make me that much worse and I'm gonna be in that 4 to 10 range, which is gonna have the most ping pong balls anyway. Are we gonna see guys get given away? Are we gonna see conversely teams that are worried about being in the relegation zone trying to trade for players that will help them? There's all of these ramifications to this that I'm trying to wrap my head around, Jacobes. But the biggest thing, and we were all alive for this, was the '93 NBA lottery when they did 66 balls and they did— it was 11 teams in the lottery. House remembers this. We were both out of college and it basically was the most simple way you could do it.

The worst team got 11 balls, second worst got 10, third worst got 9, and went all the way down to the best of the worst teams was Orlando who got 1 ball. They had a 1 in 66 chance and they got Chris Webber. Who they then traded for Penny Hardaway and 3 first-round picks, and everyone lost their fucking minds. Do you remember this? Because they got Shaq the year before, then they got Webber, and everybody was like, oh my God, how can this happen? And that led to 30 years of lottery reform, Jacoby. So why wouldn't that happen again with this new system?

Well, a couple things. Number one, that's not the biggest thing. The biggest thing is that they're going to televise it. Like, we were talking about this last time, live in person. Like, you got to remember, like this, you know, Jacoby the TV producer, got to put my producer hat on here. Like, This is now a television event instead of like them doing it in some back room and then like a host reading it. That to me is the biggest thing. It's like it'll be a really fun thing to watch franchises change like right there in the moment instead of like— it is a little stale when like Erson Young has it in a briefcase or whatever and it's like in this secret room. I like the idea that it's going to happen live on television. It's going to be a television event. The second best thing about this—

well, hold on, we figured it's gonna— we figured it's gonna be 37 balls. And just, yeah, one pops out and that's it. Like, they're not gonna do the complicated 4 balls thing, it'll just be one.

Yeah, it'll be like, I imagine it'll be like, like watching like the, the lotto on like the, the, the 5 o'clock news when we were kids. They'll be like some hot girl, just like the ball pop up, it'll have like a—

wait a minute, way easier to fix. Way easier to fix.

Here's the thing, uh, Jacoby, uh, the most recent draft was very dramatic. And I know that the people knew the results. I didn't know the results. And it was, it was live enough for me. I mean, it was very, very— the last 5 picks as a fan of, of, you know, the Wizards was— I was on the edge of my seat. I was barely breathing.

That's fair. But that's why we need the actual GMs out there, the people with the most at stake in real time. What was your second favorite thing, Jacobs?

Easily. And my pod brother Chris Vernon, that was not unanimous. The governors voted 29 approved and 1 did not. And the Memphis Grizzlies were like, fuck this.

I love it so much.

And that all has to do with the Utah pick, which we discussed. But I just love the idea of the Grizzlies are just like somehow the Grizzlies get screwed no matter what.

Well, the thing is, in a fantasy league, if you change the rules this dramatically for the next year where people have future stuff, there would be a lot of arguments and angry emails going back and forth about, well, I have 3 first-round picks in the minor league draft next year. Now you're changing rules. I mean, this is bullshit. You're trying to screw me. But somehow that didn't happen in the NBA. They did add the top 5 restricted thing. They did add the you couldn't win the picks 2 years in a row, the first pick. So I like that stuff, but I don't know, I feel like this could lead to some result. That we're all completely horrified by, right? Like OKC having somebody's pick who's the 10th pick and then OKC ending up with the first pick, or just some sort of thing where they're like, oh, this was the worst case scenario and it happened. Because that's what happened with the Chris Webber thing. I don't mind it though. I don't mind the idea of a relegation zone and teams being humiliated, right? House's team should have been humiliated the last couple years, and it finally happened with Bam out of bounds.

They were humiliated. Yeah, that's right. But that's all they're doing was, was responding as rational actors to a system that they didn't create, but they certainly leveraged, you know, the opportunity. So we'll see what set of opportunities.

Sounds like we all kind of like it.

Well, it's an improvement. And they're also like all NBA changes. They're just like floating out ideas to see how the public reacts to it. And this has got like, they call it, I read the thing is called like a sunset provision. So it actually is only in place for until the '29 year.

Yeah.

So they can't change it if something goofy happens. They're sort of being like, we're testing this, it's a 3-year test drive, and we'll reevaluate in 3 years, which I kind of like too.

The whole concept of watching your team suck ass for 6 months and then falling into the relegation zone is really rough. Like, like, we really gotta— because there's gonna be some fan bases That's like if that had happened to Indiana this year. They don't have Haliburton, they lose Turner, they have a bunch of injuries the first half of the year, and just by no fault of their own, they ended up bottom 3 and had 2 balls instead of 3. That's rough.

Well, they got the functional equivalent of that. I mean, for all of that pain, they got Zubac.

Oh yeah, you're right. Pritchard's going to apologize again. I'll tell you this, I'll pass along some, some intel that's been floating around.

Ooh.

Apparently the Kings love Acuff, which I don't think is a super secret there. It's 7, and the Clippers have 5 and don't need Acuff because they have, they have a point guard already, and it would be really easy for them to flip picks and for them to end up with a little extra something-something from Sacramento, which I guess would be some sort of swap or future pick, whatever. They could turn that Zubac pick into the 7th pick Indiana's 2029 pick, and then something from Sacramento, the best team in the league, to trade for, which would make it one of the better trades we've had, right? Just for Zubats, who's like— I like Zubats. I voted for him third team All-NBA a year ago, but that's an incredible trade. I have to get off some stuff that I forgot to do on Tuesday. Um, biggest losers from the Knicks-Cavs sweep in the East. I'm just gonna read this to you in no particular order. Uh, speaking of Sacramento, did you see this? This was floating around a little bit about Sacramento, the 2026 Finals. If San Antonio makes it, it could be Mike Brown against Aaron Fox.

'25, Halliburton was the best guy on a Finals team. '24, Luka was the best guy on a Finals team who they passed up for Marvin Bagley. And then 2023, Michael Malone was the coach of the team that won. House, do you have anyone from Sacramento that could throw the Wizards into this for '27? I saw that Sacramento thing.

I really admired it. But you know, the, the, it only parallels Washington, this Washington franchise. I think the streak is now up to 18 straight finals, 19 straight finals where a former Wizard is going to participate in, in, in the, the, the finals. Um, but the Kings are the gift that keeps on giving. That, that's where our focus should be. It's appropriately there. And let's just let them keep doing what they're doing. It's very good for the basketball. It's very good for the, for the narratives. It's very good for our podcasts, like the Over/Under podcast at the beginning. Uh, you know, and later on, the only things we got right was Zach Lowe was, was the most vicious I've ever seen Zach Lowe. He really loved it. Went dark.

It was like watching like a TV drama when the cop goes dark. Starts doing weird shit.

I feel like you guys should be in the relegation zone because of that Over/Under podcast.

We probably should. I mean, I, I'd be fine with it. We only get to pick 25 of the teams. Jacob's— we dealt with Sacramento. I think Vivek's a nice guy. I've always run— anytime I've run into— he's super nice guy. I'm not sure he should own an NBA team. I'm pretty sure at this point, but we dealt with him for that Grantland thing we did when they picked Stauskas, which was one of those mini documentaries. That we had. Well, I forgot what year was that, like 2011 or '12? They let us—

'13.

Yeah, that— '13. They let us in their draft room, and it was clear nobody wanted to take Stauskas instead, except for Vivek, who overruled everyone. It's like, Stauskas, Stauskas! And it became this great internet moment, and he's just been giving us comedy ever since.

There's nothing was better than the maybe we should play 4 guys on, on defense thing. It's like, what What?

Forgot about that.

It's like, it's like some things that shouldn't be said out loud, but that was, uh, they actually came to us for that. They're like, we will give you full access to our draft room. We're like, sure. And that ends up being a pretty embarrassing—

expected it. All right, so Sacramento was a loser. Detroit's GM not doing anything at the trade deadline, which we all killed them on, on every podcast we have. Well, why not? But it— I really wonder if they watch that going, fuck, if we'd had one more score. James Harden, who I thought took a proper pounding from everybody the last couple weeks, but he's 4 straight trades now where the team that got him probably has real regrets after the trade. What is, what's the equivalent of this house? Like what food order is the, I regret it the next day food order, but it seemed like a great idea at 8:30 at night after 3 drinks.

I'm going to say this with love in my heart. I'm going to say this respectfully. The answer for me personally, is Kentucky Fried Chicken. For some reason, for some, it just decimates me. And I only order it under the circumstances you just described. I mean, if I'm having fried chicken and I'm sober, then I order Popeyes because Popeyes is by far. And then if, you know, Popeyes isn't around, it's Bojangles. I mean, I'm in the South. I'm where I have access. But Kentucky Fried Chicken is everywhere. And it does have a tendency to be open till 2 in the morning. In a lot of places.

Jacobs, you agree with that? That James Harden, the KFC order, 4 straight James Hardens.

Anything after 11 PM is the answer. That's the appropriate answer.

That's true.

That's true. Those are now being called James Hardens.

The other great James Harden thing, 98 playoff wins now without a Finals appearance, which ties him for the all-time record with Karl Malone. They're, they're now linked. Karl Malone and James Harden, most playoff wins without a Finals appearance. All right, so I'm making him a loser. I wanna, I wanna push back.

Why, why is James Harden a loser as a result of— I mean, there are very specific things you can point to. Once again, several games where his turnovers exceeded his—

How about just not running back on fast breaks? Just terrible transition defense. That's been the story of his career.

That's right. That's right. It's been the story of his career. It's no longer a bug. It's a feature. Plus he's 36 years old. So my real quibble with Cleveland and Harden, I thought that trade was successful. I think it made sense. They couldn't rely on Darius Garland anymore. They went on a run. They, you know, put themselves in the top 4 seeds of the East and they, you know, handled their business. Um, all the way up until they, they encountered a team that's just better than them. Uh, and, and Harden was important to them, especially in the first 2 series. They both those series went 7 games. I'm not defending James Harden, but what I'm saying is I don't think he's a loser based on what we just saw.

He's 36 years old.

That, that the franchise is the loser, especially if they extend him. But James Harden was just James Harden to me.

But that's the issue. Jacob's They clearly have a wink wink with him. It's already come out. Yeah. So, oh yeah, it's not just like, oh, we've traded for James Harden's expiring contract and we dumped the Garland thing and we'll be way under the tax next year because this money's coming off. He's gonna get like a 2 or a 3-year deal for like $30 million a year. So they're actually, actually stuck with him going forward knowing that him and Mitchell as a defensive backcourt isn't great. So I would say that's bad.

There— well, I also thought it was bad at the end of, um, Game 1 when Brunson just went after him possession after possession after possession, snatched his soul. And yeah, that wasn't great. And that's after the series. I'm sure Atkinson's gonna be on this list. But also after the series when he says, I, I— we are the better team, I was like, oh, I just saw 4 basketball contests between the 2 of you. And I, I didn't have the same impression, Mr. Harden.

Yeah, I— that was superb.

I loved him for doing that. He was wonderful. I thought I played great defense. I thought we were the better team. Magnificent. Standing ovation.

I have some good zags today. Are you gonna zag on Kenny Atkinson being one of the big losers?

No, no, no.

I mean, I don't think he'll ever live that down. I feel like that's gonna come up for the rest of his coaching career.

He cannot, and he should not, and he shouldn't be a head coach ever again.

I mean, they're bringing him back.

I'm looking for those timeouts that he held on to in Game 1. I'm looking for him on eBay. He hasn't put them up yet, but you know, I wonder what, what price he could get for those. I think he feels like they, they were valuable to him in some form or fashion because they're still in his pocket.

He could—

he can't, he can't use now because they, they're out, not playing any more games. But no, that dude is an assistant coach.

The combo of that The James Harden, having to bring him back, being way over the luxury tax again, and then having the Knick fans completely take over your arena for 2 straight games, which happened in 2 straight series, by the way. That was about as rough of a sweep as I can remember. We've had bad sweeps. That was like, Jacobs, what was a worse sweep than that? It was, it was like a soul-snatching sweep, right?

It had everything you would want because they looked so good at the beginning of Game 1, and I'm sitting there watching it, I'm like, they— the Knicks had too much time off. Like, they're too rusty. This other team has been in battles for two 7-game series. Yeah, better team. They were so much better for that first half. So they had the, the gut-wrenching loss in overtime, then everything else was just completely outclassed for— in Game 2 and Game 3. Then you had the fan takeover, and then you have Game 4 where Mitchell comes out and he's giving it— he's giving it his best in the first half. And the second half, they just didn't— they quit. They just gave up. And you can hear the chants. It was just like, that's pretty bad. I mean, it's also bad that when they had to come out with like a headline that said like, the Cavs are continuing with Kenny Atkinson. Yeah, and it was shocking. I was like, oh, oh, whoa, I had to read it twice. I was like, oh, they made like an announcement that he's keeping his job.

Well, how's the counter? Is they finished 4th in a 30-team league. Don't overreact.

Well, counter to the counter, they were supposed to win 57 games. They were supposed to match the output of the previous year, and they had to trade Darius Garland, you know, before the trade deadline to capture the winning percentage. And there is no explanation other than in and out. I mean, Mobley was supposed to continue to take another step. I mean, here's the thing for me, it's a sour situation. You laid it out, BS. Let me ask you guys this. When— let's just look at the calendar. What date before or after August 1st is the first rumor that Donovan Mitchell would be interested in playing for a different basketball team?

And is that as exciting for 12 other teams as it was like a year ago? Well, I had my next loser, Evan Mobley, who I think is now a legit threat to be the fall guy. And get sent somewhere because they gotta get into the tax somehow. And if they, if they have the wink wink with Harden, then it's Jared Allen, it's Mobley, or it's, or it's, or it's Mitchell. Jakobs, do you think, could you see yourself at Barclays next year eating a $15 Finney's pizza and watching Mobley run high screens with Ben Seraf?

Is that in play?

That's not so exciting. That's not getting it. What if he was running with Nolan Traore?

That's not doing— that's not doing it for me either.

No, you're not, um, not taking that train down there.

I do kind of like Jaegar Joman. Um, I can't afford to go to Knicks games, so Nets games are in play.

Uh, it—

I could— I could— you know what, I could see both, both arguments, right? This was the first series with this core where they were like really healthy. Every other year there was like, yeah, but Garland was out, and you know, and I, I also kind of feel like Mitchell was compromised against the Knicks, but I don't think that was going to make such a big difference. I could see them saying let's make some tweaks and not make a huge move this offseason. But I could also see them saying we've had this core, it has been mildly successful and very successful in the regular season, but not successful in the postseason. Something needs to change. Like, I can see both sides of this decision.

House, who says no to Mobley for the 6th pick?

Who has the 6th pick?

Brooklyn?

No.

Cavs. Yeah, Cavs say no.

You save $50 million. You bring in a guy making about $9 million.

That's a different incentive.

You save, you save like almost $40 million and then all the luxury tax stuff too.

The reason why it's reasonable is because if that team looks in the mirror and, you know, drinks some actual sort of honest serum, some truth serum, are they better than the Celtics next year? Do they think they are?

That's why I think blowing it up. I think that would— they're better. I would trade Mitchell if I were them, but I I just think they have to do something. I think they had their window and this is it. Like the, the East is going to be better next year. I don't see how they're better next year. Pardon me, you're older. So, another loser, LeBron James. I feel like Cleveland was a, like a 5th ring title chase team. I'll go there. You guys are close. I'll take the minimum. Everyone loves when somebody takes the minimum. When Karl Malone did that for the '03-'04 Lakers, it was like, oh my God, this guy just wants to win, man. He'll do anything. I don't think LeBron's fixing anything if he goes there. It's, they weren't a LeBron James away from beating the, beating the Knicks and then going into the next round against San Antonio or OKC and winning. And I just think that option's out. I don't see it. You agree, Jacobs?

I'm fascinated by what LeBron does this offseason because I can't see anything that works. Like, literally, of all the teams. Like, none of it really makes sense. And the problem is he is a valuable player, so he should be compensated for his production. What— so there's no price for him?

It's not a max price, but is it like $25 million a year, House? What is it, 2 for $50?

It's whatever the team he decides he wants to spend next year with can afford and, and fit and have one more great player. I still love— I mean, honestly, I think LeBron is a winner by virtue of what happened with Cleveland. Cleveland's the loser, not LeBron. LeBron wins. LeBron doesn't have to go there, and he doesn't have to be coached by Kenny Atkinson.

What the f—

I mean, what are we talking about, right? Um, the, the, the two options to me that are viable, my number one, the one I root for the most, is the one that you threw out there, which is Kevin Durant and LeBron going to Golden State.

Durant too? Can we put Davis in the Durant spot? I have Davis in there now.

You have Davis going to Golden State.

Yeah, so it's AD, LeBron, the Wiz get Butler, and Golden State's 27th first. You're doing that. Done.

Yeah, you're done.

You're locking that.

Done.

Take that.

And then they get— they figure out how to get LeBron with the mid-level. They bring Davis. They still have the 11th pick. They'll get a good player because this draft's really good. And we get the expendables. I had a fake sign-and-trade. I don't know if this is possible with the Harden— who knows what the Harden extension is, but Could you do a three-way where Durant goes to the Lakers, LeBron goes to the Cavs, and Harden goes back to Houston, and all the money just kind of works? And it's just kind of— it's just Durant's playing with Luka and Reeves, LeBron goes back to Cleveland but is able to make like $35, $40 million a year, and then Harden just goes to Houston and kind of gives them something they need, which is a guy who can create offense. House likes that one.

It's kind of funny. It's kind of funky.

It's a merry-go-round of old guys.

The problem is I think LeBron and JJ, uh, the only other, like, there's only a handful of coaches I can see LeBron tying his wagon to.

Yeah, but you can't, they're not paying him more than, I don't think, $15 million a year. That's crazy. They got to pay Reeves like $40. You still want to make the team better. You have a window with Luka now where you have to improve it. I just don't. I don't see them doing it. I think another loser is the Celtics, who won a title in 2024 with a 27-year-old star and a 26-year-old star, and now have twice, two years in a row, lost their team you'd most want to be in the East title. They lose it last year to Indiana. That's like, I'd rather be Indiana going forward with the Tatum injury. And then this year you'd be like, oh, I'd rather be the Knicks. They're going to have like clearly a three-year run. And the Celtics now have to deal with this juggernaut Knicks team. Miami probably getting Giannis, Detroit probably getting somebody else, and maybe they missed their window. It's depressing. I don't, I don't need you guys to talk about the Celtics. I want to mention that.

No, Bill, you, you've not mentioned the Twitch streaming. I mean, we have to. I've never seen someone sort of alone in their house talking to their computer jeopardize their future with their franchise. I've never seen anything like this. And like fighting with Stephen A. Like, what? I don't understand what's happening. He's like proposing like a neutral site Stephen A debate. What is happening?

By the way, I'd be excited for that. Yeah. I was thinking if there was a Ringer staffer who started to do the Jaylen Brown Twitch thing every night and was just kind of dancing with the line night after night, we probably would have had a phone call at this point like, hey, Just checking in. Yeah, you know, I don't know if this is a great idea. Uh, another loser, Masai Uehara, who— can we talk about— he gave up Siakam and Anunoby, who are two key pieces of the last two Eastern Finals teams that we have, and he got quickly RJ Barrett and two firsts in the 20s. Is he the new Joe Dumars house?

Hey, well, he lost his job after, but they like—

they win the title because of the Kawhi trade, and then Dumar style, everything he does after that is kind of shaky.

I feel like it was fair for us, you know, the number of years leading up to this most recently completed season to be extremely critical of Toronto and the moves we were making. We were befuddled by them, the, the money they were spending on players. I mean, it's still, you know, Isaiah Quigley is this, uh, Isaiah, uh, Emmanuel, I know, uh, is, is, is now like the poster child for how you don't do stuff in this, this, uh, you don't want $30 million, 6 men.

You don't want $30 million centers. Um, another loser is Adam Silver because the James Dolan Finals feud is here. This is going to be so fascinating to see how this works out. I don't think there's a lot of love lost. And, uh, I think usually when you have the, the Finals in a location, the owners usually helpful with the league. Not sure that's happening this time. I have 2 more. Vivek Prokhorov, Robert Sarver, and Glen Taylor have all now passed James Dolan in the worst owners rankings in the 21st century. I think Dolan's out of the Mount Rushmore now. I mean, he handed over this team, they made Eastern Finals last year, they made the Finals this year. He's out. And I think it's Vivek Prokhorov, Sarver, Glen Taylor. Does that sound like the right list, Jacob? Anybody else you'd throw in there? Off top of your head?

Good there.

Prokhorov was amazing. He doesn't get enough credit.

Oh no. Yeah, he was—

yeah, we're gonna spend money. We're spending more money than any team ever. That a year later, I don't want to spend money anymore.

Married. He said he would get married if they didn't win the championship. Yeah, it's like, what?

I think actually Glenn Taylor might have been the worst one though, because he, he even sold this team for way less than what it was worth. Like he was just terrible owner.

He even fucked up the sale of his own franchise and then tried to do a lawsuit over it.

Yeah. And then tried to sue the guys that bought it.

A dead loser. I'm wondering, should Prokhorov and Josiah be lumped together? Because Josiah basically tried to run back the Prokhorov playbook with Harden, Kyrie.

Josiah just seems like he's loyal to a front office that's not very good for some reason. Joe Sykes at least made runs. Like, if Harden and Kyrie don't get hurt that year, they probably win the title, right?

All I'll say is Reinsdorf would like a word. He'd like to, you know, some consideration in this conversation.

That's fair.

Uh, last one is pretty big market.

The legacy kid owners, which we always have made fun of being terrible. Legacy kid owners won in '23, '24, and '26. Uh, Celtics win '24. 23, the Cronkies. Josh was running the Nuggets. And then '26, James Dolan. So there you go for that. All right, we're gonna take a break. We're gonna, uh, come back and I have some good mailbag stuff for you guys. All right, mailbag questions. You can send them to BSPodcast33@gmail.com. This is from Joe from Waterloo, Illinois. He said, with the incredible playoff run of these Knicks, we need an updated key to the city ranking. Rankings. This is for if you win the title, you just own the city and get the key. Uh, and he said right now the rankings in his mind: number 1, Josh Allen; number 2, Jalen Brunson; number 3, Auston Matthews, hockey; number 4, Caleb Williams; and number 5, Jared Goff. Who's missing for you, Jacobes, in that one?

Um, I want to put Geno Smith in there.

What a phenomenal answer.

Geno Smith for what team? What team is he on?

Very funny.

This is very funny.

Go ahead.

The Jets.

Okay. Think about it. Think about it.

House?

I had two guys. I had Anthony Edwards because, you know, Minnesota deserves somebody and it's, there's nobody on their football team that you can point to. I mean, if Kyler Murray turns out to be, you know, yeah, some incredible version, but I, right. Uh, so I love Anthony Edwards. And then I, I feel like, you know, Joe Burrow could be in the conversation. Cincinnati, the football team, has, you know, a long record. I tried to come up with somebody from Atlanta, but I don't, I don't think Atlanta gives enough of a shit about sports.

Ironically, it'll be Anthony Edwards when he goes to Atlanta. Um, I had Anthony Edwards as well. I had Joe Burrows as well. I— Joe Burrow. I had Devin Booker because the Suns, even though they've been relevant every decade, have never actually won the title. And then I just put Browns QB TBD. If it ever happens for them, I, I think that's top 3. We just don't know who that is. But I think right now I like that Josh Allen won, Jalen Brunson too. I think that's right.

Very good.

If Jalen Brunson wins the title for the Knicks, it's an all-time, you're a hero. It's a standing O when you walk into a room. It's basically what Ortiz is like in Boston, where Ortiz, like, even now, all these years later, just walks in, people start applauding.

I, I want to push back a little bit on Josh Allen. Yeah. Give me Caleb Williams.

Okay.

Because it's Chicago, they just live and die with the Bears. They've like never had a good quarterback somehow.

They did win 40 years ago.

The franchise. Yeah, they did. And, you know, and the Bills have a history, but I feel like just the big marketness of the city and like, you know, when the Cubs won, what a big deal it was. And, you know, I've been to Buffalo games, I've been to Buffalo a few times, it's a small town, you know what I mean? I just don't know it's gonna impact the world the same way that a Bears Super Bowl win on the back of a quarterback instead of a defense and a running back would be, uh, would be big.

When Jacoby says the Bills have a history, that's like saying Lamar Odom has tried drugs a couple times. Like, that's just— the Bills have more than a history. Yeah, the Bills are the fucking Conjuring house. Um, all right, next question's from Kevin. Jalen Brunson's success is often credited to his strong work ethic and mastery of fundamentals, similar to Jake Shuttlesworth, the father character in He Got Game. Trying to instill into his son Jesus at a young age. That would be Rick Brunson. Do you think that Rick Brunson is a real-life Jake Shuttlesworth? Jake Shuttlesworth sans manslaughter. So Jake Shuttlesworth— is it— I thought it was Shuttlesworth.

I thought it was sans too, not sans, but okay, whatever.

Or sans. Sans.

Sans. Sans.

Yeah, yeah, sans.

Sons manslaughter.

So do you think Jake, no manslaughter, good Rick Brunson thing? Probably he wouldn't love it, but, um, I do feel like that's one of the reasons Jalen Brunson is so tough though. You got the feeling his dad was just— it's like a sports movie.

It's like not as bad as Great Santini, but when the whole thing is based on that one video, it's that one video that we have of him dribbling up and they're filming it, and like his dad is being such like like a, like a hardo. And he seems like little— poor little Jalen Brunson is not having a good time in that video. No, like, he's, he's not enjoying, you know, working out with his dad in that sunny day. That video, to me, which it was not— I didn't love it, to be honest with you.

It's like me and Zoe with soccer, like some of the videos we have. It's Shuttlesworth. I knew I was right.

The remarkable thing to me with the Brunsons is Rick's role, which is enormous in the, on the, on the bench and in the organization. Because I think he's had a hand, a steering hand in all of the team building that's taken place over the last 3 years that put this team into the finals. And he definitely had a hand in convincing his son to take an under-market extension so that they could bring in this, this extra talent. I mean, there, there's, there's, it's a fascinating like documentary at some point. After the run, this run is over, maybe even after Brunson's career is over. Let's sit down and really talk to the Brunsons about what went down for the, this time.

Well, you left out, they hired Rick Brunson as assistant coach before the summer that they were trying to sign Jalen Brunson to make him leave Dallas, which was an old college trick that they would do where you would sign the dad on the college team as you're trying to recruit the kid. So that worked too. I mean, Wes and Leon played all the tricks with building this Knicks team. They were, they were working it like they get OG and Anunoby knowing that he is gonna be a free agent, but also knowing that he is a CAA client that I have a relationship that they could probably talk him into staying. And this is a relationships business, Chico.

They remember they went to Jalen Brunson's playoff games too. They like sat there and just like stared at him while he was on the maps. It was very obviously that they were interested in that. I'm terrified that someone will investigate the Brunson deal because it just really makes no sense on paper. Unless, you know, perhaps, you know, there's a, there's a tree planting company somewhere. Yeah, right.

Could be a tree planting company in New York.

Mark Cuban, Mark Cuban was really on a heater in the 2020s. He could add Brunson for 4 for 55 and went low, but somehow lost Brunson. Just loses him, right? Then decides to sell the team. He sells right before all the franchise valuations go flying up. Sells for way less, sells it to this ownership that then— oh, and by the way, hired Nico Harrison before he sold to the ownership. And then Nico Harrison trades their best player, and now he's like, I don't— I can't believe you did that. It's like, you've— you're the reason they don't have Jaylen Brunson and Luka Dončić. You're literally the reason. It doesn't get—

with the extra, uh, irony of him thinking that he was going to have some continuing decision-making role, some continuing, continuing input role.

Which has never happened in sports history.

Well, not only that, but it's been reported that Harrison was one of the people that immediately put— took a giant knife and stuck it right in Cuban's back on that idea.

Really crazy.

Amazing.

Michael from Gower, Missouri wants to know if the Thunder, if they win back-to-back, should retire Kawhi's jersey considering he's basically the reason this entire run is happening because the Paul George trade. Are there any other examples of players that never played for a team but had such a massive success that they should have their jersey retired anyway?

Kawhi.

First of all, it should be Kawhi and Paul George's jerseys together would be the move. I'm not against it. It's, it's the most important moment in the history of the franchise that they did that trade. But I was thinking like a player who single-handedly caused a title for another team. And the only one I can really think of in the history of the NBA where you can literally say like, thanks to that guy, we won the title. Is Frank Selvy on the 1962 Los Angeles Lakers. Game 7, end of the game, has a 9-footer, and if he makes it, the Lakers win the title. And he missed it. Baseline jumper. It's like a 12-footer. And if he, and if he makes it, Celtics lose to the Lakers. We don't have Jerry West, like, you know, as the character in the HBO series Someday. There's been other moments where it was like, oh, if that hadn't happened, like Manu fouling Dirk in 2006 and But Frank Salve is the only one where you could say if he makes that shot, the title changes. But here's my question for you guys. Could teams retire GMs, maybe not numbers, but the names of GM decisions from other teams that led to a bunch of titles for them?

So I'm going to give you 4. David Kahn, Minnesota, took Ricky Rubio and then Johnny Flynn over Steph Curry. And could Golden State, like, have a David Kahn ceremony thanking him for, for what he did? Same thing for Stu Inman, the Portland Trail Blazers GM who took Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan. Should probably be in the rafters in Chicago. Um, Bob Bass, Charlotte Hornets, um, GM, 1996. The Lakers are like, we'll trade you Vlade Divac for the 13th pick. He's like, that sounds great. Flathead defense is really good and trades them Kobe Bryant and they win 5 things. And then the last one, this is my favorite. Slick Leonard, the 1978 coach GM of the Indiana Pacers, has the number 1 pick in 1978. And it's the draft where you could pick Larry Bird and wait a year for him to come into the league. He's playing for Indiana State. Indiana is in such bad shape as a franchise. They had a telethon that year to try to save the team. That's how broke they are. They don't take Larry Bird. They trade back from 1 to 3 with Portland for Johnny Davis and the 3rd pick.

And then their fans think, oh, they traded back because we're taking Bird. Nope. They took Rick Roby and then the Celtics got him 6th. So I, you could argue Slick Leonard, uh, the GM, but Jacobs, do you like the idea of retiring GM, helpful GM?

I don't, I don't like the idea of the opposing GM. No, no. Because it, it's in the Raptors forever and you're going to have to like tell your grandkids, it's like, what is that doing there? Like, who was Slick Leonard? You have to explain. I like the idea of just like having a night. Like one of my favorite moments in sports history was when the Red Sox fans in Fenway cheered Mariano Rivera.

Oh yeah. 2005.

And he tipped his cap. You know what I mean? It was like one of my favorite moments in sports history because he was so cool about it. He's already a champion and a Hall of Famer and a legend. He had a sense of humor about it. I think it should be a night like that. There'd be like one night where it's David Kahn night for in Golden State and he comes out there at halftime to do a little ceremony and they cheer him.

They interview him. They give him gifts. You took two point guards in '09 and somehow neither of them were Steph Curry. Let's walk through it. What a great moment for us.

Yeah, it feels like a celebration instead of like a permanent fixture inside the arena that's there forever.

Jack from Atlanta writes, I'm consistently amazed by Adam Silver's inability to have a feel for public perception of the league. I don't think that's fair, but the playoffs are the most important time of the season. The constant talk among my friends is flopping. Why can't we shame these players for being uncool? Why can't they come up with something to stop this? This has been a topic on a lot of shows. I've been thinking about this a lot, and it's weird. It wasn't an SGA moment. It was that moment when, uh, maybe it was AJ Mitchell, whoever was— somebody was setting a screen and they went flying, and they called an offensive foul on the guy setting the screen on the Spurs. Oh, it was— yeah. And then they, they was Yeah, J-Will. And then they did the wide shot, the overhead shot of him bumping into the guy and then flailing. And I wonder, like, when they added the flagrant foul point system, which most famously came back to haunt Draymond in 2016 when he had to miss Game 5 'cause he had too many points, would you guys be cool if they had like a flopping point penalty system where the league just announced the next day, we find SGA one flopping point for third quarter or whatever, and it's just like you get to 15 points, you miss the next game.

Like, would people sign up for that? Because I actually think I would. Yeah, Jacoby's shaking his head no.

I, I love it. I absolutely love it. Okay. And because in the same way that they upgraded the Plumlee foul, there's some, you know, smart people review the tape. In the moment you can't, because they do have like a flopping foul, but—

right, right.

Real time, the refs— I mean, if you can't ask the refs to evaluate that in real time So I think they could do some sort of like, even if it's like the 2-minute report, like we reviewed the tape and there's 7 foul— I mean, flops, even just like public shaming. But one thing I love about what's happening is as a Knicks fan, I've already grown a really strong hatred of both the Spurs and the Thunder. So whoever makes it through, I already have a nice foundation of I fucking can't stand you guys that's just ready to boil over.

Well, ironically, Brunson does it too. He's what? More on deep. Brunson does it on picks and defense really more than offense. SGA does it more on offense. Why are you making a face?

I'm a bit confused. I'm a bit confused.

That's all.

Confused with what?

I, I mean, I, I think that, uh, Brunson plays pretty physical, and I, I mean, I, the, the stuff on defense and, and coming off the screens. I'm sure we can find those examples.

He's a flopper.

He does.

I watch all the games.

Yeah, he tries to sell absolute flopping. Offensive foul picks is his big, his big thing.

Flopping theory. One of my theories is that he has those little braids, those little twists, because when he jerks his head back, it looks more violent because his hair flies.

It's a visual tool.

I like that.

I like this.

How— so would you sign up for the 15-point flop system?

You just get a point?

I'm—

anything that, you know, communicates to the NBA viewing public, us, that the league is taking this seriously is going to be a good thing. I, I think it would be fine if they just called two flops every first quarter. You know, they, they had the opportunity during this, um, playoff run, this stretch where it's really become prominent, and, and we know that the league has the capacity for changing how it calls games over the course of regular season into playoffs, they allowed more, more physical play. And even the rotating referee crews, um, you could just call flops. Like, I, I can't think of a game where a flop was called, uh, in, in—

they don't call that. They don't call offensive 3 seconds when the guy has the ball for too long when he's posting up. They call that like 3 times a year. Remember they added that rule? You can't just slowly post up for 10 seconds. And they were like, you can't do it, it's got to be For Shengun's like the only one that gets called for that. I would love a flopping thing. I think it's a good idea. Chan from New York wants to know if Spurs-Thunder is supposed to be the main event, would the Knicks be the Money in the Bank champs waiting in the wings to take advantage of a compromised opponent? This is great. Like a great wrestling analogy. Just let these two teams beat each other up and the Knicks are waiting, like the series ends and they're coming in right away. We— I always get this email about whether Money in the Bank would work in the NBA, and the answer is obviously no. But it would be amazing. Like, you finish a series and then all of a sudden the next team just comes in. Oh, they're cashing in, they're cashing the suitcase.

All right, House, you're gonna love this one. This is from Joe from far northern Chicago suburbs.

Okay.

Conspiracy Bill, he starts it. Scott Foster's public-facing NBA referee profile page And this is true because I looked it up, lists Shameless and Ozark as his two favorite television shows. I haven't watched Shameless, but Ozark is definitely about illegal money laundering schemes and organized crime. Wikipedia tells me Shameless is about people running scams and committing crimes to get money. How is this possible that he put these two as his two favorite TV shows? It's from Joe.

Well, he's living vicariously.

That feels like a bit at that point.

It could be, but I, and I hope it's—

he should have added Your Friends and Neighbors as his third one. I love that show too. People steal from your neighbors.

Yeah.

Jacoby's like afraid to talk.

Oh no, I love Your Friends and Neighbors. I'm so in on Your Friends and Neighbors. That Birch billionaire character, I'm absolutely in love with her. I can't wait for her to come back and, and ruin our guy's life. I'm in on Friends and Neighbors so hard.

Um, on that same page it says Scott Scott Foster's favorite movie is Braveheart.

No one's favorite movie is Braveheart.

Braveheart.

Scott Foster's is.

No one. He's lying.

Liam Manley writes in, I sent this one to you guys. Caruso's 22-point Game 5 has to be top 3 role player ever. Cory Iguodala. So he points out, I created the 42 Club, which was points, rebounds, and assists in the playoffs. And if they add up to 42 or above, odds are you're a pretty special player. And it's been pretty reliable over the years, especially 'cause I, I did 42 exactly 'cause it was the best way to leave out Karl Malone. He's saying, could we have a 21 club? If you average over 21 points, rebounds, and assists multiple seasons, you're not a role player. And if you're under it, you are. I, I'm tweaking this to playoffs and I like the under 21. I wonder if we could go a little lower. I sent you guys a bunch of stats. I have some role player, role player questions for you though. Can you be one of the best 4 guys on your team and be a role player, Jacoby?

I'd say you can't be one of the 4 most offensively productive. Best is a weird word to use because sometimes role players are the best because they're great defenders and great screen setters and, you know, assist guys. But I did consider this, and I, I don't like the minutes restriction stuff because sometimes role players are like starters that play the entire time, you know what I mean?

Bruce Bowen was in '05 to '07 36 minutes a game but was clearly a role player.

Yes. What do you average, like 6.5 points?

Yeah, 6 points, 3 rebounds, 1 assist.

Yeah, yeah.

2 eye gouges and 1 step on the foot, 1 kick in the balls. Yes.

I also don't, I don't consider Iguodala a role player. Like he was a role player for that championship team, but if you're like a former star and you used to sort of like have your own team, that's not a role player to me. That's sort of like a fading star accepting a new role.

So the other case for Iguodala not being a role player is he was the 4th best guy on that team in the Finals. Curry, Klay, Draymond. Iguodala was the 4th best guy at worst. So can you be the role player if you're the 4th best guy on a team? That's a problem with the Caruso role player candidacy because you could argue he's one of the 4 best guys in this team.

Well, you could also argue that he's been forced to be one of the 4 best guys in the team due to injury.

Right. And then Michael Cooper was the other one who might have been the 4th best Laker during his whole run but was a role player. What do you think, House?

The definitions part of this is, is where the true intrigue comes into me because it's hard. Like, uh, how many rings, if we're doing an all-time list, do you have to have be on a team.

I feel like you need 2 to be like that. Level 1.

Yeah, because that's helpful. That, that crosses— that means Trevor Ariza is off the list. That means Jason Terry is off the list. That means Kendrick Perkins is off the list.

Bill Walton, he only had the one. Yeah, there's— yeah. And then it's like, is there a quality threshold? Jacoby just mentioned Iguodala. Like, Manu—

Manu?

No.

Both.

Manu was too good. He can't be a role player. He was like, he's, I think, one of the best 100 basketball players of all time.

Yeah. Hall of Famer.

But if you look at his numbers and how he was used, you could say, well, he's a sixth man, he's a role player, but I just don't think he was. And then do you need the 2 titles? So that, that moves us more. I, to, to me, like the best way to figure this out is to look at guys that we know were role players, which is clearly Robert Horry and the Lakers and the Spurs. Interestingly, Rockets Robert Horry, not a role player, but arguably the third best guy on that team. Sure.

I like that.

Maruelli, 22 minutes a game, 7 points, 3 rebounds, and 2 assists in their 2 title seasons. That to me is a role player. Caruso I think makes it. It's basically 10-3 the last couple years playing whatever. Philly Bobby Jones is a good one. James Posey in '06 and '08 is another good one. We lose Boris Diaw. Steve Kerr, 19 minutes a game, 6-1-2. And then Fisher is a great one, 30 minutes a game, 9-2-3. And I guess we have to put Bruce Bowen in. So would you say instead of the 42 club, maybe it's like the 17 club? It's gotta be like 17 and under for points, rebounds, and assists. You're an official role player in that, in that, Right.

What?

Yeah.

Let me, let me ask about Ron Harper.

Who's another good one.

Ended up with multiple rings.

Bulls Ron Harper.

Yeah. And, and Lakers Ron Harper. I mean, it's kind of important.

True.

To both. He ended up with 153 playoff games, 5 rings, and he's just under 21. He's 11.6 points, 4.6 rebounds, 3.9 assists.

And was out there in crunch time a bunch.

Uh, I've got one for you.

Yeah, JaVale McGee. Did he have how many titles though?

Just titles? No, Lakers and Warriors, Nuggets.

Oh, he does, right? He had the Warriors one. Yeah, and he did kind of play for them.

Yeah, he played a role. Like, to me, a role player, like, you kind of do one thing, you know what I mean? Like, Ron Harper might be like too good, like, at everything, kind of.

Yeah, maybe.

You know, that's why, like, Caruso, it's like, I'm a defender, and if you leave me open, I'll hit a 3, and I'll do some energy stuff in transition. Like, I like a guy like McGee because he's like, he's our big backup that comes in and blocks shots and he's kind of weird and he rebounds. And, you know, it's like Tristan Thompson on the Cavs. Like, I have a role. Like, no one's going to ever give me the ball.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, that, that to me is like a role player. It's kind of like, you know, when you see it, he's a role.

Important spin-off question, this question. Jacob's— when we played pickup hoops together for 2 years at USC, Was I a role player?

Yes. I was old. Yes. Your impact was more just like you're kind of like a coach on the floor. And remember that guy in the Lakers you were talking about who hit the baseline shot that I had no idea who you were talking about? Selvy, Fred Selvy, whatever that guy's name is.

I would have made it.

Frank Selvy. I was like, I hope he doesn't ask me a question about Frank Selvy. I have no idea who this man is. But 9 to 12 feet on the baseline is just Bill's spot. 18 is his spot.

17. 17. You are my boss.

You are my boss. So yeah.

Oh, 17, 16.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

What about breaking up the 2-on-1s? So I mean, that's, I mean, you're, you're, you're great at that.

But if, if I was the number one option, the number two option, we were losing. Yeah. We were losing.

I needed to be the number four option, which made me a role player.

And then we're winning and we're staying on the court for a while.

John Colleen. Sent a Sam Perkins question on role players asking if Jerry, if Sam Perkins was the Jerry West of role players. Mavericks, late '80s, Lakers, early '90s, Supersonics, Pacers. Sam Perkins was a role player on the '96 Sonics and '00 Pacers that made finals. He was, he was kind of better than a role player in the '93 Sonics and then the '91 Lakers. He was probably the third best player. but then also in Dallas. He played in 5 conference finals for 3 different team— 4 different teams and 3 finals. Really interesting Sam Perkins career. Sent me on a deep dive. 167 playoff games for Sam, 35th all time, and kind of had all the phases of Sam and then finally crested with the Indiana. It looked like he had just smoked a bowl. He weighed like 300 pounds but could still hit a 3 at any time. Really fun run for him. Hadn't thought about Sam Perkins in a while, guys.

I feel the same way, uh, and, and I always like, you know, my mind's eye is like, oh, he, he's, he's talented. Like, I, I expect, you know, him to make the right play. His Hoops IQ was always in the right place, but maybe I'm only thinking about the end of his career. Well, maybe he was on the Lakers remembering.

So one of the best Game 1s ever, which I mentioned to— I think I mentioned to you the last time we did this— was that Bulls-Lakers Game 1. MJ misses the game winner, bounces around and goes out, but Perkins made the 3. That was the game-winning play. They set up for him, Magic found him. Sam Perkins, really good. Uh, all right. Really, really important question from Corey from St. George, Utah. In your book of basketball, you debated a team of 5 of the same player versus any other duplicated 5. Would a team of 5 Victor Wembanyamas be the ultimate team that would beat any other version of 5 other guys? Meaning, could 5 Wembys beat 5 LeBrons? Could 5 Wembys beat 5 Iversons, et cetera, et cetera? Jacoby's shaking his head.

Absolutely not. No way.

I feel the same way. Yeah.

I would say, I think that's always, I'm one of the, of all of like the superstars, he's probably one of the worst to clone 4 more times and put out there because he is so tall. Like how, who's bringing up the ball?

Wemby. Wemby. Yeah.

That's the problem.

Who's like, Wemby number 5 is bringing up the ball.

No, no. No, no, no, no, no, no.

I actually think I completely disagree with you. I think 5 Wembys kills everyone. You play zone with the 5 Wembys. How do you score?

What are you talking about?

How am I getting a shot off against 5 Wembys? All they're doing is playing zone. How am I shooting anything? All right.

I, I have a counter. I'm 5 Michael Jordans.

I agree with this. That's the answer.

You guys would take 5 Michael Jordans over 5 Wembys?

Definitely.

Bill, Bill, I'm gonna allow you to retract this statement.

I'm not retracting it. Wembys, 7 Michael Jordans.

What are you talking about?

Against 5 Wembys?

What are you even talking— peak Michael Jordan, Michael Air Jeffrey Jordan. I—

the one— we have to break this out as a social clip because I can't wait to keep—

I can't believe this.

I can't believe But the, the one Wemby couldn't post up in Game 5 against Oklahoma City.

Yeah, he gets tired in the second quarter.

So you're saying one of the 5 Mega Jordans is pushing back, but then we'll just bring in another Wemby to get closer. He can't—

it's a feature. He, he doesn't have enough gas.

They keep talking about it.

5 Jordans, you need somebody who's good at everything, jack of all trades. Wemby's a very unique player because of his height. He needs guards and people to set him up. He doesn't like— honestly, he doesn't even create his own shots. The best Wemby is rolling to the basket and then Steph Castle just blindly throws the ball up in the air and either tips it in or tips it off the rim to himself and dunks it.

See, I think 5 LeBrons would have a better chance than 5 Jordans. Jordan was 6'6".

It's a good argument.

Now we're having like 6 smaller instead of the LeBron-Jordan debate. We're having the LeBron and his clones.

5 LeBys versus 5 LeBrons. 5 James Hardens would have some trouble, I feel like, because that's the other thing. 5 Currys could just like bomb threes and try to beat them with math, right? That was like, we don't care how tall you are, I'm just gonna shoot 30-footers.

I love it.

Matt from Toronto is exhausted by the term generational. It's supposed to be once in a generation. Now he's hearing it's a generational draft, multiple generational prospects. He said in his eyes, only two generational players are in the NBA right now. LeBron, whose generation is ending, and Wemby, whose generation is starting. He wants to retire the word generational for everyone else. Let's not use it anymore. I would throw in Joker as a generational offensive player, which I think he is. So I would say we have three people that the generational word can get thrown around. Other than that, I think he's right. I'd even think I look, I'm going to look in the mirror. It's like, how can you leave Curry out? Generational.

Oh, you're right.

He's still in the league.

Steph Curry.

Steph Curry, generational shooter. So there's 4.

Not Durant. Generational scorer. He's going to go down as the most prolific scorer.

He's a generational forward.

Generational tweeter.

And Durant's kind of the line for this. Generational scoring forward. But what does that even mean? So, Kurt Schröder—

generational, you don't— because I just don't know when it starts or when it ends. It's kind of like when you go to a store and they have the sign on the door that says like, be back in 5 minutes. I'm like, when did you— when did the 5 minutes start and when is it going to end? And how do you know when I'm going to see the sign? So it's like the generations are like bleed into each other is what I feel like. Like there's no defined beginning and end of the generation, sort of just like a sliding 20 years through time.

Would you say House is a generational eater?

Yes.

I agree with this.

I would say all time.

I think he is too, because anytime over the course of my life when people who didn't know House ate with House, there's always that point in the meal when they just become impressed that House is still eating and that he's picking stuff off other plates. And it's been going on forever, I think, which makes him generational.

And he doesn't draw a lot of attention to it either. He's not performative with his overeating. You know what I mean? He's not talking about it. It's just sort of just slowly like, oh hey, no, like the guy will come by and be like, oh, you're done with the egg rolls? Oh no, no, no, I'll take that off.

Do you think I'm a generational playing blackjack at 4:30 in the morning guy or no?

No.

Okay. House, this question's for you from Cody K. All right. Longtime Wizards fan. Oh, he's lived through the draft picks of people like Jan Vesely.

I'm familiar.

He's lived through overpaying Otto Porter.

We did that.

He's lived through playing and coaching of Randy Whitman.

That happened.

Losing on purpose. Sure. He's excited about the draft and he's seen recent rumors of the Wizards getting in on the Greek Freak sweepstakes. Am I losing my mind thinking a lineup of Trey, Trey Johnson, Bilal, AD, and the Freak? Could work. He didn't even mention your number one pick in the draft. Plus we have Dulles to Greece flights. He wants to point out too. How still—

this is true.

You still haven't talked yourself into this.

It's outrageous. It's preposterous. I understand the season that we're in now with the NBA where we have to, you know, go into this, this drama queen mode because there isn't anything to talk about from the games. But there is no scenario under which it makes a lick of sense for Giannis to come to Washington. None whatsoever.

Jacoby, where do you want Giannis to go?

Yeah.

What's your team? What's the most fun for content Giannis team?

Expendables is off the table.

Yeah.

Most fun for content is going to be the Nets. Just like a terrible Nets team and they win like 30 games and he's just pissed, but he's in New York and there's like rumors about him being out in clubs and stuff. It's just like, and he's just getting hammered and he's just like, God, I was actually better off in Milwaukee than I am here in, in Brooklyn. That would be for content would be the funniest just because of the spotlight. The New York market puts on you. And like, you think it's bad with your roster in Milwaukee? Like, welcome, welcome to Clowny and Jowman.

I think Miami would be the most fun. Heat culture versus you have— you also have to sign my two brothers if I'm coming. We do that whole thing. That could be fun. Um, Jason from New Jersey has a Greek Freak thing. He says, with Wemby doing what he's doing, do we have to rescind Giannis's nickname Greek Freak? Or the Freak. Next to Wemby, he doesn't seem to be freakish. Not saying we need to call Wemby the French Freak, but I don't think we can have other players called Freak if Wemby's in the league. I disagree. I'm fine with Giannis is the Freak. We've called him the Freak. Wemby's the Alien or the UFO. Alien. Yeah, he's Alien. He's not a Freak. He's more than a Freak.

Yeah, 'cause he hasn't earned anything yet. Giannis earned the Freak. He didn't just arrive and we looked at him and said, and started calling him the Freak just because of how he looked.

It's how—

because of how he played, his force of will, his dominant style. That's what really— he filled out the Freak. Right now it is fine to call Wemby an alien or, you know, from a different whatever, because that's all that we can ascribe to him. There is nothing— it's a great run. I'm thrilled for the Spurs. And let's see how this plays out before we start giving him any nicknames other than recognizing that he's a giant person.

Would 5 Giannis beat 5 Wembys?

Yes.

Oh, phenomenal. I agree with Jacob's strong yes.

I don't think 5 Wembys is a strong team. I really don't think 5 Wembys is a strong team. I could beat 5 Wembys.

I love this. I can't wait to see what people think of this.

This is, I can't believe you're, I think, I think that's a social clip.

I, I want Freak to get to a Western Conference team and dunk on Wemby, you know, repeatedly.

I think there's a real, You know, uh, uh, he's mad he took his corner.

Yeah, exactly right. Not, not the free corner, but you know, who's the biggest, baddest big guy.

It's like what's happening in Euphoria right now with Zendaya and Sydney Sweeney.

No, well, I haven't watched one episode, but I already know which way.

It's two major stars. Well, one of them, one of them has been naked the whole season, so I don't know how you missed it. And I know which one that is, so Marcus Marcus is a huge Suns fan and he's still having trouble, especially with the recent Jalen Brunson thing, digesting the Suns 2018 draft. And he said when they took DeAndre Ayton over Luka Dončić, it was so monumental, it overshadowed everything else that happened that night. The Suns had 3 of the first 31 picks. They took with the first pick DeAndre Ayton over Luka Dončić. With the 10th pick, 10th pick, they took Mikael Bridges over Shade Gilgeous-Alexander. And with the 31st pick, they took Ilya Kobo over Jalen Brunson. I did not realize this. Ilya Kobo. Ilya Kobo.

Not familiar with him.

So they passed up Luka Dončić, SGA, and Brunson all in a row. And they all got taken either the next pick or 2 picks later. Pretty interesting. How's that? Like, broke house.

I'm trying to think who the GM was for that, because that's some— that's the kind of stuff the Sixers have been doing for a decade now, which I've really enjoyed.

Kevin from Malden, um, diehard Celtic fan along with all his buddies, and said, if it's a Knicks-Thunder series, who do we root for? We're very split. Um, none of us like New York teams. None of us want to root for the Knicks. That's how fucking annoying the Thunder are to watch. Kevin from Malden writes, you have a bunch of Boston guys rolling with the Knicks over the floppers. Jesus Christ, I hope Wemby and the Spurs pull it off.

Wow.

I kind of feel the same way. I probably would. I probably, the basketball fan in me would probably root for the Knicks storyline, even though it's a New York team and New York will be insufferable for years after.

You can hate the Knicks, but it's hard to hate these Knicks.

It really is.

Even if you're from Boston, like, I get it, you hate the uniform, but like the players and the vibes, like, and they're gonna be underdogs to the floppers. I think you have to go Knicks even if you're in Boston.

What do you think, Has?

It's a great, great point. I agree with you on this. Yeah.

Okay. This is a good one. Maybe we end on this. Speaking of flopping, from Liam from Minneapolis, he recently watched the 1997 movie Double Team. Starring Dennis Rodman and Jean-Claude Van Damme, and was thinking, what current NBA player action star duo should we get to remake this? And was wondering if it should be Anthony Edwards and Jason Statham. Oh my God. I had an idea. They remake Double Team as Double Flop with SGA and Statham.

That's phenomenal.

I made this on CGI.

You did that?

Yeah.

Yeah, look at you. I put in, make a double flap movie poster for me, and they did it. Double flap.

It can't be— Statham is too legit. You need a worse action hero. You need somebody—

Well, if SJ was an action movie person, his move would be, he's in fight scenes and he would be flopping, and the people would be just completely confused.

Disarmed.

He would dive into them with like an elbow thing and go flying, and they'd be like, what the fuck did that? And then Statham would just come in and punch him in the face. That would be the move. You don't agree with that?

I was so scared to Google double team movie Dennis Rodman because I'm sure there were some double teams filmed during this, uh, film.

You guys, you guys got two guys together. Yeah, I felt like we should just be careful. We— I, I felt like treading carefully here was the right move.

You guys got really scared there for a second.

Well, I mean, the action hero bit That's all I have for you guys.

Statham, Statham might be too big.

So the biggest thing we argued about was 5 Wembys versus 5 Michael Jordans.

One of your worst takes. One of your worst takes, honestly.

I'll be interested to see what America thinks.

Kind of insane.

I have a zone defense of 5 7-foot-6 guys.

It, it's Michael Jordan versus a 22-year-old French guy who shot 4 for 15 cuz he couldn't get in the lane.

Against—

he took one shot in the first half against Isaiah Hartenstein.

Listen, if I was actually picking this in my life depending on it, I'm picking 5 Michael Jordans against everybody. I just have— I would have the most confidence.

I'm picking 5 Isaiah Hartensteins over 5 Wembys.

Yes, 5 Isaiah Hartensteins over 5 Wembys. That's a good matchup.

Uh, before we go, House, who do you want with the number 1 pick?

AJ. It hasn't changed. Okay, it's AJ. AJ all day. I love that guy.

The whole long story that the Utah feature writer did about what's the deal with Darren Peterson's cramping situation. Did you read that?

Did not. Don't care.

You should read it because it will make you maybe not want to take him as much and move maybe more toward AJ.

I already, whoo, I already said AJ. I want AJ.

You know, he reclassified as an 8th grader. He reclassified as an 8th grader. He did 8th grade twice. He's a little older than you think. AJ.

Don't care. I watched him play basketball. He's fucking awesome.

He is really good. I hope you take AJ.

Me too.

Who do you want them to take, Jacobs?

AJ or Caleb. I'm staying away from Peterson. If, if I'm like the number 4 pick, who's at the Jazz?

It's the Bulls.

Oh, the Bulls. Yeah. I'd be terrified if Peterson drops me. I kind of, your hands are tied. You have to take him.

Wow.

I'd be terrified to draft Peterson. I really would. I'd be terrified. I watched some of those games. It was just like weird. He'd have 22 in the first half and just be like, yeah, I'm out. I'm done.

He's one of the all-time terrified to take him, terrified not to take him guys that we've had in the draft. Either way, either way, you're just scared for the result.

You should get Dominic from Dubuque to ask that question in the next mailbag.

Dominic from Dubuque? Who's that?

I don't know, I just, I just came up with that. It feels like a guy that might have a question about the all-time list for, for guys you're damned if you do, damned if you don't draft, draft selection.

Hopefully Dominic, if there's a Dominic in Dubuque, hopefully A run-in. All right, guys, it was great to see both of you. Jacobes, we'll, we'll watch and listen to you on the Mismatch. And food news, Julia Lippmann, house, fairway rolling, US Open coming up.

Yeah, we got the Memorial. We're in Jack's place next week. That's, that's going to be exciting.

Bring your game as well. Are you gonna bet on World Cup or no?

Uh, yeah, I've already bet on Norway over Iran. That was one. I'm just doing whatever Anthony DeBundo tells me to do. So I'll be betting. I'm almost definitely betting against the US when they play a good team. But I'm just listening to DeBundo. Definitely betting on the World Cup though.

You bet Norway over—

well, DeBundo, I think might have had an aneurysm today because Sinner lost in the French Open. He was like a -12,000 favorite or something and he got heat stroke and ended up losing. No, right. French Open's wide open. Anyway. All right guys. Good to see you. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Jacobian House, thanks to Mahoney, thanks to Gahau and Eduardo as well. Don't forget to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey, um, before the end of the weekend because that's gonna be the next rewatchables. Enjoy the weekend. I will see you next time here on the Bill Simmons Podcast. Must be 21+ in President's Select states for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino, or 18+ in President's Select states, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-RESET. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope Is Here, visit gamblinghelplineMA.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York. For Louisiana, call 877-770-7867.