Transcript of LeBron’s Philly Shocker! Plus, the 2011 NBA Redraftables With Zach Lowe.

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This episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast is presented by PayPal. You know a clutch move when you see one. A no-look pass, a buzzer beater, a big steal. Well, imagine if your wallet could pull off moves like that. That, my friends, is PayPal. Right now you can find offers from hundreds of brands like Sony, Allbirds, and Viater. And save offers before you check out, earn unlimited rewards. Plus you can add those rewards on top of credit card points. Now that is clutch. Download the PayPal app today. Save those offers. Start scoring rewards. Terms and exclusions apply. See paypal.com/rewardsterms. Credit card points subject to issuers' terms and conditions. Alright, it is Friday morning. This is the Bill Simmons Podcast. I have no Sunday podcast. This was supposed to be the Sunday podcast. Zach Lowe was coming here. We're going to do a 2011 redraft. And 20 minutes before we were about to start recording, We got the word that LeBron James is going to the Philadelphia 76ers. Gonna talk about that one second. Uh, live rewatchable is coming Monday, 4 o'clock Pacific time. We are doing Obsession, so stay tuned for that. Okay, LeBron to Philly.

So I'm first, I'm gonna start eating some crow. I thought Cleveland was done. I thought this was where this was headed the whole time. I'm not sure what happened there. We could talk about that later. Uh, Philly shocked me. This got a genuine whoa. Wasn't a Luka trade whoa, but this was a whoa. I didn't think this was in play. I didn't think he'd want to live there. I guess he's going to live in New York. Was that, where was this on a 1 out of 10 whoa scale for you?

7.5. The moment Bob Myers went on Game Over, I had someone in the league, I said to someone on my pod, just say to me, someone smart, not necessarily read, not even reading tea leaves, but just saying, Why would he go on that show and potentially debase himself like that if he didn't know something? And since then, that's— but that doesn't necessarily mean anything because all these teams were just telling you the last 2 weeks, we don't know. We're in the dark. We're completely in the dark. I'm 7.5. It's not a 10, it's not a 9, but it's pretty high. I'm like you. I just always thought momentum would push him towards a familiar destination, whether it was Cleveland, Miami, or his friends in Golden State. This is, this is fun, man. I, I, I, I actually really like this for a, a whole multitude of reasons. I think this is a really fun, I think this might be, other than Minnesota, which was a pipe dream, and Denver, which is like a triple pipe dream, this is a really fun outcome.

So you're gonna do the deep dive on Sunday. We are doing the irrational holy shit reactions to this. Big picture, this is maybe, maybe not Joel Embiid. We have no idea how many games he's gonna play. You have a franchise guy in Maxey who's also a clutch guy. You have VJ Edgecombe year 2. You have Jaylen Brown just being thrown into all this. And then LeBron, I guess, as the power forward. It's a basketball team that makes sense from a usage rate standpoint, does not make sense. But this is a team that if everybody's healthy and playing together, this would be kind of a nightmare to guard. And especially if they're playing with pace like they did with Edgecombe and Maxey in a couple of those playoff games. And then you throw LeBron into that. I'm just surprised that this man almost makes me wonder if he's gonna play until he's 45 now, which he's hinted at a couple times. Like we thought like, oh, these, this would be the last year or the last 2 years. He's said some things over the summer that like, why should I have to retire if I don't have to?

Right. Tom Brady played till he's 45. And I wonder like, because the Cleveland thing, which we could talk about later, they just couldn't figure out how to make that work. I wonder, maybe, maybe that's where this ends anyway. And maybe he thinks 2 years, title chase, and then I'll end up in Cleveland for at the end.

We're already projecting him out of Philadelphia and over to Cleveland. Can you give me a minute?

It's a $2 billion deal.

My God, he's going to be 44 years old at the end of it. Let him retire. I mean, look, he said in his tweet, I have— I'm still— we're doing this live. Didn't he say this is his last decision in one of the 14 tweets he sent out announcing this?

I don't know. I don't believe anything. And I don't think he's going to retire unless he feels old. Like, he's not going to— it's not going to be one of those things where it's like, oh, I could put up 20 next year. I'm going to retire though.

Like, it's— I'm just going to read you what he said. I've had an incredible few months with all the people I love trying to figure it all out. This is my last decision. I'm not going for money. I'm not going for family. What am I really playing for at this point? I still want to sacrifice. I still want to work. I still want to grind, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Thank you, LA. Miami, I'll forever love, and Northeast Ohio will always be home. Minnesota doesn't get any acknowledgement in the, uh, in Golden State. Golden State not, not acknowledged. But look, this is my last decision. You are going to be a skeptic till the end. I respect you. I'm going to take him at his word. This is it.

Well, this is like when boxers say they're going to retire or actors say they're doing their last movie or wrestlers like, this is my farewell match. I, I'll never believe he's going to retire until he hasn't played for a couple years. But This is, we'll start here. This is, this is a title run. This is, oh yeah, I'm gonna try to get a fifth, a fifth ring here. Which I think Cleveland, I don't know if they couldn't have figured out how to, I just don't know how he would've won a title with that Cleveland team from what we saw last year and some of the defensive deficiencies that would, deficiencies they would've had. Golden State. That would've been a super fun team, a traveling America. The, the biggest high-profile bunch of stars and famous people on one team in 10 years. But I don't think they would've won the title. This team, if they can get Embiid going, could win the title. And what's interesting is they have flexibility with or without Embiid, right? 'Cause you would have Maxie and Jalen and LeBron who are 3 of the top 20 to 25 players in the league.

Um, with Embiid as the wildcard, and then you see what happens with Edgecomb. Did you like what they did in the offseason from a bench standpoint?

Uh, I like Simons. Uh, Dean Wade looks a lot better as your 7th, 8th guy coming off the bench than he did in the starting 5, which LeBron takes his spot. One of the greatest upgrades in, uh, late, late offseason rotation history. Dean Wade trumped by LeBron James for starting power forward spot. Uh, Mike, Mike Ganzey getting the boys back together, by the way. He came out, Mike Ganzey's like, if I'm gonna get to, I, I've waited a long time for this. I'm coming in swinging. I'm doing I want. After that, the depth is a little bit unproven, particularly behind Embiid. It's just a Dembona and Huck Porte at this point.

Maybe in Phylon too. I like him.

He'll play. Yeah.

I think he could actually be like a 10th man for them.

But look, I think there's, I mean, when you, you mentioned the two things you said that I would be interested to dive into a little bit more. You mentioned from a usage standpoint, it doesn't make sense. And I know what you mean because they have four extremely high usage players now on their team. Um, but rarely does a championship contender have a usage hierarchy that makes sense in that sort of perfect, ideal, idyllic way. Like, this is just part and parcel of building a championship team. Number 2, they can stagger minutes incredibly strictly, and they will do that. Like, to whatever pairing they want, you two go together, you two go together. And we know that LeBron will miss games and Embiid will miss a ton of games. But so I think there's enough here to solve that problem. The other thing I would say Why you said about Cleveland, the defensive deficiencies that you saw in that roster, why is that team with LeBron worse than this team defensively only with LeBron? Because you have two small guards just like you have there, and they have Mobley plus Allen. This is small ball power forward plus Embiid, whose mobility slash health is always questionable to say the least.

Fair.

Well, I was looking from a Cleveland standpoint. Ultimately, you're talking about who's your 5 when there's 6, 7 minutes left in a playoff game, right? And their best 5 would've been Allen and Mobley and LeBron and Mitchell and Harden, I think. I just don't like that as a 5. I, you have LeBron trying to guard guys in the wing. You have Harden who can't guard anybody.

That's fair.

It's, I just think that's a, I don't think LeBron is a small forward at this stage of his career. I think he's a 4 or a 5. But on the flip side, with Philly and Bede, who can certainly be put in a torture chamber, LeBron can ratchet it up or down depending on whatever. And, and you made the key point, they have these, they have in Jalen and Vijay and Maxey, 3 guys who can play 70 games at least and 2, 2,400 minutes, 2,500 minutes, somewhere in there. You could move the other 2 around there. And Bede could almost be on like a Premier League schedule. Like you could just say, play, play home games. You're gonna play 40 games this year. We just want to keep you ready for the playoffs. And the same thing with LeBron. You could just, he's like, well, hey LeBron, we're just gonna play you 25 minutes a game. And, and all we care about is the spring. So they have the kind of roster that I feel like could, could, I don't know, could, could basically get those guys ready for April, May, June, which is all they're gonna care about.

Well, the, and the Premier League schedule is not an option in the playoffs. And the ultimate question is, like, will Joel Embiid ever be healthy for 3 or 4 playoff series, which is what the dream here is. I will say there's enough star power between Maxi LeBron and Jaylen Brown. I'll throw Edgecomb in there. Like, I think Edgecomb has, it was spectacular as a rookie, has a big leap coming that they could put a representative competitive team on the floor without Embiid if they have to for a couple games here, a couple games there and steal games. We've seen them steal games without Embiid before. And now they're kind of loaded. And, but to your point about the regular season, like the East is no picnic. Getting into the top 6 in the East is going to be hard. And I think they have fortified themselves really, really well to be able to get into the top 6 while not overplaying Embiid or LeBron or anybody, because it's not going to be easy, but they have enough sort of top line depth to do it. I mean, on paper, Bill, we can go through the starting fives in Oklahoma City and New York and San Antonio.

Is this the best starting five in the NBA on paper? Who else is in contention besides the teams that I named? I mean, I don't, I don't know. I don't think anybody is. Denver, if Denver's ever fully formed.

So on paper, you're basically saying I'm getting the glass half full version of Joel Embiid.

Yeah. Any given night he feels 95%, throw this lineup out there. Is there a better starting five in the NBA despite the one ball overlapping skill sets and all that? I mean, I think they have a, a pretty strong case.

I will say this, this is, So here's what— here would my answer would be. This is the number one team in the rankings of fuck, they're playing everybody tonight. If you're the other team, like, oh shit, all of these guys are going to play tonight. Goddamn, that's going to be hard for us. But yeah, I just don't— I don't trust Embiid. I don't— he has—

well, how could you? Can't—

can we bring Conspiracy Bill in for a second?

I always welcome— I listened to Conspiracy Bill go through a couple of mailbag questions yesterday in my car, and I was laughing the whole time. So he's always a welcome, welcome addition.

It felt like Anthony Davis was a key component of this LeBron free agent summer, right?

I just, don't you feel like that was made up?

Like, I just don't think, I don't. So how do you explain James Harden not signing the contract extension and Dre and, or the contract, whatever you call it, and then Draymond opting out and kind of waiting to see what happened with LeBron. To me, that felt like LeBron's side putting leverage on those two teams. Like, we don't love the team that you have right now. We need one more move from you, right? There's no other explanation. It's July 24th. Neither of those guys have signed yet. I don't understand that.

So, well, there is another explanation. They're just waiting for LeBron to make his decision independent of anything else. Shams reported yesterday on McAfee's show that there was no other domino they were waiting for at this point. Now, that doesn't mean there never was. That just means they could have realized yesterday, having planned probably to make this announcement today, that another domino was not coming. And as I'm saying this, Sham saying that yesterday almost makes me more suspicious that at one point there was a domino that maybe they were dreaming on. But here's what I say. Wait, hold on.

Conspiracy building. Finish the— I didn't round it around.

Okay.

Embiid for Davis does work from a salary cap standpoint.

But you're just coming out, you're putting him on the cap in 2028.

I mean, my God. But could, could this open the door? Philly uses the rest of their assets and, and tries to get Davis and Washington gets the Embiid contract and some other assets. I, I just, my brain went there for a second. I don't think it'll happen. If I was Philly, I would want to see this Embiid thing for a year before I got there. But I just feel like the Davis thing felt important all summer.

So when I meant it, was it ever real? Like, I don't think the Wizards and the Warriors ever had a real conversation about Anthony Davis. I don't think the teams were ever involved. I'm not sure that LeBron Ron ever went to the Warriors and said anything directly about Anthony. It's like, again, every team I talked to on all sides of this was like, I don't know, I know as much as you know. And I would call about these rumors and they'd be like, hey, that's news to us. Like, I could call the Cavs about, hey, I hear you're trying to salary dump player X, Y, and Z. They'd be like, we are? It's news to me. Now everyone lies, I get it. But this was just a universal shoulder shrug from around the league. But now Conspiracy Zach, who just doesn't really exist, but Sham's saying that, yes, Shams saying that yesterday that there's no other domino here. They had to know the clutch people that this was probably coming today so that I'm like, you could put the pieces together. Like, had the decision already been made and they're sort of laying the groundwork for, hey, there was never anything to see here.

Do you believe the whole thing with Cleveland? Because I'm always going to think he was looking at Cleveland first, and I think that that was down the road in a lot of different ways, and I'm never going to not believe that. And I don't think he liked the roster the way they had it. And the Harden piece, I do feel like that the Harden opting out, which was the wink wink from last year, but then no new deal. And then there was always like a little buzz, like maybe he could get him. And I, I think there was some, some Phoenix stuff at one point. They, they went for Dallas with Kyrie and Dallas was like, no thanks, we'll keep Kyrie. I do wonder if he was just like, I'm, I'm not gonna sign. 'Cause Cleveland only had the minimum, right? I'm going to sign with the minimum for Cleveland and I probably can't win there anyway. And this doesn't seem like the way to go out. This is like the, the juiciest team, right? Golden State would have been the most fun for us. I said on Wednesday's pod, I just didn't see the Miami thing.

I didn't get it. I didn't get him and Giannis and Bam together. I just don't like the fit. This feels like a better basketball fit if we have Embiid, and that'll be the question.

And I guess the accidental YouTube thing in Miami was actually an accidental YouTube thing or the greatest fumble in the history of sports. I don't know. But like, looks to have actually been an accident. I think like Golden State was going to be too old. I think personally you're underrating the Cleveland team just because we're all sort of like just the vision of Harden dribbling the air out of the ball and everyone being like, hey man, we have LeBron on the team, we have Donovan Mitchell on the team. Like, why do we have to play like this, I think that actually would've been a pretty stacked team and a, and a legit title contender. This team is a, I mean, if Embiid can give them anything in the playoffs, they're a contender to get to the finals for sure. I just have no faith. Forget the season, forget the first 82. We don't have any evidence that he can stay healthy for the last 20. And those are the most intense, hardest playing games where they need him the most. And maybe they just can lower his minutes in those games to a reasonable amount because they have so much talent around him, but their backup center situation is just okay.

Like, I like Bona. Nick Nurse has never seemed to trust Bona.

Yeah, but here's the thing. They're gonna be able to get February guys and buyout guys. Yeah, sure. And people wanna play with this team right now. They, on FanDuel, they're 10 to 1 to win the title. They have the 4th best odds. They are +380 to win the East, and they are -130 to win 50+ games. And +210 to win 55+ games.

Are they, is that updated already?

Yeah, they moved it. They move fast on this stuff.

Okay.

All right. Listen, the Cleveland thing, I, you and I are just gonna disagree on that. I don't like that team. And I think they were trying, he wasn't gonna go there for the minimum. They're trying to trade Struce or Schroeder. Nobody wants those guys, especially in this new second April CBA era. The Harden thing seemed very complicated 'cause they'd done the wink wink with him. And he goes to Philly instead. You mentioned the, the playoff piece. I was talking about this with somebody a couple, couple days ago about the second and third rounds of the playoffs are the young guy rounds where that's where you're, you're playing a lot. You could see Philly like in the Boston series in round one and Bede plays 3 games or 4, 3 and a half games of that Boston series, but then goes to that next round and all of a sudden you gotta go. And he couldn't hold up. This is still— those are the young guy rounds, but Philly's covered in that with the 3 guys they have that aren't Embiid or LeBron. Like, Jaylen is one of the most durable stars we've had in the last 20 years.

That was one of the, one of the things I would always make the case for him. Maxey, I think, either led the league in minutes or was second last year, and Edgecomb played a crazy amount of minutes for rookies. So they're covered all the other way. How do you feel Jaylen Brown feels about this though?

All right.

Well, I mean, what a summer for him.

Two things. Number one, I agree with you. He is almost the most interesting character in this whole drama that has played out. And I'm going to get back to that in a second. I mean, the thing about the East is Detroit is going to win a lot of games and be a tough out no matter how you feel about their offense or their offseason. They're not going to be an easy out. They're going to win a lot of games. Boston is still going to win a lot of games despite coming off as one of the quote unquote losers of the offseason. The Knicks are the Knicks. The Cavs are going to win a lot of games. The Heat have Giannis for whatever that's worth, and it's worth something. Toronto seems at least pretty darn likely to have Kawhi Leonard. My point is, I'm not sure how many rounds you get in the 2027 Eastern Conference to just be like, yeah, we don't have to play our all-out rotation for this entire series. I think it's going to be a tough battle all the way through. I think it— I couldn't wait for you to bring up Jalen Brown because I think he's the most fascinating character.

He was already the character of the offseason. And now even more so because not only is he not the number one option, which he dreamed of, and now on a team where he has two former MVPs in his starting five and an ascendant All-NBA guard who's going to have the ball a lot. He, one of the MVPs on the team plays essentially his similar or almost same position. And stylistically, although he's a, in a different universe as a passer from Jaylen Brown, like they're physically sort of similar in how they play. And so the, the overlap issue for him just got even more severe. And I'm trying to picture like, all right, so is there like a LeBron-Jalen Brown two-man game that's gonna happen? What is Jalen Brown doing when it's like a Maxi-MB pick and roll and LeBron's attacking the closeout or LeBron's posting up? Where's Jalen Brown? And smart players and talented players figure all this stuff out. But it is strange to think about like, what's, what's his role gonna be on the team?

Yeah, the closest you would come to this was like the '24 Celtics when they had all those good players, when they had Porzingis and Jrue Holiday was there and, you know, Jaylen would get his 5 minutes at the top of the second quarter and the fourth quarter when Tatum sat. But last year his usage rate was 36.2, right? Maxey was 29.4, LeBron was 27.2, and then Embiid's not in here 'cause I, I guess he didn't play enough games, but Embiid is another one that when Embiid's in the game, the whole offense seems like it revolves around him. So you have 4 guys. Jaylen is gonna get the short straw, it feels like all the time, and he's gonna have to do the, all right, I guess I'm basically a glorified role player. I wonder, is he on the team in October? Did they flip him?

Jaylen Brown?

Is that possible?

So I just wanna be, you, you've already in the span of 15 minutes, you just traded Jaylen Brown.

I didn't trade him. I'm asking if he's on the team in October.

Traded Embiid for Anthony Davis and put LeBron on the Cavs in 2020. You're on fire.

I'm on fire. My coffee hasn't kicked in yet. But is it— would you bet your life he's on the Sixers on October 20th?

I wouldn't bet my life. Don't bet my— don't bet your life. I keep telling you this. Just word of advice. Don't bet your life in any circumstance. I would bet lots of money that he's on the team in October. February. Now you have 4 months of like, we get to see how this works. The trade deadline comes, whatever. That, I mean, who knows what happens then. But in October, I would expect Jaylen Brown to be on the team.

I would too. I'm just mentioning. I wonder, to your point, what if he said, I want an extension or I'm going to be super unhappy the whole year?

You know, I talked about this on my pod yesterday about extension candidates. I mean, he's got, it's just like he's, these guys who have 3 years, I understand the tool. Is helpful for teams and players. Yeah. And it's helpful to have as much flexibility using it. The extension tool, 3 years left on your contract just seems like, let's just, it's too early in, in, in every case that's not like Jokic or Shay, right? Or Luka or Wembenyama. It's like, can we just wait 18 months, man? You have 3 years left on your deal. Can we not talk about it? And can you not take that as like a personal affront? It's just a reality. But who knows? That's what I'm saying. If I'm like Gansey, I'm saying we're not talking about that right now. Sorry.

The Davis one's amazing because he's got this year and then a player option for next year and he hasn't been healthy in 2 years, but he's like, I don't know, I need an extension. It's like, do you? Could we see 1 year before we have to up you for more years? Plus you're the one with the power anyway with the player option.

How about we all be reasonable and we'll say, okay, so let's tear up your player option. We'll give you a 2-year, $100 million extension. How do you feel about that? And he would go nuts and Clutch would go nuts and they'd be all insulted about it. And I'd be like, okay, so you're in your early to mid-30s and you don't play two-third, you play a third of, uh, you, you miss a third of the games every year. Like, why am I just no-brainering an extension with you at the max? I'm not.

Anyway, so Rich said something about if you paid attention, all the clues, he, he said something like that last week. If you paid attention, all the clues. Were laid out for what, for what the decision was gonna be, which I, which you could have interpreted in all of these different ways. But now looking back, you mentioned Myers went on that podcast, right? That's, that's pretty interesting. Um, you, he wanted to win and also be happy. What, what were the other clues we can take from that they laid out?

What are we talking about here? Is the whiteboard— is the whiteboard like Usual Suspects? Does it say like Skokie, Illinois on there somewhere?

What did we miss?

Am I going to drop the coffee cup on the floor? Am I going to drop the coffee cup on the floor?

Like, like, do you think that was the bottom? It was Kobayashi. I wonder what the other clues were. I'd love to know what I missed.

I guess I got to go spend some time.

I—

here, look, I can call all the GMs and agents involved in the next 4 hours, or I could spend time deconstructing the whiteboard and like listening for You know how Steve Kerr— did you read the story that Steve Kerr, like, dropped an entire Taylor Swift song into press conferences this year? Like, one word lyric at a time. So maybe we need to go back and listen to some podcasts and see if we can hear a clue all put together.

There must have been something. Well, so LeBron has the 12-year-old daughter who's lived here her whole life. So are they going to— is his family going to move, or is he going to be like, going back and forth. That, that's— are they going to live in New York or who knows? That's going to be a whole thing. And then, then him and Jaylen Brown is another piece of this. Jaylen Brown, the famous thing about him sitting at Summer League and basically saying, you know, Bronny's not good or whatever. He wasn't fair because it was the cameras catching him. And then LeBron kind of made mention of it last year, but I assume Bronny is going to end up on the Sixers.

I was gonna say, how did we get 20 minutes into this without answering the what about Bronny Question.

I just assume he's, he's probably on his way cuz they, the Lakers have 16 guys anyway. Geometry-wise, I give you Embiid, LeBron, Jalen, Maxey, and Edgecomb as a closing 5. There's 3 minutes left in a playoff game. Walk me through a play and where everybody is on the court.

I mean, Embiid is setting a high screen or at the nail. Probably. And it's a two-man game with, I mean, again, like I don't really know. It's a two-man game maybe with LeBron so that I can use Maxie in some off-ball stuff with Jaylen Brown and throw some size issues at the other team. Like they'll have a little guy on Maxie, maybe we can get a switch that way, but it's there.

It's gonna be, so BJ's in the corner regardless.

BJ's probably in the corner or setting some off-ball stuff if Nick Nurse is getting creative and Jalen's spending some time in the corner. Yeah.

I mean, LeBron and Maxi kind of switching, playing off Embiid. And then if Embiid's not out there, you could even go a little small ball with LeBron and, or Bona, like whatever. But yeah, that geometry, there's gonna be two guys in the corner that are gonna be like, shit, I'm in the corner.

I wonder if when on days Embiid doesn't play, if there is some potential for like LeBron at the 5 kind of lineups. They're, they're built to try that out. It's always, those always sound better in theory than they are. In reality. The other thing is like, you know, Joel Embiid had back-to-back seasons when he shot 37% on threes and one and 2 years ago when he shot 39% in limited games. If, if that, now that's all sandwiched around 33%, 30%, 33%, and no one's ever gonna treat him like a DEFCON 1 threat out there. But if he can find that stroke again, you have a little bit more flexibility in where you can put him. It doesn't have to be at the nail. It doesn't have to be, we're running through stuff through it. But what happens to his post-up game to me is a really interesting question here. Like, how often are you just dumping the ball into Embiid when these other 4 guys are on the floor? Does it make sense to play that way? I, sometimes it will, but sometimes it won't.

And if, and if you're talking to VJ Edgecombe about this, you're like, dude, just practice your corner threes. Just take 100 million of them. Take 200,000 a day. And this is gonna be a 2-year thing. You're gonna be a better place for this. You're gonna be in big games. And it'll all pay off in the long run, but he's probably the biggest loser from a growth standpoint because he just, he basically just turns into a, a 3 and D guard now, I think.

Well, I think he's also so good that he'll find ways to ma— to stretch that 3 and D role in the half court to its boundaries. LeBron with the Lakers, and particularly with Luka, leaned a little bit more into transition fast break. Yeah. Remember LeBron was known as a slow it down chess master kind of player. Jaylen Brown is a, a demon in transition, particularly as a cutter off the ball. Yeah. He wants to play that way. Everybody but Embiid in that starting 5 is meant to play fast, like super fast. And I think that's okay for Embiid. Like he can trail the play and whatever. And, and that's where Vijay can run into 8 points a game. I mean, like just, just like that. So I think there's, there's something to be said there too.

You know what else is gonna be really fun? I think this is gonna be a really fun team to watch. And this is immediately the, this is the team I have to monitor the first 2 months team of all of the 30 teams we have that are different than they were last year. But Vijay is so good at both like crashing the offensive boards when somebody else shoots, but then also those little sneaky back cuts he does from the side. And LeBron loves guys like that. So that'll be, that'll be, I think LeBron's gonna love playing with him and I, you know, him and Maxie, I think they've known each other for a long time and they have the Rich Paul connection. Embiid will be the wild card. You know, we didn't mention though, this is unbelievable for the Boston-Philadelphia rivalry, the best rivalry in the league, the most important rivalry the league's ever had. Everybody says Celtics-Lakers. I've said this a million times. Celtics-Sixers is the most historic, awesome rivalry the league has. They've, cross paths every decade in some way. Some more than others, like the '60s more than the '70s and shit like that.

But every year they've had battles and they had some battles this decade. But now you have the Celtics have traded Jaylen Brown to Philly. You have LeBron, who was their biggest foil from, I don't know, 2008 through 2013, where they were the big bully with him and then he flipped it and he was the big bully with them. He doesn't like Boston. That's been his rival and the team that really tried to break him down, and now he's going against them. And these are, these are two fan bases that have gone at it. Philly beat them last year and came back. This, I feel like all of these games will be on national TV, right?

Oh, well, I mean, Adam Silver made that pretty clear when he was like, hey man, can you, can you make a decision? Yeah. Yeah. Philly-Boston, all-time classic rivalry. How about LeBron being back in the East and the state of all the teams involved puts like LeBron could face the Cavs in a playoff series. LeBron could face the Heat in a playoff series.

He's a Toronto, his, his, the team that he owns. Is he still paying rent on Toronto or no?

No, he owns Toronto. He doesn't have to pay rent.

Yeah, he doesn't even, it's, yeah, he's, he's paid out. Yeah. So you have Miami, Cleveland, Toronto. He has history with, we didn't mention the Knicks.

I mean, Boston, East, East is, this is, this is East is on a heater like we have not seen in the last 25 years in the NBA. It's the superior conference top to bottom right now. Even if you want to say the two best teams are in the West, it's the top to bottom better conference. And we've got, you know, a lot of trade drama. We got players moving East. We, we got, you know, Kawhi probably moving East, LeBron moving East. This is the East is on fire.

I like how you said probably. Yeah, if you go to the, to the Finals odds on FanDuel, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. 8 of the, 8 of the 12 are in the East for the top, for the highest odds. When was the last time that happened? And we didn't mention the Pacers, who are 40-to-1 to win the Finals, and I, I think could be, could be pretty sneaky as well with Zubac there and A healthy Haliburton and they added Oubre and all this stuff. So Knicks-Sixers, what's, what's gonna be a better rivalry? Knicks-Sixers or Celtics-Sixers this season?

Oh, it's Celtics. Celtics. The Jaylen Brown stuff in Boston is gonna be off the charts. The atmosphere, the, the Brown versus Tatum, the first time they go one-on-one against each other. If Tatum's ever under the rim when Brown is like winding up for a dunk like that, that stuff's gonna be irresistible. There's so much tension.

But Knicks-Sixers will be pretty great too though.

It'll be, yeah, LeBron in the Garden, Knicks-Sixers. They've had recent playoff history. They had a really great series two seasons ago. And yeah, I mean, those are all great, Rob. It's, it, these are, these, we have all or most of the iconic franchises in the Eastern Conference other than the Bulls are really like going all out for it right now. And that's like pretty incredible.

So I thought of one other clue. Rubin has, you know, LeBron did the Fanatics Fest stuff and Rubin has the Sixers connection. So maybe that was another clue. So, okay. Ring chasing. This isn't a ring chase because he signed as a free agent with the team that wanted him, but he could win another ring with this team. Do you think he will?

Uh, I would, I would always go no. I mean, you're basically asking Field versus Sixers. I'm going Field. Like aggressively given Embiid's health issues, but it's, it's, it's of all the options out there short of like LeBron signs with Oklahoma City for the minimum. This is about as good as it gets, but no, I don't, I would bet against them winning a title.

Yeah, because the, the bar would be Oklahoma City and San Antonio the next 2 years. Now San Antonio, if they have Embiid, it's one of the few teams where they could throw a guy with size at Wemby and at least make them think a little bit. And then OKC is just a nightmare to play against, but OKC is weaker now. You know, they had to get rid of some depth. They're relying on rookies that, you know, and second-year guys. The rookies did not look good in the summer league. We'll see. I really, you and I went to those Indiana games 2 years ago when Lou Dort and Caruso basically swung that series. Lou Dort's gone. Lou Dort's only 27. It's not like he's 40, you know, and they're a little smaller. They're gonna be a little smaller on the perimeter. And this, this Philly team, when everybody's playing, like the size is a bitch. Like Jalen's, a big-ass small forward who can go at basically every position, right? And scored 29 points a game last year. LeBron can be an absolute bitch to guard, and Embiid can overpower anybody. So there's gonna be nights where, I don't know, I like it.

I think this was a smart move. I, I, I, I thought it was no chance of happening. I made fun of House the other day. There's no way he's gonna go to Philly. That's ridiculous. Why would he do that? I get it. I get it from a basketball standpoint. This is a smart move. It's interesting.

I said this with Howard on my pod a couple weeks ago because he was of the ilk of like, when Windy said on TV, it just feel the vibes would feel funny if you went to Philadelphia, awkward, whatever he used. Howard was on that side of things. And I said, honestly, I think it would be kind of cool because whatever you want to say about LeBron, step by step by step in his career, he has not adhered to any sort of traditional superstar career track. He's chosen his own path for his own reasons. Like Miami was a shock, leaving Cleveland the the way he did with the Decision was a shock. Going back to Cleveland was kind of a bold mid-career move, leaving Bosh and Wade, going to the Lakers because he just felt like, you know, yeah, I, he probably thought I can get Anthony Davis to come here. We can revive this iconic franchise that's fallen on hard times. And he just really wanted to live in Los Angeles and play for the Lakers. And I think this sort of going to a team that feels random to his history, to his trajectory, is actually kind of in step with the way he's handled his career.

And I think he just, he, like when you were saying maybe he'll just sign in December, January, I just think he loves being on a team. I think he likes getting to the arena early. Yeah. I think he likes being around teammates and I think he just looks at this and is like, this'll be fun. Like whatever, whatever comes of this, this is an interesting group of players in a big sports city. This'll be fun. Let's give it a go.

Also, the New York City piece of this can't be underrated. He can live in New York City if he wants, right?

I mean, it's, I think other Sixers have done that in the past. Yeah.

But he could have like, his family could be in New York City and he could have a place in Philly and bounce back and forth. So he keeps the big city thing. We'll see if he moves his whole family there. Listen, this is the, this, I think out of all the options, Golden State would've been really fun from a, from the Expendables standpoint and just having those guys playing together. But this was the most fun basketball option. The more we talk about it, I just think this has the most variables every which way, including like, there's 2012 Lakers potential too, where this looks awesome on paper and there are all these reasons for it, but you have LeBron who's 41, who with a ton of miles on him, God only knows when he's going to break down someday, and Embiid who never plays, and Jaylen Brown on a new team. Trying to fit his way. Like there's some, there's an unhappy version of this too. And I, I don't know which one I would bet on, to be honest.

I mean, look, there was an unhappy version of the Knicks in January and they won the championship. That's true.

Like, I would say February, like it's, how about April?

It's, these things are not easy to do when you're juggling a bunch of guys who are stars or think they're stars or whatever the thing is. And I, I, it's always challenging and you always have to find the right style of play and you, everyone's gotta sacrifice. Like your point about Edgecomb, if I'm Nick Nurse, I'm going to Vijay and saying, hey, look, man, you're a second-year player. You're good. You're going to walk in hopefully to 18 points a game. Strong, solid number for a second-year guard on a loaded team. It's going to be a lot of nights when Embiid doesn't play or when LeBron doesn't play. Those are nights you can go for 25, 28, whatever you explode for. And by the way, being on national TV all the time and being part of a winning team is good for everybody, including you. So just enjoy it. This isn't your permanent lot in life. And, and go from there. That's just the, the, but yeah, I mean, look, it all comes down to Embiid, right? The whole thing comes down to Embiid because I think if he's, if he's not healthy in the playoffs, I don't think this foursome plus what they have on the team is good enough to win a championship.

If he, by whatever miracle, is healthy for enough of the playoffs, this team can go toe to toe with anybody. I just don't believe that he can be healthy for 4 straight playoff series. I just, Don't— I won't believe it until I see it happen. He still has not made the conference finals.

Would you rather have Embiid for the team that the Sixers have now, or a Gafford, PJ Washington, Klay Thompson threesome?

Oh my God. It's— I mean, the fact that that's a fair question is just such a sad state of affairs given— I still, I just want Embiid. I want Embiid both. I just, look, I get the, I get the argument. I get what you're saying. Depth pieces. Clay, just bring Clay in as part of this too. Like another all-time legend. Let me get, I want to go down swinging one more time with Embiid.

You know, Philly, the whole history has, you give me another, let's just, I have, I have 2 LeBron years and we'll see, we'll see how he looks by near the end of the second year. But at least for this year with the roster and the depth, this is the best possible situation for Embiid where it's like, We're just going to be super careful with you. This is, we're going to be okay. This will be, you'll be like the Vays in Risky Business. We'll be, we'll be carrying like this the entire season, not putting any, any miles on you at all, just trying to get you to April, May, and June. And even in the playoffs, you know, I remember Chris Ryan when they went to round 2 and Chris Ryan's like, I would bench Embiid tonight against the Knicks. I'd bench him for game 1, throw it away. And they ended up playing him and he's, he just broke down as it went along. They could be in situations where he just plays 5 of the 7 games and they look and they, hey LeBron and Jalen, you're carrying us tonight and do it that way.

It's possible. It's possible. I mean, we mentioned it earlier. It's, it's possible. The East is gonna be tough, but they at least have enough like superstar ball dominance cover or, or, or pseudo cover for him that it's, if you go up 2-0, maybe you can take that kind of, that kind of risk.

I'm stunned for the Cavs. And I just don't think they could figure out how to pull it off. I still feel like that's where this was going to end up. I'm always going to feel that way, but they couldn't trade the dudes. And it all goes back to that weird DeAndre Hunter contract that they did, that weird extension they did with him that they then had to turn into Schroeder. And that was the extra $14, $15 million on the Lakers side. Just quickly, um, if they had managed the LeBron piece of that a little better, And somehow been able to keep LeBron there with Luka Kessler and Reeves, plus patching together free agent stuff. I don't like that team as much as this Philly team.

The Lakers with LeBron.

Yeah. With everything else they get.

And Luka and Reeves. I'd have to think harder about it. It feels almost like a wash to me again, because I just can't, I can't factor in, I mean, I guess Kessler's as much an injury risk as Embiid, although it's been a recurring shoulder thing more than anything else. I, yeah, I'd have to think more about it.

All right. Those are all my preliminary thoughts. You're going to do a podcast on Sunday with some deeper dive thoughts, and I'll, I'll do something middle of the week next week. I want to, want to marinate on this and think about this, but I will tell you this, the NBA is more fun today. This was, this is an incredibly fun outcome. There's robberies galore. LeBron's back in the East. And we'll see. I would say, who would you say has, who would you say has the most at stake with this that's not LeBron? Would you say Embiid? Like, this is it. Has, will Embiid ever be on a better team than this?

We're focusing on Philly only, most at stake. Yeah, it's, it's, it's Embiid.

It's gotta be Embiid, right? Everybody else, Jalen's won a title. Maxie has his whole career ahead of him. So does Vijay. Nick Nurse has won a title. This is like, hey Embiid, this is on a platter now. You have somebody who was 6th MVP last year on your team. You have a franchise guy, you have LeBron, you hit the lottery with Vijay.

And, and let's be fair to Embiid when we bring up the health stuff. A lot of the playoff injuries have been really fluky injuries. Pascal Siakam, elbows in, in the orbital bone at the end of a game that's probably over. Bell's palsy strikes him and all this. But the knee stuff highlighted by when Kaminga fell on his knee two seasons ago, that's becoming the scary recurring thing that he just can't seem to shake. For any prolonged period of time. And he, and you can see when he comes back, he's like almost playing with a certain trepidation about it that he has to get past that every time he comes back. So that's just the fair dossier of like Joel Embiid. And barring some sort of transaction where they get a really another high-quality center, I think they're going to need him to, to get where they need to go. And so it's, it feels unfair to be like, the pressure's on Joel Embiid, your playoff legacy, when a lot of his playoff legacy is he just gets hurt and I don't know what there's, what, what that, what there's to be done about that.

I don't think either of us thought LeBron could win a title if he was one of the two best players on a team at this stage of his career. Right.

Yeah. I don't, I mean, he is too, it's, it's, he's 41 years old.

It's too much. He'd have to be the third best player. In this case, he's drifting between 3 and 4. Best possible situation. Biggest loser today, Daryl Morey. If he just held on for 2 more months, that's a tough one. He would've, he would've, he would've done the Jaylen Brown trade and then ended up with LeBron and been like, this was his dream of putting a whole bunch of stars in the same team. I, I, I got a big, and I would say Golden State too would be the other one. 'Cause they got outta that Draymond deal, they did nothing. They were just basically pause button the entire summer. And now I think they have 10 players in their roster, including Jimmy Butler, who can't run yet.

Yeah, I'm checking my phone here because I keep thinking we're going to get the flurry of like Harden resigns, Draymond resigns, all these other deals, but nothing has come out. I also just think like, not that he was ever going to go there or really even entertainment, entertain it, but, um, Jokic in Denver just sort of sitting there in stasis while all of this happens around them and maybe Peyton Watson comes back and that's their big sort of move so far, but that, you know, that it's, it feels like afterthought is too strong of a word, but they've got some catching up to do, um, to sell.

I missed the window.

Yeah.

Or the window may have closed. They got one title out of it. I don't, the Peyton Watson, any scenario where he's making more than $15 million a year does not really pass the sniff test for me. Well, just with the way the, these middle, the way the middle class numbers are, I just don't understand who's giving him 20.

So you're saying Peyton Watson deserves Gary Trent Jr. money is what you're saying.

We're gonna take a break. Zach's gonna do way more LeBron stuff on Sunday. We're gonna come back to a 2011 draft rewatchables. The 2011 redraftables. Ironically, um, 2011 was right after LeBron lost in the finals with Miami to Dirk. We had a lockout looming in July. We had no owner for the New Orleans Pelicans. We had the first month of Grantland, a great website that you eventually worked for. I did. And we had Cleveland with the first pick after mysteriously winning the lottery thanks to a Clippers Baron Davis dump trade, uh, a year after they lost LeBron to Miami. Conspiracy Bill has always been very focused on that lottery. Um, this turned out to be the Kawhi, Kyrie, Klay, Jimmy Butler draft. We did not know this at the time. What we did know, we had a first round that had two Lithuanian guys, a Turkish guy, a Congolese guy, a Serbian guy, a Czech guy, a Latvian guy, a Canadian guy, and a Croatian guy. We had five top 10 picks in a row named Enes, Tristan, Jonas, Jan, and Bismack. We had Charlotte with the 7th and 9th picks, and somehow they didn't end up with Klay Thompson or Kawhi Leonard.

We had a huge trade in the middle of the draft. Kawhi Leonard getting taken by Indiana and then traded for George Hill from San Antonio, which had dramatic effects on the '13 and '14 playoffs and led to one of your best Grantland pieces ever. And then I wrote my draft diary at the end, I have a feeling we'll remember the 2011 draft as the foreigner draft. That was the takeaway. Now looking back, this is a 10 out of 10 batshit crazy draft with where guys went.

It really is.

It's a 10. It's just a 10. With the 4 best guys in the draft went 1st, 11th, 15th, and 30th.

It's also a draft that's very close to my heart because as you said, it sort of dovetails with me transitioning into full-time NBA media. This would have been my 2nd year, I think, full-time. But it's like, these are guys where it's like, I've written about a lot of them over the years. I feel like I've, I've like, they're like my, my cohort almost. So I've, I have a soft spot for a lot of these guys.

All right, I'll give you the first pick. Go.

This was easier than I thought. I'm going to take Kawhi Leonard and I'm not really going to think about it too hard despite the injuries, the drama, the Aspiration scandal, all of it. And the thing about, you know, you mentioned the top 4 guys and you nailed them. They're going to go top 4 in some order. They've all had enough health issues that, you know, they've all scored. Kawhi has the fewest career points at 16,500, but Kyrie, who's number 1, is 18,000. 400. So there's not that much of a difference in terms of just sort of the raw scoring. And Kawhi's got 7 All-NBA appearances, is the only one of this 4 that has any first-team All-NBA appearances, 2 championships, 2 Finals MVPs, the best two-way player by a decent margin.

And was the best player alive at the end of 2019.

Yeah, I think, I think it's a pretty easy choice that I'll take Kawhi.

I had him number 1 as well. Also Defensive Player of the Year twice. Runner-up MVP in 2016, 3-year peak of 26-7-4, 4-year playoff peak of 29-9-5 over 60 games. Best player on the 2019 Champs Finals. MVP in 2014. What's interesting about this draft, if we had done this even after 2000, maybe '15, we would've said Kyrie would, that was, was the number one pick, right?

I think, I think so. Yeah. I don't, I don't even know who else it would be.

I wrote this big pi— I wrote this huge piece for Grantland in 2014 about what a crapshoot the draft was.

I reread it in preparation for this.

Yeah, I did. I did 20 years of drafts about, and I redrafted basically all of this and, and I did the 2011 draft. So I did it 3 years later and I had Kawhi first, which I was surprised by. I had Kyrie Irving second, I had Klay third, and I had Chandler Parsons fourth and Kenneth Faried fifth. Jimmy Butler was 11th on this list. So that goes to show you how much all this stuff can change. We should have mentioned before you made the first pick, what the— we should at least do the lottery for this draft, right? Because we had, just so people remember it if they don't remember it when it happened, Kyrie went first. Minnesota took Derrick Williams second. Can't wait to talk about him later. Enes Kanter went third to Utah, now Enes Freedom. Thompson to Cleveland at 4. Valanciunas to Toronto at 5. Jan Vesely at 6, who won the draft because he had the hottest looking girlfriend probably in the history of the draft. It was a big, big part of my draft diary. Bismack Biyombo 7th, ends up in Charlotte. Brandon Knight 8th to Detroit. Kemba Walker 9th in Charlotte.

Jimmer Fredette. Did you ever buy Jimmer Fredette stock? Did you ever call your broker on him or no?

Okay. No, had no stock.

He went 10th, ended up in Sacramento, who is not, did not have Vivek yet. That was still the Maloofs.

You're telling me Sacramento messed up the draft?

Yeah, I'm telling you that.

That's a draft day trade, by the way, and an extremely depressing one.

Really one of the most depressing 3-team draft day trades we've ever had. It was Sacramento, Milwaukee, and I think Charlotte. Sure. Uh, Klay Thompson 11th, Golden State. Burks 12th to Utah. We had the Morris twins go back to back. Marquise to Phoenix, Marcus to, uh, Houston. And then Indiana takes Kawhi Leonard 15th. And in my draft diary, which I had some, some huge wins and some huge misses, after Burks went 12th, I wrote, how has Kawhi Leonard not been taken yet? What am I missing? The Morris twins went 13 and 14. I wrote, San Diego's Kawhi Leonard is officially our how the hell did he slide to the middle of the draft guy, which doesn't happen every year, but when it happens, and I put in parentheses Granger, Lawson, Herbert, you know, as it's happening, he should have been a lottery pick. He's a natural small forward. So I had that right. I did not have the first pick of the draft right, which I will go second here and I'm going to take Kyrie Irving. I was a big, this is one of my biggest draft misses. Of the last 20+ years. I was in the, let's take Derrick Williams here camp for, for Cleveland.

Derrick Williams had come off a really good Arizona season and just seemed like a natural stretch 4. He shot 59% from 3 in college his sophomore year.

That's a real stat. 59%.

59%. He made 1.1 and, and took 1.9 overall, made 1.1 and just seemed like, and was really good in Arizona. And Kyrie, I think, had played 10 Duke games and gotten hurt. But Cleveland took Kyrie, and I said, I see him settling somewhere between an extremely poor man's Chris Paul and a rich man's Mike Conley. Will he ever make an All-Star team? It's possible. Maybe one or two. Big miss. Tough one.

But I think Kyrie— I was interested. I had a feeling you were going to give me the number one pick, and I knew who I was going to take without doing much research about it. By the way, there's that Kawhi trade. It's an all-time fun trade. I went back and I read that piece that I wrote when I did a sort of TikTok of it. There's so many things that were going on that I had forgotten about. Like Woj had reported that the Spurs were actually sort of exploring trading Tony Parker to move up higher in the draft for someone.

That was the Tony Parker getting shopped summer. Yeah.

Then, then like the, the GMs are on the record in the piece being like, well, you know, we got, we got to go time. And the Spurs decided they didn't just need the Kawhi pick, they wanted Davis Bertans, or they wanted the 42nd pick in that draft that became Davis Bertans and an international prospect named Erezem Lorbek. And they might not do the trade unless they get both of them. Wow. And Indiana was like, both of them? That seems like a lot. I guess we'll do it. Like all these things, all these, like all these things can fall apart like so easily in the moment that it's kind of amazing that a deal like this gets done. But yeah, Kyrie, I was interested to see who you'd take second if you would flirt with Jimmy Butler. Kyrie, I think, is the clear second guy. I mean, I don't, I feel like we just, we have had very limited glimpses of him given his stature of like him being the guy in a, in an NBA offense, like undisputed the guy. And I just wonder how we'd think of him if we, if, if like that was mostly Cleveland pre-LeBron coming back when they were just a bad team.

Yeah. I think he's just an absolutely sensational offensive player. That in his prime, if he ever got handed the keys to an offense, we might think of him a little differently.

I think he felt that way too, which is why he wanted to leave. Second best guy on a championship team. Uh, 3 Finals teams, 1 second team All-NBA, 2/3 playoffs career, 23 a game, 39% from 3, 14 seasons, only 779 games. But a big one-of-one factor with him. I think he's one of those guys. He's, he's way better than a Kyrie Irving was a problem social media video guy. But he will be a guy that I think as the years pass will be even better. As some of the— how just his ability to go left hand, right hand in traffic, double clutch, triple clutch. Um, and he made one of the biggest shots of the century, right? That's it.

We were both there. They—

which one? No, I wasn't there for that one.

You were there for that one.

Yeah. But one, you know, won a title. I thought he was the clear second choice. And, and I'll take the L on that one. You have the third pick. Who do you have? This is a good one.

Without hesitation, I will take Jimmy Butler. It's, it's him or Klay. And obviously both have had some injury issues. Klay is more severe and traumatic than Jimmy Butler's. Jimmy's had some conflagrations in some of his stops, in all of his stops almost. And Klay is a 4-time champion. Jimmy Butler is not a champion yet. I just think head-to-head, the defense, the size, just the all-around scoring ability. I would put him, I would take him over Klay in a vacuum with apologies to one of the greatest shooters of all time and Game 6 Klay and clutch performances. It's a debate because of what Klay has done on the biggest stage so many times. But you know, part of the reason he got to do that was that he was surrounded by one of the 12 greatest players of all time and, and, and just the perfect nucleus for him. So I'll take, I'll take Jimmy Butler. I have a feeling you would've gone Klay here, but I'm going Jimmy Butler.

It was 3A, 3B to me. I think if you're going Jimmy, he was the best player on 2 Finals teams that didn't win the Finals. But, but he carried 2 teams to the Finals, which I don't know if Klay could've done as a number 1 guy.. And I think that's the difference. Jimmy had 1 top 10, 1 second team All-NBA, 3 top 15s. 2020 playoffs, 22-7-6. 2-year playoff peak, 27-7-5, 39 games. Career playoffs, 21-6-5, 130 games. The chemistry stuff with him is really dicey, and I think has to be— that was one of the things There are two things that almost swung it to me for Klay. One is Klay is one of the great shooters of all time. I think Klay gets unfairly dinged because that 5-year Warriors one was so grueling. The entire team literally broke down at the end, and Klay broke down once and for all at the tail end of it after 5 years when they're playing. I mean, what did they play? Over 500 games in 5 years.

Lots of games.

It's one of the most grueling, awful stretches any team's had, and it's a reason why we don't see We'll never see a Bill Russell Celtics again because no team can do that for more than 4 to 5 years. His 5-year peak, 22-4-3, 42% from 3. You mentioned the Klay Thompson game in OKC that saved them in 2016. Second best player on the '15 champs, third best on the '17 and '18 champs. Basically the second best or third best guy on a team that went 207-39 over 3 years. And won 25 games in a row and had a 73-win record at one point. Couple shooting things with him really quick. So there's only 4 guys ever who have made 2,000 threes and shot 40% from 3. He's one of the 4. Curry, Ray Allen, Klay Thompson, weirdly Kyle Korver. He's also the only guy ever to have at least 400 threes and shoot 40% in the playoffs. His 501 threes in the playoffs. Even if you're going 175 threes or more, that's only him, Steve Nash, Ray Allen, and Duncan Robinson are the only 4 guys who did that. So I actually think he's a greater shooter than maybe people realize.

And he was also an awesome defensive player and was never the same after those 2 injuries, which happened. He blew out his knee and then he blew out the Achilles within what, 8 months of each other? And was just never the same guy after that. I, I think this could have been like a Ray Allen 15-year career of just him being awesome. Awesome.

Without a doubt. Ray Allen is the right name because we never got to see the Klay Thompson version of Seattle Ray Allen, who is the number one option and actually kind of fared better than maybe people thought he would as someone who was pigeonholed as a shooter more than a scorer and a distributor. And I think Klay Thompson could have approximated that if he ever, I don't know if the team would have won quite as much as the Warriors won. But when he was in his prime, his shot was so lethal that it made every other part of his game better because you had to press him so high on the floor. You had to overreact to him every time he touched the ball that he could have just like, you, he didn't need to be the most explosive driver to beat people off the dribble because they were already basically beaten by the time they were guarding him. And he was an okay passer. But to your point, just an absolute killer. As a shooter, a beloved teammate, a grinder, turned himself into a very good defensive player. He has an All-Defensive Team appearance, I believe, on his resume.

Never heard any arena I've ever been in, maybe with the exception of MSG after the Anunoby tip, than Oracle was when he came out to shoot those free throws in the Finals in Game 6, when he was on one of the great heaters of his career and then got fouled and injured. Yeah. Ended up tearing his ACL. And he was a guy, like, one of the things I'll never, a story I'll never get tired of telling that I unearthed in writing about Klay. He was a guy that the Spurs in this draft brought in for a second secret workout right before the draft because they were so curious about him. And obviously he gets picked, I think, 4 spots above Kawhi. And Chip England, who was the Spurs assistant coach then, shooting specialist, was at these workouts. He told people on the Spurs, something about this guy's internal drive reminds me of Manu Ginobili. And they all, their hair stood up on end because they all revered Ginobili as a competitor, as a fighter. And not a lot of people saw that in Klay. He's kind of like SoCal laid back, whatever. But the fire really burns in him and it really endeared him to everybody he was ever around.

He hated losing. He took it personally. Like he took this whole draft personally. He and others with the Warriors told me about that. Like he never forgave the Kings for taking Jimmer Fredette over him. He would go around saying the Cavs took the wrong Thompson. Yeah. They took Tristan Thompson. Like he, he was, he is, doesn't look it, but he is a fiery, fiery dude. I, I, regardless of the fact that I didn't take him with my first or third pick in this draft, he's just one of my all-time favorite basketball players and always will be.

Yeah. There's a stretch there from Biambo at 7, Knight at 8, Kemba at 9 and Jimmer at 10, that I'm sure Klay was probably like, what the fuck is happening?

I think the Jimmer one really stuck in his craw. It's like, really? You're taking another shooter over me? All right.

So listen, I think you made the right pick at 3 with Jimmy, but if we could go back in a time machine and have this draft, and I know what I'm getting with each guy, and And the Klay injuries, you know, that you can't factor that in because I think that was a wear and tear from the 5 years. I just think I would rather have Klay Thompson on my team for the 15 years than Jimmy Butler because I get an awesome teammate. I get no drama at all. I get the gravity of Klay.

Well, you're not going to have Jimmy for 15 years. That's, that's, I guess I have to bake that into my decision.

But that's that, that Jimmy brings this extra drama, but the higher upside, it's a really interesting debate. I guarantee if we ask Steve Kerr, yo, just curious, who would you rather have had since 2011 on? He wasn't there until 2014, but would you rather have Jimmy or Klay? Would've been no contest. So it's a good argument.

But the thing about Jimmy is the thing that's interesting about how every situation with him seems to end badly is, which is true, the Jimmy stuff is always really good until it's not. Like Chicago. Oh, he changed our culture. He's a locker room. What a bulldog. What a story. Jives with Tibs. And then he hates Hoiberg and it goes the other way. Minnesota, like Tibbs again, like, oh, he's elevating the culture. And then he decides he doesn't think KAT and Wiggins are winners and it goes the other way. Miami, all tailor-made. This is a Heat culture guy, like central casting. Maybe he's a problem somewhere else, but he's made for us. And then it goes badly there. So it is this weird up and down where he's like a— he plays in a way that you want your other players to play, a toughness defense and all that stuff. He's a good chemistry guy. And then it goes, it goes the other way. It's not like a universally bad, like, you know, from day one, this guy is gonna bring some issues to our team. It's not, it doesn't start that way with Jimmy.

So we went Kawhi, Kyrie, Butler, Klay. You have the 5th pick and it drops off here to a pretty interesting next 3.

I mean, I, I'm excited to pick 1, 3, 5 in this draft because I can build my team around the trio of Kawhi and Jimmy Butler on the wing and Kemba Walker as a spot-up shooting point guard.

Wow.

Who re— I just think he reached his highs were higher than anyone else on the list. His two best seasons in Charlotte were better than anything that I can get from anybody else in this draft. He fits with my, he fits with my two wings that I've already taken. We can protect him on defense. And I just thought he, he hit some pretty spectacular highs, both as an off-the-dribble artist and it just is a number one scorer on a decent team that frankly, I, people didn't expect from him earlier in his career when his jumper was shaky and all that stuff. And another just all-time beloved culture guy. So I'm, I'm taking him.

I wrote in the draft diary, he's a leader and a winner. Could absolutely be the second or third guard on a contender someday, which he ended up being in 2020 on the Celtics in the bubble where he did not, they went to the conference finals. He did not have a great last series there. You mentioned his peak in Charlotte, 24, 6 assists, 38% from 3. He was basically discount Dame Lillard, right? It's like a slightly poor man's Dame. 4 All-Star teams, 1 3rd Team All-NBA. And sadly his knees just didn't hold up. I mean, they went pretty fast. Boston stiffed it out, they traded him. He ended up getting them Al Horford. They had to attach a pick to it. And then there's a weird thing where the Knicks thought he had a little bit left in him and he just didn't.

And he had one all-time great game with the Knicks when his mom was in the stands. And yeah, I think he might've put up a 50 ball if I'm, I may be making that up, but it was like a crazy high-scoring game.

But I think that led to them having to trade what ended up being the Jalen Durant pick. 'Cause they had to attach the pick to get rid of Kemba on Detroit. And that ended up, so they didn't get him, but they ended up with some free agent stuff anyway. I think that's fair. I had, I'm gonna take Vucevic 6th and I had him in the 5 spot. So over 1,000 games, 32K minutes, which is second most in this draft, 17-10 career, 50% shooting. Never won a playoff series in his entire career. 2 All-Star Games, and his big legacy ended up being that bizarre Chicago trade, which ended up being Wendell Carter, Wagner, and I think Anthony Black, they got for Vooch.

No, it's Jed— it was Jed Howard.

Oh, it was Jed Howard?

Okay. Yeah.

Well, they end up getting Carter and Wagner for Vooch, basically, which you're doing 100 times out of 100. But I like the durability with him. I think he fits in with my team. But I also think he should be either the 5th or 6th guy from this draft.

I can't believe you, I can't believe you would even entertain taking him over Kemba Walker. I guess I don't know what we're aiming for.

I'm like, I, I just, I'm aiming for, for, I'm going heights more than I guess the Kemba question to me is, was it a good stats, bad team situation with him? Because it's not like those Charlotte teams were winning, right? When he was putting up those stats. And the only time we ever saw him on a good team with a chance to really do well was that Boston team. That he just didn't have a good playoff series for them, or yeah, good playoff run for him, but it might've been at a different point of him physically.

That's bubble and physically wearing down. And it's not as if that Charlotte team was making great decisions about its franchise surrounding, as evidenced by the rest of this draft and the fact that we will not say Bismack Biyombo's name for quite a long time.

He was a defensive liability even when he was 100% healthy. And in the 2020 playoffs, playoffs, teams just as, but Miami especially, it was just like he had, they just put a, they covered him in steak sauce and just tried to grill him for like 2 weeks.

What do you think is gonna happen with, what do you think's gonna happen with Vooch on your team?

Well, that's the irony of this is Kemba versus Vooch, 2 all-time guys who get hunted and were big reasons why they never had more playoff success. So I thought, I just thought Vooch's career was a little longer, but I, I thought that was a 5A, 5B situation. I know who you're gonna take 7th, so go ahead.

Yeah, I think, I think really you surrendered this draft by letting me have the first pick. I think this is a clear 1-3-5-7. I win the draft over you. Um, I will take— let me just check the second round to make sure.

Now you, you know who you're gonna take.

I gotta bring them in. I gotta bring Tobias Harris to my team. Tobias Harris at 7, and, uh, I I, you know, he's a power— my team is trending power forwardy, but that, that's okay. He's longevity, production, a little late career revival with the Pistons. I think he'll help the Spurs. You know, left the Philadelphia sour experience behind and rebounded. And I just like, he's done more than the Morris twins. He's done more than Alec Burks. He's done more than Brandon Knight. He's done more than Chandler Parsons and Bojan Bogdanović, who are good second round picks here. I just don't think there's really anyone else who, who sways me here. I mean, is there another candidate? Markieff Morris at his best was pretty good. Tristan Thompson, I think, is underrated.

You're spoiling the draft for the listeners.

All right. All right. Well, okay. All right.

Well, then I did—

give me Tobias Harris and we'll sign Bulban Marjanovic as an undrafted free agent and reunite them.

Over 1,000 games for him. Most minutes of anyone from this draft, 32,474. 16-6 for his career, 17-8 in the playoffs. Never made a conference finals. In the running for best zero All-Star guy from this century.

Ooh, ooh, I like that.

Just from this century. Never made an All-Star game, but I think the career is pretty solid. He's gonna end up, you know, now he's going to San Antonio, might have a chance to actually make conference finals or finals. I would say he has a good chance. He's also been in 5 trades where the team that traded him lost the trade each time. Uh, Charlotte traded up and Milwaukee traded back, and it ended up being a mess, but, um, Milwaukee ended up getting Harris and ended up winning the trade. He got traded in 2013 with Daron Lamb. Do you have Daron Lamb stock? I did not. Beno Udrey and Cash for, uh, so that, that Orlando got Tobias with those other two guys and Milwaukee got Gustavo Ayón, JJ Redick, and Ish Smith, a famously unhappy JJ Redick.

Milwaukee, I was gonna say, let me, let me give you some personal advice. If you run into JJ, do not ask him questions about his tenure with the Milwaukee Bucks. It's not funny. He's not gonna laugh at it. He's not gonna take the joke well.

Even went better than his New Orleans Pelicans, uh, tenure. 2016, traded to Detroit from Orlando for Irsan Ilisova and Brandon Jennings.

Wildly irresponsible trade. Really horrible for the Magic. That was a Scott Skiles has the wheel and is driving the car into the Grand Canyon trade.

By the way, I see genuine joy as I list these terrible trades from the 2010s in your face right now. 2018, traded traded with Avery Bradley, Boban, and a 2018 first-round pick that ended up being Miles Bridges. But then they traded back with Miles Bridges' spot to take SGA, who became a, a two-time MVP, um, to the Clippers for Blake Griffin and two other guys. And Detroit got a year and a half out of Blake Griffin and he broke down. And then last but not least, traded by the Clippers with Boban and Mike Scott for Wilson Chandler, Mike Muscala, Landry Shamet, and two firsts. That were not big firsts. That's the only one where the other team might have won the trade, because I think the Clippers were excited to turn Tobias into two firsts. Anyway, quite a career, still going. We're gonna see him in the— we're gonna see him in some real playoff situations on a good team. Uh, we should mention another beloved teammate. Uh, everybody likes him, so there you go. Okay, good luck. Eighth pick for me. I'm just taking upside. With Isaiah Thomas, who was the 60th pick of this draft.

Oh, I— that's a good one.

By the way, I should have mentioned Vucevic was 16th and Tobias was 19th in this draft. Isaiah Thomas was 60th, went to Sacramento, somehow ended up having a better career than Jimmer Fredette, who they took 10th, ended up in Phoenix. Danny Ainge steals him and has this incredible 2-year run with the Celtics where he averages 26 a game for 2 years. 7.6 free throw attempts, 2 All-Star teams, and in 2017, second team All-NBA, fifth MVP, and they make the conference finals. Really nice run. And then got hurt and they traded him and probably still paying karma points for trading a guy who really went all out for them in the playoffs and was never really the same again after that when it was arguable he should have kept playing. But his highs were high. I would say it's a good pick. I would say similar, although the other person had way more success, but his effect on those Celtics teams those first 2 years, or those, those big 2 years, in the vicinity of what Brunson has done for the Knicks for the last 4, from a statistic slash, oh my God, I can't believe he's getting to the rim like this.

And there is, there was some similarities. Brunson's better player, obviously.

Well, he's, he, he also arrives in Boston as part of this spasm of Phoenix point guard trades where they traded him to Boston for a first round pick. They traded Dragic to the Heat for 2 picks. They, and then they trade one of the Lakers picks that they had, one of the golden chips in the league for another guy in this draft, Brandon Knight, who neither of us have taken yet.

So to recap, we have Kawhi at 15. This, these are the top 8 picks we took. Kawhi, Kawhi who went 15th, Kyrie first, Butler 30, Clay 11, Kemba 9, Vucevic 16, Harris 19, and Thomas 60. This draft was fucking not only drunk, but like throwing up and having its hair held back as it puked again.

Well, I'm gonna restore some order with the 9th pick and pick Tristan Thompson, who was the 4th pick in the draft, because I know here are some things I'm gonna get from prime Tristan Thompson. I'm gonna get some really I'm gonna get a lot of press for his romantic endeavors, which is gonna help my team's publicity go up. I'm gonna get elite defense, switchability, versatility. Yeah. And I'm gonna have the most annoying offensive rebounder in the entire league who's gonna do all the dirty work for my team, never complain about his touches, and just be effective at what he does. And at this stage of the draft, I'm very happy to just get that.

He turned into an awesome role player. 4 Finals teams, 2016 champs. 3 playoffs from '15 to '17 where he averaged 9.4 rebounds a game and did all the switching stuff you mentioned. Billis said during the draft he just needs to learn how to play and how to score. And then I wrote, I think I need more from my 4th pick than that. Well, he turned into a decent guy. I think that was—

turns out he's a great 9th pick in this draft. Yeah.

I, I'm gonna take, A guy who's played 1,000 games, who career is 13-9, 56% shooting, and who is an interesting what-if for the 2016 playoffs. Jonas Valanciunas. Good pick. So came back, get 2016 playoffs is his peak. He's averaging a 15 and 12. In the 2016 playoffs for a really good Toronto team and gets hurt midway through the second round and comes back for the last couple Cleveland games in round 3. Toronto loses to Cleveland in 6. Did you ever feel like that was like maybe not a Hall of Fame what-if, but maybe like a little stealth on the Sunday buffet next to the scrambled eggs and bacon as a what-if for you? Like, what if Jonas doesn't get hurt? Does anything change in 2016?

Hello? No, no, no. We're going with no, Alex. No.

Okay. He does give up Toronto. He does end up getting Toronto a title, though, because what happens?

Well, they trade him for Marc Gasol, one of my favorite all-time players. I love Jonas. I think he's actually a great success story of someone who found his place in the NBA by just doubling down by everything he was good at. He's a big man who they know, they flirted with him. Is he going to be, can we make him a 3-point shooter? Can we do this? And he is like, you know what? I'll just beat the shit out of everybody all the time. And that's going to be what I do. And he was very effective at it.

He was a top 5 or 6, don't fuck with him guy for at least 12 years. I never, other than Toronto, I never felt like he found the right teams. I always felt like like, it was always a mismatch with teams that he was on. I did—

neither did he. That's why he's in Europe now.

Right.

He went from the— he went for— he went through some of the real dregs of the last 5 years in the NBA, just sort of like cycling through.

He ended up in New Orleans and Sacramento, the 2 worst-run teams in the league at one point. And by the time he gets to Denver, he's, he's pretty much washed. I did the draft hour in 2011. I had Kevin Wilds and Dave Jacoby with me as peanut gallery guys. When Valanciunas got interviewed for this draft after he got picked, Wilds thought Valanciunas was right on the interpreter cusp where he knew just enough English that he didn't need one, but probably should have gotten one anyway. And Wilds said, the interpreter never hurts. You're always going to sound smart talking in your own language. And then I wrote, unless you're Brett Favre.

What a, what a, what a night.

I think that's a great point by Wilds though. The interpreter always makes you sound better. The interpreter is always a win. Like, unless you're like Wembenyama level English, I'm using the interpreter until it's just obvious I don't need one anymore. I'm just like, fuck it.

Wow. Yeah. All right. Just, I just, look, I mean, it depends what fran— I mean, like, can you imagine they asking Tom Dundon to pay for some extra interpreters for Hudson Young?

It would only be one. It would only be one that, uh, one.

They need one guy who speaks 12 different languages just in case we sign anyone from this, from what, any part of the world.

Which things of the Tom Dundon belt tightening things have you actually agreed with or kind of see his point? 'Cause my only one is why do we have 12 assistant coaches at every game and on the bench and at Summer League? I would just never have more than 4.

I, I do think there is a, a certain amount of fake hustle in, in all of sports that he's trying to police a little bit. Like, do we really need like 17 people to scout this opponent? But most of it is just like, He's just obviously trying to squeeze every penny he can out of the team. Like, are they even going to have a broadcast team next year?

I know you talked about this already, but what do you think his endgame is?

I am not as plugged in as I need to be on it. I would assume his endgame is get the city to pay for a really nice arena or a really nice upgrade to the current arena and not have to foot too much of the bill himself.

I don't think that's going to happen.

You think they're going to move the team?

I don't, I just don't think, I don't think the city's gonna be chipping in to help this rich guy have a better arena.

Good. They shouldn't. I mean, it's been 15 years since I've read Field of Schemes on a summer vacation, which is all about this. And the schemes are still scheming.

I remember when I did my HBO show, this was a big part of the ad campaign, how billionaires should pay for their own stadiums.

What a concept. Yeah. You have the most money. Maybe you should use the money.

Why are you asking the city to do it or just keep the arena you have? All right. You have the 11th pick. Who do you have?

Boy. Okay, now we've reached a point where—

No, I like two guys.

So look, I'm debating between two guys. I wonder if they're the same two guys. But you know where I have a connection in the world. And so I will take Bojan Bogdanovic to round out my team. Had him shooting. I had him 10 years in the league, 20,000 minutes, 11,000 points. Knockdown shooter could do a little ball, 39% threes for his career, could handle the ball and post up in a pinch if I need him. I'm not going to need him to do it on my team, but I feel like he's the best option. There are some good, depending on how much you weigh longevity here, there are some interesting players in this spot, but I'll go, I'll go Boyan.

He had a couple cup of coffees, cups of coffee. Cup of coffees. He had a couple cups of coffee as this guy's a missing piece for us. And the only time it really worked was in Utah. I looked at his stats for '21 and they lose to the Clippers after Kawhi gets hurt, which was just an indefensible loss. But he was 18.5 points a game and in like 13 playoff games, 46% from 3 and was an absolute bitch in that entire playoffs to guard. And really felt like, oh, you know, but that was really the only time we saw it unleashed. But I always liked his game. I always thought, I remember when he was on the Wizards in 2017 when the Celtics played them, I always felt like they didn't get him the ball enough and figure out how to unleash him. 'Cause I thought the Celtics had trouble guarding him.

There was a Pacers-Cavs series when he was on the Pacers and everyone was like, is he the LeBron stopper?

I forgot about that. Yeah, I do feel like he's a legitimate playoff guy. He went 31st in this draft. Which ties into my pick at number 12. I'm taking Marcus Morris. Oh, who's 14th, who played 41 more games than his brother. So the, what swung it for me is he was a real rotation guy for two conference finals teams in 2018 with the Celtics and 2021 with the Clippers, where he was, he played 30 minutes a game for the Celts and 31 for the Clippers. He's like a 12-5, almost 40% from 3 both times. And I just think if he, if he could have been this one of the top 5 to 7 guys on a conference finalist, that's better than anyone else I'm getting in this. And I thought he was a little better than his brother.

Okay.

So you are now, we only have a couple picks left. You're, there's a couple fun ones left so we can go quick. Who do you have?

I'm going to have some fun. I'm going to have some fun right now. I want all-around skill. I'm going ceiling, I'm drafting ceiling, all-around skill, max player back in his day, a little entertainment value off the court. We're bringing Chandler Parsons onto the squad. Oh wow. Who was the 38th pick in this draft? Yeah, injuries ruined his career, knee stuff, all that stuff. Some late nights with Mark Cuban that were well publicized. We may have to, you know, just get, get the off-court stuff a little under control, but we're taking Chandler Parsons and he's a great he's gonna help recruit free agents to my team. He was always at the forefront of that. His emoji use was first rate during the DeAndre Jordan situation. Yeah, I'm taking him.

So I had him higher on my initial list and I did the deep dive on the career and he only played 440 games. I'm in 9 years. He played 13 playoff games, 0 round 2 playoff games. His 4-year peak was 15-5, 39% from 3. I had him down, but not— I had this guy ahead of him. Ennis Kanter was the 3rd pick of the draft, 11-8 for his career. Really one of the better per-36 guys we've ever had. I think Boban's obviously the LeBron of per-36, but, but Kanter was 22-12 as a per-36 guy for his his prime, and also helped the Knicks win the title. You know how?

Who do they get in that? He's involved in a whole— an Oklahoma City-New York trade.

OKC trades for Carmelo for some reason in 2018. They give up McDermott, Kanter, McDermott, and a second round pick in 2018, which becomes Mitchell Robinson. Wow. Yeah. I always liked Kanter's game. He, it went fast when he was on the Celtics. He was just, he just was washed. He was too slow. But I always thought he was kind of a bitch on the low post. Like he could really like torture teams and he was a good change of pace coming off the bench, physical guy. And I feel like where the league is now, he kind of missed, he was between these two eras that he would've been good in. He was in the worst possible era for what he was good at. I think he would've been better now.

It's a good pick. And as you said, when I took Chandler Parsons, there's a bunch of guys in this draft that played significantly more games than him and were fairly productive. And Enes Kanter and his freedom is one of them. I also will always admire 2019 playoffs with the Blazers. Nurkic got hurt. He's shoved into the starting five. He was dealing with some kind of elbow or arm injury and just unrelenting, you know, his skill level was, you know, he was an around-the-rim guy offensively. He was a liability defensively. There's the famous Billy Donovan can't play Kanter lip reading thing that happened with Oklahoma City. But he gave everything he had to that Portland team and did what he did well. And so it's a, it's a, it's a good pick.

The one piece with him, he was, he went, ended up in Utah 'cause they traded D Will to the Nets. And they end up getting the 3rd pick in the draft. Would they get Derek Favors and Kanter out of it?

Basically, Devin Harris is in that trade too.

But the Kanter pick really felt like, holy shit, they're getting the 3rd pick of the draft out of this. And it was just the wrong draft. It wasn't like if, like, if that happened in 2024, it's like, oh cool, we have Jabari Smith. That didn't go. All right, let's go quick. Who do you have next?

Okay.

Quick, quick.

Who do I have next? This is now we're getting into dicey, not dicey, but you know, I'll take, you're going to take who I would have taken. There's someone I really want to take, but it's too early for him. I'll take Markeith Morris to make sure the twins are not on the same team.

Wow. Markeith Morris.

I really thought. I really thought Marquise Morris was gonna be better than he ended up being in the NBA. I think he had real all-around skill and feel that just somehow never all clicked together at the same time. Yeah. The shooting never clicked, and maybe that's the, the sort of all-encompassing explainer. But at this spot in the draft, I feel pretty good about taking him over a few other guys.

I agree with you. When I did my, the 2014 rankings, I had him 10th and I had him ahead of his brother. He, we should mention, was a role player on the 2020 Lakers, won the title, 18 minutes a game, played for 8 teams. So he could be, I think at his peak, maybe the 9th or 10th man on a really good team, which was—

at his peak, I think he was better than that. But yeah, I mean, he never became— there was a vision of him where he was a starting power forward on a good team because he could do just about, just enough of everything to be like a jack of all trades. And that never really—

the irony of the Morris twins, of both of them were about an inch and a half too short, right? They were in that weird tweener zone. I'm taking Reggie Jackson.

He was in— yeah, that's a good pick.

Two conference finals, 2014 playoffs for OKC. Sixth man was pretty good as a bench guy that year, 11 a game. And then famously Had an oversized ego and I don't think it played well in that team. Ended up going to Detroit. Stan Van Gundy overpaid for him. Your guy. And then 2021 playoffs, Clippers make the conference finals. He's 18 a game in the playoffs, 41% from 3, and was like a revelation for them. So he did it in a big spot. He was the 24th pick in this draft and You know, worst case scenario that I think the thing that dinks him was he went to Denver in '23 and we thought that was gonna be an impactful move for them heading in and they won the title anyway, but he just really wasn't involved and, and never really meshed with Joker, which seemed to be a recurring theme for him. So taking him there. Who do you got? I have 4 draftable guys left.

That's it? Yeah. I got more than that. I am going to go off the board a little bit here and I'm going to go all the way down to number 42 and I'm going to take Davis Bertans. Just, you know what, let it fly. Like almost no one, almost no non-star player has been so like guiltless without conscience, without thinking about letting it fly from 3. And he should. That's what he was in the NBA to do. He would let fly from all angles, all distances against tight closeouts. And he's an all-time very, he's like a very, very good elite 3-point shooter. And let's have some fun on my team. He'll create some chemistry problems by taking too many shots. So our coaches will have to do some work with that. But you know, it's him or a couple other guys that you're going to mention and I don't feel strongly enough about any of them that I'll take the guy that I know has won A-plus skill and some other liabilities, but one A+ skill. I'll take Davis Bertans.

What was— didn't he get a goofy contract at some point from somebody? Because I remember writing Davis Bertans' contract for 2 years.

I believe it was the Washington Wizards of Joe House.

Yeah, that's who it was. I just remember him being in every trade rumor for 2 years as some sort of third contract, whatever.

Okay, resigned, re-signed, unrestricted free agent. Sit down for a minute.

Yeah.

5 years, $80 million in 2020. Uh, Washington Wizards.

What year was that?

The year of our basketball gods, 2020.

Oh, that was like a— oh my, why would they do that? That's insane. Even for the Wizards, that's insane. 5 years, $80 million. Jesus. Fucking Wizards. I'm taking Alec Burks, 12th pick in this draft. Good pick. Basically 11 points a game, 38% from 3 for his career, and he's played 791 games. Always like in the 8th, 9th, 10th range. Some playoff contenders have kicked the tires on him to mixed success. Probably did the best on what, Detroit, I would say, but had a long time in Utah.

He had a late career revival with the Knicks. Tibbs loved him.

Yeah, I was kind of enjoying him. Kooky shot, one of the weird kooky shots of in an era where a lot of people have the assembly line shots, but his shot was a little, a little goofy, which I liked. So that's my one. All right, who do you got?

You know, I don't got— isn't this the draft where the Timberwolves take through a trade select Tanguy N'Gombo, who turned out to be too old to be draft eligible? I think that happened in this draft.

That was David, one of David Kahn's last moves.

I think that's, I think that's the right guy.

A tail end for the David Kahn era.

Yeah. If, if, apologize if it's not, but he is one of the players taken in the second round who has no stats in the NBA and thus never played. So I will not be taking him. An all-timer, like drafting a guy who's undraftable. I mean, that's like, you might as well draft a football player just, just for fun. Like teams used to do. I'll have some fun. I'll take Kenneth Farid. I really liked watching Kenneth Farid.

I'm at the disappointed Kenneth Farid but got taken part of this draft. Yeah, he's my next pick.

Just, you know, voracious rebounder, rim runner, super angry dunker. Never really advanced any other part of his game unfortunately. Had a little useful jump hook he could bust out now and then. I just feel like he'll come in and make hustle plays for me.

I was a huge fan. First 6 years, 12-9 in 26 games. 6 minutes a game, probably peaked on that weird Denver playoff hodgepodge team.

Mm-hmm.

I loved him in the draft. I wrote in the draft diary, if Fareed doesn't end up having a meaningful moment for a contender at some point over the next 8 years, I'm giving you a full refund for this column. I think he win—

I think he had a meaningful moment for kind of a, the George Karl team where Gallinari got hurt right before the playoffs. That counted as a, they lose to the Warriors as sort of the Warriors announcing to the world, we are here, we're forced to be reckoned with. With. But yeah, I think you, I think you don't owe anybody.

I'm gonna take Nikola Mirotić with— we could make this the last pick or go one more round. Um, 23rd in this draft, couldn't come over for a few years, was dangled as this— very few times this has happened over the years. The guy who's overseas who's always being Sergio Llull, it's the Sergio Llull All-Stars, these guys that are overseas that are lingering as these massive assets, but they really weren't. But we always heard about them over and over again. He finally came over. He played second round in the rotation for the Bulls, Pelicans, and Bucks, and was a 12-6 guy and was always a little overpaid. I think I liked him the most on the Bulls. Um, but he ended up— who did he get in the fight with?

Bobby Portis. I was going to say, you got to just keep— don't sign Bobby Portis on your team. Yeah.

Bobby Portis teammate fight in the locker room. One of probably the worst.

Quite, quite, he, he really hurt Mirotić.

Yeah. He, the, what did he break his like orbital bone or something?

I just say, I would just say he broke his face.

Not great. Anyway, welcome to my team. We'll keep Bobby Portis off it. All right. I'll give you one last pick if you want it.

I, I have a guy I'm excited to pick. I think this is a perfect, what is this? The one, this is like the 10th guy on my team. Yeah. I think it's a perfect 10th guy. Had some playoff moments, locker room stabilizer, organized the offense for us off the bench. Corey Joseph, come on down to Team Low. He was the 29th pick in this draft, right behind Norris Cole, NBA champion Norris Cole, who can't, who can't get a sniff, nor could number 2 pick Derrick Williams.

Corey Joseph might have had— there was somebody overpaid him at some point. I can't remember who. I remember there was a, oof. Contract with him.

Could be. I think it was a Toronto—

that, yes, somebody did it. Um, yeah, he was more of a fourth guard who got, uh, miscast as a third guard sometimes. But yeah, he was around there, and he was on the 2014 Spurs, um, high-fiving people.

Kings signed to a 3-year, $37.2 million Oh man, just, it just goes to show you it's always the case. The Raptors signed him in 4 years earlier to 4 years, $30, um, which is more reasonable.

So bird time, 5 for 80.

When in doubt, Kings, Wizards. Like, if you're like, who was that bad contract with the crazy contract?

All right, last pick of the draft, chemistry guy. When he was drafted, Fran Fraschilla said about him, the problem, he cannot score. You cannot run any plays for him. That was what I had in the draft diary. Bismack Biyombo, 7th pick in the draft.

Oh, Bismack getting in, still kicking around.

Bismack's big moment was when Valanciunas got hurt in 2016 and the Raptors had to throw him in for like 7, 8 playoff games. They won a series with him as the center. They finished off Miami with Biambo as their center and then lost to Cleveland, but he's still around. I'm sure he's gonna be in the league next year. He's one of the longest running guys from this draft.

You know what else happened in 2016 with Bismack Biambo?

He was overpaid.

The cap spike and the $64 million contract from the Orlando Magic who had like 9 big men on their team already did not work out.

I love the cap spike. All right, so that's the draft, not picks. Derrick Williams, the second pick in this draft, who ended up being a 30% 3-point shooter in the NBA. I wrote in the draft diary, I believe Derrick Williams will be a more effective professional basketball player than Kyrie Irving. We will see. One of my worst ones ever, easily in the top 10. This was David Kahn's last first-round pick, I think. And this really, just quickly, the number 2 curse. Which goes back to 1984, where we have Sam Bowie, Lenny Bias, Danny Ferry, Shawn Bradley, Jay Williams, Darko Milicic, uh, Marvin Williams, Michael Beasley, Hashim Thabeet, Evan Turner, Derrick Williams, Michael 'Kid' Gilchrist, Jabari Parker, Lonzo Ball, Marvin Bagley, and James Wiseman from 1984 to 2020. And then not mentioning Steve Francis, John Moran, Kenny Anderson, and Victor Oladipo, who all had off the court stuff or bad injury luck. And then it feels like it's shifted now. I'm not as scared as the sec— of the second pick anymore in the 2020s. We've had some good ones in a row. Jan Vesely did not get drafted. Wanted to mention Sal and I bet that Jan Vesely would be a top 6 pick in this draft and we won that 'cause he went 6th.

One of my, one of my first summer league memories that I can see really clearly was sitting in the stands in the little gym, not Thomas and Mack, the other one. Yeah. With some Wizards officials watching Jan Vesely play the 3 for their summer league team after getting drafted. It was clear he was not going to be able to play the 3. And in my mind, he had like 8 fouls in the first half. And I was like, this is, I might leave.

What is this?

This is getting a little awkward with you guys. It's not going great for Jan Vesely.

You go to the bathroom and don't come back. Brandon Knight went 8th. Now Brandon Knight should have been drafted but just could not stay healthy. I mean, I, I think he played 60 games once. He did get one big contract from somebody, I think the Pistons. Jimmer Fredette at 10. I wrote, I see him becoming a more consistently explosive version of JJ Barea, only with deeper range. That's some guy you'd want on your team, right? Turned out no, was wrong on that. Amon Shumpert, 17.

Yeah, Shump.

Shump was the other one.

Had a case.

And the only other things from this draft was ESPN played Adele's Rolling in the Deep the entire time. Oh, that was— it was a Rolling in the Deep draft with a lot of—

I'm trying, I'm trying to look at the, look at the draft and, and see, is there, is there a guy in here that I just had a super soft spot for? Like, I was sure this guy was going to make it., and it was not.

I think mine was Kenneth Reid.

I remember liking Jordan Hamilton. By the way, Josh Selby is in this draft. Yep. And the only reason I bring up Josh Selby is because all-time Summer League All-Star, just like he came in and exploded in Summer League and then played 38 games over 2 NBA seasons.

My soft spot guy, Dangai Ngombo. I did kind of enjoy John, John, how'd you pronounce his name?

Luer? Lure was good.

I always thought he was like a banger that was gonna have moment. I had a moment where I enjoyed Lavoy Allen, who was the 50th pick.

I like, um, Jordan Hamilton had a soft spot for, and I liked, uh, Andrew Goudelock had some, had some sauce to his game. Andrew Goudelock was a problem.

Now you said Steamsmo was an undrafted free agent in this draft?

Yeah. Okay, I had the list but I deleted it because there was no there was no one that we were gonna pick.

All right, here's your team. Well, I'll just, I'll just do what the draft was and it goes back and forth. Zach's pick, my pick, Zach's pick, my pick. You took Kawhi, I took Kyrie Irving. You took Jimmy Butler, I took Klay Thompson. You took Kemba Walker, I took Nikola Vucevic. You took Tobias Harris, I took Isaiah Thomas with the 8th pick. You took Tristan Thompson, I took Jonas Valanciunas. You took Bojan Bogdanovic. I took Marcus Morris. You took Chandler Parsons. You have a more fun kind of team to hang out with than me.

Joy. Joy is going to be our watchword.

I have Enes Kanter. You have Markeith Morris. You ended up— did you get— oh no, we split up the Morris twins. I took Reggie Jackson. You took Davis Bertans. I took Alec Burks. You took Kenneth Farid. I took Nikola Maritic. You took Corey Joseph. I took Bismack Biyombo. To round it out. We'll put it on the social medias and we'll ask people to say who, who won that one. But man, I would say that's a 10 out of 10 weirdo draft. I don't know if it gets weirder than that one other than maybe 2013. 2013 is a 10.5 out of 10.

It's a pretty, uh, 2013 is a great one. 2009 is not weird, but it's a good, it's one of my favorite ones. This one is an all-time, like, what happened? What's going on? And I was listening to you guys do the bubble one. Or the, the COVID one the other day. That was another, it's another wacky one.

Zach Lowe, we will hear from you, uh, a deeper dive on the LeBron trade and not LeBron signing and all of the ramifications from that. That's going up Sunday. I'm not gonna have another podcast until Tuesday or Wednesday next week. Don't forget about the live rewatchables on Monday. Obsession, 4:00 PM Pacific time, live on Netflix.. And thanks to Gahal and Eduardo and everybody at Spotify as well. Congrats to the Philly fans. Are you going to have Chris Ryan this weekend?

We're going to try. We're efforting. We're currently efforting.

I bet he's available.

Okay.

That's it for the pod. Enjoy the weekend. I will see you next week. Thanks, Zach.

Thank you.

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