Transcript of Wemby Gets Revenge, Morey’s Out, and a Trade-Fueled Mega-Mailbag With Kirk Goldsberry and David Jacoby New

The Bill Simmons Podcast, brought to you by FanDuel. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where I put up a new rewatchables on Monday night. We did Tropic Thunder as part of, uh, Comedy Month, which we tried to tie into Netflix is a Joke. All these movies are on Netflix, by the way. So we did Tropic Thunder Monday. That was me, Chris Ryan, Van Lathan, and first-timer Joel Anderson. Uh, I'm pretty sure next week is going to be Borat, so I'm just giving you a heads up. That's also on Netflix. They have a bunch of great comedies in general, including a bunch of comedies that we've already done on Rewatchables, like 48 Hours, Mrs. Doubtfire, and Along Came Polly, and Ghostbusters, on and on and on. So go check that out. Uh, coming up on this podcast, Kurt Goldsberry and I are going to recap an impressive Spurs Game 5 win over Minnesota. I have some big picture thoughts about this game that aren't even tied to Game 5, so we'll hit that. We're gonna talk about Daryl Morey getting ousted out of Philly, and then we're gonna go back in time because Kirk and Dave Jacoby and I did a mailbag on a whole bunch of NBA stuff, and it's really fun.

So it's all next. We're gonna take a break, hit Pearl Jam, and then Kirk. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. It's been a wild playoff run, not over yet. FanDuel wants to bring you closer to the court to make all of that action come to life for you, the basketball fan. FanDuel, the best place to bet the teams, players, plays during NBA postseason. Build the same game parlay for a shot at a bigger payout, or try live betting and jump into the action right after tip-off. Whatever you want. That's the whole point of live betting. Download the FanDuel Sportsbook app right now and play your game. 21+ select states or 18+ DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER, call 888-789-7777, or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. All right, this segment is brought to you by Ferrero. We are going to talk about Game 5, Spurs-Timberwolves in San Antonio, the return of Wemby after getting kicked out of Game 4. Kurt Goldsberry is here. He's going to be with us throughout the podcast because we're doing a mailbag with, uh, Jacoby later. I'll just tell you my basketball fan take coming out of this game, because I really thought Minnesota had a genuine chance to win this series, and who knows, they might win 6 and 7.

As a basketball fan, you're starting to really see the ceiling potential of where this Spurs thing could go, right? You— big spotlight, big games, more pressure now. It's like, who's going to fade from this? Who's going to jump up? And you're seeing some of their guys, Harper specifically, where it's like, oh shit. Like this might be happening sooner than we thought. Which is great. 'Cause I, I've talked about this a million times. I like when we have great teams. That's what I grew up on. That's what I grew up on in the '80s and '90s. I like to see awesome teams. So basketball fan Bill is like, this is cool. Spurs, Thunder, this is gonna be great. Celtics fan Bill and what are we gonna talk about for 8 months a year Bill is kind of like, are we, Are we headed toward a world where we might be fucked here with this OKC-San Antonio thing? Are they just gonna be levitating above us for the next 6, 7 years? Like, talk me off the cliff.

Well, it's not a cliff where I'm sitting here in South Texas. Yeah, but yeah, dude, I— there was a moment at the end of the third quarter where I could see why Bill Simmons, the sports guy, would feel that way, specifically with Dylan Harper attacking the rim, finishing with his left hand, hitting layups high off the glass over Rudy Gobert's outstretched arms.

Physicality. Rebounds in traffic. I mean, it was the whole thing. Yeah.

Stephon Castle guarding Julius Randle, making Wolves fans completely lose their mind with a Randle stat line that I'm sure we'll talk about. But yeah, these 3 dudes, and no disrespect to Carter Bryant, De'Aaron Fox, but when we're talking about the brightest futures in the NBA, I think the San Antonio Spurs now have the best young trio in the league by far, right? With Wemby, Castle, and Harper, dude. And I don't know which Castle or Harper's gonna be better, but yeah, what are we talking about? We're talking about a 22-year-old Victor Wembanyama, a 21-year-old Stephon Castle, Bill, and a 20-year-old Dylan Harper making huge plays in a second-round playoff series.

The Harper thing is crazy. We knew he was good. We've been talking about it all year. In the playoffs, the stuff he's doing is like year 3 year 4 Kobe, where he's just coming in and changing the flow of these games.

Yeah.

Like, he, he shouldn't be doing this yet. Like, Kobe came into the league right outta high school and, you know, had that really rocky first series. It, he didn't really start to look like kick-ass Kobe, I don't think, until midway through year 2, which is where Harper is now, 'cause he's spending a year in college. But for point guards, this should take longer. You shouldn't look this comfortable. You shouldn't be a two-way player already. You shouldn't be coming to games and swinging games like he's doing. And I was texting somebody about this, like, to me, like, I don't say this lightly, like having Harper and Wemby back to back, and I feel like I'm disrespecting Castle, but I think he's gonna be third in this. We saw this when the Celtics added McHale when they had Bird. We saw this when the Celtics, when the Lakers added Worthy after they had Magic. And we saw it when the Bulls had MJ and then they were able to get Pippen. I think Harper's potentially as a second banana. I think it's realistic to think this is a guy who could be as good as those guys, that he could be a first team All-NBA guy and a really impact awesome second banana.

You're watching it in real time. Everything we have learned about basketball, these teams happen faster than they thought. These young guys come up faster than you think. And he's— I loved him already. I can't believe the shit he's doing in these playoff games.

Yeah, it's, it's the son of Ron Harper. These moments where he feels the contact on the lane line, and a lot of guards of any age would either go to the floater or like look for a kickout, but he's like, oh, I'm gonna lower my shoulder now and then go to this incredible finishing package I have through contact a lot of times. And it's just— but yeah, he has the best footwork, the best feel for the game. Of any young guard in the paint. There's times where I think, Bill, he really reminds me of Shea, where he is just the smartest scoring guard inside the 3-point line of any young player I've seen. But he was spectacular tonight, and it's particularly in the third quarter. And one of the things that's—

when it was starting to become a game in the third quarter, and I felt like, oh, here we go, this is going to be an awesome game.

We both love Luke Kornet. Yeah, but it's a roller coaster. It's like when LeBron came out for those Cavs team and you're just like, oh my God, are, are we gonna survive the non-LeBron minutes?

Right.

We just watched the lead go away. Oh, we had that in the second quarter in this game and it looked like, to your point, it was gonna happen again in the third. And at, at that moment where, where Dylan Harper really made a few plays on both ends of the court that just grew the lead back to a comfortable margin.

I'm glad you brought up Shay. I think that's a really good comparison. And it's because of the patience and the footwork.

Yeah.

That's it. He has patience already, which you should not have when you're 20. And he had the footwork coming in. That was one of the things that made him special. I've talked about before, I was going to those Clipper games when Shea was a rookie. Harper's just way ahead of where Shea was. We all liked Shea. Yeah. We thought Shea was gonna be really good. I thought he was gonna be like this glue guy, athletic defensive guard who, there was some offense there. You know, but clearly like a winning player. Harper's like, I, I don't honestly don't know what the ceiling is for him. I, I, I think as long as SGA has the best guard in the league title now, and he's gonna have it for the next couple years, and Edwards is right underneath him, but I, I think Harper at some point in his life will wear that crown unless he gets hurt.

Well, that's what I would say. The ceiling is SGA, and I say that with a great amount of respect. I agree with you. He is one of the best guards we've seen in a very long time. But when we're talking about the ceiling, of this dude, that's where I would say it. And to your point, like the Oklahoma City Thunder would not have SGA if he was this good at Dylan Harper's age. There's no way you would get off this guy.

Right.

So I think, look, that's a, that's a, that's the ceiling. SGA is one of the best players in the world, if not the best player in the world. But Dylan is, is, I mean, you're the, you're the historian of basketball. 20-year-olds aren't supposed to do this in the NBA playoffs, right, Bill?

I was thinking about the first— McHale's rookie year, the Celtics won the title and he was a sixth man. They had Maxwell, they had Bird, they had Robert Parish. Like it was a really deep team and he would come in sometimes and he would swing games 'cause he, he had some low post stuff, but he had the defense. And there were times, especially in the Philly series that year when he came in and his defense definitely affected the game. And you're like, oh, this guy's pretty special. Like, yeah, there's really something there. McHale was like, at least 2 years older than Dylan Harper. It'd be like if Dylan Harper after his junior year was doing this. And that's the part— I know these guys, you know, that I know they mature faster now. And I know, I get it, like, they— like, we shouldn't be surprised when somebody's 20 and impacting a series like this. But you talk about later in a mailbag, we're talking about De'Aaron Fox in a later segment, and like, You have Fox, you think Fox is gonna be a bridge for a couple years until you can get to these guys.

And it's like, do you need a bridge? Like, what's Harper gonna be like next year with a year under his belt? You know?

Yeah.

That's where I, I thread the needle. You do need the bridge and I applaud the move to get De'Aaron Fox, but this is the best case scenario where you have the depth right now, which was huge tonight. It's been huge in this series. But you start to look out 2 years, 3 years down the road, you start to say maybe we have too many great guards, and we don't have enough strength up front next to Wemby, um, somebody to, to play with Nasri and Jaden McDaniels, man. And they're playing their hearts out, uh, and that's where the Spurs look a little thin to me. It reminds me of the Thunder pre-Hartenstein where they're a little bit soft in the middle sometimes.

That's a good comparison. Yeah, that— so Carter Bryan played 12 minutes today and Keldon Johnson played 22 and was great. And that's kind of, that's kind of their, their patchwork size next to Wemby. They don't really necessarily, I actually think Carter-Byant's gonna end up being that guy. The, the piece, like I was thinking about in context with the, with the Timberwolves, who after game 1, I thought there was a real case like, wow, this is 2 straight conference finals for them. San Antonio's young, not quite ready yet. And I really felt like it was a 50-50 series after Game 1. The odds didn't reflect that. And now I'm looking at Minnesota, you know, they got their asses kicked tonight. What did they finish shooting? 30, 38.6, which is right around their season average.

I mean, their series average, they're shooting under 40%.

And a lot of trouble. Well, a lot of trouble against the defensive pressure sometimes. And the one thing I was worried about with them even early in this series was like, man, they're kind of relying on Mike Conley here. I don't know, old guys in a series. And then you look at tonight, what was he, 16 minutes, 5 points, -6. But it's, this is Mike Conley. Kudos to you. You're playing at this advanced age, but you see the young guys and the athleticism and the speed that these guards are at. This is the San Antonio advantage when they can just put any combination of all the young guards or, You know, if they put Vassell out there or whatever, really the only team that has the kind of firepower to withstand it is probably OKC. Yeah.

And I'm really glad you said that. There was a moment where our man Stephon Castle goes out with his third foul, 8 minutes left in the second quarter. Yeah. And then you just see that depth coming in. So important. You see, you know, everybody from Carter-Bryant to Harrison Barnes, Dylan Harper, Keldon Johnson played the best game of the series.

Yeah.

But this is a deep team. I think Spurs played 10 guys before garbage time and really the, the, the Wolves are a thin 8 there, Bill.

Yeah. They're like a, they're a 7.

Yeah. And that's 'cause I mean Dante DiVincenzo.

Yeah.

And what I wanted to ask you about is, is the Ant-Man's not the Ant-Man right now. He's, he's one of my favorite players to watch on the planet. He, I believe, had fewer field goal attempts than Ayo Dosunmu. Yeah. That is, that's not a great stat. He is not attacking. He didn't have that swagger as much today.

There's, well, they're going every other, going every other day. Probably not great for him. There's a 3-day break, so they don't play again until Friday.

Yeah.

Could potentially help him. It, it's really gonna help Mike Conley. They, they gotta figure out the Randle thing. He didn't shoot, he didn't shoot well again today. There's another guy that we didn't even talk about yet. I'm really proud of us. Victor Wembanyama.

Oh yeah, he, the French guy, right? The one of the French guys.

I don't know if you saw the beginning, but he scored a lot of points early before they took him out. You know, he had 16 points in like 6 minutes and it was a good, fuck everybody. I'm still mad I got kicked outta game 4. I owe you guys. He finished with what, 27, 17, and 5, 3 blocks. He's plus 24, 32 minutes. Yeah. And so you have that piece too. Of—

well, here's the thing that Spurs fans love. So he lays an egg in Game 1, okay? Minnesota comes to San Antonio, steals Game 1, and he was— he played like shit by his standards. And so you're sitting here in Game 2, people like you are like, oh my God, can Minnesota win this series? And the whole time Victor is prepping to come out, and he comes out in Game 2 and the Wolves don't score for whatever, how many minutes, and he was awesome. Uh, and then obviously in Game 4 he gets kicked out with the elbow, deservedly, by the way, as much of a Spurs homer as I am. How was he gonna come out in the biggest game of his NBA career? And he came out again on fire and just dominated the first 8 minutes of this game with what was he as 16 and 11 in the first quarter.

Yeah.

Are you kidding?

Yeah. And if I'm OKC thinking about the next series, you know, what am I getting from J Dub? I need, I need all my horses for this next series and I don't, San Antonio, the question with them was, well, history of the league says, dot, dot, dot. Nobody, nobody under 25 can lead a team to a title without having a taste of it first. No young team just that get thrown in the playoff fire can survive that first year. And they're, I just feel like all bets are off, especially with how Castle's playing. But on the OKC side, they're not 100% healthy. San Antonio, you know, knock on wood, San Antonio feels like they're running on all injury cylinders. But with the, with the Minnesota piece, pretty devastating. Like, yeah, you're in set, you win 7 playoff series over the last 3 years. You kind of had a team built. The league has these little 3, 4-year windows with the way the tax works that you can, and maybe OKC and San Antonio would be a little bit of the outliers 'cause of their young guys, but for the most part, 3, 4 years. That's what we just saw with the Celtics.

And you try to catch lightning in a bottle for one of those years. Celtics caught it in 2024. They add Holiday, they add Porzingis, and they're just able to, you know, everything kind of aligns and they're spending a ton of money. If you're Minnesota, you just basically went all in. You got rid of all your picks. You're playing a San Antonio team that this is the worst version of the team you're going to play for the rest of the decade. Right. You had bad luck with DiFoncenzo and you and Ant's not 100%, but he's not 80%. He's somewhere in between there. Gobert's gonna be a year older. You're not gonna have Conley. You're not gonna really have a way to get better. This was kind of it.

Yeah.

And I don't know if I'm Tim Connelly, and I guess I'm not getting the Dallas job 'cause they gave it to Messiah, but I don't know what my move is at that point other than dangling Randle everywhere.

I like their position a little bit more than you. I think that I would say Ant-Man still 23, D'Vincenzo. They remember there's a team without Ant and D'Vincenzo that beat Joker in a Game 6. I like their core. I could talk myself. I think Finch is a really good coach. This is, you know, this is where I wonder if our standards are too high for too many teams. Like they made the Final Four the last 2 years. They have one of the best young players in the league. Can they get through with McDaniels, Ant-Man, Gobert, Nas? I kind of like that core, Bill. And I don't know, we'll see. The one thing that I think you and I will agree on is it's very annoying to have Alex Rodriguez in the conversations because normally I—

right, you got to be against him.

Yeah, yeah.

I love these guys and I want them to do well, but I was like, yeah, I wonder what A-Rod wants to do with this. That just sucks for me as a Red Sox guy.

Well, it's interesting that you, I mean, I agree with you. They made the Final Four 2 years in a row. They went, they knocked out Denver. I think they've done a nice job going toe to toe with, with San Antonio and the series might go 7 for all we know. And then who knows?

Yeah, it's not over.

Who knows with young guys in a Game 7. I was just thinking holistically, the goal is to win the title.

Yeah.

And you have Ant who is one of the best 5 or 6 guys in the league and you have this, veteran team around him and you have a real identity and you, you have defense and all kinds of things. And it's tough, man. These windows close fast. You just never know. Like, we don't know. Gobert, Gobert, I think has defied the aging stuff to some degree. 'Cause usually we see these centers start to get a little mummy-ish and a little gamey right around now.

Yeah.

And I don't, I don't feel like 100% he has, but the bigger thing to me is there's not a lot of moves. and you're in this arms race with these two teams that, you know, OKC has 13 first-rounders over the next 6 years, not to mention all the other shit they have, not to mention AJ Mitchell emerging as like the breakout star of the playoffs that we weren't expecting. So, I don't know, I'd be really bummed if I'm a Wolves fan 'cause they never even made the finals.

Yeah, I kept wondering like, man, I don't know the math, the salary cap is not my, my expertise, but like keeping Nikhil Alexander-Walker last year, they could've used him in this series. Obviously they're offense is struggling. He's such a good player in Atlanta.

Uh, he would have cost them like a hun— like $100 million if they— a year if they kept him. Like the way the tax is there, you're paying like 3 times as much for him. Yeah.

So they— but yeah, that, that's like you're alluding to it. Like the, the new CBA makes it nearly impossible to keep a contender together for 5 years unless they're all rookie scale guys.

Unless you draft these dudes. Yeah.

Right. Which is what the best teams in the West have done with R.C. Buford, Brian Wright, and Sam Presti's, uh, work in, in Oklahoma City. So yeah, I don't know. I think Ant-Man's still going up. I think you have a lot to be happy about in Minnesota. But yeah, I think anybody in the West, to your earlier point, is staring at these two juggernauts now at the top of the standings. You know, like, what are we going to do?

And by the way, we're not breaking new news. This has been a storyline the entire season. It's just feeling more real to me because I think Minnesota is really good, right? They get their asses kicked. In the second half of that game today where it was like, Jesus, you know, and the home team's supposed to win a Game 5. I get it. But, um, wait, let me ask you this. It feels like San Antonio is getting better to me, which is the part that would scare me if I'm Minnesota.

They're getting better every day.

Yeah.

I, here's my question for you. If Minnesota hypothetically in the Eastern Conference is a 3 or a 4 seed this year, this, that team's going to the conference finals, right?

Yeah. I, I would say, well, the Knicks are on this heater right now, but I, yeah, I think they're built pretty similarly with, you know, two teams that are, they have a little bit of a window. I think the Knicks are a little bit of a lightning in a bottle, like the '24-'25 Celtics are, where the way their roster's set up, it's only gonna get more expensive. Whether they're gonna have the appetite to keep paying for it, we'll see.

Yeah.

Towns' contract goes up. Bridges' extension I think kicks in next year if it didn't already kick in, but it just gets pricey to keep. Mitchell Robinson's gonna be a free agent. What's he gonna be worth? Like, you do have these windows and I think the Knicks talent competitive-wise, a guy going against the guy, best guy on the other team, like they have the pieces to at least throw some haymakers. But I would've said that about Minnesota too.

Yeah, I like Minnesota's position a little bit more than you. I, I think they're hoping expansion happens and they move to the Eastern Conference, because then all of a sudden their prognosis looks a little bit better, right?

Yeah. Let me ask you this. I wrote this down. Of course I'm gonna ask you this. You're my only guest and it's just the two of us. Um, if we do get OKC San Antonio next round, hmm. I think this is the best series in 8 years.

Okay. I like this. Yeah, I'm, I'm fired up.

Yeah. Just, and now you could say, oh, there's been a lot of good series. I'm not talking about entertainment value. I'm talking about talent, ceiling of the teams and the matchups that I went through all the, all the, we, we've had a lot of entertaining series. I think you have to go back to 2018 when the Rockets played the Warriors. The series Chris Paul ended up getting hurt in. And the, and the Warriors were going for back-to-back. I think that's the last one with this kind of level of two teams that are basically mid-60s wins teams, maybe even better, that have a lot of guys at the peak of their powers or on their way up. And, and last 8 years we haven't had a series like that. We had the 2017 Finals and we had 2016 Golden State versus OKC and then Golden State versus Cleveland. I think those are probably the, the 3 best series of the last 4 best series of the last 10 years. And talent-wise, next round would be on the level of San Antonio finishes.

And it also, for, for the, the old guys like us, it's like, oh, this does feel, start to feel like a power struggle that's more than a year long. It feels like it's gonna be like this for a while. Like a, a Pistons-Bulls situation or a Knicks-Bulls thing where it's just, We've had, there's, there's thousands of those examples. But yeah, if that happens, Bill, like Wemby and Shai, to me they're the two best players in the world right now. And is that crazy? Right?

No, it's, it's, I'm just, I'm finally giving up. No, no, no. Joker, I think he had his run. I think he's out of it now.

Yeah. Just some of the defensive stats we're seeing from Wemby, the fact that the Minnesota Timberwolves are shooting like 37% when he's on the floor. In 5 games. Is, is his defensive impact is so incredible. But yeah, I think there's two of the best players in the world, best young cores in the league, great coaches, great organizations. I think you're right to look at it like that.

Well, one, one other thing of a classic malleability too with lineups, teams that can throw different looks at you depending on what the situation is. Both teams can go smaller, they could play 3 guards, they could play 3 guards, a shooter, and a center. They can go bigger too, to some degree. Yeah. OKC probably can do that a little bit better. 'Cause as we said, San Antonio feels like they're maybe one bigger guy short. And then there's this roughing up Wemby thing, which, you know, it's funny like that I didn't get a chance to talk about the game when he elbowed Nas and, you know, it's slow-mo. Slow-mo makes everything look worse, but it did seem like he sized him up for a second. But it was also 15, not to defend Wemby, but it was 15 small to medium things that led to him being mad enough to whip an elbow at somebody.

Yeah.

Because you could tell the whole series Minnesota's like, let's keep, let's keep banging on this guy. Let's keep fucking with him. Let's keep knocking him down. Like, just stay physical, stay physical. I'm old enough to remember when this was the strategy against Kareem. Kareem, Kareem punched like 5 guys, including he broke his hand punching Kent Benson and breaking, uh, Kent Benson's jaw. But Kareem, you could go find him on YouTube. Kareem knocked down or knocked out multiple guys because he would just get fed up. Shaq was the other one we had, which Shaq, I think only maybe he tried to punch Brad Miller. There was a few others, but Shaq They would always pull his shoulders and you couldn't do the same stuff you did to Wemby. It was more like you tried to like kind of wear him down almost like a boxer when you keep clinching a boxer. And he would get frustrated too. Wemby's gonna have to deal with this his whole career. Minnesota's testing him. OKC has guys that will do it too. This is, yeah, this is why you have Lou Dort.

And, and I remember when I worked at the Spurs, we used to complain about the contact allowances are so different for interior players than for guards. Even back then, last decade, it was, it was crazy to watch like Draymond double arm bar LaMarcus, for instance, or Tim, and just like, okay, that's cool. But I think it's really interesting to compare the whistles of guards who attack versus a Wemby. Like, you cannot lay a finger on an attacking guard in this league, but the things that they're doing. And Minnesota, by the way, this is great. This is very intelligent game plan. Do it until they call it.

Uh, they did it tonight a couple times. Yeah, they—

McDaniels shoved them out of bounds on the, on the play and they missed that. They teed up Nas.

Yeah.

Um, for something they had been doing. And again, like, this isn't sour grapes. Do it until they call it. They hadn't been calling, especially in Game 4. But to me, it just really makes me think about how different the whistle is for different kinds of players. Yeah. And Wemby gets fouled a lot more than, than get called. And that is as old as the history of the game to an extent. But it's really frustrating in a time where our guards are getting so many ticky-tack calls to watch Victor get pushed around like that.

Yeah, I don't like it either. Shaq, you talk to, listen to a podcast with anyone who played against Shaq and they're always like, yeah, we fouled the shit outta them. Were they gonna call everything? He's 380 pounds. Like, what else are we gonna do? Or else he just would've dunked every time. I'll be interested to see, A, Friday night, I think they dial up all that stuff with Wemby and you have the Minnesota crowd, you have Ant on the 3 days rest.

Yeah.

You have a Timberwolves team, they're on the brink in a lot of different ways because it's not gonna get any better next year. Right. The West is gonna be— Denver will load up in some way. Utah is gonna be outta nowhere a contender. The Lakers are gonna try to, you know, improve the team. Dallas is gonna be better. And I'd say the West is just gonna be better all the way around.

Yeah.

And it's gonna be hard to cement being the third best team. What happens if Houston gets better? You know, you just, you just don't— what happens if Giannis gets traded to one of those teams? You just don't—

the Clippers are getting the number 5 pick.

Yeah, well, we'll see. Impressive Wemby game. I, I'm just blown away by the Spurs. Like, to watch young guys play like this doesn't make a lot of sense to me. This is something that should be 2 years from now happening, and it's just like, it's sped up. It's like listening to a podcast at 1.5 speed or something. They're hitting these checkmarks. I, I like, the Harper thing just breaks my brain. Point guards don't do that at age 20. They're not supposed to have control of playoff games for 8, 9 minutes. So anyway, before we go, Darryl Morey got fired today. Oh, our friend, the Philadelphia 76ers general manager, friend of mine for a long time. I've always tried to stay, you know, always weird to talk about, but I always tried to be neutral. If they did stuff I didn't like, I would say it. If they did stuff I liked, I'd say it. So you knew there was gonna be a fall guy after a pretty embarrassing sweep to the Knicks where you had 70, 80% Knicks fans in the last 2 games. And there's a couple different things you could probably point to.

The Embiid extension, the McCain trade seemed for some reason to be the catalyst for people to really turn on him. And a good example of like Sam Presti has it right by never saying anything. Darryl talks, you know, sometimes to his own detriment and made the sell high comment with McCain. The irony is he traded McCain because they, they clearly told him to get under the luxury tax, right? So there's a couple moves you can make. Maybe trade Grimes. I don't know if Grimes had any value to trade Grimes without taking a contract back, which is hard. And in the McCain case, they got picks and other stuff, and McCain was kind of buried behind two guards, but that became the catalyst. So, um, when I look at the job that he did in Philly, which was really up and down, like some some really big hits and some, some misses too. I guess my question is, are they in a better or worse place than when he took over? Because he was able to get them out of the Ben Simmons thing. He was able to trade Harden and get some pretty decent picks from the Clippers back.

I mean, I think one of them's unprotected in, in '28 or '29. BJ Edgecombe, they pulled that off where they now have Maxey and Edgecomb as like the centerpiece for what they're doing. So to me, this isn't like a, oh my God, this guy fucked our team up. But at the same time, I wasn't surprised at all. So why wasn't I surprised?

Yeah, I think your worst contracts draft, which we'll talk about a little bit later, is, is the number one reason. When you look at what you guys had determined, the one and two worst contracts in the entire association right now, Darryl did those deals. He did it with Paul George. And he did it with Joel Embiid. And what do they have in common? These are guys on the wrong side of their prime.

Yeah.

And he is committed to paying them ridiculous amounts of money in this second apron era. So that's what's, that's what's it. If they only had one of those deals, you'd be like, oh my God, they have a really good team building opportunity here to get over. But they're handcuffed. I mean, if Paul George is gonna be healthy or if Joel Embiid's gonna be healthy, but You and I have seen this for too long to know that's just not gonna happen. So that's ultimately what it is. I don't think it's like a disgraceful firing. I just think this thing, they needed to refresh it. I think Darryl will get another job.

Yeah.

But ultimately, if I had to hang it on something, Bill, I would say those two contracts, the Paul George and Joel Embiid, that's what got it done.

I would add a third one, and this would've been controversial, but I also, you know, I always used to joke that Darryl has no emotion in any of this stuff. Like he's just gonna do what, what the analytic move is at all times. Like that's the McCain trade. There was no emotion tied to that trade. Like if, if you and I were his conciliaries and he was about to make that trade, we would say, yo man, Philly fans really like this guy.

Yeah.

And if you do this and he goes and plays well in OKC, They're gonna be fucking pissed. And this is Philadelphia. Like, I don't know, like, maybe figure out another way to get into the luxury tax, right? But he's, he's analytics. That's just the way he plows ahead. I, I said this at the time, the move was to trade Embiid when, before the Knicks got Towns, when the Knicks were clearly desperately trying to, you know, make that, all these picks that made an impact. And they had a real relationship with Embiid. They had Worldwide West and they had Leon Rose who were like, those, those are Embiid's guys. Leon Rose was, that was his agency, you know? And I think outta anyone, they valued him the most. And you just had Embiid coming off these two seasons where he played the most games he'd ever played. And it was like 66 and 63. His stock was never gonna be higher. The history of centers and guys that size is usually gonna start doing this And I just think he could have gotten a fucking motherlode from Philly. Now, would the fans have been happy about it?

I don't know. Yeah. But I think in retrospect, hard to say, but in retrospect, the move is like, I'm selling high, not on Jared McCain, but on Joel Embiid right now.

Yeah, that's probably right. And one more thing on the McCain thing, I always like to laugh at, like, if, if Sam Presti is very interested in one of your guys.

Yeah. Hang on.

Yeah, go back and be like, oh, what, what, what am I— what are we doing? Like, that's our best player or whatever, right? Don't trade with that guy.

Huge red flag.

When Pat Riley was in his prime or R.C. Buford in his absolute prime and they were on the phone, people would be afraid to deal with them because they, they had such respect for these guys' basketball opinions. What do you— why would they want that guy? Oh yeah, hang up the phone, Bill.

Brewers are like this too. The Red Sox have traded for him 2 years in a row with the Brewers. They basically have Sam Presti in the baseball and got fleeced each time. So yeah, so for Darryl, this is a 20-year run for him, right? He got hired by the Rockets in '06, took over the team in '07, had the whole Rockets run, came really close, had some bad luck, especially Chris Paul getting hurt is a great injury what if. Yeah, we have injury what ifs every year. That's a really good one because They had Game 7 at home. They were toe to toe with the Warriors. The Warriors were a little rundown at that point from '15, '16, '17, '18. They were vulnerable. Their team chemistry was going a little sideways. And I think, and then they miss all those threes in Game 7. That was the closest he got there. And then in Philly, never really felt like that team was ever gonna actually make the Finals. I never really felt like that. Felt like they were.

Yeah, it felt like he sort of walked away from that Maury ball. I'm gonna push the edge of the calculator over further than anybody else. And it felt like this, this Philly era Maury was more conventional, uh, just signing the superstars and, and maybe even antithetical to some of the analytics movements, including like, hey dude, have you ever seen an aging curve? Like, don't overpay guys in their 30s. That's, that's not something we should be doing. So, you know, it def— it never really felt like a Darrell culture had set setup in Philadelphia. Like you're, you're alluding to these legendary teams with Harden and D'Antoni in Houston that, that sort of changed the sport, Bill, forever. And people say Steph, and I agree with that, but that, that it was Steph shooting 'em and it was Mike and, and Darryl building that whole team around the 3-point shot that changed this league forever.

Also, the spending isn't a small thing either, right?

Yeah.

You know, the Knicks are spending right now. That's one of the reasons they have a really good team. They've been aggressive. Golden State during the whole run, spent a ton of money to try, you know, try to put together good teams. The Celtics famously spent so much money that the, the dinner check came this season, they had to make all these trades or else they would've had to pay, you know, $300 million in luxury tax. Philly's not done that. They have not.

Yeah.

Spent Philly and honestly Philly, and I don't think Denver really has either. They've been two teams that had, you know, two of the best players of this decade, but always were pretty, responsible with how they spent. I don't know if that would've made a difference with Philly, but it did make a difference with little stuff like the McCain trade.

My last thing is my first games were at the Spectrum in Philly in the '80s with Barkley and Dr. J when they, they overlapped. And it, I was really stunned by the, the number of Knicks fans in this, in the building in Philadelphia. And, and I wonder if that played into it. I wonder, could you imagine that ever happening in Boston? Madison Square Garden. It was kind of crazy, right? Philly, I think, has a stronger backbone than that. What are your thoughts?

I never— if you go back to the Dr. J era, um, and even go back, you can go back on YouTube, watch some of their home games. Not like huge crowds. I always thought when I was growing up, I always felt like they were a Flyers, Flyers city more than anything. Like, that was like their team. And, and Phillies, obviously. Eagles, and I always felt like the Sixers were fourth, even though they had Dr. J for this great run. Felt like it started to flip a little bit in the '80s, especially after they won the title. And then when we got to the '90s, you know, they, they had a really bad run there. They trade Barkley. And I, I just think that's an Eagles town first. And, you know, I don't, I don't know if the Philly, if the Philadelphia 76ers ever got there. I also, the process was pretty weird, man.

Yeah.

Like, like if we're gonna do like a deep dive on, huh, how do you end up with 80% Knicks fans at a home playoff game? Maybe you gotta look backwards at what did the process really accomplish? 'Cause you're, you're losing 4 years of fans. You have a chance, young fans trying to decide on a team. It's like, should I like the Sixers? Well, they intentionally lose every year. I'm gonna like the Golden State Warriors and Steph Curry instead. So I don't know, I'm sure there's a million different reasons for it, but I always felt like they were not like, never really the main team in Philadelphia. I think that's safe to say.

Yeah, maybe that's it is. And I, I, I was just surprised to see that. And again, like you watch these environments in Minnesota or in San Antonio tonight, it's like, man, these, these crowds are electric. There's no way you're getting you know, 30% of the lower bowl for the visiting team in these arenas. But in Philadelphia, which I think is a pretty good sports town, it was just crazy.

Yeah, it's a weird one. Well, we'll see what Darryl— I'm sure it's gonna be tough this year 'cause I don't know how many jobs are available, but I'm sure he'll be lurking in some way. And that I don't see him ever—

he could be a great podcast host. Who knows?

So as his friend, I would almost recommend he didn't do that because I feel like that would get him into even more trouble. But he would be amazing because he, he doesn't always have the self-edit button.

No, he doesn't have the filter.

No, he'll just— so I don't know if I'd want him to have a podcast. But anyway, uh, and so end of an era with Philly. We'll see. We talk later in the mailbag about, is there— does Embiid even have trade value? How do you even handle that situation? Whole bunch of good stuff coming. Me, Kirk, Dave Jacoby doing a big-ass mailbag next. Bill Simmons Podcast brought to you by FanDuel. We are in full swing with the NBA playoffs. Every game, every possession, every swing, every zag, all of it matters. Hey, all customers on FanDuel get a profit boost tonight. So when the moment hits, your win hits bigger. FanDuel giving you better payouts on same-game parlays all NBA playoffs long. I'm gonna take a swing. On Twitter and the Cleveland-Detroit game, the last time I did it was Saturday, which I hit with, uh, with the Cavs and with, uh, a bunch of Mitchell point overs. I had a bunch of different bets. I think all of them won except for the 36 points and up. I am gonna do another one for Game 5, leaning toward taking the Pistons at home just because I think this is really proven itself as a home team wins every game series.

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All right, we are moving back in time. It's mailbag. Me, Kurt Goldsberry, Dave Jacoby. We are recording this, uh, late after— late morning Pacific time. So if anything happens in the next 8 hours before the Timberwolves-Spurs game, uh, we're not going to apologize. We were all together in the 2014 Finals. In Austin, Texas, when the Spurs, Tim Duncan, it was the last gasp of the Duncan era, trying to pull off one last title. We were eating barbecue. We shot, shot all kinds of stuff. We went out. It was great. Jacobs, did you ever think the Spurs would be this relevant again? It felt like the last hurrah for them when we were there. I do.

I did think they would be this relevant again because it's just very Spursian of them to do this. You know, like there's only been a few dark Spurs years and they're dark, but you know, a lot of, a lot of sunlight in San Antonio. I believe we also had Prince Jaleen with us, if you remember correctly.

We had Prince Jaleen. We reunited some of the Fab Five. Jacko joined the Fab Five in the Chris Webber spot. It was emotional stuff. Kirk, did you think the Spurs, I mean, granted they, they nailed the lottery 3 years in a row with 3 pretty obvious picks that I don't think they should get. That much credit for, but, um, 3 top 4 picks in a row, now they're back. But were you worried that they were just going to become small market New Orleans for the next 30 years?

I wouldn't go that far. I knew they'd be back, but you're exactly right, going 1, 4, and 2 in consecutive drafts. If the Spurs get that opportunity, they deserve the respect here. They were going to get that right, uh, and not only did they get those picks right, those were great 1, 4, and 2. Obviously Wemby, yeah, Castle's a great 4 pick, and man, Dylan Harper is a great 2 pick. So Dude, I think that the bigger story is like, I think that 1-4-2 run the Spurs just got to get them back to relevance is one of the big reasons we have new lottery rules.

Hmm. Well, especially they were helped out that 3 teams passed on Castle was the other thing that really helped them. I thought he should go first. I have a bunch of mailbag letter, uh, emails for us. We're going to start with the lottery. And this is because it just happened. I don't know if you guys saw it, but the lottery happened. But watch, watch the one I did. Um, Mike says, on Monday's pod, you correctly pointed out how awkward and weird the half-hour lottery telecast is. What about how lame the team representatives are when they're on camera? They just sit there stony-faced. They barely even seem happy when the results are good. I am a 49-year-old lifelong Wizards-Bullets fan. I've been rooting for a team that has not won 50 games since I was 2. My son and I felt like we were going to throw up during the lottery. We got in the top 4, bouncing up We won, we screamed so loud our dog left the room. What if instead of putting executives or former players in these seats, we get super fans? Wouldn't that be more entertaining? Jacoby, who would you put in the seats as representatives?

This is easy. You've come to the right place. As a, you know, putting my producer hat on here, you, you treat it like a reality television show. So you cast the people that are best for television because the executives and the ex-players, they've all been there, done that. They're sort of like, When you sit in the press seats at the game, you're not supposed to cheer or drink beer. It's boring. I'm going full reality television style, and we're getting the craziest, most boisterous fans. They're going to lose their minds when their team does something good or bad happens to them. We're auditioning it like it's American Idol Season 3.

You agree with that, Kerr?

Yeah, dude. The gravity of that moment, the telecast just doesn't match it. The cadence happens too fast. It's like, oh my God, wait, just what just happened? Total craziness can happen. And they, like you said on the other podcast, like there's 15 minutes of nothing and then they, they don't— and it's not like I want the American Idol pregnant pause after pregnant pause when somebody gets voted out or whatever, but dude, they don't— the gravity of the moment isn't respected on the, on the broadcast. And I, I do think it would be fun to put Joe House and have Joe House with a six-pack of beer and just let him get going. And let's, let's see what happens when— and they should have confetti fall But ultimately my thesis is this, Bill, and you hit it on Sunday. The gravity of these moments is monumental. We just talked about the Spurs and the broadcast doesn't respect how important this is or how electrifying it is for these fan bases.

Yeah, they seem very determined just to show us that everybody who's about to be picked has a parent and they're all excited to be there. And wherever I go, we've got like just the most generic, terrible interviews possible. And then we get, we meet all the representatives. I don't know why. It's not like we interview any of them. We just kind of see them for a second. I had no connection with them. Con Canipple's like, why am I here? I had, so Jacoby, I had 3 ways this could go.

Okay.

And the, the, the fan thing, which, uh, Mike mentioned as well. So you have super fans, you have a contest, you basically cast the fan. You could even turn that into some sort of reality show where it's like, here's how we landed on the Wizards fan. Because the thing is, we're all talking about who's going to win the lottery and tanking and all this shit for 7 months, and then we just kind of rip through this lottery show in 10 minutes. Like, it's like a walk of shame for the league. They're just trying to get away with it. So celebrities— celebrity, uh, I'm sorry, actual fans who won a contest. Then celebrity super fans as the second model, where you do have like your Joe House. You have, you know, you go— yeah, Atlanta Hawks, like Pick anybody from the Atlantic music— Atlanta music scene, right? Gucci Mane could just be there as the Hawks representative, and you just go through. And then it's like, we have an hour show, we talk to each representative. Here's my third idea, and I'm going back to the basics, and I think this is actually the best idea.

I think the GM should have to be there as the reps. I think this should be part of the job. And the reason I mentioned this is you have Kevin Pritchard there, who's just done this all-time hit-or-miss trade where now it's a 50-50 chance to either be in the top 4 or you lose the pick to the Clippers. What's better drama than that? Like, we— the famous, the famous clip was Jerry West with the, with the Grizzlies-LeBron one, right? Where it's like, if he gets the first pick, he gets LeBron. Second pick, nothing. It comes up, Grizzlies are second, and it just cuts to him and it looks like he's the guy in Scanners whose head's about to explode. So, Jacobs, why can't it just be the GMs? Like, hey guys, if you're going to be a GM of a team, you're at the fucking ladder and you're going to be the representative and we get to see your reactions and this is just how it's going to go.

And you have the GMs and the superfans sit side by side. So like, that looks like a maybe where a superfan just can just like turn his head and look at Pritchard and be like, look at what you've done.

Wow.

Look at what you've done.

Yeah. Yeah. And it just— I think Kirk hit something too. He's like, The rhythm of it needs to dramatically change.

Yeah.

Because like, let's, let's every reveal, let's discuss, you know what I mean? Like, let's discuss every reveal because it does, like, sometimes my brain isn't fast enough to like figure out all of the machinations of what it means that that team is in that spot.

And the host, the host always misses one. I think Malika missed in the moment that Brooklyn lost their pick for like 5 seconds.

Well, Nagandi, remember Nagandi last year with the Sixers pick?

Right. He was completely screwed. Well, that leads to the next question from Alex in Charlottesville. He said, now that we're gonna have this new lottery system with the increased volatility, how would you redesign the 30-minute telecast? How do we space out the reveals? Could we draw 16-1 in front of the audience? So the NHL did this the last 2 years. My dad, probably the biggest fan of the NHL Draft Lottery, like really genuinely loves it. And this year the Bruins, if the Maple Leafs fell from 5 to 6, the Bruins got their pick. But they revealed that the picks in the, in the correct order from one down, and the Maple Leafs won the lottery. And he said, even though it sucked for the Bruins, it was amazing. So I think it could be an hour. I think you reveal the picks, you reveal the first pick first, and then you go backwards, you know, through the top 4 or whatever we have with these lotteries. And I think it's the actual GMs, and you just do it that way. And then you have like 20 minutes after where you can explain to the audience all the ramifications.

Why not, Kirk? Why can't we do it this way?

No, that's the way it should be. And it should be somebody like you and Zach and Bobby Marks reminding us what this means for the Dallas Mavericks or what this means for all of these.

So would you stop after each pick for like 2 minutes? Okay.

I mean, and Jacoby's the TV producer here, so I'd turn it to him. Jacoby, why can't we just have a full minute or two? Just be like, what does this mean for the Mavs? Let's reset where they are. What are the TV people thinking?

I mean, yeah, I mean, that's exactly what I just said before. And another thing is, is I, I want to take it all in. I want to soak it in. It happens so fast.

You need time.

We pay such close attention to this league that like, even I am like racing up to keep up with the pace of the thing.

Why?

Why are you doing that to me? Like, make it more dramatic and make me fully understand exactly what all of this means.

It would be funny if the Oscars did it this way and they did like this 3-hour show and then the last like 2 minutes they just raced through the best 5 categories. Best Picture winner, one battle.

No, that's right, dude.

So last year when it was, it was, it came down to the, the Spurs and the Mavs last year, right? And it was like, holy shit, are the Spurs gonna get Cooper Flagg?

Like, right, you need to take like 5 minutes just to—

that needed to be like 5 minutes, dude. Like, oh my God, this is incredible for the state of Texas, first of all. But man, if if the, if it's gonna be Wemby and Cooper Flagg, yeah, like, let's have 5 minutes there.

Yeah. All right. We all agree. Derek from Indianapolis wants to know, as a lifelong Pacers fan, I have to ask, did the Pacers sell their soul for all the insane playoff comebacks in 2025? Because since then, Game 4 of the 2025 Finals became the Scott Foster Experience. Game 7 ended with Haliburton's Achilles. Haliburton became the only NBA player to get shingles and put on weight and is on all the— has to recover from that too. And they lost their top 4 pick and it went number 5 to the Clippers. Most fan bases lose. The Pacers specialize in cosmic level timing. What was exchanged exactly for those comeback wins? Jacoby, do you, do you believe in the sell your soul theory? The Haliburton shot going up in the air? Like, do you, do you think the karmic forces have to like balance each other out?

Um, I have good news and bad news for Derek. Um, the bad news is absolutely yes. I mean, like, absolutely yes. The shingles thing and the weight thing because of the medication, and they— this big trade for Zubac, who was like great 2 years ago, but this year Clipper Zubac was not like tearing it up, and then lose the pick. But the good news for Derek is he'll be the superfan representing the Pacers in next year's draft.

Got your job, you're in. What do you think, Kirk? Do you believe in this stuff?

0: No, that's not my job, but I, I think they need to be thankful. They have Tyrese Halliburton, guys, that you have one of the best point guards in the league. This guy is offensive efficiency in a can. He had one of the more electric playoff runs we've seen last year. We just need to get that guy's foot and ankle right and they'll be right back where I think they should be near the top of the East next year.

Derek. 4: So that's kind of near where I landed. Last year was an amazing ride for Pacer fans. Like, it didn't get better than that. I, I can't think of a more fun playoff run where they became the most memorable thing about the playoffs, even though they didn't win the Finals, which never happens, right? You think about the '25 Finals, I think of the Pacers before I think about anything else that happened. So wasn't terrible. They still have Tyrese and Siakam. They have Zubats, Nembhard, Ne— uh, NeSmith. Toppin, TJ, Jarris Walker, Sheppard. They have all their firsts except one, and they were losing Myles Turner either way last year. So I don't, you know, um, the free agent centers this year weren't that good. Maybe Hartenstein's in there, Robert Williams, Nurkic, maybe DeAndre Ayton. So you could argue they needed Zubats. Um, the counter though to that Zubats trade, and the part that never made sense to me would happen, is Why did you have to do it in February? Because if you get the fifth, even if you get the fifth pick or the sixth pick, I still feel like you, the Clippers are gonna be like, yeah, you're gonna trade us that for Zubats.

Let's do it. That the risk didn't match the reward because I don't like making trades that are still gonna be sitting there a few months later. They just could have traded Toppin's contract and something smaller and, and the number 5 pick for Zubats and not given up the other first rounder that was in there. So I just, I never thought the risk matched the reward. And I thought, Jacobs, I thought even they could have put like a, like a thing like, whoa, if this becomes the 5th or 6th pick in this draft, then we get our 29 first back or something. Because I like Zubats, but it just doesn't match what the reward was, I don't think.

Well, I don't want to like be too second-guessy after the coin flip went heads instead of tails, you know what I mean? But I do want to say that I do like Zubats as well. I thought that like him and Harden were a great duo a couple years ago. But when I think about the Pacers team and that electric run that you're talking about, what do they do? Like, they get out and run. Like, they don't want you to set up your defense. Like, they don't want to be in the half court. So I see a lot of like Zubac getting the rebound, throwing it out, and then just kind of standing under his own basket. Oh, go ahead guys. Like, go ahead guys, you guys take care of this. I'll be here.

Well, the other thing, Kirk, is you do a trade like this and it's 50-50 odds, right? If they get the pick, Pritchard's a hero. You don't get the pick. Now your fans are kind of looking side-eye at you, but now you put Zubac in a tough spot too, who's a really good player. I voted for him third team all-NBA a year ago. But now you look at him and you just watch him during games and you're just thinking about if, like, if Keaton Waggler's awesome for the Clippers, right? You're just constantly thinking about that as you see Zubac. The other thing I didn't like about the trade was before the trade deadline you do it. And we thought there was a top 4, and then we still knew after that the draft was good, but we knew there were 4 guys, and that's probably how the Pacers assessed it. But where you're not factoring in is who's gonna make a leap in February and March in college basketball. And what happened was Wagler and Acuff made a little bit of a leap. So they're not in the top 4, but they're really good value at 5 or 6.

And I, that's why I just would've waited. I feel like this trade would've been there in May, Kirk.

Yeah, I wouldn't have. I, as somebody who worked for a small market team, like, you're just taught, like, don't trade your first round picks, especially when you're near the top. Like, just don't do it. Like, yeah, we're not, we're not playing in the free agency game. Free agency is largely dead anyway for everybody. Yeah. So like, these draft picks, you have to be very, very sort of protective of if you're in a market like Indiana, especially.

You're not paying the luxury tax.

Yeah, right. So when they made the deal, guys, it was like a Russian roulette moment. It was such an incredible moment. Like, for that lottery, again, go back to the broadcast. Like, that was a moment where the producers needed to be like, we need to give this the gravity it deserves after it happens, right? Either the Clippers fans are going to go crazy or the Pacers fans are going to go crazy. Um, and it just, again, they blew through it. But man, I would not have done the trade just as a small market guy. Don't give up a lottery pick if you're the Indiana Pacers.

Mike Rohr emails us about this. He's, he said how in the podcast Sunday, I didn't see a conspiracy for the Pacers. Like the Pacers not getting a pick actually didn't, conspiracy bill was not triggered by that. Mike Rohr says there was a conspiracy potentially, and he doesn't have a dog in the fight. He said the Knicks are set up to be good next few years. So are the Celtics, maybe even the Sixers. Three big markets. Do you think the NBA really wanted small market Indy to get better and spoil the East party when they have small market juggernauts in Oklahoma City and San Antonio? Could they have had a third one? That's all I've got. That's the conspiracy. I don't know, Jacoby. I kind of like it.

I'm not buying it.

Okay. I, I appreciate the effort.

The part, the part you said the Sixers are like set up to be good for the next 3 years. It's like, really? Like the Paul George making $100 million each.

Yeah. We have emails about that later.

All right.

I respected that he tried. Dan from Tucson says, I'm sure you must feel conflicted with, with Jalen Duren after the playoffs so far. A beast in the regular season. Many voted for him for All-NBA, including, I voted second team. What'd you vote for him, Goldsberry? You second team?

Jalen Duren, second team, clearly.

Yeah.

Best team in the East.

Yeah. And then he says, on the other hand, he's been awful in the playoffs, getting punked by Wendell Carter and now the Cavaliers. Restricted free agent this summer. What would you do as the Pistons GM? Would he get a max offer from other teams? Do you match it if you're Detroit? Sign and trade? Please help, Podfather. I'm a Pistons fan in crisis. Well, you're— I think you're gonna make the conference finals, so, uh, calm down a little, Dan from Tucson. But, um, it's a really weird one. He— Game 4, um, that might have been his worst playoff game out of all the bad playoff games. And what was interesting was Mobley really— I thought Mobley was awesome in Game 4. I thought he really— you could feel him in the game, which has always been my disappointment with Mobley. It's like sometimes I'm not sure you're even out there. And yet Game 4, you felt him the whole game. I guess the problem for the Pistons is, is Durant such an obvious Lakers offer sheet guy, Kirk?

Yeah.

If they're gonna have cap space and you could, keep Reeves, obviously have Luka, and then Durant, and make that your 3. Like, I'm just doing that. I'm overpaying him, and then I can feel like I can do around the fringes. I think he could also be a Clippers offer sheet guy too, but I think somebody's gonna offer him at least 40+ a year regardless of how he looked in the playoffs, right?

Yeah. And then they're gonna match it because you're the Detroit Pistons. You don't get Jalen Durant. Jalen Durant's 22 years old. Yeah, it's his first real— I guess they had a deep playoff run last year, uh, but it has been disappointing, Bill. 20-11 in the regular season, clearly All-NBA caliber by my standards, but he's dropped down to essentially 11-point-a-game, 8-rebound-a-game guy. And in the Orlando series, looked like the second-best big man in the series behind Wendell Carter. That's not good. Uh, but yeah, again, you're the Detroit Pistons. We're not getting cute. We are gonna make the conference finals, I hope, if we, if we finish the series out. And he's a big part of their success and their plan going forward.

So you're just doing it. You don't even care. I'm doing it.

Okay.

What do you think, J.R.?

I mean, what's the other, what's the other play?

You, you kind of have to do it.

I wanna give credit to my, I wanna give him credit to my mismatch co-host Verno, cuz he flagged this like 2 months ago. He was like, you're in a spot where you're gonna have to pay Jalen Duren and he, you know, you're gonna dedicate so much of your percentage of your salary cap to him. And like, maybe he doesn't deserve it. And maybe him underperforming in these playoffs is actually helpful to the Pistons. But I would be concerned about this. Um, where I, I, I don't know if I'm ready to just sign Jalen Dern to the max and be like, I'm Cade and Dern forever, especially after what I saw in the playoffs.

Right. It's tough because we've seen teams get in just incredible trouble with this. I kind of feel like Memphis with Jaren Jackson was a little similar, right? I don't feel like he's a guy that should be making close to max money or max money, and, and it kind of bore out. The worst one ever was Bradley Beal. But we see with this max stuff, especially with the way they change the caps, you know, the, the way the cap works, you basically only get 2 of these. So they're gonna have to do it, and they're just gonna have to hope that he had a bad playoffs.

He's 22.

And the pressure of the contract that was looming kind of scattered his brain a little bit because I'm watching him and it's like, this is not the guy I watched in the regular season. The guy in the regular season was so confident, so physical, was so good around the basket. And this guy feels like he's second-guessing everything he's doing. So, you know, I can— I could— it's understandable if you're 22 and you have $230, $240 million waiting for you. You're trying to win a title and you're just, you put too much pressure on yourself. So really tough one, Jacobs. I don't know.

The, do you remember when Cade was out? Like he was, he stepped up, he was getting 30-point games and stuff. That's when I really believed in Jalen Dern. But I'm watching the game last night, I'm like, I kind of like B-Ball Paul in that spot. You know what I mean? I'll take B-Ball Paul seriously. Like watching the game, I was like, that guy jumps off the screen. Like if I can, if I can, if I'm watching a playoff game and I'm like, I'd rather have B-Ball Paul out there than my max guy. That's concerning for me.

We got an email. I didn't even put it in the document, but, uh, is B-Ball Paul the best third string center of all time? Can you research this? And I was like, I'm definitely not researching that. But if anyone has any thoughts on the greatest third string centers of all time, please, please send them. Gabe from Orange County. I got this a few times. I'll give it credit to Gabe first. Um, he, he, he was talking about how I suggested Oklahoma City FC as a Thunder nickname because they flop like a soccer team. And he doesn't understand why that's not just OKFC. And he, he, he's saying he'd even buy a hat. What do you think, Jacobes? OKFC?

But wait, hold on a second. Multiple people wrote you about this?

Well, because they were saying I screwed up. They screwed it. They're saying you screwed it up. It's not Oklahoma City FC. It should just be OKFC.

OKCFC is like— there's a, there's a team here, NYCFC. It rolls off the tongue much better than OK.

So you go OKCFC?

Yes. OKCFC.

Not just OKFC.

We have an NYCFC here. Maxi Morales is my favorite player.

OKCFC Goldsberry or no?

Yeah, that's a lot, but it does not give the fried chicken that OKFC does. It gives a lot of fried chicken, right?

That makes house hungry. Like, there's a lot of good—

it sounds like you want some lemon pepper.

Lot of good benefits. All right, this is a good one from Andrew Ball. He said, I know you tend to avoid draft what-ifs, but did the Warriors' 2020 and 2021 drafts change the trajectory of the league? There's not a lot of precedent for a team as good as the Warriors getting 3 lottery picks in a 2-year span, and they pretty much whiffed on all 3. What if they hit on multiple picks or traded them for real talent? So I've talked about some of this before, about Wiseman or LaMelo. It's COVID draft. They can't work out any of those guys. There's no March Madness. Understandable. They could have jumped back maybe and traded for Tyrese, but they claimed that nobody wanted to trade up. But even if you look back, could they have talked Detroit into trading up to 2 and they go back to 7 and instead of Detroit taking Killian Hayes, they get LaMelo and then the Warriors take Haliburton. Whatever. That's a lot of what-if stuff. 2021 is more simple. It's basically they took Kaminga over Franz and they took Moody over Trey Murphy. It's pretty crazy, A, that they went 0 for 3, and then B, that they won the '22 title anyway.

The part that I was interested in, guys, the trades that they missed out on with those picks that they had just done, like the LeBron-Cleveland thing and been like, fuck it, we're trading these picks, let's get a player. The best players traded from November 2020, 'cause we were post-COVID, through March 2021. Jrue Holiday, 6 days after the draft. So that Wiggins would've had to be in it, but maybe, maybe you could have said, we'll give you the number 2 pick and Wiggins for Jrue Holiday. I don't know if that Portland would've— I'm not, I'm sorry, New Orleans would've thought that was a better one. Harden to the Nets in March 2021. I don't think that would've been a fit. Vucevic, March 2021. There's no way the Warriors would have given as much as Chicago stupidly did. Here's the one that jumped out at me though, guys. Aaron Gordon, March 2021, pre-trade deadline. Basically is like Gary Harris, another young— who is that guy? RJ Hampton. And then a first. The Warriors could have traded like the number 7 and Oubre for Aaron Gordon and had Aaron Gordon from heading into the '21 playoffs on. Versus, I don't know, France.

That's Jacobs. That's like not a, not a small what if, right? Aaron Gordon turned out to be like this huge playoff guy. He would've been perfect for them.

It's a fun what if. But like, again, like it's easy to say now because I know at the time I was like, James Wiseman is the perfect fit for the Warriors. And then I was like, this is going to go great. He can shoot, he's big, he can defend. I was like, this is an absolute— I thought that was exactly what they need at the time.

You know, what if you traded the Kaminga pick for Aaron Gordon?

I mean, Aaron, I mean, you know, they, they would have obviously gone on a much better run. And also the whole like two timelines thing, Aaron Gordon fits perfectly with, you know, the, the timeline that was winning the championships. It would have, that would have been amazing.

I think that was the mistake, Kirk. Like, and like, and well, no, just because Curry's not a guy who's going to demand stuff to you. You were at the Spurs when Tim Duncan was there at the tail end. Same thing. When you have no pressure from your star to do anything, you could try to do that dumb two-two timelines thing. And meanwhile, looking back, it's like, clearly the move would've been Aaron Gordon, I think.

Yeah. And look at the 2020 draft, and you alluded to this, was a complete, you know, cluster F, whatever. Like nobody could see anybody. So you almost give 'em a pass on Wiseman. I do think the next one is the more interesting one to look at for what they did and what a team in their position should have done. Like put two, doing Kaminga and Moody, I appreciate what they tried to do there. They missed on better players below Moody especially. I think Sengun is in there.

He was.

And yeah, you said Trey. I'm looking again. Jalen Johnson is in there.

Cool.

Like that team would've been much better if they drafted Jalen Johnson, but they didn't. And the draft is really hard. But yeah, I think it is probably in retrospect, you put a bunch of 30-year-olds next to Steph. For one last run. But, uh, yeah, it's a hard one.

The bigger issue to me is, for whatever reason, in that cluster of years, which is like a year and year plus, there weren't like a bunch of amazing guys to go to get you, Coops.

Bill, so if you're gonna go back in time and change time, I don't know if you're familiar with the, like, the films of time travel films. Have you ever seen any of those? You have to remember that, that, you know, that there's— if you put Gordon on the Warriors What does that do for your guy Jokic?

Right. And what does that do for the '22 Finals? Yeah. It's, it becomes a Back to the Future thing. It screws up a lot of stuff.

Yeah.

Hey, Gordon was a pretty polarizing, he was a pretty polarizing trade asset though, because people were like, what is he? Is he, yeah. Is this somebody that would be happy being like a complimentary player? Does he want to be the guy? It was a little similar to what Iguodala was. All right, Jacobes, this one's specifically for you. It's from Jake. Jake in Illinois. This happened like 3 weeks ago. I noted it. Did you see the Laker playoff game with an approximately 4-month-old baby sitting courtside next to Lakers bench on its mother's lap? What the fuck? What are these parents thinking? Do people not understand what a 6-foot-8, 240-pound person hitting you at full speed feels like and the damage it can do to a baby? Who intervenes here? Who's at fault? It's pure insanity. Should the sports czar weigh in? I, I'm, I'm on the record always. I don't think anyone under like 5 should be courtside at a game. I've seen, you see it, I don't know, once a week you see somebody go flying to the stands. I think it's irresponsible. I would never, I brought my 8-year-old daughter to a WNBA game in 2013.

I think I felt a little safer on that one, but I just wouldn't in a million years bring a 4-month-old baby anywhere near courtside. Jacoby, you have 7 kids. How many kids do you have now?

I know it's a new one. I have 8 now. So that baby was essentially like an expensive handbag for that family. It's an accessory.

Like, that baby—

one of my big things is like, if a baby's not going to remember it, we're not going to Disney World. If the baby's not going to remember it, we're not throwing you a 1-year-old birthday party. Like, until you can remember things, you don't experience things. Also, put that baby to bed. It's nighttime. Like, like, what are we doing? Right? It's like they are just bringing the baby to be like, look at my baby, like it was a $100,000 watch or something. It's like, that's a fashion accessory, a look at me, I'm a Laker fan in the front row thing. And like, I don't even— the safety of the baby is whatever, but for me it's more just like, this is stupid.

Well, you're, you obviously, The other thing would be like, oh, I took the baby 'cause we couldn't find a babysitter. You're sitting courtside. I'm pretty sure you could afford a babysitter, Kirk. I don't know. I don't know where you stand on this one.

Well, I, yeah, it is dangerous down there. I mean, you watch this Wolves-Spurs series, like, dude, there are, there will be at least drinks spilled, if not human beings spilled over there during these games.

Yeah.

I think that is a sound. It reminds me of the exit row seating on an airplane. If you bring a kid on an airplane, you can't, yeah, try to get to that Delta exit row. That's not happening.

Right.

Um, good point. It seems, yeah, it's in, in baseball too. It's like they have net everywhere. It's like maybe we should be thinking about this, especially with kids under like 3 or 4 years old, right?

Yeah. 'Cause there's two different ways you could have the person just flying in full speed, like, uh, doing the Roman Reigns spear on you, basically trying to get a loose ball. You also get the person who tries to dive over the court side, but then they kick their leg.

Mm-hmm.

And you get like the whiplash kick in the head. Either one of them not good for a 4-month-old baby. I just, I thought that was crazy. I think that should be automatic loser seats.

Remember the Austin Reeves pass last night? He just, he just, I think it was a left-handed, just threw the ball right in the front row and it hits this guy's drink and explodes the drink. Like if that's a baby instead of a drink, like that's huge implications there.

Yeah, that would be bad.

Austin Reeves go, would he go to jail if he did that to a baby? Jacoby?

No, the, the parents go to jail.

Oh yeah. Let's, uh, we're gonna take a break and come back with some Joel Embiid questions. Oh yeah. All playoffs long, I have been sifting through the slate and putting my favorite bets and parlays from FanDuel Sportsbook on my, uh, Twitter feed, tweeting them out, trying to get it as close to the game as possible. I share my favorite parlay along with possible add-ons. We hit on Friday with the, uh, with the Cavaliers and a bunch of different Mitchell point totals, just depending on how aggressive you wanted to get. For Game 5, Pistons-Cavs, the home team has won every game this series. I think it continues. This is a, a prove-it game for, for Durant. I actually like the rebounds for him. I think this is the biggest game of his career, especially with restricted free agency coming. And I like the Pistons in that game. So I'll have some sort of bet for that. Futures, Knicks-Thunder for the Finals is even odds right now. It's probably the last time that will be the case for, for the rest of the playoffs. So if you're interested in that, Brunson, I think for the Finals MVP is 8-to-1, which if you like the Knicks, I think they're 6-to-1 to win the Finals.

Just take the Brunson Finals MVP. Anyway, when I bet, I bet with FanDuel, a brand I trust. Easy to build NBA bets of all types on FanDuel, and I know I'm getting great odds, payouts on my parlays, boosts every day, and I'll get my winnings instantly. FanDuel. Join me, play your game. All right, Joel Embiid email from Frank Farrell. He said, the Sixers unexpectedly beating the Celtics won Embiid enough goodwill that all my friend chats after the absolute Nick thrashing subtly shifted from the Sixers should swallow Embiid's money just to move on psychologically to the Sixers should trade Joel for peanuts to give him a shot somewhere else. What insane career he has had. My question. Does winning an MVP automatically get you an automatic place in your Hall of Fame pyramid? If so, who is the lowest MVP in the pyramid? It has to be between Embiid, Derrick Rose, and Westbrook. Well, I have Embiid and Russ in my, in my pyramid. I have, they're level 2 guys. I have Embiid low 70s and I have Russ in the 60s. I do not have Derrick Rose in the pyramid, and I don't even really think it's debatable.

Like, you go through his career. It's basically the 2011 season when he won the MVP and made first team All-NBA. It was the only first team All-NBA he won. And I just don't, I don't think it's enough to, to be like one of the best 100 guys in the history of the league. When I was researching this though, in 2021, he finished 9th in the MVP voting. Are you guys aware of this? There was a fan, there was a fan vote, which he won. And he got 10 points and finished 9th in the top 10 for MVP. Jacobes, is Rose a top 100 all-time guy for you, or how do you assess his career? It's a weird one.

This is much more your lane, Bill. I don't know if you know this. I don't keep a moving, running— Yeah, but give me your Derrick Rose. Top 100 players of all time.

Derrick Rose.

That's the thing is peak Derrick Rose is top 100, but the peak just didn't last that long. It's a very sharp point at the top of the mountain. You know, that's how I feel.

For me, I look at it more or less like counting stats.

And stuff is just like, uh, how he, like, you know, we talk about like role gravity and gravity on the court, just like grab fan gravity towards Chicago. Just attention, you know, barbershop discussion. Derrick Rose sort of conquered that and led that and had a little bit of like an Iverson coolness factor in a different way. Remember when he didn't dance at the All-Star Game? Like he was, he was just like, he was sort of like cool in a different way than Iverson was, but at the same, in a comparable level. Like he sort of had like a, a culture implications too.

He was incredible in person. I, I just think to me, Kirk, he's in the, he's in that group of just awesome guys where the career, they either had bad luck with injuries or bad luck with something else. And he's like first ballot for whatever that group is. But I don't think their career was there for—

No, but it wasn't there for a reason. Yeah. Like his body broke in the NBA playing this way with these guards doing what they're doing now this often, they're gonna break their knees. And it sucks. And I don't want to penalize guys like that who are clearly all NBA level players, MVP B-caliber players. And if I'm ever gonna be in charge of MVP or a Hall of Fame consideration, like Derek Rose is going, like, I love what Jacoby said. Culturally, he's important to the sport and its fans. You can point to a season in Chicago, like, he is more significant than a lot of people that are currently honored in that museum.

So that's a different combo, and I agree with that. I think if you win the MVP, you're in the Hall of Fame. Yeah. Which is a little different than the pyramid, 'cause there's a little higher. Like the top 100 guys ever, but Hall of Fame, I, I think MVPs are in. You're the best player in, in the best league for one year. That's probably, that's probably enough, I would say.

Wait, can I ask you an Embiid question?

Yeah.

How did you react after, on the heels of the Celtics series, watching Joel do what he did against the Knicks?

I mean, I, I wasn't surprised. Were you guys? It, it felt like he could, he had the good week in him. Right.

I remember I was in, I was with you in LA and that Chris Ryan was like, we should sit him out game one.

And you brought up— No, before game one, he was, CR was saying like, we should maybe even sit him for both games.

We all saw it coming, right?

No, it's, it's Jakobs. It's like a pitcher that maybe has an 85-pitch start every 6 days and you just have to kind of craft the rotation around it. But once I thought, honestly, I thought the same thing happened to LeBron in the round 2, like just going every other day when you're 41 years old. That's just, I, you know, there's certain things, the schedule is unforgiving.

I, I, I don't think Embiid was dramatically different between the Celtics and Knicks series. I thought the Knicks did a much better job of—

Well, that's also true. Yeah. I agree. You know, like, you mean putting him in pick and pops all the time? Yeah.

Making him, yeah.

Like make him defend in space.

Sometimes if I have a fat guy covering me in pickup, I'll just run from one side of the court to the other. Like you should've just done that. You know what I mean? Yeah.

And the Knicks had better guys to throw at him too than I think the Celtics did. And also the Knicks are just playing out of their minds like that, that 7-game run they had with all the blowouts was about as good as you're gonna do in the playoffs. So yeah, they 8-game run, 8-game run. You end up with the Celtics team that 7, 7, they, you end up with the Celtics team that's trying to figure out what they are on the fly. And then you go into this Knicks team that kind of figured it out. And that, that Towns thing, did you, Jacobs, did you watch Towns and were like, why don't they use him at the top? He could be like Bill Walton. Because I don't ever remember you saying that to me.

No. No, he has like over his Knicks tenure, he has a ton of like really fun highlight passes, sort of like behind the back out of the post stuff, or like, you know, like some of the, like sort of Yokichi, like someone makes a back cut and he threads the needle. So that he's shown that ability in flashes, but not with this kind of quantity. I, I did not say, you know, we should do make him the fulcrum of the offense at the nail. Let's do that.

They definitely, Kirk wanted to be a little more le— or a little less Brunson-centric, I think would've been the criticism. And they, it was like, you know, kudos to them for figuring it out 85 games into the season. But it was a really good wrinkle. Like once, once they figured out how to not be so reliant on Brunson, it was like the whole team took off.

Well, it helps when KAT stays on the floor. I'm going to say some really nice things about him, but man, some of these fouls, it's like, dude, don't be that stupid. You're too good for that. But yeah, I think Fred Katz on Zach Lowe Show yesterday had a great stat that, that Towns' touches per 100 are way up in these playoffs compared to the regular season. Just another analytical piece of evidence that you guys are exactly right. They are, they are relying on him to be a centerpiece of this offense and a passer in a way that we hadn't seen. And, and credit to Mike Brown here too. Like this guy took a high stakes job. Mm-hmm. And this Knicks run is featuring a lot of depth and a new look Towns. And to your point, Bill, yeah, a little bit less Brunson hero ball kind of stuff.

You know, you know what this reminds me of, Jacoby? A guy by the name of Dave Jacoby. Pick up, our pickup basketball days. Just keep them involved. Water the plant. If, if Jacoby's running the floor, reward him for running the floor. Give him the ball. If you go a little half court, run a little pick and pop with Jacoby every once in a while.

You know, sometimes, yeah, you know, rebounding more, we'll start running the floor more.

You just gotta water the plant.

A couple things about KAT is you're completely right, um, is the, the, the offensive involvement creates defensive involvement. Like, they're related. His defense has been much, much better. And also, like, you know, you guys aren't on like Knicks Reddit and like all my Knicks group chats and everything, but like the whole story of the season, it was like November, he's like, I don't know my role in the offense, it's not clear yet. And then it was like January, he's like, I just don't understand my role in the offense. And it was like a month ago, like, he's like, I still don't really fully understand my role in the offense. And it's like, well, I'm glad we figured that out in game 4 of the first round of the playoffs. You finally figured out your role in the offense under Mike.

Listen, some things take time. One more Embiid one. This one's a little more interesting, just from Ted. That was all he gave. No town.

The bear.

Early rumors are that Darryl will be out in Philly. I'll believe it when I see it. Uh, can we do a deep drive and dive into possible trades for Embiid? My dream trade would be Embiid for KD. That's not happening. Does Embiid make sense for anyone? Jazz, Kings, Pelicans? Please tell me there's some option. All right. He's got 3 years, $200 million almost left. This is, these are the only 4 teams I could possibly come up with. The Pelicans straight up for Zion. Pelicans just roll the dice, hope he gets healthy. I don't see them doing that, especially they're not exactly, uh, a lavish organization. So I'm going to say no on that, Kirk.

Yeah, it's a no for me, dog.

Just shaking his head sadly.

One context question. You guys do the worst contracts draft, you and Woes in-house. Where did Embiid land this year? Do you remember?

We, it was, I think Paul George 1, Embiid 2, or it might've been reverse. Yeah.

Okay.

Good context.

Then they beat the Celtics.

Next team. I know they did. Next team I have, the Sacramento Kings, just for Levine's expiring, just under the guise of it's the Kings, who knows what they're capable of. Vivek's like, we have Joel Embiid.

Yeah. Can never rule out— you can never rule out Stauskas. Can't be ruled out. Masterpiece Stauskas.

Look at our team on paper. We traded up one spot to get Darius Aikoff. We have Joel Embiid. We're back, baby. Their fans should revolt if they do that. Golden State. Just for Jimmy Butler. So Jimmy Butler expiring, coming off knee surgery. Golden State with the 11th pick. They convinced LeBron to come. They have Curry already and Draymond, and they just, they do the Expendables thing that I've been joking about. I don't think Golden State should do that. I'm just gonna mention it. Jacoby's making a small smile.

I'm just thinking, can we get Mike Conley involved somehow? Al Horford.

Some really ugly on stage. All right, this last one I kind of talked myself into. The Brooklyn Nets, who don't have their first round pick next year. Could we just do Embiid for 2 years of Claxton and Mann, who make $39 million and $36 million combined the next 2 years? Just a straight salary dump. Throw in a year of Clowney to make the contracts work. And if you're Brooklyn, Now I have an interesting guy instead of the Liberty just blowing away my team every year where there's way more Liberty fans, sold-out crowds and people. It's really like Barclays is like a Liberty's arena, not a Nets arena. Now I have Embiid. I still have salary space maybe to go get a free agent or maybe to make Giannis trade with all my other picks or trade for whoever. And I'm at least more interesting and I just hope he stays healthy. Jacoby's looks like he smelled a terrible fart.

No, this is the only one that makes sort of any sense. And, um, I just don't really, I don't know why Philly would be motivated to do this. Like, we're just going to get off the salary a little bit, but like, I was smiling a bit because the difference between Nets and Liberty games is it's absolutely wild. It's like difference between, it's like your birthday at like 25 and 55. Seriously. Like, it's so much fun.

It's so funny. It's Philly Arena in the Liberty game.

Completely different vibe.

If you're the Nets, you can't say basketball doesn't work in Brooklyn because the Liberty, it's as good as like half of the NBA games.

It's awesome.

So would you do that if you're the Nets, Kirk?

No, no GM, and my friend Sean Marks from my time at the Spurs, no GM should be trading for Joel Embiid at this phase of his career with these, the amount of money that is owed. I anticipate if I had to put the over-under on number of games Joel Embiid will suit up for next year, I would put it at 43.5. Bill, are you taking the over or the under?

Well, the question is, when does he play the 43.5? Because he came back for that Celtics series and had 3 games, 3 good games in him, and that was enough to kill the Celtics. I don't know. I, if I was a team that had no hope and I had to spend the money anyway, if I'm the Nets, what else am I gonna do, right? I have, I have salary. I, I'm completely irrelevant and I don't have my pick. Like, I've got to take a swing at something.

Well, okay. But like, I think that's a Ja move, you know? Like, if you're trying to sell tickets and just put some energy inside your building, like, if you have Ja Morant or Joel Embiid, which one are you? Which direction?

How about both? Can I offer you both? Ja Morant and Joel Embiid.

What could go wrong?

Why not? Next question from Danny, another one-namer. Simmons, did you ever explain why you thought Jalen Williams played in Game 2 of the Lakers series when you didn't? Please tell, please don't tell me you're cutting corners, not watching sports, and turning into Rick Riley. What happened? Rick Riley shot.

You want to talk about this? You put this, you put this in the rundown. You copied and pasted it. You wanted to address it.

I'm happy to talk about it. Here's my thing. So we're taping right after that Game 2. There's two games I'm putting together. I want to do, because I have Letterman on the show after, and I'm trying to put together 25 minutes of thoughts as I'm doing it. I'm going full speed, and then we tape it live right after the game. And it's like speed chess, and I'm old, and I'm going around, I'm trying to figure out the minutes, and I'm doing everything, I'm trying to get to the next thing, and I look at the box score and I'm like, Jay, and I just kind of brain farted. This is my second brain fart. Like, I'm telling you, it was like, obviously Jacoby, you're on some of the text threads with me. I'm watching all the games. I wish I could bring my wife on to be like, hey, some people are wondering if you're watching playoff basketball, because she'd be like, yeah, I could tell you they are because I fucking hate you during the first two rounds of the playoffs every year because all you do is watch basketball. Um, the thing is, I think I'm allowed 4 of these a year, and then if I get to 5, maybe a serious— maybe I have to talk to the family.

Yeah, well, because my other one this year was Seattle thinking the Seahawks never won the Super Bowl, which I said, even though I know Not only do I know they won the Super Bowl, but then they— the next year they would try to go back to back against the Pats. I was there for that. So I think I'm allowed, because I'm old now, I'm in my mid-50s, I think I'm allowed one just inexplicable brain fart a corner, a quarter, and everyone's just got to deal with it. And if I get— if I'm at 10 at the end of the year, let's have a real convo. But I think 4 is okay, right, Kirk?

Yeah, I know, dude. I blame our friend Jalen Rose. I mean, if it weren't for him, then we wouldn't have this crazy situation and having two guys named Jalen Williams on the same basketball team. Like, come on, this is— it was a tricky situation for all of us.

It was a double brain fart because I looked at the minutes, I forgot there were two Jalen Williams, and I forgot that the good Jalen Williams was scratched for game 2.

Um, he was wearing— okay, a couple things. He was wearing a pink leather jacket, you know what I mean? It doesn't really help your case. Yeah, you know, it's like he's in a pink leather jacket and they cut to him a lot. Like I'm not— I'm your friend and I love you, but like, you know, it is—

there is an old guy moment.

I'll take it. It's like, I'll take it. But I literally, you know, I taped last night between 1:30 and 2:30 in the morning after watching 5 hours of basketball. I'm sure I messed something up. I literally just interrupted you to say the Knicks are on an 8-game run and I'm a Knicks fan instead of a 7-game run. I was like, Bill, no, 8. Like, that happened 4 minutes ago. Like, yeah, it's just sort of the way it is. But here, as someone who's been in this industry a long time, Bill, you're handling this wrong. You're talent. This is where you throw your producers under the bus.

This is where you say, I've never done that.

This is my fault. I've been doing this a long time. You're talent now, Bill. You can't be level-headed. You have to have the big ego. My producers are supposed to correct that. That's why they're there.

We should have edited that out.

Yeah, that's what you're supposed to do. That's the talent play.

Now I'll fuck up. Listen, I'm going to have one a quarter and that's it. Podcast is free. This is just what we're dealing with now.

Bill, as your conciliary, I have to say this. I think 4 might be a little low.

You know, my goal is 4.

I think it's good. I think you want to set the bar a little bit lower for yourself there, buddy. Let's go 10. Yeah, let's go 10. You do a lot of potty.

I think I can pull off 4. This was my one for the quarter. Now I'm not going to have another one all quarter. Uh, Josh from DC says he's been a big fan of the podcast since the Picture Me Rollin' days. What a classic year that was when Picture Me Rollin' was the, uh, theme. Thanks to House's Mother's Day karma, the Wizards are finally interesting. And we have two paths of contention. One is just draft AJ. Two is trade down a spot, get some stuff for Utah. What would you do as the trade machine, Mikaso? So I already answered this on Sunday. I, I don't always feel this way with the draft. I feel like sometimes you gotta like dig in. I like this guy the most. Kirk, this is such a weird draft where I'm honestly happy with any of these 4 guys, and I don't know if there's any real way to say one of them is going to be the most awesome. I think AJ's probably the safest. Peterson is the highest ceiling, but I'd also be happy with the other 2. And if I could move back one spot and pick up real assets, I would just— in this draft, I would do it.

So what would you do?

Yeah, yeah, I'm Peterson curious at the number 1 spot. I'm also curious Yeah, I'm Peterson curious. I want to come out and just say that I love Derrick Peterson. I think all of the analytics guys in the NBA that I like to represent here from time to time are Cam Boozer enthusiasts. Uh, and so the eye test is Dubonca, there's Peterson. But so I, I think the Belichick move here is to go to 3 and just take— I'll, I'll take whoever's left.

Oh wow, move down 2 spots.

If I can get something— if, if— who's there? Memphis. Sorry, I haven't studied the draft. Memphis is 3.

Chicago's 4. Yeah.

If Memphis would give me anything valuable because they feel strongly, or— yeah, I don't know if I'd go to 4, Bill, but I do think there is some jockeying potential for people at 1 and 2 to think about just a little bit backward, like your buddy Danny Ainge did so famously to get to that Tatum over Fultz era.

I think that's a good— that's a good parallel. That, that was another draft where I was like, I kind of like all of these guys and they moved back, got an extra pick that ended up not even being—

It turns out that was a big, big effing deal for the Boston Celtics to do that. So Washington has to be playing with that concept.

Jacobs, what would you do? Would you just be like, I like this guy, I'm taking him one, don't, don't offer me any trades? Or would you sniff around?

I think you can only, as a GM, you're worried about your job and making the wrong move. I think you can only make the wrong move by trading up. In this draft because all four of them, it feels a little bit like the MVP. Like if you have SGA, you can make a great case. If you have Jokic, you can make a great case. If you have Wemby, you can make a great case. Right. So it's like all four of these guys are different players and, but they have sort of like, they're all equal to me as prospects. So if I'm, if I give up assets to move up and end up with the fourth best guy of the four, yeah, there's egg on my face.

Yeah. Shane. Wants to know, uh, when you brought up the Wizards in the lottery karma draft, Nick Wright immediately brought up Joe Hass's name, and it made me wonder if Joe Hass is the most famous Wizards fan at this point. Can we get a celebrity Wizards fan ranking? And then he asked— this was written last week— can Hass represent the Wizards at the draft lottery? So I asked the Washington fans I know. Here's the, here's the list of famous Wizards fans. You tell me where Hass ranks. Wale, Dave Bautista, Wolf Blitzer and Tiafoe, the tennis player. Maybe Scott Van Pelt. I don't know if he's a Wizards fan or not. I know he's a Maryland guy. I assume maybe he likes the Wizards. Honestly, that was all I could find. So I don't know, it's Andrew Sharpe. Andrew Sharpe's in there. Okay. Um, would you have House 5th, or would you bump him above any of those I mentioned, Jacobs?

I mean, I'm, I'm biased here, you know, but I will say that Wale was the only one I actively knew was a Wizards fan. Everyone else was news to me. And like Tiafoe's out there, you know, like, like doing post-match interviews about, about, um, Tre Johnson.

Kirk, it feels like House is in the top 5.

I'll take a strong stance here. I think Joe House, in part because of his platform here with us at The Ringer, is clearly the most famous Wizards fan. Like, when people think Wizards fan, they think Joe House. And I think he tried to do the Dougie on the podcast Sunday.

He got so excited the camera burned out. Like, he's a real fan.

He's had some camera issues. We'll give him that. But I think the Wolf Blitzer one— screw Wolf Blitzer.

That guy doesn't—

get him off the—

never seen him with Wizards once.

No, he doesn't like basketball. I don't want to live in a world where that guy is in—

can we split the baby and have a House-Walle partnership? I think they would make a good— I like that.

Maybe we'll give them a podcast. Zachary Gilbert in Westport, Connecticut writes in. He's 12 years old and he says, I'm sending this on my dad's email with his permission. My father is a longtime listener of yours, put me on the podcast, which I love. I always get excited when new one comes out. How come whenever you talk about Kevin Durant and the Warriors, you don't mention that he played with the greatest shooter ever and a top 5 shooter ever that made life so much easier for him? Um, went on and on about Durant. So it's interesting. And, uh, Ethan, Ethan Strauss actually wrote about this last week on his Substack about longevity rot, which, um, there's different versions of this when just when either somebody stays around too long. And I've talked about this a bunch and I haven't talked about in my book about how the memories of somebody near the end can somehow taint the actual memories of their peak. Um, and then you could, you see it with TV too, with like Barkley being on TV all the time versus Karl Malone not being on TV and the other stuff that's happened with Karl Malone.

And now it feels like Barkley's career was more significant than, than Malone when that wasn't the case when it was happening. I think KD the last 10 years really overshadowed how good those last 7 OKC years were when from 2010 to '16, he won the MVP, runner-up 3 times, 5 straight first teams, made the 12 finals, won 10 playoff series. He's either the second or third best guy of the, of the 2010s. I'd have him third behind Curry. I think it's LeBron, Curry, and KD. 2015 was hurt. 2013 playoffs, Russ got hurt. Harden trade in 2012 screwed things up for them too. And then the only thing you can really ding them on is the last 3 games of the '16 playoffs against Golden State. 'Cause they, I thought they had a better team. I thought Golden State was dragging a little bit. I thought they could have finished him. Jakobs, do you feel like all the Durant stuff from the last 10 years is now starting to kind of cloud people's memories of how fucking good Durant was?

Yes, I believe it's a little unfair. Like if you look at his former teammate James Harden, who has famously sort of like underperformed in big spots, there's not a lot of those with Kevin Durant. There's injuries and like, weird Kyrie Irving stuff and that took down that team and like bad vibes in Phoenix. It's, it just sort of seems like it is his fault, but simultaneously he's still performing.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, it's, if his career just ends with the Achilles injury, right? Let's just say it's, it's over. He doesn't come back. We would still talk about him reverentially for what he did for those 13 years, Kirk. So I don't, I do think it, I do think it has clouded how good he was in his peak.

Yeah. Let's not forget he tore his Achilles tendon.

Yes.

Like that you just said, like, holy crap. Like Dominique was my favorite player growing up. It ended him. Like it, yeah. He technically still played after that, but it was, it was over. Kevin has done a marvelous job, I think, extending his relevance into, what is he, 37?

Yeah.

And he is the best scorer, in my opinion, the NBA has seen since Michael Jordan. You can tell me it's Kobe. I'm not gonna get too mad. At you, but it's like, this dude is by far one of the best scorers in the league's history. He's doing it at a high level at 37. That's a Houston team who, who, who had a disappointing run in the postseason. The vibes are not immaculate. But let's not forget Freddie VanVleet was not there.

Yeah.

Steven Adams is not there.

Durant got hurt. Yeah.

I'm, I'm a, I'm sitting here on the 40 acres at the University of Texas. I'm not gonna say anything negative about Kevin Durant, but I will say it is better to burn out than it is to fade away. And sometimes that long tail at the end of an artist or an athlete's career can, can sort of damage how you look back at the prime.

Yeah, I would highly encourage, um, who wrote that email? That was young Zachary. I would highly encourage you to go on the YouTubes and go check out some Durant from, check out the USA basketball stuff in 2000, what was it, 2011 in Turkey?

Oh yeah.

Check out the Rucker Park. Check out the 2012 playoffs, him running through them, beating the Clippers. Like, Durant was unbelievable.

The day you were born, he probably had 40, right?

I mean, he's definitely second or third best player of the '90s. I would put him third, but I also have my head at Harden. Uh, another career thing from Andrew B. He said one of the greatest takes in recent BS lore was that Harden was the guard Karl Malone. Just for the record, that was Zach Lowe's take, not mine. I was jealous of it. After watching the Thunder finish off the Lakers, I watched the SGA very vanilla walk-off interview, and I thought, does anyone actually list SGA as their favorite player? Will he be remembered as guard Tim Duncan, both dominant but with no fans? I, I thought that was a character assassination. People love Tim Duncan. I love Tim Duncan. I ride for Tim Duncan. It is, it is interesting though, Jacob's like, have you met a diehard SGA guy? Have you met anyone who's like, my favorite guy is SGA, I'm wearing the SGA jersey, this is my dude?

I— well, okay, I'll answer that question in a second, but first I want to address something. Like, Bill, you're one of the biggest Tim Duncan fans in the world. Um, uh, Kirk, you are biased by the Spurs. He was boring. Like, you know what I mean? Like, let's just not freeze over this. Like, what do you mean Tim Duncan was awesome? He was boring. Like, he was— his personality didn't exist, and his game was to turn around and like hit off the window. You know what I mean? Like, he was a dominant basketball player, won a lot of championships, but like, it's not exactly like he was Anthony Edwards in the postgame interviews and whatever.

One of the 4 greatest teammates of all time.

There, there, I do not know anyone who's like, I love SGA. I don't see any SGA jerseys anywhere. Like, like you see the other megastars in New York City. And I do want to say this though, I, I am enjoying some of his personality flares outside of his, uh, outfits. Like, we need that. Like, like, I just— I have the answers, I just need to see the test. Like, he started to have these sort of like— they kind of feel pre-canned, but some good post-game stuff that's kind of like this calm, cool that I'm starting to dig. It's— he's not like personality-less like your guys's favorite guy, Tim Duncan.

You mean pre-canned like Noah Eagle breaking out the "Cavalanche!

It's a Cavalanche!" That was quite a while ago.

It was a Cavalanche though, to be fair.

Crazy 3rd quarter. Kirk, do you know any diehard SGA fans? No.

I think that's the more interesting part of this question. I think the comp to Tim is just wildly unprofessional for a mailbag question. So SGA, it is really interesting, and this is like Jacoby's wheelhouse and your wheelhouse too, is like, yeah, his approval rating outside of his home market seems to be the lowest we've seen for a player who is that dominant since we've been doing this, right guys?

Like, no question.

If I'm in New York or if I'm in LA and I start talking about SGA, I kind of know what the person across the table is going to start to say. I think that is sort of the more interesting part here.

I like— I think it's actually great for him that he belongs to OKC and everybody else is kind of poking holes, and it makes OKC want to love him more. And we're probably in an okay spot with it. And now it's time for Embracing the Era, brought to you by New Era, the official cap of the NBA. Take a trip back through some of the most iconic court-defining moments with the new era NBA Hardwood Classics collection, which is awesome. Let's be honest, it's hard to top those legendary '90s logos. Perfect time. We had figured out that the '80s were a little over the top. We were getting a little more creative in the '90s. You can feel the influences of culture back then. And speaking of the '90s, so I think the most underrated star of the '90s— I'm biased here, but I think it was Reggie Lewis of the Boston Celtics, who was really coming on as an Bassett, who was the only two-guard of that generation really to go toe-to-toe with Jordan when they played and was awesome in the '92 playoffs. They lose to— the Celtics lose to the Cavs in 7, but it was a real breakout thing for them.

He was just really good. And there were a lot of good players in the early '90s. So, you know, when you look at the All-NBAs and stuff, really hard because you're getting bumped by guys who were Hall of Famers. But I feel like he was either the second or the, or the third best two-guard of that generation. He tragically, he went down in the '93 playoffs and, and passed away that summer in the prime of his career. And you look at the guys, the two-guards from that era, Mitch Richmond, Reggie Miller, Drazen Petrovic, who also tragically passed away. Reggie was right up there with all of them and, and I thought it was just better than Reggie Miller. So I always think about when the '90s, there's a lot of guys that, oh man, Kenny Anderson, Derrick Coleman, like you go through and there, there's some guys that never reached their potential. And then Reggie's at a whole other level. But I really think he could have had a fun '90s if it had just kept going with him. Anyway, the Celtics stuff from, from the early '90s is pretty cool too. Take a, take a step back in time, check out the New Era NBA Hardwoods collection.

Available in a wide range of silhouettes, including the iconic fitted 5950, or adjustables like the 940 frame and 970, and some great hardwood classics apparel as well. Visit neweracap.com/ringer to shop now. Use one-time code RINGER and you get 20% off your first order. Go check it out. Zach from Chicago, he just says, I know you're really from the Celtics, I'm really from the Nuggets. What about Jamal Murray for Jaylen Brown straight up? Kind of interesting.

No, you would, you would do that if you're the Celtics. I'm not doing that if I'm Celtics.

Kirk.

I like Jaylen's defense. Jamal doesn't have the defense. I don't think they're going to, I don't think they're going to mess with it. No. Who, what do you think though, Bill?

Yeah. What happened to you, Bill? The guy goes on Twitch and all of a sudden he was like your favorite player of all time, like 10 minutes ago. Now you're like, oh, that Twitch stream makes me want to trade in Jamal Murray.

It's a no, it's a, it's a no for me, but I did go down a 10-minute rabbit hole thinking about, oh, we could replace Jalen's minutes with Hugo and Shireman and Walsh. And now we'd have these 3 guards and Tatum and offensively would be so much more interesting. I did, I did entertain it for a second. Interesting. That leads us to— this was your big assignment. Here's the, here's the email. Go on the record right now, predict 4 NBA trades, but do it like that. And the 4 would be separated as boring but logical, conventional, major and somewhat surprising, and holy shit, I can't believe that guy got traded. And that email is from me. I wrote it. I would never, I would never fake a mailbag email. I could have just said it's from like Larry in Indiana, but I wrote that one because I want to do it. I'll give you the 3 ones I had, and then I gave you the assignment for the holy shit trade. So boring but logical: the Warriors get Anthony Davis, the Wizards get Butler's expiring and like a lottery-protected first and 27, and we just call it a day.

That trade makes a lot of sense to me. If the Wizards can get one more asset, they're gonna obviously take either DeBancs or Peterson. They're not gonna be good this year. I don't think they wanna see what they have. Could they get one small asset for Davis? He's probably not gonna be happy there. And then the Golden State, if you can then get LeBron. And now I have Davis, LeBron, Draymond Curry, and— the, the boring but logical, Kirk, would you agree with that?

Yeah, that's boring, but I don't think AD's very happy there. And I could see that. Trying to just get away from it. And there has been interest, right, from Golden State to sort of reestablish having a traditional big beyond just Draymond. So I could, I could see that one. Boring but logical.

Jacobs.

I don't really understand why Washington is doing this. Like, you're just taking on Butler and like, what asset are you getting back? Like, I think, I think you were top 7 protected first next year. Don't you think you get a better package for AD than Butler and some sort of pick?

Well, he's unhappy and he keeps getting hurt, and he's in his 30s now, and he makes a lot of money. So that— those would be the things you worry about. All right, conventional. This would be the honest trade. I think the lottery— I talked about it on Sunday— Giannis and the Celtics, I think, became way more realistic after how the lottery played out. So there's a world where you can get Portland gets Jaylen Brown, the Celtics get Giannis, and they also get Kuzma in their, uh, in their trade exception thing. And then Milwaukee gets Grant's contract, Scoot Henderson, and a slew of firsts, including all their Milwaukee stuff that they could get back. And that ends up being the trade. Seems pretty conventional. Out of those three, Kirk, who is like, I'm out, I don't want to do this.

I'm worried about Portland. What do you, what do you think about Portland's just general— they, I don't know what they're doing. They're sort of an irrational player in the marketplace, right? What are your thoughts on what they're trying to accomplish?

Well, if I could have— if I'm Portland Jacobs and I have Denny and I have Jaylen Brown and I have Clingan and I have Camara and, you know, maybe I don't have to give up all the assets I have from Milwaukee.

Dame Lillard.

I have Dame coming back. Shaden Sharp coming back. Um, so that, that's probably the one if we're talking about 3-teamers. That's the only way. The other, the other way with Giannis and Jalen would just be the two of them. Okay, major and somewhat surprising. This idea came from a listener, Jack in Orlando. I really like this one. I was jealous of it. Orlando gets Jamal Murray and Cam Johnson's expiring. Denver gets Franz and Suggs. It's a straight 2-for-2. Fronze and Suggs for Murray and Cam Johnson. It's a pretty good trade for both teams. Yeah, I was like, I like that.

I like that, dude.

And Cam Johnson. Yeah, put it in. Call Silver.

'Cause, 'cause Jokic could basically be the point guard for Denver anyway, and Suggs could be the guard the other team's point guards and bring the ball up. And then Fronze with Gordon and Joker. Now my defense is better. And then Fronze unleashed without Paolo. And then Orlando figures out the, the guard situation and splits up Franz and Murray. I don't know, I thought that was really good.

Okay, but let's not breeze past that. That's, that's pretty good.

It's a pretty good— that makes the NBA better.

That makes the NBA better right away.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, like somewhere there's like an intern that works in the front office, it's just like, hey, do you listen to the BS Pod?

I was gonna do a tweak and be like, well, Orlando's got to throw in Anthony Black, or oh, Denver probably has that. And I was like, I I don't see a tweak. I think that's a really fair 2-for-2. I, I, you know, and eventually also saves a little Orlando money.

Orlando has like a, there's a defense problem. I'm, Franz isn't exactly a lockdown defender, but there's a defense problem in Denver. There's a shooting problem in Orlando. We both want to shake things up. That works.

All right. I, I asked you for a holy shit trade. You go first, Jacoby. What is it? So the, the concept is not— we'll never have the Luka trade again, but a trade that would make people go, oh my God. So what is it?

So I just want to say that this is— I'm not saying this is going to happen. I'm not predicting this.

Okay.

But it's like all great things, it starts with Joe House, right? Washington has the number 1 pick in a great draft. That's a huge asset, but they're open for business.

Hmm.

Also, our colleague and friend Rich Paul has been working the phones. Ah, and he's been pulling some strings behind the scenes on behalf of his clients. Yeah, and Washington has found a dance partner. They send the number one pick, Anthony Davis, and next year's number one pick, because if you acquire Anthony Davis because of some weird voodoo magic, you also get the next number.

Oh yeah, it follows.

Yeah, that's in the, that's in the trade. Okay, you trade that package, number 1 pick and Anthony Davis and the voodoo spell, for Cooper Flagg, Kyrie Irving, and the number 9 pick. And here's why it makes sense. There's a— Ujiri did not draft Flagg. He doesn't see the vision. He's going to have the number one pick.

He can start with his guy.

Yeah.

Yeah. And then there's absolute chaos in the streets of Dallas, like rioting. Mark Cuban has got his face paint. He's got a flag. A helicopter has to land on top of the Mavs office for Smith and Ujiri to get in to get them away to safety. Like, it's— it's Jerry Jones is involved. It's just chaos. Like, the National Guard has to come in and it's just just like, and Mark, and then somehow Mark Cuban just, just ends up, you know, just negotiating a peace between the fans of the Mavericks and the city.

That's a great one. Yeah. I mean, them trading Cooper Flagg, I think could lead to a civil war in the United States. I don't, it, it just, it would be like the Archduke Ferdinand of, of America. I don't know how Dallas would start rioting. God only knows what happens Kirk, what do you got?

Well, this one hurts, and, uh, since we're back in time, uh, this is tough, but I'm gonna stick my neck out here and be like, the Spurs are gonna trade De'Aaron Fox, and I think they are going to get another younger wing strong player. I haven't worked out the full details. I didn't do my homework as much as, as Jacoby did, but what I've seen in these playoffs and in this Minnesota series— and again, I might be speaking so stupidly now for those who have time traveled with me. But I really think what I've seen in these playoffs is like, what— why do we have De'Aaron Fox on this team? We have Dylan Harper, we have Stephon Castle, we have Victor Wembenyama. We have a clear need to get stronger on the wings and in our frontcourt. Can we find somebody like Toronto or Houston that can give us some depth and some strength to fight with these types of Minnesota guys? So I haven't done the full homework. But I, that's my holy shit, the Spurs are going all in with this young core moment.

That would be interesting. Tough one for De'Aaron Fox attaches himself to Wemby and it lasts a year and a half.

I know it is, but I, I mean, I, I also love the, your idea. Like the other one I had runner up is, is the Jalen Williams, the, the one who's currently hurt with his hamstring and Chet Holmgren and one of those guys for the similar reasons. Like a lot of us, these young cores, they have to get ahead of the second apron. They have to do stuff like that. So, you know, J. Adande says real trades travel in silence and we never saw the Luka thing coming.

Right.

So I think there are the holy shit moments are like, oh my God, I couldn't believe that that could happen.

Right. Like Jaylen Williams just getting traded straight up for the third pick.

Like, oh, but I told you on that. I told you on the text.

Yeah.

Like that.

Like that.

That's a great one. But I told you on the text, Jacoby's gonna have a better one. And I was right.

Well, I mean, I forgot the ending. It ended up with Joe House in a bathtub full of Arby's roast beef with Cooper Flagg. Picture of Cooper Flagg. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm dialing it up a notch from your holy shits. What about Ant to Atlanta? Oh, T-Wolves get Jaylen Johnson. They get 8-23 in '26. They have— there's Atlanta has a Bucks-New Orleans worst pick in '27, the worst one of those two. They have some other stuff, first swaps. What if— Kirk, have you— how long do you think Ant's gonna actually last in Minnesota?

Well, this is— but where's Anthony from? And like, this is—

where's Anthony from, Jacoby? Do you have any ideas on that?

Where's he from?

Long—

did you know how long people in the media have been trying to send basketball players back home? It's just like what we always do.

This is—

well, he's from the He's from the DMV.

Put him on the—

we always do this.

I'm just saying, this point in time right now is when Atlanta has the best possible we're going to overwhelm you with an Anthony Edwards offer moment. And, um, and I was trying to think of like every year there's a holy shit one, and usually we have some semblance of it, and then sometimes we don't. And if like the, the series ended badly, you know, with the new owners in place, who knows? Um, and what if he's just like He's like, send me to Atlanta. And then the other piece of it is Ant in Atlanta. I can't even imagine what that would be like. They've never, not since Dominique had a guy in the, the brief Michael Vick moment, but putting Ant in there would just be one of, I love their crowd. Like it would just be crazy. So that, I think that's my, he's a perfect Atlanta representative, right?

Jacoby, like that, the way, because you go to a Hawks game, they are unique, they are fun. but they are sort of flat in a sense. Like they don't— I, it feels like he would be the perfect guy to change the vibes in Atlanta. And I know for a fact that that organization for years has circled him like a lot of teams do with certain players that they're suitors for, years in advance being like, that's a guy I think he might want to come to live here because he is from there. And I, I don't know, but I like it and I could see But from Atlanta's perspective now, will Tim Connelly agree with me? Probably not.

But if also, if you're Anthony Edwards, you look at the starting 5 you're currently playing with and the starting 5 you would be playing with in Atlanta, like you dramatic downgrade.

Yeah. The only way that trade's happening is if Anthony Edwards says you're trading me.

Yeah.

No, we don't want to. You're actually going to trade me. The other one I was thinking for holy shit was if San Antonio just said fuck it. We'll put Dylan Harper on the table. We'll put every pick we have and just make a run at trying to put Wemby and Ant on the same team, which would be— I don't know how the alpha piece of that would work because Wemby's definitely an alpha. But that said, from holy shit ones, I went through everybody and it was the only holy shit guy that really jumped out at me.

Oh no, there was one. There was one I was building that was A holy shit guy. LeBron convinces the Lakers to trade Luka.

That's pretty, it seems like Luka's really embedded in there.

Yeah.

It's out.

I had, I had that too, to Jacoby's point. I had Luka in my notes.

It just feels too much.

The other one is like, what if Denver's like, we're never getting over San Antonio and OKC?

Let's trade Jokic now. I guess that, that would be the other holy shit guy.

Minnesota. Yeah. We couldn't get past Minnesota without Ant. In this Game 6. How so? That, that'd be the one where it's like, well, this is the Herschel Walker play for, for the, the future of the Denver Nuggets organization.

There's one more holy— I went through the Ringer 100 and I had my holy, my holy shit glasses on and my little detector, and I was going through each guy. I was like, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot. And the only other one was Tatum, because I think that would elicit the proper holy shit where the Celtics are like, you know what? Jalen was right. This actually is his team. We're trading Jason Tatum. We'd be like, holy shit, they're trading Tatum. That's, that's the other— I think Ant and Jason Tatum in that order are the two holy shit guys. Everybody else you could believe. Like Donovan Mitchell getting traded, I'd believe it. Like, you know, you go on through the league. Booker, well, it'd be shocking, but not really.

The other bigger names, they're never gonna move, you know what I mean? Like Luka, SGA, Wemby, Flag. Like, these guys aren't really gonna move. But I could, I I could see the Celtics trading one of the J's and Joker getting traded.

The risk would be he would just be like, all right, I'm gonna go race some horses now in Serbia. I'll see you guys later. And you never even get to play one game with them. That's it for the mailbag. I took you guys up too much, but that was fun. Holy shit stuff. All right, so our holy shit trade rankings. Ant 1, Tatum 2, Luka 3.

No, 'cause Luka already got traded. Luka, I'm not putting him on the—

He already got traded though. He's got it.

It's never ever gonna happen. He's in Los Angeles.

No, I don't know. Got hurt. Um, yeah. All right, Jacob. So we can hear in the mismatch. Goldsberry, thanks for being on two different segments of my pod today. That was great.

My pleasure.

All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Kirk and Jacoby. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well. I'm going to be back here on Thursday. No game on Thursday night, actually. So, uh, I'm going to be back on Thursday. I'll have some sort of fun podcast for you. And, uh, don't forget, new Rewatchables, Tropic Thunder is up, and you have 6 days to watch Borat just in case we do it on the Rewatchables next Monday. So I will see you on Thursday. Must be 21+ in President Select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino, or 18+ in President DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Opt-in required bonus issued as non-withdrawable profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply, including any token expiration, max wager amount. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-BUY-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-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York. For Louisiana, call 877-770-7867.