Transcript of Herbert’s Future, a Week 6 NFL Preview, Plus an NBA Deep Dive With Cam Johnson, Tommy Alter, Tom Pelissero, and Joe House

The Bill Simmons Podcast, brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where I put up a new rewatchables on Monday. We did Friday the 13th. The next one's going to be It Follows, which is one of the best horror movies of the past 20 years. Very excited to talk about it. So that's coming on Monday. You have the whole weekend to watch it. Coming up on this podcast, Action-packed. I gave you way too much content this week. There's no way you were gonna listen to my voice for this long, but sorry, this is, this is the time. Mid, uh, mid-October. Um, at the top, Tom Pelissero, NFL Six-Pack, had a whole bunch of NFL storylines we wanted to get through. House came on just to do the Ringer 107 picks. Last but not least, Cam Johnson and Tommy Alter came in to talk hoops with me for It was almost an hour and a half and a really, really, really fun podcast. Obviously you've probably heard Cam on a couple different shows over the years. He's just the rare player who, you know, as a podcast hang seems just like somebody you would have on a podcast anyway, but it's, it's really good.

So a lot of content for you this weekend. We didn't get to baseball. I am really excited for a Brewers, Cleveland, Tampa doesn't really matter, but Brewers-Cleveland would be the sweet spot for me because Cleveland hasn't won since the late '40s. I don't think the Brewers, not only have they never won, I don't even remember the last time they've even been to the World Series. I have some Brewers friends in my life, including my old college roommate Chip Cain, who's over the moon and beside himself. So the baseball has been really fun. WNBA Finals is finally starting this weekend after they completely botched— let's see— the schedule, the arena. Other than that, uh, great job WNBA. We talk about it later with, uh, Cam and Tommy. But, um, very, very fun stretch coming up here. Um, we taped all this before Niners-Broncos, so hopefully nothing crazy happened in that game. But if you missed the Over/Under podcast I did with Zach and House, 2 parts, West and East, It's been up for a couple days, so, um, that's why we, um, have pivoted forward here to some football and some, some NBA talk. It's all next.

We're gonna take a break. Pearl Jam, and then Tom Pelisser. This is the Bill Simmons Podcast presented by FanDuel. Make every NFL week more rewarding with FanDuel Rewards Club. You heard me. Just bet like you normally would, earn points on eligible settled bets, win or lose. Keep collecting points, level up, and unlock bigger rewards. So keep an eye on your Rewards Club progress and see what you can unlock. This is your most rewarding season ever, and it's with FanDuel. 21+ select states or 18+ DC or Wyoming. Getting in problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER, call 888-789-7777, or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. All right. This segment is brought to you by Uber Eats. We are recording late Thursday afternoon Pacific time. Tom Pelissero is here. You can read the Sweep newsletter. You can listen to him on the Ringer NFL Show. A lot of Eagles news outta nowhere. Jalen Hurts. It was already the year from hell in a lot of different ways for the Eagles, and now it's gotten worse. And wait, like, did you hear about this before today? What was the process before we get into the Six Pack?

So he popped up on the injury report on Friday with a calf, which is where the blood clot is. But like, there were no alarm bells about he's not gonna play. He was listed as a full participant. He— it was not— didn't have a game designation last week. So it's one of those things that you kind of file away, like, all right, something going on. But you didn't see anything in the game that was like askew. You didn't think like, oh, this guy's like limping around. And then it was on Wednesday when Jalen had his presser and he started saying like, this was kind of a unique thing. Remember, he was a full participant in practice yesterday after all this. He played in the game. The team put out a very detailed statement going through, you know, the doctors and the initial evaluation, and it was a superficial blood clot. They put him through more testing on Wednesday night to check on it. The blood clot had moved. So basically now they're getting him on whatever treatment protocol medication to try to deal with it. He's not going to play this week against the Panthers.

We'll see if they make an injured reserve move with him, uh, over the weekend. Like, could be a serious deal. It sounds like it wasn't something that was a high enough concern that they felt like they needed to pull him out of the game. Remember, you got like a 7-hour flight back and forth too, which— That's the other thing, right? It's not super ideal, but you know, it wasn't something that was bothering Jalen so much he didn't play in the game, or even though he didn't practice yesterday. But it got to the point where, all right, we need to, we need to slow this thing down and get a handle on it. So it's gonna be Tanner McKee playing this week, probably still without Saquon, maybe still without DeVonta Smith, all the moving parts on the offensive line. And you know, that division's so bad that, you know, I don't even know that like taking a couple losses while you're waiting for the quarterback to come back necessarily kills you in this thing,

right? You can be 8-9 and win the division.

It's the new NFC South. It's, it's a race of like, even the Commanders, we'll get to them I'm sure later, but they're sitting there at 1-3-1, but it's like And they're in it.

Yeah.

A win this weekend. Like, who knows? Like, it's just, it's totally wide open right now.

So that line, the Eagles line, I think moved 5 points with Jalen Hurts to McKee, which I always am interested by when the quarterbacks disappear. I hope, like, if Josh Allen leaves the Bills, I think that's the highest line move. It's like it becomes 8 points. But the Jalen Hurts being 5, I thought, I, I don't know, it's not like their offense was that good, right? So just staring at that game like, okay, it's not like losing Josh Allen. So we'll see, we'll see if they can win in Carolina this week.

And Howie's always been a big Tanner McKee fan, right?

Since he drafted him.

Like, here's his shot to like go out and play in an offense that, quite frankly, he on paper is probably a better fit for.

Yeah.

Than Jalen Hurts. I mean, I thought that game on, on Sunday obviously ends in bizarre fashion, but like you saw the defense step up. Jalen Carter was the best player on the field. throughout the game. And Jalen with like nobody around him with all the injuries, like he played pretty well. So he did. It's unfortunate timing to, to have this happen right now. And you're just hoping obviously for Jalen, but also for, you know, if you've got hope in the Eagles that it's not gonna end up being a long-term thing.

Six Pack, let's start with something we talked about last week. The, oh no, we didn't talk about it last week 'cause it would happen before you talked about in the sweep. But the, the whole Marvin Harrison thing.

Yeah.

So you, you basically, you broke the story that shit was going down and then shit didn't go down until after they beat the Titans. So was it that simple? That it was like, hey, if we don't beat the Titans, we're not doing this trade. What was the backstory?

It, it wasn't, it wasn't contingent on the outcome. And Nick Casero actually went on the radio and talked about this, that they got the deal done going into the weekend. And Monte Ossenforth, the Cardinals GM, was like, hey, we just need to like slow it down. Don't put anything out. Which makes it all the funnier that postgame, while the Cardinals haven't even played yet, D'Amico Ryans finally breaks down and goes, you want to know? Yeah, we traded for Marvin Harrison.

Wow.

And that's how it ends up coming out. But so there were a lot of moving parts. There were a bunch of teams. Whenever you start to hear that there's a bunch of teams in it and you're getting a clear price, you know that this is moving toward eventually a trade. You know, the wild thing was if you go back and you look at the responses, because I put out the sweep, I file it Friday night, it comes out Saturday morning, and I've got in there the lead is basically they want a 2nd-round pick and more for Marvin Harrison. Everyone's being like, what? No chance. Like, it's gonna be a 5th at most. But

yeah.

Former number 4 overall pick. Like, you trade them early. The reason teams move on from those assets early is because there's still intrigue. The further you get into the rookie contract, the more tape you've got saying this guy isn't what you evaluated coming out. the harder it is to get value for him. And so, you know, they're betting a 2nd-round pick. It ends up because the pick swap is actually a little bit less than a 2nd-round pick, meaning the Cardinals kind of said, okay, we're willing to take the best that we can get. It was just in a place with Marvin Harrison Jr. where it wasn't, it wasn't going to play out in Arizona. We'll see. There's a lot of reasons. You look at the, you know, the advanced stats, the limited separation that he gets from—

He's never open.

He just, he doesn't get open. Like, if you literally— and there's data to back that up.

Yeah.

He played with CJ Stroud in college, and so we'll see if that opens some things up. But it was weird, the whole sequence of events and the report of they've told him, hey, you're being traded, but they're not telling you who. The one thing, and it always registers in my mind, that an agent told me years ago when like I was holding something and it came out and he was— he just goes, everything leaks. In other words, the moment you tell a player, they tell so many people. They group text their teammates.

Yeah.

They tell their agent, like, it spreads like wildfire. So this idea, like, you were gonna talk to Marvin Harrison Jr. on Saturday morning and say, hey, you're gonna be inactive for the game because we're gonna trade you in 48 hours, was gonna hold. It got out like within the hour. Right. And from there it was just a matter of by Saturday night, other teams that were calling were being told, dude, it's done. Like, don't even bother making an offer. We got a deal.

So neither of us know if this is true or not. Conspiracy Bill kicked the tires on this entire story, and there's an incredible conspiracy that Marvin Harrison was absolutely miserable in Arizona and was basically not going full speed and kind of tanking the Arizona experience, saving himself for the trade. I don't know if it's true, and maybe— I don't think professional athletes work this way, but it is gonna be interesting if he goes to Houston. And all of a sudden he's separating from people and looking like the guy that we thought he was going to be coming out of the draft. So I'm just monitoring it. I, I— it's on the conspiracy build desk, and I'm just going to see how it plays out the first couple weeks.

This is like the, uh, Jerry bringing all of his shoes to the mom-and-pop shop to get them fixed, and then like they're in business for 40 years and then abscond with his shoes.

Yeah,

if Marvin Harrison was setting this up for 2 and a half years that I'm gonna underproduce and underperform solely to get myself—

It was a long con.

That would be a long con if there ever was one. It's, yeah, we'll see. Like, he's just— his personality, like, everybody, people like him, but he's a, he's very much an introverted type of a guy, you know. Like, maybe he comes out and he's just super motivated to prove everybody wrong, to be back with his guy at quarterback. We'll see. They're obviously betting a very high pick on it and probably also responding to the fact that, you know, when Nico Collins was out, that Texans offense was bad. And when Nico's in there, they're pretty good. So now at least you have a number 2 who can exploit, you know, another bigger-bodied guy who can exploit some of those mismatches. You hope if it's the same Marvin Harrison in Houston that it was in Arizona, people are gonna be sitting there and going, why'd they give up a 2nd-round pick?

Well, it was the Randy Moss 2006 example, right? He's on the Raiders, he's miserable, and people are wondering if he's washed up, what's going on with him. Patriots end up getting him for a 4th-rounder, and then he goes to the Patriots, he's immediately Randy Moss again. So the difference is what you pointed out. Harrison has been like this the entire time he was in Arizona. There hasn't really been a stretch, like a 4-game anything where you're like, oh my God. Right. But yet every, every year in fantasy, he's always a sexy pick. Like even this year, like people were treating him like at least he was in like the Parker Washington range of like receivers that could be potential 11. So we'll see. The CJ Stroud piece I like too. And it feels like Houston must have some sort of inside info that this is a place he wanted to be, 'cause that 2nd-round pick isn't nothing for somebody who wasn't jumping outta the TV at all when you watched it.

Correct. But that also goes into the— it's recent enough, it's 2 years ago. They're like, we had a top 10 grade on the guy. Now we can get him for a 2nd and plug him into a position of need. I understand the reasoning on it. You're just betting the environment's going to be different. It's wild to think back on that draft because if you— I did, I talked to people league-wide and there were 3 receivers in that draft, if you remember, that people had up high and it was Marvin Harrison, it was Rome Odunze, and it was Malik Nabers. And everybody had them different on the board. Malik Nabers was probably one as the player that people liked the most, but like he had what, shot himself on Bourbon Street, and they were like kind of the, you know, what guy are you bringing in? He was the absolute alpha dog in that program. Brian Thomas Jr. was in that draft too. They were teammates. Brian Thomas's like highlight reel was unbelievable.

Yeah.

But Malik Nabers was the guy who ran the place. Marvin Harrison was— he came with the pedigree obviously and the name, but it was like, is he as far above and beyond as everybody thought in college? It was like, oh, this guy's obvious, like Jeremiah Smith, like Oh, obviously he's gonna be the number 1 receiver in the class. And then once people dug into the tape, it was like there were varying opinions between all 3 of those guys. Right now you'd probably say that Nabers was the best of the 3, but he's just been hurt so much just in terms of like—

Wasn't that the, the catch with him in the draft though, that people worried about the durability with him was a big piece.

And just all the other— and the other stuff.

And the yada yada. Yeah. What do we call that? What's the NFL draft for that? And the other stuff.

Yeah, the, the off-field concerns. But people got comfortable with it because they liked— like, the football character was really good. It was like, all right, we just got to get a handle on the guy. Roman Dunstey was a great dude, but was his tape, you know, at that, at that same level? And now, you know, here we are 2 years later and you're getting traded for a second-rounder. It's funny you bring up the Randy Moss one because that was part of— I was on the Packers beat at the Green Bay Press Gazette at that time. And Randy Moss was part of a string of near misses for the Packers. Ted Thompson was the GM. Just, he, he rarely made trades. He rarely did anything in free agency. He would occasionally sign a Charles Woodson because he's sitting out there a month after. But like, they were in the Randy Moss sweepstakes. And Moss, on at least some level, like, really wanted to go there and play with Favre. And it got to, would they offer a 4th rounder? And it was, eh. we're not going to go there. Like, we'll go to a 5th, we're not going to go to a 4th.

And then he goes to New England and scores 21 touchdowns or whatever it was the following year. And that, that used to drive certain people in Green Bay crazy because they were always in these different trade things. They never got them done. And you just wonder, like, you go back in time in the history of that, because that ended up being a really good Packers team in '07 that—

Yeah.

Under different circumstances, It could have been Patriots-Packers in that Super Bowl. You know, they end up rolling out there with a bunch of young receivers. It worked out well for Green Bay too, but they were right on the precipice of doing that deal.

The draft pick stuff is interesting. Mike Lombardi has this theory that because of all the NIL stuff and people staying longer in college, that anybody outside the top 100 in a draft, like, you'd be able to steal these 4th, 5th, 6th rounders, these kind of wildcard guys that you just didn't know, or you got 'em a year early and But now it's because these guys stayed so long that there's a better kind of grasp on who the top 100 is. So that's why with the 2nd rounder, it's like, it's probably gonna be a good pick. You can even see it from the way the draft unfolded, like the guys that are playing from that '26 draft in this year. Like the Patriots got somebody at the end of the 1st round who came in at left tackle when Will Campbell got hurt and was lights out, right? Right. I think it was like the 31st pick or 30th pick. I can't even remember. But I just wonder, like, are we going to— are teams going to start valuing these 2nd rounders more because they're going to understand the draft better than they did? Who knows?

Well, last year's draft was definitely like that. I mean, after the top 100, it was a— it was a cliff. And even in the first round, there were far fewer clear first-round picks than there had ever been. I'd have to go back to my notes at the time, but I want to say, like, in an average draft, it's like 20 to 22 guys will actually have legit first-round grades for the league. You may not— in different rooms, you're playing different schemes. You may not have all of them up there. But okay, if we're grading for the league, it's like 20 to 22. This year it was like 14 to 16. Like, it was a super short list. The 2027 draft is actually regarded as a lot better and deeper. Yeah. It's not just the quarterbacks, it's the whole draft. So to your point, giving up a 2027 second, like, that's, that's gold to Monte Asenford to go and try to get another player. And for Casario, you know, whatever you want to call it here of why they do it, you know, I don't say— I don't think it's desperation, but it's definitely like, hey, we got a window with a really good team and we can do some of these things because Stroud's still on his rookie contract.

Like, let's go for it and we'll see. You know, they got a win last week. Also,

Stroud's playing really well. I've been really impressed by him this year. I think he's been excellent, um,

especially in the games Nico has played. You know, there was a little bit of a dip for offense, but like when Nico Collins has been out there— now with Tank Dell was finally a full participant in practice, like that's CJ's guy— and you had Marvin Harrison, and like they could be a dangerous offense with defense that despite how they, you know, they let 3 2-minute, uh, you know, leads go away in the first 4 weeks of the season— that's why they were 0-4, why they switched defensive play callers and all that— but they're still super talented. And Will Anderson is still, you know, potential Defensive Player of the Year candidate.

Well, this will be the week. Last week, hard to say because they played the Titans, right? They killed the Titans and they needed the win. Not surprising. But this year, this week, you're in London. It's a really good Jags team, and this will be a nice test for them. All right, next thing in the 6-pack. I'll say we're at 3. Oh, it's our annual weekly chat about Justin Herbert and Jim Harbaugh. What's changed? Anything?

I would say, well, for the fact that they're 0-5 and now you have one game before the bye to try to get something going, or you're gonna be 0-6 and it's gonna be, where do you go from here and, and how do you approach it? Do you start turning the page? The, the biggest thing, and I, I, I saw your conversation with Sal the other day about Jim Harbaugh.

Hmm.

That's definitely something that is talked about within the league. I would just say, I would just say, I don't get any sense. I have no reason to believe that this is gonna be like downhill and Jim Harbaugh's gone and they start over in 2027. I'd be shocked if it goes that way because they won games the past 2 years because they're doing something totally different offensively. The biggest red flag right now is Justin Herbert's playing the worst he ever has. And yeah, you're 5 weeks in, it's a long season, it's a very different offense, but he's throwing picks that you just wouldn't expect to see. So I know, you know, Harbaugh has made some, you know, he's tweaked up like the schedule and different things that they're doing in practice and trying to make some of those small things. But he can't come in and fix Mike's offense. It has to be McDaniel has to adapt to what they're doing. Like, are they going to try to trade Justin Herbert? Like, no, they're not going to do that. But the real question becomes, how much do they say to Mike McDaniel, especially if you get into the bye, like, we got to strip it down, we got to make it simpler, we got to reintegrate more of the Greg Roman type stuff?

Remember, Jim Harbaugh until this year had only had one offensive coordinator in the NFL. It was Greg Roman the whole time in San Francisco. Yeah. It was Greg Roman the first 2 years with the Chargers. And despite the fact that, especially in the San Francisco days, like, Jim had the marker, remember, around his neck at all times and like had the big play sheet. Like, he wasn't calling it. It wasn't like it was his system. It was Greg Roman's offense. So this is the first time in the NFL that Jim Harbaugh doesn't necessarily have a feel for what they're even trying to be offensively. You know, the personnel doesn't quite fit the parts.

And it's a lot of Miami guys too. It's not just McDaniel. Like, there's some other guys from That team too. I, I, if I was the common sense coordinator for the Chargers and they're like, Bill, what do you think? I'd be like, hey, can we just, what about that year when Harbaugh, when Herbert threw for 5,100 yards? Why don't we run that offense? Seemed pretty good in that one. Maybe that's the offense. Like, it's almost like what the Patriots did with Drake May a couple weeks ago where it's like, man, this guy's really good. What are we doing wrong? All right, we'll do more motion. We're gonna reduce his ability to think about stuff, and we're gonna be more aggressive. Like, we're gonna try to give him a personality transplant. And in 2 weeks, he was a different guy. So how do you make— how do you make Herbert a different guy than what we've seen? I also think he's taken too many hits.

Well, there's no doubt about that, and that's been going on forever. Like, one of the interesting things is the Chargers have, like, they've made a conscious effort, and I verified this with, like, one of my medical data people earlier today. Like, they've made a conscious effort to draft dudes in recent years who are healthy in college. Like, if you look at like time missed, these guys were like super durable dudes at the college level. Joe Alt being an example, like just absolutely reliable. Also, the Joe Alts of the world are getting hurt.

Yeah.

So like, why is that happening? You, you spend at the left tackle, right tackle— in terms of left tackle with the pick, right tackle you spend the money, you spend on a center this offseason— they're all gone. they're all hurt, so of course the quarterback's gonna get the shit kicked out of him. It's like, why is that happening? I, I would have to imagine they're looking into everything in terms of how they're training. They don't really play in the preseason. It's a pretty light training camp. I know they kind of ramp up in the season. Is there a corollary there? So like, they're looking at all that stuff. But to go back to how do you make Justin Herbert different, the biggest thing with Drake Maye was you'd already seen him in this offense. You knew he could play at that level with Josh,

right?

With Mike, there's no proof of concept Right now. And as much as you'd like to think, okay, you know, we're gonna— the arrow's gonna be pointing up, like with Herbert specifically, it's gone down. So you're trying to reinstill some type of confidence, which, like when we talked about with Drake, the way you do that in the season is you have some success, you make some good plays, you stop turning the ball over in ridiculous situations. I think you're also seeing Jim Harbaugh trying to do that for the whole team by, like, what was it, 4th and 1 from his own 40? Last week and you go for it with a 7-point lead, you don't get it, and then that flips the entire game. So as much as we see quarterbacks press— Maye was doing it, Herbert's doing it— like, Jim Harbaugh's pressing right now too. Like, everyone's trying to get this thing right. And, and the reality is there was always going to be a transition phase. It's leaked over into 5 straight losses. So even those signs of progress, like the fact that now they're Using Kamani Vidal more. They're using, um, you know, the other running back more, Keaton Mitchell.

They're getting the ball to him in space. Those guys are— they're probably a better fit. It's not enough. They're still losing now these one-score games. And I mean, I, I— you hate to say the season's on the line because the season might already be shot, frankly, for the Chargers, but you better get a win this week at Kansas City or else it's going to be— you're 0-6 and everybody in the world's gonna be calling your GM saying, you know, let's trade for your entire roster.

I have a newsflash for you. They're not gonna win in Kansas City this weekend. That's not happening.

They're capable. It's not— their schedule is brutal too. If you look at the Chargers, I think they faced 3 teams this year coming off bye weeks. They have like, yeah, 3 early window kickoffs on the East Coast.

Well, that's what made the first 2 games— losing the first 2. Exactly. It's like that. And then

Raiders and Cardinals at home, you can't lose those games.

Who's the Vikings GM right now?

Nolan Teasley came from Seattle.

All right, we pretend to be Nolan Teasley for a second.

Yeah, absolutely.

Hey, it's Jim Harbaugh. I'm just calling you out of the blue here. If we did move Justin, could I get 3 firsts from you?

I'm doing the long pause for dramatic effect, which is exactly what Nolan would do. I'd have to, have to think about that.

That's a staff meeting?

That's, that's really it. Yeah, I'd have to, I'd have to think about that. There's a lot of things that would go in. First of all, Herbert has no trade clause. You'd have to get his permission to—

He'd have to go from LA to Minnesota. That would be an interesting move when he has his famous celebrity LA girlfriend. I don't know how that would go.

Does he want, does he want to leave? Yeah, may not.

I'll just ride this out. But it is like, I, I wouldn't do it if I was Minnesota. If it was 2 firsts, I'd definitely have a longer staff meeting about it. But, um,

also, if you're the Vikings right now and you're winning with your defense and just kind of—

Let's make this the 4th one in the 6-pack. If you're the Vikings right now, dot, dot, dot, what do you do?

I mean, you're 5-0. You are getting increasingly efficient play from Kyler Murray. Like, he played pretty well in New Orleans last week even though he didn't have—

New Orleans is terrible though. I mean, they've had so many injuries, they're like a shell of themselves.

But like, he's playing— if you look at, you know, the EPA and all that, like, it was by far his best game. Jefferson's not 100%, no Addison, TJ Hockenson gets a concussion on the second drive, and you don't have your left tackle or your left guard, and he still played pretty well. If I'm Minnesota, like, big picture, eventually you want to solidify the quarterback position. That's why they took the swing on JJ McCarthy.

Yeah,

a couple years ago. But like, their most successful seasons have in part been driven by factors that had nothing to do with, oh, we got a young quarterback and so we can spend on the other positions. With Kyler, he's on the minimum deal.

Mm-hmm.

When Sam Darnold came, he was on a very cheap deal. That alone gave them the flexibility to go out and do it. And like, they've got the best defensive coordinator in Brian Flores, who we'll see, but you know, right now it seems like he's gonna be there. We can win in different ways. Maybe we don't have to spend— like, it would be the exact opposite of how everyone in the league has been, where it's you just, you try to draft one, you win for the 3 years on the rookie contract, and now, oh shit, we got to pay him $60 million a year. Well, I guess the rest of the team around him isn't going to be as good. I'm not saying that Kevin O'Connell doesn't want to get off this carousel and just stop having to do it and start from scratch and go through the growing pains all the time, but It's not a bad formula for the way that they are structured because it gives them those other opportunities. If you bring in Justin Herbert, you're paying him a lot of money. Right. He frankly is in line for a new contract at some point because the market, especially after next offseason when you got Caleb and Jayden Daniels and Drake Maye and Bo Nix, that and Lamar for a new deal, CJ Stroud, Bryce Young, the market's gonna out— way outpace where Justin Herbert's at now.

So let's say we gotta pay him $60 million a year and give up 3 first-round picks. And oh, by the way, we're also gonna continue to kick everyone's ass on defense. We may not need him to go out and score 30 points a game. It's an honest conversation. I, I think it's different a few years ago, but right now Kevin runs a pretty similar offense to what Mike does. There've been changes in the blocking scheme 'cause O'Connell comes out of the McVay where like they make more protection checks. Yeah. Kyle just kind of gives the quarterback answers of like, screw the protection, you're just going to get the ball out to here. But it's, it's a similar vein of offense. If Justin's not a good fit for what McDaniel's doing, I don't know how good of a fit he is for what O'Connell's doing. So they'd really have to do a deep dive and decide if that's the right thing for him.

I would— I wouldn't trade for Herbert right now because I'm really worried, especially when you look at the history. I talked about this a little on Sunday night, the history of these really talented franchise QBs who just get the shit kicked out of them for a couple years. Sometimes it— you're not the same. Like, I— and I mentioned this on Sunday night, like, I do feel like this happened to Bledsoe. Mm-hmm. I thought he really got beaten up in the late '90s, and especially the 2000 season. And I just think he— just thought he took a lot of hits, and then it all culminated with the Mo Lewis hit. But if you're Minnesota, you're 30th in DVOA for offense, and you're first in defense and first in special teams. So this is, this is about as weird of a team as you can, as you could have.

And they're, and they've leaned into it. Yeah, they really have. Like, there's times where they're just like, we're not gonna— we got a 7-point lead, like, this game is over. We're just gonna, you know, play conservatively, run the football, checkdowns. Like, don't make the mistake. It's, it's part of the genius of what O'Connell did with Sam Darnold back in 2024, like, revived Darnold, was he only asked Sam— as good as they were, and that was a better offensive team— But he only asked him to make like 4 or 5 above-the-line throws in the game. Everything was just like simple throws. So I was like, all right, there's a few times we're gonna dial something up and you're gonna have to make that throw into a tight window. But other than that, we're just giving easy throws. It's checkdowns. It's just keep the thing moving. Um, they did it at a, you know, a really high level. With Herbert, I'd say it's still— and you're right on like the, you know, the getting hit stuff, that does matter. I look at Stafford as kind of the flip side of it, which was You remember how much shit Stafford played through?

Like, how many injuries he had early in his career, and they were just an awful team every single season, like, just never in the playoffs.

It seemed risky when they traded for him because it was like, was there too much damage already?

He's like 30— what was he, 34 years old or something at that point? And he'd had every different injury in the book. But he also— he went to a place where the, the, the offense was just so elevated, and the way he and McVay worked together He was able to, you know, put years onto his career. With Herbert, like, I think it's still possible. We've seen him play at a really high level. It's even possible they figure it out in, you know, in LA. You know, Matt Ryan wasn't, wasn't a great fit with Kyle Shanahan in that first year because Kyle took the keys away from him and said, you're going to play my offense, be automatic, throw the ball where it's supposed to go. Matt didn't like it. They still won a bunch of games, which protected this whole conversation from landing there.

Yeah,

year 2, they go in and win the Super Bowl. We won't talk about what happened there, but like, they went to the Super Bowl and Matt Ryan was the MVP. It does take time if you're used to playing one style. I just don't know how patient they're willing to be, as opposed to, we won 11 games last 2 years playing a different style, let's just go back and do that stuff.

Why can't we talk about what happened in the Super Bowl? That's one of my favorite conversations. Patriots were down 28-3.

28-3. DeVonta Freeman missed a block.

I think the Minnesota thing, though, they're moving into nobody believes in us zone too, fan base and players, where it's like if they're 6-0, 7-0, and people are like, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. I think that's a good thing for them. How much money a year can Flores make as a defensive coordinator? Like, could he be paid as a head coach even though he's a defensive coordinator?

Like, he is being paid at the lower end head coach market, right? There's the top coordinators are making 6, 6+. Yeah. And the low end of head coaches are in that same range. That's where he is.

2 more 6-pack things. Fernando Mendoza's on the list.

He got his first taste of it.

I, I feel like we're closer to Mendoza range than I think people might think. It's like, oh, he's gonna sit outta here, Kirk Cousins. It's like, eh, I don't know. After like 6, 7 games, the Patriots brought Drake Maye in. During his rookie year. It was around week 5, and it was like there was a good spot for it, and Brissett wasn't playing well, and it just seemed like, okay, this, this makes sense. And he ran for his life, but I thought he learned a lot of stuff. I'm not sold on Mendoza just sitting out a year being good for anybody. And I, I don't mind their team. I know they got their ass kicked last week, but if they have a bad game this week with Cousins against a terrible Bills defense, Or he's not great, or like, could we see Mendoza sooner? What are you hearing?

The big difference from— and you said it was Brissett was playing bad— like, Cousins is playing really well at this stage in his career. He's playing— he knows that offense so well. He's playing at a really high level. He's showing he can still— I mean, you know, he's throwing drift his whole career. He's made $500 million just making that throw. Yeah. And he's still doing it. And so I, I think as long as you are in this thing and he's playing well, it's hard to make the move. Where this gets really interesting to me is if any of these teams that has a quarterback issue or an injury—

What do you mean? Like 8 teams have quarterback issues.

But if we're getting closer to these teams that are in the playoff race,

yeah,

especially one of the teams that's like half the league that runs that style, like the Shanahan, McVay, O'Connell, like that blend of offense. If you have an injury, how are you not calling on Kirk Cousins?

And what's the— So give me, so give me a top 3 teams that you could see him seamlessly fitting in.

I mean, any of those teams that come out of that, if again, God forbid, I don't like to predict injuries, but like Trevor Lawrence goes down in Jacksonville.

Oh, you're saying like that? Yeah. Like we're a good team who lost our QB.

Right. I don't think you're trotting Quinn Ewers out there, with all respect to Quinn Ewers, and saying you're gonna play the next 10 games on a Super Bowl-ready team. You know, something happens to Purdy, they have Mack there. That's why they have him. You know, something happens to Stafford, you know, they— the Rams were interested in bringing in Cousins as the backup in the offseason. Right. So if you get there, and then if the calculus is for the Raiders, you can get a really high pick. I don't know if it's a first.

That's like a third.

Might be a 2nd or a 3rd.

A 3rd. And if we make round— yeah, if we make round 3, becomes a 2nd, like one of those deals.

Yeah. Or even goes to a 1st if we win the Super Bowl.

Yeah.

And you get offered that as the Raiders and you're hanging, let's say they're around .500 at the deadline. If you're Don Spietek, like, you gotta seriously consider it because we all know Mendoza's the future. Cousins is on, he's got that weird option thing in his, in his deal. So like Hypothetically, they could try to trade him in March, but the cleaner thing to do would be if we get a really good offer now, let's trade him and let's put Mendoza in. Now, only they know in that building how close Mendoza really is to going out and starting, but I, I don't foresee a benching Kirk Cousins scenario as long as they're in the playoff chase. I believe they ride this thing out. It's not going to be Kurt Warner to Eli Manning and you're 5-4 and just, ah, we got to play the rookie. I don't think it's that. Because Clint's a big believer in waiting.

Yeah.

If you had a trade offer that makes sense and you think Fernando is ready to go, I, I wouldn't put it past him even if the Raiders are still in the playoff chase, just because we all know that's the future. And think about if you get that high pick, what that could do to continue to build the whole thing at a time that— look at the Raiders roster, the offensive line, the receiver group, certain spots on defense, there's still places they need to add. Get an extra high draft pick It, it can help you.

When's the trade deadline?

November 10th.

Oh yeah. So we have,

we got, we got 3, 4 weeks, right? Weeks. 4 weeks of games.

I think the last thing I want to do for the Six Pack, which you have in here, but I think we can tweak it. The coaching, there were so many bad coaching things last week. Yeah. Game management stuff. And it was every time we had football Thursday night, had the Bulls thing. That was nuts. like going forward up 14 with 8— it was just insane. All the stuff Sunday, you know, culminating in the Dan Quinn-Jaden Daniels disaster. And then Monday, McVay with honestly one of the worst coach games I think he's ever had, if not the worst. And I don't understand why coaching is getting— why game management coaching is getting worse. So what— I know you've probably talked to some people around the league, like What's happening? What are we doing wrong?

It's one of my favorite things to do every week is I follow up with some of the game management coaches for the teams that were not involved and ask 'em about these decisions. So like with the Bulls one, and I wrote about this in the sweep, like, yeah, everyone was like, yeah, no, it's not. You do have to have like a gut feel and that stuff does come in. But in that situation, up for the difference between 3-score game, 7 minutes left, is like so much greater. Yeah. It's a, Normally, that would be a clear go. Normally, just first quarter, that's a clear go, but it's about possessions at that point. The odds of them getting— I think there was like 7 minutes left. The odds of them getting 3 scoring possessions in that time is so much lower than 2 possessions. Basically, it's not worth it. So that was a case where he went against the analytics. Todd said himself, he got greedy. The Sirianni one was fascinating because it so similar to the Schottenheimer decision.

Yeah.

And yet different because of the timeout that was on the board. And so you can certainly make the argument that in that spot you don't run the risk of the, uh, kickoff return because there's no timeout. So that one was like a kind of a coin flip.

I actually defended him Sunday night, and then some Eagle fans I know who heard it were like Yeah. You left out the part that half our team's hurt and we had 2nd and 3rd stringers playing special teams. And that's why we gave up, you know, a 55-yard return to, to, what was his name? Amir Abdullah.

Right.

Yeah. That's why that happened. And we didn't have our best players out there. So I don't know. I, I still,

it's,

you're giving up a, you're basically putting your faith that your kick return team can prevent a guy from going half the field. Like, I'm still gonna make that bet.

And, and all these things are such low percentage chances, you know, like we all, we all focus on the coaching decision and as long as it's like within the realm, again, like what Bowles did was just not within the realm of the—

That was the game.

That was the cop-out. Yeah, right. This was like, it's a coin flip, you can go either way on this one. It's kind of the strategy. But like I said this on the Ringer NFL Show, at some point, like, how about we make a fucking play? How about don't give up a 55-yard kick return? How about Cowboys defense, don't give up a 37-yard completion wide open in the middle of the field. Like, make a play. You know, in terms of the—

But that's what made the Rams thing so frustrating because—

Right.

They could not stop any pass play by the Rams. And they get to that spot and he turtles for this kicker that nobody trusted. And in the moment you're going, what are you doing? Just keep— get closer. I don't trust this guy. And I, it was almost like McVay's done this before. I think he's like really, as great of an offensive mind as he is, I think he's really shaky as a game management guy. This has been a thing his whole career.

The special teams has been a thing. And he's cycled through different coordinators and like in terms of the investment in that, in those spots, it's not, has been at that high of a level. Yeah. The, the running the football, I mean, it was kind of like what John Harbaugh had done earlier in the day. where he just keeps running the ball with Cam Scadaboo, but that's because it's pouring rain. He's trying to get closer. The Rams, it felt like they were just completely comfortable. They weren't running to gain extra yards. They're just running because like, all right, we're just gonna run the plays and then kick— what was it, a 44, 45-yard field goal?

With Burfict, he was dead. I mean, that game was over. They would have gotten 20 more yards.

Yeah, it's not like, you know, rookie Ty Simpson is out there. Like, it's Matthew Stafford. You can complete— you can trust Matthew Stafford to do what Jayden Daniels didn't. And like, Matthew, we just want like a 7-yard out here. It's not there, throw it out of bounds. You can trust him to make that pass. And going for that kick, he'd already missed one earlier in the game. If you go back and you watch the tape, one thing the Bills were doing that whole game was they were grabbing on all the kick plays. They were grabbing the offensive line, which was how you create the separation. So sure, you're not supposed to do that, of course.

Yeah.

But on that last one, you can kind of see the linemen being pulled apart. And all of a sudden, Greg Russo is able to get enough penetration, um, to block the kick. The Commanders thing, that was a— everyone in the league that I talked to was just like, it is absolutely incomprehensible how that can happen at every level. It's, you know, Dan Quinn, ultimately it stops with him, right? Because he's the one on the sideline. There's 55 seconds left when they go out of bounds.

Yeah,

clock is stopped. You've got time to go, okay, what are we gonna do here? Now, Dan doesn't interfere with his coordinators. He gives them a lot of autonomy. He's also got a first-time coordinator in David Blough up there who clearly, whether it's because he's newer at this or he's just trying to do a little bit too much, but he calls a run and then the next snap calls for a complete personnel change. They get big personnel, they're motioning. There's 20 seconds, 15. They got a guy in motion back and forth. And then Jayden not having any awareness, it seemed, of we have no timeouts, even though one of the offensive linemen said, we— yeah, we talked about it in the huddle. Yeah. There's no timeouts. Like, why you would think you can slide— like, there's, there's clear tags that coordinators put in. So at the end of that play, like, one of the common calls is O-zone, which means out of bounds or end zone. In other words, don't throw anything in the field of play. We got no timeouts. So just, you know, you give the play call and then O-zone. All right, everyone knows what that means.

I have to think David Blough gave him that call and somehow he's still running. There's just— it's a complete and total system failure. And it, it puts a huge spotlight now on Dan Quinn, whose next game, by the way, Monday night in San Francisco. San Francisco. Before a bye, if there were ever a spot where you're like, your team better show up for you, not just use the words like Jayden did today, you know, taking responsibility, saying we love DQ. Like, these guys better show up and play or, you know, there's going to be some bigger problems than just ending up in a tie.

One thing on the Rams really quickly before we go, 2-3, it's fine. Schedule's pretty easy next couple weeks. Home Arizona, at Las Vegas, home Chargers. at Washington, home Arizona, could be 7-3 in 5 weeks. But they don't have room for error now. And they're in a division with, you know, Right. Seattle, who I think has just pissed away a couple games, but is clearly really good. And then San Francisco, who just has, that just seems like they can pull out any win. But I, you know, this happens sometimes with these super teams, them being 2-3, with an old QB, Puka, who knows? And Myles Garrett, no, no idea when he's coming back.

Probably a few weeks still on that one.

Them missing the playoffs would be one of the great failures in recent NFL history. It really would. Like, when you think of all the capital they spent and, you know, even trading Jared Verse and, and the picks they gave up for Garrett, like, those are like damaging trades if this doesn't pay off and them playing all the way through January, much less not making the playoffs. So holy shit, the stakes feel like huge right now for them.

There's no question. Their, their 2026 first-round picks, they had 2 of them. They traded one for Trent McDuffie, who's, you know, played well but like isn't a complete game changer. He's a really good corner. They use the other one on Ty Simpson, who's currently the 3rd-string quarterback.

He doesn't play.

2027 first belongs to Cleveland. 2028, 2nd, and 2029, 3rd also belong to Cleveland. And the team, the Rams have been the lowest cash spend team over the last 5 years. Now they're one of the highest. Like, this is how they operate and keep their cap healthy. Like, this was the go-for-it moment.

This is pushing every chip in. Yeah.

Their exposure was Miles Garrett's an older player. Stafford's older. Davante Adams is older. You know, Puka is not older, but there's a lot of things, right? There's a lot of questions with him.

He's a yada yada guy.

he's been dealing— like, he looked like he was in pain the other night. Like, every time he'd get up off the ground, he's dealing with that groin thing.

Yeah,

you know, and Alaric Jackson gets himself suspended, ended up being one game for punching Bradley Chubb after the game. He still could get suspended over the personal conduct investigation as well. There's just— you're right, that division is so tough. I mean, the 49ers are kind of stringing it together even though they keep piling up injuries.

I'm, I'm not counting them out anymore. Like, I, I just feel like The Niners, I don't wanna bet against them. I don't wanna ever assume they're not gonna be a playoff team. But you feel like Niners, Seattle, there's gonna be one NFC East team and one NFC South team. So then the question will be, are there 3 playoff teams in the NFC North or not? And that's basically who the Rams would be positioned against if they can't turn this record around. They're looking at Detroit, Green Bay, Chicago, Minnesota. All of them—

And I wouldn't rule out any of those teams.

Yeah, all of them probably think they can make the playoffs. You know, Minnesota's already 5-0. Chicago's getting their quarterback this week. So yeah, this is, I mean, the schedule's perfect for them, but you know, at Las Vegas, if you're banged up next week, that's not the easiest game in the world. And the biggest shock for me is just, I don't think the Rams have been well coached this year. Like the special teams has been horrific. I don't understand what they were doing with Josh, the, the way they were defending Josh Allen on Monday night. I thought was insane. Like, why are you letting him run around and do whatever the fuck he wants? Like, have you ever watched Josh Allen play? So one thing I'm taking away is you're not going to be able to do this. I am not going to let you do this. Beat me with all the— and they just let him do it.

Well, and they were trying at times. If you were watching it where, like, it would be, all right, here it is, we're spying on him. One guy. And then Josh Allen, like, makes a juke move, just goes right back.

The wrong guy.

Yeah, I mean, maybe you don't— maybe you don't feel like you've got the right, you know, the right personnel to, to be able to go up against him and actually spy him effectively. Yeah, he— I mean, middle of the 3rd quarter, he was like 5 of 12 for 60 yards with an interception. That whole game, the first 3 quarters were total horseshit. Yeah. Like 200 yards in penalties. Neither offense is playing well. And then the reason I haven't lost faith in the Bills, even though they've been bumpy the past 3 weeks, or the Rams, is once those 2 quarterbacks heat up, there's not a whole lot of offenses that are better. Like, those 2 guys can single-handedly take over a game. And so yeah, both of them have stuff to clean up, and the Rams definitely have put themselves in a hole. But in the end, especially if Miles gets actually fully healthy— because he was not himself in Week 1— if he's fully healthy, I still think they're super dangerous.

Tom Pelissero, Ringer NFL Show tomorrow, the sweep. On Saturday. Let's see if we can keep the streak going. Every, every week you just throw a fucking grenade out there and get, get the whole 24-hour cycle going. It's been really fun to be a part of it. Great to see you.

Thanks, man. Appreciate it.

This episode is brought to you by PayPal. The holiday rush is coming and you can get ahead of it with PayPal. Shop your favorite online stores with PayPal this season, like eBay for collectibles, Fanatics for team gear, Walmart for tech. Check out the flexibility to pay now or pay later and split your payments with Pay in 4 with no interest, no late fees. Shop now with PayPal. Pay in 4 subject to approval. Learn more at paypal.com/payin4. PayPal Inc., NMLS 910457. Today's Ringer 107 brought to you by FanDuel. Make this your most rewarding season ever. Download the FanDuel app to check out all of our 107 picks and boosted teasers every week. this season. Joe House is here. We make picks every week. Normally we'd go longer, we'd do some mailbag stuff, but you and I did 5 hours of content on Tuesday with Zach Lowe on TV. I'm still winded. I'm still tired. We did, we did go and I took you to a secret Smashburger place after that. You were like, can I do social media? Can I? And I'm like, no, you actually can't. You're not allowed.

It wasn't, it wasn't The only thing I'll reveal is that it wasn't a Smashburger place. It is a secret.

It's a— don't say no more.

And the way you can have it, you can—

no, no more.

You can have the Smashburger.

You can't say anything else.

It's a secret. That's all I said.

It's like Fight Club. Yeah.

We've had enough quality time. We've had enough quality time.

It's like Fight Club. You can't talk about it.

That's enough. It was amazing though. Top 3 burger I've ever had.

The highlight of the entire week, of course, which dissected on, um, on Ringer Wise Guys this week was Dave Chang making his beef stew. I didn't talk about this with you on Sunday night because I wanted to save it for the Ringer Wise Guys show. Okay. Uh, DeBundo not trying the stew, and Chang had no idea. And then near the end, it's like, you're gonna have the stew? He's like, no, no, I already ate. And we thought this was the funniest thing ever, that apparently, um, the muffin that he got in the hotel bakery Was, was enough, uh, to not try Dave Chang's stew. Dave Chang, one of the most famous chefs in the world, made us 2 different types of stew, but it's like, no, I already ate. We could not have gotten more jokes about this.

I mean, it was so enjoyable. Cousin Sal, who hosted a beautiful livestream—

Yeah, on Twitch.

For Monday Night Football on Twitch with, uh, the guys. Called Dave Chang completely out of the blue and described to him. And Dave Chang motherfucked D'Abundo right there live on set.

He couldn't believe it because I didn't tell Chang. I wanted Sal to break the news to him. But yeah, Chang goes, he's dead to me. But when Chang says that, it's real. Like, he's— oh yeah, D'Abundo is actually dead to Chang.

That's a Korean template.

Yeah, we know what Chang Speaking of dead to me, there's some teams from last week that are now dead to me thanks to what they did to me in Ringer 107, including Sean McVay, who I just talked about. Tom Pelissero. I'll never— oh, I didn't have the Rams and you had the Rams in Ringer 107. I had them in a parlay.

But yeah, same difference.

But yeah, and we're watching it together and we're so excited that they're in field goal range, that they're gonna steal this game and they're just gonna move the ball 20 yards down. Nope. Turtled and did all this stupid stuff. I also got to watch your team blow the game on Sunday. That was really fun. You don't like this slate for Week 6, and this is the first slate I've liked in a while. It's crazy. So it's kind of funny that we saw this differently, but I had— this is the first time in 5 weeks that I've had more picks than spots for Ringer 107. Wow. Yeah,

I'm kind of on the other side. I have a ton of teaser legs. I love the card for teasers. Yeah, I don't love the card for sides.

Um, I'm gonna start because it's Week 6. We do odd-even week. I am 1 game under .500. What are you?

3 games under .500.

No,

because I went 2-3 last week.

Everyone's on the edge of their seats waiting for Rams, waiting for our picks when we're not. I'm so due for a good week.

Sean McVay can eat a fat dick.

Is that who— is that who's handing it this week?

That's the whole— I just did the whole segment. Sean McVay, enjoy a fat one.

I'm so glad you brought this up because a reader sent me what the trophy should look like. The Stanley Cock.

Somebody superimpose Sean McVay's face next to that. That's for Week 5. That's who gets it.

Somebody— I gotta find— I gotta give the reader credit for this. It was—

That is great.

It was Joshua A. Thank you.

Thank you, Joshua. What a magnificent Stanley Cocke.

He had some help, but he made the Stanley Cocke Award for us. So who is it this week? Is it Sean McVay or is it somebody else?

Oh, just get it out of the way. It's definitely McVay.

Sean McVay, you're the golden boy. You have the entire media behind you. Everybody thinks you're a great coach and you've won a Super Bowl. And you're a super smart guy, apparently. Why are you so bad at game management? And why do you throw away special teams year after year? And why do you let Josh Allen run around when he's the most dangerous guy in the league? I thought that— we talked about it that whole night. It was one of the weirdest coached games of the year. It's like—

That's on Chris Shula. Like, they never went to man. Why wouldn't you go to man just, just 3 or 4 times so you can have somebody watch Josh Allen? the conversion rate on 3rd down because they were like, well, Josh Allen's got the whole field open in front of him. Let's see if he can run. Well, there he goes again. 120 effing yards for, for Josh Allen. Great job by Josh Allen, by the way.

Daniel Ocean from Toronto said you and House need to do an end of NBA season of people invited to the all-you-can-eat fat dick fest. He thinks it's gonna be like, like Tony Wilbon doing Thanksgiving for the turkeys. I don't know if we can get that sponsored. But well, I'll talk to Jeff Chad.

Let's work on that.

Okay. I have the first pick, Ringer 107. I am taking the Dallas Cowboys in Lambeau. I, on Sunday, I took the Bears in Lambeau and it was stupid. I couldn't find a 5th pick and I didn't feel good about it. And then I felt terrible about it as they got killed. I'm still not sold on this Green Bay team at all. And I actually think because they looked good last week, that's a nice, this is a nice spot for this game. They lost Hargrave, which is not great. They, they have injuries all over the place.

Yeah.

10 days rest for Dallas. Green Bay's defense— this is before the latest injury— on 3rd down giving up 55%. Dallas is 52%. Dak's by any metric been one of the 3 best QBs in the league this year. And I look back at that Packers, they threw the ball, they connected on some deep passes against Chicago's terrible pass defense. They also got 5 turnovers. That was an everything went right game. I personally don't think the Packers are a playoff team, and I thought Dallas fell asleep at the wheel in that Tampa game. It was just a Sunday after Thursday, after a Sunday, weird game. They're playing 0-4 Tampa, rookie QB, didn't take the game seriously. They were sleepwalking through it, and I think they're gonna be really good offensively. I just think this team's a fucking juggernaut offensively. So I am—

it's a wagon. It's a wagon offensively. And, and to your point on the sleepwalking note, that they— that Tampa game was their 3rd game in 12 days because— and, and coming off of a Brazil trip. So they went to Brazil, they, they came home, they, they, they had a terrific performance against Houston on the road, and then short turnaround had to host Tampa.

QB with not a lot of film. a really stupid Bucky Irving long run that kind of flipped the game. So they're, this is tic-tac zone. They're -1.5 in Green Bay. And I think the Cowboys are a playoff team and I don't think Green Bay is. And this is, I'm just long-term big picture. This is a game I think the Cowboys should win. And by the way, Green Bay's gonna have the Brewers in the World Series. And I don't think they really, I don't think it really matters if they lose this game.

Well, one thing that you're gonna be happy about, Dallas is getting points. Didn't you just say that they were—

Did I have that? I wanted it either way. Did I write that down wrong?

Well, I understand you should want it either way, but it's better for them to be getting points. I'm looking at, at Dallas +1.5 on the FanDuel Sportsbook.

Okay. But that, that's changed though. I want to make sure.

I don't think so because I, I have them as a teaser leg potentially. They're in my teaser bucket.

You know what's possible? I can't see and I wrote it down wrong. Either way, Tic Tac Zone.

There you go.

I'm happy to take the +1.5 Cowboys plus

old guy radio

Cowboys +1.5 in Green Bay. Sounds wonderful. I will take it minus or plus either way. That's my first pick Cowboys against—

Yeah, I got super close. I got super close and I was like, goddamn it.

What held you back?

Just, just Lambeau, just outdoors at Lambeau and the concern around, I mean, Dallas is doing stuff like bringing in Mike Patin, like they're, they're, They're taking Christian Parker from the field. He's going up to the booth. This guy—

They make me nervous.

Mike Pettine's involved now trying to give some oversight, some insight. And the, the true reason that I moved off of it, at the end of the day, I will have Dallas and I'll have Dallas in some teaser legs, but I'm not putting into the 107 because the what if what we saw out of Green Bay where they're just gonna throw the effing ball 40 yards down the field as many times as they can. Yeah. They looked so good against the Bears with, with that, like that Jordan Love Christian Watson thing. They did look great. He was awesome. And, and if that's like, oh, it's clicked. They did figure out some pass protection for Love.

You know what it is? This is a shootout game that's gonna be decided last 4 minutes. And I'm happy now that I'm getting a point and a half apparently, 'cause you can see and I can't. All right. What's your first pick?

I am rolling with the Dirty Birds. I like the Atlanta Falcons getting points at home against the Chicago Bears.

This line moved a few points because of Caleb Williams.

The news reports say that Caleb Williams is going to play quarterback for the Chicago Bears. I— that actually helps me with the handicap here. Um, kind of like the idea of a rusty Caleb Williams coming in, but really There is an advantage that the Falcons have here, um, that supports this angle. Um, and it is their run offense against the Bears run defense without Montez Sweat should absolutely feast. It should be like the smashburger feast with the mashed potatoes and the onion rings and the appetizer of the beautiful shrimps. I'm just saying, that's what we had. And that's not even everything.

And then you went on a plane and probably passed out.

I sure did. Couple glasses of red. Yeah. Come on. Red juice. We did that. Yeah, man. So this Atlanta Falcons contest.

Well, can I ask you, I stared at this hard.

Yeah.

Michael Penix, we sure he's healthy? We sure he's playing? 'Cause here's what gave me— and by the way, I, I'm, I still might be taking this as my 3rd pick. When Tua

came into that

game on Sunday

night, This is a dead bet. If anybody other than Michael Penix plays quarterback, this is a dead bet.

Penix comes out like this and there all of a sudden Tua is doing the warmup and you're just like, oh my God.

It's a dead bet. It's there. It's, I, I mean, and I'll concede it, but I can't get over the advantage. It's already the case that Bijan Robinson is number 1 in the entire NFL in yards after contact. Well, the, the, the Bears are exquisite at getting, giving up yards before contact and yards after contact. I think that the version of the Bears defense that we saw last week against Green Bay is the true version of the Bears defense. And the no Montez Sweat thing just took it to a whole nother level for me. I love the idea of Atlanta getting points at home. They are a functional offense and their defense has been very under the radar effective at getting pressure. We don't know how they're doing it, but they are, they are doing it. And if Caleb is at all hesitant to get out and run because, you know, his first game back post-hamstring, I like that angle as well. So I don't mind grabbing the points with Atlanta at home.

I looked at it long and hard. I still might take it. All right, my second pick. I think I've picked them every week in Ringer 107 except for last week 'cause it was a Thursday game and I haven't really enjoyed the fruits of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers yet. They're going to be +2.5 at home against the traveling Pittsburgh Steelers. Coming off 10 days rest. I like that. Steelers coming off a really nice win where they're feeling great about themselves. I like that. And I think the Bucs are pretty good. The, the, the advanced stats kind of back it up. They're 12th in DVOA. They have the 5th defense, 18th in offense. They have better DVOA than Pittsburgh. They're home. They need the game. And I, there's a couple of extra things with this. I just think Pittsburgh is always gonna be within 1 win or loss from .500 the entire year. I don't think they'll ever be 2 up. I don't think they'll ever be 2 down. I think they'll be 4-3, 4-4, maybe they'll be 4-5. Oh, we're back up to 6-5. I just think they're gonna be right there. But I really like that quarterback as like just random backup who played 6 years in college.

Yeah. And, uh, I thought he seemed really comfortable. They can run the ball. I don't mind some of their weapons. I think, I think there's some energy around this team. I don't, I don't know what this is gonna mean for the Baker Mayfield extension they just gave out, but, uh,

it means the money's gone.

That's what it means. That might be what it means, but I don't— the Steelers secondary has been awful. Um, and I think against Aaron Rodgers on the road, It makes sense to me that Tampa could, could stick it to them a little bit, shut down their run, go after him, make him be 42-year-old Aaron Rodgers, 'cause he's not gonna be good every week, right? When you're old, we know this firsthand, it goes up and down depending on the week. And I think this would be a crazy spot for Pittsburgh to win. Is Pittsburgh really gonna be 4-2? To me, it's more likely we haven't heard the last of the NFC South. And we're just gonna be, we're gonna be merry-go-rounding that top spot. And Tampa is 2-4 after this weekend and we're like, holy shit, Tampa's back in this. So I'm taking Bucs +2.5. I thought about waiting until Sunday and hoping it goes to 3, but I don't, I think it goes the other way. I think it ends at 1.5.

I led with an NFC South team and I'm right here joining you with yet another NFC South team.

Oh, you're taking them too?

I sure am. They were sitting right there for me. I like everything that you just observed. There are some good numbers in terms of, you know, Todd Bowles and Aaron Rodgers haven't faced each other a ton, but Aaron Rodgers only 1-2 against Todd Bowles. But what I really like inside the X's and O's is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers like to play cover 3.

Yeah.

And Aaron Rodgers, historically not a fan of COVID 3. Oh, Aaron, number 31 EPA, number 30 success rate. It's just, it's, it's not something he's comfortable with. He also has been very ineffective on, on 3rd down this season. His completion rate is way down on 3rd down. Tampa, Pittsburgh, not great 3rd down conversions, but I, I like what we saw out of Tampa in terms of some innovation on offense. All of a sudden, all the weapons came to life against that.

Quarterbacks moving around a little bit, making shit happen. Like Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh's low on receivers too.

Yes.

'Cause I picked up Roman Wilson last week. He got hurt in the first quarter. Now Jeremy Bernard is the new guy that's been coming in, but they, they basically have a receiver and a half. Friermuth.

Friermuth playing receiver for them.

They're getting these crazy Jaylen Warren explosive plays every game that if they continue, he's gonna end up with One of the great running back seasons of all time, and I don't think it's going to continue this week. Take him out, force them into these third and longs, go after Rodgers, and take care of business.

Tampa pressure.

Ahoy!

They can get pressure.

Bucks!

Ahoy! We did it.

Plus two and a half.

Both of us.

Both taking them.

Yep.

Well, that leads me to well, I'll do a tease now. I just want to mention, wait, I mentioned to you. Way back when, when I'm gambling on football in the mid-'90s with my buddy Jeff Gallo, and we had somebody we called the Betsman because it was the mid-'90s. Hmm. And he had a friend.

We had this conversation. Yeah.

I'm not gonna say his full name, but his last name was Steinmans. And I think Steinman, he either bet with us or I can't remember the details, but he would have a pick every week and we would just be like, Where the fuck did that come from? And, and Jeff used to do this imitation of Simons calling, calling in the pick toss and being like, I don't know, I just kind of like the Chargers +6.5. So I'm gonna start flagging the Simons picks every week. I'm not taking it yet, but if this works, maybe I'll start.

I'm listening.

Titans +6.5 is the Simons pick. Who's taking that? Who wants that? Who's like, you know who I really like this week? The Titans. They scored 3 points last week and their QB is a bust and both of their coaches are gonna get fired. I like the Titans. And yet, like, I— you can't make the case for them, but the— should the Colts be favored by almost a touchdown over anybody? I—

No.

I know that one stuck out to me. If that one hits, I'm gonna take— I'm gonna do a Steimans pick next week and make it one of my One of my 5. Okay. My 3rd one. This is a pure, I have the line in my head different than what the line is for the game.

Okay.

I feel okay putting this in because it's not a tease or a parlay. It's a straight up pick, which means by rules I can wade into the London waters.

Oh my God. I can't believe this.

Yep.

Go ahead.

Did win last week, but it did, take years off my life.

Oof.

Houston's +2.5 in London against the Jags. It's a neutral field, even though allegedly the Jags are the home team. And I get the Texans are 1-4. These teams seem dead even to me. I think this game, whether it should be a pick 'em or not, I don't know. But to me, like, Jags minus 1, Sure. Maybe is the highest I'd go. Jags -1.5 even seems aggressive. The Texans basically have to win this game. This is a kitchen sink playoff game for them. I think they underachieved with, you know, who they are. They're 11th in DVOA and they're 1-4, which is nuts. The Jags are 2nd in DVOA and have been very good this year. And I, I've picked them a couple times, but I, I just, I like how they've played the Jags in the past and Lawrence. I like the Houston in general. I want to keep riding them, and I like that I'm getting points. If this was a pick 'em, I would take Houston. So I'm getting +2.5. I'm going to bet on their defense. I'm going to bet on the London game. I like their kicker, and I think this is a lower scoring, like a 19-16, kind of ugly.

There'll be a couple turnovers, but I'm betting on the Jags. And by the way, are we— we are seeing Marvin Harrison this week, right?

Yeah, we are. He's playing.

You know, he's gonna do something.

I don't know what to do here because I, I'll try and show America. This says Atlanta, Houston, Tampa.

Oh, you have Houston too.

That's fine. Am I allowed to do that? Yeah. Is America gonna be mad that we have 2 of the same picks?

Well, we're probably gonna have the same team too.

Because I, I mean, I love Houston inside the numbers. Some of the things that you're observing there They pressure Trevor Lawrence very effectively. Trevor Lawrence, his completion rate against Houston is low. The familiarity of this Houston defense with what Trevor Lawrence and, and that offense for Jacksonville wants to do. Trevor Lawrence under pressure, his splits are bad and he has a very low efficiency rate against this Houston Defense. But on the other side of the ball, CJ Stroud— Stroud, super— try and say that 10 times. CJ Stroud, super below the radar, it feels like this season.

Calisera and I talked about it in the last segment. I, I think he's been genuinely good this year.

I agree.

With, with like weird weapons and no running game whatsoever and not the best offensive line. I think he's, I think he's looked great.

So the thing that Jacksonville's good at is take away the run. They genuinely do have a good run defense. So the F what? Yeah, Houston doesn't care about that. They'll have Woody Marks, you know, oh, they're missing David Montgomery. So what? Woody Marks will run for 50 yards or whatever. It doesn't matter.

I kind of like Woody Marks.

They have Nico and they have whatever Marvin Harrison is gonna be. I think it's a, a net positive for this Houston offense.

No, at least give them some physical stuff. maybe, you know, they'll throw to him a couple times. I love,

yeah,

the fact that he played with Stroud with the college— in college, I love. But yeah, I just— this is a need game too. Jacksonville's been there for 2 weeks.

They're 3 games behind, behind the Jags.

Yeah, they pulled a win out of there. Absolute assholes last week against Philly.

Yes,

right. Even before what happened at the end, like Lawrence hitting Washington on a pretty crazy pass down the side that he had to make a, like, an insane 9 out of 10 catch on. But the Jags were dying to blow that game for a while. And, uh,

Sirianni had other ideas.

Sirianni had other ideas. And FYI, that was not like that was a good Eagles team. It was basically like Jalen Carter taking them on by himself.

I mean, it's a pretty good Eagles defense. Yeah.

I mean, Jalen Carter was going nuts.

Yeah.

But, um,

The only thing

that gives pause on this— Vaughn went out like in the, uh, right, with the concussion during the game. I don't know, a lot of things went right for them.

There's been 3 other occasions where Jacksonville is on the second of back-to-back in London.

Yeah,

they're 3-0 in that, uh, context, and I think they've covered all 3 times. They— the last 2, they've blown the doors off the teams that they played. So that would be the concern. It's Houston flying across. Um, but I, I, I'm not really cowed by that. That, that's a it's factored into the very fair +2.5 because I think these teams are like super even. The original point you made at the top, this is like a -1. Could be— pick 'em would be fine with me.

Yeah, it's free. It's anytime like you're grabbing an extra point beyond where you think it should be, grab it. Okay, tease. Well, you know,

I'm glad that you let me— that you let me do that because I was, I was prepared to pivot But now I don't have to take the Giants.

And so you just, you double piggyback.

I just gotta take the Giants at home.

We're keeping track of the piggybacks for the year. Yeah. Tease time. I hit last week. I'm 2 and 3 on teases. You've, you're not good on teases this year, right?

I'm 3 and 2. What are you talking about? Yeah.

You're not good with your wise wagers is what you're not.

I'm not gonna lose anymore the way I lost last week. I'll tell you that much.

The Patriots against the Jets is an easy leg for a tease. I know it's chalk. I know, whatever. But the—

No, it's good. The Pats, Gonzalez is coming

You look at the injury report for the Pats and you go, oh no, they're so— oh, they're missing Will Campbell. The rookie left tackle came in and was lights out last week. Lomo, he's, he's, he's— looks like we're gonna be fine on that side. Henderson's out, it's fine. We can, we can patch it together without him. But we really seems like we could get AJ Brown. I didn't factor that into that pick. That's a bonus. Mm-hmm. Even if he's out there for 20, 25, I think they've found something with this receiver group. They seem like they've gained trust. Kyle Williams, even somebody like Chisholm.

Chisholm.

The tight ends, I'm still waiting on the big Reardon. I think I was calling him when we were watching the games the other day. I, I just think there's, there's a, there's a breakout game for him and they're playing the Jets. The Jets have a bunch of injuries. Vrabel hates the Jets and I just, I would be shocked if the Pats didn't win that game by 3.

Okay.

So that's one. For the other leg, to make this the chalkiest leg that ever existed, I gotta do it. The Chiefs under 3 down at 2.5 against the Chargers, who seem like they just want to go home for the season.

Mandatory.

Chiefs coming off a bye.

That's right. All the numbers, all the Andy Reid numbers.

Chargers looking terrible. Like,

yeah.

I, I, they're not gonna win by 3, so I, I hate doing it. The other one I was looking at long and hard was the under in the Browns-Ravens game, which could— you could get basically take that up to 49.

I'm glad you did. Don't do a total in the tease. Don't do it.

You can. That's legal.

I know. It's just, I'm just telling you, don't do it. I like what you did.

Thought about that. Thought about the Niners against your stupid team as well. But your stupid team is like not terrible.

Yep. So they are stupid though. They are stupid.

So Pats down to -1.5 and Chiefs down to -2.5. That's

my, uh, shocker.

By the way, I will say this with the teases. The teases have had been really tough the first 5 weeks in general for a variety of reasons. And I, we're gonna have some normalcy for a couple weeks at some point with some of this.

I think so too. I, I, um, lost last week my teaser because I put the shit Saints into a tease and—

Right. Which was your call.

I was reminded, oh, wait a minute. It took me all the way to week 5 to remember, don't put shitty teams in teasers.

Right.

And ask for a backdoor cover.

With a bunch of injuries. Yeah. That's another thing I like about Pats-Chiefs. These are 2 playoff teams at home.

Right. Yeah.

Going against 2 teams that are not gonna go .500 this year. So—

So I, I obviously have the Chiefs as, as well. The Chiefs, you know, with the extra rest, the Chargers coming off of yet another blown not just an opportunity to win the game, but, but blown cover. Yeah, they keep inventing ways to not cover. So no issue whatsoever. We don't have to discuss the Chiefs leg any further. And I'm 1,000% taking the Niners -1.5. Okay, you kidding me? From 7.5 down to 1.5? This— my stupid team is gonna fly cross-country? If this was at home in Washington, I wouldn't mess with it because—

Right.

You know what, what we saw out of Washington against that Seattle team you know, they're, they're, they're fighting. Those guys are, are, are, but it's, it's way too much a work in progress on both sides of the ball with the new coordinators. The defensive coordinator especially, they went super conservative in the 4th quarter and let the Giants, let Jameis come back from 14 points, just not making adjustments the way that they ought to be making adjustments. Yeah. Because they're just not all on the same page. So Niners -1.5 is the other side of of, uh, my tease leg.

Yeah, never a bad idea to put some money on Brock Purdy. So you have Brock Purdy and Mahomes. I have Drake Maye and Mahomes. Feeling good.

He, he cooks against base defense, and Washington likes base defense. So that, that's another element to this. He's— it's a sneaky angle that, uh, our boy Warren Sharpe pointed it out. I, I love it. Uh, I think the Niners are gonna cook.

All right, so Ringer 107, we both have the Bucs +2.5 at home against the Steelers. We both have the Texans +2.5 in London against the Jaguars.

What could go wrong? What could go wrong?

You have the Falcons.

I do.

What's that line again? +1.5.

They're getting a point and a half at home against the Bears.

And I have the Cowboys +1.5 in Lambeau against Green Bay. I was taking it at -1.5 and you reminded me it was actually +1.5 on FanDuel, so that was great. My tease is New England down to -1.5 and KC down to -2.5. You have KC -2.5 and Sips just go down to -1.5. Remember, if you can wager, uh, in a FanDuel state, you get the -110 juice for that because we talked FanDuel into that. Uh, that is today's Ringer 107, was brought to you by FanDuel. Download the app now to find all of our 107 picks. Make this your most rewarding season ever. FanDuel, play your game. Odds subject to change. What was the biggest feedback you got from the 2-part NBA over-unders. Was anybody mad?

The only people that were mad were folks that are in the LaMelo Ball hive. They thought I went a tiny bit too far with, with the—

You called him Clowny McFarty Pants.

I did. Now, I mean, I just want to be very explicit about this. This is purely basketball-driven. I don't know anything about the young man. I wish him well. I hope he has success.

Oh, did he get like some people who were— oh, interesting.

It felt like it might be personal. It felt like that I was going— I want nothing but the best for him and really all the guys in the NBA. I like— I really hope for the best for him. I mean, it wasn't per— I just don't like the way he plays basketball. I don't think he is a winning player. I don't think he is—

I thought you made that very clear.

To winning basketball. Oh, I call him Clowny McFarty Pants. Yes.

You thought he gets a little cloudy Clowny McFarty Pants when he's leading a team.

It's true.

Somebody sent me, um, somebody said—

But not personal. I'm rooting for you, LaMelo.

Somebody sent me a poster based—

I can't really see it.

It's a Clowny McFarty Pants poster.

Already?

Yeah. Who

did that?

That was from— who did that? That was from Damian.

AI.

Yeah.

Amazing. I need a copy of that. I'll put that in the—

In the set. In the back. Put it up

on

the set. Yeah. We went over on the Timberwolves, didn't we? Or did you not go over?

I went under.

I have a couple—

It's a grand experiment. I think you and Zach both went over. It's a wonderful experiment. I'm here to watch it. They look great. There was a clip that came up on my thing. of Anthony Edwards talking about, there's our light-skinned player and there's our medium-skinned player and I'm the Black player. Like, I, I love that. That's phenomenal stuff by Anthony Edwards.

FanDuel gave me a special little ringer tab on the NBA page with all my picks.

Oh, let's go.

Yeah. And they also—

You deserve it.

Added a couple, couple, some of the over-unders were in there, but I think we're gonna do some division exact orders and all kinds of things. Yeah.

Good. I have some division bets that I'm making, so.

I have some Nets fans that are mad at me. That seems to be—

Well, what, all 10 of them? Is that the issue?

Listen, the Nets fans are like when somebody's in a bad marriage and the friend comes over and is like, you have to ask for a divorce, you have to get out. And they take it personally. And then a year later they're like, Hey, I, I know I got mad at you a year ago, but I'm— we are separating now, and you were right. Um, that's, that's what it's like to be a Nets fan.

Sorry.

Sorry. I'm gonna keep making jokes about the Nets all year, so I don't know what to tell you. Uh, we'll say on the positive for the Nets fans, the pizza is really good there.

Oh, incredible pizza in Brooklyn. You kidding me?

Yeah, that pizza, like when you go in the Barclays, Oh,

actually in the

stadium? The pizza? Yeah, Vinnie's Pizza. Oh. It's delicious. I didn't know that. It's right there. It's right outside.

I mean, it should be because Brooklyn has some of the most incredible pizza on planet Earth.

By the way, you left yesterday.

Yeah.

And I started eating healthy the next day. It's probably— I have 5 weeks until Thanksgiving. Yeah. No more bread.

Good job by you.

No more dessert. That's it.

You did a great job of eating. There was multiple bagels involved. We had sandwiches. Yeah.

I turned it on for you.

Cheeseburgers. There was stew. We did the whole, the whole thing.

It was great. It was a good ride.

Phenomenal. Big, big, big waffle.

House, I will see you next week. Hopefully we do well on our picks and we even share a couple of them. Great to see you. And we'll

listen

to you on Ringer Wise Guys, the big Friday show, which has been absolutely spectacular all season. Thanks for your time. We're gonna take a break. We're gonna come back with Cam Johnson and my friend Tommy Alter. in studio, and we go for a while. It's a great basketball conversation right after this. All right, so we're recording Thursday afternoon. Cam Johnson is here from the Denver Nuggets. Tommy Alter is here. We've worked together for a long time. The most mysterious man in show business. I forced you to come on. I didn't even tell you.

Some would say.

Would you have dressed differently or no?

No, I would have worn this exact same thing.

Yeah, I figured. Yeah, we've known each other for a while.

Thank you for having us.

Yeah, this is great. We'd always talked about doing something when Cam was in town. Season started next week, and you play for my adopted Western Conference team, the Denver Nuggets, because my favorite non-Celtic is Jokic. So you've been— this is year 2 with him. Yeah. Just give it to me. What's it like? Did you have to get used to the passing and the angles and all that shit? Is there a process?

Yeah, you have to get used to it. I think you look at the passes like the pass in Boulder that he made behind the back pass. It's not about getting used to that. It's about getting used to the flow of playing with somebody like him, because you never have before. Yeah. And even if you have a 5, like, that is skilled and can— like, you, you don't— nobody does the game like Jokic does the game. So the figuring out is more of a spacing, when to move, when to play off, all those other things. But those surprise passes and stuff, are actually kind of the easier ones because like, as long as you understand the spacing of the court, yeah, like you can kind of feel when you're— when you yourself are open.

And he always feels it, right?

He always knows. Yeah, that's the thing, he always knows. So like, he can be looking left, the action be going left, if he— and if I'm on the right corner and he catches my man drifting in too far, and you can see it because he can survey the court very easily, very steadily, very, very like, you know, just efficiently without having to be sped up. And then he can hold. So it's like, okay, if he's there one more second, I'm throwing it. Throws it right corner, I'm ready. Those are the easier ones. The more of the learning curve was just like how our offense flows. When you have somebody, you want the ball in Jokic's hands. Yeah. You want the ball in Jamal Murray's hands. And so it's like, okay, How can I be as efficient as possible to complement what we have going on and to continue to raise our ceiling as an offense? And that's where I started to find my groove, essentially.

So how long did it take?

It was like, it was a slow start.

It felt like by April range.

Well, that's the thing. You could tell you had it. It was a slow start. And then I felt like I was figuring it out. I had a little knee injury in December when I come back. Then, you know, I think by early, mid-ish March is when I was like, all right, like, I feel very comfortable in what we're doing right now. Um, and I think it's, I think it's going to continue to grow too. Like, I just, you know, getting the second preseason in, and I just feel like, I just think back to how I felt last year, and I feel, I feel a lot better about it right now.

Don't you think there's something with— we talked about this with like Timmy last year. Yeah, there's something with shooters in this offense about how you just can't think. Like, you just have to, when you get the ball, you just have to get it up. And it's what made him so good for them last year was he's just a, he's just an assassin. Like, he comes in, he doesn't think about it. He's like getting 5 jacks up right away.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's just a valuable skill in the NBA in general because like anybody technically probably could do it. Like you could just get the ball and fire it, but to do it and be efficient enough to where they keep telling you like, yes, this is a good behavior. Continue to do it. There's plenty of guys that have that mentality. But you don't really see it because the coaches are like, okay, that's enough, you know? So for Tim especially, that's a— it's a great example because he can do it and he's efficient. Shot about 40 last year on just those like unconscious, just let it fly, let it fly guy.

Yeah, it's like constant heat check mode even though it's not a heat check.

He just covers.

Yeah, it's like the first, first possession. Yeah,

in the first quarter, first quarter, he just comes ripping it.

A professional shooter. So like, that's part of it. That's an NBA skill. Professional shooter. Not, not like anything besides the fact that like this guy, whenever the opportunity to shoot presents itself, he doesn't need the situation to be going his way or not going. He could miss 4, he could miss 5, or he could have made the last 3 or 4. He's gonna shoot it the same.

Well, that's like a podcast thing. When you talk, you don't want to self-edit yourself as you talk because then you start thinking about how you talk. Tim Hardaway comes in, he's like, boom. No, it's like just letting it fly.

It's not irrational confidence because he's a great shooter, so it's rational, but it is like confidence. Yeah, it is like, I don't care what happened, I'm coming in and getting these up.

Shireman had that for the Celtics last year, and you could see it evolving over the course of the year. It was just, he was in fuck it mode. And then you get to the playoffs and everybody's afraid to be in fuck it mode.

Yeah, yeah.

No, but Boston was still letting it rip in the playoffs.

Yeah.

And they just live and die by the result.

If it's not going well, that's when—

But they still did it. Like, they played through it. And you hear a lot of back and forth about like, change your strategy, stop shooting so many. Like, this is what they do. So the ideal thing is like, you know, you get— you just— you let it rip, you're struggling, struggling, then the script flips at some point. But like, they have to— like, they put that in as their system so much so. And I respect it. It, it's, it, it won a title. Exactly. It works.

The problem is when it's not working, you feel like you're in quicksand.

You can't change it though.

It's like, fuck, we're 10 for 48. Why are we firing these guys?

Also, when it's not working, I think even not forget last year, the, the, when they, uh, lost the Knicks series, it kills your home crowd. There's something that is like particularly bad.

That's true. Fans get super frustrated.

Shooting like 9 for 40 from 3 is a huge—

So what do you think? You think that— you think at that point, do you change or do you continue what you do?

You still need— you still need something else. It can't just be the 3s. You still need either somebody who can create his own shot or be the centrifugal force to create shots for others. They have it now with Tatum. And then with Brown, they had it, but I think it just got rocky when Tatum got back. They never figured out the seesaw with those guys because they didn't have enough time. You know, he came back, he played for 16 games this year. And I meant to ask you this, I'm just gonna ask you now. It feels like preseason matters more this year. Do you feel that? Feels like, like teams are playing their guys in their lineups more. Like the Celtics have played— you don't, you don't agree with this? Because it feels like the practice time got condensed.

I do.

And they're just throwing— they're actually like treating these games real. Yeah,

it feels like it's part of camp.

Yeah.

It's extended practices outside of your training camp that gives you just another opponent. For example, you take us, we're figuring a lot out in preseason. At least we're trying to execute our scheme. We're trying to implement new concepts.

And then— And you have new guys too.

Yeah. And then for me, it's like, I'm going to go out there and try to do these the best I can. Go back to the tape and see how it looks on tape and see like, and just see how that process plays itself out.

Well, the other problem is every— it's not a problem, it's a strength too. Everybody's so fucking deep now. I can't believe how deep these rosters are. That the Clippers, they waived Cam Christie yesterday 'cause they had, he had some guarantee coming. And it's like, that guy's definitely an NBA player. I don't know if he would've been in their top 10, but everybody's so deep now and it seems like Like that, this can be a big advantage for the Celtics where they can just pick 10 guys every night and rest 4 and still the 10 they have every night.

You're gonna notice the Celtics are gonna get worked into a lot of these.

That's fair. That's fair. But I do think the deeper rosters for this 82-game season with all the wear and tear and the injuries, like, do you feel like there's more running now than there was when you got in the league, or you feel like it's the same? Do you feel like basketball's harder to play now?

It depends on who you are. For me, I don't think it's harder to play, but I think it has maybe a slightly different physical effect.

Yeah.

Like, you can trade some of the ground and pound for cross-country mileage. There's just a little bit different wear and tear. Yeah. Maybe the speed of the game is different. Maybe the sets we run are a little bit different.

The pace is definitely different.

The pace is different. the personnel on court is maybe the bigger one. Like, when I got to the league, it was definitely mid-change of 2 traditional bigs. But I remember, like, if you were the 4 in our Phoenix offense my first year, like, you were kind of playing, like, on the elbow a little bit. You know what I mean? And so it's like—

You had to play there your rookie year.

Yeah. Me and Mikal Bridges were like, who's the 4 this time down the court? Like, looking at each other. It was so funny. You'd be like, I don't want to be there. You'll be there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um, but you can feel that, like, it's just, you know, that's another thing I love is, like, just going back and seeing which sets worked. And then if they worked, how many teams adopted it? Okay, mostly adopted. And then the defense would catch up. Um, so I think in just all of this, like, you see a lot more guard-guard action now than you did when I, when I first got into the league. You see a lot more—

Guard-guard action meaning pick, guard setting a pick for guards.

Guard setting a pick for guards. It just is—

I'm just walking our listeners through it.

It's chaotic. Chaotic. It's become such a dominant screening game, a dominant pick and roll game, a dominant double pick, 2 picks to pick up the player who's behind.

I would argue it's become a dominant illegal screen game, but apparently they're going to fix that this year.

I think the illegal screening is no longer at its peak. I think it was at its peak pre my time in the NBA. I think,

oh, like in the early 2010s?

Yeah. Because if I go back and watch those games, like, they were doing some crazy stuff with the screens. I think gradually they've been cracking down on it a little bit more.

Yeah.

But people are just trying to get away.

There's also the guard-big screen. I mean, you have to do it with—

yeah, guard-big screens are really cool because now, like, these bigs are—

That's what everyone who plays with Zion has to do. That's how he gets to the rim.

Jokic, like these guys are really good at being the pick and roll ball handler.

It's kind of logical, but nobody thought to do it for the first 70 years of the league.

It's very hard to guard too. Guard-guard actions.

I'm trying to think who the first one, it might have been the Clippers used to do it with Chris Paul and Jamal sometimes.

How much of that is also just the pure, the guards are bigger? I mean, you have to have a level of size to do this. It's like if you're—

Oh, like the Shai size?

Yeah, you have to be 6'4, 6'5, and, and strong to set the pick either way.

Or built like Jalen Brunson where you're just a fire hydrant.

No, because it, you don't even have to be able to set the picks.

Yeah.

You just have to be able to go in there with enough intention and enough kind of pace to make the defense have to react to your presence being there. You don't have to be a strong screen setter necessarily. So like, even if it's a smaller guy, like if they get hit hard on the screen, they'll fall, they'll call like a defensive and foul. So it's more like, um, I want to say, if, if I were to just kind of guess here, it's kind of maybe based off of matchup hunting.

Yeah.

You know, as matchup hunting and these ISOs became more prevalent, it's like, we want to, we want to force this matchup, we want to force this matchup. You're doing it by bringing guards in. So then you start to realize maybe, okay, you bring these guards into the actions and it just causes confusion. If you have a guy that wants— that doesn't want to switch and you put him in a position where he kind of has to, or he has to shut Like, and then, and then everybody on the team gets, um, a lot better at either playing in the short roll or playing off those slip-outs and pops, then you just create that natural advantage. And so everything on offense is just about creating an advantage and then playing off of that.

And it's so funny watching the old games. I don't know, I'm a dork, so I'll watch the old games and actually have a good time. And the 2008 Finals was on this summer 'cause Doc made the Hall of Fame.

Yeah, I was watching.

And it felt this way in the moment, but we didn't really know how to crystallize it. But we had this awesome small ball lineup, and every time they needed to come back, he would play the lineup. And it was like Posey and Garnett and Allen, Rondo, and Eddie House, basically. Or sometimes Pierce would be in there for one of them. But, and that would be, they'd shoot 3s, they'd spread the floor, but that wasn't how you played basketball in 2008. So it always felt like a gimmick. But now you watch and you're like, why the fuck didn't we do this for 3/4 of the game? Like, they can't, they can't guard it. It's perfect for KG. It's like the perfect 5. So it felt like, like when I wrote my basketball book, that was '09, the paperback was '10, and that was the Celtic-Lakers, the second Finals. I felt like everything in basketball changed after that. That was like Curry comes in, the threes change, lineups go smaller, power forwards are just gone.

Lineups go smaller.

Yeah. And it's like 3 guards. It's guys like you playing the 4, even though you're not a power forward. And then centers who could shoot. And then it just flips. And now we are where we are now.

I'm just lucky.

Yeah. Well, you could have played in any era though.

But I'm really lucky that like, as my upbringing through high school and college progresses, the league is like—

Things are shifting.

The league is like, tall, shoot. Tall, shoot. You just naturally have a lot higher of a chance. So, like, I'm just— I'm really fortunate that I landed where I did. Yeah,

I'm trying to think of guys like you before this flipped.

I mean, there's plenty. They just maybe did,

like, shooting forwards with size.

Well, you just might have had to adjust how you approached— your approach based on the league.

I feel like he would have taken shit because it's like, well, he doesn't post up.

Yeah, exactly.

You just gotta learn that.

You just gotta learn to rebound off of him.

I'm much more guard.

Yeah.

I was little growing up. Right.

Hey, sorry.

What?

So he doesn't really rebound. Hey. So that's the other thing.

I was little. I was little growing up.

Took a long time to learn to rebound.

That's the other part.

I was little. Like I was always the smallest on the court growing up. That's why I shot 3s. I was the smallest player. I played up and I was even, I was small. So, you know, freshman year of high school, I'm 5'8. I'm a point guard. I played point guard. And then, like, I was a shooter, so I'd play like a combo off guard to shoot.

Yeah.

All the way until college. College was the first time that I ever got put at a 3. I was 1 and 2 only until college. And then my 5th year in college was the first time that I had ever been on the lineup as a 4. And that's just because we had younger guys and we would teach them less. And I knew more of our offense, so I would just slide to the 4 in terms of like placeholder on offense because I knew how to execute what we were doing. It just made the system a lot easier. So when I get to the NBA and I have PF next to my name, it's the funniest thing to like my family members, myself, because it's just like, they're like, so the rebounding thing.

Well, also, isn't it? I mean, I would say you're— I would say Aaron Gordon is like the dream 4. He's a

4 for current basketball.

For current basketball, you can play in any offense. And now the fact that he's as good a shooter as he is makes him actually perfect no matter how you play. But it is funny because it's like your approach is— your guys' approach is still so different. And obviously physically you're so different. And so it's funny putting you in a position where you are basically having to be like, oh, you're playing a similar role to he is when you couldn't really be any more different.

Yeah. Now you get to be a 3. Yeah, legit 3.

It's all the same, though. It's all the same in today's game. Maybe in Denver it's a little bit different because we like to play Aaron in the dunker. Yeah. And, you know, if it's not Aaron, like, we put Spencer in the dunker and we will put, like, last year it would be Bruce in the dunker a lot. Um, so that's the difference. But most teams, I mean, since I got in the league, like, like I said, originally our offense in Phoenix felt, the 4 felt a little bit more like, a little bit more like an older 4. But since that year, everything has seemed like it doesn't matter if you're the 2, the 3, or the 4. It's really what— it's really matchup, who you'll be guarding. You'll be guarding either maybe a bigger wing, somebody who likes to post up. It could be more of an old-timey traditional 4 that's just really good, that has stood the test of time. So it's really defensively. Not a lot of those left. But offensively, what you call, you can put anybody in any action. Well, it's actually your team. Exactly.

It's actually your team. Jokic is the point guard.

Yeah. Anybody can be in any. So like, if you're running screen and rolls, if you're running, um, DHO backside handoffs, if any of these actions, we are all interchangeable. So it doesn't matter offensively.

Can young guys just go into that or it takes a while to—

It takes a while. It takes a while. Some guys are talented, so talent floats you. Some guys are smart and they can figure it out and then they let the game, you know, they're figuring out of the game Um, kind of buoy them. But I think in general, it takes, it takes a little bit to be,

to

get to efficiency.

It's gonna be so fun to watch DeMar, because DeMar is just, he's so smart. He's so smart and he's such a pro. So like watching that adaptation and how he's already, we were talking about this the other night, like how he's already adapting to something which is very different than what he's had to do the last couple years.

He scored 25,000 points.

You know what I love about the boy? Like, his game is always the same. I think basketball is just easy for him. A lot of guys, but for DeMar, basketball is easy and simple.

Like, so give us an example.

He can just— he doesn't get sped up. Whoever's guarding him, he doesn't get sped up. And I've had these conversations with him over camp to get his insight. Like, I want to learn, how do you score 26,000 points? You know, I'm pretty far off of that. So it's like, I'm gonna get some tricks to get this thing going.

Yeah.

And it's just like, you watch him, you guard him, you talk to him. He doesn't get sped up. He understands angles. He understands contact. But like, it's just a flow to his game. You know, he's gonna hit you with the between. He's gonna hang. You get close to him, he's gonna make you pay. He'll bump you. He'll go around. He has neutralizing bumps. He can create space. Like,

He's got his spots too.

He got his spots. Although it's a low— it's almost like it's just like a chill game for him. Yeah, it's just, it's chill. He's 30, 37 now, I think. Like, the game still just looks easy for him, and he can roll off points in a hurry.

That's what I was like when I came back and picked up in my late 30s.

Did you feel like you figured it out?

I actually—

is there like an aha moment?

Like, I felt like I was so much smarter, and I, and it was just like I could I was physically so shot, but mentally I kind of knew everything that was happening. I was like, man,

isn't it a

shame? I wish I could put my brain in my old body. Seriously. But Chris Paul was like that too, watching him on the Clippers. He had like his 4 things he wanted to do. He would just do them over. He was like a diner that had like 4 things on the menu. And he's like, all right, I'm just gonna get my jumper and my foul lines. Yeah, I'm just gonna go there. The other team knew he was gonna do it. He would just get it anyway. And then he'd run back down with a pissed-off look on his face. I'm like, yeah, Chris Paul.

It's cool. It's cool when they're— when you sort of come across young guys who have that already and you can

just—

I think AJ Mitchell has it on the Thunder. I'm just like, you watched the playoffs last year.

I think it's like a little bit of Shai tutelage too.

Yeah.

Because he's— I think a big part of his game is that ability to play off of contact. That's a huge thing. Ability to play off of contact. Like play off of contact in terms of how to draw it, to draw the fouls, and then how to use it to create your space. And when they teeter that fine line and are able to understand, and players are able to understand the difference there, offense unlocks.

Well, that's when you play with somebody, you're like a sponge, right? And you're a young guy and you're watching somebody who's really good. It's like Tommy in podcasting, just being in the room with me for 4 years, just learning how to do it.

I wouldn't say— I wouldn't compare myself to AJ. I'm not there yet.

It's like Tommy's like AJ Mitchell. It's just he was next to Shai, the MVP, for a couple years.

Like, the stuff that he's doing, learning his names, he's, he's adding. Yeah, he's constantly adding. And what he showed last year versus, you know, is like, okay, he's, he's definitely working on something.

It is funny though. It's the crazy— the crazy thing about Joker to me is he, he just— you could watch him every day for 10— the stuff he does is just insane. Like, even I was gonna even ask you about the pass. Like, I called you about this the other day. Did you feel pressure hitting that shot? Because you're like, this is, this is—

After getting the greatest pass of all time?

Yeah, this is a top 3 pass of all time.

Okay, at the time. So I've had to answer this.

Yeah.

20 times. It's crazy. It's a preseason, preseason game 1 pass and it got this much hype.

Yeah.

Right. I was not surprised by the pass at all. As a matter of fact, I expected it.

Yeah.

As crazy as it sounds, I expected it because he looked. And like, you see, if you see the angle of like the baseline with him in the front, like as soon as he gets the ball and he looks, I, I slide a little bit more to the corner because I'm like, okay, if a pass is coming, this is the angle that it's gonna, that it's gonna,

yeah,

come from. Because he can execute any pass. Like I said, like You just find the windows and the ball will find you.

So you thought he saw you, so now you're ready?

Yeah. He looked over his shoulder when he caught the ball, then got into his back down. He like— that's why I said he can scan the court more efficiently than anybody I've ever seen. And, and like, he freezes people. He sees the court, he got the picture. He requires so much attention that like, okay, you're not going to bring anybody, I can score on this person in front of me. But as soon as dominoes start falling, There was a pass against Chicago the other day, preseason game last Sunday, where he gets the ball in the pocket. I'm at the top, AG's in the corner, AG floods to the rim. He gets the ball, he slowly and very deliberately holds, allows AG to cut, allows my guy to crash down on him. I take 2 steps down towards the, the the, um, you know, to the corner.

Yeah, he knows you're going there.

And he just— and those types of, like, plays, it's a small, simple, probably easily looked-over play, but he just processes the game differently. He's just, you know, ultra basketball processing chip in there in terms of, like, an ability to keep the ball to manipulate the ball. It's one thing you see with his rebounding. Like, his hands go overhead and he can manipulate the ball kind of anywhere.

Yeah.

These touch shots, like, you combine these skills and, like, he's pretty unstoppable.

So what he just said— so when Bird, his first couple years, his coach was Bill Fitch, and Bill Fitch used to call him Kodak because he, he just watched him every day and he was like, I swear, like, Bird's brain takes pictures of the court as we're playing offense. And he— the picture tells him where all the guys are. And then as he plays, and then he goes back to where the picture was and he finds the guy. So his nickname for him was Kodak. But it sounds like what you just said with Jokic.

Same thing. Exactly. 100%.

I think Magic was like that too. I mean, this is like less than 6 guys in the history of the league that can see shit like that. That's why I love watching him, because I grew up watching Bird. And Jokic, you know, same thing. I feel like he could play till he's 45 because it's not like he's gonna get slow, but I don't think he will.

He can though.

He could, right?

I don't see— yeah, I don't see—

'Cause Bird could've too, but he got hurt. His back went out.

I just— Jokic's— all of his skills are just like, they look like they can stand the test of time.

It's almost like the quarterback position. Like, I'm sure you're a Bengals fan. I'm sure like some of the stuff Burrow does during games is in the vicinity of a Jokic thing.

Yeah, yeah. I just like, I just, the one thing I appreciate about Burrow the most is like, he's kind of just a relentless competitor. And you can see that out there. And one of the things I've come to respect about him the most is like, I've never seen him pass blame on anybody or anything. And he like, we've had some crazy losses.

Yeah.

Over the years and like questionable losses, but he never ever will say like, put the blame on a receiver, a coaching decision, a ref.

Yeah,

there's a game against Baltimore a few years back where like it was a 2-point conversion to basically win the game, and as he throws, he gets hit in the face, which is an obvious penalty. Doesn't mention anything about it, just like, we gotta win the game. Like, he kind of is built different, and he just has an ability to win football games.

You know why he's a Bengals fan? This is—

weren't you from Pittsburgh?

I am.

I mean, that's immediately weird.

Yeah, it's weird.

It

feels like you're trying to explain something extremely weird.

Give me 2 minutes and it'll make sense.

Okay.

My dad's from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Yeah. Grew up a Cowboys fan just because on TV, no Carolina team at the time. And then just kind of built a dislike for the Steelers because—

Cowboys-Steelers.

So when he goes to Pittsburgh for college, still doesn't like the Steelers. But when I'm a kid, they have Cordell Stewart as their quarterback. He kind of likes Cordarrelle Stewart, you know, cheer for the Black quarterback.

Yeah.

Pretty cool. They kind of got rid of Cordarrelle Stewart after a 14-2 year and whatever was going on there. They get rid of him and what—

You know what was going on? The Belichick Patriots. That was what was going on. We kicked his ass.

Okay. And we— and I think my dad had a little bit of anger in that move that put some salt back in the Steelers for him.

And that was it.

So he's talking bad about the Steelers now. And at the time, I'm impressionable. I'm a child.

Yeah.

And so I'm like, I don't like Steelers either. And the Bengals had Chad Johnson. They had just got those jerseys with the bigger tiger stripes on the sleeves, black and orange, a jersey that says C. Johnson. I wanna be a pro athlete one day. Like, that's gonna be— I'm literally wearing a pro athlete jersey with my name on it. And Chad is entertaining.

So you're in the Pittsburgh area and now you're a Bengals fan.

And now I have a Chad Johnson jersey. I'm 8 years old. because I begged for one for Christmas forever.

Yeah.

And I got it. And then after that, I just became a diehard Bengals fan. And it's actually, unfortunately, it's for the worst because Steelers win 2 Super Bowls in my time there, and it's just miserable. It causes fights. And, you

know, the Bengals really only had the game when they beat Mahomes.

But do you not remember? Do you not remember the wild card in '06?

Perfect. Montez Burfict.

No, that's the wild card in '15. No, that was '06. No, that was '17. No, '16. That was '16. '06, we shot—

You just have to remind me because I definitely bet on it.

We start up off 14-0, 75-yard bomb to Chris Henry, rest in peace. Hmm. Kimo van 't Ooghoffen rolls up on Carson Palmer's knee.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jon Kitna couldn't hold the lead. We were the best team that year. Steelers won the Super Bowl that year. Right

about

'06 in Detroit versus the Seahawks. That would have been us.

The NFL and the NBA are very similar in that there's a lot of what-if injuries.

Tons.

Because I think we would have won in '08 with the Pats, but that was Brady. We lost in 8 minutes.

Do you think you guys would have beat the Rams in a neutral stadium?

Yeah.

I mean, you almost won anyways. That was the weirdest.

That was the weirdest.

Did you go to that game?

Yeah, it was terrible.

Kupp was great.

Why do you call it terrible?

Terrible's harsh. I just—

have you— terrible.

By the way, I would feel this this way if the Rams got there this way. I don't like—

it's terrible for Tommy because he didn't know any of the players on either team.

I don't like the—

he didn't like his suite.

I don't like my seat. I don't like the,

uh, he didn't like the colors of them.

I don't like hometown teams being in it. I think it felt like a normal game. Like, it didn't even feel—

it was a little weird. I agree with Tommy.

It didn't feel like even like an NFC Championship game.

Like, how many Super Bowls have you been to? to before that?

1 or 2.

Because that was my first, so I didn't have anything to compare it to in terms of actual environment. It's weird.

Like, I felt— it's kind of a weird—

it's kind of a weird production.

Remember they won at the end? Like, it was a good game.

Very good game.

Yeah, they won at the end. It felt a little bit like if they had— if they had won the other night.

But do you think that's also like LA effect?

Yeah, but that Super Bowl had the halftime show, which was one of the best ones ever.

It just didn't feel like there were the stakes, as if like they were randomly playing in Atlanta or New Orleans and all the fans Anyone who travels to go to a game.

I think that's an LA effect too, though. I think that's an LA fan base effect.

I also think it was, uh, 2 teams that we didn't have a lot of history with. Yeah. Which sometimes that'll happen. That's where you just have these 2 random—

like, I wonder how Pats-Seahawks felt last year. But again, even though those teams have history, it felt kind of weird.

I'll give you a hypothetical. I'll give you a hypothetical. And this would be awesome in certain ways, so I don't think it's like a direct comparison. When Dallas gets the Super Bowl, whenever that is, if the Cowboys are in it, it's gonna be crazy, but it's also not really gonna feel like the Super Bowl. It's gonna be like, oh, this is this Dallas crowd. Like, it's not gonna be fun for the casual fan. They're gonna be like, you're just watching.

Well, this has only happened once.

Yeah. So I don't know.

It could happen this year though.

It could happen this year. I don't know. It's no one's fault. I just think it was—

I would've, I would've wanted to wait. Okay. But Tampa Bay won in Tampa, but that was with no crowd.

Yeah. That was a no-crowder.

Oh, that was a weird game too.

Because

Tommy's ideal matchup is Fever Liberty, where he just knows everybody on both sides. I like the Chiefs.

I'm going to the Chiefs game this weekend. Yeah, Chiefs Super Bowl.

Who's from the NFC?

I'm Bears, but yeah, but they're

not making

it. But the Chiefs, uh, the Chiefs games are— Chiefs fans are great.

I gotta say, Tommy is a legitimate Bears fan. I gotta hand that to him.

He is.

Yeah, I was thinking about that when you were talking about quarterbacks with Case. That guy just rolls off the street. He just knows how to play quarterback.

Yeah, I was trying to think who the basketball equivalent of that is.

Those guys are so— those quarterbacks are so—

who's the best? Who is

that studied football? They're such studied football players that like their brains can float them.

Who's the NBA equivalent of the 39-year-old backup?

It's Mike Conley, isn't it? Yeah. Beloved Celtic already.

You know who reminds me? This is an old one.

They fucking love Mike. Every— he's like,

Mike's

great. Pritchard's like adopted him as like his surrogate uncle already.

This is, this is an old one, but remember, um, John Salmons. Yeah, yeah, guys like that. The guys who are just like pro scorers. Yeah, you can just put in at any point.

Joe Johnson.

Yeah, Joe Johnson's a good one.

Revive.

No matter what, get a couple buckets, go back there, turn off the street.

40 years old, go back, you know what I mean? Boogie a little bit.

I thought Cam Thomas could be like that. Maybe there's still time, but there's certain guys that just get hoops.

Cam Thomas can get a good bucket in any scenario. That's not—

that's never the question.

That's never the question.

I still have my Cam Whitmore stock. But I think he's another one who could be like that.

Freak athlete.

Just get— he just get buckets.

Yeah, freak athlete. He looks like a football player.

Yeah,

like he looks like he could have been an elite football player. He does some stuff where just drive down, like, boom, rise up above everybody.

You know who's kind of like this now?

Who?

Um, I mean, he's not— he's still sort of in his prime, so he's not full vet yet. I think Norm Powell's like that. I think any team you put—

he's a good hoop—

anytime, anytime you put him on, like, he'll be good in the Bulls. Anywhere he goes, he'll

score.

He's gonna score like 18, 20 points.

'Cause he doesn't need a certain environment to score. He can manufacture, like, um, who was it? Excuse me. Portland. In his Portland stint, he was in the corner a ton. But like, you giving the ball in the corner, it was like on the scout, like, he can score in a variety of ways from that corner, like, be on high alert.

Well, that's why Toronto screwed up. Toronto screwed up with him 'cause they didn't get him the ball. Like, this guy is really good at this.

Yeah, they made a dumb trade too. He was a beloved Clipper. Like, he got, you know, he was on a team with Kawhi and Harden, and they were going to him. He came off the bench, 6-minute stretches. Yeah, taking over and stuff. We haven't talked about your Bulls team.

What about them? I'm out of Bulls. I, I've given up on the Bulls.

Come on.

That's the one. Because doing the show, I can't be a fan of any team.

Yeah,

it's like douchey.

It's still Chicago, though.

Yeah, but I'm Cubs, Bears, Blackhawks, I guess.

Bulls.

I'm not a Bulls fan. I respect, I respect, I respect the Bulls franchise.

He's like Fever. Yeah. Liberty, Lynx.

I can't do it. Like, I want, I want them to win. Like, I want the, I want when the—

He roots for his friends.

If the Nuggets are playing the Bulls, I root for the Nuggets. Yeah. Like, that's just the, the, that's gonna, like, I root for the Pacers.

Tommy's worst case scenario would be a Nuggets-Pelicans Finals with you versus Trey Murphy. He'd be, he would be happy.

I don't think that that's a likely scenario.

Given that we're both in the West.

Given that we're both in the West.

Western Conference Finals is happening.

Western

Finals, Denver, New York.

No, if we had— if it was Denver-Indy would be tough. I had a tough one with Knicks-Spurs. Like, I liked people on both those teams. That was a tough— to win and it's—

you just have to, you just have to have the mindset, I'm gonna win. Like, I win no matter what. I just, I'm go— I want to watch quality hoops.

He's happy for everybody.

Happy for— I

win, he wins. Switzerland.

I feel like we say this sometimes, but I really genuinely feel this year that that this is the most fun NBA season in a while with all the talent. Because even like the rookies that came in, these guys are like— Boozer's gonna be good right away. Like Acuff, he's gonna have terrible nights, but he's really talented.

Your boy Caleb, he said that draft night.

Caleb's ridiculous.

He said draft night, he's like, Caleb's gonna be a monster.

Yeah, Caleb's T-Mac.

Free. Yeah, he's a freak.

He's 6'10 T-Mac.

He's a freak.

And then AJ has been saying and doing all the right things.

That team's gonna be fun.

I think, um, I think another like big part of it is the fact that the East seems so strong. This is a strong, a super strong East.

Impossible to figure out. We just did our big preview podcast this week and there's 11 playoff teams and there's 6 spots and 4 playing spots and somebody's just not gonna make the playoffs.

Like, who's your prediction that won't make it?

I had Charlotte, but I like Charlotte, but they have all these injuries already, so they're gonna start out you know, missing a couple guys and they could start out like 2-8 or something. And I don't know if you can recover if you have a 2-8.

Because those teams above them are gonna keep widening the gap and it's just at a certain point you're gonna be like, I can't do it.

There was a Phoenix year this, before you got there. I think it was with Dragic and Isaiah Thomas and those guys. They won 48 games and didn't make it. Yeah. So I think you could see like the 11th seed in the East go like 44-38. just not make the play in.

I think it's gonna be whoever feels themself being 11 is gonna drop the, drop it.

Because of the tanking rules?

I don't know. I just feel like it's most likely, like, if you feel yourself fighting at 10, I think there's gonna be a bigger gap between 10 and 11. Yeah. And then 7, 8, 9, and 10 are gonna be

jockeying for that

spot. Where'd you put Toronto?

Really tough. I had them for the over. I had them in like the 4 to 6 range. I think it was like 46 wins, something like that.

It's a lot of good teams out there.

They're gonna be good.

Like, it's just a lot of good teams in general, I feel like.

And you kind of have to pick your teams.

Like you said, a lot of talent. A lot of talent.

Yeah, because like Detroit won 60 games last year. Their over-under was 47.5. So Vegas is saying, coming out of the gate, this team's 12 wins worse and they have their best 3 guys back. So it's like, they can't be that much worse. But then you look at everybody else.

Everybody else is just getting better. Like, Cade's just gonna get better.

Like, we, we talked about Atlanta a bunch. I like this. I like all the stuff they did. I don't have them as a playoff team.

You think they'll be on the outside?

I think they're gonna be a play-in team, like 9 or 10 range. And that's a team that,

which you're

always gonna want to take. If Swanson's good. Washington, I was, I think they, I need to see it. I need to see those 2 guys play.

The question, the question's—

Orlando.

Orlando was the hardest one because they have a new coach. And I didn't like how they were coached last year. And if they're happier and healthier, why wouldn't they have like 48 wins? I had you guys over 50. I just felt like last year you were like, you're from hell. Again, Jokic got hurt in December.

Yeah, right. You got

hurt

in December.

Jamal put crazy miles on himself. Gordon got hurt. He missed time.

CB.

Yeah. Then, then you lost Watson down the stretch.

Everybody got hurt.

Now he still managed 54 wins.

Yeah. Yeah. And now the conference is probably weaker.

I think Bain will be one of those scorers too, whether he stays there or somewhere else, anywhere he goes. I think he'll be like, he's just a guy that like, it will age well.

I agree. Who, who is, I'll say this is like the generic NBA podcast question. Who was the one when you got in the league that you were like, holy shit? for just covering somebody.

Just to guard? In terms of how difficult they are to guard or just like the comfort factor?

No, like how good they were. Like

James Harden in Houston.

Just trying to figure out his yo-yo shit.

I hope that tape gets buried forever. It's probably a November game, maybe. So it's early in my career. I just, if I could like delete that tape of the first half.

Well, don't worry, it's probably on YouTube.

It was like—

Clip it.

I'll sum it up by saying this.

Why were you guarding him, by the way?

Just how the game goes.

Yeah.

Um,

was he hunting you?

Maybe hunting the rook.

It's like, get this, bring him over.

Yeah, I don't really— it's bringing up bad memories, but let's just say like the bench is telling you to keep your hands back, keep your hands up, keep your hands out, keep your feet moving, keep your feet still. It's like Mikal Bridges comes over to me at halftime. I'm pissed.

Yeah.

He comes over to me at halftime, puts his arm around me, and is like, it's okay, bud. He's like, the coaches wanted me to talk to you. It's okay, bud.

But that's why all the players love Harden. 'Cause they've all had to play against him.

A lot of respect.

Yeah. They're like, we actually know what to

do. A ton of respect for James. A ton of respect.

I think a crazy NBA what if which you've definitely talked about a bunch, is the, when, when CP got hurt in that Warriors series, 'cause of how good James was playing, how good that—

And think about, and think about James' legacy if that flipped.

'Cause the Warriors were ready to be had too.

They were gonna beat them.

Think about, think about CP's legacy and James' legacy if that flipped and they are as good as they looked and they win that series, they would.

With that said, they did miss about 75 threes in game 7.

Happens. Well, that's your best of—

that's your live by the three. That was the same thing.

That was the weekend because I went to Celtics-Cavs game 7 when LeBron played all 48 and was amazing. But we went like 9 for 48 from 3 or something.

He was unbelievable that day.

He was great. Well, that was when we talk about when you get smarter, when you get older. In 2018, he really figured out how to game manage a 2.5-hour basketball game where he was basically not getting tired but doing everything and went to pick his spots and try hard, not try hard, take over this moment and stay out there. It was amazing to watch because they were like banged up.

Do you think that's peak LeBron?

No, I think 2013 is.

Because the physicality aspect?

I just think 2000— I've never seen anything like 2013. He was— that was—

So you'd say Miami, late Miami Heat LeBron.

Third year Miami, I think third year Miami Heat was the best.

Second Cleveland stint LeBron.

Yeah.

Okay.

I thought— I felt like he ascended to a different stratosphere. He was shooting that third year, he was shooting 60% for like 3 months, the first 3 months of the season. It actually seemed like he was trying to become a 60-40-80 guy. And he was also the best defensive swing in the league. And that was the year he should have won the Defensive Player of the Year.

What do you think?

I think the game 1 of the 2017, the one where he scored—

2018. I went to that game. We both did.

Yeah. And then they got swept. Yeah. He got hurt.

That's the best game I've ever seen.

Where he was just going 1 on 5. The JR one. He's just going 1 on 5. And he was, and they should have won. And I was like, against—

It's a debate. It's a real debate.

Yeah. We were talking about that Warriors team. the other night because, I mean, you can say it, but it was basically just how, how they just trans— like they transcended what great basketball looked like.

Like the '17 team did.

Yeah. Peak hoops.

Yeah.

Peak hoops. I, I, we were talking about it last night and, and, and like, if you go back to 2008, you'll see some things with the game that you can say, okay, the NBA players are better now at this, or the game is different at that. The skill is a little different. You can go back to 2001, '90s, so on and so forth. 2026 right now, if you go back to that 2017, it's not better today. Those guys were good. Yeah. And so I think as long as basketball goes on, you'll go back to, like, watch those games, and the skill level was absurd. What those guys are doing— Klay's catching fire, Steph's catching fire doing what he does, KD, ultimate skill. On the Cavs, Kyrie's ability to do what he was doing.

And we're probably not going to have another team like that for the foreseeable— but the way that—

I think the 3 best teams I've ever seen, that was Kevin

Love. Like, these guys are ultra— everybody on the court was ultra skilled.

Yeah, yeah. The '17 Warriors, I think, are the best team in the last 25 years, in my opinion. But it felt— watching it, it felt unfair, which is the only time I remember feeling that way in a while.

But it was such good basketball.

That's what I said to him. I just

said, how do you have spacing like this? And you have Durant who can get any shot he wants one-on-one.

And any, like—

How do you stop this?

Any— all those guys can, like, hit the toughest of 3s and the easy— and they're generating easy ones.

It's funny, we did— what did we do, 6 pods with Durant during that stretch? And the first one he did was midway through the first season where he was just like, this is the greatest experience of my life. And then we kind of rode the roller coaster over the next 2 years by the time— We did one after the '18 Finals. It's just so hard to win back to back. And you could just see the weight of—

I also think people want different challenges at a certain point.

No question.

They want different challenges. You just become like, we know we can do this. We've already done it.

You think so?

Yeah. You won 2 championships.

I don't think so.

I don't think everybody does, but I think that—

What's the counter?

There's other factors. than wanting a different challenge.

Yeah.

There's new challenges that pop up in what you're doing, whether it's personal agendas, whether it's relationships, whether it's disagreements, anything like that. I think those are the bigger glaring issues that start to— I think anybody in a perfect, in a contained, isolated environment, if you could say, you're going to continue, this team is good enough to continue winning and everything else will be in line, I don't think anybody would say no to that.

Well, that's what was funny about Curry during that stretch. Because KD clearly had some— I've talked about this on the pod. My theory was always that after they won the first title and KD went toe to toe with LeBron and beat him, he was like, now I will get my flowers.

Yeah.

And then all of it was, well, you just, you went, you—

So that's my point. So then I guess we can say it's the same thing, but like the personal agenda of I want to do it myself.

For sure.

I want to be the number one.

I can't win the way I want to because I already did it here. Now I have to prove it on my own.

Remember his last year there? He got hurt in the finals. He tore his Achilles tendon.

It got sour before that.

Yeah. And then Klay got hurt too. So it also just became like a— it became sort of like this thing is ending either way.

But we knew is I went to the game when him and Draymond got into it on the court. I've been to a lot of basketball games. Like, you know, you can tell the difference between, oh, those guys had a disagreement, to like, ooh, this is bad.

This is deep.

You could see it. And I don't feel like that was— I think that was it from that. But they didn't think he was staying. And I think it was, you know, we talk about— I think this is why basketball podcasts, there's so many of them and it's so much of the topics, but it's the most fun sport to talk about the people, not knowing anything about what's going on with the people. It's like we're all fucking gossipers.

It's reality TV.

It really is.

It's live-action reality TV with a lot of athleticism, and there's a lot of personalities, and a lot of this stuff is visible. The interactions between players on court and on the bench. It's naked. It's naked. Faces are visible. Processes are visible. Rumors coming out of here, coming out of there. Transactions. It's very visible.

And everybody's got their 3 to 7 people in their lives. They all talk to different people. If anything's unhappy, it's going to come out. I was on TV back then with the Clippers, with Blake and Chris, and I knew that it wasn't a good situation. And I would talk about it on TV, and then everyone was mad at me. It was like, why are you saying that? It was like, because I know this isn't going great. And then after it ended, everyone was like, Yeah, it was really tough with blah, blah, blah. But you could see it when you're at the games. You can tell when basketball players are on the same page or they're jockeying for stuff.

And the crazy part is, is it's kind of a big part of what keeps the NBA the NBA.

It

keeps the entertainment value. A lot of the entertainment value is in this sort of thing where player movement and the— Like, if everybody was kind of, like, extremely compliant and stuff, I think people gravitate towards that entertainment-wise, where, like, there's drama and there's storylines, like, real storylines that come out of the NBA.

I remember when that shifted, 'cause I had my column in ESPN from '01 to '15. I had the podcast from '07 to now. It shifted around the Decision, and that was when basketball became a 12-month sport. It was the first time the season ended and we were still talking about basketball after the season, like the season was still going on. And I think the league likes it.

I think so too.

It's not a 12-month sport, but it's a 10-and-a-half-month sport.

We're going to get it on television this summer too.

Yes. I understand the player frustration, though, about the gossip in the locker room stuff becoming public, in part because just like we all know, There have been, in the last 5 or 6 years, there have been teams where guys don't get along and they end up winning a championship. You don't have to like all your coworkers for you to be successful.

In any part of life, you don't have to be all getting along at all times.

So there is something frustrating about any job you have where it's just being like, all of a sudden it's public that you don't like the VP of marketing. You know what I mean? You're just like, we can still do the job without us being best friends.

But then it becomes its own thing, and then it's like, the players are there and questioning, like, why do people even care about this? Like, we don't care about it.

That was the Jalen Jason thing. All the noise from the outside eventually came into the inside, but it wasn't like that initially.

Just more noise from the outside.

Yeah. It just becomes a thing where it ultimately, it only matters when it affects the performance. If people aren't speaking and the team is bad, then yes, that's a thing that can be talked about. But if the if the on-court performance is good, it's sort of like, who cares if we don't hang out?

You watch The Last Dance.

Jordan, the power of friendship.

Jordan wasn't friends with any of those dudes. He would go— that was one of the great things about The Last Dance, all the footage they have of him just hanging out with the 2 security guards that he would play cards with. Those were his friends. He wasn't friends with Pippen.

He was friends with Oakley.

Rodman was out in Vegas the whole time, right? He and Oakley wasn't even on the team.

But that stuff didn't As much as people might have known or heard or seen that stuff, it didn't get out the same as it does now.

The thing that— it's weird. The thing that he dealt with that The Last Dance went into a little was the '92, '93, the gambling stuff and some of the off-the-court stuff that it definitely, I think, was one of the reasons he probably left. I don't think people would care the same way now. It would be like if people— it was something about LeBron and that was all people talked— like the Michael Rubin story this week, and people were focused on that. like it was the biggest story that ever happened. There's just more stuff to talk about now. So then these things happen and it just gets replaced by the next thing 6 hours later.

The only comp to this, because I would say there's nothing to me in the US that's like this, but I think European soccer has a similar thing.

Totally.

Where it might even be worse with the gossip stuff because I think the gossip

there is

worse because they live for it.

They live for

it. And that gets worse too because they bring in girlfriends and personal stuff that they kind of— people here even know to kind of stay away from. Like, they're—

They're more— and media is more cutthroat. The media is more cutthroat. More, um, yeah.

We, we talked about this because he just went over to, to London last month to go to some games. But like, I know of a bunch of like super good best players in the world who just don't want to play in England because of They could get paid 3 times as much money and they don't want to play in England because you're dealing with the media and the craziness. So they're like, I'd rather hang out in Madrid.

Well, think about it. If you're in London, it would be like if all 4 sports were happening as one sport.

Yeah.

It's like if football, basketball, baseball, and hockey were all the same sport and that was all you talked about.

All the guys

are there. Yeah. I talked to one of the Arsenal guys once about if we could ever do a pod similar to like what we've done sort of in the NBA.

Yeah.

And he was like into it, but he basically was like, if the second we lose, not only are they going to kill me, they're going to kill you. They're going to kill anyone. They're going to kill you. Yeah. Anyone involved in this thing is going to go. So he's just like, the upside of like, of like providing behind the scenes is not worth the anger of the fans if you're doing anything that's going to fuck up. Like up until the

game. And

yeah,

you know, it's— so it's when we started doing that KD stuff, that was almost 10 years ago. And now I feel like every basketball player has some sort of platform, and there's so much content now. I don't even— it's really hard to cut through with it for more than 4 hours, and then it gets replaced by the next thing.

Yeah.

And then you have all the ex-players. They're like, they're like the retired professional wrestlers where it's like Patrick Beverley's saying this about so-and-so, and then it's just—

It's funny, we've been talking about this because Cam just did a thing. We put it out like 2 weeks ago, but he filmed it over the summer in Phoenix, and it's literally like a 14-minute video with Puff, his brother, and these guys. It's just him breaking down shooting.

Yeah.

It's not a podcast, it's not an interview. It's really not anything but just almost just like an explanation of where your elbow should go, all kinds of different shooting things. And it did, like, it performed super well, performed way better than any pod we've done has done. And I think a lot of it is because there's really, like, the thing has become so oversaturated that it's hard to— it's really hard to break through unless you're trolling, unless you're doing something that is like,

yeah,

trying to get controversy. And when you're just doing educational stuff, there is still an appetite for that.

And I like that stuff too. Like, I just think of the average person out there that maybe doesn't know quite as much of what goes on, but has a taste for basketball and the NBA. Yeah. It's like, I can provide a little glimpse into like the inner workings of how we try to be who we are and play the way we do. And somebody gravitates towards that. Like, I love that stuff. And I like the stuff I did in the video is stuff I, I've told that stuff to hundreds of people. Anybody, anybody that's willing to listen. If you want to ask me about shooting, if you want to ask me about offense, defense, like, this is where my brain is most of the time.

You know why basketball is better fundamentally? It's because you guys have way more information. It's all, all like the shot chart stuff, the percentages in the different spots, um, being able to study tendencies, being able to study your own tendencies. Like, think about it, 40 years ago there was zero.

Yeah,

you know,

you would have no idea, like, oh, I shouldn't shoot from this part of the circle because I'm shooting 22% from there. I should move down 3 feet that way.

You know what some of it also is though, is you guys are more comfortable sharing details. Yeah, true. You don't treat it like it's like super proprietary information. Like, I think about, we did an ep with, uh, Pete Crow-Armstrong in the offseason before this year. So he obviously had this great year, but we did it in like February. And he was—

Classic Tommy getting in early on somebody's meteoric rise. This was just from grabbing him right here.

That's our guy.

That's his neighbor.

That's our guy. That's our guy.

But he, uh,

dope guy. Amazing.

He basically, he basically like—

Harbor Wesley.

Yeah, he's an LA guy. He was, but he was talking about the different changes he's made in his swing and things like that. And I just think in the baseball world, they're not comfortable. Like, if they discover something in the cage, they're not going to go talk about it. They're going to be like, I have an edge.

Their margins are too thin.

Yeah. Look, I have an edge. I don't feel the need to—

secretive game. Yeah. It's

like golf. Like, golfers are probably not going to say publicly what they're doing, whereas in basketball, it's a little bit like, I'll tell you because I still

got to do it.

Yeah, I still got to do it. I'm not sure you can do it even if I tell you it.

Exactly.

Cam would really hate my shot.

No, I wouldn't.

No, you would hate it.

Fix it.

It's good, though.

Really? If it goes in, it's fine.

I kind of push it up a little, but I end in the right spot.

It kind of starts here.

I don't think you'd like it.

If it goes in.

If it goes in.

Joakim.

Um, the, the, um, an opposite example of that would be, I remember there was a podcast, I think it was CJ Stroud and Micah Parsons just kind of chatting on a podcast about offense versus defense and how it— and then they were kind of building a little offensive versus defensive scenario. And just the way they were able to rattle off their— CJ's offensive concepts and who he was putting where and why. And Micah saying, like, okay, I can counter it with this, and we're gonna do this. So how are you gonna react? Like, to me, that stuff is so cool.

Yeah, that's dope.

As watching somebody— as somebody who's loved football, played football, to hear these guys who are— who have PhDs in their specific areas, like the ultimate— these football players watch film. They know football to a T. And to hear them be able to explain it to me is always cool. So, like, if I can offer anything like that to somebody who likes basketball, I'm all in.

Yeah, the quarterback position isn't fun. I mean, that has to be the hardest sports position in all the sports.

It is. It has to be.

And athletically, you have, like, the Josh Allen and Lamar outliers, but for the most part, their ability to process is 90% of what matters in that position. And you can either do it or you can't.

Think about like the difference between a starter and a backup, and then the difference between a backup and somebody who's on the outside's practice squad, not—

Third or fourth string.

Yeah. And it's, it's the differences is— and so even to be a backup, you have to be so good to just be able to go in there and barely manage.

You're one of the 60 best people in the world, but just

to make sure the game doesn't get— just to make sure the game doesn't get out of hand, you have to be like baseline game manager, like the most simple throws, execution, organization, like even that is extremely difficult.

You have to study every day, be ready. You're sitting there on the sideline, you don't know if you're going in or not every play.

And they get in, and it's just like, don't let the game— don't do anything crazy. Don't let the game get out of hand.

And then the young ones, the young guys, like Mendoza's so lucky to get to watch Cousins, like getting to learn this stuff.

He'll be watching him for about one more week.

Yeah, but whatever. You think so?

Oh yeah, I think he's coming in.

I don't think so.

I think it's— but I think that's a gentleman's bet. I think there's something nice about just being able to process this stuff and not be thrown in.

Why? Yeah, why rush?

When did Drake start?

Drake was like week 5. Yeah, it was like week 5, week 6. No, we did a little earlier because Brissett wasn't playing well. And

but it's like having the— if he had started week 1 or 2 and just gotten and was just completely overwhelmed, it could have thrown off his whole trajectory.

That was this year. We already had— we had that. We belatedly had that.

He had already had enough success to know that he could.

Yeah. But you still— adversity is an interesting thing for great athletes.

It is.

You still have to—

And it's rarely linear.

Get your teeth kicked in. How do you handle it? Do you pick up your teeth? Are you ready to go?

Do you think he could have made the NBA?

I don't know. I mean, I look at Luke, and Luke is really, really good. Making the NBA is hard.

Youngest brother, which always helps.

Youngest brother. But Luke is super— like, Luke is really good. And he was a G League kind of fringe guy that went overseas. And I don't know if he's better than Luke as a basketball player, given that he put so much into football.

Drake's like 6'5?

Smaller.

Yeah. So he would have been a 2 guard.

But all I know for a fact that as I met him, Luke, said, this kid's gonna be a damn good quarterback. He has it. He said that from the beginning. He has it. So it was cool to watch it. And I saw him play in high school. Like, it was cool to watch it.

I was psyched when we got him 'cause I liked that he could have transferred before his last North Carolina year.

If you knew the Mays, you'd know. Yeah, yeah.

And he was— there was no way it was happening. So when we got him, it's like, this guy will always be a Patriot.

You gotta know where his priorities lie too. And I think if people really knew him as a person, Yeah. I think everybody would just— he would be very loved 'cause he's this simple, salt-of-the-earth kind of people, family guy that there is.

Well, that's why those first couple weeks, the Pats were worried 'cause he lost his confidence, right? And it's like, how do you rebuild this guy who's obviously one of the most talented QBs in the league? How do we get him back? So, it seems like they got him back.

But great to last 2.

Took 2 weeks, but that happens with that position. Cordell was like, Cordell going back to the Steelers, like Cordell was awesome. And then just kind of lost it. And sometimes that'll happen. I had to ask you about the Suns when you're here, the '21 Suns. Yeah. 'Cause you show up and you're in the Finals.

Yeah.

But it's a weird Finals.

Yeah.

And it's like this Finals now that we don't really know how to process the '20 and '21 Finals where there are these COVID seasons and—

Yeah.

You know, people— I was going to Clipper games because Clippers almost made the Finals that year. Um, you know, people were in masks in the stands. You would pull your mask down. It was just weird energy. Yeah. But you guys came really close. And that— the, the Jrue Holiday stripping Booker and then the crazy alley-oop play is one of the great plays in NBA history, but never gets mentioned ever. But do you feel like if Booker— like, if he just scores on that play, Do you think you win the title? Like, did that really come down to one play, or what happens?

I think you can't simplify it that much.

Yeah. I think it's very rare for the Finals to have a single play you can point to.

Game 5.

Game 5.

And if we win that one, we're up 3-1.

You're up 3-2.

3-2.

Yeah.

Like, you're, you're, you're in a much better position there.

And it was like both teams were so fucking close.

But the, the thing is, like, um, you learned that— I learned this about playoff basketball this year that made me love that aspect of it where, like, the margins are super thin and you game plan so— your game plan is so detailed. Sometimes you have clear answers. Like, I felt like our game plan maybe versus the Lakers or versus the Clippers had a lot more— or Nuggets. Like, we, we had very clear answers. The Bucks, it felt like, how are we gonna slow down Giannis? Well, how are we gonna slow down Giannis while trying to keep Jrue and Khris in check?

Yeah.

And those were tougher questions to ask.

Khris was great.

But the games were so The margins of all of them, I can point to 2 or 3 plays every game. It's like, wow, game 4, we are up, um, 85-76 maybe in the 4th.

Hmm.

And it's like defensive stop, but PJ Tucker offensive rebound, kick out, Connaughton dagger 3. It takes the game from a you know, 9-point game or whatever to a 6-point game and 10 minutes left, boom, it's back like that. But imagine a stop and a run out and you're up 11. It's a completely different ball game. And those are like killer plays and the strip and, um, um, what was that? Also the one where Chris lost it in transition late in game 4.

What game was the Giannis, that Giannis block?

Or was that game 6 that he lost it in transition? I don't know. One of those.

He dropped one then.

The block on DA.

4 or 6?

'Cause that was big.

Yeah, the blocked lob, that was huge. The 4 and 6 kind of run together, but those games were close.

Well, the alley-oop choice was insane. Drew throwing— like, when you actually watch how hard of— first of all, if it had gone out of bounds or gone off top of the backboard and you get the one where Chris fouled him in

5 and gave

up. Yeah, yeah.

And Chris trying to foul him so that he can't dunk it,

right? It's an insane sequence.

And then he gets an and-1, and then they get the offensive rebound.

And then in Game 6, Giannis just makes all these free throws.

50 points, 16 for 17 from the line. 50. I looked up with 2 minutes left in the game. Yeah, they have 98 points.

Yeah,

he has 50. I'm like,

what happened the next year?

And, and, uh, Dallas?

Yeah, but

well, you guys talking about the, the playoffs?

But you guys were awesome in the regular season.

We won 60 games. You were dominant. That's what I said. It's the same thing. You said adversity's going to hit. That's what you just said. Adversity's going to hit.

And that's what happened.

And that's when it happened. If you look at us from my rookie year, as like, that's my starting point, it's super linear for us. The year before I got there, it was a 19-win team. Monty comes in, we go to the bubble. And I'm just saying, like, I'm grateful that these are the people that I was surrounded with to start my career. Like, that's where that comes in. We go to the bubble. We're 26-39 going to the bubble. We are not world beaters, but we're a little bit better than the team was last year. But we're not world beaters. We win 8 games. Rarely can you leave a season not making the playoffs—

But feeling like you had momentum.

And be sub-.500 and being like, yeah, 'cause we won 8 in a row, really removed from the regular season. We felt like a new team.

Yeah.

It's energy. Like, our practices were high energy. Like, our— we felt good about ourselves.

That's so weird. Your rookie season was the COVID season.

But it was all I knew. So it was like, it wasn't too bad for me. I was just like, okay, whatever, cool. And so we come back next year, Ricky was great for us, Rubio. We add Chris Paul.

Mm.

So it's like we go 51-21, get a 2 seed. That's linear progression. Make it to the Finals. You lose. It's like, okay, but look how much we accomplished in a span of 2 years. We come back for a 3rd season. We start off slow 'cause that Finals ended in late July. The season picks up normal the next season. So it was like a 9-week offseason. So we started a little slow, but then we went 20 straight. And it's like, we gotta figure it out. We got a good group. We gotta figure it out. Take it all the way. We kind of controlled the one spot for a very long time. We run up against— we beat New Orleans in the first round. They were really scrappy, 4-2. Yeah. You run into Dallas. Dallas obviously has Luka, and they have a lot of good players.

JB.

JB. But we had beat them a lot. Like, if you were to go back and mark through, we had beat them a lot of times before that. We had beat them all that year. We had beat them the previous years. We felt good about it. We win the first 2 pretty handily.

Yeah.

They come back swinging. Like, they don't go down without a fight. And you have to give them a ton of credit because it's hard going home 2-0.

And they had a well-liked player.

Yeah, to keep your head and to make it 2-2. We come back in Game 5 and beat them again bad at home. 3-2. They win Game 6. It's like whoever's home wins. I wish it didn't happen that way, and that's how it happened. Game 7, they obliterated us. And, like, it hits you hard because it's like, well, no, no, no, we were supposed to get back to the Finals. And, like, we had made a step, made a step, made a step, and we're in process of finishing that step. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no, we were supposed to make the Finals. So when Game 7 happened, And it's like halftime and we're down 35. You're just like the, the shock of like the same thing I told you, like the success is hardly ever perfectly linear.

Yeah.

And maybe you see that with certain teams. Like Detroit's an interesting example of this because how do you follow up a 60-win season? Well, the odds have them finishing lower. Like it's really hard to just perfectly smoothly—

The interesting thing about you guys is you probably shouldn't have made it in '21 and you should have made it in '22.

You could say that. You can very much say that.

Because there's a Patriots season like that too, where we— '97 should have been our best team, but we made it in '96.

Here's my counter though, is you want the window to continue to get there because it's really hard to capture it.

Oh, no question.

Like, look at the Thunder last year. They were arguably better than they were the year before.

I just thought '21 should have been the Clippers year and '22 should have been your year.

No, I disagree. But they won the series without him against the Jazz.

But against—

they were humming. They were humming, though. They were humming. I'm not saying one thing or another, but the team was not like— they still became a good team to take down the number 1 seed, which was the Jazz.

Then the Bucks had— you could argue that could have been the Nets here.

Yeah.

Okay, so this

is weird.

Yeah, for sure.

For sure. Katie's foot's 3 inches back.

Well, and then they had the injuries too. The other thing was you mentioned earlier, like, those 3 seasons together were really like 3 seasons in 2 years.

Yeah.

So it's just— I think there's gonna be a whole bunch of weird shit that happens when you have that.

And then to put a bow on it, we come back in the following season, have a ton of injuries.

Yeah.

But I— when I got back from my knee, I felt like we were, we were in a good place. Like, I felt like it was coming back together. Traded.

You know who was the big—

it's over just like that.

The big beneficiary of all this was the '22 Warriors because they tossed away the 2 seasons before. So they were like the freshest. Everybody else, it was like carnage.

Who did they beat?

Teams falling apart.

Who did they beat that year?

They beat like Memphis. They beat Dallas in the Western Finals.

Nuggets maybe?

Early. Somebody was hurt though. Was Murray hurt at that point?

Oh yeah. Murray was out.

Yeah.

It was, they beat the Nuggets.

Yeah. They had the seas part. It was like the Patriots schedule last year. The seas part.

And Boston probably wasn't ready.

We weren't ready.

Yeah, Boston wasn't ready. So it was like, you—

yeah, but Golden State was really good that whole year too.

So yeah, Wiggins was great that year.

They were good.

I'm still mad about that Finals, but I'm mad about all the ones we didn't win. But that one especially, like, we just weren't ready.

Why are you mad about it?

Because we won Game 1, and I, I felt like we could have— I think we could have taken Game 2, and I think we could have ended it.

'23 was the loss to the Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals. That one doesn't hurt more?

No, because '22, they— I don't think And I think Tatum would say this if he was here, and you lived through it with those 4 playoff rounds. I don't think he realized how those guys— you don't know until you go through it.

Yeah.

By the time they got to Game 6 of that '22 Finals, Tatum was like a fucking zombie. Like, he was completely done.

I feel like I can understand your point on the fact that it could be really, really draining.

Because like that first round that year, he killed Durant. Durant was healthy. He went head-to-head with Durant. He outplayed him.

Yeah,

yeah, yeah.

And then by the time you get—

that was the end of Brooklyn.

Yeah. By the time you get to round 4 and you've been doing it now for 100 games and you don't realize what the spotlight and the thing— I don't.

But by 24, you're ready. Machine that— yeah, you guys just had that success.

You just got Steph'd. The Steph game. We got Steph'd.

And honestly, they beat us up. Yeah, they, they got super physical. The team wasn't ready for it. But,

you know, she won a Finals in '24, so isn't it—

it seasoned them for '24. Yeah.

Isn't it? Like, doesn't that make it all fine?

Yeah. Yeah. It all worked out in the end.

Like that group, the Jaylens, they won.

Was a weird one for me because Steph and Joker are my 2 favorite non-Celtics of like the last 20 years. And watching Steph in Boston

win one,

just—

Jokic won in 2023.

How much do you think with all the stuff I've been— we've been talking a lot about the W playoffs this year too, and this has definitely been the case with them. So much of this stuff is matchup dependent. We're just like, so for example, the year you guys beat Dallas in the finals a couple of years ago, who did Dallas beat? OKC? Or they beat Minnesota. Minnesota. I'm not sure you beat Minnesota. I'm not sure you beat either of those teams. Like, it's just Dallas was a very—

Minnesota was in the same thing where Edwards had never been through the tune-up.

But Dallas was a particularly good—

I think Boston was the best.

Yeah, Boston was great.

I think Boston was the best team that year.

Amazing.

And like, that, that was a no surprise. That was like the best— that I felt like that was like the best team one year.

Yeah. But

the analytics would back it up. And yet when I was in Dallas for Game 3 and Luka fouled out with 5 minutes left and it was like, oh, Kyrie's gonna carry Dallas, I was fucking shitting bricks. It's like, of course Kyrie's gonna kill us. Like, this is how, this is how this has to come full circle. But he did

That Boston team was crazy. I remember game 1.

It was a crazy team with Porzingis off the bench.

He was out the whole playoffs basically. He comes back and he hits like 2 threes. That's one of the loudest crowds I've heard was that.

Well, Pritchard's half-court shot to end the half was, I think, the loudest I can remember the last however many years.

Really good team.

Well, the other thing is, and I know you love these guys, but Jrue is like, that's why I don't know what Portland's game plan is, but But if Drew's sitting there for one of these good teams, that's like the perfect guy to have on your team.

Elevates your ceiling so much.

Just doesn't care about his numbers, anything. All he wants to do is like, how do we win?

That's a good example. Like, he's a Hall of Fame player, but he's like a— he's like one of these vet QBs. Like, anywhere you— anywhere you put him, any team you plug him on, they're gonna be super elevated just from him just being—

The South Dakotans

love Drew.

The Celtic fans love Jrue.

Yeah.

Because he just didn't—

so did Milwaukee.

He could take 4 shots and he was happy.

And he was stuck in New Orleans for so long. And it was like, if he had been— and it was such a shit show when he was down there. If he had been somewhere else, like on 15 other teams, because he was doing this the whole time down there. I remember, who was it? The year they got to the— they played the Warriors. The Warriors.

They had one good AD year. Yeah.

They played the Warriors in the playoffs. And he had to switch guarding Steph, Klay, and KD the whole game.

He demolished Portland.

Yeah. And he basically, he was like the one guy that could defend any of them. And so they basically, he was like a free safety having to guard all 3 of them at the same time. And you were just like, this guy defensively is like on another planet from everybody else.

He's great. Is there a team you're looking at this year that you think is undervalued?

Yeah.

That you're just like, wow, I like, I like the guys on this team

anywhere.

Yeah. Either conference.

Let me think about it. There's always tricky questions to answer. I'll probably stay away from answering a Western Conference team.

Yeah, probably a good idea.

Just naturally. Um,

the funny thing with the—

maybe Toronto.

Yeah, that's what— when we did the preview, if they're putting out Murray-Boyles and Kawhi and Barnes in crunch time, It's a fucking nightmare.

They play hard.

I think Kawhi's gonna have a big year.

They play hard. And you have Kawhi?

He's gonna have a big year.

Is it? Like, but East is tough, so.

It's always tough with these old guys. The math is against the old guys as they keep getting older. Like, just being able— it's not the regular season as much as can you do it for 9 months? And the 9 months favors the young guys, which is good for like a team like San Antonio.

You guys gave Indy love. Indy's gonna be good.

I think it's Indy or New York for the Finals.

You put Indy that high?

I do, but I'm probably too high.

Why are you so high on them?

Because they did it.

Same.

And they—

you had Zoo.

And they added Zoo, and I didn't mind the Oubre just as their 9th or 10th man. Um, and I think— and it just feels like people are sleeping on how how tight that team was offensively and everything. I think you kind of know who they are. You know him? Are you forced to be friends with him through Tommy?

No, he's just a good guy. Easy to be friends with in general.

You set them up?

No, they did USA.

Team USA.

Oh, that's right.

I was a lot in practice. I was with Tyrese.

That was a good team.

It's like, do you know how Jokic makes the game easy? Tyrese is a different kind, but obviously a much different player. But like, I was like, I like playing with this guy.

That team was him, Mikal, Brunson, Ant, Tyrese. It was like all the— Kessler. It was all sort of like the younger good players.

I always think they should do that. I would put this— nobody agrees with me, but I would have it be like 27 and under for all the American teams.

Even Olympic? Yeah. Really?

And I would want to have younger guys in there because I think the experience is incredible for them.

You think they should make them play, whoever's going to play in '28, play in FIBA next summer?

No. If you're going to follow his model, then yeah. If you're not going to follow his model, then no.

I just think that, I think that the—

I know what you're saying. I know where you're going with it.

I think that the reason why we continuously either lose in FIBA, like that team lost to Germany, or have these super close calls in the Olympics. And France is only going to be better. Serbia is still going to be really good because it's a brand new team.

And those other teams are like well-oiled machines.

They're like locked in. Like, who was it? Valanciunas's team, Lithuania.

They were—

they smacked them. And it was Valanciunas and a bunch of guys who were playing in Europe.

It's my favorite.

They run machine-like offense. These guys have been playing together for a long time. I love it. It's cool as a basketball

You gotta

go and see it. Diehard basketball fan.

It's the best.

It's like such a unique perspective that we're not really privy to in the United States as much, where these teams, like, they approach the game different. And I respect it a lot.

One of my things I would do as a GM is I would try to get as many guys as possible from the same country because I think they're, This was always— I always felt this way with Spain in the late 2000s. I would have tried to get both Casals and like Juan Carlos Navarro and like 5 of those guys.

A young Ricky Rubio. I always wonder why Denver never got Bogdanovich. Rudy Fernandez.

I agree with you. We saw it in the World Cup this year.

He's been playing with Jokic since they were like 12.

A big reason why Spain was so good in the World Cup was all those guys play together.

They have like real history.

So they're all like locked in versus like you're just putting people together. It's like

if you were playing with like the North Carolina guys that you played with when you were like

I mean, it's a super valid point of, of NBA roster building. Like, this is a whole other box we can get into is like, I would also

have an all-lefty team.

Why?

I just think it would fuck. It would really fuck with teams. 'Cause as you know,

your eyes would get crossed on defense.

Well, you always, you're gonna have 3 moments a game where you forget the guy's left-handed just 'cause you're tired.

But if you're all lefty hand, then, I mean, if you're all lefty team and you're guarding them, then you wouldn't forget.

You're just breaking the other team's rhythm. James Braids.

It's like the all-lefty team.

Oh, there's so many good lefties now. We're in like, it's like a lefty renaissance.

Yeah.

JB's, JB's the captain.

Who are the, who are the, who are the 3 and 4s? Just trying to think about like, I know the guards.

Who's your 5?

AJ's on it.

Well, RJ Barrett's on it.

RJ Barrett.

Who's your 5? Oh, you got Hartenstein. Isn't he lefty?

Hartenstein's lefty.

Hartenstein.

Just, I'm just throwing out shots like random-ish.

It'd be funny.

You know, for the Olympics in '28, the quarterfinals, it's 4 games in a row. I think it's the best basketball day of the 4 years, especially now that the countries are good. It's— I remember in London going and I was just like, I can't believe I'm here for this.

Who do you expect to see in the quarterfinals? Early prediction, 2026. October 26th.

Well, it'll be all the— I assume Jokic will be in there.

Serbia.

US.

US. France.

France, definitely. Spain, definitely. Argentina will figure out a way to be in there somehow.

5.

Is if Giannis is still Giannis, Greece has to be taken seriously.

Canada. Canada. Canada. Canada should be top 3 to me.

But Canada's like the Buffalo Bills though. They can't, when they get, when they get in the playoffs, they

just need to lock in.

They, it never works out for them. They need to, they have to go to the World Cup.

They put in that system where like you have to commit now to play through. So they're doing what kind of like you suggested.

And then there'll be some wildcard.

What about like Slovenia, like a Luka or?

Yeah, yeah, one of those.

It would be great if the, the Canadians are so mad at the US in general and in, in life that if they were like, our goal is to beat them in basketball in the US.

Just say we're gonna take it from them.

As revenge, especially because we just beat them in hockey. So it'd be like, you guys beat us in hockey, we're gonna beat you in basketball.

Do you think Wemby would care more about beating the US in a gold medal game or winning the title?

Title.

Probably title.

Especially after last year.

Yeah, probably.

He's another one that tasted his own blood. Get taste your own blood.

Um, but it's like, it's like character arc, development arc.

That's good. All the great ones, including Magic. like choked in the '84 Finals. It was the best thing that ever happened to

him. Yeah, and it's—

3 titles. That's why we love—

that's why we love the game. It's why we love sports, because there only can be one person that wins. So that means a lot of other people who were good enough or thought they were not gonna do it. So it's like, continue to chase it, continue to chase it, continue to chase it until your time is over.

Well, that's why I like the Joker this year. It only has one title.

Yeah, come on.

It's one of the 10 best players of all time.

Let's buy some stock.

How about it? Any last question for Tommy before we go?

No, let's keep his—

What's the most Tommy sentence you've ever heard?

The most Tommy sentence I've ever heard? Hey, man, we're going to dinner tonight at XYZ spot.

And name 5 people who you can't believe.

I'm like, yes.

And

it'll be

the Don Cheadle, Stephen Castle.

Exactly.

And Jay-Z.

Because there's going to be a randomness to it, but also like a— like, how did you like get everybody on the same page? How did you get everybody on the same—

I also don't usually know who's coming. I just tell— just be like, whatever, we're having dinner at this time. Like tonight, like I wanted him to come, wanted you to come. You guys were busy, but I'm just like, you just throw out a bunch of—

wait, don't—

yeah,

yeah, just throw out a bunch of— just be like, come if you want. And then what might— what happens sometimes, which is unfortunate, is We'll get a table for like 5 and then 9 people will show up and you're just like, oh, so

unfortunate.

Oh, so it's unfortunate for the restaurant. It's like, it's not— that's not nice. That's rude to them to be like, we have a table for this and everyone's gotta squeeze in.

You know, it's me, Cooper Hoffman, and Jalen Brunson.

He's been to some random— he's been to some random—

and it's cool.

New York is more random than here.

That's actually the reason why. So like, I'm not a New Yorker. York City person.

He hated New York.

That's okay.

Yes.

I don't like New York either.

Suburbs of Pittsburgh. Like, I'm, I'm not a city guy. It's not in my DNA.

He lived in the outskirts.

I wouldn't call it the outskirts because I was very centrally located between my destinations. I lived in Brooklyn, like, close to Price City, close to the arena.

Yeah,

I was, uh, a little bit removed from the action because I didn't care to be in the action. That's not really me, but like as my last season in Brooklyn went on, like, we're going to these places, you know, Tommy bringing— like, it's fun. And I was like, you know, I kind of like New York. Then traded. Boom. Oh, that was it? Yeah.

You got an extra— I thought you were getting traded at the deadline, so you got a, you got a reprieve of like 4 months.

We had a, uh, podcast ep that we were doing on the deadline, on the day of the deadline with

Duncan. And it's

like, um,

Duncan told me because we were scheduled, like, we were talking about, like, we were sitting next to the

phones,

like, I was coming up from And we were scheduled to do it at like 5 PM or something. And like, they obviously know each other, so it was all sort of like good to go. And Duncan, I remember, called me at like 12 and I was like, hey, I'm pretty sure Cam's getting traded. We're still taping this episode. And I called him and he was like,

just stay tuned,

man.

Just keep it on the schedule for now.

And if I get traded, we'll still do it. He's just gonna be moving the next day.

Well, you knew leading to the deadline that that was—

You talking about— yeah, you always— but You don't know what's—

Especially being out in Brooklyn.

You don't know what's gonna happen or what's not gonna happen. I didn't get traded till the summer. I finished the season in Brooklyn.

Do you keep track of that stuff or not when you're in the trade rumors?

No. I hear about it and I get information about it. It's not even try to ignore it. It's almost like I detach.

Yeah.

Like, like when I hear the rumors, they're talking about somebody else, not me. Because so many of them, like 99% of them don't happen. I've been traded twice, sure. But of all the rumors I've ever heard, it's a lot. So I detach and almost look at it like it's somebody else. And I'm like, oh, okay. Until it becomes reality. Because if I get attached to any of these potential outcomes, you start going on a mental gymnastics. Oh, I've done that before.

He's in Orlando Redfin checking out condos.

Okay, I have done that before. I will admit it. If a rumor pops up, it'd be like, Like, let's say to Minnesota, Dallas, Portland. I'd be like, what, what is there to— where would I be in Port— okay, let's check the Zillow listings in Portland.

But it is funny 'cause when the Phoenix, when they got traded to Brooklyn, they, they, that trade had been like talked about over the summer and then there was nothing. There was nothing for like 4 months. 'Cause I remember they were out here right before that happened. And he, what he was saying before about that season, it was like, oh, we're loaded up. Like

we're, we're getting our mojo back.

This, this is a team that can make a run. And then all of a sudden it's like, It should be against the team immediately.

That's the reality of the NBA though.

Putting you in that trade was malpractice.

Yeah, you can say one way or another, but it happened.

You get KD and you keep Cam Johnson would've been the move.

I don't know if that would've slowed him down.

I guess like they needed Bridges as— no, they, he, they put in 10 draft picks or whatever. I know,

but

I think that was a crazy trade.

I think that's Brooklyn, that was the Nets being smart.

If, yeah, if Brooklyn says—

No, it was.

The Nets do get credit for that. If Brooklyn says, if, okay, if If Phoenix Suns powers that be say they want Kevin Durant, period, and the Brooklyn Nets—

And Kevin Durant says, I am only going to Phoenix.

Yes. And the Brooklyn Nets say they want Mikal Bridges and myself, and the Suns say, no, we're keeping one of them. Like, you're going to put me in the teal bed.

I think you play poker at some point with this. It's like KD has decided he's coming to Phoenix, and Phoenix has decided You know, and Brooklyn has decided they're trading him.

That was at the deadline, right?

That was—

no, it was like 2 weeks before the deadline.

Or a week before. I thought it was—

what?

No, it was leading toward the deadline, but it wasn't at the—

the trade?

Yeah,

the trade was on the deadline.

Yeah, it was. It was.

But the rumors started—

no,

the rumors started in the summer and then they died because nothing ever happened. The rumor started in June, but then when Kai got traded and everything seemed sketchy, then the rumors And this was a day before the deadline, then the rumors shot up.

Yeah.

But then it's just like, okay, we've heard the rumors for 9 months. How much truth is there to it? And then the trade occurred. If the deadline was at 2:00 PM on the 6th, the trade occurred at 2:00 AM.

Ownership had switched over that day.

Yeah, it occurred 10 hours before the trade deadline. So it's like all you had to do was survive one more sleep and you were good.

Well, now he has a new identity this year. He's Cam Johnson's expiring contract.

That's— that is my identity.

Superhero identity.

You think you should do Cam or Cameron

for the

expiring contract?

Cameron Johnson's expiring.

Yeah. What do you think?

No, I think I like Cam.

I just think I've become Cam Johnson. Like, it's become like, that's my name.

No, it's— it's the right move. Like,

you know,

Cameron Johnson sounds like you're trying to get serious and start like a company.

That's what I said. It's like Cameron Crowe. It's like a director. Cameron is what you do when you're a— when you're an artist. For, for what you're doing, Cam's probably better.

It's lighter.

Do you like the second apron?

Do I like the second apron?

Yeah.

Not really, no.

Didn't seem very player-friendly.

It's not. Um, I'm not— I could be a lot better versed in the CBA and all those things, and I probably really should have a better dive so I can articulate better opinions.

Yeah.

But I know my personal experience and how it shapes how management approaches. It makes it harder to maintain a team. So if you win, you win. And what happens when you win? Guys look good. And so guys then get paid, but then it becomes difficult because you can't keep them all. So then being good is a way of getting yourself up and out of where you're playing. You know, it's almost like there's a level of being mid, good mid enough that like you don't outgrow the salary problems, but you can keep your team. Like, that's how you stay in a spot. But if everybody gets too good or whatever, then like, it's like that was— yes, that will send them over the edge and they're gonna have some real problems with that.

We had it, we won the title, and within a year and a half, Porzingis and Jrue are gone.

Exactly.

It's the way it goes.

So, but that would have happened regardless. You guys had 4 max, they had 4 max guys

and some sub maxes.

Yeah. And Pritchard and those guys hadn't even gotten paid yet.

In an ideal world, you don't have to get rid of 2 of your best 5 guys. That'd be my preference. But I think I've said this on the pod, I feel like franchise guys should get more of a cap discount for the team.

I respect, I respect that take.

So if I have Jokic, I draft Jokic, he wants to be in Denver, I shouldn't have to then be penalized that he's making $60 million a year.

It counts as $50 on the sheet.

Yeah, $45 or $40. It's 2/3.

Okay, see, that's the—

Is that the number you're sticking with? 2/3?

Whatever, 3/4, 2/3, like Curry and the Warriors. And then Curry has to take a discount. I mean, he didn't take a huge discount, but at that point, Curry's playing that same part.

No, I really respect that take because it promotes things. I don't know. I would like the fan perspective too. I think guys like Curry, guys like Jokic that stick around, if it's Kobe's, same team, Booker, it means something.

Booker, same thing.

It means something though, like to keep those guys around, like the fan bases rally around them and they become You know, when you have—

We're gonna have that with Tatum.

When you have the team— yeah, exactly. You have the teams that shuffle them around a lot. I feel like it's harder naturally for the fans to get attached to the team the same.

If football has it where the quarterbacks, there's continuity,

but football,

you're also— you can push the money ahead and be like, Joe Burrow now has a $480 million deal, and it's just—

it's like

the money's nudged.

Such creative accounting.

You can't really do that in basketball.

Just do it like the Dodgers. Football is so creative accounting. Just pay a dollar every year.

But then also football's a different kind of game where like you really are fans of the team over the players, and there's less movement of maybe your quarterbacks and your receivers and your running backs. Like, there's just less movement.

We have to go because we went way too long, but I had a good time.

So did I.

When's the— what's your first game?

22nd in OKC.

Oh, Jesus.

Come out swinging.

Goddamn.

It's a good open.

At OKC?

Smoke off the rip.

You guys have Christmas game?

At Warriors. Late night game.

That's a good one.

They got some good ones.

Yeah, but you know what? That road Christmas game, I've had it once in Denver.

Yeah.

When you have that like 8 PM tip-off and it's Christmas.

You basically have no Christmas.

It's like, it's a weird Christmas because you wake up and you just wait for the game. All day, you just— the best Christmas game—

Noon?

Is

the Knicks noon game.

Knicks, if you're a player, I'd actually say is the 2 o'clock game, 3 o'clock game, whatever one's at the— it depends on what time zone you're in. Because you can wake up and maybe if you can have family in town and have breakfast with the family and like a slower Christmas morning. And then you also have like Christmas dinner. Like, I think it's— We had one versus the Warriors in '22, let's just say. And, or '21, Christmas of '21. And it was like, Super dope.

Did you— did Celtics have it? Yeah. Who are they? Phillies, Lakers. Phillies I know is here.

I can't remember. We're on there though.

Knicks-Spurs was the noon one. That'd be a good one.

You know, they put the Knicks first, which I didn't really love because they're the champs, but I do think they've tried to establish it like a Detroit Thanksgiving Lions tradition.

Those games are always—

just the first game is always—

For whatever reason, in at least the last couple years, those games always been awesome.

Yeah.

Like, they're always like, last year, Cleveland, when Kolick brought them back,

and

then the year before it was San Antonio.

Kel had 40.

Yeah, Kel went off against San Antonio. Like, every year they have like some crazy comeback in it.

You know what's a cool game now? They did it last year with the Celtics, and I think they're doing it again, is the Wednesday before Thanksgiving afternoon game, which is on in primetime in Europe.

You got hurt last year?

No, it was— I got hurt on the 21st, I think.

Oh, you got hurt before Christmas?

Or 22nd. I got hurt right before Christmas. It was back to back, 21, 22. I got hurt on 22. Oh no, I got hurt on 23.

The streamers like these early afternoon games because it's primetime in all these different countries. So they put like, they want to put like Wembley on at like 2:00 on a Saturday.

Boston's on in the afternoon before. Yeah. Sixers Knicks next week.

Same thing because, because our game last year. Yeah. I like the NBA's figured out the schedule and the WNBA has somehow gotten worse at it. It took 8 days off before the finals for reasons that are made unclear. There's no sports this week.

every game against NFL Sunday is not the

scheduling against NFL Sunday and NBA tip-off.

Why didn't they go Wednesday, Friday, Monday, and you could have 3 games before the NBA starts?

Nobody else is competing with you.

The fuck are you doing? Like, this is like basic shit. How do you screw this up? And then the freaking Golden State owner has to intervene because Atlanta has 3,500 fans for their games, and he's like, this isn't right. It's like you have no leadership in the league. It's crazy. This league—

we're trying, man.

This league, despite itself, is—

Bill wants to be— he wants to be commissioner.

You want to be commissioner?

I definitely do not want to be commissioner.

He's volunteering himself to be commissioner.

What I want to do is what I'm doing right now.

She's stepping down.

Yeah, she's done.

That is a tough job. You were navigating a lot of stuff. My

number one thing would be a great pivot guy.

It'd be a— it'll be a generation.

My number one move would be— wouldn't— would be controversial.

Let's hear

it. Kaitlin, you're gonna play in LA now. Here we go.

You're not getting the job.

Yeah. LA is gonna trade 5 first-round picks for Kaitlin, and that's how we're gonna do it.

He's gonna be the commissioner and keep doing the pod. Yeah. It's like when, uh, that—

It's gonna be your press conference. Your pod is gonna be your weekly address.

I'm gonna give this state of address every time.

Still doing NFL picks.

I'm gonna go full—

Tell the WNBA it's kind of a side job.

Come on, man.

I'm gonna go full '90s Stern. I'm just gonna be, I'm gonna be fixing the lottery.

Controlling everything. Fixing the lottery. Kaitlin, you're on LA now. Trading people. Blocking trades.

Indiana's fine. They love the team.

He's gonna— it's like the White House press secretary's gonna have the job for like 9 days and they're gonna be like, thanks, I'm outta here.

That's it. That would be fun. All right, Cam Johnson, good luck this season.

Thank you, sir.

Tommy, good luck with all of your projects.

Thank you.

And friendships and dinners. Great to see you as always.

See you there.

All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Pelissero and House. Thanks to Cam and Tommy as well. Thanks to Eduardo and Gahal. And Chris and Jack and everybody on the Spotify side. I'm gonna see you on Sunday night. We're gonna be live on Netflix, me and Sal, right after, hopefully, a rollicking bunch of, uh, Week 6 games. See you then. I wanna see them when we start.

Never wanna say I don't have a few years with them.

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