Transcript of The Jaylen Brown Colonoscopy Trade (and More NBA Summer Reactions) With Chris Ryan and Kirk Goldsberry

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This episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast is presented by PayPal. You know a clutch move when you see one. A no-look pass, a buzzer beater, a big steal. Well, imagine if your wallet could pull off moves like that. That, my friends, is PayPal. Right now you can find offers from hundreds of brands like Sony, Allbirds, and Viator, and save offers before you check out. Earn unlimited rewards. Plus you can add those rewards on top of credit card points. Now that is clutch. Download the PayPal app today. Save those offers. Start scoring rewards. Terms and exclusions apply. See paypal.com/rewardsterms. Credit card points subject to issuers' terms and conditions. The Bill Simmons Podcast live on Netflix, a rare morning podcast. Curt Goldsberry and Chris Ryan are here. Wanted to mention we put up the last episode of From Hell on the rewatchables. We did, um, Pacific Heights. And I thought we had escaped from hell last month, but apparently we didn't because I have a story for you guys. So I'm just going to— can you clear out for me? Yeah, it's all you. Just play some bass as I talk to the audience. So I didn't have a reaction pod to this Jaylen Brown trade yesterday because I was getting a colonoscopy and it was supposed to be last week and I screwed up the prep.

And the, the time they had was July 1st at 3 PM Pacific time. And if I didn't take that time, I would've gone July 15th. So I'm like, all right, you know what? Like, I, I can do a Thursday pod. I'm gonna get knocked out. So we're wa— I'm watching the, the World Cup game and then go in, had a very similar experience to UCR where the guy said, uh, right as I'm about to get knocked out, he is like, where do you think LeBron's going?

Denver.

And then I'm out, wake up, and all I want to know is what happened with the World Cup game. And the guy's like, oh, they just had penalty, there's a penalty kick. And, um, actually saw the penalty kick and whatever. Come out, my wife's waiting to pick me up, and she goes, they traded Jalen Brown. I'm like, I had just woken up from anesthesia, and I'm not, as you guys know, not really coherent. And I'm like, Where'd he go? She's like, to Philly for Paul George and two first-round picks. And I'm like, I think I'm dead. I think I died. The anesthesia killed me, and now I'm a dead person. And I'm like, and I'm just trying to process it. And I— it's, you know, it's like I have a head injury, and I'm like, Is there more? Are there more first round picks?

Did they get the Clippers first?

And she's like, Zoe's really upset. So now my daughter who likes Jaylen Brown and, and, uh, I'm like, all right, can you read me what the trade is? And she reads me the trade and then I stumble out of this, uh, hospital place. Um, so when this trade happened at 3:20 Pacific time, I had a camera in my ass. And I had Paul George being rammed up my ass, and that was happening at the same time. And that's how I'm going to remember July 1st, 2026. So we're driving home and I'm like, I'm like, should I do an emergency pod? And my wife's like, no, you're like barely coherent.

You probably start giving me your Social Security number.

I would just be like, ah, ah, ah, ah. So anyway, that's, uh, that's my story of finding out the trade. See, our story was a little more pleasant than mine. Because he had just finished— they talked the Thrones pod.

Yeah.

And Van and Jomie, you tell the story.

No, I was, I had just finished recording with Joe and Mal and, and Van and Jomie burst into the room and I was like, it felt like LeBron, but I, I couldn't, I couldn't tell. And, and obviously after a lot of guessing, you did not guess Jaylen Brown. I did not guess because I just didn't expect us to go back to this well after Horford. I thought it was kind of omerta, but I guess I should have. It's a big time for Browns getting traded between Boston and Philadelphia.

Yeah, we passed, we passed back and forth 29-year-old Browns.

And yeah, I mean, it was, it was, it was very, I, in some ways I feel like I'm still living in that moment because I, I'm processing it. It was also Bill, like, because you were under general anesthesia for a lot of it, one of the most intense sports days of my life because USA is coming up.

Yeah.

You realize after, if you do 14 hours of watching sports and getting the the social media drip about it, like your brain is falling outta your ears by the end of the day. So I did England, I did most of Belgium, Senegal, the incredible work that all of our colleagues did talking about making the Lakers white again. And then USA and Jaylen Brown hit in there. It's like, I didn't, I could barely, like my brain was scrambled eggs at a certain point.

Kirk, I, I spent yesterday morning, I was so delighted by how bad the Lakers moves were. I was just torturing all the Laker fans in my life. I did not think the Celtics were gonna trade Jaylen Brown.

Karma, baby.

I thought, I thought they, I thought they had canvassed the league, not like what they saw. And they're like, you know what, let's just, we'll all get in a room and we'll figure this out. There's not a trade for this. And we could talk for about a variety of reasons why there might not have been a trade for Jaylen Brown.. But I was having such a great day. I was gonna get this colonoscopy done. I was gonna watch the Team USA under anesthesia and, and it was just gonna keep rolling. And I feel like I used up a lot of karma points with all the taunting texts I did to all my Laker fan friends yesterday, cuz I thought what they did was hilarious. We'll talk about it way later. When did you find out about this Jalen Brown trade, Kirk?

Oh, I, I have a boring story. I was sitting in a chair getting ready for soccer and a typical Shams notification washed across my screen. And I did the thing where I was like, is this the real Shams? This is— this doesn't make sense. So I like had to verify. I didn't want to be tricked. The most shocking part for me, Bill Simmons, is the fact that the Boston Celtics traded one of their best players to the Philadelphia 76ers. Like the historical part of that, as, as a, as a kid who grew up in Pennsylvania watching Dr. J and Barkley and Moses Malone go against your favorite team of your childhood, like this is one of the great rivalries in the NBA. And I was just shocked to see a player of, of his caliber get traded from from Boston to Philly. And as I sat there, I was like, this is insane, um, just because of the two franchises involved. And then the second reaction, of course, is like, they didn't even get the best pick that Philly had, uh, they, they got older and not younger somehow. And then you're just trying to— no, but it was, it was— I had, of the three of us, I admittedly had the, the most generic experience finding out.

He's being shy, Bill, 'cause right after that he went and got his own colonoscopy. He just did. I mean, it was just in a bar in, in Maine, but he still got one.

He got a homemade one.

Yeah.

Back alley style.

The Philly thing, I think it's the greatest rivalry in the history of the league. People would point to Celtics-Lakers, but you're just talking about the Finals where the Celtics just beat the Lakers every year. And then, you know, then they didn't play for a while. Then they played again in the '80s a couple times. They played in the 2000s a couple times. That's it. They haven't, been in a series together in 16 years. Boston and Philly every decade have battled in some sort of way. They've had some sort of playoff series. When we did Celtic City, um, which maybe we have to do a 10th episode now called Celtic City, the team is falling apart. Um, we did a whole episode built around the '80s Celtics-Philly. Did Dr. J versus Bird, all that stuff back and forth. I can't even remember that many times, CR, when, when they've even made trades. Like, I remember we got Dana Barros from Philly as a free agent, but for the most part, like, I, this is certainly the biggest transaction ever between the two franchises.

I know that. I mean, like, there's obviously the Horford signing, but I, this is the last time I remember anything like this was like getting Jim O'Brien to coach, you know? Like, it's seriously like, you have to go back to like these weird, these weird moments in history. 'Cause for the most part, the two cities and the two teams pretty much are like, this is shut off. It was funny, you know, like other friends, like I, because of the World Cup, I've been in touch with a bunch of, of my buddies in England and they're like, can you explain this to me in like Premier League terms? And I was like, this would basically be like Liverpool signing Marcus Rashford if he was coming off of a career year. Yeah. It's really, they, it's really, really complicated. And for the Sixers, you know, they've been star shopping. Since the Jimmy Butler deal, since, since they decided to break away from like the draft and develop model to like collate some of those prospects and get, get a star for Embiid. So we have Butler, Horford, Harden, what have you.

Then Paul George.

Well, this is, and Paul George, but this is the first time they've done it. And I think that the star that the Sixers were trying to complement wasn't Embiid, it was Maxey. Like, I don't think this is a trade for Embiid. I think this is a trade for the younger core. And, you know, I don't even think that Jaylen Brown and Joel Embiid pair that well together. I'm excited to be proven wrong, but like, they both like mid-range. They both like having the ball in their hands and kind of surveying the court. You know, it's going to be really interesting to see how it works out in a basketball way. But this is, this is a different kind of trade than the Sixers have made over the last couple of years. I don't think it's just for Embiid's purposes.

He pairs better with the speed of Maxey and Vijay. The Embiid thing will be weird. All right, you gotta clear out again, 'cause I'm gonna walk you through my, my thoughts as this happened. First of all, how many hours has it been? It's been, I don't know, 17. This is the most unpopular trade with Boston fans since Mookie Betts. I still think Mookie Betts trumps it.

Oh, hold on a sec. One sec. One sec.

Way more. Go ahead. Uh-oh.

Okay.

Oh no.

Go ahead.

God, CR, why?

You were saying Mookie Betts? I think that was last season.

A more indefensible trade 'cause there was no reason to do it. They just didn't want to pay him and then they gave him away for 10 cents on the dollar. This, we could talk about some of the defenses I've heard. Everybody in my life, not only was there no warning whatsoever, not only was Jalen the centerpiece of a Giannis trade that seemed like it was going to happen. A week ago on Monday. But this was, I think, the first Boston trade ever that came out of nowhere, but then had everybody going, wait, that's the trade? What else is in it? Is there a part two? And there just, there just wasn't. So, you know, you start thinking, how does Jalen go for half as much as mid-30s aspiration scandal Kawhi, right? Your head goes there. Kawhi hasn't made— Kawhi hasn't won a playoff series in 5 years. Kawhi with the Clippers won 2 playoff series in 7 years and missed more games than just about anybody other than Embiid the last 6, right? The last time we— everyone's talking about, oh, Kawhi, now Toronto, this is the piece that could push him. Kawhi lost the fucking first play-in game last year to the Warriors, the game I went to.

This was like the 2019 Kawhi.

I don't—

I just don't think is there anymore. Anyway, so he goes for half as much as him. He goes for less than Desmond Bane. He goes for less than Jaren Jackson. He goes for less than Kevin Durant did last year when Phoenix needed to trade him. They got the 10th pick and 2 movable contracts.

Just note that his voice broke on Durant there, just if we're keeping score at home.

He went for way less than Giannis, and then during the same day went for less than Kessler, who played 5 games last year. He had 5,000 minutes last year. He went for less than Kessler. All right, so we have that. We have— I had, uh, Michael Rubin had his white party yesterday in the Hamptons. I know you were invited. See, are you at the RSVP now?

I think it was at Lakers training camp, actually.

Um, that was the other white party. Um, so apparently one of the Philly owners was there, and I'm not going to say who.

I gotta take this shit off.

And yeah, take that Red Sox hat off.

So one of the Philly owners was there, and people were like, What's up with this Jalen trade?

And he was just like, we couldn't believe it either. Like basically saying, right, we can't believe we were able to get Jalen Brown for what we gave up. Kirk, I'll start here. Just on the trade itself, which is a 2028 first. That seems pretty good. It's at least the Clippers pick. It might even be like a 1 through 8 Philly pick or 1 through 8 protected Philly pick. But what would it have cost Philly just to dump the last 2 years of Paul George's contract. It's somewhere between 1 first and 2, correct?

Yeah, it's funny you should ask. They were, they were trying to do just that. I think before Darryl left, they were trying to do that. And the answer from what I heard was 1 solid first, the better first they have. I think that wasn't included in this deal.

So that's a team like Chicago or Brooklyn, a team that had cap space. Please take Paul George from us. We'll give you these picks to take him.

It's a huge plot point here because it— once you start to do that sort of connective math, you start to say, okay, the Sixers wanted out of the Paul George business, Paul George prison, or whatever you want to call it, and they were willing to attach a pick. So they were going to do this for whatever you could get back, right? They were going to do this. And to get a Finals MVP, a guy who got real MVP votes this season, for essentially that package, it really contextualized it. And I love what you did too, because I, I was doing the same comparative math with the Kessler transaction and the Desmond Bain transaction. You're like, what is going on? What is going on with Jaylen value, Jaylen Brown's value around the league? Because it doesn't stand up to any, any way I would've evaluated his value. I, I was shocked at the market value had, had dropped this low. But you're exactly right to call out the Sixers wanted to get off of Paul George in the first place.

CR, I'm sure you were intrigued by the thought of getting rid of Paul George regardless of who came back.

I got no hate in my heart for him. I was incredibly disappointed by the suspension last year and not out of any like moral thing. It's just like that was just like we were actually, the Sixers were actually starting to put some stuff together when he, when he got suspended. And to have that happen, which is sort of an elective absence on his part. Even though we never really got the full story about it, on top of like all of the load management that either the team and or he were doing for his various injuries, it was just kind of like, I'm tired of watching teams that are like, we're going to just try and make sure everybody's healthy for that second round series that we have. And it's like, oh, actually, you know what? Just, just give me a good, good NBA season. How about, how about that?

And well, you're going to get it from Jr. He's going to play 70 games a year and he's going to play 35 minutes a game and he's going to show up night after night and he's going to be a guy a guy that when Embiid's not there can be 20 shots for you and play 38 minutes and play bigger or smaller.

So wait, I have like, here's my main question I want to ask you guys. There's a new GM in Philly, Mike Ganzey.

Yeah, there's a name.

Well, you can say president because Jamir Nelson's the GM. And then there's a new owner in Boston. And those differing sensibilities, I think, are worth bringing up. I was kind of joking when they put a camera on me and asked me what I thought of this yesterday, and I was like, this does not feel like Brad Stevens made this call. But I also saw Windhorst yesterday was like, this is a trade made under duress. And I just don't understand this. There is no reason why this have to happen on a Wednesday. There's no reason why this had to be the deal. Was the, I, I, I know that there had been reporting that the Celtics were not getting a lot of what they wanted out of the trade market for Brown, but is there no— you were talking about going to Toscano's 48 hours ago, Phil. Like, what, what?

I wasn't going to go. I was, I wanted my dad to go as a representative of the Simmons family. I just thought once the Giannis thing happens, then it gets out. And then they don't get Giannis because they didn't want to put in extra stuff other than Jalen and Tuferce, which I wholeheartedly agreed with.. And then they canvassed the league. There's no trade. The third year, I think, really hurts with Jalen cuz it's like $63 million or something. And they were obviously terrified of it. And it, I, I think there's two ways to look at this because I, you know, I, I still have a whole, I want to go through my whole, my stages of go, of processing this trade. But there's two ways to look at it. One is the analytics stuff, which I want to talk about later. We could talk about that after the break.. And the other is that they feel like this relationship was unsalvageable and was gonna get worse. And okay, so why is that the case? Well, you have the 2024 Finals MVP Eastern Conference. If they just split those, I wonder if this trade even happens.

The fact that Jaylen wins both, that's a little weird. The Tatum-Brown thing starts to get a little strange. Tatum gets hurt. A year later, the timing, the— that's a complete fluke, right? Jalen takes over the team. I've talked about it on the pod a bunch of times where he has the car keys and had an awesome season that I've been watching Advanced Metrics pick it apart, which is fine. I still feel like wins is the most important advanced metric. And he showed up night after night and went against everybody else's best guy and was great. And I, to me, the fact that they were so desperate to trade him, and by all accounts last 72 hours they seem like they were desperate, like, we gotta, we gotta, this has to come to a head right now. I don't feel like they could put the genie back in the bottle with him, was the take that we have now opened this door where this guy thinks he's the guy, he's gonna come back. We have Hugo, we have Shireman, we have more Pritchard shots. We, we don't want to be in a situation where this guy thinks he can average 29 points a game again.

We have Tatum who can replace a lot of his stuff, and this is going to get worse, not better. That's the only thing I can think of for the logic of this trade, because everybody's been asking me the last 17, 18 hours. It's not like they had to do this now. They could have waited till the season. They could have waited till February. Whatever happened since the season ended seems to have given them this additional urgency. And it's maybe some of the things he said both publicly and privately. The fact that it wasn't a 1A, 1B thing anymore. Like, I think Jaylen probably felt, maybe rightly so after last year, I'm equals with Tatum. And they just wanted to get out of this situation was my take. Does that make sense as a take, CR?

It makes sense. I mean, I like the timeline you built there because another element of it would be Tatum coming back. Which was supposed to be this heroic act of selflessness and all that. And it almost seems like it just kind of threw everything out of balance. And I wonder if Tatum just says, I am out this year, I'm going to rehab. And the Celtics have a kind of nobody believes in us feel-good 56 wins. We got to the second round. We didn't have enough for the Sixers or whoever they lose to. Like, does this even happen? Is Jaylen Brown like, well, and then next year we get Tatum back. And we're going to be in great shape. The thing that I also go back to is Brad Stevens' postseason press conference where he was like, we are not going to be playing this way next year. And he seemed way lower on the team than the NBA community at large, where everybody I think was like, pretty cool. You guys really, you competed. And he was like, fuck this. I did not like this. And I guess I now, we know who he was talking about or what he was talking about because he was probably apparently more out on the 2Js than, than any everybody else and especially everybody else in Boston.

And it's a bet on Jaylen too that, you know, we can go into what the team will look like next year, but it's a bet that Jaylen can replace all the, I'd start Jason Tatum can, can replace all the Jaylen stats and the production and being the number one guy and then the team around him. Will fit better than Jaylen Brown being told, go over here now, you're not the number one guy anymore. Kirk, you remember, so I've talked about this before on my pod. When I was, the first year I was doing Countdown when Rudy Gay got traded to Memphis. Yeah. And it became a very important, like Sloan Conference moment. It became this specific tipping point in the old way we talked about basketball versus the new way. And I was on that show arguing with Magic Johnson, who knows more about basketball than me. And has had way more NBA experiences than me and Will Bond. Jalen was kind of neutral and I was arguing, I actually think this trade makes a lot of sense for Rudy Gay. I think he's overrated. Memphis, I think turned him into Tayshaun Prince and for McGreevis Vasquez, I forget who else was in it, but the team took off and they ended up making the conference finals because they determined whatever, even though Rudy Gay seems good on paper.

And I remember Magic saying at one point when we were arguing about it, You need a guy, you need a closer, you need, and, and I, I was trying to be respectful, but I was like, the stats say he's not that good. All the advanced metrics say he's actually not a closer. That you're actually, if, if he's your guy finishing games, this isn't great. And that's why they did the deal. So that was this tipping point for that era. Now we're in this different era where even though I voted Jaylen 5th for MVP, I voted him first team all NBA. I thought what he did last year was incredible. There are all these like deep analytics now saying like, nah, actually wasn't that good. So as somebody who's at the forefront of the Sloan Conference revolution, where do you stand on the analytics here?

It's a great question. So the tension is Jalen Brown now represents this tension. He's going to be the person who gets associated with this. Is this guy, we have him in the, in the Ringer 100 bill as number 14 in the NBA after the season. Estimated plus minus over at Dunks and Threes, one of the best sort of nerdy sites going right now, has him at 87th in the NBA. Okay. According to estimated plus-minus. So this is, don't shoot the messenger here. That's the tension. All these teams have these models. How impactful is this guy for winning? They measure all sorts of variables from player tracking things we didn't have 15 years ago during that Rudy Gay era. But ultimately these models hate Jaylen Brown as a factor on winning. You can look at just basic on-off stuff. The Celtics had a net rating of 6.5 with him on the floor, and that goes to 10.5 when he came out. And the models just start stewing on these facts.

But with those models, how much does that depend on did you have a really good bench?

Well, you know what I mean?

If your bench comes in and is cleaning the clock of the other team's bench, then the on-off stuff's going to get skewed, which I would always use as my defense for Jaylen in Boston.

And, and I want to come back to that, Bill, because I do think the real reason here is depth and team building in the second apron era. And I think Brad Stevens, as Chris is pointing out, he wants a 1/10th-pole organization with one giant salary, not two. Because you need to have the Knicks, Spurs, Finals, those are deep-ass teams with dudes who are playing 7, 8, 9, like José Alvarado. You need to have that kind of money. And if you have two guys making 35% of your cap in the second apron era, forget it's Jaylen Brown or Jayson Tatum. That's just a hard math problem for anybody to solve. And I think that's really at the heart of this thing. I don't think it's about Vans plus minus or anything. It's like, do we really want to have 2 dudes in their 30s combining to make 70% of our cap and go on a trip to the Thunder and Spurs.

Yeah, on top of that, 2 of the top 9 contracts in the league just for figure by year. Yeah. The next 3. And maybe, I don't know, maybe they thought that was unsustainable. But then the counter to that is, well, Paul George makes as much money as Jaylen Brown does.

That's what, that's the head scratcher.

That's the part that doesn't make sense to me. It's like, I get the financial thing, but yeah, you got, you got out of it after 1 year, not 2. I don't know, CR, that the advanced analytics stuff, and it's weird 'cause I've always been, I think even dating back to the Grantland days, I think we were at, you know, we were part of the forefront of everything that was changing there. And I still believe in the numbers a lot of the time, but I still feel like there's something about durability and somebody who shows up night after night and could be the best guy on a team over and over again and accept that challenge. The issue is he won an NBA title 2 years ago and they won an NBA title 2 years ago.

I don't know. Like, what are we playing for? Right? Like, I, look, I, I'm also somebody who's, my favorite basketball player ever is Allen Iverson, who is also not beloved by the advanced analytics community. I cannot claim to really understand a lot of this stuff at a certain point. I think that this is also, as much as it's an analytics story, it's a media story to me. The turning point in some ways in the story publicly, I'm sure privately was much different, was this Bobby Marks tweet that went out about an analytics guy, unnamed analytics guy, telling him that Jaylen Brown would be like the 7th best player on our team, not like on a, in the league. And that really got the ball rolling in terms of this debate coming to the forefront again. This is all going to kind of die down, you know, once, once all, all the, when all the smoke clears. But this has just been a fascinating couple of weeks in the NBA where the outside reporting is so speculative, but then like there are pieces of it that feel incredibly well-informed. And so going back to Jalen doing livestreams and saying like, this was my favorite year of my career, which also had a lot of context.

He also says a lot of other stuff, you know, that we don't need to get into, but there's like these little nuggets that then get taken and run with. And the idea that this guy went from a pillar of the franchise to a, we need to get him outta here with no deadline contractually, league-wide, whatever. We just have to get him out the door, even if it's to a rival in the division. And we're gonna have to see this dude multiple times a year. It, it really speaks to like, I, I think the tension behind the scenes, but it's, it's so fascinating to me 'cause I want to know. How much the speculation around it actually wound up fueling the fire.

I have some, some thoughts and maybe a couple answers on that, but we have to take a break and we're gonna come back and I'm gonna talk about my stages of grief with the Jaylen Brown trade right after this. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. We are in the heart of the World Cup. Look at these little special bottles for Michelob Ultra. Uh, every play matters here. FIFA World Cup '26 for you. The stakes are just as high. Michelob Ultra, the official beer sponsor of the FIFA World Cup 26, is giving you a chance to win $1 million worth of tickets and prizes. Michelob Ultra, from the pitch to the pour, superior is worth playing for. Enter now at michelobultra.com/superioraccess/fifaworldcup26. Michelob Ultra, FIFA World Cup 26 Superior Access. No purchase necessary. Open to US residents 21+. Begins on December 1st, 2025. Ends on July 31st, 2026. Multiple entry periods. Visit www.mikulovulture.com/superioraccess/fifaworldcup26 for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes, and details. All right, we're back. So in 2004, the Boston Red Sox in July traded Nomar Garciaparra, who was the most popular guy on the team other than Pedro. Now hold on. They traded him for Orlando Cabrera, and they also got Doug Mientkiewicz in that, who ended up, um, clinching the ball when they won the World Series a few months later.

And this was an incredibly polarizing trade. And I wrote a piece for ESPN.com actually kind of defending the trade because They had tried to trade Nomar the previous winter in the A-Rod thing. It fell apart. He had to come back and it was weird for half the season. There was some advanced stuff with him that he was slipping defensively, that he was starting to hurt the team a little bit, that he wasn't the guy that he was a couple years before. And they trade Cabrera for him, who was an excellent defensive player and just kind of fit the team better. Everyone in Boston lost their fucking mind. And then it turned out to be a great trade. And Cabrera was one of the many heroes. No, for if you're a Boston fan, that's the only thing you're clinging to.

You're talking about Orlando Cabrera to yourself.

You're just like, ah, maybe this is like the Cabrera trade. I'll give you the stages of grief here.

It's like the end of The Irishman. It's like, Orlando Cabrera, please.

So I hear about this trade, the anesthesia wears off, and I'm watching America. I think convincingly win 2-0, especially 'cause we were playing a guy down for a half hour, including one of the great free kick, free kicks of my lifetime. Did you think he was making it, CR?

I did not think he was too, I thought he was gonna be too close.

The goalie did give him a, yeah, kind of a wide side on the right.

Give him a little bit of space. But yeah, I mean that in the right corner.

I do like the free kicks when it's over on the left. 'Cause I feel like you can really blast it and potentially.

He put so much Yeah, that was incredible.

Anyway, I was trying to focus on the game and I'm in 3 hours of darkness. Some things I wrote down, 'cause I wanted to write down my anesthesia thoughts in real time. New owner cheaped out. Brad panicked. Tatum demanded the deal. Worst Celtics trade ever. Haven't felt this hopeless since they traded for Vin Baker. Those were 5 things I wrote down during the World Cup game. By the 4th hour after the game, a little more uplifting after we won 2-nothing, even though we lost our best player in our team to a bogus Red card. I wrote down, take last year's team and replace Brown for Tatum, Garza for Mitch, because they got Mitchell Robinson yesterday.

Enjoy that.

Simons for Paul George. Wait, are we better or worse? Starting to get signs of hope. And then I wrote down, didn't PG play as effectively as Tatum and Brown in the round 1 series? Looked up his stats, 17 points a game, 55% from 3. He at least like was a draw with, with, with Brown. And then after 5 hours, and I had some texts, I'm trying to get faith. I landed on this has to be part 1 of a second part of a deal. And I think that's where I've landed. And I, I really wonder if the Trey Murphy piece is gonna be the second piece of this. Because I don't think New Orleans wanted, I don't think they wanted Jaylen Brown, 3 more years of him. And I wonder if George on a 1 year less with picks and you get Murphy and you get Jordan Poole's expiring back and that's the endgame here. And now that makes sense to me. Kurt Goldsberry, does it make sense to you?

I had a similar sort of come around this morning at the, I could feel my face again after I woke up and I was like, oh, okay. Celtics won 56 games. Is that right, Bill? Last year with this team. So assuming Tatum sort of slides into the Jaylen Brown slot and I'm like, okay, that's a 50-win team, right? But I had a similar sort of coming around to it. I'm not sure there is a second move, but that's a great theory. I do think what I said earlier, they value flexibility. The NBA did this to all the teams with this hard cap second apron situation. Depth has never been more important. The only way to find depth is in the draft with cost-controlled guys. And overpaying dudes in their 30s is the fastest way to erase depth. And there's no shortage of teams that can, can say that right now. So I think ultimately, yeah, the Paul George thing of it all is still the weirdest piece. Like, okay, all that's true, Kirk, but they brought back a 36-year-old girl, a 36-year-old guy with bad legs, and that disappeared for 25 games last year because he got suspended.

So I love your theory if they can now turn that into Trey Murphy somehow and get Jordan Poole, as you said.

So is PG available to get traded immediately or do you have to wait?

Well, here's the thing. The trade doesn't get announced till I think January 6th. So you have a few days here.

July 6th.

July 6th. I'm sorry, July 6th.

July 6th.

Okay.

So you have a few days here to, you know, you can make it a 3-team or 4-team or whatever. Now, if they do something resembling the trade I just mentioned, maybe they won't. Now you're replacing Brown with Tatum, Garza with Mitch, and Simons with Murphy. And then you have your younger guys are a year older and some more Pritchard stuff, and that starts to make sense. If that doesn't happen and this is just the trade and you're gonna get a year out of Paul George and then he's a big expiring next year with picks and you're gonna make a move a year from now. There is a world where they tell Paul George, like, you're gonna play 49 games this year, and when you play, you'll play like 22, 23 minutes. We're saving you for the playoffs. We're gonna play these younger guys. We want to keep you fresh for the playoffs. We want you to have one round, two rounds, three rounds, whatever, where you'll play bigger minutes. But on paper, whatever Paul George is, whatever we saw, this is, this is this is where I sound like I'm justifying the trade. I'm not.

I'm just saying on paper.

So the way you're justifying it is that if there is a hypothetical second move to be made that isn't like we're waiting for Jokic or we're waiting for Dubanza and Flag to come up, right?

Like, no, it's, it's more like you're using Paul George to get somebody's money back, but ultimately flexibility, which I've been saying in this podcast since the season ended. If they traded Jalen, I really thought it would be for flexibility. That's why I never really liked the Giannis thing 'cause I thought it put them in the same position they were in before with these two giant contracts. But with the Paul George piece, and you're looking at it and you're like, all right, maybe we get a year outta him, less minutes. He's a more complimentary player than Jalen. Our chemistry's better. We can find out what we have with Hugo and Shireman, more Pritchard, and we'll patch this together because we did this last year. And by the way, maybe, Maybe they're also saying Jalen wasn't as responsible for last year as, as he got the credit for, that this was a system thing. It was depth. It was night after night being able to have 10 guys who were competent. It was the 3-point shooting. It was the defense. And that's the only thing I can think of. If that trade doesn't happen and PG just comes back, I still think that, I think the thing they're risking here is the fans in the city.

That's right.

Paul George, not— I would say he's been a slightly divisive guy over the years. You're risking Jalen going to Philly and Philly being really good right away. You're risking all of the Celtics, whatever the team they have now, not playing as well as they thought they were initially. And you're, you're taking a last year, a feel-good thing where everybody liked everybody and we're like, wow, this is great. I love this team. I love Joe Mazzulla. I love Brad Stevens. There's Chisholm. Now, if this doesn't work out right away, you're talking about Chisholm walking to his seats before the game and somebody be like, yo, Chisholm, fuck you. Stevens going into the thing. Hey, Stevens, fucking traded Jalen.

Fuck you.

Like, this changes the energy. So they better be right on this, CR, because you've seen this in Philly.

Yes.

When the energy shifts. In the cold weather cities, specifically Boston, Philly, New York, it can get dangerous.

Yeah. And I think that, uh, the things that seem to matter to front offices sometimes are just so far apart from what matter to fan bases. And fan bases like establishing relationships with guys. They like seeing guys grow up. They like acquiring new stars. They like developing kind of like a rhythm with the team, a rhythm with the way the team plays. Now that can get stale and you can, you can find yourself as a Phillies fan and be like, I like these guys, but I've been watching this TV show for 10 years now or whatever, but I think that, I think that the danger is, you know, flexibility over, over fandom, you know, and flexibility over who are we putting on a billboard if we're trying to build a new stadium like you guys sound like you are, you know, and, uh, I think that that's, that's a real, real dice roll. Furthermore, you know, like for as much as you're like, this could work out if it's Trey Murphy and there's, there's a couple of ways in which this could not work out. You know, that this could go very wrong.

More than a couple. And well, including Jason Tatum with coming off an Achilles injury with like Paul George at 36, Mitch Robinson, who has a big injury history and that they have all these injury variables.

Yeah.

And a couple of those guys that you bring up on every podcast, like who I still don't really remember watching play, like, oh, you know, I just mean, I, I don't have a lot of like Hugo tape in my head. Yeah. Didn't show up against the Sixers. Like, we're not like ready for primetime. So like, they are really nice regular season pieces and they're really nice development stories, but I don't necessarily think they're going to win a second round series for you guys. So look, I haven't been out of the second round since 2001. So what am I talking about? I'm just saying that like, there is an element to, um, it, if you're counting on like another deal making this right, or this all kind of coalescing in a way that we just don't understand yet. There's also like a negative side of it. There's a bad side of it.

I would say there's a few bad signs. The coalescing, the betting on guys with injury histories, Kirk, the fan reaction to this trade, which is the single most negative fan reaction. Even Mookie Betts, we knew that was coming for like a year. This was, I think, way more contentious. I'm sure Brian Curtis, copyright the Now they tell us story. I'm dread— I'm dreading the now they tell us for this. The Celtics don't usually operate that way. They don't, they're not a big leaking after the fact organization, but the big question that they would never answer, that if I had a Brad Stevens truth serum where I'm like, you have to answer, I'm giving you this, I'm gonna give you a call and ask to be an anesthesia, and then you're gonna tell me this.

This sounds like the beginning of an erotic film. You giving Brad Stevens a call?

By Adrian Line.

Um, from hell month return.

From hell month is back. A disgruntled fan wants answers. Um, the question I want to know is, were you thinking of doing this right after the season, or did this evolve during the offseason? Because my guess, my thought, is that pretty much everything Jalen did from the moment the season ended push them to a place that they decided maybe this was untenable. Kirk, now you, you work for a team, you're always judging the, the, you're judging the chemistry of the team, you're judging the best guys on the team, the happiness of the team. Like the Spurs got LaMarcus Aldridge when you were there. Yeah. Um, one of the reasons they got LaMarcus Aldridge was 'cause it was pretty clear in that last Portland year he wasn't 100% happy. That there was Dame was becoming embraced, even though that Portland team was really good. It's one of Kurt, one of Zach Lowe's favorite teams. Something was off and they, and then the Spurs ended up getting him. So how much, how much do organizations just think about the non-basketball personality shit?

Yeah, that's the, but I kept going to that. I don't think people under understand like the human element. When you trade a guy, it doesn't just affect that guy and his family, it affects all the spouses and the kids and like now everybody's looking over their shoulder. So I know that RC and Pop were like very, very careful with the trade tool itself. Like, we don't want to blow up the morale. We want to build an element of trust around here. And again, they had the benefit of a different CBA era where flexibility was, was, was king. And they had players who were taking less money, much like Jalen Brunson, which has enabled the Knicks to find depth this time around. But I think you're right. I think there is a human story here where Jaylen Brown had an awkward last few months. I bet there were tensions behind the scene, and that's one of the only ways I can explain a relatively great front office making what I consider to be a bad deal to get away from Jaylen Brown is that there must— it must have been very bad behind the scenes, some real tension that we may never learn about.

If Dan Shaughnessy's not going to write it these days, I don't know who will. But like, who is— why did this happen? From a human perspective, because, because the numbers just don't add up. Like, you can do the double ledger here, and it's just like, it screams like you started the podcast with the Boston Celtics just dumped this dude who won Finals MVP 2 years ago. It was a salary dump to a division rival, to, to their historic rival. As Bill says, one of the greatest rivals the league's ever seen.

Well, the, the thing I always judge these trades by, 2 things. A year later, would you be glad or unhappy that you did it? That's one. And then 4 months later, would the trade still be there? Hmm. I'm guessing if this trade doesn't happen today, CR, but we get to the beginning of October and Boston calls and said, hey, Jaylen Brown for Paul George and 2 picks, You're still saying yes. So why would you do a trade? Why would you do a trade that's going to be there in October? Now is the best case for they felt like this situation had gotten untenable behind the scenes. And who knows if, if Tatum, who's been, you know, and I've heard both sides on this, he hasn't said anything. He never went on the, the Jalen, this is a big thing in the local radio. He never went on Jalen's Twitch. It is true. He never said anything. Now the counter would be, well, if he does say something, then that becomes a story. So he's, he's gotta lay back.

Does he say a lot about anything? I mean, I don't really think of Jason Tatum as the most demonstrative star. Like, you know, he does a lot of like, here's my documentary about my, yeah, my, my rehabilitation for my injury. But there's not like a, it's a lot of carefully crafted docuseries. Yeah. I'm going live on, on IG to to break down the World Cup. I mean, it's just, uh, I know I, I, this kind of stuff is like what we have replaced reporting with is like looking at, at, at like tea leaves and trying to be like, oh, I was getting—

I heard a guy told me, right? Somebody told me, a friend of mine.

And you know, I, I like, that's for better and for worse. But I think that the only, my only counter to this, um, would be I don't Now in retrospect, don't think Mike Ganzey would've waited. I think this, the Sixers team was going to get changed. I didn't actually anticipate that. I thought that they were going to run it back and that it was going to be like, this is about cleaning up whatever Darryl did and we're going to do some depth stuff and we'll draft well and we'll figure out where we're at. And hopefully Edgecomb develops and we'll be like a 5 seed or something like that. And Embiid, let's just cross our fingers.. But now in retrospect, I'm like, oh, this guy wanted to change the face of the team. This guy wanted to strip the paint and make it into his own thing. And I mean, it's, speaking of reading tea leaves, his brother posted a picture yesterday of Gansey with LeBron in, you know, in the St. Mary's uniform from back in the day, which, you know, is probably horseshit, but is Tony Jones also reported that the Sixers inquired about LeBron, and if that's the game he wants to play, like, hell yeah, sure.

You know, it seems like other people have had the joy of cheering for LeBron. I'll take it. But yeah, it's, I don't think the Sixers were going to sit around waiting for Jaylen Brown. I think this was an opportunistic trade.

I don't think Paul George was going anywhere else. We should mention Waz and House and I do the worst contracts draft in the beginning of every—

we should mention this—

Embiid was one and Paul George was two. And it, it wasn't even like, it was basically one of those, the draft starts at three. 'Cause we know these are the top two. Now when we did this, Paul George was, was under suspension. Didn't know if he was gonna come back. It, the Philly thing could not have gone worse. And he had 2.5 years left on the deal. Now he has 2. But, I thought he was really good in the playoffs. I said it over and over again. I thought I, I was shocked by how well he played. I thought he really bothered Jalen ironically. And there was a lot of clips about this last night of all these different times he locked down Jalen one-on-one. 3-point shooting was great. Even in the Knicks series, his stats weren't that bad. So that was, I thought the best he's looked in a couple years.

But if it's Paul George, Paul George is our defender. And you guys had won, I can't remember what the 6-0 streak was, or what we were definitely surging and Paul George got suspended, Boston would implode. Like talk radio would be, need, they would have an FCC violation. Mm-hmm.

I want to talk about the Philly piece in one second. This is my last thing on, on Boston, 'cause I think we covered everything there is to cover from the Boston side. But the, the Jalen thing of just being with somebody for 10 years, ironically, 10 years ago was when they drafted him. What they had with him and Tatum together, which led to a title, 6 Conference Finals. And I was pretty steadfast all the way through, even with the Giannis thing. I was like, I think this guy's really good at basketball. Like, I don't really care what the stats say. I've watched, watched him over and over again. I just think like, this is a guy, the bigger the stage, the bigger the event, like he's, he's gonna be there and he's gonna show up. Now people could counter and be like, well, what happened in the Philly series last year? He wasn't good. Well, what, why'd they, fall apart in 3 of the last 4 playoffs. I just wonder if we're ever gonna see teams stay together like this anymore in the NBA with the way the apron is. If it— this feels— everyone's talking about the advanced metric side and this is like the end of a certain era.

To me, this, it's like the different end of an era. You could see it in the contracts that were handed out. 1 for 7, 2 for 14, 2 for 19. Kessler got one of the only long deals we had. Um, all of the middle class, slightly upper middle class, slightly lower middle class, all those guys are on 1-year and 2-year deals now. Nobody wants 2 big contracts on the same team anymore. Utah, who really could have used Kessler, was like, wow, you're offering us all this? Great, take him. And then you look at the, uh, the snowtime Lakers now with Reeves making 45, Kessler making 35, and Luka making the max. It's like, that's your team. Those are going to be your 3 guys now. So Kirk, I just wonder, like you, you mentioned the Spurs earlier. If we're running back the Spurs now, Parker gets traded in 2010, he's gone. Like, they're like, shit, we, we have this, we gotta pay that, we gotta pay Duncan, we have to pick between Manu and Parker. Parker just had the off-the-court thing that happened with, you know, uh, you could Google it. This is the time, let's move him, we'll get younger, we'll get a young point guard.

And guess what doesn't happen? You're not one of the best teams in the league for the first part of the 2010s. You don't make two straight finals and you don't win the 2014 title. So I just wonder, is this the league now where we're the NFL and it's just a different champion every year?

And it's by design. I mean, this is the first time in league history we've had 8 different champions in 8 years. Uh, welcome to the parody era. It is the NFL and it is a direct byproduct, Bill, of the new CBA that went into effect in 2023. And one of the things that I don't think is good is we're starting to see, like, beloved characters being dumped. Like Klay Thompson, like, this guy is gonna have a statue, he's gonna be a Warrior hero, but he gets, like, dumped. So Jalen's not the first one to go through this, but it's, it's, it's, it's boring, but it's, it's profound too. It's the, the instrument insists on giving the biggest paydays in the league to dudes 31, 32, 35 years old, and then they immediately become toxic assets. They become toxic assets. We all know, Bill, when do guys peak at the NBA? 28, 29.

We watched the Finals. It was all young dudes and guys in their 20s.

Yeah. I said in Giannis' piece last week on The Ringer that like there were 2 guys among the 25 most minutes played in this year's playoffs that were 32 and older. This is a young man's game in part 'cause the CBA makes it nearly impossible to build a good team around these toxic assets. These guys a little past their prime, they're making fucking $70 million.

Like, right.

We're reserving our paydays for our guys who are a little long in the tooth, and building a team around that guy in the second apron era is nearly impossible. And I'm not sure if that, that's good for the long-term health of these fan bases and the morale of these teams. So that, the— yeah, go ahead.

No, no, finish, finish your thought, Kirk. I'm sorry.

Well, just like, I thought it was all embodied by that concept, by the viral video I saw today of a little kid just losing his mind about Jaylen Brown leaving the Celtics. He had a Celtics jersey on, he's He's bawling. And Jaylen Brown actually responded to this kid and it's just like heartbreaking. It's like you forget about that part of the business, guys.

Like it's, it's a, it's a morale business. My daughter who's going, who really became a Celtic fan legit like the last few years and is going through all the stages now of when you become a new sports fan, like the Giannis trade and why are they trading Jaylen? I don't understand. Why did Miami get Giannis for all this stuff? I've seen all those guys, they're not that good. And then yesterday she's FaceTiming me and I'm, I'm like fucking out of it. And she's like near tears and she's like, I love Jalen. I'm really mad. I don't understand why they did this.

And you think you're dead.

And I'm like, I, I'm, I thought, is this heaven? Where am I? Is this the afterlife? What were you gonna say, CR?

I was just gonna say that there's a really interesting narrative history of the last 15 years to be written where Morey comes in and introduces a lot of the advanced analytic concepts to the NBA and changes the way teams are assembled.

Especially the Shane Battier trade, right? The Shane Battier for Rudy Gay starts.

But he is actually, in retrospect, almost like, um, what was— he's romantic compared to the way the NBA teams are run now. Like when he was just like, look, I'm looking at the underlying numbers and 8 out of 10 times we beat the Warriors given X, Y, or Z happening. It was almost like this faith that he had. Then you have like this draft capital craze that happens and that's Presti and to some extent the Spurs and you see what happened with those guys and now it's like it's Tim Connelly. NBA and you're just like, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna have constant motion. I am gonna wheel and deal and KAT's out the door and Randle is out the door and LaMelo's in. And then if I have to, I'll try and find somebody to take Gobert. And then if I have to, I'll do this. And it's just like this sort of churn that's been happening. The Sixers have been doing this too, where it's like we rent a guy for 2 years and then we send him out. But it's almost like these contracts now, I think what Gansy did was really interesting is like all the Sixers deals are pretty much on the same timeline..

So even if regardless of the ages of the players and Bede, Maxey, and Brown are all up the same year. So even if this doesn't work out, like it's not something he has locked this team into for a decade, you know, it's not like, well, now what are you going to do? You've, you've made your bet and you have to lie in it with Jaylen Brown. It's like, no, this is, this is something that was very, very specific to Brown's deal. I don't know if he's going to be like, If you don't give me an extension, I'm out. Like, that's, I think that is going to be an interesting question for a lot of these guys where it's like, I have 2 or 3 years left on my deal, but so if you want me to come to your team, we have to like basically redo it.

Well, I forgot to say this earlier. I do wonder if that's a piece of this Boston side with Brown was eligible for an extension later in the summer. And if they had said no, how would he react? Well, you took care of Tatum. If Tatum was, had an extension coming up, you would take care of him. Why not me? And they're trying to avoid all that stuff.

So what's the reporting about going, the reason why the Giannis thing, aside from not including Hugo or whatever, like that there was the rumor that he was not going to sign an extension with Milwaukee and they were like, well, we're not gonna trade Giannis and just be back in the situation with another star.

Well, I'll go further on that 'cause I have information on that that I forgot to share last week. The Giannis Bucks to Boston thing was closer than I think people realized. And I, I still don't think Hugo was ever in the trade, but I do think it got to the point the Bucks had an arrangement with Giannis that he was basically gonna approve the trade. They weren't gonna trade him without him basically signing off on it. And he didn't sign off on the Miami trade for a couple days there. And they were talking about extensions with the Celtics and it came down to, it was like 2 years, 30% of the cap could be the extension, or 3 years, 35%. 5, and the Celtics were, were pretty entrenched at 2 for 30, and Giannis wanted the 3 for 35, and they couldn't agree on it. And that was when he greenlit the Miami trade, and Miami threw in Jakšonas, and that's when it happened. So you can even think from the Celtics thinking there, back to what we've been talking about a while, it's like, can we compete if we have these two giant contracts on our team of guys in their 30s?

And they obviously thought no, so they said no. And then they got out of the Jalen thing, which they were desperate to do, obviously, considering the trade. You mentioned Philly. They have Embiid at $57, Jalen at $57, and Maxey at $41 this year. Embiid goes to $63, $67, Jalen goes $61, $65, Maxey goes $44, $46, which is—

take care of our guys. That's all I see.

In year 3, you're gonna have $178 million for 3 guys and I think this is, you know, I, I, I've obviously had a lot of critiques about Silver over the last couple years. It doesn't always please me to do that because I, I, I like him and I've had a decent relationship with him. I think the biggest mistake he's made is hammering this second apron thing and basically taking advantage of the players. I don't, I think the players over and over again are just outmatched in these negotiations. They're negotiating against billionaires. Across the board, they're just gonna be out, outmanned. You're not gonna know as much about the future as all of these guys who've made all this money doing whatever. What I don't like and what I think they should put in is the longer you're with the team, you should get some sort of cap and tax relief from it. I've been saying this forever about the Warriors and Curry. Curry's been on that team since 2009. That should matter. He just shouldn't be a blanket Curry makes $61 million a year. It should be he makes $61 million., but because he's, for every year he's been with the team, you get a percent off on the cap or the tax or whatever.

So he's at a 20% discount because I don't think fans want this. I think it's fun for, for us, for content to just watch guys ship around and watch Lamelo leave Charlotte, watch Randle leave Minnesota, Ja, Jalen Brown. Like it's fun to just watch everybody move around. But I don't think it's, I don't think it's good for the league. I don't think I, I, I care about the shit, like the fact that Bird and McHale played their entire careers together. I just feel like that era's gone now.

Yeah. I feel like that. Yeah. I think that, you know, the, if, if you're looking for one reason to understand why Jaylen Brown is on the Sixers today, it's the second apron. It's the, the current CBA. And I don't think this might've happened under the previous regime. And I, I do think it's worth thinking about that for the long-term health and sort of macroeconomic shaping of the, the NBA at large. And, You know, I wrote about it with, with Giannis last week because I think that was a huge part of what's going on there. And you just alluded to it with the Boston and Miami sort of negotiations there. Like, this is— the 3-point line was the dominant game-changing artifact of the 2010s. The hard cap second apron is the equivalent in the 2020s. It's changing the game, but it's happening in the front office as opposed to on the court with shot selection. And I think the teams that learn how to use it the most and learn how to navigate it are gonna be the most successful. And right now that means, Bill, first-round picks are way more valuable than they were. Young talent on cost control is a lot more important than it used to be.

And like I said earlier, a 33-year-old vet who's not living up to the $70 million we're giving him is the most toxic asset in the NBA potentially. And that, you're talking about with Embiid.

Unless you're Toronto. Then you're, then you're excited.

Then you're pulling out. Yeah, but that trade's fine.

There's nothing to see here.

Yeah.

Nothing to see here. He just had to leave the country. How much does he get paid again?

Did you see, did you see Kawhi at the Blue Jays game?

Oh God.

It was like Michael Corleone returning to Sicily. It was just like unbelievable.

He was there for 8 months. It was like he filmed one movie and was just out making the next one. Look, I remember writing about this in my book in the late 2000s. Questions about the '80s teams that we had, the Lakers, Sixers, Celtics, and Pistons, and why those teams would kind of never happen again because it was so easy to circumvent the cap, pay guys, keep guys together. And we all romanticized that decade because we got all these guys to stay on the same teams. And when, you know, Detroit traded Dantley for Aguirre, that was like a cataclysmic trade. People were like, oh my God, they traded Dantley. The Lakers in the mid-'80s almost traded James Worthy for— I think it was Worthy for Tarpley and some— and a draft pick or something, and backed out at the last minute. But we had, we had moments like that, but they were always about basketball, not the other stuff. And that started a shift over the next 30 years. We saw free agency change. You talk about these different eras. Free agency changed it in the '90s because 'cause once the guys were on the young, on the shorter contracts, you could see people like Stephon Marbury be like, yeah, I want my own team.

And he, Minnesota had him for 3 years, they had to trade him. Golden State had C-Webb for 1 year, they had to trade him.

Right.

Then we move in the 2000s and it was about these longer deals that really were able to help a team like San Antonio that could build around Duncan, who was great.

But then, but if you had a bad GM, they destroyed your franchise for a decade.

You had a bad GM, you were done for half a decade. Yeah. You were, you were done for 5 years. 2000s, 3-point shooting changes everything. And then this decade it's second apron. And CR, like, I, I really don't think we'll see a team go back to back for a long time. And even like Durant and Golden State, I don't, in '16, I don't think could have happened with the way we're doing this now.

Yeah. I mean, especially if you add, add the injuries that we're seeing and the kind of, and the wear and tear that's happening to players. It just doesn't seem like a guy like Tatum, who by all accounts takes care of his body as well as anybody in the league. Like, you know, Halliburton, like these, these injuries are destroying franchises for not only the playoffs that they're in, but the year after. I'm trying to, it's, it's, it's a really good point about the way that the league was built was by creating these long-term relationships. And now I think that you've replaced that with the dopamine hit of the transactional nature of the NBA, which is like really fun to talk about and really be crazy to just be jacked into the matrix all day long waiting for signs that so-and-so is going here or this plane landed there. But I don't know if it's super good for the league. You know, I don't, I don't know. I mean, like fandom itself has become a lot more individual. I don't think people are like, I have grown up and decided to dedicate my life to the Steelers or the Timberwolves or the Nuggets.

Like, I think they're a little bit more like, I like this guy.

I like it's player-centric.

Yeah.

So I like LeBron. Where's he going? Oh, he is on Denver now. I'm going to root for him.

I would not be surprised if next season there's just like a ton of buzz about Minnesota just because LaMelo has like a real fandom among younger NBA fans, you know? But I don't, I don't know. I just don't know if it's like totally great for the long term. Like, is, is the NBA going to exist in 25 years?

You know, I don't, I honestly, it goes back to Everything being financially driven, including like the fact that they want to expand, which I think is, I, I've talked about over and over again, the last thing we need is two more teams. The fact that everybody has a chance, which is how the NFL was able to grow all the value of their teams, right? Didn't matter if you're in Cincinnati, Seattle, New Orleans, everybody had a chance to win the Super Bowl and you were never bad for more than a couple years. And now we're back in that. I'll say one more thing about Jalen, and then I really want to talk about the Lakers just because I want to cheer myself up because I thought What they did was abhorrent yesterday.

Can I just ask you one more thing before you do your, your, your eulogy for this? So I think the Sixers are better than they were yesterday morning, and I think the Sixers are in a position where if this goes well and if Embiid gives you, yeah, if he's on the Paul George 45 games, be healthy for the playoffs, I think this team is way better situated to function during the regular season with a rhythm.

Well, especially if Phylon comes through. Yeah. Yep.

If you have a bench and Dean Wade is not a bad pickup, like that's a good, there's a Dean, there's a starting lineup that the Sixers have that I think is among the best in the Eastern Conference right now.

Well, you know what else you did, Sierra? You turned Paul George into Jaylen Brown.

That was, that was, I keep forgetting that. I keep forgetting. I was really locked in on Belgium, you know, like, like you had Paul George and then today I have Jaylen Brown and now you have Jaylen Brown.

Yeah.

And look, you know what? Jaylen's got a lot of good ideas. I'm really open to them.

Well, one of the things, so, so I had to, obviously Philly did great in this, but one of the things that I really like about the team, as you know, I'm a durability guy. VJ, Maxie, Jaylen Brown, those guys fucking play. Yeah.

You know who also cares about durability?

40 minutes a game.

Nick Nurse, because he likes playing guys 45 minutes a game in February.

But you, you basically, you've turned Embiid into the, like, the proverbial all-time luxury. If he plays, awesome. If he doesn't play, yeah, I think you're okay. I think you could patch together rebounds and rim protections and be, you know, not a catastrophe. But you're gonna have these 3 guys night after night who are gonna be playing a combined 105 minutes. And you know, VJ's gonna be way better next year. That was the first thing the Celtics asked for was VJ and Paul George. And Sixers were like, no thanks. Yeah, I'd rather keep VJ.

Blow up I-95 than do that.

Right. I mean, really what you want, and this is why the Celtics valued Hugo so much, is having these perimeter guys who are two-way guys on cheap deals is the single best luxury you can have right now. I think the Sixers are gonna be good. It's interesting with the, the Celtics title odds were 6 to 1, really for the entire offseason. They're now 13 to 1. They are for 50+ wins on FanDuel. Do you think they are a minus or a plus on that bet? If you're betting the Celtics to win 50+ games, I'm gonna say a plus, but I'd be tempted.

I think the Bones are so good, Bill. Um, you're gonna tell me the price. If it's a plus, I'm in.

Minus 135. So, uh, and conversely, the Lakers. Celtics are +200 to win 50+ games.

Now, is that with Confederate currency or with— sorry, they're moving back to Minneapolis.

The thing with the Celtics, I think they're still going to be good next year unless the city is so mad and so focused on how much they hated this trade that it gets a little black cloud over it. So I think one of the reasons they did this trade was what happened in 2019 when it was like, on paper, look at that, look at this team. Hayward's back and we have Tatum and Brown and Kyrie and Al Horford and we're going to be awesome. And the egos and all that stuff never— and I think that was part of the fear and why— what leads to this trade. But I also think that could happen this year because of the energy of the trade and people just being mad. If Philly starts out going like 18-3, Yeah.

Right.

And the Celtics are like 9-9 and Tatum's having leg issues. And you know, there's this, there's a couple different scenarios here. We're like, oh my God.

It's also a complicated thing for Stevens to sell to his fan base because to make it sound like he's really excited about this trade, he's gonna have to sort of denigrate Brown on the way out.

You know what I mean?

Like, I think we got better. I mean, I, I, it's a very, very, very delicate dance here.

Yeah.

All right. Jaylen Brown quickly. 2024 champion. Yes. Indiana series made the shot in the corner, which was one of the great Celtic shots of this century. He was awesome in the Dallas series defending Luka going two-way. His game 3, I think he has 30 in game 3. They're up 2-nothing in the series and both of them together really took it. And that was like the platonic ideal of the Jays together. It was like, if you wanna see what they wanted, those two guys. Has in that Dallas game is per the perfect part.

Kirk, I'm glad you brought it up. I was just gonna add, like, on a team with Derrick White and, and Drew freaking Holiday, who did Joe Mazzulla use to guard Luka Dončić in that series? Yeah, Jaylen Brown. And that's why he won Finals MVP. You know, he had a slightly more efficient shooting series than, than Jason Tatum, but it was the defense, Billy, you called out. He is a, he is a serious defender and, and was more than capable in that series against Luka Dončić.

And if he, if Tatum wins Finals MVP, I think all of this is a lot easier afterwards. Jaylen gets the ECF, Tatum wins the Finals MVP, which I think he should have. I said it at the time. I don't, I don't understand why he didn't win it. But I think the problems probably start there anyway. Jaylen was amazing for the city. He showed up all the time. Never would— however, if you ever got weird off the court, never saw it on the court. Um, I thought he was reliable. There was frustrating things about him, which you get frustrated by everybody when you watch them play basketball for 10 years, right? But I, I just thought he was an awesome—

you said he was an incredible guy in the community too.

He really was. And, and honestly, that was the same thing for Mookie too. Like, you don't get a lot of these, the people that can bridge all kinds of generations and all kinds of different things that really seem to care about giving back. And he was one of those guys too. CR, you want to stay for a quick Lakers hit?

Sure.

Okay. They gave Kessler 4 years, $130 after giving up first and 2031 and 2033 and swaps in '28 and '30. They signed Grimes and Mamu for 4 for $60, 4 for $52. They let Kennard go and Sexton for 2 for $19. A guy that Charlotte, which was like a 9th seed, was like, Kobe White's a major upgrade for us. They have Kessler, Mamu, Luka, Reeves, and Sexton, I think, as the starting lineup, and Ayton, Grimes, Vandy, and LaRavia coming off the bench, and Bronny if you want to throw him in there for fun. I'm just dumbfounded, Kirk. Yeah, I, I— you're locked into this team now that I don't think has any chance to beat beat not only San Antonio, not only OKC, but probably not Utah, probably not Minnesota. I, even if Luka's averaging 35 a game, I just don't see how this is defensively a team that could hold up multiple playoff rounds. I just don't get it. So explain it to me. Kirk had so much trouble explaining it that his, his computer froze. You go, CR, and we'll go back to Kirk.

This team feels a lot like the '24 Mavericks. And it feels like a team that was built by Luka for Luka based on like what he wants to play with. Secondary ball handler in Reeves, a big guy who protects the rim and I guess can flush it. Although I haven't seen a lot of Kessler over the years. I know he's, I know he is a really good rim protector, but it's just a strange thing when all the word coming out of the Lakers was Mark Walters is here, we're going to have the front office from the future and Palenka's still there and he's making deals basically based on what his star wants, right? I mean, that's, that's just my read superficially. What do you think?

I thought they need to get him to sign an extension, right? Obviously he's signing off on all these moves. This is what he wants. He wants a defensive rim protector, guys around the rim. And want shooters around him. The part I don't get is the lack of a defensive anybody. Um, I still don't know who's—

is Quinton—

you watch Quinton Grimes for a couple years. He's just your lockdown defender.

Cool player.

Yeah.

Who's guarding SGA on your team, right? Who's guarding Anthony Edwards? What do you do when you play Anthony Edwards and LaMelo together? Who's guarding Jamal Murray? I just have— oh, Kirk's back. Uh, I just have a slew of questions. CR, we were talking about, um, the holes that this Laker team has, Kirk.

So can you— and that like, this feels like a team Luka built for Luka's purposes. Yeah.

For Luka to get awesome stats. Yeah.

I don't like this team at all. As, as a guy who leans Spurs heavy, nothing's making me shake in my boots here. We talked about ownership earlier. There was talk, Bill, like when Mark Walter and the Guggenheim Bros bought this team for $10 billion from the Buss family. That they were going to turn in the Dodgers of the NBA and be the smartest, most aggressive team in the league. This doesn't feel like that to me. They have spent a lot of money on Austin Reeves, on, uh, Mamu, and now on Quentin Grimes. But yeah, like I said, this is a franchise that expects to win NBA championships. I don't see this roster competing for championships against a Thunder team that's going to be pissed off, a Spurs team that's going to be better, and then all the teams in the East that seem to be getting I wonder whether or not the long-term play here for the Lakers is to swoop in on a disgruntled Boston president and make him the front office.

Brad Stevens. Wow.

After Chisholm made him trade his beloved Jaylen Brown, Brad Stevens puts himself up for, for front office free agency and joins Lakers.

I really doubt Chisholm made them do anything. If anything, I know, just screw it. No, no. I'm saying like, if anything, I think he's probably guilty of maybe should have thrown his body in front of the trade versus telling them they had to do something.

I—

the bigger question for me, you know, Kessler, 4 years, $130, played 5 games last year. I like him. Like, he's a rebounding block. There's good advanced metrics. Should any center with the, with the current setup we have other than Wemby be making more than like $29 million a year? Is it defensible? Like, the Celtics are paying $20 million total for Mitchell Robinson, Garza, and Keita. Right. And Keita has some extension coming next year, but it just feels really easy to, to get bodies. Even Puk Fordy on the Knicks. Like, did you get him, CR?

We did.

I don't mind him for 15 minutes a game. I feel like there's a lot of those guys and is the difference between somebody like that and then, or, you know, the Lakers are paying $41 million for Ayton and for Kessler next year. How is that a winning formula?

Counterpoint as a Spurs guy watching the Luke Cornett minutes in the last 2 or 3 rounds of, of the playoffs, we were holding on for dear life. Um, right. And Luke is a good player, like no disrespect to Luke Cornett, but yeah, like if you have a really good solid backup, like the ability of Oklahoma City to have Harsin and or, uh, Chet out there, I think it is very valuable. Obviously there's a guy in Denver that's worth a ton of money who plays the center position. But yeah, I, I like some of these dudes.

But Kessler's count— Jokic, I don't even know what position he is. I guess he should count in that Wemby thing, but I've— yeah, you could tell me he's any position and whatever.

But Kessler, this is a massive overpay. Let's not lose sight of that. That's— this is almost like a Rudy Gobert deal, but Rudy was like a multiple Defensive Player of the Year award winner at the time. And he is impactful. If you have Rudy Gobert and he's age 31, you're going to be a top 5, top 10 defense automatically. And that's been the side of the court the Lakers have been trying to build for years. But you, you said it in passing, you're a durability guy. The biggest question with Walker Kessler is, is he going to play more than 5 games? Is he going to play 20 games? He's been struggling with the same shoulder thing since college. So it's a huge risk on a player that hasn't sort of demonstrated that durability, let alone the, the competence to be a dominant center in the Western Conference, Bill. Yeah.

And you could see like Portland, I, I was really surprised they didn't want to make Clingan the best guy in a Jaylen Brown trade.

Yeah.

You know, it's different than the Hugo situation where Hugo was being treated as a throw-in in that trade. I value him. Clingan is the main piece to get Jaylen Brown, probably isn't holding me back, but I don't know, CR, maybe teams are looking at this as like, if Kessler's gonna make 4 for 130, And Klingon can do a Kessler impersonation for $9 million a year. Maybe that's one of the best assets you can have. I also think, I wonder if Indy, but that's obvious.

That's where you get into like, was Luka Dončić like, yeah, you know, just get whoever you can get for $9 million. I'll make them work.

No, well, they had DeAndre Ayton and obviously weren't happy about it, right?

I mean, Ayton's a very specific proposition, but like, it sounds like this was a team, like I, like I said, that's been built instantly to suit Luka's preferences. And his preferences were obviously like a 2024 Mavericks, even, even maybe even earlier vintage of that Mavericks team where he's got a diving, like rim-running center, a secondary ball handler and shooting everywhere. And then let's worry about defense when it's time to worry about defense.

So you think Indiana, who gave up two firsts for Zubac and basically a 50-50 chance that one of those picks was gonna be 5 through 9 in this draft, and then it came up tails.. But Zubat's on a way better contract than Kessler, and the price for these guys is two firsts. So you think Kevin Pritchard was going to the office today like, hey, I told you guys, I see that, see that Kessler deal? It's a little more defensible. I still do. Do you agree with that, Kirk, or no?

Yeah, I think that's a good comment.

Tiny bit more.

They played like Russian roulette with that, that lottery pick and lost., and I'll always remember that, that deal with— but dude, I, I don't, I don't know what the Lakers are doing. I don't care about Kevin Pritchard right now. I, by the way, I do love to watch— I can't wait to watch the Pacers next year. No, no, there's nothing there. But what are we doing? What are we doing with Walker Kessler? We're the Los Angeles fucking Lakers, dude. Like, we go after George Mikan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Shaq, like, uh, and Anthony Davis, by the way. Like, Like, what are we doing? Walker Kessler? How much? We're the fucking Lakers. Like, where is that swagger? And like, we don't get Walker Kessler, we get, you know, Nikola Jokic. We get, we get the biggest guy available. And it feels like they took a lot of their own flexibility out with all that draft capital, Bill. So I just, yeah, I know it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a small sort of silver lining for your day yesterday with your colonoscopy and then Jaylen Brown. They started out great, but the Lakers seem to have fucked their their future a little bit, in my opinion.

See, if Utah's willing to trade Kessler, I think Utah is one of the smartest teams we have. That would make me nervous.

Sure.

Why are you trying to trade him? You're this young rebuilding team. You already have a ton of picks.

I have, I have—

why are you so excited?

I'm very excited about the Jalen Brown trade. I have the same feeling about trading with Brad Stevens. I'm like, I really hope, I really hope that Brad Stevens just like hit his head and this is what's happened because like, I don't want to be in on the wrong side of these deals. I also, Verno made a really good point that I happen to agree with, which is like, it's very strange that that's the market for Walker Kessler and Jalen Dern can't find a job.

Yeah.

Well, this goes back to my question about should any center except for Wemby and Jokic, if he, if he is a center, I guess he is, we'll count him as a center. I feel like he's like point guard on offense. I don't know what he is on defense. But Jalen Duren paying him $40 million a year, I just think is prohibitive to everybody. If he gets that, God bless him. But it, it feels like $25 to $30 is the range for guys like that that are like good centers, but they're not game changers. And then I guess Giannis, if you consider him a center, which I wouldn't. So Utah has Triple J Markkanen, Bailey, Peterson, George, and then Sensabaugh, Filipowski, Collier. So they, they, they took a step back from maybe, oh wow, could this team be a 6th seed if Peterson's good? I do wonder if they would've taken Boozer if they knew that this Kessler trade was sitting there. I wonder if that changes the dynamics of that at all. 'Cause I think it was a little closer. So you like it with what they have it. I just think if I'm doing the Kessler thing, I think I would just rather have Boozer.

But we'll see with Peterson. They obviously, they were all in on him.

Wait, did it cross your mind yesterday too with Danny Ainge, who's a main character in Boston history, would he have done this Jaylen Brown deal? 'Cause it's interesting that Danny's fleecing the Lakers, in my opinion, on the same day that this Jaylen Brown thing is going down with Brad Stevens. Stevens.

I think Danny would've traded Jaylen a year ago when Tatum got hurt.

He would've been like, here's a soft rebuild.

I think he would've completely blown it up. And I think he would've traded him and I think he would've thrown away last year completely and probably been proactively a year too soon on it. That, I mean, the bigger question is, was there even a Jaylen Brown trade last year? You know, I don't know what, what was available last summer, But, um, well, so, so Lakers, we're all confused by that. Not to mention the, the, a team with 3 white guys.

3.

I had, I had, uh, like a team that's being led, their 3 best players are white. I had this great email, I gotta find it, from somebody who went back over the course of history. Oh, this is from Jason Downey.

It's from JD Vance.

Yeah, it's JDV in Washington. No, Jason Downey said, the last time a team with 3 white guys as their best guys won a championship was 1958 St. Louis. If you go 2 white guys, Bird and McHale, or Cowens and Hondo, can Luka, Reeves, and Kessler overcome 3/4 of a century of NBA history? No.

Yeah, I'm gonna go no. That's a no for me, dog.

See if Fanduel will put that up.

Snowtime Lakers. Of course. So then the Celtics concurrently get Mitch Robinson yesterday for 3 for 47, which I thought was a great deal. The Knicks would not go over the second apron for Mitch. They've spent a lot of money over the years.

They—

we've seen title teams do this, Kirk. 2011 Dallas, most famously with Tyson Chandler, where they're just like, nope, won the title, holding the line, we want flexibility. 2008 Celtics with Posey was another decent example of just didn't want to head into all the tax shit.

Nuggets, right? Didn't they do that kind of with Brucey B? I guess probably there was no way they could match. They match that.

Yeah. They basically got poison-pilled with them.

Yeah.

There was an Ariza Lakers situation when he got hot in the finals, they let him go. Defensible or no to you that they let Mitch go?

I mean, it's the, the theme of our podcast in an extent is like this, this is a hard cap world. Like, we're living in a hard cap world. If— unless you're the Cleveland Cavaliers last year, the only team that dared go over this rule, uh, the second apron, um, I don't think they had much of a choice, Bill. I, I do think, you know, as somebody went to the NBA Cup last year and watched Mitchell Robinson essentially beat the Spurs, uh, that was like a premonition for, for, for how the Finals would go, in my opinion. He's such an important part of their culture, uh, that bench unit that I got us from the Tibbs era to the Mike Brown era and obviously got us to a title level. But depth is very, very expensive in the modern NBA, uh, and this is exactly what we can, can start to see from a title team. Like, yeah, your second-best center, uh, is gone. And to your team, I think it's a great addition, uh, for a team that struggled with rebounding down the stretch and some of those playoff losses. Um, Mitchell Robinson is one of the best rebounders, if not the best rebounder, uh, in the league.

I think right now, and he showed it in big moments. So I like it for Boston. I'm not surprised to see New York not being able to afford that many good players.

C.R., I'm not going in over the second apron and getting crippled by all these different things for my 7th or 8th best player. I'm just not doing it.

I just think everything is like context. If like, if Sam Presti did this, everybody would be like, ah, see, he knows. But it's James Dolan, so they're like, cheapskate. Like, goddamn motherfucker. Yeah, you're not bringing Mitch back. You know, like it's—

James Dolan was riding such a high after the title and then the speech came out that he gave to the team. And if he had just gone away to like Australia right afterwards, he'd still be riding a high.

I know, but it's like, it's the same kind of thing, you know, like I think we were giving Tim Connelly the benefit of the doubt because he's a really good GM with the LaMelo trade. I know that you didn't like it, but he obviously has had his reasons. But then people are like, what is, what is Tom Dundon doing with Portland? Why do they have 5 guards? You know, like everything is just sort of about like the sort of narrative architecture around it.

That was my favorite Jalen trade and the one I was rooting for was Blazers. Portland. Yeah. With Jrue Holiday coming back, Camara and a couple picks and just call it a day. Yeah. And I think that would've accomplished a lot of what the Paul George thing is. But obviously Portland didn't want him and that's, yeah, I heard.

Yeah.

The recurring theme over and over again. Yeah. People just were turning down Jalen left and right.

Portland was really sticky with the young, those young players with Milwaukee too, Bill. And then, then was, you add in the fact that Giannis, I don't think would've wanted to extend in Portland. But yeah, I, I heard that they were not willing to part with their young talent in, in either deal. But yeah, it would have been better to get younger if you're the Boston Celtics, but they, they, they instead got older.

Do either of you have the Lakers as a playing team or as a playoff team? The way it's—

I mean, I think so because I think they'll be a good regular season team. So if they're all healthy and if they, if they don't suffer like 2 months hamstring Luka, you know, I think, I think that they will play well on a hamstring Luka. Yeah.

Hamstring Luka or calf strain Luka. Bill sent me on the wild goose chase about calf strains and hamstrings last year, and I do think that's the right thing to bring up. Like, that's no small assumption at this point with him or Austin Reeves. But yeah, if Luka's playing, they're a playoff team.

If they lose 2 of those 3 guys for any significant amount of time, I think it's going to be quite difficult.

Luka's +650 now for MVP. On Fanduel. Wemby's +210 is the favorite. Goes Wemby, SGA, Jokic, Giannis, Edwards, Tatum 6th. Jaylen Brown still 100 to 1 CR. You're talking about the all-time FU season by somebody.

I, uh, just Maxie throwing him alley-oops the entire game.

There's a dark side of this Lakers season though that I'm, maybe I'll have to grab onto as I search for answers and happiness. This. Um, Kawada Toronto.

Mm-hmm.

For Ingram and Dick and 2 firsts and 31 and 33 and a 27th spot.

Is it just crazy that he's— that they were allowed to do this before they settled this entire investigation?

It is.

It's just crazy.

Yes. Well, I've heard this. So, so what would Adam— would he just say you're not allowed to make a trade?

I think it just would've been like, you would just make the investigation a little bit more expedient if possible. Like throw a couple more lawyers at this thing. Like, whatever it is, whatever you're going to decide, like, it seems strange that the main character of this controversy is now allowed to go to Toronto. And is this— is like, I've seen people say this is kind of almost a shadow punishment, you know, or whatever.

We're basically—

I don't believe it either, but I, I just find this incredibly strange that this was allowed to happen.

Can I give you some kawais stats? Okay. It was interesting watching everybody talk about him like, this is the missing piece for Toronto. Now they can make the finals. We just get sports amnesia sometimes with guys. Kawhi played for the Clippers for 7 years. In the bubble in round— in 2020, they lost in round 2 in 7 to Denver. They blew a 3-1 lead. '21, they made the West Finals. He broke down halfway through round 2, so basically he had only won 2 playoff series up to that point. 2022, no playoffs 'cause he's hurt. 2023, lost in 5 to Phoenix. He broke down in game 2. That's round 1. 2024, lost in 6 round 1 to Dallas. He played 2 games. 2025, lost in 7 to Denver. 2026, lost the first play-in game to the Warriors at home where they blew a big lead and he was terrible in the second half. He's played 11 playoff games in the last 5 years. The last time he was part of a winning playoff series was May 2021. Why are we talking about this guy like it's the 2019 Kawhi and he's back? He's not that guy anymore.

I don't care.

I know he was good. I voted for him for Second Team All-NBA last year. But as we talk about over and over again, regular season's here, playoffs are here, and he hasn't shown up in the playoffs for the entire 2020s. He hasn't made it. So why, why is it gonna be different this year?

Kirk, it's not going to be different, but here's why. It's the same shit that makes Jalen look bad relatively. These, these models, like the estimated plus-minus, which is a great tool, but if you look at it right now, Kawhi is always a top 5, top 6 player in that list. But to your point earlier, durability is a skill, and a lot of times these models like fail to account for the simple fact that you have to play a lot to be a great NBA player.

Uh, I think Julian's better at playing 10, 15 games less a year, so you look better in the Well, that's like what Paul George, like, looked great in the playoffs after he got his 25-game break.

Um, and I do think that's one of the reasons the league is skewing so young is like Julian Champagny played over 100 games of NBA basketball this year, like, and, and many of them in the playoffs. Like, this is insane what we're asking these athletes to endure. Uh, and many of their bodies just simply can't handle it. Disproportionately older bodies with preexisting injuries like Kawhi Leonard. So I, I'm not surprised. I, I would bet very strongly he won't survive another grind like he did in 2019 when he, by the way, wasn't 100% then either when they won it all, but he was, uh, 7 years younger than he is coming back.

He was really good last year. Um, they lost the first playing game to a team that then lost by like 20 in the second game.

CR, uh, my, my takeaway from this transaction is just that the Clippers have returned spiritually to the pre-Lob City era. That this Darius Garland and Brandon Ingram almost feel like pre-Lob City Clippers to me. And I appreciate that. Maybe that is the Clippers' punishment is to go back, baby.

As Brandon Ingram.

Yeah.

Yeah. They, so the Clippers traded Kawhi Harden and Zubac. They got Garland and Wagner back. Ingram, Matherin, I guess.

Yeah, truly pre-Lobsity Clippers.

Yeah, Grady Dick is about as 0-4 Clippers-y as you're gonna get. Isaiah Jackson, 3 unprotected firsts, 1 swap, way more cap space. I'm still not sure why they didn't get involved in the Jalen thing, but what do I know? Um, I am still confused why Kawhi was so excited to return to Toronto, and I do think this is if I ever did another basketball book, this would be another great NBA what if for me. If he just stays in Toronto, he could have stayed with Siakam, Anunoby, Lowry, VanVleet, Powell, Gasol, and Ibaka in 2020, and they probably would've gone back-to-back would be my guess. Instead, he jumps to the Clippers, forces them to trade SGA and all their picks. Aspiration scandal. Kirk, he won 4 playoff series in Toronto and 2 with the Clippers. That's wild.

As part of the front office that sent him to Toronto, it, it's almost a full full circle moment. Don't trade great players to your rivals. Like, I remember the Lakers were calling us in 2018, can we get Kawhi Leonard from you? And Pop was like, fuck no, we're not trading our best player to the team that we think is a real threat to our championship hopes over here. And, and, you know, so we sent him to the Eastern Conference, to Toronto, where it's— for many reasons, but one of them was like, we're not here to help our rivals in Los Angeles. But one of the things, Bill, we knew back in 2018 was he was going to end up in LA a year or so later. He was going to go to Southern California. So I'm actually kind of surprised, given that, the emotional reasons he wanted to be back in Southern California, that now he's back in Canada. Of all of this stuff, it's like, dude, I thought you wanted to live in LA. Like, I thought that was the whole thing.

It does. Yeah. And he was living in like an hour and a half outside of LA too. You and seem like you love being in California. It does. I can— Conspiracy Bill has, has, has done some deep dives. I'll just say that. Conspiracy Bill is— I'm like, who's doing the, uh, Aspiration scandal? It's like, we're working on it, we'll give you our verdict. Conspiracy Bill is going to look at this over the course of the summer. Um, all right, quickly, LeBron.

Last shoe, right? Like, this is great that this is— here we are, here we are 15 years later, we're still waiting for LeBron.

Yeah, I read a Brian Curtis— this trade rumors piece, how he said we're in the trade rumors era for Grantland. 2014 he wrote it. It was 12 years later and it was a very, very, uh, a piece that saw the future in a lot of different ways, including that we're probably gonna be here for the rest of our lives with LeBron. He, uh, he decided not to return to the Lakers. Okay.

Yep.

Um, I wrote down he decided not to return to the Lakers like I decided not to return to ESPN. Thought that was funny. Anyway, then we all knew where this was going and he left.

Where is it going?

Well, with him not being on the Lakers. Yeah, but like, where is this for 6 months?

Because first of all, I just have to say, of our, our Ringer podcast network colleague Rich Paul has been doing a wonderful job.

The Ringer's Rich Paul.

Having all of us play a game of Clue about, you know, with like, he wants to go somewhere that has both good indoor and outdoor golf, you know? And it's like everybody is like looking up Topgolf, like locations across the country.

Well, he wants, he wants winning and he wants to be happy.

Sure. Sure. Cool.

Wouldn't have guessed that.

I, I find this fascinating. I almost find it kind of fun.

You know what I mean?

Like, we're not gonna get to do this that many more times, probably ever with him. So I'm, I'm down to go one more last time around the carousel.

Kirk, I'm gonna make a prediction.

Yeah.

I think this goes on for a lot of the month because it will get stories day after day and conjecture and podcast content when podcasts are dead in mid-July after everybody has gone with wherever. I just think this might, my guess would, this keeps going and going something and I've seen, and we did, I did something with Zach about it on Sunday. Where could we go? And I thought San Antonio made the most sense. But they signed Tobias Harris, so that's not happening. Denver is a team that I think we always thought it'd be fun to see him and Jokic together. There's no history there. I haven't seen this possibility mentioned yet. Hold on to your seats. What if he doesn't pick anybody?

Oh.

Until like January, February range. What if he just says—

Oh, the Roger Clemens.

Yeah, what if he just says, you know what? I'm gonna take my time with this one, guys. I wanna watch the league.

Yeah.

I'm gonna play golf for the next 6 months. I'm gonna stay in shape. I'm, I wanna make like a February, March, April, May, June run, a 5-month sprint. I own every single record there is to own right now. It's not like I'm playing for maybe, did he get to 40,000 points? I don't remember. I don't even, he has so many records, I don't even know what the records are anymore. Does he just say, you know what, I'm gonna wait. I'm gonna wait to see who's more unhappy with their team in December. In January and early February, and I will just have people keep talking about this for the next 6 months. I think it's in play. What do you think of that idea?

I think that that would be a, a sensational media story. And, and, and given, and now I, I think that there would be some resentment that would build up of like LeBron's holding league hostage and all this stuff, but the idea of him being like, let's see who's surging in January and I will come in as like the great arm off the bench, you know? And if anybody can keep himself in playing shape, it's him.

You know, it's the Roger Clemens move, as Kirk said.

Yeah.

I'm still here.

It's a great move.

I'm still gonna be in awesome shape. I don't care about regular seasons anymore. I'm gonna pop in and out with somebody for 4 or 5 months.

And also I think that it's worth noting, like the math on like, who would he be offending if he did this, right? Like, he's played for several different teams, as we've talked about over the course of this pod, like the rivalries, the state of rivalries and, and you, there are no-go zones in the NBA is kind of falling apart. So yeah, like why not? If, if, if Denver's rolling, I could see him going to Denver, but in January, you know, like if, well, especially if the market's not as robust as maybe they're pretending it is, and he's looking at lower than mid-levels or— so the only thing I think this would do is that if he does announce that this is his final season, which I guess everybody is assuming, that this would kind of diminish the victory lap.

Or maybe he hasn't decided that at all. We don't have any intel on that. Like the, one of the reasons I've always thought he was gonna go to the Warriors is I thought it was gonna be a 2-year deal lined up with Curry and lined up with Kerr, and they'll be, I was calling it the Expendables, but they'll just sell out everywhere. And it'll be this kind of appreciation 2-year tour, combined with the fact that they'd be pretty competitive if they could get everybody to stay healthy at the same time in April and May. But that didn't happen right away, so I'm wondering why, because I think the Warriors were ready for it to happen, um, and now it's on hold. So the Miami thing makes no sense to me. I think that would be so weird You're gonna have Bam and Giannis and LeBron all like, what is that team? Are you winning a title with that? Also, Pat Riley basically like called him out when he was leaving in 2014 and was basically without saying it, saying like, you're taking the, not cowardly way out, but you're also like, the math on this after one loss, what is LeBron playing for?

Like, what is LeBron playing for financially and what is LeBron playing for? Emotionally? Is he playing?

Well, he's playing to compete, which is weird 'cause he was just on a team with Luka, who we have as a top 5 or 6 Ringer 100 guy, and Reeves, who's a top 35 to 40 guy. So it's not like he couldn't have competed on the Lakers. It's just the real issue is you can't compete if you're paying a 41-year-old guy $50 million a year anymore. So he has to wrap around his head, like, where am I in this current ecosystem? I can't be one of the best two guys on the title team anymore. I just can't. So what does that mean financially? So that, that's all basically—

where do you want him to go? Where do you want him to go?

I want him to go to San Antonio. I thought that would've been awesome. Denver is just fucking weird enough that I, I would watch every league pass game. And then, a Golden State, I think would be super fun. Cleveland is the one that doesn't make any sense to me, and that might be one of the most likely outcomes. You're gonna have him and James Harden on the same team.

Yeah.

And if you put, if you put LeBron on last year's Cavs team against the Knicks, let's just put him instead of Wade and Struce getting all those minutes. Does the series change? Do you think the Knicks lose that series?

I don't think LeBron's on the Cavs for the problem against the Knicks.

Yeah.

So I, I don't, I, I, the Cavs scenario, I don't know, Kirk, that one seems lame to me. I don't think that gets him anywhere.

It feels right in my gut though, like the part where he is doing a victory lap in the Cavs jersey and the goal isn't to win a championship. So I think that's really the fork in the road. If this dude wants to win one more title, it's not Cleveland. I don't think that puts them over the hump, but a place like San Antonio or Denver that is a player away, a chess piece away, like, so I think we're gonna learn about a lot about his motivations by when he chooses and where he chooses. 'Cause I, I do think the story, the movie, the movie story is going back to Cleveland. And I, I feel like that's the way for him to be the most beloved athlete in Ohio history and to, to just make sure that he probably is. So it might not, but I know it's lame, but I, I do think if I had to guess, that's where this goes. Um, but if he chooses a place to go win, I mean, Philly, Minnesota, Denver, San Antonio, there's a lot of compelling choices where he could be the fourth best guy.

And hell, he would make every team, we kind of said LeBron's career ends watching him melt Minnesota would take 35-footers.

Minnesota would be an insane move. I think if I'm gonna do that, if I'm gonna latch on to a team, I'm waiting till December to do it. That, that's not going anywhere. I want to watch all these teams. I want to play it out and have a good time and do the, is he retiring or isn't he? And I'm just in the news all the time, which is, I think, one of the things that's attractive to— it's, it's the dialogue about what's happening with him that seems to be at least partly addictive to him and everyone in his circle. And by the way, next, what's he gonna do next? We knew he wasn't coming back to the Lakers.

The reason I love that, Bill, is like, again, the 82-game regular season is an obscene amount of basketball for an older person to try to endure. I like this. This could actually set a template for Kevin Durant going forward or Stephen Curry going forward. It's like, I don't need to be out there until Christmas. Like, This is ridiculous. I'm just gonna get a hamstring injury.

Yeah.

And training has become, and, and sports science and training have gotten so good that I can keep my body in playing shape even if I'm not playing.

Yeah. And I'm more likely to be relevant in April, May, and June if I'm not playing October, November, December meaningless basketball games against, you know, Orlando on a Tuesday night.

He has 43,440 points He has so many records, I couldn't remember if he had 40,000 points or not. He has the games record. He has basically the minutes. Name a record, he probably has it or is in the top 5. So the regular season, I don't think helps him as much at this point. I think what would help him is how do I, how do I stay in the mix? How do people, how are people continuing to talk about me as I try to do this golf side thing that I'm trying to do? And then can I just parachute into a good situation? Because I'm one of— I mean, the thing with LeBron is he could fit in any situation and be like fun LeBron, like he was before Luka got hurt in the Lakers. So just like, plop me in here, I'll figure it out. And then becomes this huge asset. And maybe he'll watch Minnesota for 2 months and be like, yeah, I feel like I could help those guys. I'll go in there. Or maybe he'll watch Denver and be like, oh shit. Christian Brown looks healthy this year, huh? Um, so anyway, I like— I— that makes way more sense to me than him talking himself into being on the Clippers and playing with Garland and Wagner.

And I just don't see him doing stuff like that. Um, a couple other really quick things, then we'll go. Miami loses Powell because of the Onis trade. So I feel like he has to be added to the Onis trade that got me at the All-Star team last last year. Yeah, basically they lost everybody on their team except Bam and Mitchell. I feel like the Giannis sweepstakes ended up just— there's gonna be some piece written about all the teams that affected negatively. And then Detroit feels like it's kind of blowing up their team, and that we're, we're right now it's 9:41 Pacific time, but they lost Harris. They replaced him with John Collins, who's fine. I don't think he's as good as Tobias Harris. I thought Harris was on last year's team, their number 2 guy they went to anytime they needed a basket.

And was also like the veteran culture setter guy who's seen it all and like here to help Caden Durant. And then, and then you bring in John Collins who seems like, I have no idea like what, what kind of dude he is, but it just seems like kind of more of a rent-a-forward situation rather than like, yeah, it's like a 3-year deal that's really a 1-year deal. Yeah.

And they seem paralyzed by all this Durant stuff. But it's weird to me that if they had this moment coming with their team where they were gonna have this great reckoning, why didn't they go harder on last year's team? They extended Herter, which I thought was weird too, because I don't even remember him playing in the playoffs. So I don't, I don't know what to make of what they're doing, Kirk. And why, why not try to go after Jaylen Brown would be, be the other one if that's the price, couple first round picks and some salary cap flexibility, which which the Celtics didn't even get.

Yeah. And the, the Durant, they might end up with Jalen Durant still on their team and it, that relationship is gonna be strained now. So, you know, there's a case for why aren't we just putting our arm around Jalen Durant? Yeah, you had a bad playoffs, but you're All-NBA, 22-year-old. We're not getting another player like that in Detroit. So if it ends up with like this quasi-strained relationship with Jalen Durant and some number that is insulting to him, that's not great either. But this is a 61-win team, Bill. That was on the rise. And it feels like I had them down in my biggest losers of free agency so far because it feels like they're not getting back to 61 wins, right, next year. Like the—

I just lose Stewart. They might lose that. Who knows?

Beef stew.

Yeah.

Robinson, they waived, might come back. They lose Harris. This team was successful and they just, I thought they were a score short. Favorite signings really quick. I thought Oubre to Indiana for 2 for 17, I really liked.

They're gonna, they're gonna like him.

Indiana's gonna be good. Like if they, if they get Halliburton 100% back, I know he battled shingles and stuff, but I really like that one. I thought Kinnard 2 for 13 in Phoenix was, was a fun one. And then Harris to San Antonio, I just really like, although if we, if we go backwards and we think about that finals, if they have Tobias Harris, Tobias, who's losing minutes, Kirk, at that point? So we lose all the Carter-Bryan minutes and we lose Champagny, or the two?

Yeah, but Champagny's tough because he'll make 8 threes in a game and just win it. Uh, I love Julian Champagny. And then related story, the Spurs added 3 years to him, and that's a great story because he was a scrap heap guy. Now he's overpaid. Um, but it just gives them optionality. And I think Tobias, as a shot creator— like, the Spurs look terrible on offense a lot. Like, the, the offense just doesn't look good. It gives them another shot creator.

So I think somebody could take 10 shots a game where there's 10 or less seconds left in the shot clock.

100%. So I like it for them. It gives them optionality and looks. And everybody on that team is still getting better, as you know.

I didn't understand the Barnes thing in relation to, to that, but, um, I get it. But could they love him for one year for $2 million? In that one year for 8. We still don't know where Peyton Watson's going. We don't know where Matherin's going. My favorite free agent that's left is, well, I have two, Rui Hachimura and Simons. I think both of those guys, I really liked Simons last year and I think he's at least a $10 to $15 million player. I thought there was a chance the Celtics would bring him back. And then Hachimura, I was surprised that wasn't the guy San Antonio got, Kirk.

Well, there were, there were reports that that bird was gonna sign him.

Yeah. Do you agree with that, CR? Who makes more sense, Tobias Harris or Rui?

Rui.

For what they, what they have.

Yeah. I mean, I think that San Antonio's probably, Kirk would know way better than me, but like a lot of their calculus has to do with what they expect Harper and, and Castle to be next season. So I, how that relates to Rui versus, uh, versus Tobias, I don't know, but it seems like it would've been an excellent addition. It's sort of strange that he's still out there. I don't know. I don't know where he's gonna wind up.

And Kenrich Williams is the other one that, uh, he can play. It's just clearly somebody that could be one of your 9 guys in a playoff series. Like he might be your 9th guy, but he could be. So Ubrez out and then. We're starting to get in the slim pickings range. We'll see if somebody gives Tyrese an RFA, but for the most part, I guess the, so the biggest storyline left is what happened with Jaylen Brown? Why'd they trade him? And where's LeBron going? And where's LeBron going? And then can Peyton Watson get some sort of deal somewhere that will force Denver's hand? But everybody's out of cap space.

Yeah. And how long does the craziness go? Like, is there anything that could happen in the next 3 days that then triggers somebody else to be like, like, you know what, actually I also want, I, I don't, I don't want to be here, you know? But I, I think that this felt like a fever for the last 10 days and now we've sweated out and we'll have the end of free agency and go into hibernation.

You know what I really blame over everything else? Me doing CR month.

It's possible. Yeah, it was the first domino.

I do CR month, within a month the Celtics have blown a 3-1 lead in a playoff series to to the Sixers, and then we're trading the Sixers Jalen Brown in a trade where we get Paul George back. And it all starts with CR month. It all starts much like Jalen and Jason. CR getting the steering wheel for a month has just completely thrown the ringer apart.

We also traded you AJ Brown, uh, into a football franchise in crisis. Um, you know, and, and he thought he was gonna go play for Vrabel. Is he gonna play for Vrabel? I don't know. I mean, like, it's, there's a lot of things up in the air in Boston. You hate to see it.

It really is. We lose the Maple Leafs lottery pick.

Oof.

The Red Sox season has been an all-time disgrace, and just when things were getting better and we swept the Yankees, early goes out with elbow trouble. Grim times. It's also like 130 degrees in Boston this week, apparently. Anyway. All right, Kirk Goldsberry, enjoy the, enjoy the July 4th. CR, this was a true, true pleasure. Thanks for being such a pro.

Thanks, brother.

Thanks for jumping on here in the morning. Thanks to, uh, uh, Gahal and Eduardo and Chris and everybody else at Spotify. I'm gonna be back on Sunday at some point, um, with some sort of live show. And then the next Rewatchables is gonna be Ali, which is coming on, um, yeah, on Monday. You can watch that on Netflix actually the next 5 days. But that's our 9th Michael Mann movie, CR.

I can't, I can't wait for people to hear it. I think if there's one lesson and one thing we want to leave people with as they head into the July— it's make sure you get your colonoscopy.

Make sure you get it, but don't do it on July 1st. Um, and then CR, possibility we'll go live Monday night after Team USA. We're talking, we're talking about jinxes, non-jinxes, all that stuff. Congrats on Harry Kane.

Um, great day of football yesterday, it was really awesome.

Legendary. Anyway, all right guys, have a great weekend. Thanks everybody who watched. 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 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplineMA.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 877-833-2277 8 Hope NY, or text Hope NY in New York. For Louisiana, call 877-770-7867.