Transcript of Luka’s Heater, Wemby’s Bid, and Stealth Winners of the NBA Season With Zach Lowe

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It's the Bill Simmons Podcast. We are live on Netflix. Zach Lowe is here. Two hungover guys. I think I'm probably more hungover than you. The Celtics looked hungover. They weren't hungover. In that Minnesota game, but they, uh, they had some travel stuff. We'll talk about that. We have a bunch of NBA stuff to talk about. Wanted to mention new rewatchables coming tomorrow. We did The Nice Guys. Great part of CR month.

Uh, great movie.

One more to go after this. We got LA Confidential. So there you go. And you can listen to Zach's pod or watch it. It's basically Tuesdays and Thursdays during the season. We might experiment. Are you thinking about that Tuesday morning? Possible live, like, yeah, yeah.

I, I think I need a piece, some piece of technology needs to arrive at my house to make that possible from what I was told.

We're doing that. Okay. Quickly on the Celtics. I don't wanna lead the pod with them, but they got killed by Minnesota just now. And heading into the game, in the 8 games that Tatum was back, they were 16th in offensive rating. And then today they stunk. They were 3 for 22 to start the 4th quarter. In this game that they blew at home. And there's some travel stuff, right? I get it. But they are really trying to work him back. Does not look like the same offense we watched for the first 60 games. And I'm going to be interested to see that the guards just don't have the ball as much and everything is running through Brown and Tatum now. And they're kind of taking turns. And I know it's going to take some time, but it just doesn't look as seamless as it did. So that would be my one Celtics note. I don't know if you have any extra notes.

Boy, one loss and we've gone from— I went glass half empty.

Glass half full is they have a higher ceiling. I get it. But I'm just saying it's, it's a little rocky lately with this offense.

Look, I mean, this was always why I was hesitant to just, you know, 2 games into the comeback, oh, they've reestablished themselves as favorites in the East. They do feel like to me the most coherent of the top 4 teams. But I, I've been saying all along, like this Tatum, it's, it's gonna be a while and there's gonna be some up, there's gonna be, it might not, there's just gonna be ups and downs. And the last couple games have been downs, although he had a really good start to the third quarter today. I agree with you, like today there was more Tatum dancing with the ball for 18 dribbles than there had been in previous games. And they bailed themselves out of a few of those possessions with open threes, or Minnesota made a mistake leaving Pritchard open in the left corner on one of them when Tatum really had nowhere to go. But I did feel like, you know, this is part of the process, I guess, of him trying to feel his way back into the game is just, Can I still, can I do this? And I think they got away a little bit from what really makes them a great offensive team.

They're testing him. Like, there was a couple moments in the third quarter where he had McDaniels on him, who's just an absolute bitch to bring the ball up against, right? He's like top 5 guys you don't want to dribble against. And it seemed like Mazzulla was almost intentional, like, Jason, you take this. Like, he wanted to see how he could handle going full court with the ball and trying to set the offense. So there's definitely some tester stuff. I really like when the offense runs through White and Pritchard a lot instead of just them standing on the sides. And they, they basically have 12 games here to fix it. The problem is the Knicks now are a half game back in that 2-3 thing where if you're the 2 seed, you, you know, although those teams are all jammed together, but you know, we don't know, we don't know. But if you're the 3 seed, you're playing the best, whoever's like basically riding out the best, which could be Atlanta, could be Orlando, I don't know, but, and then you don't have game 7 against the Knicks in round 2. So anyway, we're, we want to talk about Luka and we want to talk about Wemby coming out of the gate.

Little big picture stuff. And initially I said we were gonna talk about Wemby, but the Luka, yet again, the Lakers win another one. They have this crazy road trip that they've lost 2 games that they just shouldn't have, shouldn't have ever in a million years won. And they won. And the chemistry's great. There was golf photos of them today. I was thinking about this Luka moment. He's up to 33.4 points a game. I think he has a real case now for number 3 MVP, right? Him versus Jokic, 3A, 3B, would you say?

Oh, you're going to get, you're going to get the entire country of Slovenia is going to bombard you with like, that's insulting. Third to Luka, third behind Shea and Wemby.

Yeah, we have Wemby second. Yeah, Wemby has to be second, I think, right now. With how good San Antonio's been.

I mean, this is, these 4 guys playing at this level right now, I do think we need to like take a moment to just pause from like the splitting hairs. Who should be third? Who's 3A, 3B? Like these, you've mentioned the J word, Jordan, with Shay a couple of times in the last couple weeks. The, in terms of the territory he's reaching for guards, I mean, you can't say a more revered name in basketball. Jokic is Jokic, just every season is crazy. Wemby, you said, was the best player that you had seen this entire season. I don't really even disagree with you on his best nights defensively. It's like, I don't even know that I've ever seen anything like this. And then, oh, by the way, here comes Luka averaging 33 a game and regularly hitting 40, 50, 60 the other night in Miami, carrying a Lakers team who's 21 games over.500. And we know with Luka, this is gonna be his 6th straight first-team All-NBA, I think. Yeah. Or something like that. I mean, like these, I, I wonder if we went back and looked at when did we have 4 guys playing at this level?

I mean, this is even better than the Westbrook, Harden, LeBron MVP race from 2017, Kawhi, whatever it is. This is crazy stuff that these 4 guys are doing.

Off the top of my head, I was gonna say '87, which Magic won. MJ, I think finished second. Bird was third, and I forget who was fourth, but maybe it was Hakeem. was the other one. Yeah, '90 was the other one where it had the— was Magic, Barkley, somebody else awesome, and then, uh, Hakeem. And Hakeem, I think, finished 4th and had like a crazy season. But yeah, it's, it's pretty rare to have the 4, which is why I wanted to lead with it, because since the All-Star, Luka's at basically 35 a game, 8 and 8, first team All-NBA is happening. Um, if you talk about like big picture, 16 guys ever have had a 34-point-a-game season and he has a chance to do it, right? The last guy that did it was Harden. Luka came really close. He was 33.86. Harden did it twice. And then you're just talking about the usual Wilt, all those guys. What I like about it though, I, he hit that rut during the middle of the season where it was like, this kind of sucks. And we're just, this was like all the stuff I didn't like about Harden ball, but none of the fun stuff with it.

And it doesn't seem like the team is connected in any way. And we're just watching him just get mad at people and, you know, not play defense. And they, they just, just didn't like the vibe. And now it feels like everybody has bought into what's happening with him. And I, this is, I've been on so many texts with Laker people, Luka fans, everybody like, do you think this is real? What do you think? What do you think's going on here? The biggest difference to me, which I mentioned Thursday night, was LeBron just kind of buying into it. But the other thing is, you can kind of— Luka kind of wears it on his sleeve, don't you think? When you watch him, you kind of feel what kind of mood he's in. I was trying to think what other players have been like that, where you can kind of tell as you're watching them what the vibe is. Most guys are pretty much consistent night after night in some way, right? With Luka, it's like, oh, he's in one of his good Luka stretches. but you can kind of see it when it's happening. Does that make sense?

Yeah. I mean, and is it real? Yeah, it's real. I know it's real because we've seen it before. This is why we all thought it was insane that the Mavericks like willingly traded this guy. 'Cause we've seen it. But like all of the stuff you're talking about when they were in a rut a little bit, all that was true. And I don't really even know what changed, but the, the word that I've been using for the last 3 or 4 weeks is zip. He's just got a new, like, not new, but like it's not as meandering and just he's more straight line drives where he's splitting double teams and like just it's faster and more decisive. And it's translated to defense where he's getting like steals, he's getting in passing lanes, he's taking charges. Like he just looks— I almost wonder if this is just purely speculation, if there was like a minor injury that he got over or something because he just is playing. He doesn't play fast, so to speak, but he is playing at a different speed, I think. In the last month, but like you can find them. There were people who actually wrote columns that were like, maybe Nico Harrison was, was not totally wrong.

I understand.

Yeah, I understand his thought process.

They should be furiously deleting those columns right now from, from the Wayback Machine.

I did have a theory on this because this is basically since the All-Star Game and the team has gelled in a different way and they really do seem like a team. It's after the trade deadline. I don't think that's a coincidence. And this has happened a few times with LeBron teams, but then especially with this team where they had all these expiring contracts. And I always think we underrate this as, as, you know, media members, people that watch the league, study it, try to figure out trends, that those 6 weeks before the deadline when everybody's just in trade rumors constantly, and even like somebody like Austin Reeves, like Rich and Max are doing their pod and he's talking about, can they pay Austin Reeves? Could, could they possibly trade him? And then people are like, why is he saying that? Is he trying to get that? And there was just all this soap opera stuff. And the trade deadline makes it go away. It's like, well, this is your team now. Luke Kennard's gonna be our shooter. Marcus Smart's gonna have to play. DeAndre Ayton, it's up to you, buddy. We don't really have anybody else.

You're gonna have to be the center. LeBron, you can passive-aggressively do whatever you can. You're gonna be on the team till the rest of the year. Either buy in or don't. And I don't know, I, I just, we've seen this happen before where the All-Star break is this before and after point and people are like, I guess we're here. I guess this is our team. And that's it.

And it, and it started to look different when LeBron was hurt. And I don't know if that just clarified things for Luka and Reeves. Like there was just a simplicity to, I can just go. And even if he is the third option, he's LeBron James and I know he's over there and I'm thinking about it sometimes. And then he came back and he's been the absolute perfect version of himself that this team needs, that he needs to be probably on any team that he's on.

He's had, he's had a bounce. Did you see when he blocked, somebody took a shot after the whistle in the Houston game and LeBron went up and did the KG and blocked it so it wouldn't hit the rim?

I did.

I'm like, okay, you got your legs back. I, I think you're trying to show us.

I also saw the 6 dunks that he had in that game.

Right.

It, it, they look, They look really good. And Aiton is like, we all like to make jokes about Aiton, although I was like the only one saying maybe this would work. Luka has started to trust him a little bit more just with like, I'm just gonna hand it to you early in the play. And I can't remember what game I was watching that where he would, they would blitz Luka, whatever team they were playing, and Aiton would short roll and Luka would throw these, like, they were like baseball popups. They would, they traveled like 3 feet but went way high up in there. Just, all right, this is the quickest way for me to get it to you, big guy, go. And they would make plays out of it. It's just like, it's kind of humming right now.

I'm torn because as a basketball fan, I think this is great because it's just, there's so many stories just out of this team and LeBron maybe being in the mix one more time. Luka maybe getting a, a shot at redemption against a couple different teams. The fact that we could have San Antonio, LA in round 2, like there's all these like cool pieces of it. As somebody that can't stand the Lakers, this is a fucking nightmare. Every Laker fan I have in my life—

Oh, you love it. You love— you, come on.

No, all the Laker fans, and I was thinking about it. The only real great season they've had since basically 2010 was the bubble season where basically the last 10 games and all the playoff games happened in outer space, right? There were nobody at the games. There was no parade. You're just kind of watching on TV. Everyone's in COVID. Nobody can be around other people. And it was just this bizarre thing that happened over here. They haven't had like a really fun— the last really fun Lakers moment I think that you can think of during a season was when Kobe kept— remember when Kobe was like, I've had it. I'm playing 48 minutes every single game. I've just, I've lost my mind. He was just like, if we're going down, I'm playing every minute. And he had that crazy run and then he finally ended up getting hurt. But that was the last time I remember every Laker fan in my life just constantly asking me, what do you think? What do you think? What do you think?

Hmm. Not even Conference Finals, uh, uh, when they lost to Denver in 2023?

No, because I don't, I don't, did, do you think people felt like they were gonna win the title that year with the team they had?

No, I don't.

Like deep down, I think it was more like, wow, I can't believe we made it. This is different. I think 'cause people are thinking, We could, with Luka, we could beat anyone in a playoff series. Like, he might be the best player in the league for all we know. What he's doing, we'll, we'll take our chances against SGA, name the guy, we'll go. So who knows?

And I don't think that's an irrational thought. He's proven it in the playoffs over and over again, including in series where his team, like Dallas, may not have won those series against the Clippers, but they were clearly the inferior team and they pushed the Clippers to the limit twice. And like, it's, he's terrifying to face in the playoffs.

I got an interesting email from Spencer in Toronto who said, with the Lakers' new ownership money, should they be investing in elite insider hecklers for key playoff road games for Luka? Plant people courtside and try to just have them engage Luka and make him mad. So then he takes it out on the other team. And he said, conspiracy, Bill. We'll have to do background checks on all these courtside fans who spur him on to scoring 62 in Oklahoma City in a Game 4. I don't think it's a bad idea. I support it.

It's an interesting sort of like the wall is supposed to be the, like the meanest home crowd only version of a fan base. Would they have to instruct the wall for those games? Please be polite to Luka.

To the—

to the—

to the—

you see the Goga Batadze thing last night? Like he crossed some kind of line and Luka went from, I'm gonna score 60 points tonight to I might murder you after the game if I see you. And like they had teed him up. He got received like whatever Goga said. Goga understood, I guess Luka was speaking Serbian and Goga understood it.

Bozelis apologizing after he inadvertently riled up Luka was one of the funniest moments of the season. Yeah, don't rile him up.

So is that the, is that the best Chicago Bulls moment of the season? The Bozelis apology? Is that the most notable thing that happened to the Chicago Bulls this season?

I think it's this. I think I got, I was gonna read you this later, this email from Matt from Charlottesville, Virginia. Obama did a video with Anthony Edwards to promote the presidential library in Chicago because there's no one on the Bulls who could make a promotional video work. Is this the lowest it's ever gotten for the Bulls? It's a great point. Obama, they were like, you can have any bull. And Obama's like, what about Anthony Edwards? He's on Minnesota. Can I use him instead? The presidential library is in Chicago. That's got to be the low point other than them not paying the luxury tax for the 90th straight year.

I'm glad we shoehorned the Bulls into this. Sorry, you were going somewhere else.

Well, oh, I was going, uh, playoff matchups.

Yes, Lakers.

So, I mean, it could be Minnesota, could be Minnesota and Denver at the same record. The Lakers are going to be the 3rd seed now unless something crazy happens. They have a basically a 2.5-game lead over everybody with 12 games left, playing really well. They have some home games coming up, so they're gonna be the 3rd seed. They're going to play either Minnesota, Houston, or Denver. I would say Denver would be the team they wouldn't want to play, except do you want to do the what's wrong with Denver now, or you want to, want to shelve it for later? Like, what's, what's just your quick 30 seconds on what's the odor? I just don't like the scent in the car. Did you leave a tuna fish sandwich back here? What is that?

Today was an interesting step for them. I don't know if you saw that game today.

I did.

Peyton Watson came back and looked good. Cam Johnson is— this was the kind of game that we thought Cam Johnson would have once a week for the Nuggets where he just go makes 5 threes in 2 quarters and you're like, all right, this is why, you know, runs a couple DHOs with Joker. The defense in the first half was abysmal and Portland was— Denver had 75 points and was barely winning.

At halftime to a team that isn't exactly the 2017 Warriors on offense.

Yeah, they're the, the gang that can't shoot straight. And there was just the same kind of miscommunications that have been plaguing the Nuggets for 2, 3 months now. Point of attack defense, not good enough. And then when they like have enough of their good defensive players on the court, like 2 of Brown, Gordon, and Watson, and, and the offense that they can muster, Today, today kind of was not quite a warning shot. I mean, they ended up blowing out the Blazers by 16, something like that, holding them to a good number in the second half. Yeah, it was a reminder, I think, like this team is still kind of here and they've got a little bit of time to figure some things out. You know, they're not playing Valanciunas, they're playing small ball when Jokic is on the bench. Murray's playing every minute again when Jokic is on the bench. Like stuff is starting to happen. And yes, if I were the Lakers, I would not want to play Denver in the first round. I would pick, I would pick Denver to win that series. I don't care what the seeds are. Would you?

I'd want to see where Denver was in 12 games, but it would be hard for me not to pick Joker over the Lakers. But if it's the Denver team we just watched for the last 3 months that just doesn't play defense and falls apart in crunch time every game, I have some, some mild coaching questions. With them after watching Adelman for a year. I, and it's nothing beyond this. I don't know how you, you blow this many games in the last couple minutes and in these overtimes. And it just has gotten to the point where I feel like they might lose anytime they're in this situation. I should feel the opposite because they have Jokic on their team. And I was thinking about it because I probably watched them the most other than the Celtics. I think they've gotten really predictable with their offense. When and how it slows down and how Jokic-centric it is. And I never felt like it was always that way. Now it, now it's just like they spread them out, they try to do something with Murray, and they don't really get anyone else going. And everybody else just kind of stands there and watches.

And I know it was like that to some degree the last couple years, but now I, I just don't think Joker wants to play that way. I don't think he wants to score 30 to 35 a game. Like, I think he wants to be inclusive and set anyone else up. And I, I feel like they've lost their way a little bit at the end of these games. It's just Joker, Joker, Joker every time.

It's, it's hard when he's so good and he can get a good shot anytime he wants.

I get it.

Today was a, was 10 of 18, only took 18 shots, 22 points. It's actually one of the more interesting stats that I've been tracking the whole season is that his post touches are down to like their lowest level since he was a rookie or something. It's not anything dramatic, but it, the last time I checked it was like 10 post-ups per 100 possessions, which had been 13, 14, 15. In his prime years.

And because it's more at the top of the key now for him, could, could be that.

It could be just Murray. Murray has had, I mean, I, I, you know, I did another glance at All-NBA last week.

He's in there for me now.

He, I think he's gotta be in there. He's just had a sensational season. And maybe it's just more him and like the guys have been in and out of the lineup that he has a comfort zone with. Gordon coming back, it's just such a breath of fresh air for them. Like he, he's just, Jokic knows where he is all the time. He knows where to be all the time. And so yeah, you're right that we kind of gotta see it for the next couple weeks as they get healthy and reintegrate all this stuff. I just, I would not want to play them if I were the Lakers and we're catching, we're having this discussion at a low point for the Nuggets, even though they won today and a high point for the Lakers. And I, I think we just need to sort of step back a little bit and remember who we thought these teams were is still a little bit, at least of who they are.

Can I root for this? I don't want them to play in round 1. I think for, for pure basketball and for content, more fun if like it's Lakers-Minnesota and Denver-Houston, something like that in round 1. And then we have the both, basically both teams can advance and we have the chance to get like OKC versus Denver, San Antonio-Lakers. That would be my dream Final Four.

If you're the Lakers, you probably want Houston of all the options, right? The way Houston's offense has kind of been sputtering and they just blitzed them in 2 games.

I don't know what to make of Minnesota because like you watch them today, Randle sucked and they—

I'm throwing up my hands.

I don't know.

I don't know anymore.

Every time it's the Costanza, the Costanza. You're spotting dimes on the, on the floor. You're, you're eating onions. What's going on with you? They're that team this year. I don't know what to expect from them.

Even Chris Finch on the sidelines, just, I don't think he, he called those, he called those 2 timeouts when the Wolves were winning by like 8 or 10 points in the 4th quarter.

Yeah.

Like one bad possession and he was just like, stop it. We're stopping it now. One Randle turnover up 12. That's it. Timeout.

Another timeout.

I'm not letting this go on anymore. I don't think he knows. Well, let's, they did beat, they did whoop the Lakers last year in the playoffs and LeBron is still 41. Like, I, who knows how much his body can take? I don't know.

He looks the freshest. He's looking wild.

It's unbelievable.

I don't know if there was an Italy trip. Let's walk through how do the Lakers actually get to the finals as a thought exercise. I think step number one in the 3-6, not having Denver there. I think Houston or Minnesota has to be the 6 seed 'cause I think they could beat either one of those teams. And I would, I would pick them to win either of those series. Would you?

I'm not ready to pick them over Minnesota yet. I want to see, I want Minnesota's another team I want to watch for the next 2 weeks to see when Ant comes back, what condition is he in and can they get their shit together? If Ant's 100%, if Ant's 100%, we did see this movie last year, a version of it, and it did not go well for the Lakers. Now they're better and more cohesive right now, but I, I would not, I would, if Minnesota's healthy, I'd probably pick Minnesota.

Interesting. I need more time. Well, I, so let's say Houston, right? LA, Houston, round 1. Minnesota plays Denver.

Ugh.

And somehow Minnesota beats Denver. I'm just trying to think of like the perfect LA situation. San Antonio, Phoenix. I don't think San Antonio would lose to Phoenix. I do wanna mention, and I know you've seen this too, Phoenix plays San Antonio really well. They junk it up with them. They do weird shit. They're really physical with Wemby. Booker is whatever, for whatever reason, comfortable against the Spurs. And I do think that wouldn't be like a layup of a series as well as San Antonio's playing. And then Lakers-San Antonio would just have to be a classic. You guys were probably better, but you weren't ready yet. We just had too much experience for you series. Even Ayton has experience. Ayton was in the finals. You know, Luka, Luka's been in the finals. LeBron's been in 9 finals, 8 finals. I don't remember.

A lot of finals.

And it's just your, oh, we thought San Antonio was going to win, but this is a great learning experience for them. And then they would just have to hope somebody took out OKC, because I don't think there's a chance in hell that the Lakers would ever beat OKC. That's the one I'm just not accepting.

Well, the big development of the week in the NBA is gonna be Jalen Williams coming back tomorrow. Because I think from what I've heard that they've really slow played this to the max because once the prospect of a historic season went away for them, Oklahoma City just pivoted to all we care about is winning the championship. And he was starting, you know, he, he had, early on it was the wrist and he wasn't shooting well and he didn't look like himself. Then that started to sort itself out. Then hamstring number one happened, comes back, has two good games. The hamstring number two, the same hamstring, but again happens. If he looks like Jalen Williams, I just, it's hard to see anybody beating them in a best of seven series. Lakers-Spurs would be a lot of fun. It's the series where you look at the teams on paper going into the series and you're like, this is a wipeout. Like there's just no, it's really hard to make a case that the Lakers would win the series, but they have Luka and all of those series, like Lakers going to San Antonio and win game 1, Luka has 48 points and makes a 3 with a minute left to put 'em away.

The whole thing feels different at that point, man. I would definitely pick the Spurs. I assume you would too. I would, I would, I just trust their depth. And their athleticism.

There's a scenario for them to beat the Spurs. So think about it. You, to go 4, you have to go 4-3 in a series. 2 crazy Luka games. There's 2 wins. The one game where they have like the 50-15 free throw advantage and everyone on San Antonio fouls out and then Conspiracy Bill has to make an appearance the next morning. Like we, that game's probably built in and we somehow get it back to San Antonio for Game 7. Young team at home, biggest game a lot of them, probably all of them have ever played in. And the old veteran team, and we've just seen versions of that game get weird. And I think the Lakers just need to get, they would have to get to that game, a Game 7 in San Antonio. Let's put the young team to the fire and, and see how they feel. And that would be the scenario. I don't think they could beat them in 6. San Antonio's too good.

The one, the one stat that I would track for the Lakers is turnover rate because that would, that's been part of the secret sauce of Lucas teams is he is not, he's a very low turnover player. His teams do not turn it over a lot because of how Luka-centric the offense is. Yeah. And for a lot of this season, they've kind of lost that plank of their offense and they're starting to get it back when they just, it's almost Boston-y when they take care of the ball and just get a shot or a free throw on every possession. When you have that guy orchestrating it all, it's, it's tough to deal with. It's tough to stop. When they start to lose the turnovers a little bit, it gets, they become more beatable. But yet they're, look, they're scary. Luka's scary.

7 guys, maybe 6.5. What's weird is they probably could have added at least one more guy at the trade deadline and just basically punted on it. Like they could have done a future first or even some seconds, somebody like Gafford. They could have turned Vanderbilt into somebody else, but they kind of— Kinnard was the only thing they did.

Who's, by the way, amazing for them, including the game winner last night.

But it looks like 7 guys. I don't know what we're gonna get from Rui with, uh, he's already seems like he's banged up.

But, um, I was actually gonna ask you about the Lakers Seth, because I think the Spurs are not a super deep team, but everyone that plays is really good and really athletic and pretty young. And the Lakers, it's Rui, LaRavia, Kinnard, Hayes is basically the bench.

That, that's literally the bench. And I don't— Bronny.

Well, and like Vanderbilt will get tossed in there for 2 weeks and then JJ will get tired of his inability to shoot. Yeah. And he'll be gone. I just, it's, it's a bench of guys that have lost coaches' trust in the playoffs like multiple times. And that, except for LaRavia, who has very little playoff experience, and that makes me a little bit nervous.

The funny thing about Ayton, who I, I'm still, I've still given up on, I'm not changing my stance, but at least he's been in big games and teams have had success with him in April and May. Right. It's not like you're throwing somebody out there who's never been successful ever as a professional basketball player. Like he did win playoff series. He was on really good teams and it is lurking in there, which is the frustrating, tantalizing thing about him. And whatever version we're getting of him lately is a little closer to that '21 version. Well, and he, I'll defend the '21 version.

He weirdly plays Jokic like pretty well to the point that he's pretty comfortable. Jokic, like, did the jersey swap with him, was like, try— like, you're, you're, you're, you're— you and me, man, like, we're peers. And Aiton was like, oh, okay, well, thank you.

We got to take a break and then we're going to do a deep dive on Wemby. This episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast is presented by Sam's Club. It is that time of the year when you just got to get in your car and go somewhere. I've done that plenty of times in my life. Nowhere gets you ready to go quite like Sam's Club. Snacks, the gear, super low prices on gas. They got a bunch of stuff that keep you and the whole crew rolling. And here's what you got to do. You got to join the club of Yes And at sam'sclub.com/yesand. You must be 18 years or older to purchase membership, and membership is subject to qualifications. Visit sam'sclub.com/yesand for details. This episode is brought to you by Audi, the official car of my son. Yeah, we all know the feeling— a change of plans, a new opportunity. Instead of overthinking, what if you just said yes? With the all-new Audi Q3, the answer is easy. It's made for the yes life, with the power and room to handle whatever pops up. Yes to adventure, yes to right now, because saying yes without hesitation, that's the real luxury.

The all-new Audi Q3 made for the Yes Life. Learn more at audiusa.com. All right, we're gonna do a little deep dive on San Antonio and Wemby. I said on my podcast on Tuesday that Wemby, and I'd seen all the players, was the best guy I saw in person this year. You, uh, the Spock, my, the Spock of my life, Zach Lowe, um, didn't totally blink when I said it because it feels like you've been circling the same turf. So they're 25-5 in their last 30, first and net. It's a 30-game sample size. They're 21-1 in Wemby's last 22 games. Seems relevant. They're 43-13 when he plays. And you tell, tell the audience what you texted me this week about Wemby, about what we should do.

Just, I, this is his third year and You know, there's a reasonable conversation to be had already. Is he the best player in the NBA? I, it's, it's a, I'm a little shaken by saying it out loud. And so I started to think like, who are the youngest or who was soonest, earliest into their careers to be considered possibly the best player in the NBA? And he'd be just about one of the young, I mean, I went through like, when did LeBron first finish top 3 in MVP? When did, I mean, Kareem walks into the league already at 22 because he played in college and all that. Yeah, 4 years MVP immediately. Duncan was first team All-NBA his first season. I think he finished third in MVP voting. You know, Shaq was top 3 MVP by his third season. So it's like not, Jordan was top 3 MVP by his third season. So it's not unprecedented, but something about this, I don't know if it's that he's so, is he so young? What is, is he still just 21?

He's 22 now.

20, just turned 22.

Yeah.

He, it's that he's so young and last season was like a half season for him because of the blood clot stuff. But I, I think Shay, I, I put Shay number 1 in Ringer 100. I just, the benefit of the doubt still goes to this super guard who's shooting 55% from the floor and is a very good defensive player for his position. But I do, every time I watch the Spurs and it, it actually, it's every time he has a good jump shooting game, 'cause when the jump shot is falling at like an average or above average rate, you're just like, I don't know. I don't even know what we're supposed to do with this guy because the defensive impact is, I just think, I, I don't know that any statistical system can, can like quantify what he's doing on every single possession defensively. And it's not like we all joke about the shots that aren't taken, the nope, the nopes, like, nope, I'm, I'm gonna U-turn right outta here. It even just goes beyond that. It's, it's how teams set up their offense. It's what they even set out to try to accomplish at the start of every possession.

Everything is different. When he's on the floor. And I don't even know how to measure that because he's the most dominant defensive player I, I've ever seen already. And I, you know, I'm not that old, but I've seen Garnett and Olajuwon and Kawhi and KG. I mean, I already said KG, but like, you know, all, all the guys post like '70s and I don't, I don't remember anything like this.

The only one I can remember over the course of history, the way people talked about it was Russell. That there was just no way to quantify what he was doing, and they didn't even keep track of blocks back then. That was my thought when I was there for that Clipper game Monday. It's so much easier to quantify an offensive impact and what Luka is doing right now. We have all these different stats, or what Shea is doing right now, and, and our brains kind of, because the fantasy basketball aspect of it, we, we tend to overrate the offense compared to the defense if both are historically unbelievable. I just think you can make the case just what he's doing alone on defense is at least equal to what Shay and Luka and Jokic are doing on offense. It's, there's two sides of the court. Everything he's doing on that end has to be like, I would say around as impactful, but then you throw in what he's doing offensively where he is like basically 24 a game now. And I think that's the case. And that what, what you mentioned about the think agains or I would call them the rethinks.

There's no way to keep track of this statistically, but you can see these guys in real time who've been playing basketball their whole life, who have been doing the same moves and the same rhythms and the same things over and over again, that in real time over the course of a second are like, oh shit, I can't do that. And they just have to ad-lib audible and then the offense completely falls apart for 3 seconds as they kind of figure out a plan B. And he just does this the entire game. And there we have off— we have defensive ratings, right? You could do opposing field goal percentage, you could do field goal percentage at the rim. There's these stats that can kind of tell the story. I don't know how you measure somebody changing their mind 30 times in a game, which is what he's doing now.

So the counterargument to what you said, because I remember making an argument not quite like this when I voted Kawhi MVP in 2017. I leaned into the, there are two sides of the ball and he's maybe not as impactful as Harden is offensively, but he's averaging 26, 27 a game, whatever it was. But he is the best defensive player in the league. And I remember saying at the time, like, it's not 100% equal because a great offensive player can have the ball every single possession on offense and control the whole game. And a great defensive player can be just out of the play randomly a third of the time or actively avoided a third of the time. And I think Wemby is the exception to this. I just think there's no playing him out of the play. There is no avoiding him. He is impactful defensively no matter where he is. And the rethinks, you can see that. Like, I don't know how, like, you could, you can see it. I don't know how you quantify it, but you can see it. I just think it goes even beyond that. I think the entire thought process of every offensive possession by the, the starting when you inbound the basketball or get a defensive rebound is just different when he's on the floor and when he's off the floor.

There's a, a freedom, a certainty, a confidence that like our entire playbook is now open, whereas that's not the case with Wemby. And I just think he's the exception to the, well, defense can't be half the game on an individual level because a defender can't impact it the same way like a, a ball dominant offensive player can. I think he's massively impactful every single second on defense, no matter where he is, no matter where you try to hide his guy, no matter what you do, he's there and he's in your head.

Yeah. You can't compare it to a Kawhi 'cause Kawhi is basically guarding one guy or switching. This is like, this is a 2.5-hour impact even if he's playing 32, 33 minutes a game. There's a few different things, like Garland was testing him at the game I went to on Monday night, and there was a couple times where he went to— he drove into the paint, he had like his little 10-foot kind of moonball jump shot he shoots. But because of Wemby, you have to really moonball it, right? So it's not a moonball now. Now I'm basically like I'm in a carnival trying to make it in one of those rims that's shorter than the basket. All right, so if he misses that, Wemby didn't block it, but Garland missed the shot because Wemby's 7'6" and had his hand up. We don't really— I don't know how we keep track of that. The 3-point shooting, he affects, I don't know, 7, 8 a game, it seems like, where he's just kind of out with his hands up and you could see the guy. And then everything around the rim, guys just don't want to be embarrassed by him because they know if you challenge him.

So you were talking about the historical stuff. And I think it's really hard to— I basically looked at two different things, 22 and under seasons. So the best seasons by guys 22 years old or younger than that. And then I looked at year 2 players because I thought that was the best parallel. I, 'cause like, just like it could go back in history with guys coming outta college, you know, like Kareem was in college 4 years. Duncan was in college 4 years. It's not fair to say like, all right, I can— I looked at rookie seasons with Wemby's year 3. I think it's too hard. But year 2 is like, all right, my feet, I got my feet wet, now I'm ready to kind of dominate, which is where Wemby is in. But the 22-and-under seasons, Duncan's the best one. Duncan, the '99, the strike season, which you mentioned, Finals MVP. They win the title. And I think at the end of the season, he's the best player in the league. I think that's the consensus is he was the best start-to-finish player that we watched. In 1999. Now he finished third in MVP, and I went back and I really deep dove that, and it's not a great outcome.

And Karl Malone wins it. I think Duncan's team had a better record. Duncan's stats are the same. I think Duncan was a better defensive player at that point, but they just, they gave it to the old guy and that, you know, we didn't have the same stats we had back then. So regardless, he's won. Magic won Finals MVP at age 20, and then he won a title and was second all-NBA in '82. Kobe won 2 in a row, title, second All-NBA at 21 and 22. And Shaq, '95 Finals, second place MVP.

That's his third season, I think, right? Is that his second season or third season?

That's his third season, but he was 22. So good parallel to Wemby. And then there's some others, like you mentioned LeBron a couple times. Derrick Rose won the MVP when he was 22. So did Wesson Suggs. But what's at stake for Wemby here is has a chance to win the MVP. I don't think he will, but he'll finish top 2 and has a chance to win the title, which is rare, Fred. And then you talk about the best year 2 players. So I know, I know this is a goofy one, but only, only 3 year 2 guys won the title that were first team All-NBA, which was '99 Duncan, '81 Bird, and '71 Kareem. And I, I'm only mentioning that because I think that's the territory he's in. And it feels weird to have all these names from the first 80 years of the league and be like, holy shit, those are the best names we have. But I do think that's what we're watching. And that's why I, I wanted to talk about it because, you know, '71, Kareem was the MVP. He was the Finals MVP. That Milwaukee team was incredible. But he had also had 4 years of college.

You know, he's older. He was a more established identity than Wemby is. This Wemby thing we were hoping would happen. And it's kind of happening in real time and it's happening over the last 3 months. I feel like for real, and you could just feel it with that team where they're like, we have the best guy. But then you look at OKC and they're like, we have the best guy. And the Lakers feel that way and Denver feels that way. So you, to your earlier point, we have 4 teams right now with a chance to at least be in the finals that all feel like they have the best guy. And I think they'll have a case.

There's no question that it, is happening, that the names that you're comparing him to are apt. We all are smart enough to understand that all of those comparisons are contingent to longevity and yes, titles and all. We all get that. But that's what we're watching, right? That's the parallel track that he's on with those same players at those same ages in this level that he's reaching, where you could plausibly say he has a true shooting percentage of 62%. Jokic is 68, Shay is 67, and he might still be the best player in the league because the defensive impact is that stark. The other reason we know that it's happening is that the Spurs are 53-18. Like, this is a real fucking team. It's not like, oh yeah, the Spurs, they're, it's gonna be them or Phoenix for the 6th seed. What a great story. They're 53-18 with Wemby on the floor, 120 points per 100 possessions. And here's the kicker, 103.5 allowed. Wow. The number one def— 103.5. The number one defense in the NBA is Oklahoma City at 106, and they're almost 3 points ahead of number 2, which is Detroit at 109. Wemby is at 103.5, or the Spurs with Wemby, at our 103.5. And it's just, Like, yeah, I mean, you could, if you argue right now, I'm ready to stamp it, he's the best player in the league.

I would still, I think Shay has the throne right now and Jokic is right next to the throne or one or the other, but they're all, it's a 3 to 4 person race right now.

Yeah, I guess we could have different adjectives. I think Shay has the right to still be the best player in the league since he is the reigning Finals MVP and he's going to win the MVP again. They're going to win. I think maybe you could say Wemby's the most impactful that he, he's—

I think we're just playing with language. Like someone's gotta be the best, right?

That's why when I said Wemby was the best player I saw in person this year, I was like, I kind of can't believe that's coming outta my mouth, but I just kind of know what I saw. But you know, there's still a level to this in the playoffs. So you could say he's been, maybe he's the best regular season player, however you want to put it. We, Shay has done it in the playoffs, so has Joker. Luka has done it at least until the finals in '24, and Wemby has not been in that situation before.

The, the only, so here, so here I'm, so you would have him second MVP right now.

I voted for him first in Ringer 100 in our last poll.

How'd it feel when you typed it in? How, how did it feel?

I texted it to Varier and I was like, I have a doozy coming and I'm not doing it for content or just because it's a bit like, I really think I feel this way. And he just said he respected it. I don't know if he thought I was crazy or if I'd been drinking, but honestly, you could have flipped them either way. What was interesting was Joker had been at the top for a couple of years, I think since maybe 2023, and he got nudged down. And you could even argue, like, what Luca's been doing, he's kind of risen to Joker's equal lately. Lately. So even that's kind of a thing.

Lately is the key. You can't wipe, you can't wipe away the period that you described as a rut from earlier in the season when his numbers were still outrageous, but something, you could see it, something with the team. Yeah. And the way he was playing was a little bit off. You can't wipe that away. This is gonna be one of those years where like that 2017 MVP race, like some of the 1990 one you mentioned earlier. Some years, 4 and 5 on the ballot, you're like, I don't know, maybe Jalen Brunson. Sure, throw Jalen Brunson, whatever. And then some years you're like, I have to put— yeah, like that. And then other years, like 2017 and 1990, you're like, I have to write this guy's name in the 4th spot. This is obscene. I have to write LeBron James number 4, or it's like, can we just not even do this? This is— I feel ashamed of myself for doing this, but someone Has to be 4th.

I looked up the '91 Bulls because that would be— if you think the Spurs can actually lay it down and actually win the title this year, the '91 Bulls would probably be the comparison. Young team kind of took off second half of the year. So they started out 30-14 and they finished 31-7. They won 61 games. They finished first in net rating. Which I think is attainable for San Antonio the way it's going. And in their version, they had MJ, who was the best player in the world, but we still had the Magic and, you know, there were other people. And it's like, sure, he's the best individual player, but is he the best player? And we were doing all that stupid sports talk stuff, and then he laid the smackdown. So that would be the parallel. I guess the bigger point to me is, is it like legitimately conceivable that the Spurs will win 4 rounds And Wemby will be the Finals MVP holding up the trophy. And I think it's conceivable, and I wouldn't have said that 2 months ago. I, even when they were, when they were going toe to toe with OKC in December, it's like, wow, we have a, we have a rivalry now.

I didn't think they could win 4 straight playoff rounds, and now I think they could.

I said it on Christmas. Goldsberry asked me point blank on my show, what do you think the ceiling is for this team? And I said, I think they can win the title. I think they can win the title. I don't, the experience question. Is a thing. It will manifest itself at some point in some moment in some game. I just, if you tell me the re— if you articulate like, why can't they win the title other than experience? Like, which is a real thing, but like, what is actually, what is an external obstacle that can prevent them from winning the title? I think the list is the Thunder. I think they can beat anybody. Now that's not saying I'm going to pick them over Denver for sure, because I have that much respect for the Nuggets. But yeah, I mean, who can't they beat? And the only team that you could like, that team's a, like a pretty big favorite is the Thunder. And they beat them 4 out of 5 times, asterisks on a couple of them. But the first 3 were like, ooh, ooh, something uncomfortable is happening here.

I liked how the Celtics played them before Jalen got thrown out.

And I think that's the type of, by the way, who, what ref made that decision? That was awful. I mean, it's old news, but it was awful.

I think that's the type of team though with like big wings that can just keep attacking. 'Cause if you're gonna ding the Spurs on anything, they're probably a little smaller than Wemby. And maybe it's a team with size, which is why OKC is such an interesting matchup for them. But the fact that they played OKC so well, I think really matters with this. That's a team we saw actually affect OKC. We haven't really seen anyone else do that. And they're gonna feel like that. Seeing them in person on Monday, the thing I noticed is that they're still a pretty young team offensively. They still just lapse into like threes and they don't like, like kind of what Jaylen does with the Celtics this year where it's like this, our offense is going a little sideways. I'm just going to go to the basket. I'm just going to get contact, try to get to the line. They don't really have a guy like that. And it's just a lot of jump shots, which might work for 4 rounds, but that was the one. It feels like they could be up 17 and they can hit a little cold stretch and you can actually come back on them, especially when Wemby's on the bench.

That would be my only big nitpick other than I, the other thing that's gonna happen, and we haven't talked about this, I think teams are gonna be brutal with Wemby. I, and you've already seen it during this season. Teams are gonna be really, really physical with them. They're gonna bang 'em, they're gonna knock 'em down, they're gonna try to hit 'em hard on dunks. They're just gonna try to really, really wear him down because He's 7'6". I think he might be 7'7".

Let's keep going. Let's say 8 feet.

I think he might. I think he's a legit 7'7" personally. But he, he does fall a lot. And I asked some people who know him about this and they said he actually practices falling. So I was right that he's, he's kind of, it's almost like a gymnast. Like he learns how to, he falls in sections, but somehow learns how to not get hurt. But I just think teams. And I don't know, what do you think is the Western team that would be like, we're fucking this guy up for 2 weeks?

Well, I mean, the Thunder fuck everyone up. I mean, that's right. They were, they, and, and they're extremely physical and they do it very well. I mean, if, if the Rockets had Adams and I think they would, I think they would still give it a run. Even Minnesota, Minnesota can be a nasty physical team.

Minnesota could do it. Yeah.

And by the way, you're seeing it with Jokic too. I mean, in the last 2 or 3 weeks, there's been a, not a sea change 'cause teams dabbled in it, but most teams are now guarding Jokic with a wing or a power forward and putting their center somewhere else and just having, like today it was Toumani Camara guarded Jokic for half the game. Right. And I, Toronto, Scottie Barnes guarded Jokic the whole game and Pirtle was elsewhere and just being like front him, hit him, get on, get in his waist and his legs, just beat the hell out of him. Try to stall for time. And it's just, that's been, it's been interesting to, I mean Denver's familiar with that scheme, but it's been thrown at them more often in the last 3 weeks than at any period I can remember other than like a, a playoff series.

The Oklahoma City, the villains getting in a fight yesterday in Washington, picking on a young Washington team.

Didn't see that one coming. But the Champagny brothers are not to be trifled with. And when anyone, whenever someone gets mushed in the face, it's, it's on. Like it's on. Did you see the kid in the front row who was, yeah.

Continuing to film.

Film. Well, and, and, and his facial expression turned from like, Well, like, joy. Like, oh my God, this is so cool. To like, oh, to like, oh, horror. To horror. Like, to like, these guys are big and strong and they're falling on me right now. It was a great, great theater.

It is funny because the announcer said that about the Champagny brother. They said that about the one that's on Washington.

Justin.

But I've heard that. I've heard that said about both of them. And there's— this should almost be like an all-NBA team that we get to vote on. As you know, I've always wanted more teams. Than just all NBA, all rookie, all defense. I think we should have the not to be trifled with. Yeah. All NBA team. And it would be like both Champagny brothers would be on there.

The James Johnson All-Stars.

Yeah. Yeah. The James Johnson All-Stars. Just like, oh no, don't do that to him. 'Cause you could see it. 'Cause, 'cause the other J Dub, he's starting and he gives him a couple shoves and he gives him the third shove and Champagny's like, dude, are we gonna do this? Like you could just tell he had the light in his eye ready to go.

I honestly thought tonight somebody with Boston was gonna lose it with Bones Hyland because he was having a lot of fun. Yeah. At there. He pointing at people, pointing at Hugo like, yeah, that's you. You fouled me. I thought, I thought someone was gonna deck him a little bit. But yeah, Wizards-Thunder. I just didn't see the Wizards summoning the kind of spirit at this point in the season to actually get into an altercation.

Well, we're in, I tweeted about it today, we're in an absolute death death match where we have Washington Wizards with 16 straight losses and the Pacers with 16 straight losses and a half win, um, a half win lead, 15 wins for the Pacers, 16 for Washington. And it's just a matter of who blinks first. The record is 28 for straight losses and neither team can get to 28. It would, they would have to end the season on a 27-game losing streak.

But for Indiana, they don't play each other.

They don't play each other.

Oh, damn.

For Indiana, the 1 is super important because that basically guarantees they get their pick, right? 'Cause the Clippers get it if it's 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9. So if Indiana's 1, even if 3 teams passed them in the lottery, they would still get 4. So I don't think they wanna win again.

I mean, if you're 1, you still have a 48% chance of picking 5th.

Is that true?

Yeah.

Oh wait, 4 teams can jump you?

Yeah.

Oh, well there goes that. You're there. Another classic Simmons moment.

You're most likely, according to Tankathon, I'm looking at it now. You're most likely—

I forgot that we had 4. I thought it was 3.

'Cause Detroit has jumped. Detroit has fallen from 1 to 5 before. And Utah, I believe Utah last year fell 1 to 5.

Well, Utah ended up with Ace.

Ace is good.

Which, that was another topic. Well, I will—

hold on, hold on. We're talking about the—

let's hold on to that.

The Wizards. We're talking about the Wizards. I, can I just, I, this is a very Simmons-y soapbox to get on, but I'm, can I get on it for a second?

Sure.

I've watched a couple of Wizards—

you want me to push it toward you or?

No, no, I, I've, I've, I've watched a couple of Wizards games in the last 10 days cuz they were playing teams that I wanted to see, including the Pistons first game without Cade. Or first game since the collapsed lung. They've definitely entered the tanky stage where like, I'm now, I don't like the way they're playing and I'm worried that this is going to set back the development of some of their players.

Bad habits.

Every shot Alex Sar takes, I'm like, I don't, that like, what, why is he allowed to just dribble around and take a 21-foot, like just inside the 3-point arc jumper, let alone that like these other centers are just running him over on the way to the rim to the tune of 83 points and 36 points. Trey Johnson is fine. Like, there are just a lot of possessions where I'm like, I, this is like, I, this is not good for anybody. It's not good. We've passed the point where like, oh, they're getting to spread their wings and try new stuff. Like, this is just bad stuff that's happening.

I agree with you. I also don't love their guys. They have a lot of like assets that are fine, but not like in Ringer 100. I think Trey might've been. Maybe Trey and Sarr might've been the only two, and I don't even know if Trey made it because we haven't, I guess we announced the list on Monday. But like, I like Utah's set of assets way more, right? If you're just looking at like, which, which team's roster would you rather have? Utah's like light years ahead of Minnesota for assets.

Washington.

I'm sorry, Washington. And then Indiana is another one that I just, I like the way they're set up way more. Brooklyn and Washington, I don't like the way they're set up. I don't really like the players they have. I don't think they're in good shape. And even if they get one of these, like Darren Peterson, you didn't watch NCAA, but Darren Peterson lost today. Kansas had a terrible, terrible loss.

I saw the buzzer shot.

I really wish Bill Self was in the NBA so you could do the Zach deep dive on him because he's one of my least favorite college coaches, but he somehow managed to get, give up a game-losing layup.

Is UCLA still in the tournament?

UCLA's playing right now.

Who's the coach? Their coach who had this—

Mick Cronin.

I didn't like him. I didn't like— based on one press conference where I was like, who are you, man? Get off your high horse.

Well, he's about to get knocked out, so you're not going to have to see him anymore. But the point is, Peterson, whose high school tape was just better than his college— what I watched with college, I don't know how 100% healthy he was. He's good. But the, the kid on Arkansas, he knew nothing. And you just watched both of them and you were like, who do— who should have a higher ceiling? You, you— and literally you're just watching college this year and that's it. You would think it was the kid from Arkansas, Acuff, that is like basically looks like he's gonna be Kyrie. Um, the point is, I don't— the Bansa, I think, is going to go 1, and 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, I don't think there's any way to know who's gonna be the best guy out of those things anyway. So we might've done all this tanking and whoever gets the 6th pick might end up with the best guy in the draft, which happens over and over again.

Are you shocked that, are you shocked every time your email box has a medical update from the Washington Wizards? Trae Young medical update, subject line, Anthony Davis medical update. I'm like, I'm almost impressed.

Yeah.

I'm almost impressed with Anthony Davis. Like, Trae played. A couple of games. Yeah. I'm almost impressed with Anthony Davis that they bother sending the email, that A, they remember they've acquired him, and B, that they even bother like this performative, like, yeah, we've done an update. He'll be reevaluated on the timetable. TBD.

Impingement is a big word this year.

Yeah.

Well, nobody knows what it means.

They're impinging on my viewing habits. I have to watch their fucking basketball team.

We'll take a break for the pod. We'll keep going here on Netflix. All-NBA right now, I think we have 4 locks.

It's a cluster.

SGA, Wemby, Luka, Jokic. And then that 5th one is gonna be, I don't know, is Cade gonna get 65? Probably not. Is Kawhi gonna get to 65? Probably not. So, and Ant's at 58 and I don't know how many more games he's gonna miss. It's starting to look like Jalen might actually be a first-team All-NBA guy.

I mean, not if, not if this loss kicks up such a panic level among Celtics Nation as it was earlier in this podcast.

So just a tiny, tiny concern about, about the offense.

How come Donovan Mitchell gets no respect? What does the guy have to do?

He would be the other person. Okay. But what, but how, how would he get it over Jaylen if Boston's a 2 seed and Cleveland's a 4 seed and they've had the same kind of injury luck in their teams? I don't know. And they have the same stats. Can I ask you a quick All-NBA? I have a couple more off this. Is Jalen Johnson, is second team in play for him now?

Second team, it, it's really just gonna depend on the 65-game stuff that you mentioned because if, if, if Cade is out, there's a first team spot I think that's gonna open. 'Cause I think, I, I'm not sure he would've been the fifth first team guy on my ballot. He probably would've been, but it's, he, I think he'll, will be for the voting people.

Cade would've been for me.

So that's open. And then you mentioned all these other guys who might not get to 65.

Kawhi might be out, Maxi maybe, Ant 50/50.

But even if it's just Cade, one of the second team guys moves into first team. So there's multiple second team spots that are open and like he's probably a third team lock. Lock is too strong, but he's been a strong third team All-NBA candidate for a while now.

They won 11 straight.

Against nobody. I mean, I know, come on. Then they played a real team and they got smoked.

But my thing is, I'm not voting for you for All-NBA if I have a lot of good candidates and you don't have a winning record. They're at least gonna be a top 6 or 7 seed.

So Kawhi's out for you if they're below.500? Cause they are right now.

Well, but I think if Kawhi comes back, they won't be below.500, right?

Well, he's been playing, he's been playing lately. He's back.

No, but I'm saying if he plays the whole—

Oh, if he finishes with 65, the above 500.

If he finishes 65, they'll be over 500, would be my guess. Brunson's in there. Murray, I think we both have. Booker's an interesting one because Booker, just if you're just going, who are the best 15 players I saw this year, he's probably one of them. But I don't know if he's going to get the games. And then that's really it.

I had a rising-falling segment on my pod last week. I'll read, can I read you some of my risers and fallers that are in this like third team universe?

Yeah.

I think Brunson has dropped a little bit, but I think he's still safe as an All-NBA player. KAT rising a little bit last month. Durant, is Durant a lock now?

I have, I just think there should be two Pistons if they get the one seed. I feel good about it. And I like having centers. I like to keep the tradition alive. If possible.

Chet feels like he's about the same level as the case, but he'll get a lot of support.

Maxie falling a little bit, but yeah, might not make, might not make the limit anyway.

Might not make the limit. And the body, the body working strong. Well, I know who it is. Stephon Castle. That's your guy.

So 17, 7, and 5 are his stats right now. And he's shooting 32% from 3.

Yeah, I want you to, I want, I'm just, I want to lay out, because I want to hear it. I want to hear the, I want to hear the case.

If they get the 1 seed, I think there's a real case for it, for having 2 Spurs and having the guy who is, I think, one of the best 2-way players in the league and somebody that night after night sets the tone for them. I think other teams hate playing him. I think other, other guards and perimeter players do not like seeing him ever. He's clutch. He plays well with Wemby. He's durable. He's reliable. He's gotten better as the year went along. And I just think he's a badass. I think in a lot of ways he reminds me of the Durant case for Detroit. There's a physicality and an intensity and an anger that he, in a good way, an anger that he plays with that I think sets the tone for that team. I think him and Keldon Johnson are weirdly like the emotional fulcrums of that team. How hard and just what a maniac Castle is, and then Keldon Johnson, the energy he has and what a leader he is for them when you combine it with all the other stuff. So that would be the case. And I really value the durability and reliability, and I think he's— I've just, I've never seen him have like a game where he looked lost or he looked like a second-year guy.

No, God, no.

He just is locked in night after night after night. You could see it when you're at the game. You could just see how he handles warmups, like everything. He's just like, he's got it. So that'd be the case. I wish the stats were, I wish he was at 20 points a game, 'cause then it's like a layup. 17's a little low.

Yeah, statistically, if you're gonna comp him with Durant, I mean, Durant has the big man advantage where his field goal percentage is just gonna be better. He is gonna gobble up rebounds, which is gonna juice all the advanced numbers. I get all that, but there, it's it's not, there's almost no comparison just statistically between the two. And the other thing is that his turnovers can get pretty high. He's averaging 3 a game, which is not bad, but he has some bad turnover games. So look, I mean, Steph Castle was the only player CR and I had in common on our Marcus Soule All-Stars. Like, I could not love watching the guy play basketball anymore. I could not be any higher on him. And yeah, I mean, if you're the Spurs, what, what level of playoff disaster would it take for you at this point to consider, to even consider trading one of Harper and Kessel for Giannis? I mean, like, these guys are so good that I'm, if I'm the Spurs, I'm not touching any of this stuff going forward. No, no matter what happens in the playoffs.

Hanging up.

I mean, Harper has, Harper has been unbelievable thrust into the starting role the last couple of games. It's like scary how good he looks.

You can't mess with Having those 3 guys just as your foundation, you're good. Not messing with it. I can't— if we made a list of like how— first of all, they fit perfectly with the Wemby thing combined with Fox just looking into him and adding him to this in the prime of his career, right? And I, I think he's actually a really good fit for what they have and what they need. And there's some crunch time stuff with him that I like, but I just, I wouldn't touch it. I have a question after question. What am I giving up for Giannis at this point? How many, how many minor to semi-minor leg injuries can a guy have and be in their early 30s with a lot of miles and games in them where I start to get worried somebody's trying to sell me a car that they rolled back the odometer on? I'm just asking.

It's, it's a fair question.

He can't play 3 straight weeks without getting hurt. Like at some point, should I be concerned about this?

Yeah, we're not. Yeah, absolutely. The age, the jump shot, the injuries, not only now, but in like 3 of the last 5 playoff years are a concern. So it's 4, maybe it's 4 of the last 5.

I don't know.

I mean it, I can't remember off the top of my head, but It's, it's, I mean, they'll, they will get a motherlode for him because there will be a motherlode is strong. They will get, they will get a motherlode for him. I'll stick with it. Cause there will be a team.

I don't think they will.

So like, well, but it depends what your definition is. Like, I think the Heat would trade like everything we thought they would trade at the trade deadline. I don't see any of that.

Why is this a good idea? I'm just playing devil's advocate. Like if we're in the front office and we're talking about this, like we have a chance to get Giannis. Like, cool.

He was, he's a top 5 NBA player.

Is he? He doesn't play.

Well, what, okay, you're talking about him like he's Embiid. He's not, this is not like that.

He's closer to Embiid than Jokic. He doesn't play. He gets hurt all the time. He's hurt all the time. This season, I would be really scared about this if I was, if I was, you're, so you're telling me if I'm Miami, I have to trade all of my assets And I have to sign you to a $280 million extension for 4 years.

Look, I've always been—

and I don't know if you can play.

I've always been the conservative guy about trading everything for stars. Like, I didn't love the Phoenix trade for Durant when everyone was yelling at me like, ah, it's Kevin Durant, you gotta do it. You gotta, nobody, it's Kevin Durant. Why are you overthinking this? I'm like, I don't know, he's 35 and I'm worried that he's gonna get hurt and he has been hurt. But you know, I mean, Giannis still has played 60, 70, he's played like 63 or more games in every season before this one. And then a lot of 70s and 80s earlier in his career. Like, he's been—

now, the timing of the injuries, he's gotten hurt in 2 playoffs, has been bad.

Is that bad luck? Is that durability? Like, just body breaking down at the wrong time of year?

I just— so, but how about this? I'm going to throw this at you too.

So no one should trade for him? You're just— it's a stay away for you?

Not saying that.

Okay.

But like Dwight Howard in 2012, and I remember, I don't know if you were working at Grantland at that point, and he was gonna be a free agent in 2013. And we were wondering like, did this already peak? Like his physically, like he's having back issues now. He's played a lot of minutes, a lot of miles. What am I trading for exactly? Shaq in the mid-2000s, I think is another one. You get these big guys when they've been in the league like 12, 13 years and they played 800, 900 games and they've been in a bunch of playoff games. And Davis is another example recently, right? Davis, 2012 draft, and now he's gone off a cliff. His body is breaking down. I would just be, if I'm Miami, trading everything I have and then having to sign up for 4 more years and not being 100% sure if I'm getting the Giannis from 2000, 22, much less 21, I'd be really nervous about it. I don't think I would do it. I would do it if I was Golden State and I'm like, look, we, we're riding Steph into the ground and this is our last chance.

But I don't know if I would do it if I was Miami.

But see, so that, so that's the thing. If you're talking about what Milwaukee's gonna get if this ever happens, and at this point it's definitely an if because like, I just, who the hell knows anymore? Like just throw Golden, if it Golden State. They're going to get all the picks from Golden State. They're going to get the 4 first round picks.

Do I feel good about that if I'm a Warriors fan? Do I think I have a chance to beat Golden State and San Antonio? Or to beat San Antonio or OKC now?

You just made the case though. You feel good about it because at least Steph has—

Oh, I'm saying I understood what— I understand why they would do it. If I'm a Warriors fan, I don't know if I'd want them to do it. I would, I would actually think about zagging the other way. I know trading Steph is— I know, I get it. But you notice what he said at his dad's thing?

What did he say? I didn't see.

They retired number 30 for his dad, and somebody asked him like, you know, would, would you wear it if you came here? And he was kind of— didn't poo-poo the question. It was interesting.

Yeah.

You know, it's not like Charlotte's not arrow pointing up.

Why wouldn't you? Should Charlotte trade Giannis and just go for everything next year?

Why am I so nervous about his health? Am I just in the minority?

He's injured. He's injured. He's played 36 games this year.

He's come back 3 times and gotten injured almost immediately.

But if you're Charlotte, you can't, I mean, you'd want to hang on to all 3 of your best young players. And so because you have 2 of them on rookie deals and you can fit Giannis, but what, you know, what, so what am I getting if I'm Milwaukee? All the picks. Sure. What, what else?

We should have done this 3 minutes earlier. This is another edition of What Would Sam Presti Do? From Eric's favorite game show. Yeah, Sam Presti's running Charlotte and he has a chance to trade 3 unprotected firsts plus that Dallas pick they have that's like top 2 protected and they have one other good one, right? Like Miami's pick or something.

Yeah, they have a couple good ones.

And patch and put Miles Bridges in it because he would fit right in with that goofy Milwaukee team. And maybe, like, I don't know, the Grant Williams expiring and just go for it. I think Sam Presti would not do that. I think he would see, like, let's— we— I love our foundation. Let's build from this. We can add— there's a Hartenstein-Carrusso type of move we can make. Let's keep doubling down, let's add role players around our foundation. I don't think he would do it. I thought it was telling that Houston and San Antonio wanted no part of a Giannis trade in February.

Well, and there's your other plot twist team.

Obviously Houston is, Houston's the desperation team.

Well, and their season has gone awry a little bit. I mean, they, every time you think it's gone awry, they go to Atlanta or the Atlanta comes in. I think it blows out, they, they blow out the Hawks wherever the game was and they, they they win some games where you're like, okay, like Durant's amazing, they're forceful. I mean, Thompson tips in a game-winning shot here and there, whatever it is. And so they haven't fallen that far in the standings, but it, and now they're starting Reed Shepard, which is something you and I have been talking about for a long time. Feels like that could give some oxygen to their offense, but it does feel like it's, it's been rickety for, it's been a day. I think I looked it up last week since in their last, like I want to say 40 games, they have the number 22 offense in the NBA. Like, so it's just not, at the level that it needs to work for them to actually compete.

The fact that Tari Eason just wasn't good this year, I think combined with the fact that he, teams just leave him open, he can't make a shot. And then you have Thompson who can't shoot. So now I'm, now I'm playing 3 on 5 basically with outside shooters. That's why Reed has to play. There's a lot of Ime questions percolating. I, I would say he's, if we did the What do we have? We had, what did you call the team we had for the James Johnson All-Stars?

James Johnson All-Stars.

If we had the Hot Seat Coach All-Stars for the '25-'26 season, I think Ime would definitely probably have the most votes. Ooh. Because the clogged toilet offense, which the Celtic fans remember from the '22 season, it's definitely in full swing. Giannis, so basically it's Giannis desperation. Would be the honest trade, I think. 'Cause I don't think these teams like Charlotte, OKC, San Antonio, Houston, I don't think Houston may be the only one. Like, would you do Sengun and some of your picks for Giannis? Of course.

Minnesota was trying to line up everything to real, to make a real run at him at the trade deadline, which was a strange one to, I mean, not that strange 'cause it's Giannis, but like, but they, they were trying to line up all the, you know, all the deals that they would have to make to get the picks that the Bucks would want. Yeah. It, that was interesting to me. It was notable considering that we don't know what to make of the Wolves right now.

Also notable that it sent their team into like an up and down, you couldn't figure them out night to night. I'm sure the fact that half the team was involved in all those trade rumors probably wasn't helping them.

There's also a Brooklyn, like, what do we even have here? But we have a lot of stuff.

Like a fuck it.

Yeah. And just like, we'll get another guy at some point, or we'll get it, we'll try and get another guy at the same time. And maybe it's not a guy at the level that Giannis would dream of, but it's like a really good player and we'll make it work and whatever. I don't, I mean, who the hell knows? Anything could happen.

The one team I wouldn't rule out for Giannis, which we did not mention, the Utah Jazz, because I think they are at the fuck it stage of all of this. Like they, they just basically rolled over for the last couple years.

Was it the Jaren Jackson? Have you forgotten that Jaren Jackson Jr.'s on their team?

I get it. And they have Markkanen and they have Bayless Bailey, but my assumption would be maybe he's part of the trade or maybe Markkanen's part of the trade. One of those two guys with a lot of their picks and they just try to talk Giannis into Salt Lake basically.

Yeah. I mean, that's one you've gotta talk him into it before you make the trade obviously, but Yeah. What did you think of Ramona's piece where she got Wes Edens on the record saying what we all knew already to be true, but it was interesting that he said it. Like, he's either going to sign an extension or we're going to trade him. Like, we're not playing out the year with this. I thought it was notable that he said it, even though we've all been saying, like, the extension is— if he doesn't sign the extension, it's the same thing as demanding a trade. But the Bucs have essentially gone on record now and said, We don't have the wherewithal to play it out like the Thunder did with Durant or the Cavs did with Cleveland, or the Cavs did with LeBron the first time in Cleveland. We're not doing that. So if he doesn't sign it, we're trading him for sure. Like they said that. So it's out there now.

I do feel like the soap opera of the whole season and the way Giannis kind of handled it, um, started to wear everybody down by the end was my, my guess. It's like you, you say you don't want to get traded, but then another thing comes out and, but you also basically saying, you know, it's like a relationship where you're like, I'm not breaking up with you, but if you want to break up with me, tell me. And that's kind of what's been going on for 9 months. I don't think it's been great. And the Knicks would be the other team.

Oh yeah, sure.

A terrible Knicks exit combined with Giannis being the panic move this summer.

I remain strangely optimistic about the Knicks. I can't, like, I don't even understand. I mean, they're their, on paper dossier is rock solid. Yet, yeah, they've won 6 games in a row. When it feels bad, it feels real bad. But I remain on why can't the Knicks make the finals? Like, I'm all, I'm in, I'm still in.

I don't want to see them as a Celtic fan. It's funny that it worked out the best for Cleveland, who's just going to settle in at 4th place. They're going to get to play Toronto in round 1, which is a team I think everybody would want to play. And then they have Detroit in round 2, a team that they know they can beat. And that would be their path. And let the Celtics and Knicks just beat the hell out of each other.

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Last thing we're gonna do before we go, the winners of 2026. Oh yeah, um, and I had a couple things for this. And by winners, it's not like Wemby is a winner, it's not like the usual NBA ones. The reason I thought of this was, you know, obviously I've been watching a lot of Charlotte I talked to the bandwagon people, by the way. You're still not allowed on. Been watching them all year.

Well, they can't— I hope they drive their bandwagon more safely than Lamelo drives his freaking tank.

So now you're gonna have Hornets Reddit mad at you. But I think Lamelo is a real winner this season.

He's on my list. I wrote down— when you gave me this assignment 2 hours before the podcast, I wrote down some names. Lamelo Ball. In bold on my list. He's a winner. Oh, it turns out he's good. Yeah, he's been good the whole time.

So he was the reason I thought of this idea. I love that he has— so his stats, if you look at them, he's actually had seasons with better stats. This is a classic eye test. You have to watch it. I love the way he's playing. And I said this last week, and I'm going to say it again, like, there's real thoughtfulness in how he's playing the point guard position now and how he's not as risky and kind of reckless as he was. He doesn't seem like he's in like an N1 tournament anymore. And there's a wherewithal with what he's doing now and how he understands. They have these two incredible wings, Miller's, Miller and Kneippel together. It's, I mean, Kneippel has a chance to get 300 made threes, which would be nuts. Miller, when you watch him, it's like, this is like the best version of Paul George. Right, that we had in the 2010s, basically night after night. And LaMelo is really good at using them, at using Diabate, and just— he just knows how to drive the car. And I didn't think he had it in him.

Oh, does he?

Well, not— he doesn't know how to drive his car. He knows how to drive the Hornets car. I didn't think he had it in him. It's after 6 years. And to me, the point guard position, it's either— if you haven't shown me it, I, I don't— I'm not going to believe in it.

See, and I feel the same, but also almost the opposite in that I think everybody got so disgusted with the 5 or 6 crazy things he would do every game that they unjustifiably dismissed all the statistical indicators that he was actually good and actually was like driving Charlotte's offense at a high level when he was on the floor because his, his his plays of insanity were so like disgusting to basketball purists and not, not like they were right. That I think that they just were fed up with him as, as a, as, as a player. And I was like, they, they were in the play-in tournament. That those are things that happened. They had like 500-ish seasons with Lamelo and not good teams. He's always been good, but now he's found the right balance in his game that other people, that everyone is sort of agreeing, okay, yeah, he is actually a helpful NBA player.

Really impressed.

Whereas I think he, I think he has been the whole time. But yeah, he's on my winners list for this re— for exactly these reasons.

He's basically the last, like since the All-Star break, he's making 4 threes a game. He's played, he's played 61 games. That's big. And he's basically 20 and 7 every night. And I don't think he really cares how many points he scores, which is the other thing I like. I think he, I think he's just doing the plays that help them win. And at the end of games, if he needs to beat somebody off the dribble, They're really good. It's amazing that they're gonna probably be a 9 or a 10 seed because the East, 45 wins is gonna be a 10 seed. It looks like they have a chance to maybe move up if a couple teams fall. But I really hope they make the playoffs 'cause I think they'd be an incredibly fun 8 seed.

Hey man, they're only 2 games out of 6th, like in the, in the loss column. Like there, there's a lot. Miami has lost 4 in a row. The Magic have lost 4 in a row. Like teams are starting to fall back into their range and even the Hawks The Bucks who are 6 are only 2 games ahead of them.

Jamal Mosley's on my hot seat coach all-star team, by the way. I have a couple more winners. Why don't you give me a winner? What do you have?

Jamal Murray. We're not that far removed from a lot of hand-wringing over Jamal Murray's contract. Like, oh, did they overdo this? Was he really a max guy? Sensational season, stamped himself winner.

I agree. I remember beginning of last year after he did that extension, it kicked in real fear that the Jokic era had been completely blown. That if this guy wasn't gonna— coming off the Olympics too, that this guy's gonna get his shit together.

It was ugly. The Olympics was ugly.

My next winner, Brandon Ingram.

He's on my list too. Scottie Barnes slash Brandon Ingram are co-winners on my list.

So, you know, you go back and you look at Brandon Ingram stats and they've been pretty steady this entire decade. Like he's been between 20 and 23 points a game. His field goal stuff's around the same, but I think this was a combo of the Team USA thing when he basically left the team, whatever happened, and that they were really sour on him and vice versa. And then, you know, last year didn't get the contract he wanted and nobody wanted to trade for him. And at some point you get the stink on you. Like, what? Golden State was the one team that should have traded for him, but they had coached him in Team USA and wanted no part of him, and nobody else really wanted him. And we end up with this thing where he gets traded to Toronto. Rich talks them into somehow signing him to a pretty sizable extension with no other bidders, and all of it seemed insane. You watch the games, he's one of the more reliable end-of-games, throw him the ball, get us a basket. He's got that That around the foul line move when he bounces off somebody to create space and has that little 15-footer, it's kind of Durant-ish, honestly.

I've been really impressed.

Yeah. I mean, both of them, because there was a lot of Scottie Barnes skepticism too, that he deserved the no-brainer rookie max. Both successful seasons complement each other, I think, in the ways that Toronto's front office thought they would in that, in that Scottie Barnes is not the kind of end-of-game scorer that you are describing. And so we need to get someone who is. And yet, like, I had Jack Armstrong on my show a couple weeks ago.

Yeah, that was good.

Like, where is all this actually leading? Like, neither one of them is quite as good as you need that player in that role to be for a team to really get anywhere. But they're, they're solid. But like, I just don't, I don't see a pathway for this particular roster. To go super far, but it's a good roster. RJ Barrett's good. Quickly's been pretty good for the last couple months. But so 45 win roster.

Yeah. Maybe that's a Giannis team too this summer. That could be another one.

Oh yeah. Yeah. They've been, they've been on the list. That's true.

Am I up or you up? You're up.

I can go, I mean, Bones Highland. Bones Highland is a winner. He's on my list.

Bones Highland's back in.

I'm struggling because I, the name on the top of my list, I can't even read what my handwriting. So, oh, Mitch Johnson. Not, not a, that, not a, not a great one, but like, I, I was like, people were like, who is, who is this guy? What do we think of him? And now we're like, yes, this guy's pretty good.

Oh, I think he, I think that's a really good one. All right. I have a couple more cheap centers. I think we're having a cheap center renaissance led by Donovan Klingon, who multiple teams passed on in that draft. Who's now averaging 12 and 12 every game.

He's, he's good.

He's third in the league in rebounding and I think he's like third or fourth in blocks. He's 2.3 blocks a game, but it's just like a legitimate guy. Kade is the Celtics version of that. Diabate, AKA Moose. We call him Moose now in Hornets Nation, but he's basically been a double-double for 3 months. And then the other one that's in there is Mark Williams, who trade veto, Phoenix kind of grabs him, and he's another one that's like 11-8. But there's these guys out there, and this goes back to what we talked about in the Worst Contracts podcast, about I just don't want to pay $30 million to a center when I feel like I can find these guys, right? The Celtics are paying Keita and Garza $3 million a year, $4 million a year total, and they're putting up relatively neighborhood numbers to some of these guys that are $30 million, $28 million, $25 million. Cheap centers are making a comeback.

Could I nominate a few more guys for that list?

Yeah, let's go.

Uh, let's see.

Mamo can be in there even though he's not technically a center.

He's a center-ish. He's a center sometimes, sometimes not a center. Uh, uh, Jock Landale, throw him, give him a little love. Jalen Smith, give him a little love. Just throwing good love at guys. Cornette, is he outpriced this range?

He's outpriced it, but he spiritually still counts.

I, the other son, Oso Iguodaro, is legit good and has been holding down the fort for Mark Williams for, for a bit now. And by the— Klingen ain't gonna be cheap much longer 'cause if he keeps playing like this, he's gonna make a lot of money on his next contract.

I actually had Ishbia as a winner because I think they salvaged a truly awful situation with a team that's exceedingly watchable night after night. And they have a lot of, it's weird, kind of what's the, what, they're not assets, but they're kind of semi-assets. But like you mentioned, Iguodaro, Goodwin, Dunn, that Fleming I think has a chance to be somebody. Gillespie, if you catch Gillespie on the right night, he looks like a dominant NCAA point guard.

Remember 2 weeks ago you asked just like, give me some random buy low NBA stocks, just off the cuff. I had no prep for it and I mentioned Mala Watch and yeah, I'd still buy. The guy we should have bought and now the price has gone up since then, but we should still buy is Fleming. That guy, that guy's got a shot.

Yeah. I have 2 more winners. Nico Harrison.

I'm interested.

He did it. There's never been a worse sports trade. We thought last year it was possible. We were hoping, but there was still a chance, like, maybe Davis will be really good on Dallas. Well, what happens when AD gets healthy? And then they give AD away, and then it was, yeah, but you know, you watch Luka on LA, you can kind of see what they did, what, what Nico was thinking. And now on March 22nd, 2026, it's the worst trade anyone's ever made.

It actually would be a fun exercise to try to engineer similar trades. Like what would be an equivalent trade that if it happened next February, we'd be like, wait, the Timberwolves traded Anthony Edwards for, I mean, I'm not even sure who it would be. Like there's gotta be like a 30-year-old. Like pretty, like pretty good player and it comes out, they think, yeah, yeah, we didn't like Ant's attitude about this and that.

I could, you would, you would struggle to actually, like, who would be the next Luka trade? The next Luka trade would probably be Anthony Edwards.

Or who would be like the return piece? Like, you know, wait, the what? The, I don't even want to put that, I don't even want to put it on anyone. I was going to say the name of a player.

That's the thing. First of all, you can't recreate this trade. You can't have a doppelgänger for it because it's undoppelgängerable. It'll never happen again. There never will ever be a worse sports trade. And the only thing that would make it funnier is that the Lakers make, like, the Western Finals and Luka's just destroying everybody. Like, he should come to a game. Like, I would zag the other way. Come to a Laker game, bathe in the applause, bathe in the adoration, accept the thank-yous from the Laker, from the Laker fans. Right. Instead of being booed and humiliated in Dallas, zag the other way. What if you made this other fan base really happy? Go accept their congratulations.

What if it's all a long con where he's been, where he's been colluding with Mark Walter for years and this was his move to eventually Scooby-Doo ending. Yeah. To replace Palenka in the end. What if, what if it's all been part of a long scheme?

That would be one of the biggest scandals in NBA history. We have fired Rob Poinka and we've replaced him with Nico Harrison. And he pulls off his Mavs, Mavs pullover. Um, I have one more. I have two more actually. Uh, the rookie class, well, of '25. No, because I'll go even further because now that it looks like Ace is really good, we might have a 5-for-5 with the rookie class top. And I was going Yeah, top 5 where we have no Darkos, no even— I hate saying this, but Scoots. And I've really watched Scoot carefully, hoping, hoping for the—

there's something there.

There's something there.

I just— we're getting to the point that it's going to be safe pretty soon to conclude that it's not number 2 pick something. It could be, it could be good NBA player or something, but it might not be ever number 2 pick something.

He has a really, really high defensive guard ceiling. I don't know if you've picked that up at all. Like, I, I think he's a physical defender who actually cares about guarding people. He can beat people off the dribble and get to the basket. What he's not is what I thought he was going to be, which is like a Derrick Rose type of athlete getting to the rim. And that's not—

he's not a finisher like that. He actually overcomplicates it at the rim sometimes.

Yeah. And I think that was the miss, but The '96 class, Iverson, Camby, Sharif, Stephon Marbury, Ray Allen. That's a 5-for-5 basically. And then '84 had Hakeem, Bowie, MJ, Perkins, Barkley. Bowie did play. I know he shouldn't have gone second and it was a ridiculous pick, but he, he was like a pretty good center for a decade. He ended up playing like 700 games or something. So, I think with this 5-for-5, Flag Harper, Vijay Khan, Ace. Ace is probably the wild card, but I think Ace is gonna be good. And if Ace is like the scariest outta the 5, that's a pretty good 5.

I've liked almost everything about this Ace Bailey season.

Yeah.

Even when he wasn't scoring much, I liked the way that he was approaching the game. It was completely the opposite of what I expected based on what I had heard of the Rutgers thing and just everything was, I thought he was gonna come in and just chuck up a bunch of bad shots and he did not play like that at all. He tried hard on defense, he would make the extra pass, he was like totally committed. To all the things that the Jazz wanted him to be committed to. And then the last couple of months as they've tanked and tanked and tanked. Yeah. They've been like, just go ahead, man. Shoot some shots, create some shots. And he's, he's good at that stuff. Yeah.

Jalen would be the last one, just the season he's having, but we don't need to talk about him. And then my last, last, last winner, Adam Silver pushing this expansion thing when I don't think it's a slam dunk to have the 23 votes. And I think there's some owners that are like, what the fuck? Including, um, Vegas is 90 minutes from Utah. That would be like if they put an expansion team in the Clippers in San Diego. Do you think the Clippers and Lakers would care about that?

Are there two cities that are closer together geographically and further apart culturally? Is it, is that even possible?

That's true. But, uh, I just, I said this the other day on Thursday's pod and we didn't talk about it, but, uh, I thought the timing of that announcement as a Monday, you know, Monday is when the Monday morning you give somebody something because you want the story to blow up and set the tone for the week. Timing of it was interesting. I don't know if they have the votes and it felt like they wanted to, it almost felt like one of these where. You lick your finger and you put it up in the air and you kind of see what the response is. And most of the response was pretty positive. I was probably one of the most negative ones because I think it's ridiculous. I don't think they should be adding two teams when I would first look at relocation. I also don't know why Vegas should have a team. Nobody's explained that to me.

The track record of franchises there does not sell itself to you.

I just say it's— I just think for to be the 5th professional team. It's not a huge market, and I'm not really sure what Vegas is going to look like 10 years from now, whether it's better or worse. Like, why— but why wouldn't Nashville have a team? If we're just doing this over again, like, just to be clear, Seattle should have a team, but I've been saying that for 20 years. People know where I stand on Seattle. Seattle should have a team. I don't know if we have to have expansion to get Seattle a team when I think there's some— a couple franchises that we have to really seriously look at. And I don't, it doesn't seem like they 100% wanna have that conversation 'cause they'd rather get the expansion fees. So, which is, this is what I said Thursday, it's a pure money grab. This is a money grab. It's not good for the league. I don't think expansion is good for the league.

I, I, I'm not, well, from, from the perspective purely of talent dilution, I actually am not worried about that. I think that, I think there is talent for 32 teams. You might have to, I'm not worried about the talent part.

I'm worried about what we're seeing now with 2 more teams that are tanking. And like basketball today, there was one good game the whole day. 'Cause you just, you're just throwing away half the schedule every day when these, the 9 teams that don't give a shit.

Well, they gotta do their best to fix the problem A before they introduce problem B. And I think they know that, but every time they've tried to fix problem A, they've just created a different version of problem A. And so that's the challenge for them is can they actually do this in a way that minimizes losing on purpose because—

Doesn't it make sense to fix that before we talk about adding 2 teams? I am all for, like, if you have a real solution for this, do that, and then let's add 32 because we do have enough players. I think we do have enough players, but I don't think the league should have 32 teams the way we are currently set up. It doesn't make sense to me.

I hope it's— I hope that it is a driver of discussions on the tanking issue and the schedule issue. I hope that if we're, if the NBA's gonna do this and now you have to rearrange the conferences, or at least move one team east, you have to rearrange the schedule a little bit. Like, let's have a serious conversation then. What should the schedule actually look like? How many games should it be? We're all gonna get, all the owners are gonna get a gazillion dollars in expansion fees. Like, can we now have a serious discussion about how many games do we really want to play?

The players aren't gonna get that money though.

It's true.

So if you're cutting the, the games, you would have to make that up to the players.

That's true.

'Cause if you have 32 teams, now you have the easiest possible 71-game schedule sitting right there for you. It's 4 8-team divisions. Y'all play each other twice, and then you have that third set of games against your division. You're at 71 games and we're good to go. And I think everybody would be happy with that. Sounds like you're pro expansion.

I'm just not, I'm not anti the, most of the reasons people are anti are either, well, we've got to solve the tanking problem first. And I think they know that, or B, well, it's just going to be bad teams. There's too, there's not enough talent. The talent's going to be spread too thin. And I just don't, I have not seen evidence of the second part being true. Okay.

All right. That's it for the pod. I had a good time. So we got to thank State Farm because this was a live one on Netflix, and they were gracious enough to be involved with that one. Zach Lowe is going to be back Tuesday and Thursday. I have new rewatchables coming tomorrow, which is going to be The Nice Guys. You like The Nice Guys?

Love The Nice Guys. It was the movie that really— I don't know if I had seen Gosling in anything funny before that, and I was like, oh my God, this guy's unbelievable.

I forgot to set you up for your weekend, but you're, so you're gonna have to do that on your pod.

Yeah, it's fine.

It's good. I had a fun weekend. Save it for whoever you have. Yeah. You had some sort of, some sort of funny story.

Iverson. There's an Iverson side plot that's involved. We just, we just bought, and I did not run into Allen Iverson. I bid on a jersey at Mystic Aquarium and we'll leave it at that.

All right. We'll find out on Zach Lowe's pod on Tuesday what happened. Zach, good to see you as always. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well. And I'll see you in this podcast. Late Tuesday night. Must be 21+ and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino, or 18+ and present in D.C., Kentucky, or Wyoming. Game problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-RESET. Call 888-797-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplineMA.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 877-888-8255 HOPE-NY, or text HOPE-NY in New York. For Louisiana, call 877-770-7867.