Transcript of Why Brunson Is Top 50 All Time, a Finals Mega-Mailbag, and NBA Fake Trade Season With Joe House

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Wer sagt das? Stiftung Warentest, Computerbild, Fokus Money, Chip, Finanztipp. Such dir was aus. Mega! Aber das ist doch bestimmt kompliziert. Nö! Einfach Foto von der Lohnsteuerbescheinigung machen und fertig. Klingt sehr gut. Ist sehr gut. Hol dir dein Geld zurück mit WISO Steuer. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by PayPal. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where on the rewatchables, it is From Hell Month. We have done Single White Female. We just put up The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. And then we have Domestic Disturbance and The Good Son coming, uh, later this month. Domestic Disturbance, John Travolta, Vince Vaughn. That's going to be Monday's movie. That is one of the funnier unintentional comedy movies of the 2000s. Uh, Netflix has all these movies if you miss them, including Pacific Heights, which they just added in mid-June, which we are definitely doing over the next few episodes. Love that movie. Uh, so check all that out. Don't forget about the Beautiful Pod with Adam Friedland. Uh, that's on his Adam Friedland feed. Um, little special World Cup analysis and all kinds of stuff. Chris Ryan The original CR has been joining him as well.

And then, uh, we had a bunch of, bunch of Ringer basketball podcasts. If you didn't get nearly enough about the Knicks winning, um, we're all over the place with the Ringer NBA Show, The Mismatch, uh, Max and Rich on Game Over, Ringer Gambling Show. Uh, it just keeps going and going. So, uh, we have the draft coming up. I'm gonna try to hit, I think I might do 3 podcasts this week. We might be going Monday, Wednesday, Friday this week, and at least one of those will have a bunch of draft stuff, but Today I wanted to have Joe House on. This has been the guy I've argued about with about historical basketball stuff the most over the past almost 40 years of my life. But we gotta talk about Jalen Brunson big picture. I have great mailbag questions. I'm trying to figure out what the hell happened over these last 2 and a half months and how the NBA shifted. And House is gonna be my mailbag slash pyramid. Sounding board because we got to figure out where Jalen Brunson goes in the pyramid. So I'm excited. It's all next. Can't wait. We're going to bring in Pearl Jam right after we take this break.

Pearl Jam! This episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast is presented by PayPal. You know a clutch move when you see one. A no-look pass, a buzzer beater, a big steal. Well, imagine if your wallet could pull off moves like that. That, my friends, is PayPal. Right now you can find offers from hundreds of brands. Like Sony, Allbirds, and Viator, and save offers before you check out. Earn unlimited rewards. Plus you can add those rewards on top of credit card points. Now that is clutch. Download the PayPal app today. Save those offers. Start scoring rewards. Terms and exclusions apply. See paypal.com/rewardsterms. Credit card points subject to issuer's terms and conditions. It is Monday morning, 9 o'clock Pacific time. My longtime buddy Joe House is here. We're gonna do a mailbag. We're gonna talk a lot of historical NBA pyramid stuff, which is the real reason you're here. We're gonna talk US Open near the end because you have a lot of thoughts and picks. We are coming off an awesome sports weekend. The Knicks and probably win the NBA title in 5 games and spurn a bunch of narratives. Spurn? Spur, spur, spur, no pun intended, spur a bunch of, a bunch of big narratives that happened.

There's been a lot of draft buzz. There's been a bunch of Giannis stuff now. It feels like this Giannis thing is in full gear. We had Darren Peterson basically saying he would only work out with your Washington Wizards and that's it. We're gonna talk about that. We had the Stanley Cup Finals. Carolina won. El Cheapo. El Chivo carrying the cup. We had, uh, this UFC White House event that, uh, everybody was pretty bummed out about, and yet it had two of the most, uh, kind of shocking fights in a row that I can ever remember in UFC, where we had Pereira and Topuria both lost. Two of the best three fighters in the world. Pereira got his ass kicked, and then Topuria looked like he was in a car accident by the end of the fight. It was So that was great. And then we had a bunch of World Cup. Are you betting World Cup? Are you, are, are we in danger zone here post-NBA Finals where you're just sprinkling stuff everywhere?

I mean, obviously, yes. The, the biggest lesson with the World Cup is any team that starts with the T, not betting them. We were, we're really relying on Tony Tokens. Every morning of this World Cup, we wake up, we hit up our guy, the Bundo, Tony Tokens. What are we doing today with the World Cup? So far, The biggest losers have been Turkey and Tunisia. Yeah. 2-2. That's, it's hit my bank account in the wrong direction. So I'm not betting any more countries that begin with the letter T.

The T is, is stands for taking it in the, in the—

take my money.

The slammer. Take my money. Yeah. We, we were talking about these, these top 4 NBA draft odds too, which has been fun, like in the prediction market where And FanDuel has some stuff too, but there, it's all over the place. It keeps moving around. And then Peterson happened today where he basically said, I only want to work out for Washington. But we're both convinced that Washington's gonna take AJ Dubanza with the first pick. And this, this to me is a situation now worth watching because if Utah takes Boozer second, I could honestly see Peterson being like, I'm not playing for Memphis. You guys are gonna have to figure this out. It's not happening.

Wow. Why, why would you do that?

We haven't seen that in a long time.

We have not. I mean, Steve Francis is famous in—

2000, was that 1999 or 2000? Somewhere in there. Yeah. And then maybe he tried to go to the Bulls. I don't know, but I'm prepared for just about anything there. Then you have Acuff, who seems like the most popular pick, but the Clippers have the 5th pick right after the top 4, and they don't need a point guard, But everybody's in love with Acuff, so that pick feels like it's for sale. There was a trade rumor going around the internets today about if there was gonna be a third team for this Giannis-Boston trade, which I've been talking about on this podcast for a week. And there, I think, would have to be a third team if Jalen's in it, because what is, what's Milwaukee gonna do with Jalen? Could the Clips, I'd heard this too during the weekend, could the Clips with the fifth pick move in there and be the third team. And then the second piece of this, would they then send Kawhi to Miami as a consolation prize? And you're basically replacing Kawhi with Jaylen, use the fifth pick. The real story here is I'm not sure the Clippers have anyone they love with the fifth pick.

So we have basically a little over a week here with a bunch of crazy storylines in play. What's your team doing? Where, what's Utah doing at 2? Where is Peterson actually going and does he want to go there? What happens from 5th pick on? My favorite storyline, can the Warriors get somebody good at 11? Because it's basically a 9-player draft with Marin and Amen as like the wildcards that could go higher and push people down. Is OKC going to try to trade a center? This is about as fun as we've had for the 8 days. So what's your favorite storyline?

AJ DeBansa to the Washington Wizards. Of course, the number 1 overall pick. It's the only thing that I care about. It will be fascinating to see what, what happens. Behind, I do really put some faith in the idea of Boozer to Utah. It just makes too much sense. And when some smart folks on the internet have started doing some, here's how the chemistry would work, and for sure the relationship between the Boozer family and the organization, that all, we've all, we're all familiar with that narrative aspect of it. But, but the fit, who Hardy is. Like, the first time— this is the first time we're going to see Will Hardy, um, you know, be able to actually coach for wins. Yeah, to wins, right? I think Boozer is a great fit there. So that, that creates this jump ball situation. And the thread this morning was moving, our little thread, our draft expertise. Yeah, uh, I love the notion of Peterson to Chicago. It makes a ton of sense. Me too. Um, and, and for sure Memphis, I think Wilson fits what Memphis wants, he kind of immediately fills the Triple J role, doesn't he?

Like, there's a whole bunch of reasons why that makes sense, but we don't have great precedent for teams swapping draft position without there being some kind of compensation. But the fit for both Chicago and Memphis, you know, those respective players make sense if they swap positions. So couldn't they do something where it's like, I wondered, What if Chicago offers Memphis a year's worth of Giordano's deep dish?

What, like, you know, something, because it's like, I think it's like, it would have to be 3 years or maybe they open up a Giordano's satellite deep dish place in downtown Memphis.

Fine.

I have an easier trade for you. What if they just give them the 15th pick?

Okay.

4 and 15 for 3.

Fine.

We'll solve your Darren Peterson issue and Memphis can get 4 and 15 and just take Caleb Wilson who might end up being a better part anyway. I like that for both sides. So do I. The most fun NBA scenario is you guys take AJ, Utah takes Boozer, Peterson ends up in Chicago, Memphis gets 4-15, takes Caleb Wilson, and then Utah calls San Antonio and they say, heard you have a Darren Fox problem. We have a matching salary in Lori Markkanen. But you're gonna have to wet our beak. Hmm. How about you toss in Carter, Carter Bryant? Wow. Maybe one of your future protected picks. And let's call it a day.

You get the market in. The Finals ended and you were immediately in the trade machine. What time Saturday night were you in the trade machine? Be honest. It was after you, the game finished at what time? West Coast, 9? Oh, you and Zach had to do the pod.

No, we finished the pod and then Fox trades started pouring outta me like, like the pus from open sores. Oh yeah.

That's, I mean, I'm glad you went that direction. I, I, I thought it was other bodily fluids, but it all makes sense.

Would Laurie Markkanen have solved some of the new, some of the San Antonio's problems in that 2026 Finals?

It, it, look, here's the problem that we're gonna have for a little while. It is overreaction of the moment, all of the recency bias. I think quite a bit of the, the, the Fox as the in the crosshairs kind of, of concept is, is really emblematic of who this Spurs team is. And the, the fact that they arrived a year early, they just weren't ready. They weren't ready from top to bottom. No, they weren't ready conceptually. They weren't ready schematically. They weren't ready for, in terms of the coaching, they weren't ready in terms of the personnel they happened to run into. The one team in the entire NBA where they're youthful, the speed, Wemby's force, their defensive intensity. They only ran— there was only one team in the NBA that could match them because New York, to their credit, they showed up healthy. This was the single biggest underrated storyline because they swept the two previous teams that they faced in the East. They had so much time to get the very best version of themselves ready for the, for these playoffs. Remember, Fox was missing games in these playoffs. It's not fair to me to be, you know, pinpointing Fox and— now for sure, we can look at the moments where he was not up to the task and you say this, he's supposed to be on this team.

He's supposed to be the calming influence. He's supposed to be the guy that makes the intelligent, high IQ basketball play at the end of these games. And every one of these games that are so close, Yeah, it's crunch time and he's a previous crunch time winner. He's a guy who's with a demonstrated track record of success. But I think when we sort of start, start taking some steps back, there is yet still a version of this Spurs team where we say we're a little more gracious about it. Like, can we be generous and say that Mitch Johnson and De'Aaron Fox will get on the same page with the benefit of what they learned from that series and, and all of the assets that the Spurs possess coming into the next season. There's a version of this Spurs team, like, what do you think their over-under will open up at in terms of regular season wins?

Well, they're the favorites. Yeah, they'll be in the 60s. You know, I, I didn't really realize this until Sunday as I was going through all the clips and stuff and watching the postgame interviews. It does feel like the fundamental issue with the Spurs, and by the way, all the stuff you said about the Spurs about, hey, if they just— I said that on Saturday, if they just lost Game 7 in OKC. We don't have any of this stuff and we're fine with the Spurs and it's a successful season. I do want to point out you were very mean about the New England Patriots who made the Super Bowl and it was the same scenario. And, and I don't remember you making that defense for my Patriots.

Well, I don't, I don't understand. It's a radically different sport. And, uh, it's not, I was on the correct side of the—

It's a young team that got to the Super Bowl and maybe would've been better off losing in the AFC title game, which I said, but you, you didn't want to hear it.

You're just, You, I just want to do it.

Cousin Sal's Drake May jokes.

All I did was win money. I like betting against the Patriots. I like winning money.

But watching all the stuff the next day and then thinking about the series more, looking at the minutes, I do think the fundamental issue with the Spurs, they had two issues. One is Wemby is a 30-minute-a-game guy who cannot play 40. I think we've learned that in the playoffs. He's going to have to figure it out.

That's who he is right now.

That's who he is right now. He's gonna have to figure that out over the next 5 years. Right, right. How can I handle being on the court more than 29 to 30 minutes a game? That's one issue. The other is the Harper issue. And you saw it in Game 5. Who got the car keys near the end of Game 5? It was Harper. It was the first time you saw them do that all the series where he got the— he brought it up. They were running stuff through him.. And I just think they were afraid to do that the whole series. Fox played more minutes than him. Fox played 36 minutes, 12 points a game. All his stats were terrible. And then had a couple big brain farts. I think he was afraid to shoot by the end of the series. Like he couldn't hit threes. Harper wasn't much better on threes, but at least wasn't afraid to take them. And I think fundamentally that was almost a bigger issue than the Wemby thing is that they had this issue. But did you hear what Vassell said? About it. It was like kind of— he, he, he talked about Harper.

He was like, this is a tough year for him. He had to go down to the G League at one point. You know, he was—

he did—

he was, uh, not happy about his minutes. It was the first time he was kind of like, yeah, Harper wanted to play more and was ready to be this guy. Harper's attitude during that Finals was, I'm here, I'm ready, I'm ready for all of this. And Mitch Johnson just was afraid to kind of tell Fox to go sit in the passenger seat, and that was a big issue for them.

Sure. And you know what? Everything you just said, that's fine. That's, that's great. All of that is part of the maturation process, the growing up process. Like you, you, the, the minutes thing, um, you know, uh, Zach Lowe and Sean Fantasy, an extraordinary podcast Saturday, Sunday night that I enjoyed listening to very much. It's up right now on the Ringer Podcast Network. Um, you know, made the point about the, the capacity of the Knicks to play all 48 minutes and that that was an advantage that they possessed over the Spurs. Well, the Spurs losing steam in the second half and especially in the fourth quarter, running out of energy, that's a skill. That's not about like the conditioning of the Spurs versus the conditioning of the Knicks. It's a skill. You have to learn it. You have to learn through these kinds of playoff reps, how to allocate that, that energy, where to save energy. And I thought, you know, we saw an experiment happening in real time in quite a bit of the strategizing that the Spurs undertook, that Mitch Johnson undertook. We saw it in Game 5. He took Wemby out with 5 minutes left in the basketball game, for Christ's sakes.

How is that po— what are we doing? Like, we know what the Cornette minutes produce, but look, this was, um, to me a giant success for the Spurs. Like, you know, like they, they have nothing to, to, to really resent or regret other than like, we're just quite not ready. And there's really only one team in the NBA that could, could, you know, really take advantage of it.

I never think it's a giant success if you could actually win the title and you didn't. Wow. If the Patriots were, had no chance to win the Super Bowl against the Seahawks, right? And that put me in that mode of, ah man, I just wish we'd lost in Denver. San Antonio, they led for, I think, what was it, 72% of the series. They led by double digits in all 5 games.

So what?

They led in the last 2 minutes of every game.

Hang a banner with all those stats on it.

Doesn't matter. I have good mailbag questions about this, but one of them I'm going to read now. This is from Timothy. My closest friend was supremely confident at every juncture of the NBA Finals about the Spurs losing. He said in the first quarter of Game 5, the Spurs are like drunk teenagers who eventually black out. A lot of early stamina. And it's totally true. You want to do Jägermeister shots? Yeah, let's go! And then by 11 o'clock, people are throwing up in the bushes.

That was— wait, wait, that wasn't Timothée Chalamet.

No, it was not Timothée Chalamet.

Okay, just checking.

No, it was the spelling. He ended the spelling with a Y.

Okay, good.

So I think you're right in the sense of, hey, let's not overreact. But I do think this Harper thing, I think he has to start next year, and I think he needs to drive the car. And if I'm them, I'm looking at getting out of this Fox thing if I can, because the other trade— and people were sending a bunch of different trades, and you could do like, oh, we'll get Randle for a year and DiFroncenzo. Like, there's all kinds of whatevers. Porter from the Nets as an expiring for Fox was one that got sent to me a few times, and that one made me go, huh? Because you have the Nets who, you know, I don't think they want to be rebuilding for the rest of the 2020s. They just had the entire city got officially taken away from them. They're irrelevant. And, you know, could you, could you do that trade and then trade this 6th pick for a star and just try to be like, we're here, we have good players now.

My, my only pushback on that is that the Porter expiring should be more valuable than the next 5 years of, of Fox at 55 to 60.

Or you say you're buying low on Fox, a guy who 2 years ago was averaging 25 points a game.

But are you, are you buying low on him?

And maybe he was just on the wrong team. I don't know that he's in his late 20s. You could say he was hurt during the playoffs, lost his confidence, we're buying low. But I thought that was interesting.

The idea of him being on the wrong team would suggest that he's not a winning player. It would say he's on— he should be on exactly the right team. It should be— the Spurs should be the right team. They have this opportunity this summer to like lessons learned and take that right into the next—

you and I have been following basketball our whole life. It's true. This Fox-Harper thing is not gonna end well. I'm sorry, it just won't. I'd be, I'd be shocked if it's like, hey, we figured it out. 3-guard rotation like Detroit in the late '80s. And look at all these good numbers when Fox and Harper played together. I just, I don't see it. I think Harper is that special. I, I, what we saw from him in the playoffs was about as high of a level from a 20-year-old guard as we've seen with Magic being a 10 outta 10. And Kobe, you know, in the, in the 2000, was Kobe, I forget how old he was in the 2000 Finals. I think it was somewhere around 20. But if that's, if that's the top of the pyramid, some of the stuff Harper was doing was, wasn't there, but it was at least sniffing in the vicinity of it. And I thought in Game 5, I thought that had a chance to be his masterpiece. Where it was like, we've single-handedly flipped the series.

He went all the way to the hole, the layup in the last 2 minutes that he missed. I mean, he was there, he did the thing, he got all the way there. He just short-armed it. I love how he plays.

He wasn't afraid at all. I love the defense he was playing on Brunson. Brunson was making big shots on him. So yeah, we— I'm interested to see what happens with Fox. And then you have the Giannis piece, which people have been reporting now for two days. Like, the, the reason this stuff gets out— if it's just Boston and Milwaukee and they're talking about stuff, very unlikely stuff gets out.. But if, and I, for the aggregators, I am saying if, if Jaylen Brown was the piece being dangled for Giannis and Milwaukee is like, well, we don't need Jaylen Brown. What could we get for him? That's how stuff gets out. That's where you get into trouble. That's when you start calling these different teams, including the Clippers. I do wonder though, if there's a, a, a, the, the Clippers thing feels a little real to me because. I don't know who they know who— I don't think they have any idea who they should take at 5. I think that's a real issue because they just invested in Garland and the next 3 guys at 5 are all point guards. So you can't take a point guard there.

You have to do something at 5.

I like the idea of the Clippers taking a big swing. They want to stay in the mix for sure. Ballmer and the front office there. They've shown, you know, the willingness to go ahead, like, look at what they did preceding this trade deadline. Those are big swings. James Harden and Zubac. Yeah, those— that's a front office that's like, we know we got to do something. There's a reset. So Kawhi is an element of the next step of the reset. Certainly makes sense to me. But they are retooling, not rebuilding. And how can they play a role it feels like Milwaukee wants a full rebuild, right? They want to come up with, with some combination of draft picks and/or very young players, you know, players brand new to the league. And are the— is the Clippers the right conduit to that? I mean, it feels like there needs to be a fourth team almost.

Let me ask you, do you think if you're the Clippers and you have Kawhi and you have Garland and you have a little more of a veteran team, you're probably on a little bit of a shelf life with Kawhi. Not just contractually, but just with him as an impact guy, he's 34. If you were able to turn that 5th pick into Jalen or somebody like Jalen, is the 5th pick worth more or less than that? 'Cause I think you could make a case Jalen being one of the top 12 players in the league, 2nd Team All-NBA last year, coming off a career year, is probably worth more than the 5th pick by himself. But if I'm the Clippers, I can't—

Well, I'm thinking, again, that's an, it's an impossible contract. That's the thing that, How could the Clippers possibly afford?

It's 3 years, like $60 million a year basically. But the Clippers are under the cap now. They, Garland's at like 36, 37. Kawhi is close to a max, but they have a bunch of other stuff.

They have to extend Matherin, don't they? They have to.

Or just let him go. Or he's in the trade.

Oh, interesting. I still like Matherin.

And if you're the Bucks and you, like, could I sell that to my fans that I traded Giannis, but I got I get the 5th pick back and I also have the 10th pick. Now I have 5 and 10 in an awesome draft.

Is that enough?

Well, you and I both love Acuff probably the most. Huh? Boy, it feels like there needs to be, by the way, there's a lot of buzz on him just killing these workouts and teams being like, holy shit.

We need 1 or 2 more assets for Milwaukee.

I agree. I feel like, well, we'll see what happens. I'm really excited to see how all of this plays out.

This is great. What a Monday after the finals.

Let's go. We're going to take a break. We're going to come back and we're going to talk about Jalen Brunson and the pyramid right after this. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. This summer, soccer is here. The watch parties will be spectacular and they'll be going every day, back to back to back. Don't worry, Uber Eats has your game day essentials covered. With 30% off offers from Aldi, Kroger, and Dollar General. Oh yeah, all the snacks and groceries to keep your crowd happy delivered straight to your door, like chips, dips, wings, wok, fresh ingredients for the perfect game day spread. Order in so you can stay locked in on the game. All the hosting, none of the hassle. Order now for 30% off your game day snacks and grocery order only on Uber Eats for a limited time. Offer eligible for 30% off entire order. Taxes, fees, and terms apply. Offer valid through July 5th. Product availability varies by region. Exclusions may apply. All right, so I wrote my basketball book in 2009, spent 3 years on it. Joe House was one of my conciliaries, and one of the gimmicks, which was an idea initially from my buddy Gus's dad, Wally Ramsey, still kicking it in his mid-90s.

Shout out to Wally. That's pretty wild. Who always thought the Hall of Fame should be a pyramid. I wrote a column about this. I wrote another column about this, eventually built the basketball around it. 5 levels. And as the levels go higher and higher, we then get the true, true flavor of who mattered the most with the, with the top level being the pantheon. The biggest thing as we talked about all this stuff, trying to figure out why guys matter, why people should have been underrated, overrated. Just trying to measure impact. Could you win a title with this guy? We always gravitated to the actual titles. Did this guy carry a team to a title? Did this guy do everything it took? Would you rather have 15 years of somebody who was really, really good and made a bunch of All-NBA teams and brought you to the precipice, but you couldn't win a title if he was your best guy? Or would you rather have a shorter window with somebody who, his peak, you could win the title with them. And we always gravitated to that as we talked about it. And that's why somebody like Bill Walton, who really had, you know, the '77 Blazers run, they win the title.

He's the MVP of the next year, even though he gets hurt near the end. He's hurt for the rest of his career. And then as the sixth man on the '86 Celtics, so has basically 3 moments And I still had him in the top 35 in my book. I might, I can't remember where he landed exactly, but it was like, I know for that one year, Bill Walton, I can win a title with him. So now you have Jalen Brunson, who's never been a first team All-NBA guy, who had no MVP votes this year at all, and yet he just dragged the team to the NBA title house. He did something that a bunch of great guards were never able to do. He did something that James Harden as a starter on his own team never even made the Finals and fell short over and over again. Steve Nash, who was an unbelievable player, 2-time MVP, through no fault of his own, could never quite get the team there. Chris Paul finally did it in the 2021 Finals late in his career, but they lost. Jason Kidd, 2 straight Finals, but he lost and then finally gets one later as a, as a role player starter in Dallas.

What Brunson did was up there with Dwyane Wade in 2006. It was up there with Walton in '77. You can go on through, but we're just dragging a team to the Finals. And he is somebody that I never in a million years would've thought would make the pyramid that I sent you a piece of, as I keep, always work on the rankings. I'm gonna start here. I think he has to be one of the top 50 players of all time though. And I don't even think it's debatable.

So I agree.

Your initial thoughts on that?

Yeah. So I want to gently push back. You said twice that he dragged the team to the— now I'm not that, that we have to recognize the greatness of Karl-Anthony Towns, the contribution of OG Anunoby.

One of the best secret teams we've had in a long time.

All that.

I conceding all that, but you know what really helped? Right. Anytime they were down in the end of games, down 9, down 10, down 14, Jalen Brunson would just figure out how to get offense for them.

And not just figure out it, but by design, like, this is part of the brilliance of the front office of Leon Rose and Worldwide West in assembling a team and ultimately arriving on a Jalen Brunson-centric end-of-game, uh, phenomenon. And it's truly a phenomenon. I, I didn't— I couldn't get in touch with the Ringer research staff to go back to the point where we measure, okay, all the guys are together. How many times did this group in this combination come back from double-digit deficits in a second half and win games in the regular season and in the playoffs? But we do know that in these playoffs they went 6-2, the greatest accomplishment in, in, in play, in a playoff run in terms of being down double digits and coming back in and winning games in the play.

Bobby, one of the great live bet teams in the history of any sport.

Exactly right. He was the leading scorer on a team that had the best point differential in playoff history. The leading scorer was Jalen Brunson, and the Knicks are, are stand, are on, on top of that, that mountain. Well, they, oh, go ahead. No, no, it's good.

I was going to say the, a big part of my book, which was basically the premise of it, was Isaiah saying the secret of basketball is it's not about basketball. It's about all the other stuff. It's about selflessness. It's about putting ego aside. It's about how you connect with your teammates, the chemistry you have, your ability to galvanize everybody around you. Brunson had all of this and yes, in, in one of the best possible ways as a guard. I truly don't think he had ego and what was that? I think he just wanted to win and he wanted to prove everyone wrong and he didn't care how they did it. But over and over again, he was their best option. 'cause he was the guy over and over again who could create the best offense for them. And he got better when it mattered. He never got tired. He played 39 minutes a game in the Finals. As a small guy, the stuff that he did was inconceivable. And what he did in Game 5, I'm just gonna say it, like the more I look at it and stare at it, I, I think is one of the great Finals games.

Like, you know, Jordan Game 6, '98 is the greatest game I've ever seen anyone play. When you consider Pippen's hurt, Rodman's a mess. Like, you basically, he had to control the pace in every moment of that game. And then what he did in the last minute, you know, basket, steal, basket to end it. But the Brunson thing was pretty close. Like Towns being in foul trouble, they're covering OG on the, on the corner threes. And there were multiple moments where the game was gonna get away from them and he just wouldn't let it happen. And it, especially in the second half, he was just like, all right, I'm just gonna keep scoring and let us hang around and the Spurs are gonna fold. So I value that more than anything. Like, and maybe I overrate it with the pyramid, but you seem to agree with me.

Of course. I mean, this is the, the funny thing. The league invented an award, the Clutch Player of the Year for, as a regular season award. Right. It's only been around for 4 years. He, he won it. I mean, he's one of the 4 guys that won it. Now, De'Aaron Fox did win it also, so I don't know. Yeah.

But it's regular season, you know?

It is regular season. But this is, we've, one of the themes of when we've gotten together. You know, we've talked about this is the DNA of this particular Knicks team, the particular run that they are on. They just never concede anything in any kind of deficit, second half, it doesn't matter. And that's a regular season and postseason trait for this team. And the tip of the spear is Brunson. We really haven't seen a guy, uh, that fits his, his, to your point, his stature. But, but also, I mean, he's in that class of, of who do you trust to go get a bucket right now or to make the best basketball play right now. His 30-foot shot over Wemby at the end of Game 4 was the right basketball play. Him getting that shot up immediately created an advantage for the Knicks that they— he recognized it as the team double team came over, as Fox came over to double, that created an advantage. Like, even a miss shot is the right basketball play. And that's the thing that we're, we're, we're looking for a historical— how do we put him in a place in the history of the league amongst the all-time greats?

And, and where you have him feels right to me.

He's probably the toughest guy in the league. Is that fair? Sure. Toughest guy in the league right now.

I mean, he did withstand some injury scare at the very beginning of the series and win 5, you know, maybe Wemby getting in his landing space in game 5.

It's just like, I think that guy could have had, you know, a high ankle sprain, whatever. And he just would've been like, I'll deal with it later. He's the mentally toughest guy in the league, which, you know, I think Curry's up there. There's been some great players over the years, but for right now, the mantle of I just trust him the most. It doesn't matter where he's playing. On top of taking the responsibility of 53 years, which is like, you know, when this happened for the Red Sox, it was really Ortiz, right? And it was a bunch of guys, and there were a million heroes in that, from Derek Lowe to even Curtis Liscanic coming in and getting 3 outs at the perfect time. But it was ultimately Ortiz and the entire Red Sox fan base going, This makes no sense. We lose all the time. We haven't won in 86 years. Something bad's gonna happen. The other shoe is gonna drop. We're gonna get kicked in the teeth. And just kind of looking over at Ortiz and being like, but he doesn't seem scared. And we have this guy and the Yankee fans seem scared of him.

And that's what Brunson did for this Knicks team. Like, as great as OG was, and we'll talk about him in the mailbag, Towns, Bridges, like their bench guys, everybody chipped in, which was a great thing about this team. But ultimately to flip history, you have to have a guy who's, who's just completely different. And I, so when I think of him historically, even though he is never been a top 5 All-NBA guy, I think he has to be in the top 50 now. And what gets interesting is when you start comparing him. So I got an email from Harry who said, did he just, did Jalen just set the record for biggest historical leapfrog in NBA history? What was the biggest jump in one postseason? But really you have to say by an older player, Brunson's been in the league 8 years. So I think one guy I was thinking was Kawhi in 2019.

I'm told you, of course, of course you and I immediately, that's, that's the first guy that comes to my mouth is Kawhi in 2019. Amazing.

'Cause I wouldn't had, I wouldn't had, I don't think Kawhi in the pyramid, right? He would've been in the honorable mention with a chance. Sure. But then yeah. That 2019 playoffs ended, it's like, well, he's now in the top 40. I gotta figure out the rankings now 'cause this is what he just did was nuts.

Yeah. Finals MVP for two different teams and dragged— he dragged Toronto.

Oh yeah. Well, Dirk's the best example for a late, late career guy. 'Cause Dirk was in the 1997 draft. He won that Finals in 2011. So he is year 14. I had him 39th in my book. Which was Dirk, which came out before the 2011 title, right? So then he wins the title. It's like, well, now you're moving up, buddy. Here, I have a little, I have a little suite, uh, right underneath the penthouse for you. So he's, you know, I think I have him in the 21, 22 range now. And then you have the younger guys like SGA that they win the title, they jump up, but that's a little more common. The Brunson thing, I wouldn't, I wouldn't even had him on honorable mention. Until these playoffs.

Like, I understand. Yeah, he just—

I mean, he didn't have the credentials yet, right?

And, and he's only halfway through his career. I mean, he's only 29. He should play another 7 or 8 years.

There's a chance to bump it. Yeah.

So just enhancing the overall career resume.

So if you go in the top 50, where, just so people know, like, there's You know, Clyde Drexler, I have in the mid-fifties, Gary Payton. These are guys that were the best player on finals teams who had a bunch of All-NBAs and really good careers. But we just had a lot of players since I did the book. We've had, you know, almost two decades worth of more seasons and more great players in level 3. So it goes level 1, level 2, level 3, which was no doubt about it, Hall of Famers who ranked among the best for a few years with every requisite resume statistic to match. No MVP winner can drop below level 3 unless there's a fantastic reason. Unfortunately, that's Derrick Rose. But, um, had Iverson at 52, who I think you and I ride for maybe a little more than others historically, but it's really just the 2001 playoffs and really no success postseason-wise other than that. But you go down and there's this whole bunch of guards that Brunson is in the middle of now, historically. Luka Dončić, George Girvin, James Harden, Sam Jones. So I'm gonna ride for it to the death 'cause he was the best big game guard of, of the first basically 40 years of the league other than Jerry West, Jason Kidd, Steve Nash, and Walt Frazier.

I have all those guys in the '40s and you could argue about the order, but they're all there. They all have the All-NBAs. Frazier has the '70 and '73 Finals. Frazier was top 5 first, top 5 first team All-NBA 4 times. Nash had the 2 MVPs. Kidd was an MVP runner-up, but dragged those 2 Nets teams to the finals, which mattered. Then he won a title and was, Jason Kidd was just awesome. Like, oh yeah.

Yeah.

The stats aren't gonna be kind to him 'cause of the 3-point shooting and the field goal percentage. But we were there.

Well, he made 3s. It'll be a 3-point shooting percentage thing to knock him, but made 3s is in the top 5 in the history of the league.

Right. But it, it, for years he was, 29%, 30%. And he was the best defensive player of all these guys other than Frazier. Sam Jones was 10 championships. He had, he had 3, he had I think a couple of All-NBAs. Oh, there it is. 3 top 10s. But was the, the key guy in those Russell teams in the '60s. 'Cause they needed somebody to basically do the Brunson at the end of games. Harden gets— Harden was MVP, 3-time runner-up MVP, 6 top 5, 3 13th All-NBAs. He was runner-up for MVP 3 times and averaged 36 a game. When you're— his statistical resume is just overwhelming, and it's basically the Karl Malone situation. I don't know what to do with Harden.

Yeah, well, I mean, here's the thing. Um, and I spent some time with, uh, what's, what do they call basketball reference now? Is it basketball stat head? Stat head basketball?

Stat head has one. Yeah. It's part of basketball reference. Yeah.

If you side by side James Harden and Charles Barkley, you would be surprised.

Yeah.

I, I think we've had now 25 or 30 years of Charles in our lives and the cultural Force. He's an icon. He's an NBA icon.

I have Barkley much higher than these guys, just for the record. Yeah, he was in the mid-20s for me when I did the book. Right.

It's going to be tough. I think as, as we try and process the NBA from the kind of the, the, this, this era and, and going forward, what, what do we do with a player like James Harden? And how do you contextualize his inability, he's only been to one Finals. It was, he was coming off the bench for Oklahoma City, right?

He never made the Finals as a starter. He was 1-4 in Conference Finals in general. He's 17-17 in playoff series. And you know, one of the Conference Finals he made, they benched him against the Clippers in Game 6 and came back with the bench guys when the game was over. Like he was about to get bounced in that, but You know, this is one of those cases where sadly we were there, right? The statistical resume was, was there. But ultimately the number one value we have with all this stuff is how did you perform when it truly mattered? Did you understand the secret? Could you elevate your team around you? And he just could never do it really at any point in his career, right? Barkley is a good example because the '93 Suns. They come as close as you're gonna get to winning the title and they lose to the best player of all time who's at his absolute fucking apex. Right. That's the only reason he didn't win the title. And I, I, I don't know how much I can hold that against him. 'Cause I don't feel like, I feel like he did everything possible in that finals.

And we know what happened. Kevin Johnson stunk in those first two games. Yeah. That's why they lost the finals. The Bulls team was kind of ready to be beaten.

The question with Harden, And obviously you and I share the same kind of perspective on, on him. We've watched it like he was, he was there present for us in, in all of our NBA hoops fandom. Yeah. And you know, he's been in our lives for so long. Will, will history be more gracious towards him?

Like, because like it's happening with Karl Malone right now, basketball-wise, not personality, personal-wise.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, but right, because the era in which Harden Harden in the West against the teams that he went up against, not being able to topple Golden State, you know, catching the end of the Spurs run, you know, is it— can we legitimately pin responsibility on him for the— for his inability to take it?

I think we can in '18 and '19. Okay. Because '18 was sitting there for them and they didn't win. And basically because he didn't do the, have the Jalen Brunson game. '19, Durant's out. Yeah. And they have 6 at home against Curry. And Curry has what, 2 points in the first half or 1 point? I can't remember. And the, and the Golden State's ready to be taken down and they just couldn't do it. The fundamental question here, 'cause George Gervin's another one. I have him and Harden right next to each other. Very similar careers. And Gervin's big moment was the 1979 Eastern Conference Finals against your beloved Washington Bullets, up 3-1 in the series and can't close 'em. And if he gets to that, if he gets to that Finals and they're probably favored to, to beat Seattle at that point and they win the title, like it's a, it's a complete whatever. But fundamentally this comes down to this, you're the, you're a Washington fan, I'm giving you the ability, you can have Harden or Brunson for their entire careers. From what you've just witnessed, which guy would you rather have? And we don't know how it's gonna end with Brunson.

He is only been in the league 8 years, but your whole goal is, I just wanna win the title. Are you taking James Harden or you're taking Jalen Brunson?

I mean, it's, it's a no-brainer. It's easy. Flags fly forever. The only thing that matters is, is, is the chip. That's why the pyramid is tilted the way it's tilted. You have to have the rings. And it's not just, you know, Brunson delivering it. Like, it would be really curious how we would regard Iverson. Iverson took a team that, that really, you know, when you look back at that Sixers team, it's like, wow, look at the surrounding cast here.

Built around all his strengths and weaknesses.

Right, right. If they had somehow pulled something out that, you know, that— but Brunson's a different cat, a different animal altogether. He is such an important element of that cohesive team that the Knicks have built. And yet when there's 6 minutes left in the game and the Knicks could be down a dozen points, you never, never, never think for a second that they don't have a chance to win. As long as that dude has the ball in his hands and he's, he's more healthy than not.

You know what got lost in the Brunson celebration over these last 2 weeks? He was the one that got the ball in Game 2 when Wemby threw it off Castle's back and got Wemby to foul him. Yes. Like that. The thing, one of the things with Brunson that I've appreciated—

and remember he missed one of the free throws, but go ahead.

Yeah, he did. But one of the things I appreciate about him is it's like, oh, you got to pick on Brunson, pick on Brunson. Much like Jason Kidd and some of these other dudes, is actually like sometimes an asset defensively. Like, he's fucking annoying to play against. He's taking charges all the time. He's getting steals. He's in, in the right spots. But you look at his, his 4-year, 4 years in the playoffs now, it's 29 a game. This is 4 years across the board, like a lot of playoff games, 29 a game, 26 Finals. He was 33-4-5, played 39.2 minutes a game. It's just better than anything James Harden ever did, and it was a higher level than anything James Harden ever did. And I'm sorry, and I, I just, if I, if I could have either career for the same reason out of when I did my book, I would rather have Bill Walton just so I could get those peaks versus David Robinson's entire career. I just would. 'Cause at least my only thing I want is a title. And I just know that if I have that guy, I have a better chance.

And I, that's not rings culture to me. It's more like that. That's why I'm not discounting Barkley because I don't feel like Barkley did everything he could have done and they probably should have won the '93 Finals and he went against a fucking comet that we've never seen in our lives. That's the only reason he didn't win. Karl Malone went against that same older version of the comet. And really fucked up in both finals. And not to mention some of the other stuff that happened, and it's hard to separate that from his, from his history. So I do value that stuff cuz the only goal is to win the title. I don't care about your career. Like, and I care about your career in the context of did it produce championships and chances to win championships? So with Brunson, I don't know that, that, so I have him at 40. Which I sent to you.

Yeah.

My only quibble, because it was in the vicinity of the Bill Walton range, and I think that's fair to put him near him.

You had him one spot ahead of Frazier.

I did.

I, I think they should at least be tied until we get a little more.

I'm happy to flip 'em. This is why I wanted to have you on. So you'd put, so that this opens the Different conversation because greatest Knick of all time should probably have the higher pyramid ranking, right?

Sure. And, and, and let's, I'll, I'm, I'm all ears. I'll listen to everybody, all the smart folks that will be doing this greatest Knicks of all time. It is appropriate for that conversation to be had. Now you, you saw, uh, Rick Brunson do the, well, Patrick Ewing's the greatest Knick. Um, when that was, you know, that was nice. That, that's a, you know, I understand the gesture. He's not, um, that, that they're making.

Yeah. So the, the thing with Frazier, 2 titles, not 1, played one of the great Game 7s ever in 1970. So he matches Brunson there, 35 and 19. I think he had 6 steals, like demolished Jerry West. And then, uh, you know, was probably the best defensive guard of the first 35 years of the league. Not to mention all the other stuff. His career was shorter because everyone's career was shorter back then. Like, I'd love to see the guys now. Do you think LeBron would have played 20— how many years does he have to— 23? Is he playing 23 years in Converse with no VersaClimber and flying coach? Guess what? He's not. So you got to factor that in too. All right, I'm fine with Frazier over Brunson, but Brunson has a chance to pass him with a couple more great seasons.

He's sitting right there. He's only halfway through his career. Let's, let's let him get there. So to be clear now, yeah, go ahead.

I have him above Nash, Kidd, Sam Jones, Harden, Girvin, and Luka.

What's wrong with that?

I'm just for the audience. Okay. And for Luka, the regular season resume is tremendous. Yes, he did make a Finals. He did. He has the second highest career playoff average of all time, 30.9 points a game. He's 6 first-team All-NBAs already and has a chance to, if he can put it together for one year, move into the top 20, 25 range.

Yeah. And it will be a combination of him and the right circumstances. I mean, you know, it shouldn't be lost that the Brunson place in the pyramid is a testament to the, his, the, the front office of the Knicks taking the swing that they took. He, he wouldn't be in this place without the context.

And just if people think this is reactionary or whatever, like this is how I did the book. Like I had Dwyane Wade, think in the top 40, maybe even top 35, just because of what he did in the 2006 Finals. Like, sure, that's it. Like you get a major bump if you pull that off on the biggest stage and you helped drag your team to the title. So there's some centers ahead of, ahead of Frazier and Brunson, just because I think the center position was more important for a longer period of time with the league. Cowens, Willis Reed, David Robinson, Walton Berry. So I do have by the pyramid rankings Willis Reed as the best Knick ever, but I, I don't know if I'm right. I just know from, he was the MVP of the league. Frazier and Brunson were never MVPs of the league. He went against all of these great centers during a time when you basically couldn't win the title or compete for one unless you had an awesome center. He's going against Kareem and Wilt and all these dudes. Like, you kind of had to have that. So I have the Cowens, Reed, Robinson, Bill Walton all in a row.

And then the, the two guards I have ahead of all these guys, and I, I gotta look at John Stockton again 'cause I'm trying to decide if I overrated him a little in my book, but I had Right now I have Stockton 34 and Chris Paul 33 'cause of how long and ridiculous their careers are. And they were in finals and really guys I, you know, I, I thought had some, some bigger moments than James Harden. But that, that gets, that's where it gets tough. James Harden versus Stockton versus Chris Paul. Yeah. With Chris Paul, really that '21 finals changed Chris Paul's legacy by about 10, 12 spots.

And, and appropriately so. I do think when you sit down and do the side-by-side of Harden and Stockton, it's really close. It's a very, like, they're, they're whatever the comparability score is, like, they're, they're, they're really close, those two.

When I did, when I did the book, I wrote about, I wrote about Stockton, why he couldn't get to level 4, why he was in level 3. And I think you're mentioned in this because it was like, here's the thing, he probably, he probably shouldn't be this high. Where did I have him? I had him— Jesus, I'm still—

there he is.

I had him 25 in the book, um, and I made all the cases for why maybe he shouldn't be there. But then it was the experience of watching him and how great he was and how he would always like just Pick his— run the team, get everyone else involved for 3 and a half quarters, and then pick his spots and was a fucking assassin. It was like assassin. I just don't feel like the stats can properly reflect that the way he kind of carried the team and, and you just kind of always knew he was lurking and you always thought he was gonna come through when it mattered. Right? Yeah.

I, I wonder if, if going back, miss— are we misremembering how effective he was in the clutch? Versus, uh, Karl Malone.

Hmm. It's possible. I did, but this is what the tough, the further we get away from this stuff, we always felt like Stockton was the good guy in that team and, and Karl Malone was the one you could get the 44 minutes out of and you didn't trust the last 4. We were probably too hard on Karl Malone. I mean, I created the whole 42 Club so he would be discounted. By the way, Wemby missed the 42 Club. It worked.

Are you surprised?

No. Me either. Brunson, Brunson didn't get there, but really hard for guards to get there 'cause they don't have the rebounds. All right, so Jalen Brunson, 41 in the pyramid. Unbelievable.

Great, great. Can you imagine? Welcome aboard.

What would the Fanduel odds have been on that before the playoffs?

They wouldn't have given us odds, you know, 150,000 to 1.

All right, I'm gonna take one more break and then we're doing a mailbag. All right, mailbag. These are actual questions from actual listeners. Bspodcast33@gmail.com if you wanna send one in. Thanks to everybody who sends stuff in. Oh, it's really fun stuff to go through. Matt from New York wants to know, Jalen Brunson now has the number one Jalen spot on lock. There are 4 Jaylens on all NBA teams. I'm requesting you to stop calling Jalen Brown just Jalen during podcasts 'cause it's too confusing. So he's basically making the argument, we have all these Jaylens. The only Jalen now should be Jalen Brunson, and then everybody else, we should say their last names. But Jalen Williams is J Dub. Yeah, Jalen Brown becomes JB. Yeah, Jalen Johnson now becomes Jalen Johnson or Double J. Jalen Duren is just Jalen Duren, and Jalen Green's Jalen Green. I'm fine with this. I think Jalen Brunson has assumed control of the name Jalen, along with our buddy Jalen Rose.

Well, the original Jalen. The original— I mean, there's always— there's only one OG. That's the original Jalen, Jalen Rose. Sure, fine. I can subscribe to this. I feel like Jalen Brown's been JB for a little while now anyway. It's been convenient to call him JB, but Alpha Jalen is Jalen Brunson. It's undeniable.

My wife calls him Brunson Burner.

Brunson Burner.

Okay. Because when she would ever watch the Finals and they would be down like 9, she'd be like, did the Brunson Burner heat up yet? I was like, that's pretty good nicknaming. That's great.

Really good.

Joel. Oh, I, I didn't send you any of these, so you're reacting to these in the moment. Joel wants to know, the answer is most likely still no, but now it's more interesting. With Brunson winning championship finals MVP, is Dallas letting him walk now a worse decision than trading Luka? No. What's your case?

It is. A diabolical mismanagement to not get anything back, to have not— but nobody in the entire league forecasted this version of Brunson. And think about all of the pieces that had to be put into place for us to achieve and realize this version of Brunson.

Counter: we thought it was ridiculous in the moment that they weren't paying Brunson.

We did.

It was 4 years for $55 million. They should have done it without blinking. What the fuck were they doing?

That's right. Mismanagement. Yes, it was a colossal blunder.

The Luka trade led to Cooper Flagg. What did the Brunson trade lead to? Or Brunson leaving?

Uh, Luka.

No, Brunson led to eventually trading a first-round pick for Kyrie.

They made the finals after he left.

Because Brunson left, they went and traded for Kyrie. So that would be the case. I still think Luka's worse. Luka's worse because here's the thing, they didn't, as we discussed 100 times, they didn't shop the Luka trade is what, what made it horrible. Oh, I mean, and they didn't shop it because if it came out, their fans would've rioted. That should be alone why that's worse.

Their fans did riot too.

Their fans weren't rioting after Jalen Brunson left, but they were upset that it was mismanaged. They were upset.

Yes.

The Luka trade led to actual Dallas almost shutting down as a city.

The league had to give, give them the number 1 overall pick.

The league gave them Mark Cuban's fault though. Don't look at him. He was in charge of not giving Brunson the 4 for 55. He hired Nico Harrison.

He did that.

Who then traded Luka Dončić with the new owners that Mark Cuban sold the team to. But none of it's his fault. I don't know how all this happened.

Unbelievable.

He's, he's done an unbelievable spin job. Reed wants to know, he said during the playoffs this year that Brunson isn't a top 5 player, but the Knicks built a perfect roster around him complimenting his offense while compensating for his defensive limitations. Are there any other players on your you can't win if that guy's your best player list that you'd reconsider in that Brunson-led a title team? So I will, I will say this, I didn't have a Brunson as a top 10, as a top 5 player. But I do now. I, I handed in Ringer 100 and I had him 4th. Sure. I didn't put him ahead of Wemby and, and Joker and SGA, but you could make a case that he should have been. But I thought 4 seemed fair.

It also was fair over the course of the regular season. I went back and looked at just the season rankings a handful of times where we're sharing lists and, and comparing notes and stuff. You had him 10 at different points during the regular season. Yeah. You had him 12 at a moment or 2.

In the 8 to 12 range for most of the season.

That was all fine. Yeah. And, and he, you know, Would he end up making the second team All-NBA or did he make third team?

Second team.

Yeah.

Second team. 'Cause of a couple injuries.

But yeah, that's, that's all fair.

So you can't win if that guy's your best player. The only names I wrote down were Devin Booker and Jaylen Brown. Oh wow. I went through the Ringer 100 and I was trying to figure out, 'cause the natural inclination of this is like, could you win a title now with Trae Young? It's like, I don't think so. I think it would—

this is at the moment, this right now, not at the moment. Not, we're not talking about 2 years ago or talking about— because I, I mean, I was going to include Joel Embiid, but that's obviously ludicrous now.

I think, I think that's okay. I think you could include that because that would seem improbable now, but also conceivable, right? Jalen as the guy, because ultimately what we're talking about here is I have a good team built around this one central force who will be able to get me baskets when I need them the most. This is the reason the Spurs didn't win. They couldn't get baskets when they needed them the most. Ultimately, that's why they lost. Booker, I think, is a really good one because I think his stock has slipped a little bit. And, and I'm sure Phoenix is now looking at what just happened with the Knicks being like, we could do this here with Booker. We could build the same type of team over the next 2, 3 years of chemistry. The secret, we just learned the secret from Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal, what not to do. And let's build a team around Booker and he can be our Brunson. The only other one I was mildly intrigued by, but feel free to talk me out of this in 2 seconds, Shengun.

I don't think he's good enough.

Yeah, that's where I landed. But I, I— for the conversation, thought about it in my head. I, I think, I think that's the best kind of asset guy right now who I feel like somebody could get. Like if I was Milwaukee, I would be looking at him. I thought he was in the worst possible city. He had no fucking point guard last year on a team that had no 3-point shooting and had Kevin Durant with a burner scandal.

And it will always go down as one of the most curious set of decisions by the Houston Rockets for a team that was, that seemed so prepared. Yeah. Coming into the season, and as soon as FBV got hurt over the, over the summer, it's like they went into some kind of lockdown mode. I don't understand it. Like, you had a catastrophic thing happen, you were completely loading up, you have the head coach in place, uh, with Ime, you, you brought Duran in.

You're— this is the thing, they had Duran in, so why are you tossing away the year? Right.

Just nothing. We just, we're just gonna tread water and see if we can pull something out of our butts.

Shengun, he turns 24 in July. Last season he was 29 and 6 assists a game. Shot 52%. I don't, without a point guard, I don't know.

I feel like there's more there. Shengun plus 2 picks to Milwaukee. Now you're talking. Like he, reminder to, to—

If I'm Milwaukee, I would rather have Shengun and, and other stuff. For Giannis than that weird Miami offer. It's like, here's a bunch of our guys from a 41-win team and some non-lottery, some non-top-10 picks.

There's literally nothing coming out of Miami that's of any interest whatsoever. Like, I love Bam. Bam's good, but it's, it's a, that's a bad, that's an average basketball team.

If Milwaukee called you and said, Shengun for Jabari, but you gotta say yes right now and you have to take back Kuzma in the deal, would you do it?

Wait, wait, wait. Shengun for who?

For Jabari Smith and Shengun for Giannis. And Houston would also have to take Kyle Kuzma's expiring as part of the deal. So Kuzma and Giannis for Shengun and Jabari Smith. Could Milwaukee— Would you rather have that than the Miami offer?

1,000%. Not even close to me.

I think I would too. Um, Jason from Ohio wants to know. After seeing the love and affection New York City's had for Brunson as the star that finally brought them the championship, which player do you think has the most regret for not going to the Knicks and ending the drought when they had a chance? Is it LeBron, KD, or someone else? So this was the case. I remember writing a piece about this in 2010, that 2010, think about that. Yep. 2010, saying this was the all-time move for any NBA player. They had 16 more years of, of sadness after that. But we were saying like, this is the move for LeBron and Wade. You win a title in New York, that's the greatest thing you can do in the league. Right. They ended up not going there. There's a lot of reasons for that, including the Knicks seemed like kind of a mess. Donnie Walsh in the wheelchair, they made some weird Sopranos video, all that stuff. And then KD and Kyrie in the, in the summer of 2019, KD's coming off the Achilles. Kyrie wants to get outta Boston. KD wants to be in New York with Rich Kleiman and their whole business.

I was doing pods saying, 'cause I, I knew they were gonna be in New York. I was like, he's going to the Knicks, they're gonna be in New York, not realizing that they were picking Brooklyn and not New York. Which one is worse to you? LeBron and Wade not going there, or KD and Kyrie?

I'm gonna say KD and Kyrie. Just because the East was so gettable. Like, you could fast forward right into a bunch of Finals, like a string of Finals appearances with the talent that they could have had in place there in New York. I mean, you know, the big what-if is the injury situation surrounding Kyrie. Would he have gotten hurt with that same kind of frequency? I mean, you remember Durant was, you know, the only guy out of, uh, Harden, Kyrie, the only one that was healthy.

They were a 17-win team heading into that free agency led by Tim Hardaway Jr., Kevin Knox, Dennis Smith, Emmanuel Moudier, Enes Kanter.

It was a great tank job. No, a vibe tanking. They tanked.

Frank Niedlinke.

They were going for the Zion sweepstakes.

Mitchell Robinson was there. Luke Kornet was there. But they went to the Nets and made them kind of clear the house and do the whole thing. It's a really interesting KD what if. I don't know if they win the title with him, but think about how he is considered right now versus if they had gone him and Kyrie together to the Knicks, rejuvenated MSG, Maybe Leon comes with West the next year anyway, builds the right team around them. Wow. And maybe this all happens for those two guys. It is a pretty good what if.

That's a great one because think of that, right? That the, the magnetism of those two guys coming and what that does in terms of the incentive for other people in the league. Everybody loves the bright lights of MSG. Everybody wants to be the king of New York. Those guys' miscalculation was that Brooklyn was gonna be a thing. Brooklyn is never gonna be a thing. It's not a thing now. It wasn't a thing back then, and it's never gonna be a thing.

Think about the next 4 East title winners after that, after they went to Brooklyn. Exactly. 2020 Miami.

Exactly.

Unbelievable COVID season. 2021 Milwaukee, which was a good team. I mean, they— good team. Middleton, that was the best year he's had. Jrue Holiday, Giannis, they had their role players. Connaughton was good that year. Um, 2022, a very young Celtics team that probably wasn't ready. Not ready. 2023, the Heat again, like KD, Kyrie, and a couple other people could happen. Now Kyrie did get a little, little cuckoo there for a couple years and I think all kinds of stuff.

Yeah.

And I think he settled into a better, much better place. I'd like, I actually like everything that. That Kyrie is saying and doing the last couple years.

But he was getting a little weird there. We're gonna have a new round of Kyrie sweepstakes this upcoming season. It's gonna be one of the fun storylines.

Maybe, maybe it leads to KD staying there and Brunson moving in there. Who knows?

But it is a pretty—

imagine, um, James, who says, love the pod. Thanks, James. With Brunson winning a title in NYC, my friends and I, New York natives, have been debating who is the top dog of the city. The debate falls largely on Jeter versus Brunson. Walt Frazier etched in stone. I introduced the backroom theory. Essentially, Jeter and Brunson walk into a restaurant at the same time. Who does the owner give the backroom to? This is a, this is a great way of framing Brunson versus Jeter. And I'm gonna throw Aaron Judge in there too.

Let's, even though he's number one, I like Judge.

Yeah. Let's say Aaron Judge is there too. And all of them, there's one backroom for 10, 10 seats. Who gets it? I think Brunson gets it now.

You don't think the owner says, guys, can we share? Would you, would you guys be willing to share?

No, each of them have 9 people with them.

Well, some of them, like, you know, I would be, it would be like you and I don't know who your equivalent is going in there. And then, and then I, like, I, if I, I would get kicked out. Like some of the entourage has to go sit out.

No, they would see you and be like, oh, Joe House is here. That's going to run the bill up by $2,000.

Fair enough. Fair enough.

I think it's Brunson. I think Jeter lost his spot. He had it for, from the late '90s to now. I think it's over. I think it's fun.

There's a generation. I, I, we should ask Jacko. I feel like there might be a generation now that might not remember the greatness of Derek Jeter. Is that possible?

It's a long time. Yeah. I mean, his last World Series, they won in 2000, and then they had the tainted 2009 title. Here's a great one. Scott Cameron. By the way, Judge wins the World Series and now him versus Brunson is an argument, but he hasn't. Scott Cameron writes, Brunson just became the only the third under 6'3 guard along with Isaiah and Gus Williams to be the best player in a title team. Where does that put him in the small guard pantheon? I, I bring this question up and I'll answer it in a second. I left out Gus Williams. Last weekend, and I feel really bad about that. He also wasn't in the pyramid of my book. And I feel bad about that too. And I think it's one of my big misses because I went back and made a playoff MVP list at one point. I think he was the '79 playoff MVP. He was the best guy in the '79 champs. He averaged 26.7 points a game during that playoffs. He has a first team All-NBA, second and two-thirds. He was fifth in MVP voting in '82. He made finals, finals, Eastern Conference Finals 3 straight years, held out '80-'81.

He's the best point guard in the league from '78 to '82 for 5 years. He's the best point guard in the league. And then Magic takes it and then ends up on your beloved Wizards team. But I, I feel like I've done a bad job keeping the Gus legacy alive. I know you loved him too.

Yeah, for sure. And, and when you do the, the resume, it, it's just that that was such a quiet moment for the league, right?

I know.

And I think I penalized them for that. Yeah. And it was like, Malcolm was in there.

It's like, you can't do it. So if you're gonna praise Brunson, you can't just discount Gus Williams, you know? So I feel like I did a bad job. Anyway, the, uh, small guard pantheon, it's Brunson, Isaiah, Gus Williams, and Tony Parker with titles. Okay. And then Iverson and Dame and Chris Paul.

Wait, where's Tiny Archibald in this?

Tiny could be there too. I'm just saying those are the 4 guys with titles. So I think if you're doing a pantheon Small Guard Pantheon, you do the titles and non-titles. So maybe the non-titles is Iverson, Dame, Chris Paul, Tiny Archibald. Okay. Okay. Although Tiny Archibald did win a title in 1981, so maybe he should be on there too. Um, it's to me, it's Brunson and Isaiah, but I think Gus Williams as the— I think that's— you got to start with those three. And I, I, again, apologies to Gus. Ethan wants to know where I planned on putting OG Anunoby in my Ringer top 100, that there's a case that he should be top 25 or higher. Best non-center defender in the league. Really good offense. If you secured your number one awesome superstar, isn't he the perfect number two? Perfect compliment. All-time winning basketball player coming off a great, uh, playoffs. I handed my Ringer 100. I had OG 17th.

Oh my God. Yeah.

What? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. You know what I like, House?

Winning. Is he, is he ahead of KAT in, in what you just handed in?

You know where I had KAT? 11th.

Oh, okay. All right.

Whew.

All right.

I mean, all right.

Okay, fine.

Yeah. I have 3 Knicks in the top 20 and I think that's great. The right call. Yeah.

Again, when I was looking at over the course of the regular season, OG was always in the like the 40 range. Now he was consistently ahead of De'Aaron Fox, which I felt I was glad that, that, you know, to look at the rankings and see that. But the only thing ever with OG is availability. Like, you know, it's just the injury stuff. Now, congrats to the Knicks.

Which we felt in the playoffs. We felt the curve recently.

Of course. Of course. That's right. Congrats to the Knicks. Congrats to OG. That he got all the way through. Um, he was able to get himself completely healthy for the Finals run. It was a thrill to see him at his peak, his basketball IQ. This is the thing that we should also laud this Knicks team for. The reason that they had the highest point differential is because they had the highest level of decision makers. Yes, KAT with the dumb foul trouble will always be something that you can point to. I would also say that he was getting picked on. I mean, the two fouls at the beginning of, of Game 4 were, to me, ludicrous. But look, uh, that's setting all that aside. OG, um, how about the OG fifth foul in Game, Game 5? They didn't even replay that, I don't think. No, I know, I know. An all-time big brain OG. So great, congrats, great job.

Matt from LA wrote, um, that I said OG is the best 3-and-D guy of the era. And he's like, what about early Spurs Kawhi Leonard? Fine. Best defensive player in the league. Sat in the corner, shot threes, crashed the glass. So I was looking at the 3, 3-and-D only really goes back to 2009. Trevor Ariza was the first like impactful, and it was really only in the finals, but had a really good 3-and-D finals. It was the first time Posey was in there. There was a couple like, Sure. 3-and-D adjacent, but not like what we have now. I was look— I went through all the title teams trying to figure out the best. Like there's 2023 KCP, there's a couple Danny Greens, but they're all like 11 points a game in that range and didn't take a lot of field goals. It is 14 Kawhi and 26 OG. These are the playoff stats. Great. OG was 20 points a game, 20.1 points a game. His percentages were 56 field goal, 49 3, 85 free throw. He only took 11.6 field goal attempts a game and averaged 20.1 points. 2014 Kawhi, 14 points a game, 10.4 field goal attempts.

So only one less shot a game. Mm-hmm. 51 42 74 percentages. So they're around the same. It's just he took less 3s than OG did, but It's a good one. Now, Kawhi was guarding LeBron. OG, I guess, was, was guarding the guards on the Spurs. He didn't have a LeBron-type assignment, but that— they're 1A and 1B. I'm not— Kawhi won the Finals MVP. OG had the most famous play in basketball in the last 10 years.

Yeah, let's just have them side by side.

Yeah, I think it's side by side. I don't want to pick between that. Okay, I'm glad you agree. A couple more Brunsons. This is from D Bob in New York. Okay, D. Brunson and the Knicks are now the 9th team outta 80 champs not to have a top 5 player. 26 Knicks, 14 Spurs, '04 Pistons, '88 and '89 Pistons, '79 Sonics, '78 Bullets, '73 Knicks. And he threw the '48 Bullets in there for us.

Thank you, D Bob.

Basically he's saying going by MVP votes or first team all NBA. Sure. He suggests, can we have a, can we get rid of the can't win a title without a top 5 player rule if 9 of 80 champions didn't have a top 5 player? That's like 14%.

Yeah.

My counter is that I would argue Brunson now is a top 5 player. And maybe he doesn't count for this one. '14 Spurs was really the last one where we were like, I don't even know who the— do they have a top 10 player? But I think Brunson, I— it's Joker, SGA, Brunson, Wemby, and Luka, probably in that order. Or Wemby over Brunson, however you want to do it. But those are the 5 best players in the league right now.

True. Yes.

But do you, do you think, are you ready to dump that rule though? Because that did make me think.

No, because it's 86% the other way.

I was thinking about doing a playoff— I was going to do a playoff manifesto for basketball next year, and I think that would be one of like their suggestions. They're not set in stone, but I think that is a good one to look at because that is once a decade.

Yeah, right, there you go. Once a decade.

So once a decade something weird happens is basically the way I look at it. Jonathan in Jersey wants to know— wants us to know Guess who has the most playoff wins for a player since 2021? It's no longer Brown or Tatum or any Celtic. It's Jalen Brunson at 51. Wow. Greatest playoff performer of the decade so far. That helps the, the pyramid case. All right, we're gonna take one more break and then I have a lot of Spurs fan, Spurs emails that you're gonna enjoy. Oh boy. David wants to know, game 5, did the rich New York asshole fans just indecent proposal the entire city of San Antonio?

Wait a minute, what's the— walk me through it.

Remember, there's a proposal. Yes, Redford, Woody Harrelson, and Demi Moore need money, right? They're in Vegas gambling, and Robert Redford becomes infatuated with Demi Moore, and he's like, I'll pay you a million dollars for a night with your wife. And then they argue about it and decide to do it, and she does it. That's basically all the Spurs fans with their Game 5 tickets. There's 45% Knicks fans there.

Now, I saw it.

It seems like you're able to pay for your season tickets by doing it, but it is, I do like the indecent proposal game is a pretty funny way to do game 5.

Really good.

Mike G wants to know, um, 2026 Knicks best example of the secret since the '14 Spurs. How many other teams would you say fully embodied the secret as well? Um, I thought the '16 Cavs kind of got there. Sure, sure. I mean, I really respect the, the last— I know there was Draymond suspension, but winning that Game 7 in Golden State and Richard Jefferson and Kevin Love like playing— they like— I thought that— I don't think they got there the whole playoffs, but I think they got there in those last 3 games. But every team embraces it to some degree. The '14 Spurs is the most famous one, I think, in the last 12.

Sure. That's fine.

And the '11 Mavs I would put up there too.

We're really splitting fine hairs to me. 'Cause every one of like the, the 23 Nuggets. Yeah.

23 Nuggets is a good one.

Yeah. That's pretty good. Like, you know, they really understood and, and Joker as the facilitator of, of the secret, right? You don't, who, who do you want touching the ball? To administer the secret.

17 Warriors had it. Joker. The thing is every, every champion has the secret to some degree. Yeah. There's 2 teams that feel like they won because of the secret in the last 13 years. The Knicks. That's fine. And the Spurs where it was like the, one of the top 2 reasons they won. Fine. I think 11 Mavs are up there. I would put the '04 Pistons there. Good.

Agree.

That's probably it. It's fine. Um, Travis from San Antonio said, salty Spurs fan here. Watching Fox in the finals was as painful as it can get. It had me wondering, what are the worst finals performances from the highest paid guy on the team? I did not send this to you. I did the research though. Fox was 13, 3, and 6. He shot 34%, 25% from 3, got torched by Brunson on the other end, and then had the Game 4 brain fart. I'm not ready to put 2016 Curry in there. I do think some people would. 23 a game. He was 40 and 40, 40, 89 shooting splits. He played a bad Game 7. I don't think he was bad for the series. These 5 I think are in the combo. I'll go backwards from furthest away. 1993, Kevin Johnson mentioned earlier, 17 points a game. Just absolutely murdered them in the first 2 games. It's got to the point where Frank Johnson seemed like a better option for him in the series.

I remember this.

Yes. My mind went there immediately. Stats backed it up. Nick Anderson with the 4 free throws that he missed. For the series, 12 points a game, 36% shooting, 3 for 10 free throws.

Yeesh.

And just got wiped out. So he has to be mentioned. There's a great, this one got lost to history, but Kevin Martin, I'm sorry, Kenyon Martin in the 2003 Finals against Duncan when Duncan ran amok and one of the great start to finish seasons anyone's had. He destroyed Kenyon Martin the first couple games of this series. Kenyon Martin for the series was 14 and 10, 34% field goals. And we made a lot of jokes as it was happening.

I don't think it was really his fault though.

He got destroyed by that. He took a lot of shit that series.

I'm just saying.

I know, but he was going against Tim Duncan, the 7th best player of all time. Kobe Bryant, 2004 Finals against the Pistons. Oh wow.

That's funny. Of course you had to do that. You're not, the premise here though was like highest paid. It's not just naming famous guys.

Worst Finals performance from highest paid guys.

So that Kenny Martin was the highest paid guy on that Nets team. Yeah, for sure. Okay, I get that. But Kobe in 2004. Okay. All right. All right.

Can I give you the stats?

Go ahead.

They lost in 5, 46 minutes a game, 23 points a game, 3 assists a game, 38% shooting, 17% from 3. He was 3 for 23 from 3. And kind of got his ass kicked by the Pistons. Now, well, the Laker fans, I've heard the spin from the Laker fans on this. Shaq was out of shape. Yes. Kobe had to take a lot of shots near the end of shot clock possessions. I'm just saying he has to be mentioned, but the worst one ever is LeBron in 2011. Oh wow. Good stats.

Yeah. Okay.

All right. He dipped down. He was like a 20, 7, 28 points a game guy. He dipped down to 18 a game, 18, 7, and 7, 32% from 3, 12 for 20 from the free throw line. And famously at the 8-point game in game 4, he was being guarded by JJ Barea and really felt like he melted down in a bunch of different ways to a point that we started to wonder, is this gonna happen? Did we put too much pressure on him? Then he bounces back the next year and, and goes on his run. But yes, I think I think that that's probably the worst one other than Nick Anderson. What would you say?

Well, I was Nick Anderson at that point. That's the other one. Was he, he was paid at the top of, of that Orlando team.

Nick Anderson was not, and he shouldn't be in the conversation, but I just wanted to talk about how terrible of a finals he had. Kevin, because Kevin Johnson versus Barkley is probably even.

Yeah. I mean, did Kevin Johnson made more than Marley at that point, right?

Yeah. So he's in the top 2, but yeah, if you're talking highest, highest paid, it's Kmart, Kobe, and LeBron.

But I wanted to mention Kevin Johnson and De'Aaron Fox by default is the highest paid Spur.

It's the highest paid Spur.

It's just the fact he's the highest paid Spur. I am going to again mount a gentle defense for Fox.

I love Fox. He was— you want the Wizards to trade for him?

No, no, I definitely do not want that. But he, he missed a whole bunch of playoff games. He was missing games because he had a leg injury, had an ankle injury.

Yeah.

And it is not that uncommon for a guy to come off of an ankle injury and to not shoot the ball well. Now, the challenge is the moment called for the highest level. All of the shots that became available—

that's a Mitch Johnson problem then.

That's right. I agree. It's more of a Mitch Johnson problem than De'Aaron Fox blame circle to me. If I'm handing out slices of blame pie, the way the Knicks played second half defense especially, and fourth quarter defense, what was open was a mid-range jumper for whoever had the ball. And that mid-range jumper, the guy with the ball at the end of games was De'Aaron Fox, and he missed nearly every effing one of them. I mean, and that's why you have salty Spurs fans.

Writing in. Next year it'd be Laurie Markin and banging him down.

That is a really good trade. It's really good.

You're gonna love this next email, and I almost sent it to you, but I wanted your natural reaction live on the podcast. It's from Todd Womack. He writes, he's French, he's cheesy, and he melted down. Wemby's nickname should be Fondue. Put it out there, Bill.

I love it.

He's 22 and this is probably the low point of his career, but the big fondue is pretty funny.

Somebody, you know, part of the rich experience of these Finals was after each game trying to imagine what the New York Post might run as their cover thing. And one of the, after Game 4, my two favorites, they didn't go with either one of them, was just the tip for OG come flying in. That was magnificent. I heard that from many quarters, including my boy My boy Peter Friedman gave me that one. And then Sacré Blew It. That was somebody on, on the internet who had, had I'm in Your Head, Wemby on the floor yelling at Mitchell Robinson doing that thing. And then the headline was Sacré Blew It. Like, wow. Oh my Goddamn magnificent. I don't remember who put that on there.

The Big Fondue would've been a good postcard.

Well, let's keep going. The Big— that's great. There's no reason to get off of it.

Do you like Fondue Wemby or the Big Fondue?

I like the big fondue better.

I wanna get all these jokes going because he's gonna wreak havoc on the league and the angrier he gets, the more fun the next 7 seasons will be.

I don't know. This is what makes next season, this upcoming season, so goddamn magnificent. How many times did Knicks go right the fuck at him? He's like, OG Onanobi's like, I'mma dunk on this bitch.

Did you see the Brunson clip in the second half? There was a slow-mo version of it. It was one of his baskets in the fourth quarter. Wemby gets switched on him and Brunson does like, he does the Brunson thing where he seems like he's gonna go left, crosses over. Yeah. Gets Wemby on his side and Wemby's like sprawling around. He looks like a deer on ice. Gets Wemby on his side, then cuts in like he's gonna try to get a foul on Wemby. So Wemby kind of stops and he does this thing again and then Brunson cuts the other way. Wemby flails the other way to go get him and then Brunson comes back and does the left flip. It's like, yeah. I know. In slow motion. It's like one of the great clips I've ever seen in basketball. And it's like everything you need to know about how great Jalen Brunson is. Just fucking working a 7'6 guy.

He was cooking up the fondue. It's amazing.

Fondue shit.

Fondue. We, that's good.

Before we moved to LA, my wife and I went to Montreal. Yes.

And we went to a wonderful city, Montreal.

We went to a fondue restaurant. Yes. And we just ate fondue and it was like one of the great, most memorable dinners I've had. It was like just fondue.

Just, there was a chain of that going nuts on fondue. There used to be a chain. It was like called the Hot Pot. I can't remember now.

Uh, it was like, have we had fondue together?

I don't think we've ever had fondue together. That's amazing. How have we not had fondue?

I wonder if Chang has fondue thoughts.

Let's do this.

Let's talk about— I'm gonna talk fondue with Chang. You're missing it cuz you don't live here. Manifest it. Cam from North Carolina. I got a bunch of different versions of this question. We'll go with Cam. Is Wemby the quickest hero to villain arc in sports history? I think you can make the case the Finals alone changed how people looked at him entirely. Like even SGA that happened over the course of the season and in the playoffs. Then Chris from DC, he added—

Oh, what's up Chris?

He added, Wemby walked into June as the consensus future face of the league and walked out of it as the most unlikable man in the sport. I went in rooting for this guy hard. I came out wondering if he's the most punchable player since peak Draymond. And then Kevin said, has anyone in history pulled off the difficult feat of going from emerging face of the league to man, this guy's a fucking jackoff in less than 2 weeks? Nathan Stewart wants to know, is Wemby a fake tough guy? He comes across like the villain in a teen movie, always smiling and acting like the perfect kid when the adults are watching, but playing dirty and trying to bully people when no one's looking. Um, it just keeps going and going. Phenomenal. Um, this is the sentiment right now. This is why I said to Zach Lowe on Saturday night when I was talking about face of the league, future of the league, Wemby's here, and it was like, this was kind of a catastrophe for all those angles. I think it was, it wasn't a catastrophe for his career. He's 22, he's got his whole career.

I'm not overreacting to that. This is part of the process. It was just interesting to watch the perception of him shift that fast, right?

Well, here's the thing. And, uh, I want to sit, take a couple steps back and see as we approach the next season, whether this still holds true. I think there is, there's never been a more pronounced kind of experience of NBA basketball than this moment. I think he's absolutely beloved by kids around my age, by teenage kids, uh, and, and, and, and younger. They will all universally tell you that they love Wemby and they, they are not like my son loves Wemby.

Same thing. Right. And he's 18. He's a little older than your boy.

How many games did he sit down and watch from the beginning to the end of these NBA Finals? I mean, I could tell you for my kid, none, zero. He, my kid doesn't sit down and watch, you know, games all the way through. Right. He comes in, I make him come in and watch fourth quarters for me, but nothing about what went down in these finals changes his perspective. When it comes to, to Wemby. And, and, you know, the reverence he— I can't tell you how many times this big dummy kept coming to me, Dad, how far away is Wemby from the GOAT? I'm like, you got to get though, you got to leave the room right now because I do not want to be responsible for child abuse, but I will hit a man if you keep talking to me that way, even if it's a young man. But I mean, that's, that's— there is we out the, the, the basketball commentariat Everybody in our echo chamber writ large, all of New York, he, all of New York hates Wemby now. So I mean, it's wonderful to have him as a villain, but I think there is still yet amongst this generation that's coming up as NBA fans consuming the NBA, not by watching games, but by consuming it on the internet that will still hold Wemby in the highest regard.

Honestly, similar to us with Jordan.

Maybe so.

We were in college together. We love Jordan. We love them, love them. But when they played the, when they played the Lakers in '91, I was like, he's gonna lose. He's not ready for this yet. Is it Magic? The old guys, they're gonna teach, teach that Michael Jordan a lesson. And this is part of the process. You gotta get your teeth kicked in early. You gotta climb the ladder rungs and then you gotta get to where you're gonna get. I will read these two emails though.

One's from Melting Pot. That was the name of the fondue place. I didn't look it up. I knew I could get it. The Melting Pot. Keep going.

Sorry. Michael from Chicago. Can't help but think Wemby is pulling a '98 Karl Malone. Oh, clutch free throws aren't going in. Tentative to shoot. Didn't seem like he totally wanted the ball. It's not to say he'll never have it, but he just doesn't have it yet. Might be mean or unfair, but here we are. He's 22.

Yeah.

This criticism I agree with. After what— this is from KJ. After watching the playoffs, I knew two things about Wemby. He's either 7'5", 7'6", or 7'7". Agreed. I think he's 7'7", but they're claiming 7'5", but he's probably really 7'6". That's the first thing. Second one, he's gassed at the end of these games. Has there ever been a 22-year-old superstar who was always gassed at the end of big games? Magic certainly wasn't. Jordan, Bird, Wilt, Russell, Kobe, Duncan. You get the picture. This is it.

This is dead wrong. Who do you have?

Go ahead.

Shaq? No, no, I'm not— I'm not— go ahead, finish.

That's it, that's it, that's it.

Okay. Um, we, we began this entire, um, time together, this wonderful time on this Monday post-NBA Finals, talking about, you know, some of the ways that the Knicks took advantage of, of the Spurs. I think it is a learned skill. Part of what is, is involved with this version of the Spurs. None of those guys ever played this level of basketball under these circumstances. These are the highest leverage mo—

exactly.

The highest leverage moments of their entire lives on a basketball court. Now, Wemby did get the Olympics. You know what the difference between the Olympics and the NBA is? The Olympics, it's the games are 40 minutes. They're not 48 minutes.

They're 2 and a half weeks.

Right. Big, big breaks in between games. This, this version, and that's why I said earlier, I, it's a learned skill. It's a skill you have to, and you have to not just the individual players understanding when to expend energy and when not to. You don't win the game in the first quarter or the second quarter, like all of those kinds of lessons.

You don't celebrate the Western Conference Finals like you won the title.

Well, that, that, that was fine. I mean, this was, that was unexpected. And their, their target all along was Oklahoma City. We know this from, from the way that they went at Oklahoma City. That was my biggest regret.

All too long. My biggest regret was I dis— I discounted how they reacted after they beat OKC.

Because I thought in your own handicapping of my own handicapping, I thought they had a better team than New York.

I thought they had the perfect team to go against Brunson, and I was right for 3.5 games. But what I discounted was they'd kind of already climbed the mountain, whereas the Knicks were like icy fucking older veterans who were like, this next series is the one. And the Spurs, I don't think ever realized that until it was too late.

How, how else are they going to— they can't learn it. That this is the reason why, you know, it's a very, very unique thing that we experienced this year where we kept saying, is this the moment where we see the Spurs' inexperience catch up to them? It wasn't until they made it to the Finals and went against the Knicks I don't think there's any other team in the entire NBA except for maybe a fully healthy Oklahoma City. If, if Oklahoma City hadn't undergone the injuries they experienced with Mitchell and, and J Dub, exactly right, then where would that have ended up?

But they had, they kind of had OKC's number. I think what was interesting about this one is I agree, like Kessel lost confidence as the Finals went along. Now you could have said it was the moment, it was the how many minutes they played in the playoffs, but those last two games, he, he went sideways.

You know, he did not shoot the ball well.

He didn't shoot, but I mean, again, foul trouble on game 4, and then game 5 was kind of afraid to do stuff. But this is all part of the learning experience. All right.

We agree.

Learning experience. This next question from Ethan is a good one though. 80 years of NBA history tells us that if you make the finals this young and lose, you probably won't make it back with the same iteration of that team. Hmm. He lists '86 Rockets, Hakeem and Sampson didn't get back there until '94. Shaq and Penny in '95, never happened again. LeBron in '07, never won in Cleveland.

KD. Well, until '16.

But came back and it was, he was the only same guy on the team and had to leave for 4 years. Fair, fair. And they had to rig 3 lotteries for him. Did I say that out loud? KD, Russ.

Harden.

Uh, that was a joke. KD, KD, Russ, Harden, and Ibaka in 2011. Traded Harden, never got it back.

Interesting.

So this is once a decade, '86, '95, '07, and '11. And now the Spurs would, I guess, be the next example in '26. There's two outliers for this, the '22 Celtics. They lose the finals, everyone's ready to trade JB for whoever, and they make it in 2 years later and they win with the same nucleus. They have Derek White, they have Pritchard, they have Horford still, and they add the Jays. Porzingis. Well, they get, they get, they add Porzingis and they add Jrue Holiday, but they had a lot of the same nucleus. So that's an outlier.

Oh, I see.

And then the '79 Sonics, they make the '78 finals, they lose Game 7. Dennis Johnson goes, I think, 0 for 11 in Game 7, but then they win the next year against your team. So interesting theory though. Did make me go, huh?

Um, Coach, what can the Spurs do? Because I think this is the version of the Spurs that we're going to see for the next couple of years. There aren't like huge swings to make.

They just need Dewayne Harper to become the guy we think he is and build the right team.

I don't think they're that far away, but the—

build the right team around him and Wemby.

Support the idea that it may not come next year, that it might not even be 2 years from now. Is how good the West is.

We still have these injuries.

Yeah, bro. Sure. Yes. Always injuries, especially with Wemby.

Coach Steve has a Spurs overreaction trade. All right. The Warriors received De'Aaron Fox, pick number 20, and Mitch Johnson. The Spurs received Jimmy Butler's expiring and Steve Kerr.

Wow.

Wow. I got to say, I kind of thought about this for a couple of minutes and I landed in a really good place with it.

This sounds very petty. Coach Steve must be from San Antonio. That is a very petty trade.

So Steve Kerr, you're, you're buying low on Mitch Johnson, but young, younger guy moving in, maybe, you know, maybe learns, got some scars in the finals. You get pick 20. We know that for Butler's expiring and Steve Kerr gets to go back to San Antonio. I like it.

Well, not only that, he loves Steph, but who, what coach would say no to the opportunity to coach up Wemby?

I missed that. And Kessel. Could somebody aggregate that like that's a real trade? I wanna, I wanna see everybody go nuts. They'll sit in the corner. Yeah. Uh, Andrew Rell says, as someone who loves all sports, you know as well as I do, sports are a copycat league. If you're an NBA exec in any stage of your franchise, what did you learn from how the Knicks were built? How would you copycat it? I have 5 things for you. Tell me if I missed anything. Executives with connections that run a little deeper than just, oh yeah, I met that guy a couple of times. Like Wes recruited Towns when he was 15 years old. Yes. OG Anunoby was CAA. Brunson, Rick Brunson, that whole thing. Like these are like real relationships and Bridges, Villanova. Like how do you replicate that with somebody? Right. So we've seen Arn Tellem went to Detroit and that didn't work. Didn't work. We saw Bob Myers go to Golden State. That did work. We saw Nico go to Dallas. Too early to tell if that worked. But you're talking about connection personality guys. There are a few of those left. There's some, some pretty high-powered agents left.

There's somebody like even the ringers, Rich Paul could run a team. Like there's guys who have a lot of relationships who could, who could do it. So that'd be one. This one's interesting. Targeting proven starters. Hitting the 25 to 28 age range, a little bit older, like the Rashid Detroit, OG Bridges, even when they got Brunson, like getting guys at that second 5 years part of their career, but not too late, right? Not like somebody like Giannis in year 14 or Kevin Durant in year 15.

Gotta find out.

But you know what I mean? That makes sense, right? Like that second 5 years of somebody's career. Can we get somebody in that range leveraging the player-to-player friendship histories, chemistry, work ethic, gritty guys, I think is one. And then that, my biggest lesson for them is don't be afraid to take a couple swings. Like firing Tibbs was a swing. Doing the OG trade and guaranteeing him this contract when we weren't positive he could always stay healthy was a swing. Jalen for 4 for $106 was not a hugely popular contract. 5 picks for Mikael Bridges. Like, this team fucking went for it a few times. And I think— anything else would you add?

No. And I don't know how replicable any of that is. I mean, the challenge, the thing that the Knicks pulled off was like literally decades in the making, right? It's Leon Rose and Worldwide West. In the situations that they've been in.

Building these lifelong relationships.

Right. Yes. Yes. And having perspectives on players that were undervalued or underappreciated in their situations and understanding the force multiplier of bringing those guys together. Like, you know, we know we can unlock something. We know something about Bridges that he doesn't need to be an alpha. That he can be even a, what is he, a theta, whatever, alpha, beta, whatever the third wheel is. He doesn't even need to be a second. He could be fourth because you have Kyiv KAT also. And they got the best version of KAT because they got a combination of KAT maturing also. Like, you know, because think about how many times the Knicks, you know, theoretically were trading KAT, right, over these last two years. Oh, we got to trade KAT. Like, even Knicks fans. We're not reaching our, our potential. You know, we only won 50 games 2 years ago and 53 games this year, and KAT's holding us back, and Tibbs and KAT can't get on the same page. Like, well, that means Tibbs has to go because we're not going to trade KAT. Like, just think about that and how they were rewarded for just—

let's just settle down.

Let's just hold on. And the 2— the best player in the first 2 games of the NBA Finals was KAT.

Do you want to be one of the judges of my ringer game show that I'm going to start this summer where we take Knicks fans, we give them true serum? What's the thing where you have to eat the drug where you have to tell the truth? I don't know. Would they have traded Towns and OG and an OB for Giannis and Kyle Kuzma a year ago? I just want to know how many Knicks fans would've 100% locked into that if they let us. That's Fantasy. No, he'll, he'll lie. Fantasy, Fantasy lies all the time. I just seemed a liar. Travis wrote a Tibbs thing actually about, did I hate watching Tibbs run a rigid 7-man rotation into the hardwood until the wheels fell off against Indiana? Absolutely. Did it drive me crazy how he completely froze out assistance, managed huddles, blah, blah, blah. But I cannot deny the results of that boot camp. Tibbs pressure cooked the core. He conditioned these guys to play heavy minutes without buckling. Taught them elite habits, blah, blah, blah. If he hadn't done all that, this roster doesn't win a title. So why is he still single without an NBA team?

If I was running a lottery team like Charlotte, Washington, Portland, Chicago, Dallas, I would take a flyer on him immediately. What are your thoughts on that?

This is a brilliant email, and I hope it didn't come from Tibbs' agent because it came from Travis Thompson. Well, Travis Thompson, I don't, I don't— Travis, you— this is brilliant. I could not agree more. I think what Tibbs— this is literally the thing that I've been sort of railing against in terms of the criticism of San Antonio. They're, they're not being ready. Then this Knicks team was ready, and part of the getting ready was what Tibbs did to them. That's absolutely on the money. And I do think I have been wondering aloud, why isn't Tibbs at least like a defensive assistant somewhere? You know where Tibbs would make sense?

And I, I don't know, San Antonio defensive coordinator. I mean, he could, it could work.

Well, because Sean Sweeney is about to leave. He's the new head coach of, of Orlando. I wouldn't hate to see Tibbs in Washington, DC.

I would not hate it as your head coach.

I don't know what role.

Can you get rid of the guy who gave up 83 points to Bam Adebayo?

I'm not— Brian Keefe, uh, has done a magnificent job, and I don't have anything bad to say about him during his tenure here in Washington. You're crazy. I don't hate the idea. Tibbs deserves another shot. We'll just, I'll leave it at that.

I agree. Gerald sent a long email about the 2026 Spurs being the reincarnation of the 2012 Thunder that I thought was interesting. How they ended up in 2012 Finals going against like, it's like a Boys Against Men type situation. Also a 5-game series that I felt like OKC was in those first 4 games.

Good, good. And the refs.

I like it. I can't say I love the refereeing of the first 4 games of that series. Sure. And then by game 5, they kind of wilted and— Yep. But they were toe to toe with them that whole series. All right, couple more and then we'll go. Tim Gibson said, I'm sorry I have to bring this up. The closest sporting event to what happened in MSG with game 4 of the finals has to be game 6 of the '86 World Series. Not just 'cause of the insane comeback and the choking aspect, but because it was the win. Before the clincher. Thanks for all you and everyone else that The Ringer does. From Tim. It's pretty good. Pretty good. I, it, it really is.

It's a good point.

It's the win before the win. The win before the win. It was kind of the miracle that got the Knicks fans to drop their guards finally after a trumped Game 3, Game 4 down 27, and you need some sort of karma shift. You have the Brunson front rim bouncing right to OG crazy tip sequence. That's basically the equivalent of the Red Sox having the 14 straight strikes to end the game and not being able to. And then the Darren Fox slash Bill Buckner. You could keep going, but I, I thought that was pretty good. And that, and I still think Game 6 of the '86 World Series is the worst sports loss of all time. I'm biased 'cause I'm a Boston fan, but to come all of those pitches away from winning the World Series and then not doing it, but then having to play Game 7.

Um, the only— I love this, and, and it marries up perfectly because it was the game before the clincher. The only one that rivals it, and you mentioned it immediately in the, in the moment— no, no, no, no, no, no, no, the Atlanta Falcons giving up a 28-3 lead in the Super Bowl. But that wasn't, you know, that's the Super Bowl, which is not a game before a game clincher kind of situation.

Yep. Um, Dustin says I have great news for Dallas fans. It's been a tough month for Dallas fans.

Is he talking about the Dallas Mavericks? He has great news for Mavericks fans.

He thinks the Cowboys have replaced the Knicks as the sports team with the most fans who have had the longest drought and will go the most nuts if they actually win the title. And he was like, sure, it's cool that they won the Super Bowl when I was 7, but the last 30-plus years have been brutal. So they won the Super Bowl in '95, so that's 31 years. So if you're, if you're 36 years old or under, you have no recollection of the Cowboys winning the Super Bowl. I turn the podcast over to you, Joe House, because we're the ex-Redskin Commander fans in this whole thing. And I would argue Washington has almost not as many fans as Dallas, but they have a fucking lot of fans.

Yeah.

And your Super Bowl drought was Mark Rippon, '91.

91. And to, you know, further this, we had, you know, a demon in charge of the franchise. I mean, a person that came in and ruined every single tradition that Washington had in place and a whole— I mean, part of the point of pride for Washington fans growing up in the '70s and '80s was that there was a culture, there was a way. Jack Kent Cooke, you know, notwithstanding, having, uh, his checkered history with the Lakers and the rest of it, as an owner of the Washington Redskins, was a magnificent owner and did entrust, you know, the people that he put in charge to make good decisions. And a culture developed in Washington, and that was part of the pride that we all felt, that we— it felt like Washington was built up the right way.

Okay, the Hogs, you're in the city. Yes, it was the biggest, by far the biggest team in the city.

And then to have the new owner come in and basically, for two decades, take a shit on every single thing. He took a shit on the fans, he took a shit on the city, he took a shit on winning. He was all to his own narcissistic ends.

And he was a huge dick.

And it took a near act of God for the league to kick him out, you know, to finally try and realize the potential of what this Washington franchise—

Dallas is not in that class because Dallas has been relevant the whole time and has an owner that actually spent money and was interested in building a new stadium.

All of it. Yeah.

You, you had more of the Knicks arc of just being disemboweled for two straight decades. And then on top of it, the RG3 piece of thinking you finally had the savior and then the guy gets hurt in a year was another, yeah, dick punch.

The Rams sent out In a game after RG3 was no longer on Washington, all of the draft picks they sent out to the center of the field when they were doing the coin flip before a regular season Rams-Redskins game.

Just to fuck you.

Yes. Yeah, Sean McVay said, or I don't remember who the head coach was, just sent out all the guys that they got in that trade.

Terrible. We'll end there. That's a good one to end on. I'm glad you were able to make the case for Washington. I do think there's only a couple You know, like Buffalo is obviously, yes, Buffalo deserves, but Buffalo doesn't have a million fans. You know, Minnesota's another one. They haven't won a title since '91. They've never won a title with the Timberwolves. The Lakers left and went, won all these titles without them, but they don't have a million fans. I think when you get to the Cowboys and Redskins, which is what we grew up with, those, those franchises, and then also had success, and then that success was taken away. I think that, I think those are the right two answers. There's nobody in the NBA like that. No. And then the Maple Leafs in, the Maple Leafs in hockey I think would be the other one.

Ironically, the Giants have been bad for a long time.

I mean, I know, but that was 2011. I, I'm okay.

All right, fine.

Anyone who wants to shed tears for the Giants can honestly go fuck themselves.

Obviously I agree.

Right in the, right in the face. Yes.

Wholeheartedly agree with that.

Before we go, what's your US Open pick? I know you'll be covering this on Fairway Rowin and the Ringer Gambling Show all week, but what do you got? Yeah, so I get, I reserve the right to changed my mind over a couple of times.

Scottie Scheffler at +550 is the best odds of any major.

This is his first one on Fanduel right now.

Yeah, his first attempt to clinch the Grand Slam. It's his first attempt because he just won the British Open last summer. So this U.S. Open that he hasn't won, he's got the Masters, he's got the PGA Championship. He could clinch the U.S. Open at those odds.

I like—

hey, but how about this? I like the prohibitive favorite, but it is a good setup for him.. And the thing that has been holding—

so you like the narrative?

I do like the narrative. It is the lead narrative. Scottie is fine. And then going down the card a little bit, Matt Fitzpatrick has been on an absolute heater. Now we've had two European winners win the first two majors of this season. We had Aaron Rai from the UK win the PGA Championship and obviously Rory won the Masters. But Matt Fitzpatrick very easily could have four wins this season. He finished second this most recent week at the Canadian Open. He's just on an all-time heater. And so I want a guy like that, of the incredible ball striking and no problem at all with the distance that Shinnecock is going to pose.

Can I give you two? I'm listening. Fleetwood, 20-to-1.

Love Tommy Fleetwood. Everybody will remember that in, in 2018, he shot a 63 that came this close to being a 62, lost by one stroke to Brooks Koepka. Great. Love Tommy Fleetwood.

I was just wondering, is it in the air from this Knicks title, the improbable feeling a little more probable? We just had UFC where Pereira and Taporia just lost. Like, weird is like the World Cup. God only knows what's gonna happen. The team, the Team USA, uh, look at you, looked incredible on Friday night. Um, is this just gonna be a weird month of sports? And if that's the case, Fleetwood, I had also like to offer you Xander Schauffele at 20-to-1.

Xander's wonderful. He has an extraordinary track record at US Opens in particular, but nobody in golf other than Rory and Scottie has as many high finishes in majors over the last 10 years. He's our number one.

You're due to actually win a major, right now.

Well, he has 2 majors. He won 2 in one season, but, but he won the PGA Championship at Valhalla, and then he won, um, the British Open at Troon. So he's due to win, you know, the, the US Open, the granddaddy of them all.

The real majors, the Masters and the US Open. There's 2 tournaments that actually matter, and he hasn't, he hasn't won either of those.

Both of those are great picks. Worth, worth getting, uh, some, some money down on both of them.

Um, before we go, I just, I went to the, I went to the World Cup.

Oh yeah. The opener at SoFi there. Look at you wearing the jersey.

I saw the best American soccer game we've ever played in the World Cup. I was, uh, I was in the FanDuel box. Shout out to Christian. Okay. And, uh, and we had great seats.

It's—

I had a great time. It's— I, I gotta say, I was, I was blown away by the, by the team. And DeBundo was calling this before the tournament. He was telling us like, look, I get it, I get the skepticism. Just know this is the healthiest we've been in like 4 years. This is the first time we've had all of our guys.

Okay.

They demolished Paraguay in the first half. It was unbelievable to watch. We had guys Pulisic was just, just dominating their back right guy. Um, we over and over again, guys just beating people 1v1 and then creating plays. And I, I couldn't believe it. I was just, I, I was just dumbfounded. And then, uh, I don't know if that's the peak. We'll see. Australia beat Turkey.

They did upset.

So now we have this Friday on We have this Friday game that I think is really great. It's Friday afternoon, 3 o'clock Eastern time. This is a everybody has to leave work, um, lunchtime. That's— do not put in a full day. Go to a fucking bar.

It's a national holiday. There's no work. There's no work. It's Juneteenth. It's a national holiday.

It's Juneteenth.

You're not familiar with Juneteenth?

I forgot it was Juneteenth. It's a holiday.

This is unbelievable.

I didn't realize that was the same day. I don't look at that.

Yeah, 3 o'clock on Tuesday. I work every day.

I never know what the holidays are.

I understand. I get it.

I get it.

Holy shit. Unlike us.

This is going to be a really special day in Australia, a country that I like.

Yeah.

In general, but not on Friday. Fuck these guys.

I hope we get to see— is it at SoFi? Where's the game?

No, it's in Seattle.

Oh. Oh. I want it to be in a warm climate because the photos that are coming from the warm climate games, like I had a buddy who went up to Philadelphia yesterday to see see Ecuador play the Ivory Coast.

It's a wild card.

And he was— it was hot in Philly yesterday. He says, first of all, I mean, I wonder if this marries up with your experience. Uh, this is my boy Miggy. He says that, um, it's like a rock concert. It's like, it's not like a sporting event that you've ever kind of gone to. It's like a constant, constant high energy of the crowd the entire time. But yes, I, I want—

we're not going to have that kind of complete experience in LA, like where you're really getting it. You know, Scotland was in, in the Boston game playing in Foxborough, and my daughter went out with her. My daughter went out with her boyfriend Saturday night. They went to this place called Coogan's, which was filled with Scottish people watching the World Cup and losing their minds as Game 5 of the NBA Finals was on. And she said it was the best sports bar experience of her life. They had like the greatest time ever. And she was like, these Scottish people are fucking nuts. She was like, we love them. They've never seen anything like that. They were just maniacs. And I was like, you realize your mom's half Scottish, right? And she's like, oh, now it all makes sense.

She's 21 years old. She just realized you DNA with the girl, like, 25% Scottish and 25% Italian.

But But she said, she said it was one of the most fun nights because now she's 21 too. But she said they had like the greatest time. And so I think in some of these other cities, it's a little bit of a different experience than going to SoFi in LA. But it was still great. I mean, it was— everybody had the jerseys, people going nuts. The, the striker's third goal for us, yes, was— had to be the greatest American goal I've ever seen. Um, that's just in person.

How do you say his name?

Balogun. Málaga. But yeah, we're both gonna fuck that one up. Um, it was like, our country doesn't score goals like this normally, you know? Badass. Great run, muscles the dude off, and then just like blasts, like, and he's already turning around as the ball's going in the corner.

I was like, holy shit, he could have played for 2 other countries and he chose us. I like the guys that choose us, the guys that have options but choose us.

Yeah, there's, I don't want to point out there's two weak spot guys that I didn't love during that game. Don't listen to me now. I don't want to, I don't want to talk about weakness. I want to talk about strength.

Be positive.

You're awesome. Richard's a fucking maniac in that game. Um, but I really got excited. Like I couldn't be more excited to, uh, for the Friday game and everything else. So World Cup, I can't wait to lose more money on it. Thanks to Tony Tokens. You'll be on Ringer Gambling Show, Fairway Rolling. Uh, thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well for producing the pod today. I'm going to be back. I think I'm going to have two more pods this week. So Stay tuned for that. And then Hand That Rocks the Cradle is up on rewatchables right now. Joe House, um, I didn't tell you this yet, but you're, you're going to be one of the people live with me at the— right after the NBA draft on Tuesday night. So don't go.

Let's go.

Don't go anywhere. I'm in. Yeah, your team will take AJ.

I might fly out to LA for that then. If I'm going to be live, I might as well be live. Why don't I have a meal? Like, you're, you're holding out meals with Dave Chang over my head. Why don't I just come out and have a meal?

I'm sending you pictures tonight from the Dave Chang meal we're going to. A good one.

Go get some fondue.

All right. Thanks, House. Thanks to the Big Fondue. Thanks to everybody else. Thanks for all the mailbag emails out there. And I'll see you a little bit later in the week. Must be 21+ in President's Select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino, or 18+ in President's District of Columbia, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-RESET. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplineMA.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York. For Louisiana, call 877-770-7867.