Transcript of Giannis to Miami! An Urgent Gathering Pod With Chris Ryan and Justin Verrier

This episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast is presented by PayPal. You know a clutch move when you see one. A no-look pass, a buzzer beater, a big steal. Well, imagine if your wallet could pull off moves like that. That, my friends, is PayPal. Right now you can find offers from hundreds of brands like Sony, Allbirds, and Viater, and save offers before you check out. Earn unlimited rewards. Plus you can add those rewards on top of credit card points. Now that is clutch. Download the PayPal app today. Save those offers. Start scoring rewards. Terms and exclusions apply. See paypal.com/rewardsterms. Credit card points subject to issuers' terms and conditions. All right, we are recording this. It is 9:45 Pacific time. It's not an emergency podcast because this isn't an emergency. We've been waiting like 307 days for this. Justin Barrios here from The Ringer. Chris Ryan's here from The Ringer. Just got back from dinner. I don't know if it's drunk house or relatively unsober house. What, what version of house are you right now?

I'm, I'm legally allowed to drive, but I don't know if I'm legally allowed to comment on a Giannis trade.

Yeah, that we've been waiting forever. All right, so Giannis going to Miami. It was Boston versus Miami for days and days and days. I thought it was going to happen today, then everyone was like, it's not happening, and then Um, after I took my contacts out, gave my dog a bath, just brought my dog out of the bathtub, and then all of a sudden Giannis was traded. Very— are you surprised it's Miami?

No, it seemed like obviously it was going to be Boston or Miami, and I always thought Miami's package just made a little bit more sense than what the Celtics were offering. I just never got just getting Jalen Brown back for a Milwaukee team that had just struggled for multiple years at this point dealing with one superstar without the supporting cast in order to make really anything of it. And so just getting a bunch of stuff, at least to me, me. Like, I'm not sure what that stuff really amounts to. It's more of an opportunity than a sure thing in there, but I would rather that. And I think that's ultimately where the Bucks decided to—

all right, so they see— are they got Hero, Ware, Hakim— they got Hakim Shoness. That's how you say it, right? Yeah, like him.

Yakishonas.

Yakishonas. You got the 13th pick in this draft. They got 31 and 33 unprotected and a 30 swap. So they basically gave up Everything they had except Bam Adebayo. What do you think, CR? Because I don't know what's left. I'll tell you what's left for Miami now. Now they could patch this together if this was the good old days, but basically Giannis, Bam, Wiggins, Davion Mitchell, Bobby Portis they got in the trade as well, and then Norm Powell if they can re-sign him as a free agent, and then minimum free agents, and that's their team.

You know what the first thing that jumped into my mind with this trade was, was the Geek story slash quote about if somebody's going to trade for me, I'm worried about how much they're going to have to trade to get me and what I'm going to be walking into when I walk into that locker room. Is Giannis on a better team now than he was yesterday? I don't think so.

I would say Bam's a better teammate.

Sure.

Maybe the front office is a little more motivated, but I don't think, I don't think this team's a title contender. Do you? Varier?

No, but they're definitely in the mix. And I do like how they contrast some of the other teams that have ascended in the East here. Like the Knicks are obviously probably gonna go into next season as the presumptive favorites. And you look at them and they're more of an offensive driven team. I know they did a lot of work in the Finals in order to win that, but like you think about Brunson, you think about the blender with them. At the very least, the Miami Heat have an identity from day one, which is they're gonna be like pretty physical and pretty defensive minded. I think Bam, Giannis, Andrew Wiggins is like the core, and Davion Mitchell is really the core of the type type of like grounded out defensive team that I think fits Miami's identity for like years on end at this point, but also maybe something that would be a contrast to a lot of these teams that are counting on like high octane offenses.

Well, and this also goes to like—

don't ask for any shooting, CR.

Yeah.

I mean, I was gonna say, I mean, what we just saw in the playoffs was the importance of depth, you know, throughout the whole entire postseason. But I was gonna say, this is gonna test two of Miami's kind of like big myths of self-belief that they have, which is A, we're an attractive destination for top-tier talent to come.

Not untrue.

And B, we trust our development so much that we can turn coal into diamonds wherever we look. And they're really going to have to dig now because they need to find 4 more guys. Like, this is not— this might be a playoff team in the East, but this is not a title team.

Yeah, this is not 2011. All right, so I have a two-part take. One, I think Miami had to do this. They gave up both an incredible amount, but also an amount that if I'm a Milwaukee fan, I'm like, wait, what did we get? Like, what do you tell your 9-year-old Bucks fan son? Hey, we traded Giannis. What'd we get? Well, we got all the other guys on a 43-win team that aren't Bam, and we got some picks really starting 4 years from now, and we got the 13th pick in an 8 or 9-player draft. And then after that, you keep your fingers crossed. With that said, they did get a lot of stuff. And I think one of the keys, and the, the thing we kept hearing the last day and a half was that Milwaukee was really split on the offers. That there was the front office really wanted this Miami offer and the owners were split on should we just get Jaylen Brown? Like we can, he's one of the 12 best guys in the league. We could either keep him or we could flip him. Like he's just, he's a dollar. We're just, or we're just getting all of these quarters and dimes from Miami..

And I think ultimately this proves yet again that front offices love nothing more than, than trades that can keep themselves in power for a few years.

Yeah.

This is the perfect trade if you're John Horst and his team and you already got rid of Doc Rivers. You don't really know where you are. This Giannis, the team thing has been paralyzing you for over a year. And now you could be like, hey, we're rebuilding. We have picks, we have stuff, we have pieces. I don't know what this is, but I know I'm not gonna get fired anytime soon 'cause this is a mess. Whereas if you get Jalen, I think there's slightly different expectations. So do you think that's a fair assessment on that barrier?

I do. I just think the die was cast when they fucked this last offseason where like, not only did you just like not figure anything out last year and just basically punt this down the road, but you put yourself in debt with the Dame-Wayne stretch in a way that just was going to make— to putting anything else around Giannis. There were no last outs for this team in order to go through. And so I don't know if like what they have now is all that great, but I guess considering where they are because of that, I don't mind it. I just don't see like, because they were so in debt with the picks in addition to the Dame-Wayne stretch, like what they were going to do with just like one player, like with Jaylen Brown, anything like that. It's just like you were just gonna be in the same sort of situation. So at the very least, you don't think they would've flipped him?

I always felt like they were acquiring him to then repackage him was my— where it's like Giannis was basically like, I'm going here or here. So you had two places to send him and that's it.

Yeah. If they moved him to a Portland or like a Clippers, then it would've made more sense. But would you rather your own picks back versus Miami? I don't know. Considering the flattened lottery odds, I might even lean more toward like the Miami's picks plus just guys that I know at the very least have some like concrete value to them.

CR, tell us if you had a Bucs fan in your life, what are you telling them today?

That Khalil Ware, it might, might turn into something that you're probably actually not gonna be appreciably worse than you were last season. That Tyler Herro is coming home and you can start cutting together the montage now. That Jaques is a nice player.

He is. I like Jaques.

You needed to, you needed to amputate. This was no more cutting, no more, no more little procedures. This was basically sinking the franchise. I think the, the sort of long national vigil that we have held watching where this guy is going to go and is he going to sign a contract was probably sucking the life out of this team. You've got a new coach who's good at coaching up players.

Yeah.

Start from zero.

Let's see what happens., and you have the 10th and 13th picks.

Hey, and I just want to say, so two things. One is we are 5 minutes in. I'm not going to let you not talk about Boston much longer, so just get ready. And two, 10 and 13, I wonder whether or not they're going to do something with them and try to get a move up. Well, so you would— you'd been talking about this. A lot of people have been talking about this on Sunday night. You were talking about this with Zach about The people at the teams at 5 where the point guards are going to start to go don't need point guards.

Yeah.

And could you, you know, could one of these guys help the Clippers? Could there be some sort of deal? I obviously have no idea what I'm talking about, but I think that that's— there feels like maybe there's another step coming because if I'm the Bucks, I want to get younger. I want to start, I want to start the clock at zero.

Or there's the other version of this where they take Nate Amen at 10. And then somebody else we're not sure about at 13. And the Bucs fans are like, what happened? Um, from the Miami side of this, they're just in purgatory, right? They're miles behind the Knicks and the Celtics as well, and the Cavs, maybe even the Raptors in Orlando. Going down the line, they finished 10th this year.

Yeah. Yeah.

So they kind of had to take the Hail Mary. There was also, you know, there's a lot of swagger in that part of the country about we're Miami, we've done this. I've always joked about the zombie heat. I think pulling off LeBron and, and, and Bosh in 2010, pulling off Shaq in 2004. The incredible one was Jimmy Butler in 2019 when they somehow convinced Portland to take Hassan Whiteside. But it started to feel like their, their luster was, was slipping a little. JV, Pat Riley's 80.

Right.

It's like, did they still have the magic? Now they could be like, hey, we got Giannis. He was number 3 MVP 2 years ago and is one of the 25 best players of all time. And please don't look at his playoff game log for the last 5 years.

I mean, I, I just think like the league is better when Miami is a villain in everything. Like practically since the late 2000s, they've been a primary character in the NBA's story. And I just think like having Pat Riley being out there, like putting the rings on the table and giving like any given Sunday style speech. Speeches at his press conference is just good for the league. It's also good to see Giannis back in a competitive environment because what has it been like, 2 years, 3 years since he's practically been in the wilderness? If you want to loop in the years with Dame, which were just sort of mixed and muddled, everyone was injured and like it just, just wasn't good for a player where, Bill, I don't know where you have him on your pyramid, but he has to be like one of the most prominent players in the league historically that is still active right now. Yeah. To see those two things come together. I don't know what they'll be next year, but at the very least they're going to matter. And I think that matters for just like fans in order to plug into this.

Yeah, I was— he's gonna be motivated. He really hasn't played basketball a year. I think he has one, maybe two really, really, really elite years left. I did a bunch of stuff on my podcast, I don't know, 2, 3 months ago about all of the historical signs that are against Giannis. Like just even averaging a 20-10 after your 14th season in the league is just about as rare as it gets. Being really good from age 32 on, not really realistic. But if you're Miami, what the hell else were you gonna do, CR? Like, this is— you had no other options and you just basically traded the all-time poo-poo platter and all these picks. Pat Riley's gonna be 84 when the 2030 swap is coming into play. Do you think he cares? He's gonna be 87 and still be living in his house.

Now that this is finally over, I would love to get multiple now they tell us notebook dumps out of this trade because I want to know who's driving this trade for Miami. Is it Riley looking for one last shot at glory? Is it Spo being like, hey, to keep me engaged, we need to take a step up here? Is it one of the Arisons? What, what was the buck side of this? Was this Haslam driving this?

Who came up with this? This is Haslam because he's getting the team.

And who came up with the, like, if he doesn't sign an extension, it's over now idea instead of seeing him with Taylor as the new coach.

Yeah.

And, and I want to know, Bill, I want to know what's going on, what happens next for Boston.

Wait, I thought you were going to do a one, one last job thing with Miami. Is this a directed by Michael Mann? One last job. We got to be honest, this could be Go Fast Boats. Yeah, yeah, we've been talking to J.R. Smith. He might make a comeback. I can do this.

He comes back from Scotland. Yeah.

From a Boston standpoint, this whole thing's been confusing. They made an offer 2 weeks ago that I don't think they changed, and I think it was Jaylen Brown and a couple picks and that was it. And I think Milwaukee, I think said, all right, when we get close to the draft, we're gonna come back and we're gonna really try to figure this out. And I don't think Boston really wavered. I think they wanted a whole bunch of stuff other than Jaylen and 2 first-round picks. Jaylen was second team All-NBA last year. Jalen's younger than Giannis. Jalen's more durable than Giannis. And I, I think Boston was like, that's kind of our trade, guys. There's not, we don't really need to do this. Now the risk for the Celtics is that this came out and Jalen was in trade rumors. And that's, that's just what's gonna happen with this. You're not gonna be able, if there's too many people involved on both sides for, if an offer is floated out there, no matter if it was like, here is our actual offer, or here's the vicinity of the offer we're thinking, however you stage it. You're still discussing your second best player or your first best player depending on how people feel about the Celtics.

So my take, and I said this on pods over and over again, I didn't think this was the trade for Boston. I didn't like it. I didn't, I thought it was too risky and I thought there were better Jalen trades. Like if to me the pivot would be looking at New Orleans, if they're gonna trade Jalen and trying to get Murphy and Herb Jones, well, or Murphy, Jordan Poole's expiring and picks from the Pelicans. What, whatever version of that, or the Hawks or, I just very, I just feel like there's better trades than this for Giannis. I don't know how Giannis and Tatum would've played together. And I, and you're talking about Giannis has health risks, Tatum's coming off a torn Achilles. Like I just, I don't think this trade was a slam dunk for them. And I, I've said this the whole time.

I know the playoffs ended poorly and I don't want to bring that back up between you guys so we could just move along here, but I don't remember that. Okay, that's good. It's good to hear. I, I just, don't remember coming out of that series and thinking that this was such a desperate, desperate situation in the way that Brad Stevens kind of projected it was in his postseason press conferences, where he brings up the stat where it's like, oh, 3-11 against the top 3 seeds. I'm like, okay, you also didn't have one of the best players in the league for like 3/4 of the season, and you never really hit a stride where you would say like everything is clicking. Derrick White was awful all year from 3-point land, got worse in the playoffs. Like, he didn't have a good year whatsoever. A lot of these guys that they're counting on are young. And so I look back at this, I'm just like, where is the incentive to just go do and hit the button with Giannis? Now I have to assume that Jaylen Brown is just such a tax on everyone's emotional bandwidth just because of who he is and also how tough it is to build the right team around these two.

It really took getting Jrue and Derrick and Kristaps, these like awesome role players, in order to make it work in the first place. But from a big picture POV, if you're going to do anything, I would say take a step back, like trade Jaylen for young guys. Like you're talking about, like Trey Murphy has a lot still left in him. Herb Jones does, and maybe picks from the Pelicans and just like bring Tatum back along slowly so you could be like really, really good in 2 years. I never really understood the Giannis thing.

Yeah, I for one am never going to forgive Milwaukee for rolling this grenade into the Celtics locker room. My brothers stood arm in arm. They waited for JT to come back from his Achilles in record time. And now Jimmy Haslam has destroyed that with one fell swoop. I don't know, Bill. I could never really, really totally tell whether this was Jaylen Brown, like you've kind of said a couple of times, saying, I like the taste of having my own team. Let's find that for me. Or was this, was this Brad Stevens coming out and being like, hey, guess what? Basketball's different than it was 18 months ago, and we can't just shoot threes all day, and we need to have a different speed here, and we need to have like a completely different look. And maybe that's what was driving the Giannis searching. I was curious. Bill, this Randle trade that happened concurrently with Giannis, and I don't know how related you feel like these things are, but now Minnesota opens up like this $33 million trade exception and are obviously looking to stay competitive with the Western Conference powers. Like, is that a sneaky Jalen destination possibly?

Like, is there, is there more stuff to come?

Oh, I thought you were gonna say Derek White, which I don't think would happen. No, I think, I think they were delighted to get off of Randle and they got a big trade exception for it and they got the ability to sign Io, which they already did. So to me it was just a sour thing. That was the rare trade that I kind of didn't like for all three teams. Like, I just don't like Nick Claxton that much. I'm not— the Bulls had max cap space and it's— they used $20+ million of it on Nick Claxton. And for Brooklyn, like, okay, Julius Randle maybe prevents you from being one of the 3 worst teams, and now you're locking in 3 lottery balls instead of 2. Congratulations. I didn't know very— if they were just gonna get everybody who didn't get a ring with the Knicks the last 5 years and just slowly get all those guys to put them in Brooklyn.

Everybody that Mom Donny shouted out at the parade.

Didi V, they get him back. I don't know who else was on the— Jeremy Lin, maybe get him outta retirement. Who else could they get?

I have to imagine that they were the Trae Young suitor that forced the Wizards into giving him just basically a max from an outside team. And so like if you had Trae Young and Julius Randle, were they just trying to build like the biggest villain possible for the Knicks? 'Cause they knew that like they were never gonna get anyone in that building whatsoever. Right. Uh, um, I'll be honest, I know this is like my cross to bear here, but I, I don't hate the Nick Claxton move for the Bulls.

Right.

I just think if you're, if you're just building like a fun young team that's like gonna get out and run. Like, I actually think Nick Claxton is like pretty good for that system. He might weigh £150 soaking wet.

Yeah.

And, and like, he's been like 2 years away for like 7 years at this point. But I actually think he fits at the very least what they have and like is young enough to build with the young team.

So when you said that was the factor for the Trae Young extension, I think the other possibility is mushrooms. If you had told me they— he opted out and they gave him a 2-year deal at max, I would've been like, I don't know, that's pretty risky. And instead they basically did 4. I thought that was dumbfounding. I don't know who they were competing against. I thought that was really weird. So with the Celtics, I just think they felt like Jaylen was a good enough offer and that's it. We're not throwing in more stuff. We don't care that Miami's desperate. We're not.. And, you know, whether it was Hugo, whether it was Shireman, whether it was more than the 27th pick and an extra pick, I don't know what the ultimate final offer was, but, or we have to take Kuzma back. I don't think they want to do any of that stuff. I, I think they like their team and the Jalen PCR, you know, it's nothing major. I can't, there's no smoking gun with this. I can't really point to one specific thing, but I think it's just, a bunch of small things that seem like they've added up.

Um, you know, doing the Twitch every day, starting, starting shit with Stephen A. Smith, talking about how last year was the best year of his career. Um, some of the Jalen, Jason, whose team is this stuff? Maybe they wanted to, maybe this was the easiest way to avoid it. It's the Sierra. It's honestly the reason I haven't let you host the rewatchables for 6 months because I don't want to come back and then you're just kind of side-eyeing me the whole time and being like, I don't know. Yeah, I was running this thing.

My favorite pods I've ever done is when I did Blade Runner without Bill.

Say, I don't know, did you guys hear that Blade Runner pod? Uh, but there— I, I, I personally do not think they would have entertained this at the end of the season. I think something definitely shifted as we went along. And, you know, I just think I, I'm not convinced he's going to be on the team in October, very I would say it's 50/50.

I mean, especially considering that they've been down this road with him, what, like 17 times where they've almost traded him? Like, I was talking to someone earlier today, like, remember the time where they almost traded him for Anthony Davis on the Pelicans? Like, we're talking about Trey Murphy now, where it's like the Kyrie no rules rule thing. Like, that was like 10 years ago. And he was always so hardheaded that I think he was the type of person who didn't want to get into this situation. But now it's just compounded time and time and again. And after he has this great year, you're doing it again. It seems pretty unsolvable at this point. I think the good thing— I think you're right about like standing with the offer that they gave the Bucks where it's just like, take Jalen and like some picks and that's it. Because Jalen is still really good. The problem is he's probably best suited for a really good team, but not like a championship contending team. He's probably best suited for where he is now as a 1B on a really good team. But there's just so many of these other teams like that.

The Blazers, for instance, my hometown team here, like He would fit really well there. And the Clippers, the Hawks. And so I think that they could still—

yeah, there's 4 good ones.

They could still get a lot for him. But I do wonder if the Celtics, I'm curious what you think about this, would be willing to take a step back after being so pronounced about taking a step forward here and actually prioritize picks or just young players so you can retool rather than just like push the button, let's win tomorrow.

Yeah. Tatum's, I think, gonna be 28 next year. Chisholm just bought the team. So new owner not really being like, hey, let's take our time. Like he wants to be good. He wants, they, they lost in 7 games to a Philly team that immediately the tires, the tires came flying off the car.

The moment they were so ready. We came up with this theory of destiny, Bill. We couldn't do anything about that.

It's too bad.

The financial doping of James Dolan and the Brunson mafia.

See, if they had just benched Embiid in that first game, you could have come back. They just listened to you. You said it that day.

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Hol dir dein Geld zurück, tiefenentspannt mit Wieso Steuer. So from a Celtics standpoint, there's lots of ways this could go. There's also the way it could go where they just bring them back. They have a $27 million trade exception. They have a bunch of their picks. They have some moves to make. But it's a bizarre situation. I will say with the Boston fans in my life and even Boston fans online, wherever, wherever you wanna look where Celtic fans were, I, I don't think anybody was like, we gotta get Giannis. Holy shit, he's available. I think there were real concerns and I think there's real love for, for the Jays in the last 10 years. Like Jalen, they drafted him 10 years ago, I think tomorrow. They won a title with the guy. He's been in 6 conference finals. I was looking at one stat, I was looking, 'cause I, I honestly thought, I, there was a point today where I really thought that he was gonna get traded. There's only 11 guys ever who have played 125 playoff games and averaged 19 a game.

Hmm.

And the other guys are LeBron, Duncan, Kawhi, Wade, Magic, Larry, Kobe, Tatum, Worthy, and Klay Thompson. Like, he's had a pretty great career, you know? And I, and I still feel like he's getting better. I thought last year was the best he's ever looked. So if you're the Celtics, like, hey, Tatum's gonna be healthy. We've won with these guys. Maybe we have to tweak our style a little bit, but I don't think this is a disaster. Now the question is, does Jaylen do a 6-hour Twitch stream tomorrow, CR? And right, what, how does he handle the next 48 hours?

I think we find out what we find out in the next 48 hours, whether this was gonna be, you might get traded for Giannis, but you are getting traded. Or whether it was, we might walk the dog here with you and Giannis, but that doesn't mean we don't believe in you. There's something kind of weird about the fact that they withstood 6, 7 years of, can these two guys play together and win together, win a title? And then, and now we're going to trade you guys after we've established ourselves as a powerhouse in the East. And I do think that there's a little bit too much, um, let's tear up all the plans that we made over the years going on right now because nobody knows how to like counteract the, the newly emergent powers in the NBA. And it's just like, Boston's really good. They're going to be really good next year if they run back the same team. They can do some tactical tweaks that will easily get them into the mix here. But I feel like Zach tried to kind of shoot you a little bail on Sunday night and he was like, you know, only sources are saying this.

Like, I don't know, what if Jalen's not even in this trade? And you were like, Jalen's in the trade. So obviously there's like a, there's a, some truth to the matter that Boston is offering.

That was reported all over the place this morning too.

Yeah. So I was saying it for, at this point, at this point I'm just saying it seems like he's done in Boston to me. But you, you know, stranger things have happened.

Or very, or maybe this was their way of like, maybe like a Scared Straight type thing. Remember that show in the, in the, what was that in the '70s or '80s?

See what it would've been like if you had gone to Milwaukee?

See, you could've been in walking. That would've sucked. How's this looking?

Listen, Bill, like you, I'm, I'm a bit of a hot-blooded, mostly Italian person. I feel like there are times where I've probably held a grudge a little bit too long, but like I've had to get over it, right?

Yeah.

I, I, I just feel like at a certain point, like maybe this is his best recourse because like, is he really better off going to a lesser team and just like having his way? Because all the teams that we mentioned aside from maybe the Pelicans are going to have similar issues. They're not gonna be, uh, Jalen, Jason Tatum type where he's making All-NBA teams and all this other stuff. It's more of a Jalen Johnson or a Deni Avdija, or like, we'll see if Kawhi or Darius Garland would be there with the Clippers. But like, he's still going to have to get along with guys. Like, the league is just too talent deep at this point where you don't just get your team like it was 10 to 15 years ago and like, there are no issues there. You're just the guy and we'll play through you. You get 30 game like Jerry Stackhouse and you go to your All-Stars and that's that. Like, the league just doesn't exist that way. So So I, I think it's best for both parties to figure this out. I just don't know if it's like, if for him it's just unsalvageable.

Yeah. It's like, on one hand, I completely agree with Justin that this just seems like it's like 3 conversations and they could all be taking pictures together on Instagram in a couple of days. On the other hand, we have seen with Kyrie Irving, with Kevin Durant, like we have seen situations where it's like, so you had Valhalla and you walked away from it multiple times. What happened there? And I just think. Especially once a guy wins a ring, it's kind of like, what, where are you happiest? More than where do I have the best chance to win a championship?

And what's his incentive as a basketball player heading into the 11th year of his career? He already won a title. This is ironically the Pat Riley disease of more, which the Knicks are going to have to deal with now too. When you sacrifice and you're unselfish and you have a common team goal, and then you have to start thinking, all right, I'm ready for some shine. So when Jalen said that was his favorite year of his career last year. And then he tried to backtrack a little and was like, no, I was— maybe because everyone counted us out and we had all this adversity and blah blah blah. But yeah, I think a, a huge part of that was he finally got his shot as a real guy.

You say some things you don't mean, right? All right.

But I'm sure he loved it.

I'm sure he loved to prove that you can still be a really good team if I'm your best player. Right? They went, they went 56-23 after going 0-3 to start the year. So he, he proved it. We'll see what else he wants to prove. I think, I think he's a really good player. I had him second team All-NBA. I think I voted for him in Ringer. Where did he end up in Ringer 100? Like 13th, 14th range, somewhere in there.

I think he was 12th or 13th behind KAT, but above Tatum.

Yeah, I had him right around there and he's still in his prime. I mean, he looked as athletic as he ever was gonna look last year. It's interesting though. I, so I was talking to my daughter who's been living in Boston the last 3+ years and has really become a Celtic fan 'cause she's gone to a lot of games and she's like Zach with the draft. Like she's just dangerous enough with basketball opinions now 'cause she's gone to these games. She doesn't know a lot about trades. Like the Celtics have made smaller trades but never like a big trade with one of their dudes. And she was asking me about this Miami versus Boston for Giannis thing and she's like, I don't understand. So Miami's not gonna put Bam in the trade, but we are gonna put Jalen in the trade, but they might not take Jalen in the trade? I don't understand trades. And I was like, well, Miami's gonna put all of this other stuff, but it won't be Bam. And she was just like, I know, but I saw the Heat last year, like, that kind of sucked. Like, how do you get Giannis for that?

And I was like, honestly, I don't know.

Was she not available for tonight's podcast?

I think she's asleep.

But you guys talked about the second apron after that.

I was like, you know, flexibility and picks. But it is funny to think in that context that Miami was like, no, no, we can't put Bam in it. And meanwhile, Jalen made second team All-NBA last year and Bam didn't make any team.

Right.

And Bam was in the Ringer 100. He was in the 20s. He means more to Miami. He's a big part of the city and the community. And, you know, I know they love him, they've been to finals with him, but it was just interesting that he couldn't be included in this. But now that, now you made the key point earlier, they can at least build an identity around those two guys and a year of Wiggins and Mitchell. And we're just gonna be a bitch to play with. We're gonna have good, we're not gonna shoot that well, but it's gonna be really hard to score against us. We're gonna ugly games up. And you have to hope Giannis just has one of those 30-12 30-12-5, play 70 games.

It's conceivable that Miami doctors fix him up.

Yeah, he's in Miami. A lot of, a lot of magical things have happened in Miami. A lot of rejuvenations.

I mean, I would have to be concerned if they don't get the depth that they need in order to support him. That like, not, it wasn't just this past season where there were a ton of soft tissue injuries specifically because it seemed like he was playing too hard and they were overloading him too much by playing through him. Right. But it's like now a track record of multiple years and we're saying like all these Superstars across the league are getting these injuries in part because there's too much torque on their body considering the way the game is played right now. And so like, it really is incumbent upon the Heat to figure the rest of this out. The one good thing that he have going for them is that even though they don't have the picks, they find these guys all the time. The Drew Smiths, like how many guys are across the league at this point? The Gabe Vinsons where they— Max Strus is like, they just make these guys out of nothing. But they do have to do that on the fly because they need to fill like 3 roster spots. At this point.

Yeah. And I think in 2027, that's a harder task than it was 15 years ago. 'Cause the league is so fucking deep now. Like everybody goes 9, 10, 11 deep. Look at the guys that were coming off the Knicks bench who were barely play, barely playing. We're talking about, like I always talk about the 2012 East Finals when the Celtics almost made the finals and they had Mikel Pietrus and Brandon Bass and Greg Steamsma. Like we had dudes that would not play for NBA teams now that were playing 30, 35 minutes. So I, I think it's a harder task here.

Do you think that there is, uh, is there another step to all of this? Whether it's, you know, whether it's a, a completely separate thing from Jalen and Giannis, but that these were dominoes that had to fall first to make them happen. Does Miami even have anything in the cupboard to get anything else going, uh, in the next couple of—

they have the Wiggins, The Wiggins is 30, right? Right.

That's right.

Like, there's a Ja Morant Hail Mary sitting there.

Oh, now I'm interested.

The drinks just kicked in.

Are you serious?

There's a lot of South Beach places rooting for that scenario. But yeah, I mean, look, I don't know what the Ja Morant suitors are. Can you— is there one barrier? Is there one suitor? Like, if the Kings take Acuff, The Kings are out as a lawsuit. I don't even know who else we would say. Washington is—

Is Maccabi, is Maccabi Tel Aviv?

Yeah, he's got enough— No, it's, it won't be NBA teams.

Sparta Prague is getting in.

I, I think if he were to get let go, then certainly I think teams would be interested. But yeah, he just makes a shit ton of money. So even getting him in the building would take a lot in terms of assets, even if you wanted to cobble together the contracts and they just gave up like half of the roster. So I don't know how they even get to that point.

I have, uh, some FanDuel news. The Miami Heat are now 5th with title odds. 20 to 1. We have in the East, in the everywhere. OKC, what are they?

Do they know something we don't?

OKC, San Antonio's plus 260, Celtics 6 to 1, Knicks plus 750. The Knicks having worse odds than the Celtics is— I, I don't know what to say about that. And then Miami's 20 to 1 and Denver's 22 to 1. Detroit's 25 to 1 and the Lakers are 30 to 1. So Vegas likey.

Detroit is low there.

That's really low for Detroit.

I guess the thing with the Knicks is just like they do have a lot to recreate their bench on the fly here because they're so top heavy. They'll probably lose Mitchell Robinson. It still feels like a pretty extreme overreaction, but like, yeah, Detroit is out there. I know that like it ended very poorly. And you can't— you couldn't be bullish based off of Jalen Duren and everything that happened there outside of Cade looking good when he wasn't turning the ball over 6 times a game. But like, they just have so many raw resources in order to figure things out. And it does feel like, for instance, if they wanted to spin off Hero from Milwaukee, like, I think he makes a lot of sense there. Like, he's got the on-ball juice. He could play without Cade. He could shoot and space the floor with him. Like, that seems like a natural next move if Milwaukee doesn't want to keep him around for Milwaukee beer night or wherever they're keeping him for.

I got to say also, and I've been saying this probably at this time of year every year for 12 years, but the East is getting better. So I don't know how— this is not going to be Miami gets to cakewalk 2 out of 3 games a week. Like, Indiana is going to come back stronger.

Oh yeah, Philly will be Philly.

Sean Sweeney in Orlando may be kicking.

Wait, can we go back to Philly being Philly? What does that mean, Sierra?

It just means Philly is Philly. It's kind of, uh, I saw it inside of a fortune cookie once.

Philly, Philly.

Philly is just like one of those UFC fighters that could get knocked out or knock anyone out every night.

Yeah, exactly. But Indy, Orlando, Cleveland, and Detroit and Toronto are all like, these teams are all better than Miami. Yeah. So it's not gonna be like, I don't see Miami slingshotting ahead short of a Giannis superpower season.

Right. And we saw even with the Bucks, where again, Giannis was third MVP a couple years ago, but it's not like they were a 60-win team, right? I just think it's harder for one guy to have that kind of impact anymore. Again, I think Miami should have done this. I'm okay with it. So what'd you guys think of my tweet today when I said I would be absolutely shocked if Hugo was, was or is thrown into any honest trade offer? The entire organization is all in on him. Stephen's probably the most. They could not be higher on him. I genuinely don't believe he's involved. Guess we'll see. Well, I was right. He wasn't involved.

Only way you could have improved that tweet is if you had finished it the way Trump finishes his, where he is like, thank you for your attention on this matter.

Wait, should he put that on Truth Social? What's his thing? Yeah.

Would you have been more upset if they let go of Hugo, if only because Brown was the assumed price for this? If they went above just Brown and picks and got rid of Hugo, would it have been a pretty fair—

Yeah. I thought one of the reasons they were even entertaining this is 'cause they felt like they had guys that they could patch together the Jaylen minutes with and be like, not as good as Jaylen obviously, but okay. Like Shireman and, and Hugo, and then Tatum coming back playing 38 minutes, and then you have Giannis grabbing a bunch of minutes. I think they did the math. It didn't make sense to me that Hugo or Shireman would've been in the trade if you're trying to win a title, you know, 'cause you're, that's a pretty big hole to just remove Jaylen out of that and his 36, 37 minutes a game. I know they love Hugo, and I never believed that the— I just will never believe that he was in the offer. I don't— I think they value him, whether it's right or wrong. We've seen teams, we've made jokes about this over the years. There was— I think my favorite one was Roddy Boubois on Dallas when he was just untouchable for so many years.

About Roddy Boubois.

Yeah.

Is it—

is like Beringer on, on the Wolves now?

He's a good one.

Yeah.

But there is— not to compare this to the Rondo-KG situation, but I'm about to. Um, when they traded for KG, they made Rondo untouchable and they just wouldn't discuss him as part of that deal. And Rondo at that point, he had played garbage time for like a 17-win team. And you know, I really liked him. The real Celtic fans who watched the teams were like, that guy, I hope he's not in the KG deal. That guy's good. I felt the same way about Hugo. I just think he's 20 years old. I think he's an asset. Um, and I think Shireman is another one who's an asset. So So, um, we'll see what they do. I still feel like, um, my guess is this isn't over, CR.

Yeah, that's what I figured.

I, I feel like either it's not over or something dramatic is gonna happen where we'll read like Brad Stevens and Joe Mazzulla met with Jaylen Brown and Jason Tatum for 7 hours at, at the Seaport, some restaurant there. And They were just in a back room.

They watched the town 4 times.

They watched the town over and over again. And then they—

Well, jiu-jitsu flipping him. Yeah.

Yeah.

Then Missoula took them for a ride through the North End for the getaway for Doug and those guys. And yeah, it's gonna have to be something like that to flip it.

I don't think he's gonna play for the Celtics again. And I just, I'm just basing that entirely off of how much Brad Stevens seemed unhappy with the state of how they were playing. And I don't know how you radically reimagine that team without breaking those guys up.

What do you think, Varyar?

The odds are on that. I just hope that, like, cooler heads prevail here because I just think it's in both of their sides' benefit in order to make this work. I just don't know how either makes out better if winning is the ultimate goal for both sides in order for them not to still be together. They just won the title 2 years ago. Like, we're not that far removed from that. And they did such a good job of replacing, like, key components to this team. On the fly. We just talked about Miami, like, being able to, like, conjure up bench guys out of nowhere. You just mentioned Hugo. Like, I don't know if you've seen the story about Amari Williams apparently is like 2 inches bigger at this point.

Like, no, he grew 3 inches. He's 7'2". All right, our backup, backup center, he grew 3 inches.

The Wemby killer has arrived.

Yeah, he's here.

Congratulations.

He's ready to destroy Wemby.

This team just has so much going for them. It just seems like it is more just on the personal level in order to figure it out.

Yeah, yeah. And with that 27th pick, it's interesting. There are some, some guards that could drop. And the thing that this team— once Simons, they didn't have them. The one thing they were missing was some sort of guard that could create. Maybe they could find that with the trade exception or whatever. What's your team gonna do, CR?

What's gonna happen there?

It's really weird.

I don't know. I don't know where we are. I mean, Gansey, I think, is trying to come up with an identity for the team. That's his big keyword, is that we have to have like a style of play. And to be honest, like I kind of got tantalized by that a little bit because that's one thing that like we haven't really had. It's all been like, and be, and be availability dependent.

Yeah.

And so coming up with some sort of coherent philosophy of how you want the Sixers to play would be great, a great starting point. But I have no feel for what we're gonna do or even if we can do anything.

How about El Cheapo in Portland?

Oh, Dundon.

What do we got?

The cup.

He's raised the cup.

NHL champion Tom Dundon. What's he got for us?

I think he's just finding out creative ways to get me and all the other taxpayers to pay for his fucking stadium renovations. I can't believe it. It's just so—

I was wondering if you might zag and go pro Dundon, because I've been, I've been kind of workshopping a couple of them with Bill where I'm just like, are we sure we needed that many photographers? You know?

Yeah, I do like this. How many assistant coaches do we need? Yeah, he's just zagging all over the place.

I can't, I can't think of a single person who, within days of getting a team or just going to a new team, if you're a player or a coach, executive, has just been universally reviled and just like everyone is out on him. I think the one good thing is it seems like he does have an itchy trigger finger, and I would be surprised if they went through this entire offseason and didn't do something splashy because he just wants to get his name on it.

He seemed like a real— I was almost surprised this morning when I woke up, and by the way, I'm not a big fan of what Dundon is doing, but like, it did seem like he would have been the kind of, uh, guy who would hire Dusty May. Like they're like, that was, I was surprised, surprised and impressed that, that Dallas did that. It really does feel like, like Dumont has like completely stepped away from that team and he's just like, let's redo this. But I was, I was, I was like, oh, I wonder if this is the kind of guy who's going to start getting hired by these new owners.

Any predictions for tomorrow in the draft area before we go?

Nothing out of the ordinary. I would like to see— I've talked myself into Boozer going too, although that sounds like it's cooling a little bit.

Yeah, even I've cooled on it.

Okay. Just in terms of the fit though, I think it would make a little more sense because I don't know, like Peterson and George just doesn't really mesh as well, I think, considering that Boozer seems like the type of player who connects disparate parts of your team. The Jazz just have so many different guys in order to stir, and you need someone to stir the drink there. I also, maybe I'm just riding the fumes of the Knicks title, but I'm thinking like George as the small guard surrounded by a ton of size, like, just might work. And that seems like they have this sort of synergy to do it. But yeah, Peterson's gonna go 2 there. It's, it's a little disappointing.

I was texting Verno about this today. I, I would take Boozer too. Verno's a little scared of Peterson at 3, which I know he is talked about on his show, just 'cause they've lived through this kind of uncertainty with the team they have for so long. And now you have this guy who was basically 15 minutes before Kansas games being like, yeah, I'm not gonna play. Um, and they had that weird creatine thing. There's some red flags. Now he's been doing interviews heading into the draft where, um, people have been pretty impressed. So who knows? I, I, I don't know.

Just wanna let you know, Bill, Darren Peterson, uh, I think if not today, recently said movies, top, top 3 movies are The Fugitive, Interstellar, and The Negotiator.

Yeah, he, it caught my attention.

Sierra, if the NBA doesn't work out, there's a third chair on the rewatchables. Get more.

Pretty good.

Yeah.

I mean, these guys usually just say like Air Bud or like Gladiator. Yeah.

What they could have thrown in the town as his fourth one. But I'm going live after the draft, after, uh, probably like around the Boston pick tomorrow for the draft. But the big questions for me, the Utah pick, what do the Clippers do at 5? I still haven't heard anybody feeling awesome about any of the directions. And then I think the draft just gets weird around 8. And now you have the Michigan coach at 9 and all 3 of his Michigan guys are gonna be on the board.

Yeah. And they were all on Instagram like, yeah, like coach right here.

And you know, as, as a huge Steph Curry fan, I'm hoping somebody falls to the Warriors at 11 so they can have one last run. And it would be amazing if Burrys, you know, was somehow able to fall to them at 11 'cause 2 teams did something weird. And then Milwaukee at 10 now that they have 13. Could they take a, you know, get a little frisky at 10 because they know they have another pick coming? I think this is a really good draft. I'm excited for it. And there's going to be some guards that fall. What pick? Do you have a pick or no, CR?

I think we're 22.

Yeah, I mean, you're in the 20s. There's going to be good stuff. Portland does not have a pick, right?

No, they conceded the pick because I think of the trade with Chicago a few years ago. So we got Young to look forward to because unfortunately he's still basically a rookie and he didn't play last year.

Right. Yeah. You gotta boost up his, his Chinese appeal. All right. Well, I think we covered everything unless you want to take some shots at the Miami media. See, I don't know if you, no, I wish those guys the best.

Yeah.

And peace and love to those guys. Peace and love. You guys have been a class act all this whole time.

I'm sure in one year when Giannis does an exclusive, you know, anonymous source to piece about how he's looking to get out of Miami, we could start this all up again.

That— now, did the brothers come? I guess we didn't cover that part. I think they have to be there, right?

Yeah, certainly.

Yeah. But Pat Riley's famously not a, hey, we're, we're not like other teams, you're gonna fit into our culture kind of guy. That's like kind of why Jimmy Butler, one of the reasons that I'm falling apart. So I don't know, I'll be interested to see if the brothers come. All right, Barry RCR, thanks for joining me. This wasn't an emergency pod because we've been waiting for this trip for 13 months. It was— what do we call it?

Yeah.

I wouldn't call it emergency, but what would we call it? Urgent. Urgency. Urgency gathering.

Yeah.

Urgent care. An urgent care pod.

Urgent care pod. Thanks. Thanks to Chris and Gael and Eduardo as well. I'm going to be back right after the draft. We'll be live on Netflix tomorrow night, probably around like the Boston pick range, right? 8:00. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. See you tomorrow. Must be 21+ and present in select states for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino. Or 18+ and present in D.C., Kentucky, or Wyoming, get in problem call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-RESET. Call 888-797-7777 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. Good.