Transcript of Jaylen Brown Reaction: Let's All Laugh At The Boston Celtics | Local Hour

Denk an den 31.

Juli!

Wieso?

Last Call für deine Steuer!

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Bei Wieso Steuer? Das ist wie Steuererklärung, nur ohne Stress.

Ist das einfach?

Klar, macht fast alles automatisch.

Dauert das lange?

Nö, einfach per App.

Na dann.

Hol dir jetzt dein Geld zurück mit Wieso Steuer. Bis zum 31. Juli abgeben.

Scared. There's a ladder. What would be the description to people who don't have visual aids right now on what's happening in here?

Ah, feels makeshift.

It does feel makeshift, but that's not very helpful to the audio audience that doesn't have visuals. You need the bustle there. I don't know what was happening with more urgency, the dressing of Greg Cody or the placement of his son struggling with the lighting back there trying to get our trying to get our banner unfurled there so that we could properly celebrate what is really unusual, which is the following. Do you know how big and dumb a trade has to be to knock off that United States game in soccer played once every never? Once every never. That game last night. You know how big and dumb a trade has to be to knock that out as the action on the sports news of the day? Because everyone's laughing at the Celtics today.

It's so rare.— that you have a trade that everyone agrees with one side.

I don't hear any good arguments on behalf of what Boston just did from nobody. Like, do you know how rare it is to get the internet consensus on we're simply going to laugh at the smart people who are doing something dumb? Because, yeah, Luka's— Luka's the comparison, but how in the hell did we arrive at another Luka trade? This guy's not as good as Luka, and this is more about the team and the pieces than it is about the player. Because in Luka's case, it was just a surprise. This wasn't a surprise that he was traded. What was the surprise is what he was traded for, that they couldn't get more than that. And trust me, if they've chosen to have Jaylen Brown guard Tatum for the next 5 years in the Philadelphia-Boston games, it's because they didn't have a whole lot of other options. Like, to choose that one means that that was the best of really bad offers, which is confusing to me because did the Boston Celtics just announce to everybody, hey, Jaylen Brown's contract, that's a bad contract now? Is that what the Boston Celtics feel about their Finals MVP who they gave $300 million 3, 2, 2 years ago?

I think as— wow. I think as startling a thing that I've heard over the last 12 or so hours about this trade has been, and it came from Windhorst, I believe, that the Celtics didn't believe Jaylen Brown had a good season. He finished 6th in MVP. The Celtics didn't believe he had a very good season.

Yeah, I mean, he, he's not as good as Jayson Tatum. We all agree on that, right?

Uh, not everyone, because Mike Ryan has been making forms of the argument that Tatum and Brown were playing at the end of those Finals games, and Brown is the one that people were trusting. And Tatum is a champion, but Tatum has has yet to show us, hey, he's going to at the end of games do the stuff that Brunson does. That's not— at the end of close games, that's not a skill, a killer skill that Tatum has exhibited in whatever, wherever it is he's trying to be like Kobe.

I think they're both overrated, but I think Jaylen Brown's a guy that I fear more. I know what Jason Tatum's game is. It's a lot like Kobe. He literally patterned his game again, uh, after Kobe's, which is, you know, one of the greatest two-guards of all time, no doubt, but also a guy that wasn't super efficient. A guy that will just chuck up shots for the hell of it because he wants to get those shots up. Whereas Jaylen Brown has proven that you can win a title if he is your best player in an NBA Finals series.

Jaylen Brown traded to the Philadelphia 76ers for Paul George, 2 first-round picks, 2 second-round picks.

I can't believe that this This is the best Boston could do.

Let me begin right here. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it with a freaking passion.

What is the NBA thinking? How does 35-year-old Kawhi Leonard go for more?

How does Walker Kessler go for more? This was a salary dump or a contract dump, or define it however you want.

This is ridiculous.

This is ridiculous. This is a ridiculous trade. Paul George is 36 years old, and to save one year of money? I hate it. It was a money dump. That's all it was. And the Celtics now today are worse than they were yesterday.

Did Mike Ryan, while he was taping Morally Abhorrent, or while he was watching the United States win one of the biggest soccer matches in the history of this country, stop for a moment and listen live to Boston sports radio last night just so he could slather all over his nipples everything that's happening right now in Boston, where you will not find a single Boston folk, folk Boston, who agrees with this trade in that city.

I hate it.

I did Canes Insight Live. It's a Miami Hurricane show at 6:30 yesterday or following Senegal-Belgium, which was bonkers. Didn't talk Miami Hurricanes. It was just all Jaylen Brown.

You got it.

I mean, what is this trade, dude? That is an offer that if I were a troll GM, I would have concocted just to waste Brad Stevens' time.

Dan, let me ask you something. If a team called up the Philadelphia 76ers and they said, we will take Paul George, and that 'Contract, but we're giving you nothing in return, not a single thing.' Would the Sixers have said yes?

It's a great question because Paul George is supremely washed, okay? Uh, cheated last year, got caught cheating, and then made the excuse that, um, and, or, or the explanation that he's dealing with mental stuff. So whatever we've previously described in a less tolerant and polite culture as a head case in sports, Paul George told you he got suspended because, uh, of reasons that he was taking care of his mind because he was feeling frail and also as a basketball player cannot be trusted anymore to play well. Is not another version of Jaylen Brown. Is a, is a washed, old, expensive, uh, former Jaylen Brown. Ton of miles on the Paul George, uh, body wherever it is that we talk. About the Miami Heat getting Giannis Antetokounmpo and there being about 10 guys like that in the NBA. Paul George was one of them, sort of, almost, with Indiana a long time ago. Ton of miles on that particular body and mind. But I— a couple of things I want to cover here because I find some things here genuinely confusing, one of them being this: Boston Celtics management is not dumb, okay? This is not the Dallas Mavericks management.

This is a management with a track record, and this is a general manager who said to himself, I don't want to be the coach of this team, I want to be the boss of this team, and was out ahead of everybody on the numbers. Is a, is a prodigy, is a boy wonder, is still someone I think of as young Brad Stevens because he came to us so young. That person just did something that's being universally panned. And my question to the group here is, is everyone else right, or does Brad Stevens think he knows something that no one else knows? Haberstroh is the only one I saw. And Jeremy, I don't want to read from this article— numbers make people's head hurt— but leave the room please and go to the whiteboard and just crunch for us what it is that Haberstroh is writing here. But one of the stats from Haberstroh that would make me think that Brad Stevens thinks he knows something that no one else knows, and makes Brad Stevens say, nah, next to Tatum I can find a number 2 who's not that expensive and cheap and isn't a top 5 pick, and I'll make Peyton Pritchard that because we the Celtics have a way, uh, the way we're playing basketball, we'll find a cheaper number 2 and he'll be efficient.

But this number, the Celtics When Jaylen Brown did not play, 36-6 in the last 3 seasons. The Celtics must think that they know something to get that out of locker room, a Finals MVP, as addition by subtraction, because that being the best offer for Jaylen Brown, I'm not willing to believe that the league doesn't believe that Jaylen Brown has any real value.

Okay, well, Boston was also pretty good without Jason Tatum most of this season. So I think you can counter that argument fairly easily. Look, what you're saying can absolutely be right. In fact, I do not doubt that inside of Boston's front office they have conviction that they're going to improve on their team and they're going to survive this. And we may not see the full vision. Maybe they do something with the picks, whatever. They, they could internally subscribe to the, the analysts that had Jaylen Brown as the 7th best player on their team.

Well, that was Brad Stevens.

The fact remains, this is an All-NBA Second Team player and they could believe all those things. What is this return or lack thereof?

I should say the trade is not a surprise. This is what makes it different from the Luka one. But the noise around it is similar in that I'm just stunned that the consensus is this is dumb. This is just how can the Boston Celtics be so dumb is something that's echoing across the country in a way that just knocked that soccer victory because people are so shocked not by him being traded, because with Luka it's just the shock of how do you trade that. That's not what happened here. What happened here is everyone is shocked by how— your return that is for a Finals MVP. And is it possible— I will ask you guys again— is it possible that the Celtics know something here about the future of basketball the way they did 3 years ago when they gamed the system and just took 53s a game and won the championship, where they're saying No, Jaylen Brown, that's a bad contract now.

Yeah, but so you acquired what Bill Simmons dubbed the second worst contract in the league. You think they could be envisioning a future that has them at the forefront? What part of Paul George reminds you, connotes future? What? What? It's a Paul George of this. They only got 2 picks. The plan cannot be Paul George. It simply cannot be we are pairing Paul George with this guy. It has to be some other part of this vision.

I think the Celtics were clearly delusional in what they believed they'd be able to do with Jaylen Brown. For one, we saw the return they just got yesterday. They thought they were going to get Giannis for Jaylen Brown, and instead they got Paul George and two likely crappy first-round picks in a few years from now. That's number one. And number two, everything that we've been hearing about Jaylen Brown and the market being light for him was clearly true. It was clearly true. And I don't understand, you know, there's a point that's been made right over the last 12 hours where Jaylen Brown did not ask for a trade. That, that keeps coming out. That's bullshit semantics, okay? Because that's— Brad Stevens can understand, he can know his team that, hey, we went all in for Giannis, we came up short, the result is Jaylen Brown is gonna have to be moved because even though he hasn't asked for a trade, I know the player, I know my team, I can't bring him back now. So that's, that's a bullshit semantic argument that he never actually requested a trade. Brad Stevens knew. This was the point of no return.

We had to get rid of him.

I don't think Brad Stevens got dumb overnight. I still trust him as a real brain in what he does. And if he determined that, that Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum just couldn't coexist for whatever reason, and this is the best deal he could get, then I don't blame him for getting it. Let's not act like two first-round picks is nothing. If he can, if he can flip that into a, into another deal that actually makes them better, unlike Paul George, who, who, you know, Paul George 5 minutes ago, I'd have gone, is he still playing? You know, he's almost like, like totally spent. But let you know, it's a bad deal. Yes. But if those two first-round picks turn into anything, all of a sudden the D-minus deal turns into a C-plus and everybody's going, all right, they had to get rid of him.

I hate it with a freaking passion.

You started to say let some things play out and then change your mind because the voices are so loud on the other side of this and they're unified. Okay, Mike, you have it wrong statistically, just empirically on on the analytics. The Celtics are about, uh, you know, we can go through the 100 possessions, but when Tatum is on the court, they are always plus. And Brown is somebody, 3 out of 10 seasons, who has not been. Their numbers, when you talk about, uh, whoever it is around them, there are differences there that make, uh, for a gulf between what Tatum and Brown are beyond what your eyes are telling you, just, uh, statistically and numerically. But whatever it is that people want to do with the analytics, the fact that the Celtics not only got this little in a way that is stupefying, just strictly stupefying, that they got this little for a Finals MVP at 29 years old who we all believe, uh, to be good is, is what is one thing. Trading him to Philadelphia and making them interesting when they've got now Maxey and Embiid and Edgcomb and their dynamic, and now Brown is going to be guarding Tatum when he's been doing that for God knows how long in practice.

Um, the, the trading inside of the division suggests such a lack of options that Brian Windhorst, rather inexplicably to me given the information I have, is saying this trade The Celtics did it under duress, and I'm like, what duress? That duress can only be Jaylen Brown. What other— what other duress is there that they had to accept this offer at this time, this far before the season, instead of going the next couple of months seeing if you can get a better offer?

You know, I mentioned how they thought they could have gotten Giannis for him. Apparently the conversation with Philadelphia started with, okay, if you're gonna give us Paul George, you know, that contract, we also want VJ Edgecomb and 4 first-round picks.

Hmm.

VJ Edgecomb and 4 first-round picks.

I don't know what's going on in this league when Mikael Bridges goes for 5, Desmond Bane goes for 4, Rudy Gobert goes for 5, and all of a sudden now the Celtics are telling me that— they're telling everybody that Jalen Brown contract is a bad contract, and given what the returns are, Everyone in the league is telling you that they don't want that. Like, everyone in the league just told you don't want Jaylen Brown at that price tag.

Dan, I sat here yesterday because remember it was Brian Windhorst was saying, hey, the Cavaliers, if they want LeBron, they got to make themselves a little bit more attractive. Well, what if they trade for Jaylen Brown? And that make them more attractive? And I sat here and said there's no way the Celtics are going to trade Jaylen Brown to a team they have to potentially play in the playoffs. Now granted, I said that about Cleveland, but they just lost to Philadelphia in the playoffs, and then they said, okay, you know what, now we're also going to give you Jaylen Brown. Like, it's shocking that it was Philadelphia that they gave him to.

It's one thing to sabotage your own team, right? It's one thing to fail, swing for Giannis, not get him, but it's another thing entirely for your miss on Giannis to directly improve your competition inside the East. And furthermore, the guy hanging over Dan's shoulder right now, Pat Riley, deserves a lot of credit for making a trade that hurt because they didn't want to give up Jākan Čūnuš. They make the trade that hurts because Jaylen Brown is included in this deal. Not only do they keep Giannis away from Boston, but Boston is now in a messy situation with Jaylen Brown, has to trade him, gets less what everybody on the planet thinks he's worth. They improved both Philadelphia, a team that eliminated them just weeks ago, and Miami. It is a disaster. It's one thing to miss out on improving your team. It's a totally different thing to do that simultaneously while improving your competition.

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Dan Levitar.

I want to address Tony and all men who would wear that shirt in public. Greg Cody. Don't do it.

This is the Dan Levitar Show. If you were in such a negative position with Jaylen Brown, in part likely because of your pursuit of Giannis— I mean, also, maybe there were likely internal stuff. I mean, I'm sure people in the Celtics organization did not like the things Jaylen Brown said on Twitch 24 hours after they were eliminated by Philadelphia. So I'm sure it's a combination of things, but if you were in such a bad position knowing you were going to be in a bad position with Jaylen Brown because you put his name out there in your very strong pursuit up until the very last minute for Giannis Antetokounmpo. How do you say that Hugo Gonzalez is just too much for us to give up when if we don't complete this trade our team is going to implode and instead we'll just go take Paul George?

Hold on a second, just for a second, guys. We all know this. Yes, Brad Stevens, not dumb, correct? We're in agreement that this is not a dumb person because everyone is reacting to this as if it's a dumb trade. And I want to take Zazz's question seriously because it's a good one. I do believe if the Philadelphia 76ers could have simply pressed a button and gotten rid of Paul George for nothing, they would have been fine doing that and just calling that experiment over. You can't now because the money and the salary cap have contaminated things so much today in today's game that you get into this position where if everything is equal around the money because of the salary cap, you have to find some creative ways to win in the margins by finding things that are efficiently valuable. And so I do believe that the Celtics think they're going to surprise us the same way that they surprised us this season when Tatum didn't play. I believe that the Celtics think They can do this with just about anybody that they pick. I believe that they believe that they're the Spurs and the Heat when it comes to now just building players that are going to be useful, and that they're trying to moneyball their way in basketball to, we'll take our 5 guys and we'll make them good enough to win 50 games a season as long as we have Tatum healthy.

I strongly agree. Maybe Hugo turns into a superstar. Maybe Paul George even taps into healthy form.

And they also signed Mitchell Robinson yesterday.

That all those things can be 100% true and this return can still be puzzling.

But it makes me think, though, that the way everyone in the sport is now doing the calculations is a little bit beyond where it is we are in understanding salary cap machinations. Because, because, Mike, it wasn't just Boston that told you that that contract's not worth what it's worth. It's everyone in the league who just told you that. And I thought that Jaylen Brown was a player who, if you put him at the top of your team, you're making your team better.

I don't— I hear what you're saying. I just cannot fathom a world where you get the worst contract in the sport back and just two first-round picks as being some sort of forward-thinking evolution of the sport. I don't— they could be just as good. They could win the NBA championship. The return for a second-team All-NBA player in his prime that was a Finals MVP was the worst contract in the sport and two first-round picks for a team that you just made better that'll be picking in the latter part of the first round.

Agreed, but answer this question: then why did the Celtics take it? Because I don't think—

because I think Brad Stevens is going to Michigan. This is puzzling. I don't know.

I don't believe that it's because the Celtics are suddenly stupid. I believe it's because they were forced by everything that happened with the Giannis trade and Jalen Brown Brown's unhappiness under duress to make a trade to a league that knew that the Celtics did not have leverage. And so this was just a super weird time to get what they must think is a poison out of their locker room. But now look what gets welcomed into the Philadelphia locker room by way of hello, given that the Celtics were just somehow eliminated in the first round by Embiid's 76ers. I mean, this is my personal opinion on basketball. Some of y'all might disagree.

You know what I mean?

But argue with your grandma. Flopping has ruined our game. Joel Embiid is a great player, one of the best bigs in basketball history.

Flops.

He know it.

This ain't breaking news. This ain't— you know what I mean?

It is what it is.

I can clip it up like I said.

Y'all can post it on these paid accounts that y'all— these bot, whatever.

That's just my opinion. Jaylen Brown speaking of Joel Embiid after being eliminated by Joel Embiid. Let's go out to Jeremy in the other room to see if someone, anyone, can assemble an argument on behalf of why it is that the Celtics did this. What do you have, Jeremy?

Yeah, Dan, the, the issue is the return, right? Like, when you think about the fact that Jimmy Butler, when forcing his way out of Miami, was traded for a first-round pick, Andrew Wiggins, Davion Mitchell, and Kyle Anderson, which ultimately turned into an all-star guard in Norman Powell. This is two first-round picks in Paul George, but there are basically three pillars. Tom Haberstroh went through it in his Yahoo Sports article in a way that was really digestible. So the simple side, without Brown, you mentioned it, 36-6 in the last 3 years when he doesn't play. If you look at a small sample size, singularly Game 7 against Philadelphia, he was -16 in Game 7 despite his 33 points he scored. Without him, they outscored the Sixers by 7 points. And the bigger piece, he has had a negative on/off for 4 straight seasons, including a career worst -7.7 in 2023-24. Now, that's right after he signed his $300 million contract. It also happens to coincide with the fact that that's the same season he won Finals MVP. If you look at the advanced numbers, though, Look, player efficiency rating, he's 11th in the league. Box plus minus, he's 21st.

But if you dive into some of the deeper numbers, estimated plus minus, he's 87th. That's about a borderline all-star level player with players like Zach Eady, Moses Moody, and Paul Reed ranked ahead of him in that statistic. This is where you get into the real nitty gritty. Jeremiah Engelmann has a stat called xRapM. Basically, it takes all the on-off stuff into account. He ranks him in the 62nd percentile, which is 180th in basketball for players who played at least 1,000 minutes. That says 100, but it's supposed to be 1,000. And lastly, you mentioned salary, right? Where can you get efficiency from?

Pritchard, you have a marker in your hand. Why did it— why does it say 100 when it can say 1,000? Did you run out of room on the board? Is that what happened? Can you put another zero in there?

Tiny zero.

You're very good.

You're good at the small writing.

Thank you.

You should put another zero in there.

So that— any little zero. There you go. Is that a zero? So there's a space in between it.

Hold on.

We're going to make— yeah, it looks like a— it looks like a period. You put a period there. You're going to now make Pritchard Brunson here because, Cody, before— hold on a second, Jeremy.

Yep.

Greg.

Yeah.

When he gives all of those numbers, people hate math in this context. They don't want to hear it. They don't want to talk about it. When you say— when you see X-R-A-P-M, are any of those numbers or Analytics useful to you?

No, my eyes glaze over when I look at that whole board and everything he said. There's one stat that does matter a lot to me, and Brad Stevens knows it better than anybody. We were 36-6 without this guy. Why? I'm smarter than everybody else. I think we can win without him. Tell me I'm wrong.

Jeremy, we'll go back to the rest of that list in a second. But the part that just really does give me pause on this is You're going to tell me in the last 3 years that went from an extension worth signing to a bad contract? Like, there weren't a whole lot of people complaining about Jaylen Brown getting that kind of money beyond them saying that just the, the ridiculousness of the guys in the NBA who are paid the most, some of them don't actually deserve it because it's such an insane amount of money. But that's happened in 3 years. When you look at everything that's happening in America when it comes to organization, you know, Tech coming in looking for efficiencies and trying to streamline everything in a way that takes its soul. That stuff has come to sports. Boston has been ahead of people, not behind them. They didn't fall so far behind that something is happening here that most people don't understand and no one seems to agree with, but they think they've got right. Otherwise, they— there's— they don't have to do it now. They've just done something that is being viewed as intergalactically dumb that they don't have to do now because they think it's the right thing to do.

It's not like they don't know that this is what the consequences of this was going to be. People are howling the way they have not howled since the Luka trade on this.

Well, I think they did have to do it now because I think the situation was clearly untenable. Like, I think you have to kind of trust the organization that they have more information than we do about that, and I would expect In fact, you know, the Jaylen Brown smear campaign is likely going to start today where there's going to be leaks coming out.

Oh, it already has. It already has. You've got Colin Cowherd saying, quote, I had two NBA sources, two people in the league, one an executive, one a scout, say that Jaylen Brown has— it's a disease. He suddenly thinks he's the smartest guy in every room he's in. You make a lot of money, suddenly you're absolutely sure. You don't want to listen to your bosses. You don't want to listen to consultants. You don't want to listen to teammates. Uh, this is something that is starting today, and the Celtics will now try to defend their position by leaking a bunch of stuff anonymously. The reporting the next couple of days is— if, if Jaylen Brown thought ESPN was an unethical network before, wait till you see what the anonymous reporting is going to produce the next couple of days.

But I, I disagree with you saying that the Celtics must think that they know something or they're ahead of the curve with what the future looks like in the NBA. Clearly the rest of the league is there with the Celtics, otherwise they would have gotten a much bigger return. The fact that they only got this, doesn't that mean that the rest of the league agrees we don't value this player?

It's an excellent point, Zazz. And again, they could win the NBA championship and this could still be a bad move because the value that they got in return for a prime second-team All-NBA Finals MVP leaves so much to be desired.

This is ridiculous.

Jeremy, finish what it is that you were telling us there about Peyton Pritchard being Jaylen Brown.

Jaylen Brunson.

Yeah.

I mean, look, is that the argument I'm going to make? Absolutely not. But this is what the Celtics might be thinking. You see a guy when Brown wasn't on the floor this year who averaged 25 points, 7 assists, 5 rebounds on 51% shooting, 44% from 3. The team was 8-2 in the games he played on his own. He had a 58% effective field goal percentage in isolation this year. So essentially a guy using his quickness in isolation that was second amongst the 63 players with at least 100 isolation plays this season. And over the next 2 years, he makes $7.8 and $8.3 million respectively, lining up with the massive number that Paul George has over the next 2 years, but Jalen Brown has 1 extra year on that deal and is due another extension that's going to put him up at about $70 million in the years after that. This is clearly an example of the Celtics not wanting to pay that extension, but this is a guy who was a 10-year-long homegrown first-round pick who won Finals MVP. To give that up for Paul George and 2 first-round picks, no matter the analytical argument, the ass-alytical argument that Udonis Haslem coined.

It just doesn't make any sense.

I hate it with a freaking passion.

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Dan Levitar. Baker Mayfield tearing up Tampa Bay, 38 for 45. Great, Cody. Shred 'em!

This is the Dan Levitar Show.

I want to ask you guys a little bit about the times that we're in, okay? Because Jalen Brown is growing up in a time where his adult years are basically the years of the internet. And this is, by any reasonable standard in my lifetime covering sports, somebody whose behavior in almost every way would make him an exemplary figure for athlete who's about the correct things and not smartest guy in every room, just smart. And while you might not like some of the things that a proud, opinionated Black man has to say, this particular one, at any time in my lifetime before social media, would have been an exemplary role model who is now going to get dragged by the Times. The New York Times anonymously all of the times that we live in that are going to make Jaylen Brown a bad person when that person has never in my lifetime as an athlete been a bad person. He's about to get smeared. He's about to get, um, get into a fighting posture with the internet because they are going to desecrate somebody who has against all odds climbed to the top of a very competitive food chain.

It's fascinating to watch because because he's had no real issues. The real issues would just be whatever happens in the locker room where there's ego and whatever happens to the, to people growing up in this age because they think the internet is real and the unhappy and sad and people on the internet who are just looking for a laugh are now making him less than when he's got no context under which he can be less than except the one that we've put him in. It is really crazy. To see this person, a role model by almost any definition in sport, is now about to get dragged even worse than he's been dragged.

I mean, Pat, like, if I— if you knew this was going to be the end result, I would have said throw in 3 more picks.

Please, can we come up with a hypothetical trade that's funnier than this?

They didn't get a good return and they made the teams in their conference that much better. Imagine if LeBron is up here.

They know they're gonna get Giannis for this guy. We got Giannis. That's right, the Heat got Giannis.

We broke them.

Always F Boston. Pat Riley runs this show. And how about the way that this summer could possibly— I'm not going to say short thing because I can't predict the future. But how about this summer possibly ending with the Heat adding LeBron to Giannis and the Boston Celtics implode? That's right. Oh, and by the way, the Heat and Pat Riley also took the Celtics' cookies at the draft last week. Let's not forget about that because the Celtics wanted Ryan Conwell at number 40.

You know about the Ryan Conwell?

The Heat were number 41 and the Heat said, oh, that's the guy you want? Well, let me make a trade in front of you. I'ma take him. How about that, player? I hate it.

Okay, I, uh, while I find all of this funny, uh, I do believe that the Celtics, uh, healthy, are going to figure out a way to win 50 games. And also, this, this part has been really confusing to me, to see just all of the changes in basketball. So it wasn't that long ago that the Celtics were down 3-0 in a series against the the Heat, and I thought Joe Mazzulla was going to get fired at the start of his career. And I was asking people up to and including after they won the championship, is Mazzulla a good coach? Because they had sort of gamed the way that they were doing things to play 53s a game, and they had two top 5 picks, and that's how they played. And they were ahead of everybody. And now we're laughing at them and they're behind everybody and they've made Philadelphia interesting and I'd be just curious here. Can you look at DraftKings betting odds? What are the betting odds between DraftKings Sports between the Celtics and the Sixers? How much did those odds change with simply this trade? Because the Sixers, the Sixers already, they feel like the Sixers today.

The Sixers already beat the Celtics in the last playoffs when they had Joel Embiid healthy, almost kind of. For a few games. They, they basically, they basically beat the Celtics with the only 7 games of health in Joel Embiid's last 3 or 4 years of career because he was just healthy enough to beat them in 7 games, Game 7 on the road once Tatum got hurt and they were playing with only Jaylen Brown at the top of their roster.

So I'm on the DraftKings Sports app now available in all 50 states. And I know from yesterday The Miami Heat's price has gone down because I locked in Miami Heat NBA champions.

You move the market.

Well, I think a lot of people are anticipating. And also maybe last night's developments also has something to do with this because the market price on the Miami Heat to win the NBA title is +809. Dan, I can assure you that Boston was ahead of Philadelphia in the NBA championship futures odds, right? They are now below Philadelphia. The market price on Boston to win the NBA title is now 1329. That is +1329. Philadelphia is roughly at +1,000. With this trade, they have improved the championship odds of Philadelphia and Miami.

I hate it.

You know what else they've improved? They've improved the odds that the Sixers might now be in play for LeBron James. I'm just saying it.

I hate it. Why are you just saying it?

Because it was not worth saying.

Because it was. Now they have better—

I saw it reported.

Yeah, the report yesterday. The report yesterday was that LeBron was willing to take the minimum, which obviously expands the, the likelihood of him going to some of the teams that aren't talked about because they didn't have the cap room. So it can't— what Greg is saying cannot be discounted if we are to believe the leading insider in the sport.

I'm gonna discount it too. I don't believe the leading insiders in the sport. They get their information from agents, and these agents have incentives to make it seem like all options are open for LeBron, because once all options are open for LeBron, LeBron, uh, you end up increasing the offer of the people who actually want you. Everything is in play right now, and that information is being disseminated by LeBron's camp on what he does or doesn't want, because it's the only camp that actually knows what he doesn't— does or doesn't want. These information people are compromised, and it doesn't hurt them at all, the insiders, to take the information of LeBron will play anywhere for any amount, because it just opens up the pool of competitors, and you need the pool opened lineup of competitors, and there aren't that many who can actually afford the maximums. So just say he's liable to go anywhere— that's nonsense. He's not playing anywhere for the minimum. Like, I, I don't know anything, and I'm reporting that that's bullsh—

but I think he's literally not playing anywhere for the minimum. Like, like, can't we say the same thing there where, okay, they're saying that LeBron, he's willing to play for the minimum, and that means that there's going to be a team out there and says Okay, if he's going to play anywhere for the minimum, we're actually going to pay you a lot of money.

Wait a minute, this doesn't even make sense. The last— since 2014, after LeBron took the initial discount, him and his people told anybody who would listen publicly or privately, never again. We are never again taking any kind of discount for anybody. Maybe that's changed, but for a decade they've been very consistent publicly and privately saying we will never make that mistake again. Of taking less money. We won't do it for our union, we won't do it for anybody. We're not taking discounts around here anymore. And now the anonymous reporting— it's not LeBron saying it, you don't hear it out of LeBron's mouth— the anonymous reporting incentivized, biased, meant to negotiate. The anonymous reporting is all of a sudden, never mind about what we've been saying publicly and privately for 10 years, all of a sudden now LeBron is willing to come to your city for $45 million less than his actual worth. And play for the same amount as some veteran bum minimum.

No chance.

Is it fair to say though that that stance was 16 years ago and nobody could fathom LeBron playing to this age? I mean, it is an important data point to consider.

But they were recently saying, just all the reporting was from the Lakers, they weren't taking anything less than the maximum from the Lakers. Like, that was just all the recent reporting a month ago.

Right, but you can't on one end say that it's posturing to say he's willing to take the minimum and discount that that is also posturing, that he's only going to take the maximum. Like, these are, these are all games.

Yeah, but the maximum is something that they've been on for 10 years, and then all of the contracts that they sign have no discounts in them.

I'm not telling you what to think. I'm just asking you if you'd like to.

I mean, obviously he's not going to take the minimum, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't take less than his maximum offer if he thought it was for a better system.

Those are different things, though. You're talking— look, I've made the argument before. If I were him, I would absolutely choose the place where my friends are. And I think I have the best chance to win a championship because you will make your money many, many times over in however it is you want to make that money with whatever it is that you want to do on the side with advertisements and anything else. But that hasn't been the way he and his camp have been doing business. Again, I'm going to keep saying it. Publicly or privately. It's not just the posturing in public, it's the way that these folks have been talking in private. That's not LeBron to the Sixers, I don't believe, is a real thing, because I don't believe LeBron at the minimum is a real thing. Uh, Chris Cody, how are you feeling right now? You hurt yourself by putting up the, the banner, you dropped the, the ladder. Is everything all right? You know, my back does hurt. I just can't stop looking at my dad. He looks like an American wizard.

This is ridiculous.