A Magic Upset, a Lakers Surprise, Playoff Wemby, El Cheapo, Bill’s Award Flip, and Other Round 1 Notes With Zach Lowe

《优优独播放弄音》 《《优优独播放弄音》 《优优独播放弄音》 [《优优独播放弄音》] 《优优独播放弄音》 《优优独播放弄音》 《优优独播放弄音》 《优优独播放弄音》 《优优独播放弄音》 《优优独播放弄音》 《优优独播放弄音》 《优优独播放弄音》 《优优独播放弄音》 《优伬独播放弄音》 《优伬独播放弄音》 《优伬独播放弄音》 《优伬独播放弄音》 《优伬独播放弄音》 《优伬独播放弄音》 《优伬独播放弄音》 《优伬独播放弄音》 《优优独播放弄音》 《优优独播放弄音》 《优优独播放弄音》 《优优独播放弄音》 《优优独播放弄音》 《优伬独播放弄音》 《优伬独播放弄音》 《优伬独播放弄音》 《优伬独播放弄音》 《优伬独播放弄音》 《优伬独播放弄音》 《优伬独播放弄音》 《优伬独播放弄音》 completely. So I can't even imagine what it's like to be an Orlando magic fan right now, because there's no way after the Philly playing game, there's no way anyone could have believed in Orlando after those two games, right? So now it's like, maybe that's what happened. They had to hit rock bottom. Maybe they had some great team meeting that we don't know about, but they're a completely different team. And I have to buy into it. I mean, they were flying on defense. How many destroyed possessions, even ones that ended up with baskets or drawn fows were went like, Hey, why are halfway through though there's a loose ball. There's a deflection to Troy picks it up and they reconfigure and everything's okay. But they were like just flying around and on offense. Like this is not been a good offensive team in quite a long time. They set real screens. They changed sides of the floor with decisiveness. They like they ran into the catch at full speed. They cut hard like they did everything with such decisiveness and force. And it wasn't like the most sophisticated, pretty offense, but they executed their stuff with just vigor and force. And it's like, where has this been? Why have you not played like this the entire year? I don't understand. But if they play like this this entire series, they absolutely have a chance to win it. They were, I think, plus three 50 or plus three 30 something like that to win the game today. For the series, Fando still has them plus one 72. I think that's a mistake. I actually, to me, this is a 50 50 series now because if Orlando, now, granted, maybe that's stupid because maybe in game two, they're just going to go back to being the Orlando from a week ago. But I do feel like the switch might have flipped. And here's the thing, Zach, we've, we saw this three years ago with Miami. Miami finished. They were 44 and 38 to 2023. He they were 13 and 12. Their last 25 and they lost the first playing game. And we were like, it's over. They're done. Fuck, fuck, fuck the heat. They were on the ropes in the second playing game. Right. So they win the second playing game and then they beat Milwaukee, the nicks and Boston all in order and made the finals again as an eight seed. So it's can see basically there's a track record for this. Well, there's one, there's one record of it for three years ago. I was like, it was the 1977. I just want to be clear. Are you positing that a magic finals run? No, I'm coming now. Okay. I was about, I was about to be a little. I'm not. I'm just saying. It seems inconceivable, but we just lived through this three years ago. The difference is that heat team had actually accomplished some stuff and made the finals in 2020 and had Jimmy Butler, et cetera, et cetera. But this to me, I wrote this down in my notes. This is a really good example. Well, I think the one seeds in each conference, it should be 223 and not 2211 or however we're doing it. There should be some sort of advantage for being the one seed. You look at the trade. They haven't had a meaning. I'm not making excuses for them because I didn't think they played well today and I thought Orlando exposed real holes for them. They'll talk about a second. But they didn't play a meaningful game for what two and a half weeks. They had the one seed in the East locked up. Then they just had a week off. They're bringing Kade back in, trying to feel that out and they really haven't played a game with that kind of intensity that meant something probably in a month. Meanwhile, Orlando has been in this groove of they had to turn it up and Boston in that fourth quarter when they realized they were losing in main Celtics. They lost. Philly was a playing game in front of a hostile crowd. Then Charlotte to get into the tournament and then today, they're kind of in the groove whereas the trade isn't. So if I'm Detroit, I'm like, well, that kind of sucks. We're like at a disadvantage. I've actually come to disagree with you on the 223 format. If only because this, I agree that the number one seed should have a little bit more benefit to it than it does now. I think that might skew. I mean, I'd have to think more about it. I think that might skew it too much because the NBA is already the most predictable league in US professional sports. And extending the first round series from five to seven, two decades ago, sort of decreased the upset chances. Like in a seven game series, the best team, slash healthy team is likely going to win. So I would keep the 232 or 222111, however you want to do it. I do think that you should at least get to pick your first opponent. And I know the NBA scheduling people will be like, it's impossible. We can schedule an 82 game season with all these matrices and his Emirates cup and all this stuff. But we just absolutely cannot do that one thing because it messes up our ability to schedule the playoffs because this is a case where I think Detroit probably picks Philly instead of Orlando and it has an easier time and you're Celtics than get Orlando. So I just I'm trying to split the difference a little bit. But I by the way, I do agree with you. I don't think Detroit played very well today. They were like a little frazzled. And if you want to look at the frazzleness of it, like those plays where Paulo was isolating on the wing and they would load up their defense to him, like shade to him and just forget other guys were just standing by the basket. And there's oh, we could just give the ball to jail and during like very basic help to help our kind of stuff. And they just let go. They just were like, they were a little frazzled, I thought. And I think game two, they will not be as frazzled histories always suggest that a big home favorite that loses game one tends to route the other team in game two. So I'm expecting Detroit to even the series. And then it all feels different. But we'll see. You became like a ringer gambling show host there. Okay. Well, the history of the history of game two. So one of the things with Detroit, we were worried about. They never did anything of the trade done. Well, Kevin Herder was like their fourth best player tonight. They did something at least. That's my point. Instead of like going all in and trading some real capital and trying to get somebody and strengthening that spot, Kevin Herder was the answer. So Herder plays 18 minutes today. Ron Holland plays 10, Javante Green plays four, Levert plays four, Duncan Roberts and plays 26. And that position, you know, they always had probably the worst guy in the four compared to the five Orlando guys. So I thought that was, that was not great for them. And then the, you know, Tobias five for 15 again, we've kind of seen this from Tobias. And when the lights get a little brighter, I thought he had a really good season for them, but he's got to do better. But this is not a great matchup for him. He's going against two forwards that are better than him. I thought he had a good playoffs last year or two against the Nick. So it was a good showing for him in terms of his toughness and his rising to the level. But it did, he was one of seven on threes. I think it felt like he was one of 15 on corner threes because they were all open. And like, he just got to knock down two or three more of them. And the other minutes thing I would look at, you mentioned you add on them all off. Sar Thompson also only 25 minutes. And this is the thing we've been harping on all here with the lack of shooting that the pistons have is when it's go time, he, he, he might be the best perimeter defender in the entire NBA. And can you play him 35 minutes a game or is the spacing with him and Durin. And then they, they had beef stew and Durin playing together a little bit. And that was a little clunky like is how can we figure out the equation? And it's not good that in game 83. So, all right, I guess we're going to close crunch time with Jenkins and herder and maybe beef stew for a little while and like two starters, one starter, three starters. Like do we go to play right now? That's, that makes me a little nervous. I'm glad you mentioned that because that was the last thing I want to talk about. This is a shocking game one collapse at home. And in crunch time, they had Jenkins and Cade playing together, which I bet they haven't done more than how many times could they have actually probably done that this your finish games of those two finish. I don't know, but there's a decent sample size of minutes in there. There are plus 10 for 100 possessions or something. And in a decent sample of minutes. But yeah, but, but again, it's different of those two. Durin wasn't out there. Stewart was the center. Herder was out there. It was just it was just odd. This is the number one seed. They almost won 60 games. I listen, I was on texting with my dad for two days, leading up to the weekend about who would we rather see, you know, Orlando or Philly, who would you rather want for that seven eight? And I was like, I don't want to see Orlando, even though they look so bad in that Sunday game because they're physical, you know, there's cheap shop potential with them. I just think Philly would know and be just feels like an easier ride for us, right? And then Orlando looks like shit in that game. My dad's like, I told you we should have played Philly and then today he flipped again. He was like, I told you Orlando would have been a problem. Like my dad can't remember what argument we've had. But Charlotte versus Orlando, when you see how teams were blowing up Charlotte, I'm sure Detroit's now looking at that. Like Khan was clearly not 100% healthy. I'm sure Detroit's looking at that. Like, man, that could have been a lot easier of a series. We were way more physical than them. I hope Detroit is looking at none of that and just looking at themselves and looking at the standings and looking in the mirror and saying, let's just come kick the shit out of this team in the next game. We've won 60 whatever games. Like this isn't about them. It's not about Charlotte. It's not about who we could have played and way and way and way if we could figure out pulling it. Let's go on kicks and butt. I'm more concerned than you. I'm not unconcerned. I'm just like, let's like, if they win game two, the series starts to feel a little, you know, these swings go up and down. I'm not going to go crazy after game one. I expect them to win game two if they don't. And obviously it's full on panic time. I'm more concerned than you because I'd like normally when we have an upset like that, it's like, oh, somebody shot 20 for 48 from three or the best guy in the other team got in foul trouble. There's some sort of dumb variable. There was no dumb variable. Orlando just played way better than them and they were tougher than them and we're not afraid of them. In fact, they weren't afraid of them. and took 19 less free throws, by the way. Right. The fact that they weren't afraid and weren't surprised at all what was happening would be the thing that scared me. I think this is going to be, I just can't believe Orlando 180 does. And by the way, they might just 180 us back. That's how Detroit gets back in the series. Orlando just turns into the team from 10 days ago, and they have some injury guys too. Like I don't know if I trust Sugs to play healthy for two weeks. I don't know if I trust Franz. Who knows? Um, the other one that we watched tonight was Spurs Portland. And uh, you know, it wasn't surprising, San Antonio won pretty easily. The color coordinated sections have some thoughts. I, I loved it. You, you're going to be a Grinch on this. Yeah. Yes, I am. What do you want? You just want, what do you want? Just one color all the way around? One five titles is a franchise. It's not the time for gimmicks. I think you've been there before you've never franchise does this though. They usually just do one color, is it just the multi colors that's sticking in your crawl? I felt like I was at a parade. Oh my God. Every section was different color. It's been seven years. They won five titles. They Tim Duncan. They won the 10 best players of all time. Who is there at the game probably wondering why everybody was in a different section wearing a different t-shirt. I wasn't wondering because they're the fiesta colors. He was wearing the shirt. I can't believe he was wearing the shirt. You're like Kramer. I can't. You don't want to wear the ribbon. You want to. You want to. This is one of our championship contenders. I don't know. Uh, we'll, I just horrible take just a horrible take. That's fine. I don't, I don't put the t-shirt on. I hate the t-shirts. I don't understand the t-shirts. I don't like when the Celtics do them. I just like old school basketball. I don't want to be dressed like everyone else by section. We've lost our minds. You want no, you want like just the old school organ playing, no music, no songs. Yes. That sounds great. Yeah. Old school organ sounds amazing. I like the sound of the, of the sneakers screeching. I'm just old. Uh, you did win five titles. So I don't know if you needed, uh, gimmicks. Wembee. He just hasn't edged to him. He really just seems like he wants to destroy everybody. It's a pretty great quality for the guy we're pinning our future of the league hopes on. Uh, very Jordan Kobe. Everyone is my enemy. I'm not here to make friends. I really want to embarrass what we're playing against. You can feel it tonight. Pretty good game. Had a couple good stretch. Had a stretch in the fourth quarter where he's like, I'm on NBC. I want to put on a little show here. Uh, good times all around. I wasn't pressed by Portland though. I thought they kind of hung around and, and got some punches in. They were frisky. Uh, I'm sure you were thrilled with scoots seven for 11 performance. He looked very calm, very collected. They just don't have enough offensive talent. They're a team that's geared toward, uh, getting to the rim and they're facing a guy who's just not going to let you get there unless you want to get embarrassed. And so they're going to have to make more jump shots than they're capable of. They took 38 threes tonight, which for them is quite a lot, they made, they made 10. And, uh, good first test for the Spurs. I thought like a nice physical, like, gutty team who's not afraid. They're going to throw some different defenses at you. They threw the mat, different matchups at Wembee and different times. And then they played super small with granite center. It was just like a fun. Like, all right, we're going to, we're not, we're not leaving a lot of, uh, cards in our back pocket for this one. We're good for everything. We have it. You can try to win one game here. Yeah. I think, I think game three of Portland will be a nice little mini test for them. Be good crowd. Portland will be fired up. Uh, and I think Portland's a pretty good man. It's, it's hard to believe there are seven seed because I think if, like, if we had done your draft, I don't know if they would have been the seventh team drafted for the, if the one seed got to pick who they were playing and then the two seed did, I think would you, if you were San Antonio, would you have wanted to play Houston or Portland? You definitely want to want to play the Lakers if you didn't think Luke was playing. Well, that, but you're letting me pick anyone. I'm just my draft is I just get to pick from the play in tournament, in which case I probably would have picked Phoenix over, over Portland, uh, based on how they're coming down the stretch and Phoenix just isn't healthy with Grayson Allen and Mark Williams and all that. But, uh, yeah, Portland is a pain in the ass. They're physical. They're tough. They have a lot of weird, like size personnel that allows them to do a lot of different stuff on defense scouts making shots. Like, the, the, the thigh bowl has completely changed their defense since he got healthy. He's just a complete, but my menace to society out there. They're just not fun to play against. You're going to feel the blazers. Yeah. So scoot was how many turnovers do they have? Three or you'll think that when it's a minute tonight, signing up one turn over to the minutes, that's fine. Look pretty explosive. You did. I'm going to talk to my business manager tomorrow, make, make sure my position is still, still stable. Um, one thing on this, there's a lot of stuff going on around the cheap blazers owner. And I need to talk to people in the league about gossipy stuff like this from time to time. This guy has been a fast nation of mine for a little while now, culminating with the, the story about how he didn't want to lay checkouts for everybody a couple of days ago. I did. Everybody had to check out. I forgot where that came out. They're all in the lobby. Uh, I forget who had it. Um, so you had that today, the big story was that he didn't pay for the two way guys to go to the game. Yeah, Sean. I came to Tonyo. Yeah. Yeah. That, uh, the three two way guys, including Caleb love who actually like helped them out there in the season and, you know, had like a pretty decent impact for them. And they told all those guys to stay home. Then there's a lot of stuff that's been going around really for the last three weeks about that they low ball splitter that they don't, that he has this theory that you shouldn't have to pay a lot of money for a coach. Maybe he's going to target somebody who will just be happy to take the job. This is the guy who just bought the team who spent Tom Dundin who spent four point, I think two five billion on it. Um, and I guess spent all his money on the team and now now wants to cut back at everything else. It's a pretty weird way to start your new ownership. I will say that. Look, if I am a young, if I'm like a 34 year old high school basketball coach in the Portland area and I'm doing some really wacky stuff, like we're pressing every time we're taking somebody five threes, I'm scheduling a meeting. I want to get in there and be like half a million bucks, I'll, I'll do it for 200 K here. Look at, look at, look at all the crazy stuff that I'm doing with my team of guys. I don't even have a six footer on the team. We're doing crazy, random stuff and give me, I'll, I'll do it. Oh, boy, will I be, will this make me like the smartest guy in sports, the most interesting guy in sports? He's like, I could kind of see it from his point after if he's has like, if you're having drinks at the morning and he's having cigars and he's telling you about his plans, he's like, Hey, this whole thing about paying a lot of money for coaches. How come 12 of them get fired every year? And I have to pay this guy, four million and this guy, five, what, why wouldn't I just zag on that and just pay like a million? I'm going to fire the guy in three years anyway. He'd be like, okay, Tom done it. So good plan. Yeah. I mean, go for it. Yeah. Remember the famous high school coach in Arkansas, who never punted. He was like the first guy to never point. If there's anybody in the Pacific Northwest doing something like that in basketball, get, get in a room with Tom Dundin right now because Teago splitters done an awesome job. I think he should be the favorite to be the coach. I think I wouldn't even mind if they just gave him the job right now. I don't know if they're going to offer him enough money to make it worth his while. It's just because there's going to be other jobs that open up and the rumours going around are interesting. But yeah, just high school coaches in Portland, get out there. Why does it still say acting coach for Teago splitter? He's been the coach since game two. He's been the coach for six straight months and the other coach sold his house and got indicted. Well, just in case, you know, can we just call him the coach? Like he's been the coach for also. The Blazers are 42 and 40 with like pretty weird personnel, a low offensive ceiling, scoots missed a lot of the season. They've had injuries up and down. Drew Holley's Mr. Holley's season, Jeremy Graham's. The Jeremy Grant time Lord is just a walking 40 games of basketball who's great tonight. And here they are with like a real identity of defense and toughness and building around Danny Abdea is like the point point forward and they play super hard just tonight. I mean, they're not leaving a lot of strategic cards on the table. They're trying a lot of different stuff. And I think he's done a great job and who else do you want to be the coach? They're picks. They have, they own, oh, their first goes to Chicago this year. And then they get some of these Milwaukee swaps, 28 and 30. They get swaps. They get Milwaukee's first in 29 and they have some good assets. They're pretty good seller cap situation except for the Drew contract. And if I was a Portland fan, I'd feel good about all of this. And now we just had El Chico took over the team. I don't think they've had their, they haven't figured out their arena thing yet. And this guy's like, you know, Donald Sterling had some good ideas. Not the bad stuff. I'm just talking about the ownership stuff. Don't go there. Don't go there now. The way he could cost was pretty smart. No. El Chico. El Chico. By the way, Portland fans, feel free to take that. Here's the bright line you cannot cross as an NBA owner. You wanna nickel and dime? the coach. Okay, like I don't think it doesn't seem great. You want to like skimp around meals and all this stuff. Like fans aren't really going to find that stuff out. What you can't do and I don't think anyone has done it since who wasn't that sold the pick? You cannot sell your first round pick. You can sell seconds for a couple of million bucks. If you sell, if you trade your first round pick for cash, you should be kicked out of the league immediately. It's been about 10 or 12 years. I think I'm blanking on which which server was the most famous one. Remember that? Yeah. He basically sold the Lua dang pick for I. It was like the seventh pick in the draft. Well, and they dumped, they dumped all these picks to Seattle and trades that helps the thunder become what the thunder are. Like step one. That was bakers. The other thing we're saying is we're sort of making light of it, but I think as long time old, I'm old, you're old NBA fans. Like this is a franchise that we actually care a lot about. The Blazers are an awesome franchise. They're up there all by themselves now without Seattle. They have a fun history. They have incredible fans. It's like, yeah. Let's make sure we take care of this fan base. It's pretty brutal because the thing I'd be worried about just in general with some of these teams is these teams have become so expensive that people are leveraging themselves to, you know, just to pull it off. And then they get it. And now they're looking at it like, well, shit, we can cut here. We can go here. We got here. And it's like, that's not how the NBA works. But you got to spend at least a modicum of stuff. Not cheaping out on a coach is insane. If that's really the strategy, that's insane. Now with it, there's bad coaches every year. There's there's bad hires. We've seen situations like the suns paying three, four coaches at the same time. That's also insane. But to, to be like, this is like a strategic advantage. If we go this way and I'll be able to save 11 coaching is the one place that there's no cap. This is just like a straightforward, you know, this is a luxury, basically for your team. If you're going to, if you're going to cheap out on that, that's a bad sign. Uh, agree. And uh, where are they up against a tough opponent in the San Antonio Spurs and Wembee, who just had four different highlights today that were outrageous, including near the end when he almost dunked from his head was behind the backboard, basically. And then it looked like he was, it feels like he's really a threat to get seriously hurt by the backboard twice again. He's very tall and he jumps and he's limbs fly around. But that transition thing where he, he went around the back on Danny Abdea, then he hit him with the righty and an outdream. Well, that he spun back to his left and like, it wasn't even a dunk as much as it was just like he jumped in his hands or in the basket. It was like, I don't even know. Like, what am I supposed to do now? Well, how can I go on with the rest of my day when that happened? Well, I'm going to rule out Portland for Yannis. I know I mentioned that two weeks ago. This, this guy doesn't even want to pay a coach from pretty sure he's not going to pay for Yannis and his two brothers to be on the team. Can I shout out? No, I mean, I didn't, I didn't, I was, I was with you on the like, they could be a third team in a Yannis trader, a fourth team. I did not see Yannis. It would be fun if he traded for Yannis and then refuse to fly Yannis' brothers to the playoff game. That would go well. How about just not even sign? Like, what about not signing them? I mean, the bucks ended up, they had all the on, all the brothers Alex and Thanasis. There's a fourth brother though. They didn't go all the way. They went, they went, they went mostly in, but there was still one last brother. I heard what coach this head coach of the Blazers discount head coach. Oh, interesting. You just do Thanasis. Yeah. Yeah, because Thanasis seems to be the one that Yannis is like kind of that's his real conciliary. It's your higher Thanasis. Pretty fun. Okay. So if you had to pick, we're going to talk about all the other games in a second after we do a break. But if you had to pick the upset heading into our break that we're about to take, would you go Houston or would you go Orlando? I mean, a Lakers or Orlando, I should say. I just, I'm still parking the Houston Lakers thing over here because the injuries make it so weird. So I'm just like, I want to see more of the series before I really digest it. So I'll just say Orlando for now, kudos kudos to kudos to the magic. Great showing the last couple games. I really respect and appreciate what Adam Silver in the NBA did staggering out that Lakers Houston series. When's game two Wednesday? It's going until like July. I think I think game seven is July 15th. It's just going and going and going. It's going out forever. Well, the first round is always like that though. There's always this is this is the time you mentioned like Orlando has injury risks on their team. This is the round where it's like you get extra days off for Jalen Suggs and Franz Wagner. And if he were healthy, Joel, NBA, but alas, well, so tomorrow we have Toronto Cleveland Atlanta, New York, Minnesota, Denver. Oh, really? Good ones. And then the Lakers play on Tuesday. It's that push that one for the three days. And then the next one is Friday. Just classic love it. If the match, I would have done it too. If the match are still on a losing streak by game three of Lakers, rockets, I might I might be drinking on the Sunday podcast with you at that point. That'll be really exciting. Yeah. Well, next Sunday will be coming off ironically. Lakers Houston game for great. That'll be next one. All right. We're going to take a break. We're going to come back and we have six other series that we have to dive into next. The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by Fandall. 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Pay the way that works for you. And it's available at millions of online stores. Pay in four with PayPal, subject to approval, learn more at paypal.com/payinfour, PayPal Inc. NMLS 910457. Alright, we're going to talk about the other six series. There's a lot of fun questions. We'll start with the West where Lakers Houston Houston was a minus 900 favorite when the odds came out for this series and started steadily dropping. And then there was this mystery Kevin Durin injury that I didn't know about till yesterday. When did you find out about it? When it was reported. That's all. Yeah. He did a nice job of hiding it. And then of course you knew the Lakers were going to win even though they're a plus two and a half. LeBron had a classic game manager game. Luke Canard stock continues to rise. And more importantly, the rockets just doing exactly what you would think you would they would do in this situation. Clock toilet offense. Just inexplicable. I don't know why they weren't pressuring more. I didn't understand really anything they did. I thought it was a worse rockets loss than a better Lakers win if that makes sense. A little bit of both definitely the least watchable of all the games so far. It was like it made a rock fight is an insult to rock fights. But I just want to point out a couple of things. Do you know how hard it is to lose an NBA game? Will you take 93 shots and the other team takes 66 shots? Yeah. You take the same number of free throws. So that's not the reason the other team is taking so, so more if you were official field goals than you. The other team takes 19 three pointers total in the year of our basketball gods 2026. And you get 21 offense rebounds and you lose by nine. That's that is mathematically improbable. And congratulations to the Houston Rockets for pulling it off. And felt like they were out of the game. The whole fourth quarter even though it was not a blowout also led to a text from my dad in the third quarter. Zach just I hate the Lakers was this text. He was just furious that it worked out this way. He thought we were going to get rid of them in the round one. And that's not how it's happening. Tell your dad. Tell your dad. Buck up like what's the downside? They get a little time to get healthy. Maybe they get a little frisky a little interesting. I mean, do you want to watch this rocket scene play for two playoff rounds? I don't. Here's what I did tell my dad. I love that the Laker fans are getting sucked in here. So Luca gets hurt. It's like we're done. And now yesterday Katie goes down. LeBron looks pretty spry with a week off. Aighten looked alive. I mean, alive is a bonus for him. And now they're like, man, if we could just we get by Houston, Luca comes back. Luca versus SGA. He's had success against that team. I love that they're talking themselves into it. It's great. I love watching it from afar. You're already going to just rule out Phoenix's upset chances against the thunder looking at looking ahead to the second round. I am going to rule that out. I'm going to rule it out vociferously. I have some Houston questions for you since you're you're a smart breakdown basketball guy dude. That's what where you made your bones initially. Sure. All right question number one about the rockets. Why do they use shengu in like this? Why? Like how? Like just just hey there's 11 on the shot clock and nothing has happened. Can you just dribble from 20 feet out and maybe something good will happen like that? Yeah. We're going to try to use you like Denver uses yoked shoes the best offensive player probably of this century. Can you just do an imitation of that? Why don't they put them near the basket? Why don't they have them posting up drawing double teams? I don't understand anything with how they use them. Well also like can you can you do that but also with no shooting around you at all. So that there's just no passing angle for you to go to. It's just traffic everywhere. Every kick out option is like I mean I'm in Thompson took two corner three's last night where was like I guess this is just all we got like I guess we just got to take this one. I you know look they're starting read Shepard which is a good he took a million three's last night they just need to run that pick and roll combination more especially when Durant comes back that's their only like oxygen on offense other than transition which the Lakers did an okay job at limiting and offensive rebounding which they got a lot of and it just like sometimes it feels like that's just their offense is just throw it at the rim and we'll get it and that's all they got and it's just too many possessions where there's just no concept of shot clock spacing. There was one I can't remember when it was in the second half. Shingoon and read Shepard ran an inverted pick and roll on the right side of the four which is a great idea like that's a good idea you're two best offensive players your best shooter like do it do all that. Read Shepard popped open like screened and flared out he was open except Shingoon couldn't get him the ball because another defender I think it was Vanderbilt rotated kind of into the airspace where the pass might go and the reason Vanderbilt could do that and leave the other side of the floor was that three rockets players were almost like standing on top of each other in the left corner. And so Shingoon had nothing nothing to do but just keep dribbling and there was still 12 on the shot clock and it was as if 12 was the same as two and like okay I guess we can't do anything else. Shingoon just do something and I don't even remember what happened but it wasn't good. Out of all the playoffs teams they're the one that gets like the most like Legler was doing the rockets game we're just a couple moments where you just hear the discussed and the announcer's voices like oh I don't I don't really know what what was going on the spacing in that play Mike so you have that they're really tied to Thompson and I think Thompson's excellent but I think you could also argue that with the state of the Lakers offense without all there guys maybe should have more shooting and try to outscore them and maybe at least give five minutes of Shengoon surrounded by four shooters and just see what it looks like. I'll throw that in. I don't know. Do they do they have four shooters? Is that even a feasible lineup for them? I mean well the guardian reads can you get there two more anywhere. I mean what's the holidays? Easton was seven for seven. They do have a holiday. It's Aaron holiday. It just you do have to remember like Fred Van Vliet like the lack of guard play other than Reed Shepherd on the team is astonishing and I'm in Thompson is not a point guard. He's just an I'm in Thompson which is great. That's what he should be for now. No Van Vliet, no Durant and I was thinking like when you're if you're Emeodoka you're two best offensive players right now by far with Durant out our read and Shengoon. Yeah. Do I stagger them? Which is what he opted to do and I think one of the reasons he opted to do that was if I put Shengoon one of the one of the things that I was thinking about maybe the reason why you wouldn't do that rather is if I put Shengoon out there without Reed Shepherd and without Kevin Durant like what who is running a pick and roll with him who is like opening up the office. So they just have so and and Finney Smith has just given them absolutely nothing. He's supposed to be one of these shooters that you put out there and on up like that. They just don't have it unless they're going to play guys that aren't playing. Why don't they run more high screens with Reed and Jabari was my next question or any sort of action with the two of them. It just seems like I always watch Jabari and I go I feel like there's more there and I don't think the Rockets agree with me and that's why they use it in this way but I personally feel like there's more there. Maybe I'm the one that's wrong but I don't understand that either. Probably I'm guessing if we went back and looked at the personnel the Lakers would switch it and so they just that doesn't mean you give up on it right? Like you can slip out of it. You can fake screen and flare away. There's a ways to do something else when you know the team's going to switch it. I did think it was notable that both teams know that the other offense is going to hunt respectively Reed Shepherd and Luke Canard and both teams I think very smartly did not have those players guard each other because they're the only real dangerous shooters. I mean not the only for the Lakers but the dangerous shooters on the floor. So they put better defenders on this if you're going to put those guys in the action guess what we're going to switch as many as we can. Third question. So I would have gone if it was me. Okay. I would have gone into the series of bum Houston. We don't have Kevin Durant. You know LeBron is going to try to do his LeBron game manager thing and I thought he had a really fun game history. Good throwback. Kind of early 90s Magic Johnson type game. I just would be like, Hey, I'm in Thompson. You're stuck to this guy for two and a half hours. Like if you're going to play your only job is to make sure LeBron has a really rough two and a half hours and feels like he's 41 by the end of this game and that's it. And I don't feel like they did that either. I would between smart and LeBron. I would just 94 feet it with everyone I have just put miles on them make them work, you know. Well the only time they were doing that is if you watch if you go back and watch when Brony was in the game. Real Ivy on Houston's bench was saying press and press and press him because he can't do every time. But it was interesting with LeBron. Like they put a Kogi on him to start the game and like a Kogi starting is a problem. It's just another guy that teams are going to ignore even though he shot it well. And he's got some bulk to him. Anyone else like LeBron kind of made Tari's and looked not strong enough. And I think the same thing would happen to Ahmed Thompson except he's a better athlete. He can get up vertically a little bit. But I think he would just overpower him and old man put them under the basket. By the way, Kudos to old man LeBron taking back-to-back hook shots. I would take my chances with Thompson and just hope the young legs in the athletic ability would do it. We'll see. I mean, this would be a catastrophe for Houston. And I don't even know how they would go into the summer if they lose this series when they there's no look and no reels. And this even I know they lose KD right before and it's a little bit of a weird event but they should still come on. And if you come out of this getting bounced at around one, to me they've moved to the top of the panic playoff team list. I'm ready for a coach firing. I'm ready for a trade. I'm ready. They have some picks to move around. I'm ready for basically anything with them. Well, and not only that, like if the Lakers are able to get those guys healthy, they become at least a more interesting second round opponent for the city than this version of Houston. Now you could sit here and say, wait a second, we have no van Vley and we have no Durant. Well, the other team has no Luca and no reels. And they at least seemed like prepared for how to play without those guys a little bit. They have LeBron who's a genius. I get it. But it's just the lack of just any idea of what to do was disturbing. Can I give LeBron Kudos for another old man thing? Yeah, really wonderful performance at he's he's allowed to do the thing where he shoots and he makes a basket and he thinks he gets fouled and he points at the ref. And the point is like when other players do that, it's a T because the point is the point is like you specifically were supposed to be in the line of sight to call that foul. But he does it so politely like he just sort of nods at the guy and the guy nods back in LeBron. Okay, then he gets away with it. No one does any. It was just very polite pointing back and forth multiple times in the game. So you think Jason Tatum should start doing that because he does the sarcastic laugh shrug thing and they hate that. They hate they hate the pointing because you're not only saying back call you're pointing out you're pointing specifically to the one of the three that was supposed to make the call you think should have happened. My big question for this series, if Katie, whether he comes back or not, if he's not 100% Katie, if he's a limited version of himself, whatever. What do you do? What's your number one thing to do if you're the rockets? Because if you watch them all year, he played basically every game. I think he missed four. Put 36 minutes a game. He brought the ball up for them most of the time, especially in the fourth quarter. They ran the whole offense through him. And on the fly, I just feel like it has to be Shenguin at this point, but you pointed out earlier, if there are the shooters around him, you just collapse on him. What is it? Is it just cross your fingers and hope Breach Shepherd turns into the third pick of the 2024 draft? What's the move? Well, I mean, Breach Shepherd, he took, he took their kind of shots. Yeah, I think you just have to maximize the three of those guys on. They're like a good triangle of functional offense. Like two guys who can handle the ball and pick and roll a roller who can pass, you can invert it, you can post them, whatever. Those three guys, although the numbers are just good, not great with them on the floor, that's a road map to like the ball can pop a little bit instead of just station to station. Everybody who gets it holds it and looks around for three seconds. By the way, total minutes played leaders for the season on men Thompson Houston Rockets one Kevin Durant Houston Rockets two. Jabari Smith Jr. Houston Rockets five. Emeo doca is becoming like tips 2.0 in like a lot of ways right now. He did this with the Celtics to that year. He played those guys big minutes. I listen, I thought their biggest mistake the whole year was yankin Shepherd up and down out of of the lineup. In and out, you never got a feel if, you know, they're just going to actually say, all right, dude, here are the car keys. Let's go. And clearly, Udoca didn't love the defense and then was frustrated with them. But now they're in a situation where they actually need him. So you have the classic basketball move of, I know I yelled you a lot and I benched you a few times. But hey, man, let's get past this. Let's move forward. Um, the LeBron piece of this one last thing, you know, he shows up in 2018, weird first year, kind of isn't even on the team the second half of the year. No, I kind of like, I like where this is going. I like this. I like this take that's about to come second year, it's going to hurt you a little bit. I think second year feels like LeBron's on the Lakers, but then COVID hits bubble. Third year, it seems good. Well, you just, you just, why don't you just yada yada the NBA championship? Well, they didn't get to celebrate it. I'm, I'm talking about, I'm going to the part of. Did LeBron ever feel 100% like a Laker or did he feel like LeBron James who was playing on the Lakers, right? Whereas like Kobe magic are like Lakers. And I always felt like there was a Kobe. I've talked about this before. A Kobe LeBron tension. There's a lot of Laker fans who are just like, I love Kobe LeBron's not a real Laker like Kobe was. This whole run this way, it was one of the first times I felt like, oh, you know, LeBron's been on this teammate ears and they've kind of watched all these different versions of him. And the crowd and just the general atmosphere was kind of like, this is fucking awesome. So glad LeBron James is on the team. I don't know. There was just something. There was a little bit of a tip last night that I, I don't know, maybe I'm crazy. What do you think? Well, I think it's just undeniably impressive that last man standing is 41 year old LeBron James. And that's not to say that that's not to say that they're like, it's anyone's fault that Luca and Reads are injured, they're just injured and here's the sky. Hey, man, we thought the team kind of passed you by you willingly in the last 30, 40 games of the season took a back seat. And now we need you. We're calling on you again to summon everything that you have left in your LeBron number one option tank. Give it if it might just be playing bully ball in the post and occasionally going on on a fast break. And he's like, yeah, I'll do it. How many minutes do you need? 38 tonight in game one. I'll give you 38. Like whatever. And I'm not going to make big histrionics about it. I'm just going to come out and play and play really well. And both ends of the floor. I think where we were in January and February versus where we are now. We're in a much better place with him and just the Lakers, the eight years that he just spent where it felt like it was going really badly there as it was clearly like, man, can this just be Lucas team? Thanks for everything LeBron. We're ready to move forward to we kind of need you, buddy. And we've really liked how you've played the last two months. And this would be a nice little fitting if you could, if you could just just buy two weeks for us, Luca can come back. Pretty interesting stuff. I can't believe he's still doing it the way he's doing it too. I think he looks the most athletic he's looked like in five, six years. And there's going to be a game before Luca comes back in this series where they're going to do one of my favorite games he ever played was that game seven of 2018 in Boston. When he did the he played the whole 48 minutes and controlled the pace of that game about it as well as anybody has ever done it like Jordan and Utah and game six and 98 is the best I've ever seen it. Just I I need to do exactly this for us to have a chance and control every moment of this game the way I'm doing it or we're not going to win. And LeBron was like that that game and I wonder if there's a he's not the same guy he was in 18, but I wonder if there's a little bit of a variation of that that he can do in a rocket's game where she also slow and you know what I mean? There also could be still a game in him where the jumper is going and he's getting switches and he just makes like five of seven on step back threes from the left wing in his sweet spot, right? Like that game that like a little like lower lift and penetrating into the paint over and over again. Like he'll you might have a game like that in him too. I mean, would you if if you I think I picked Houston and five and this was before derand the derand news came out maybe six. I can't remember. Would you what was your pick and what would you pick now? I thought it was a stay away at gunpoint. I would have put he put Houston. I would have picked them in six or seven, but you knew that you knew the Lakers were going in one of the first three games and you knew Houston was going to blow a stupid game. So I thought it would be three, two after six and figured Houston win. I did not put any money on the series. I didn't put them in any parlay like to me. It was a complete stay away because I don't trust Houston. I haven't liked the way they've looked all year. I don't think they're well coached. I don't think the person over the team makes sense and I just I thought it was a blowable series, but I also didn't feel strong enough about the Lakers. I think LeBron gets credit too for whatever Aiden is doing lately. Like in JJ gets credit a bunch of Lakers get credit. But Aiden looks relatively salvageable now and I laughed the entire summer and off season and we talked about it when we did the overunders who have like, oh, this is hilarious. They're talking themselves into Aiden. The Laker fans are like, hey, and I don't know. When he tries, he's a functional center. I think he's like 10th or 11th and rebounds for the season for 12, something like that. He's not terrible. I guess is my point. I thought it was a ridiculous signing. So maybe I was wrong. I don't know. I was like one of the only people who thought this is going to work and then it looked like it was very much not going to work. I kept saying by work, I mean like 16 and 8, 15 and 80 ended up at 12 and a half and eight. But like he has good touch. He's never going to get fouled. He doesn't want, he just doesn't want to finish strong at the rim. He's going to spin away from it. He's got his foibles, but he has good touch and he's a decent passer. And if he just does this thing, just roll and make short jumpers, make floaters, make layups. He should walk in on a team like this to 15 and eight and nicely even doing spectacular in game one. He just like made easy shots for a giant guy. Is Shenguin honest as the focal points of a trade more or less realistic to you than it was a week ago more for sure. I mean, if they melt down in this series, I think, I think the stock has gone way up on that one. Okay, see Phoenix, which was a pretty catastrophic blow in game one. Big question for you. Will Dylan Brooks make it out of the series alive? What happens as the ship starts going down and he gets more and more frustrated? What is he capable of? Well, will he talk to the media if there's if there's a conflagration? Remember, he did that was the whole thing he got into stuff and he was like, I don't want to talk to the media. I do, I do like, I mean, you would know this. Was there an over under for how many minutes into the series before he picks up a flagrant foul? We did not get to five. He picked up a flagrant foul immediately at least I'll say this like he took 22 shots tonight. Okay, see his defense and just you remind you do that as great as they are in the regular season, they hit the frenzy switch when the playoffs start. It just is like what are we even supposed to do? And when you get into that mode, what you end up doing is like, I guess Dylan Brooks is going to take 22 shots and most of them are going to be like contested leaning twos on the pick and roll, which is not what you want them to do. But yeah, it was like, you know, they had their flagrants, dueling flagrants, heart and steam got a very similar one and, you know, it's he'll get into some stuff and it's just it is dark and engage or we're going to get like the Brooks door like I'm waiting for it. Yeah, it could happen. But it's a little like in a hockey series when the two enforcers are just skating around and just kind of waiting for them to be in the ice together. Phoenix goes from beating Golden State on Friday night and Golden State looking old and creaky the whole game to then going into this, okay, see bus saw less than 48 hours later. I wrote this down, okay, I think Chet is clearly, okay, see second best guy now, whereas last year it was two A to B with him and Williams, but and I mean, best guy by, I think he is easily their second most important indispensable guy now. And when he's really good, like he was really good today, that's when they looked the most unbeatable. So I was like, hmm, I wonder if the splits back this up. So there in the regular season, there are 56 and 13 when he played in the 56 wins, he shot 57% and 38% from three and in the losses, he shot 49% and 26% from three and scored three more points of game in the wins. I mean, it's a small thing, but I think when he's playing good and he's shooting threes and they're going in, it's kind of like, oh, what now what do we do? You can't go small ball against them when they're when he's playing well. And because I was trying to, I was watching them today, trying to think like, what would the Celtics do against this team? They probably try to go a little bigger, but ultimately end up with Tatum at the five and try to go a little smaller, but if Chet's playing well, can you even do that? So I don't know. To me, he's the clear number two now. I mean, I, I, I get what you're saying. And I think a lot of that has to do with jail and Williams having missed most of the season and a bunch of really good wings, sort of emerging in his stead that makes them feel more indispensable. What are up for him when he's not out in the same way they can't with Chet? I do think his size, Joe Lube size on the wing and his two way play and his ability to make a be a secondary creator is going to emerge is more and more important. But the thing with Chet that is, I've said this before is like, you know, Phoenix is starting small against their double big lineup, which means a wing is going to be covering Chet. It was Dylan Brooks at points. It was Devon Booker at points. And, you know, he's not going to be the back down powerhouse guy against those guys. That's just not what he is. He's really gotten better. And he was one really early in the game, I just face up, spin, rise up for a jump shot from 13 feet away that you can't touch. I you don't even in my line to cite. He's really steady and good on that shot and then you throw in the defense. By the way, that's Shay Block today. When he rotated over and got Igadaro at the rim, I mean, I hate to be the guy that's like that one thing is why he's the MVP. To me, that epitomizes why I give him the slightest edge over Joker in the MVP battle. He's this that is a sensational defensive play and he's got one or two of those like every single game. That was an incredible, incredible block. Okay, C has the twelfth pick. Thanks to the clippers losing and you haven't thrown yourself into this draft and don't normally do. It's a really weird draft because there's a top four of guys who all have all NBA potential. And I think if you said how many of the top four will be in the NBA, the overrunner will probably two and a half and I'll go over. But then five through twelve, there's a bunch of really good guys too. And most of them are guards. And usually when there's a cluster of guards like that in a row, not every team needs a guard, which means one guard who you feel like should have been six or seven is all of the sudden available at 11 or 12. It's a little terrifying that they're gold state 11. Okay, C at 12 can get like major, major dudes. But the thing I was thinking, if you're them, would you try to move up? Is this the moment where you try to cash in the picks overload and some of the players you have and do the 150 cents for a dollar kind of trade and try to move up from 12 to the top four? Because they have the assets, including they have 12th and 18th this year. They have a bunch of future picks. They have a pick swap with the Clippers next year. Doesn't look like they're getting that Utah pick this year. And they have a bunch of their own picks. They have some really good young players. Wallace could be on the table potentially. They could think about that. But would you would you consider that? Or would it end on how the season turned out? And the target would be almost like just like a top whatever picking a draft that's that almost restarts the salary clock in some ways. And that's that's the sort of issue that they're going to be dealing with. Look, anything's possible for them. They for sure will and have looked at trades like that in prior drafts. They'll do it again. I'm sure in this draft, and all you're doing is getting me very excited for my favorite event of the year, which is the lottery. And by the way, you're going again. This is your picture. You can't keep me out. If you love games, if you if the NBA ever tries to keep me out, I'm going like the Bobby Valentine in the dark skies. Yeah, no, I'm with Ernst in Young. It's just me, Mr. Amar and and by the way, topit they're last two first round picks, Topic and Sorber who everyone forgets. But they just have gotten they haven't been able to play. They have these other two like first round picks just sitting there. It's it's unbelievable. Yeah, I was looking at the teams that could go in the top four, trying to figure out who would actually be receptive to a trade back to try to pick up a bunch of assets. It would be really hard for me to trade out of this top four. But if I was okay see if they were trading up, I think that God, they would target knowing nothing. Just how pressed he thinks would be Caleb Wilson, the North Carolina player who's probably going forth, who I would describe. If you watch like a 12 minute, have I sent you the YouTube clips of him yet? Not yet. I would describe his YouTube. Here's the best possible version of him in a 12 minute clip. Sean camp in the mid 90s, Crosswood, Shit. Oh my God. Yeah. No three can't shoot threes. But that kind of athleticism and rim protection and just like electric. Yeah, the pickaxon. Yeah, the pickaxonics guy. Yeah, that's pickaxonics guy. But I do wonder is this the year they take a swing. And then the other question is, would Jada be on the table or Wallace? But we'll find out. The only thing I had was Phoenix, I think they boosted Jalen Greens trade value enough in that golden state game and maybe even in this series that now you can think about can we turn him and other stuff into, can we roll the dice with John Moran or something like that? Do we even want to do that? Oh, no, do you even want to do that? But like somebody or Zion, would you, is there a roll the dice guy that you could use Jalen Green as the lure for and try to go with a higher upside? Who's not a guard? So probably their best three guys are guards. Zion's an interesting name. It was also interesting to me that Joe Dumas came out and just said, we're not trading. I'm stop asking us. I'm like, I don't understand. It was like, it was like, why? Remember, I think it was Chris Haynes tweeted like a month before the trade deadline. Hey, Pelican's just closed for business. They're not trading any of these guys. I'm like, wait, what? The trade deadline's in a month. Like why? You're closed for business. Is this some bizarro like very transparent? Actually, we're open for business if you make us a better offer. Why are you announcing all these things? But yeah, Jalen Green is a roller coaster. Like the suns are just at a massive talent deficit in this series just in terms of shot creation and offense and shooting. They just don't have enough. I'd be mildly surprised if they won a game. It's got to burn golden state a little bit. Because they couldn't even play two games in a row without looking without poor Zingas and Curry, both looking like they had just played in a seven game series. Even though they'd put one game on Wednesday night. But I'm sure they feel like and we're probably, if we were healthy, we're probably better than that team. Okay, see Phoenix. Would you go sweep? I picked sweep. That was my official, my official pick was, was okay, seeing for my favorite bet. My favorite parlay bet, which I posted yesterday, was okay, seeing Phoenix to be ending four or five in San Antonio, in Portland to end in four or five, which combined was like even hot. I thought I don't see any way either of those series goes to six. The West series that is good. And I thought was the best game that we've seen of the first six. Denver, Minnesota. I thought Minnesota played really well and they lost. So if you're Minnesota, I mean, the big thing for them is Edwards doesn't look a hundred percent healthy. I guess fair. I'd say he's looks 90 percent healthy. But there's a little piece missing that, you know, I don't, I don't, there's the recklessness that he doesn't have because he's obviously not 100% healthy. I really liked how they played. I thought that was one of the best go bear games I've seen in a while. I thought he was excellent. And I thought they went toe-to-toe with them the whole game. And I thought they really made Denver have to play well to beat them. I thought that game was awesome. Like to me, these are two of the best seven teams in the league. It's a fun matchup. This is the rubber match of three playoff series. Everyone now knows that in the last three years, they've played 29 times. It's 15 to 14 Denver. It's an awesome stat. Wow. I thought they played a decent game. I'm a little lower on on how Minnesota played in game one than you are. What did you like? There were, I thought Randall again had just an up and down game where a couple lapses on defense that I didn't love a couple days. That's happening every Randall game though. Yeah. They just, they weren't as clean defensively as they're going to need to be on some of on some of Denver's best stuff. And it was just like okay by ant standards. I didn't think they played a good, I thought they played like a B minus game. I thought Denver also played pretty well as it was a gritty game. That was a gritty like Denver. I had to dig that one out. It was not easy. Yoke, I tried a bunch of turnovers early, including the one where he just rammed into go bear like three times like I'm just going again. I'm going again. Yeah. Minnesota, Denver shot 10 for 36 from three. So that's the one thing if you're Denver, like we can do better than that. But I thought everything else. I don't know. I really liked that Denver team. I had I thought the best, I don't know if they're going to win the title, but I thought the best value bets heading into the playoffs were Denver. Like Denver to make the finals, Denver to play the Celtics, Denver to play the next stuff like that. The case against them is that this road is going to be so difficult. And I think Aaron Gordon now, I don't mind saying this one weekend into the playoffs. Aaron Gordon now has become the number one. Oh God, is he going to get up? Is he okay? He's become that he went down three times yesterday and my fear with them is can you get 10 weeks out of Aaron Gordon? I think that's everybody's fear. I've called his lower body the biggest X factor in the league this year because there's even if they had Watson and not Aaron Gordon, they're just a completely different team when Aaron Gordon plays. The power and force that he brings on both ends of the floor, the vertical aspect, the chemistry with Yoke Hitch, like there's just Peyton Watson does a lot of stuff really well. He does some stuff offensively that Aaron Gordon can't do quite as well. He guards point guards and smaller guards better than Aaron Gordon does at this point. He just there's just no replacing what Aaron Gordon brings the level of force and just monstrous offense and defense force that he brings. So we'll see. I mean, it's one game. He did go down a few times and that's my number one concern about them too. He's the long slog, man. It's a long slog and they're set up for I mean, we'll see how this series goes, but they don't have a hey, we might be able to wipe them out in four or five on the road map for them. And that's why I was hiring how Minnesota looked yesterday than you because some of the other stuff they can fix is the series goes long, but I thought from a physicality standpoint in a game one, we saw these game ones where somebody can teams usually throw like a good quarter and a half. And then as third quarter, all of a sudden they're down 15, you're like, what happened? You know that Cleveland game yesterday was like, what happened? It was a two point game. Now Cleveland's up 18. I thought Minnesota knew what they wanted to do. We're really physical. I thought go bear had a great plan against Joker. Joker still ended up, would he have like 25, 14 or 11, something like that, but he really had to work for everything. They could through everybody at Murray. And I thought that Randall was nightmare for a lot of the, you know, some of the weird stuff that he was doing, but I liked the physicality he had with Gordon where he was like really trying to big boy and force her him a little bit. I think my sense from them is they feel like we can be really physical with this team and maybe have an advantage with that. Um, so from that, they accomplished it. I just don't know if it ain't, I don't know if they can beat Denver advanced on 100%. Yeah. They need him to be on par with you, which is the best player in the series. And he was good. And he had, he had moments like he had more, he made the right reads out of the pick and roll. Most times they put two on him. And he had a couple of moments where one where he split, I think you'll catch on the pick and roll and went up and made a lefty layup that left the crew astonished. And then he had one, well, I like when they do this when they, he had Aaron Gordon switched on him. And instead of running a second pick and roll, I think they're just like, you know what? He can't stay in front of you. Just ISO and he blew by him and I remember from a drew a foul or, or made a layup or, or both. He had, he had moments, but, and they need Randall, like, want just to play, they need Randall to be a legit, like, this is a guy that was in the all NBA conversation for a couple of years, made a couple of NBA teams, right? So you're a point about Gordon. Anytime he has anybody on him other than Gordon, he's going to have to win that matchup, whether it's Spencer Jones or Cam Johnson or even a smaller player. Like he's just like Gordon is a beast. The other guy is he should be able to move around and, and then start kicking the ball out a little bit. The other good thing for Minnesota, Iowa looked like he belonged in the series and was at the speed of it. And it's probably going to close for them. I thought it was interesting with Denver. Brown played 21 minutes, but was out there late and was pretty important down the stretch. Like they were using him as a ball handler and, and leaning on him. And then which, you know, that's a guy they didn't have last year. But so they played nine guys. Valentina's only played seven minutes and Jones played nine. So they're really going seven and Joker played 40. It was, it felt like sometimes in a series, the game ones feel super important than other times they feel like a tester. This one felt like Minnesota was going into it going. We can steal this. Let's steal this. Let's steal game one. So I'm excited for game two. I have a confession for you. Okay. On Tuesday, I did my award picks. Yeah. And I did MVP and I did this long thing about how I couldn't believe I wasn't voted for Joker and SGA. And I was trying to be fair and rational about it. And SGA, they won 10 more games. They were the one seed and he was the best clutch player in the league and four straight 31 point seasons. And then I was like, I just can't believe I'm not voting for Joker. He had the best offensive. I've never seen an offensive season like that. He's one of the best. And I just, so anyway, we ran it. We cut it as a video. And I watched it on social media. And what I saw was a person who was confused and didn't have a lot of conviction in his choice. And I was a little embarrassed by it. I was like, I'm doing gymnastics, not to pick Yoke Edge, who is the best player in the league and is the most valuable to his team for in the league. And instead, I'm doing these mental gymnastics because SGA is on the, on the best team. And he's fucking awesome. And look, either guy could be the MVP. It's, and Wendy could have been the MVP. It was an awesome thing. So anyway, because the league did their stupid appeal thing where they didn't tell us that we could even vote until Thursday, I had three more days to think about it. Got the text on Friday, send your picks and please from Mark Bressard. I voted for Joker. I changed my pick. This is like, I did a lot, I did a lot, a lot of in moonlight. I changed my pick. I was like, what am I doing? How could I now vote for Joker? And I feel, I feel not awesome about it because I thought SGA had an awesome year too. But I just think Joker is the best guy in the league. I think he means the most to his team. What a plot twist. He was dead the whole time. Unbelievable. I know. I know. The question is, did the play in, it just might be a little too close to home. No, because neither team was in the plan. No, no, did the play in change or rookie of the yearbook? It did not. Okay. The plan did change by six man of the yearbook because I was 50, 50 with, I had Hawkeyes over Kelton Johnson. But then Miami lost on Wednesday. And I was just like, I'm going to have the six man of the year for a team that couldn't even get to the last round of the playing game and I switched it. So that's the league's fault. They should have made us vote for the playing games. Kelton Johnson, a fine choice. Great choice. Very important guy on a 61 win team. Leader of the club ass. I felt pretty good about that. I know I voted Cooper flag, right? I don't have a ballot, but you know, I picked Cooper flag. Am I going to get docked? No, are you or anything? I Cooper flags a great choice. Is my Uber rating going to go down mysteriously? No, we love Cooper flag. 4.72. Okay. I thought that was, I think the arguments were great this year. I haven't thought Missoula bicker staff was a really good one. You know, the only one that was a no brainer was most improved and defensive player there once once when we became eligible. Yeah. Missoula, the Missoula bicker staff argument is a no brainer to everyone. It is not is a no brainer to Joel Missoula who doesn't want even want the award. And I think should be mandated to throw it in the garbage if he gets it. Did a non campaign. So you did a pot after they announced the Luke and Kate relatively. I got a great email from somebody. That was the best solution I've ever heard for this 65 game rule from a from a listener named Gray McCoy. This is so obvious. I can't believe we didn't think of it because how many pods have we done like 10? How do we not come up with this? Why can't the 65 game threshold be tiered? Why is it all or nothing? I would propose 65 games and up eligible for all words. 62 games and up 62 games, eligible for second or third team on B and 60 games eligible for third team on B a. It's a great idea. This is not much different from my campaign from the second that they enacted the silly rule that it should not apply to third team all NBA specifically because all NBA is what counts for the Super Mac stuff and third team again. I've said this over and over again. I don't want to get stuck in a situation where I'm just throwing out names. Kevin Durant played 55 games, but Julius Randall played 66 and like the whole world knows one guy's better than the other. But I guess I like let at least for third team all NBA. Let me put the guys who we all knew that season were the best guys. So not that different from that idea. I just do we want more? How many how I'm going to how many charts am I going to need to figure out who's eligible for what award. I'm someone's going to have to build a flow chart for me with these kind of proposals. Well, think about it this way. 65 and up every year eligible. 62. That means you miss 20 games and you probably shouldn't have been first team anyway. You missed one fourth of the season, you know, and then maybe third team. We could say it's 55 and up, but I like the idea of the tears. I think it's smart. So Kate got to 64. I was going to say I thought Kate was at 62. He gets. But I voted. So I put Kate on second team because, you know, I thought he was a battle with him in Jalen Brown anyway. He was ahead of Jalen Brown before he got hurt and then he missed four weeks. So I don't know. I didn't feel bad about that. That's fine. That's a reasonable choice. That's probably what I would have done without looking at it in complete detail right now, but that's probably what I would. Yeah. So the tear thing is good. I like the minutes thing too. I think if we're over 2000 minutes, maybe you're at least eligible for second team, but they should experiment with that and, and try to figure that out. All right. The three Eastern conference series we did not cover. Okay. And we could go fast. Boston Philly. Philly has to be Boston such 1982, which didn't stop their fans from chaining. We want Boston during the playing game. A mistake. No, no, stop. They want to get in the playoffs. That's what they want. Should they want to, should they lose and say we want Detroit and risk it? I would have done it. I would have done a see you Sunday. You got to be. You got to be nicer to the Philly fans. I don't like that. We want Boston. Don't go on my chalkboard. Okay. The Philly Boston thing invented BLA in the 80s. It was one fan based to the other team encouraging there. It's like, be a little nicer. I was there and I didn't like it when we did it. Okay. It's like, what are we doing? Why are you telling these guys? Why are you supporting these guys? Tatum was the story from this first game, from a holy shit. His rebounding. He had 11 rebounds in this game. It just seems like, if you're looking at props when for these games you're doing the same game part of business stuff, it kind of seems impossible for him not to get 10 rebounds. He's around the rim all the time. He looked awesome. Jalen had a bad first half and then came along in the second half. My dad went to the game and called me after Gidey because he thought, he thought Tatum just looked awesome. The only small subpot with the Celtics right now is Vousavitch. When we get to this next series when he's going to play, he had a really, really, really awful second quarter stretch and he was going for a dunk lost the ball. I'm giving him points for that. That was entertaining and a game that didn't have a lot of entertainment. I like it. Doesn't grab rebounds anymore. He's always trying to tip rebounds. He's just slow around the basket. I don't ever feel like his three point shots are going in. Now the thing is, he's rusty. He had a broken finger. You need to see this series whether you can play him, but I really wonder is Garza. So just going to be when they get to that next series, is it going to be guards at time? And maybe I have to go back and rewatch the game because I kind of liked Vucha Vichers minutes today. I think this is a good matchup for him. I think this is the kind of bulky guys that they got him to play against. And he had a couple contested boxouts against Drummond, who's a bear. I thought his defense at the rim by his standards tonight was like pretty good. He got, he just got big and vertical and there was the one no call. I think it was with Edgecomb that ran into him where it was like, I didn't mind the no call. There was one max he shot that I think he just might have blocked around the rim. I thought by his standards, he played pretty good defense at the basket and that this is the kind of size matchup that that they got him for. But yeah, I agree. I mean, Garza's a better shooter. He's been very good all year. And I think it'll be match up to match up. But I didn't, I didn't mind Vucha's a postseason debut. First half was bad. Second half was better. And they have five, six days to figure it out. They really could have made a shot. They're going to have one of these two games, these first two games of Boston, and you knew Philly was going to throw some punches. So it'll probably be game two. They could still run after breaks. I think Paul George looks pretty good. He does. Like if you're talking about maybe trying to convince somebody to take him in a trade and attaching assets to it, I don't think it's as inconceivable as it might have been in October. You're just putting all these guys, all these teams after one game, you're just putting them right into the off scene. I am. Just wait. You're gone. I don't think it's a mystery that Philly would trade Paul George, like I'm not breaking news. It was very sad for me as someone who has been, you know, at this whole era of Philadelphia, Hinky on basketball is just the most bizarre era of an A-themed in the NBA. It was sad that it's come to listening to the worst contracts draft, and it's just a one, two punch for Philly. Just, just, Embed Paul George picks one and two. It just made me a little sad for Philly. Thanks. Thank God for Yaka Pertle because he might be crashing the party next year. Boston is in a great spot. My big question for this series was, was that just an absolute godsend that Orlando lost to Philly in that playing game? Because then you watch Orlando and Charlotte against Charlotte and all of a sudden they were the defensive beast that we thought they might be before the season and really physical. And at the very least, you're going to have some bruises and you're going to feel on Orlando series, which I'm not sure that's the case with Philly. I think that was a pretty good break that they got Philly instead of Orlando though. I think we talked about this last week that, you know, you asked me, who would you rather play? And I said, if Embed is not playing Philly because it, like Orlando, now that they're healthy with Anthony Black and Franz Wagner back, they have, they can go seven deep in good players. It doesn't always mesh well. It's ugly. The coaching thing is a little bit of a mess. But they have an upside that I just don't think Philly can get to without Embed. No. Even like you need like a 43 point maxi game and somebody else making seven threes to win a boss. And I think so. Well, four of 23. You're just DOI. You have no chance. Like that's what they shot from three today. The makes and the attempts. You just, those two numbers you have no shot. Toronto Cleveland felt for the first half like, huh, okay. And then Cleveland blew him out in the second half. Pertle looked awful. I guess the big question for me in this one is did round one break perfectly for Cleveland where you get to skip Atlanta and play Toronto. You hopefully get to play Detroit after a really physical knockdown dragout Orlando series. And then you're playing whoever's left with Celtics next hoping that that's a knockdown dragout too. One paper this played out perfectly. And then you have the Mitchell piece who I thought Mitchell was awesome yesterday. He was in the running for best guy of the weekend. And you did this when we did our most intriguing draft. You took him first. And you said like, this is the, there's going to be the moment. It should probably be this year or around this year we're figuring to elevate into that next level. It's, we're ready. It's time. He had that look yesterday. So I don't think they're going to make the finals. But I will say it's broken nicely for them. I also think it has broken nicely for them. Atlanta is better than Toronto and has a higher ceiling than Toronto does. Particularly without quickly. And they just, they just don't have enough juice offensively. I think they're actually, they're half court offense actually produced at a rate that surprised me when I looked it up today because it just felt so hard. Everything felt so hard. And they got no turnovers, no fast breaks like that's the stuff that they, that they feast on. And, and I think Cleveland has a good, for a team that endured a lot of roster chaos throughout the season. I think they figured out a lot of things about their rotation and when the two big should play together, when they shouldn't, who should play with whom, both small big guards just should go with other guards. And, and part of that is that, Struce has really rounded back into format. I think they've got, they've got some holes on the roster like wing size, traditional wing defense and all that. But they, at least I think have a good sense of what their identity is and what their rotation should look like. I think that really showed it in the, in the first game. And nice, nice to get off to an easy, easy one for them. Struce is important that guy's been in some big games over the years and is recently as six weeks ago. We weren't sure if we were going to see him. I guess my big note on Toronto, which I just think, you know, I, I just don't think Toronto is a very good playoff team. I do feel like Ingram has a lot of advantages against him. And he only took nine free throw, nine field goals and ten free throws yesterday. But only nine shots. And I thought Cleveland had a lot of trouble, whoever was guarding him. I just felt like he could get a shot against everybody and I didn't really understand why they went away from him. So I bet we see more of him. RJ Barrett's going to have to get downhill and get to the basket. There's some moves for them to make, but ultimately I, do we know about quickly? Because they need like that wild card, you know, he checked out. He's been upgraded to questionable right now for game two as the last they saw. And look, without, I said this before in preview in a series without him, that means we're going to see more Jamal shed, which is, which is good for their defense and bad for their offense, as well as shed shot the ball in, in, in game one, because they do, they run a lot of like in picking roles with Scotty and the point guard, both directions. And shed is just treated like a non threat to score teams, just stay close to Scotty. You're not going to get the ball to Scotty, like take your floaters, whatever quickly at least is a threat all the time. He had a pretty good season. I thought so. I think they just need his, his wild card nature. The other one is like, you know, do they come to a point where they start CMB over a hurdle and just say we lose some size and we lose some rebounding, but we gained the ability to switch everything and CMB was, look pretty ready for the playoffs. And Pertal, Pertal looked not good on either end of the floor. I can't see Pertal's plus minus, but I bet I guess it was a zero zero, plus zero. No, but I don't think I don't think this, I don't think he looked, he didn't, he didn't contain the pick and roll on defense, which is what he's out there to do. And he brought another table on offense. And Grady Deck, I guess is just what happened to him. Well, that's, I was actually thinking about that, he got, he got, he's lost, he hasn't been in a rotation for a month. No, I know. That's it. Well, I mean, look, Jacobi Walter has played, has played him and I thought is a good option for them defensively in the series. But if you're, if you're, if quickly can't go again and you're just like, we just need shooting, it would not be surprised, it surprised me if they dusted him or even Jamison battle off. Just like run around it. If you can make a few shots, we'll see what happens. I picked mom of third in my six man of the year. He did not live up to yesterday. Haka's second. Do you go, Haka's two at least? Yeah. But Haka's two. I thought six man was really rough this year. I was even trying to talk myself into Jenkins, I'm Detroit, but he didn't average ten points of game, but he was at least a conversation with how he finished a year. I think that the best bench guys, I thought Haka's and Calvin Johnson were both very good, but neither of them are like blowing you away as a candidate. And I think because it's because a lot of the best bench guys just played like 52 games in 1200 minutes, like Karuso, AJ Mitchell, I heard Stan Van Gundys say he voted for Mitchell Robinson, just because game to game. That's his impact. Isaiah Stewart. Just like it's hard to give one of those guys an award when another guy's played like almost double the minutes and played pretty well. Toronto Cleveland. Did it make it nostalgic? Did it make you nostalgic it off or NBA TV, what we used to have? I'll tell you what it made me nostalgic for. That game, Toronto Cleveland, that matchup and then LeBron making the fade away from the left side of the floor and like looking out at the crowd being like, ooh, that was nice. It did make me nostalgic for that one game in Toronto. I was at that game where he was just like, you know what, I'm just going to clown the whole franchise. I'm going to clown the country. I'm going to clown the city. I'm clowning all of Canada. I'm just going to take one ridiculous, and they got increasingly more ridiculous. Like how about from 23 feet? What if I took a turnaround fade away three and fell in Drake's lap on the sideline, would that be funny? Let me try that one. It was just so humiliating. And those two events together, I did get a little LeBronto nostalgia. I got nostalgic for the bad NBA TV commercials that half-hearted, half-time studio show. Just thought what we used to have. Speaking of TV, Amazon had all the games, all the play in, and then the first three round one games. Really interesting thing I never considered. So we went over Friday night, went over to some friend's house, and I was like, I'm only going if they have the game on. They're like, no, no, we're going to have the game on. It was by wife's friends and my friends too, but we're going to have drinks like I need the game on. Okay, cool. Get to the game is like, oh, we forgot to put the game on. What channel is it? It's on Amazon. Took five minutes. Oh, Amazon. Wait, what do we watch anything on them? And now it's like they're trying to figure out the Amazon and the Apple TV, the logging in. And I was getting, I got a bunch of emails about this this weekend from people who were traveling, who were like at hotels, or they're in bars and the bar didn't have it. It is just an antenna consequence of the streaming error I never really thought about until we got to the playoffs that we've just as a society, we have to get together with the streaming revolution and make sure we're covered as a society. And I'm talking friends of friends, friends that are our casual sports fans that maybe don't care, but you know, like I'm coming over hotels, sports bars, wherever you are. For sure. Like just make sure you're logged in to Amazon and make sure you're logged in to peacock and just get your shit together. Everybody. That's my little PSA. I don't have any issues with it, but I am a streaming oversubscriber. I just some like, we'll just have everything all the time and waste money because you know, like the smart people are like, well, I'm done with that show, cancel Apple TV. I'm done with that show. I'll pick it up later. I'm just like, I just want to have everything all the time. Well, I got shut out of Amazon for one of the playing games. It was like, your account's easy to many devices. I'm like, huh. So start, I went into the settings and I'm shutting down devices. And it turns out both my dad and my daughter were watching basketball in Amazon and glommed onto my account. And then my dad's like, well, I don't want to. I always jump on your things. I don't why do I have to pay for the streamers when you have them? That's just the attitude of people 75 and up. I don't know why I can't pay for Amazon for $9 a month. I think you just got to kick your daughter off. That's all like you're the boss. She's in charge of me 25 years from now when, you know, God only knows what's going to happen to me physically. It's the kind of thing like she'll hold it against you. You have the same thing with your daughter. Yeah, someday they're in charge of us. I always want to like do the right thing. All right, quickly. Can we run through the four teams with a case of what do you do? The four teams that got bounced from the plan? No, no, no, like Nick's where we're just not going to do Hawks. Nick's. Oh, we didn't do Hawks. Nick's. No, my bad. You we don't have to. No, I really want to do Hawks. Nick's. I was in my notes and I just forgot to do it. My big question for you is if Nog gets going, is this a series? Sure. Yeah, I think I picked Nick's in six. That's where I had. I think to Nick's played. I think to Nick's played one of their better defensive games. If not one of their best defensive games of the season in game one, I was super impressed with them across the board. Atlanta didn't even shoot badly from three. They shot 38%. But yeah, I mean, Nog's six of 17, Jalen Johnson, eight of 19. There's definitely some room on the table for them. I think, I think they'll, you know, like I would pick the next to win game two and then Atlanta to win game three and then game four is where it gets a little little spicy. You know who was not spicy in that game. Some pretty, uh, I'm overwhelmed by all of this moments in two minutes for Zachary Risha Shea that I did not particularly enjoy for the Hawks. You didn't like his 0 for three and his miss of a two foot layup and the realization of everyone yet again that they could have just taken castle at first pick. And they played seven guys. Basically, if you don't count Risha Shea and Mo Gay was one and played 11 minutes. So, you know, I love to Nick's played really well in that game. If I'm a Nick's fan, I'm super encouraged by how they looked. If they had castle instead of Risha Shea, would you think the Hawks were going to win the series? That's a pretty nasty team. Yeah, I would. Yeah, I mean, can you imagine that? That's a lot of defensive players to throw in the floor at once. It would make the next live. So, I mean, we've seen castle guard Brunson and cat in the same game and guard them both pretty well. Be pretty useful player. I had castle first in that trap. I'm not always right, but did you end up putting in my third team all NBA? No, because Luca and I bumped him out. Yeah, everyone. Everyone got eligible. I put him first team all day. That was where I was. Interesting. That was where I moved. And I put Wallace too. And I know I'm going to be in that minority on those votes, but I really think those two guys are absolute animals. Who's going to argue strongly against their inclusion? They're awesome. You know, as a bummer, I had no place for a Camara. I couldn't near the line. I couldn't find a spot for him. And I kept like trying to, can I bump this guy? I know. And I, I feel terrible. I know that hurt you as, as number one Portland trailblazer. And you've really, really repaired whatever was, whatever, if there was still leftover damage from your relationship with Portland fans from years and years ago, you've really gone out of your way. I think I'm trying to remember what did I do? Well, there were soccer, sock are a minimum of college trades. Yeah, that one. Yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah, you've really mended fences. You and Justin Varier should get together and talk about his garden and everything else that's going on in Portland. Nick's that land is a really good series. And I really wish that land was playing Cleveland because I thought that I think Atlanta could have beaten Cleveland. We'll see with Alexander Walker because the nicks are just so confident and comfortable in these fourth quarters. And it's the big fair of your Celtic fan. I think the Celtics have a better team and more talent. And yet they're going to have to win these fourth quarters. And the nicks are really, really, really good, really confident and really comfortable. The tighter the game gets. And I think it's really hard to win an MSG too. Even despite there was when they started to come back. And like the game's over. And it got to eight and all the sudden you could feel everybody with the Halliburton thought bubble MSG. And it got in the building. Yeah, it got quite for like a split second. The dancers visited. I thought I know Van Gottny was on your pod recently and so I'm not sucking up. I think he's been excellent this year with announcing. He's awesome. And I think the key with him was he's just he's a two man booth guy. Way better if it's just him in the play by play guy. And he can just do his thing versus like having to share the ball. I thought I thought he was all over. What was that? He did that game, right? He did. Yeah. Yeah. I thought he was all over that game and all the angles and like picking up stuff in the moment. The same way we would have were watching on the couch. Like, oh, Risa Shay Yikes might not be able to put him back in. And like, like Jeff, he's very good at translating, like, X's and O stuff into quick TV friendly. Like, oh, that's what's happening. Like in the last one, the thing I'll watch in game two is, you know, Atlanta, late in the game made the switch that I was sort of wondering when they would do it. They took a Congu off cat and put him on Josh Hart and put Dyson Daniels on cat because cat was just killing them with the spacing is passing the two man game with Brunson. And that meant they had to move Siege. I'm a column on the McHale Bridges. Like, there's all these domino effects of just like, what do we do with cat? Do we put our centers anywhere but cat because he's making pick and pop. He's rolling to the rim. He's doing cat stuff. So that would be and that's the kind of thing that Stan sees that on possession one. And in eight words can describe like why they're doing that. Right. Yeah. The Celtics are going to be in a weird spot and round two if that's the series because weirdly, Kate is putting Kate against Robinson is just better. And I wonder if they're going to try to either go a little smaller against towns or maybe try some Garza or like what they're going to do to try to use towns against himself basically. But the big switch the Celts have for round two would be Tatum at the five with Brown with a shooter and with the two guards and then make towns basically have to guard a shooter no matter where he is. But I thought that was good next. The NBA just released its award finalist. Do you want to do you want to hear them or no? Do you care? Awards finalist for well, we know what MVP is. How many are there three? Three in each category. So we can who is the third for coach of the year? Coach of the year is not listed here. So MVP was the three rookie. The year was Edgecom was third. Rookie. Rookie of the year is also being announced later. We have six man most improved defensive player of the year and clutch player of the year. Oh, those finalists have been announced. What was clutch? Who was the third three finalists are SGA, Anthony Edwards and Jamal Murray are the three finalists for clutch player of the year? No, Bronson. Bronson apparently snubbed from reading my email from Mark Prasard correctly. Wow. Really good sign for a Pistons fans. Asar Thompson is the third finalist and defensive player of the year. A lot of chat and Wembee. I voted for him. Six man of the year. Surprise third finalist. I would say I would classify this as a surprise. Hi, my Huck is junior Kelden Johnson. Tim Hardaway Jr. The third finalist. Wow. Six man of the year. Jesus. I want to know that. Let's play. What do you do really quick? Then we'll go Golden State. They have Curry at 62. They have Butler at 56.8 and Dream on at 27.7. So not a lot of flexibility there. Both of those last two are expirings. Hortford, Santos, Pods, Milton, Moody at 12.2 out for next year under contract. They have the full mid level. They've the 11th pick in the draft and less and less and less. They get a little lucky. They get a little Adam Sover fairy dust on the pick and the top four 10% I don't know where I'm applying 10% well just saying if we're doing the what's to a fantasy draft of who if they did rig the lottery who would who would they rig the lottery for this year go and stay with a number on pick poor Zengus for agent GP2 is a free agent so my what do you do here if I can get LeBron and do the expendables I draft a guard with the 11 pick I file on for them would be unbelievable the Alabama guard who's like just high IQ leader defensive but also can be guys off the dribble burrs if they could somehow get him would be amazing near his own guy can I throw a Jimmy Butler Moody in our 2027 first top four protected for Sir bonus and DeMar de Rosen trade at you no you may not I would I would I will not give you permission you know you're just rejecting it but I'm rejecting the concept of it I'm rejecting all of it two expiring contracts and my top four protected pick and I'll take Sir bonus and DeMar de Rosen off your hands and you can do a full rebuild no no no who says no I say no and the warriors say no the warriors say that okay it's too much too much money let me look at Sir bonus contract I just don't know what that's doing for me like I've got to live in a world where I'm actually trying to give Steph Curry a chance to be too too with the thunder and the spurs and the nuggets next year in the second round like that's that's what I'm trying to do I like I need I need to aim differently than that okay so give me your solution what do we do well I think I think we're going to do see them do all the stuff that we think they're going to do which is can we get LeBron is Kauai Leonard potentially available we know they've looked at him but we have four first round picks to trade more or less and is is that enough to get in the honest conversation I'm not sure but I think it's it's all that because I just don't you know everyone's going to construct their fantasy Curry deals and this and that I just don't they're not trading Curry I don't see it happening they also have a coach that was pretty open about like hey as we've been talking about for months now it's like I may not be here next year and so that affects a lot of they've got to figure that out and and because if Steve Curry's the coach you've got to as we've now learned you probably should use that hydra pick on a player who's going to be able to function in Steve Curry's system now and not do what they did with Camingo or Franz Wagner or you trade that 11th pick or you do that and you add a couple other picks maybe try to get like a like a trade Murphy type sure I mean because that's our only goal right our only goal is hey wouldn't it be awesome game five in San Antonio it's two two next year just in the second round of the playoffs in the first round just like well it just fun fun for another year Butler could be stretched which I don't think they would do 56.8 so you could stretch it out over five years and I think it would cost them 11 million a year um I don't even know why they would do that because I don't think it would create enough cap space to do anything crazy probably better off having him as an expiring or maybe they hope he comes back um the LeBron piece will be the fun part of this because I do like the idea of the old guy team and kind of leaning into that is porzinga somebody you'd bring back I think don't look at it because I just think the market for him is going to be very cool based on his availability issues so maybe it's a one year deal maybe it's one plus one the number is not too big he does add and you could see glimpses of like this makes sense a shooting five we've not really had this in a little while and then he was heard on Friday he was limping around and it was like what happened you played one game and you're already hurt and then they got a Pajemski extension staring him in the face Pajemski had a good year for them I I'm interested to see how those talks go yeah there's this new version of post last cba of uh yeah we're actually not going to extend you let's just play it out um which has not gone well really in any situation that we had it went poorly with cam Thomas although there are reasons for that it went poorly with caminga um I've always wondered why you had to do the extension if you didn't want to because all they become is eventually an unrestricted fridge and nobody ever has cap space so I do think the teams have a little more leverage which should realize but uh yes agree it's weird I like subonus for them and I know I'm in the minority and I know there's some people that are out on him and think he makes too much money but if you're if you're looking for the right guy to be with Dremond one of the things for them is rebounding right um I think he's high IQ and you could run off and through him and put him at the top of the key I think he can post up I think you can play him and Dremond together um I think he's expendable and Sacramento for a hundred reasons including the fact that uh the rookie look good for them the rookie center and uh mech seem right now red who can't guard anybody like literally anybody but at least you could talk to self into no he does not play defense he doesn't all right it's bad got to just be nice give me a nice thing he's a rookie you know his hair is flopping around he's trying real hard let him let him be well this leads to the next one which is the clippers wait can we just stop on sub like so subonus I understand everything you're saying play the split game with him in the post all the stuff that he does but subonus plus Dremond plus Butler is like a lot of guys who know one's guarding but Butler would have to be in the in the subonus straight right so you're throwing him out yeah okay okay anyway what was the next one well clippers it's just do we keep koai for another year it's too hard to predict what they're going to do because it all depends on this indie pick if they get five six seven eight nine they're getting a blue chip guy there's the straps awesome they can get eight cuff at five they can get buries they can get walk there the Illinois kid them getting in that stretch probably means you could trade koai or garland or trade back and try to get more assets like it would just open up a lot of like I was thinking if they got the fifth pick from Indiana which I think the lowest Indiana can go is maybe sixth because they can drop four spots that's it so if they got the fifth pick and Dallas got eight could they drop back three spots with Dallas because Dallas would want the best guard take buries who'd be perfect for them with with garland because he's a two guard and get more assets from Dallas and then kind of be ready to roll I think they would be thinking about stuff like that they they're probably one of the more creative front offices right then Zubat straight was really creative creative yeah is that the word you want to create create yeah they're a little outside the box but I could see them that they got the fifth pick from Indiana being oh I see where you're going yeah they're creative listen be creative in a lot of ways um there is a case to be so so it's a very interesting situation right because again for the next whatever years they don't control their pick right so they can't tank or they they can't get reap the benefits of tanking anyway so there's a swap next year with okay see somehow this Paul George trade it's just never going to end it goes on forever it's like her face and garland you know 42 45 million the next two years in his prime like you're you kind of are designing a team that's living in a couple of different worlds like you have a near house or who's a good young center you and I both like him yeah matter in I think it's like TBD if he's on the team next year it did not did not finish the season well he's an RFA so they could just do basically the coming of the next year um well he's not under he's he's a straight free agent though he's he's he's an or he's a restrictive agent this summer right I see what you mean that could just one plus one number something and then you could argue like even if they are kind of semi designed to be competitive now and Balmer always wants to be competitive and they don't control their pick I mean my choice to with Kauai are ride it out extend him again um or like is he did he just have the healthiest season he's ever going to have again that's why I did I'm trading to move off him now I'm trading him the problem is he knows where the bodies were buried if bodies are buried who knows who knows the conversations that have taken place not accusing anyone in any direction I'm just saying they've gone through a lot them and Kauai um I would trade Kauai I don't think he's he's for what he did what was it his year 15 season don't like that 2011 draft he averaged 28 points a game and played six five minute games um um if the Warriors are like we still want Kauai I'd be like great give us the 11th pick back let's go do you did you have him second or third team Olympia Kauai item seconds yeah um so they have two variables here one is that indie pick is it going to be five or basically are they going to be picking five or six or does that roll over to 2031 and then are is there going to be repercussions from the aspiration thing or not we still don't know we still don't have a decision on that um so too hard to decide but Kauai for Butler with the words throwing in a pick or more stuff does fade under the cap Butler makes a little more than Kauai but you could do that I think I think the Clippers if they ever got to this discussion where they were going to trade Kauai or even think about it and the teams that called on him are not really sure they were thinking about it at this past trade deadline I think they would treat him not as I I think they would say he's an all NBA player we want we're not trading him for an injured player in one first round pick even a good one and we want multiple first-round pickings. And like we want not quite a trove of everything because because it's quiet and he's old and there's a lot of baggage But I don't think they're gonna sell like low-ish on him The other two teams are Miami and Charlotte Charlottes in a great spot and Charlotte. I don't think we need to belabor this one. They have the 14th pick They have their own first and 27. They have a top two protected Dallas first and 27 great Dallas. They have an unprotected Miami first and 27 And some really good things all around. I think There's they're kind of riding with Lamello either way I think he's there next year even if it ended pretty weird and they have Miller and Khan making a combined 25 million They have bridges as an expiring. They have bridges Williams and and Grant Williams and Josh Green Are basically like 52 million of expirings that could be used for a honest trade By the way Charlotte a little closer to Greece You're gonna make a face when I say this, but I thought no, I just like the Greece proximity. That's all closer Just saying it's closer. It's on the east coast Well then Miami is the other team that got bounced and they're just a no-man's land team They've they got the 13th pick in the draft, but for the most part. I don't norm powell I think that contract probably slid backwards as the year went along They have BAM hero and Wiggins for a combined 110 million They have this Yovic extension that kicks in next year for 16.2 million. Good luck with that guys I wonder if these two teams are the answers to each other's problems Okay Is BAM on a bio on the table? I could offer you bridges and Grant Williams he'd be so good there. Oh my god. I could give you your 27 first back Now you have it unprotected. You have all your first again. I could give you my 14th pick I could give you that Dallas pick I could give you a 2029 first Here's everything I got give us BAM and now I have BAM con Brandon Miller, Lamello and some role guys. Let's fucking go BAM is from North Carolina and he has a family and friends that go to every Charlotte game You like these he'd be so good there It's a come to Jesus moment for Miami, right because Bams the captain. He's the last guy they want to trade He's a personification of heat culture and that's all real. They all love him You saw how they reacted to his eight three-point game his mom being on the floor all that stuff But they are at a moment where they just Can't deny anymore that this is all they are they already didn't extend hero and that you know just continues to be an ongoing thing Yobach didn't pop where's good, but the where BAM fit is always gonna be where's fine. He's fine Like I'm not sure what he's gonna be but I I just think that fit is gonna be a little clunky here and there all the time Hockets is fine. Yaccatunus look good, but like you're not this core is not winning you anything and they have to know that now There's no hope for it and you're in a conference with the trade Boston the next Atlanta who's gonna get a top 10 pick Charlotte You have washed in them might win the lottery et cetera, et cetera you've from an asset standpoint. I'm starting to get really scared of my Amy I love that you threw Washington and that was very nice for you. You're slandering Maxine Reno But you're gonna give the wizards some props. Well, they might get they might get the bandsa who knows they're gonna get one of those guys, right? But but the other thing Miami has to know is the kings you call them the Hindenburg in October now Now you're like I just I just feel bad. I mean, I love it I've had Ray no first team all rookie So I'm just like I might get I might get as Jersey or something. I don't know. I must do like them because you could probably score 20 points on them if he was guarding you My jumper is actually looking pretty good right now Uh, that was mean The other but the other thing for Miami is like we all know who the best player that's potentially available this summer Like the best best guy the blockbuster guy is honest, right? And we know that Miami has flirted with the honest before They were one of the teams that was in Whatever was going on in February, but you also just have to ask yourself is is If we get to the end of that and we get you honest and everyone's gonna be celebrating Hey, we didn't get damn we didn't well. We got we got you honest and I'm left with bam And you honest And Davie on Mitchell yeah, what am I and also bam and you honest. What is that? So like I don't know And then the other path is no, we're just gonna build it slow We're gonna do what we do. We're gonna build it slow We have a lottery pick. We're not gonna do anything exuberant. We're if it but then you're okay Just being like a nice frisky team next shot. I don't I don't and I don't know what they're okay with and what they're appetite for risky in either direction really is Bams going into year 10 He is going to turn 29 years old Next season he'd be so good in Charlotte. I'm so jealous that she thought of this is honest is four years older than him with even more miles Because he came into the league sooner and I think you could make the case for what the cost would be for Janus and Bams probably 80 cents of that right And Bams younger and more durable and a better fit for Charlotte. I think less than 80 cents Maybe 60 cents whatever it is, but if I'm Charlotte I would rather go for bam with my young guys because if I get Janus It's like it now I'm beholden. I did all the work on this you know a few weeks ago in the pod about Like some real historical concerns like he's gonna be able to stay in the court in the right ways whereas bam I know for at least Year 10 11 12 13. I should be good At the very least the next four he'll be at the same 2010 level with the same excellent defense And I don't know I just think these two teams make sense is trade partners There's also a jaren jackson junior thing with bams contract where We all well, I mean, I think I'm a little higher on triple jade than you are, but like everyone agrees Bam is a really good player like there's just no debate that bam is really good There is some debate about low has 50 50 million 54 57 player option like is if I got good value like I think the I think the Grizzlies got The best value they were going to get right for jaren jackson junior on the contract that he's on And bam is like is the three pointer real semi real like if it doesn't if it proves not super real How is he gonna age like I think there's some chance that if you can turn that contract into similar return To what the Grizzlies got for triple j that it would it would be it would age is like a pretty good trade I just know that Miami hesitant him. He just means that much to to what their franchises It's a tough one. This is the problem with the league You don't want to be stuck in the middle, but you also want to have the guys that your fans can wear as jersey And they play for the team for 15 to 20 years, but you know I look at like when the when the Celtics cut the cord with Pierce and KG which was just cold blooded But it was the best thing they ever did right and Danny out of anybody was always willing to think that way And I think if the path is to nowhere, which I think it is for Miami I think you really have to think about how do we blow this up the fact that Charlotte owns their pick To me makes this a lot easier because then it's like all right. We're throwing away one year We're getting all these assets back and we can at least talk ourselves into this um There's also the variable that if you're a team like um Because I think it's it's a lottery protected pick next year right and then no that happened this year next year It's I think it's free next year. I'd have to look um There's also the what do the lottery rules look like because if you're a team like Miami And you think the odds are just going to get severely flattened which I think is the most likely outcome You all of a sudden maybe don't mind as much if we are That's a really win team or 42 win team because we like there's not as much benefited being super like the middle has become more profitable I think I think all of these teams are grappling with How soon are these changes going to come because we need to start planning like the these kind of directional pivots If I'm sure that I feel great where I am. I have a lot of flexibility um I didn't like how the season ended. I don't think Con was healthy Orlando played the best game they played all year. There's a lot of things that went wrong that took a big lead early um The big thing Charlotte has to figure out is Where do we go with the mellow for actually trying to win multiple playoff rounds and I don't know the answer He does some perplexing stuff game to game that is fundering the rig is he an 82 game guy or a 60 or 16 to 20 game guy Is what they need to decide with him. I thought he had just some head scratching Crazy moments in both games that may be really really wonder like Is this somebody you're giving the car keys to I'll stop making driving analogies with a mellow. You're just walking into your walk. Yeah, I'm setting myself up I did wonder like it's con did cons back at hurt because I didn't have them adjust the seat move it back a little bit Maybe the seat was too high up. Maybe it was my fault I just don't look lamello had a you called as the drunk as game of the year It was severely intoxicated and lamello's last 90 seconds was like a whirlwind of I just don't even understand what's the day one I just don't understand what's happening But Khan was not playing well. Miller was fine. Like there are offenses just a different beast with lamello on the floor He defended much better this year. He's only 24. He's only 24 like he's still like entering his prime I think his contract is fine. I think trading him would be It just depends what you would get but I it's hard like I'm not I'm not messing with this right now if I'm Charlotte I like these three guys together. I want to see more of it. I want to see lamello's growth continue Um, I'm not messing with it. I'm not messing with the day there. I would have some concerns after those last two games. I mean, I would just be thinking about it all summer, like, especially watching the playoffs and watching these four rounds. And just certain things that have to happen if you're a really serious playoff team. Can you have that kind of volatility with your best guy who has the ball? Who's like, I'm just gonna take this 30 footer right now, even though there's 30 seconds left to do it that game. I'm just gonna take it. It makes me nervous. - The two of 16, the two of 16 from three or whatever it was in that Miami game was like a little and then the fouling hero, the turno. - Yeah, it was a lot, it was absolutely a lot. - All right, Zacklow, even though the med season is in shambles, you're gonna be doing your podcast Tuesday morning and Thursday morning. Thanks to Miklo Ultra, thanks to Gihau and Eduardo, as well. New rewatchables coming on Monday to kindergarten cop. You watch that one with your daughter yet? Too violent, your wife doesn't like violence. - I have been, I remember being very fond of it however many years ago it came out. - It's tremendous. - I don't know what's in there. There's gotta be stuff that's aged poorly, but maybe not, I don't know. - And then Ghostbusters the week after. - Oh my God. - Yeah. Turns out that was a successful movie that a lot of people had seen. So that's all coming. Anyway, I'll be back on Tuesday. Zack, I will see you next Sunday. We'll have a lot more playoff clarification back then. - Let's go. - All right, let's do it. [no speech detected] - Must be 21 plus in present and select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas star Casino or 18 plus in present and DC Kentucky or Wyoming. Game problem call 1-800-Gamber or 1-800-My Reset. Call 888-797-777 or visit ccpg.org/chatcomanticate or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. 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