The Bill Simmons podcast brought to you by Fandall. We are also brought to you by the Ringer podcast network where I put up a new rewatchables. On Monday, we did Ghostbusters. First time ever, we did that one. It was me and Chris Ryan and Van Lathan. That one you can watch on Netflix, all the movies that we're doing for basically the next 10 weeks are all going to be available on Netflix, including in May, a bunch of comedies. We actually got them to listen to something. I'm not sure which ones we're doing out of these, but I know what we're doing next Monday because it's going to be there's something about Mary. That's available on Netflix in May. They're going to have Animal House, Borat, 48 hours, Tropic Thunder, Splash, Tootsie, just a slew of them. When May hits, go check it out and we are going to do them all through May and then June moves into From Hell Month, which is the month I had the most excited about in rewatchable sister. I'll explain more when we get to June, but there's something about Mary, Monday, yeah, Legata, which is our narrative series that we're doing episode five drop today. It is I think a seven episode series, but please catch up on that if you haven't been listening to that. Don't forget about Todd McShay, did a bunch of great NFL draft stuff. He has his two early mock draft newsletter that that went out I think today and then Sean Fantasy, who was on this podcast on Thursday. He's doing his projections newsletter as we try to try to ease into newsletters a little bit more. I like newsletters. I wish my fingers still work. That would have a newsletter coming up on this podcast, me and Joe House and Chris Ryan. We recorded right after the three Tuesday night playoff games and then we go in a time machine. House and I did a mail back. I had so many mail back questions. I had to rip through them. So House and I did that actually before the Tuesday games. So it's going to be me see our house basically live right after the games and then we go backwards in time of few hours and we're doing a mail back with Joe House. So that's the podcast. We're going to break and then project. The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by Fandall. The NBA postseason is here and Fandall knows the only thing better than watching your favorite team win is winning along with them. Fandall, the best place to bet the teams, players and plays during their playoff run. Build the same game parlay or try live betting and jump in after tip off. Don't forget with Fandall, you get paid instantly when you win. Download the Fandall sports book app now and play your game. 21 plus select states are 18 plus DC Kentucky or Wyoming game probably called 100 gamble or call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat Connecticut. All right, little past 915 Pacific time were presented by new era for this first segment. CR is here. Chris Ryan, fresh off a dramatic sixers win. Joe House also here, fresh off a non dramatic spurs blazers game. The spurs wrapped it up. We made the fatal mistake of waiting for the entire game to end before we started this segment. I'm sorry, guys. You just never know with Denny and the frisky blazers what they were capable of. Let's talk six or Celtics first. CR, do you expect a win tonight? What were you expecting? No, I expected this to be my customary cuck position where Boston defeats Philadelphia and something and I have to come on and listen to you talk about Jordan Walsh, but you got a big heart. Don't let anybody ever tell you otherwise, Bill. Here we are going back to Philly for game six and what a joell and beat night. That was really great. That actually was like a really great sports moment for me. What was the story for you house as a non biased non sixers and non Celtics fan? Another guaranteed loser on an all-truck chalk parlay. Oh, let's sit down and look at these favorites. Okay, Boston clothes out, spurs clothes out, Nix Atlanta. I'm not sure. Let's see. Let's just go ahead and parlay all the favorites and give some money away to the sports book. Honestly, throwing the Celtics as a big favorite at home, I was texting you guys on the gambling thread. Just a mistake. The Celtics in the last five playoffs, including the 22 and they made the finals, 25 and 11 on the road and 24 and 17 at home, just over and over again. I don't know how many times they've lost as big favorites, but it's already happened twice this series. This went beyond like regardless of if they finished Philly off or if they just have an unbelievable dramatic 1982 reverse, I guess it would be 1981 reverse of going up 31 and then blowing the last three games, which Chris and sixers did in 1981 to get the Celtics. This is ridiculous. If we flip that, and you guys come back, no big picture. I have some, I'm developing some real concerns with the Celtics team, okay. And I think you saw some of that tonight, like this Derek White thing is a real problem. He's averaging 8.2 points a game in the playoffs. He's shooting 29.8% and he's made five of 21.3s. And it felt like CR, the sixers were just leaving him open tonight. Yeah. I mean, I think that this was a little bit more about what the sixers did right than what the Celtics did wrong. But Derek White has definitely not blown my mind in this series. He's obviously like accrued enough credit in the NBA that like it doesn't really matter if he has like an off series or something like that. But it wasn't even like I was when I was watching I wasn't like, well, it's not like he's on VJ Island or something like that. Like I couldn't really figure out if he was being shut down with somebody in particular. He just seems like he's just missing something from his game right now. And the sixers like, you know, the sixers hit their threes tonight. That was the big shot. And it started to indeed, yeah, this confidence swoon happened for White in 2022. House in the fight. And the basically the whole playoffs. You remember that Joe? Of course. 2022. I was there. Well, this is a weird one because it was on the fringe of happy in the whole year. It was probably the reason he didn't make the All Star team because this shooting stuff wasn't good enough. And it felt like it was getting worse. And now, now it's a problem. I mean, my dad was at the game and he was saying that the fans are really mad that him bring Richard in sooner. They brought him in four minutes left, really after the game and the Sultzman's 12 shots and wrote down the stretch in the fourth quarter. And they put big minutes on Brown and Tatum, which I thought was also with 40, 40 plus minutes for each. And I guess the part that I don't understand watching this, when we talk about the sixers in a second, they had this whole bench mob thing and all these different lineups they could do. And they were going small and big and all these different looks and it just feels like that are going chalk against the sixers in a way that I don't understand whereas nurse, I feel like has changed stuff as the series went along. And now he's like, and Beads back, we're playing six guys today. Yeah. It was like seven minutes. Barlow played five. They really went six. They went big minutes for everybody. And they felt like they had real advantages, right? Yeah. And this was one of those games where I think that if you're a sixers fan, if you watch them, you can see sometimes when a beat comes back into the mix, he seems to discombobulate the guards a little bit. Like they're not playing at the pace that they want to play at. There's not much. But yeah. But seeing him out there tonight, he was the best player on the floor the whole night. And when he went out with the knee scare, that was, I was like, oh, that's the end of the series that if this is it for him, and that's really tough. But like, pretty, pretty amazing him coming back in now like, he's got Keta and Garza and you know, he's not like exactly facing a Lajuan. But like, he's doing a really nice job against those guys. And I thought it defensively, he was awesome tonight. The kind of turning point was that that layup he swallowed on Tatum, where he just kind of like, yeah, changed his mind mid mid air, Maxie stole it, PG gets it on the wing and pops it out to edge, come on for three. And that kind of like, every time the Celtics threatened to leave the earth's atmosphere, the sixers pulled them back in, and it was mostly because of the beat. Yeah. My dad was saying he thought that we're going to go up 15, 16, 17 in the first half, never got there. Sixers hung around. And beat stopped chucking threes house. That was the other thing. That was the only thing once he started playing around the basket, the whole offense changed it felt like. The only way for the Celtics to stop and beat was to encourage him to shoot more threes. And at halftime, he went in having missed six of them and said, you know what? Maybe I should step inside the three point line, distribute some. The sixers shot seven of 12 from the three point line in the third quarter. And and beat made seven of his first nine shots in the third quarter. And that swung the entire game. There were down 13 in the third quarter, the sixers were. And the Celtics were mainly scoring inside in the first half. All of their points. This was, this is a reminder of who this Celtics team is. It is a team very much in transition. This wasn't, this wasn't a team built for a championship run, a deep run. It is by happenstance, good fortune, good planning that this team was as competitive as they were this season, Tatum's return is really a goddamn miracle. But this is not a team, a Celtics team built for a championship run. They're going to live and die on three point variance and tonight they die. They had three guys on the entire roster with double digit shot attempts. And they have three guys who scored in in double digits. That's not a recipe for success.
And they don't have anybody to guard and beat or to really take advantage of his immobility Except for the three-point shot if it doesn't fall there But that was weird about it. First of all, I'm fine with him being getting to When you start doubling him and giving up threes that's one. I think stuff can multiply and sixers guys can get hot So I'd I just like let him be at score if he's gonna have 40's gonna have 40 But don't let the other guys get going and then on offense I just like just go at either go at him attack him or go smaller and pull him out make him have to guard somebody And they didn't really do either. He was kind of just floating around in the middle I'd seem like they were really afraid to challenge him and then a couple times when they did it was like those half-ass challenges that he swallowed up Hey listen There's a weird Jalen Brown thing happened in this series too that the stats don't totally back up I'm just going I test from what I watched her in the season. I thought the sixers have done this whole series that they made It really hard for him to go buy people It's also been a bit of a vintage Paul George defense. He's been really good. He was really good again And they played 43 minutes sky. We thought this guy how should I talk about him later in the mailbag? We thought this was a guy in his way out of the league and I think he's been a real asset in the series But Jalen's had Jalen was he I think he made the most two-point baskets of anyone in the league this season Was really good in the getting to the paint and getting these good shots and was doing it all year against Blue Dort all these a-list defenders And Philly has really I think throttled him a little bit even when he's scoring. They're really tough shots You know Tatum's been up and down which you can expect but I think he's probably been the most consistent player And then the fact that they're getting no offense from weight if they get a game like Pritchard today where it's 12 points All right, well now where am I getting the rest of my offense? Well, it's not coming from the bench with the defense going nuts back and forth So eat I feel differently about this series than then Hawks Nick's where it's just like there's just been in a complete reverse and like the talent kind of shit Well, I think the next figured out the series and it's three two but the Hawks won two one-point games. I Don't I don't necessarily think the Celtics are gonna lose the series and their minus 2,200 to win it But I think Philly has a lot of confidence against him and I thought the only thing that makes me think it's not going Seven is just that Philly tightens up playing in in Philly like I don't I don't know what the record is in the playoffs over the four years Like you just said, but like they they feel like they play a little more free on the road and this was like a very Celtic certainly do. Yeah, and this was just a great anti-cancun game Like these were a bunch of guys who were just like we don't want our series our season to end tonight I think and you could see also for as much Backroom stuff as Sixers fans engage with of like oh should we you know Is this is is it for him be should we trade him should he ask out whatever like that team was really playing for him as much as with him and I think that I Think that was like a really nice meaningful capstone on what it's been like a very troubled season for him Yeah, I think that's fair. He looked really good today The Celts have some moves I Think a little more picture like yeah, yeah, I think I think they really have to figure out the bench like charm And once again didn't play a lot and and I think he's important, but it just feels like they need more energy and some more fight The problem tonight the Sixers had the two best guys in the game So when I think like you're up three two in a series, but you just played a game five that you didn't just lose But the there were two guys in the game who stood out and you had neither of them That's a problem and then the three-point variance with the Sixers You know if they're missing threes It's gonna come down to whether You know and be just can put the whole team on his back, which I'm dubious of because I thought he looked exhausted. Oh, yeah I'm in the quarter It's been a little bit of the thing with nurses that he Ground maxi down a lot during the season nurse places guys a lot he played him a lot in Toronto and then Tonight I just felt like the team was gas And we were I luckily Boston didn't have that much in the tank either But turning around and playing on Thursday does not inspire me with like much Cinderella confidence You know like I'm not excited about seeing Joelle and what 48 hours rest right after big minutes house I thought that move tonight. I thought for shirt Missoula was gonna do this was go back to kind of the regular season Kind of lineup rotation that the Celta had go big on the bench Try to get some confidence for Shireman for Walsh, maybe even Hugo a little Garza and try to do this was a team that in game 82 They benched everybody and beat Orlando with their g-league team because they had these guys that actually played really well together I thought they would do that instead. They put big minutes on brown and Tatum and I must wonder if Missoula's like we're gonna close them out We'll get rest we'll put big minutes and now they're playing 40 minutes later and Tatum's played big minutes in this series So yeah, I think this series has already been like turned out not awesome for the Celtics like this should be over already And it's not I agree with all of that except the Thing is you know again that that's who the Celtics team is like Tonight should have been the night that they did the kind of hockey lineup Kind of rotation right all those guys play good at home. They all feed off of that home grab that that that bench mob and that might have Changed the energy, but Missoula's playing, you know kind of a longhand here right but the the longhand is to get Well, but you want Tatum and brown on the same page if you're gonna make a deep. Oh, you feel like he's like almost He's almost like Pressure testing the the partnership in a game where he's like I bet we're gonna win the series if we just win one more on the next three Yes, that is exactly what I think that that's the truth the strategic call that I think he made Instead of doing the thing that what would have changed the energy in the first half which was going in that bench mob direction That's been successful so the Celtics all season long. I think they they need JT and JB to play together. I mean JB was shot 39% from the field today and and could not it felt worse anything in terms of that that penetration It's the point that the bill made where he was getting those two's all season long. It's playoff time And the one thing the sixers have is good perimeter defense of Paul George is healthy. Yeah, and he is and so there you go And he hits his threes then like Yeah, I mean exactly I know whatever the reverse of Zacklow's stat from the other night where it was like VJ Edge comes over 16 and sixers playoff losses this year. So yeah, right It's like if he's hitting three out of six like we're we're looking pretty good I know I gotta say I mean for as much as bill like I You know admire what the Celtics have accomplished without Tatum and then bringing him back into the fold Like if you have imbied maxi Paul George playing well in edgham rising And grimes having a hot night. I'll put them up against the Celtics like you can hang with it for five sure Yeah, hang, you know Yeah, grimes. It was really good today. I really liked I thought he should have been playing more in the series Played 24 minutes tonight. He was blessed he's addicted to Kelly Ubray. I know Just two four point plays Grimes is one of those when he's open. I feel like it's going in It's like fuck This is happening. So yeah, they had they have some momentum You we haven't have we had like an incredible maxi game yet I guess I mean he I think he's sort of I think his finger hurts I think he's he still has like a kind of busted hand and I think he's tired, but I think There was more zip in his game tonight and I felt like the Even if it wasn't exactly like Denver level it was the dribble handoff stuff That him and you and be were doing at the top of the key and whipping the ball around like it just felt like they were like We're not going home tonight like this is not the end of the season and if they can bring that Thursday You never know my dad was excited. This this is rekindled my excitement, you know My dad was pretty disgusted afterwards. I though the Bruins. I don't know if he's a pastor neck big overtime call So that kind of lifted his that was on my smaller TV. Yeah, be but he uh He was pretty he was just like you could feel it That the game never had the right flow even when we had the lead and it just something felt Off about it house. I'm gonna go glass half full on it though I do think this Celtics team. I'm okay with them having some adversity and seeing if they can ride through it or not With with the Tatum just being thrown back into this like this. They're the Brown together Them trying to like let's see it now. Let's go to Philly for a game six Philly's got confidence and beat is probably the best center. They're gonna play in a playoff round until the unless they can somehow get to the finals and play Whoever comes out of the West and and let's like they found out tonight vucabitch Against some of these big scoring centers. He's just not it's not happening. He's not stopping anybody and he's a real liability So what does that mean are they you know smaller et cetera et cetera her nose uh the Hawks nix so I gotta say like Who would you let's say the Celtics get through this six or series and the next finish off at Lina Who do you think would win a nix Celtic series because I almost even though game sevens in Boston I almost feel like the nix would have to be a Slight favorite in that serious house How would you have the odds they will be favored because the Celtics have home court advantage um Well for an advantage that has not mattered to them as much as it should have for five years like I don't know what's the first reason why you say that bill The nix were built to beat the Celtics. I think they have a lot of confidence playing the Celtics And I think they have a little more cohesion like you saw tonight when they can turn on their defense in Brunson
You know, can have a game like he had tonight they're really good like they have the Celtics are a little bit by the three died by the three or some of their bench stuff the next feel like a little more consistent to me for a series. But the Celtics I think I really want to see them battle through the adversity or what do you think of. I have the next in the finals so I mean that you know my prediction for this NBA finals was the next in the nuggets good luck that that's not happening well but the next part of it you know this this this little Odyssey this mini experiment with Atlanta when we were sitting back looking at the playoff matchups before the games got started we we kind of circled this mix hocks is like if we're if you're looking for one where it might be. Surprisingly competitive yeah that this might fit the bill because this this Atlanta team is that kind of multifaceted they can definitely defend. The one thing they can't defend is Carl Anthony towns and Carl Anthony towns the most important thing the next did was make sure that he got touches in the first quarter yeah he ended up with. With he didn't score 20 points but he was a very very important part of the offense in the first quarter he got off yeah yeah and that really set them up they they basically got out to the lead that they never really relinquished over the balance of the game for the first quarter on even bringing an Alvarado for these little camera you know it feels like it's super charged them which is what I was saying about the Celts before like the Celts used to get that from the bench even let the little Alvarado run Brunson was masterful tonight. The CJ piece was really interesting CR. Yeah so I was mostly watching six or Celtics and by the time I flipped over this was pretty much over so he only had six points what happened here. Yeah he just was a non factor I think what happened is he's 34 years old and old guys in the playoffs just you know you're going to have nights where they just don't have it like you said you're holiday tonight in the San Antonio game was another one. It can look great in a game two all the sudden a game five it's a two for 15 but they I guess the benefit house was that was CJ now they're not going to have to pay him 35 million dollars a year in the free agency and he kind of Peters out near the end maybe they get him on a better deal. They put Daniels on cat they put a Congwu and OG and they put Alexander Walker on Brunson and watching in the beginning I was like oh I like this I like Daniels on Towns this is good and then the next figured it out in about 10 minutes and that was that but I think CR I think we can retire the CJ McCollum on the Regime or Villain MSG storyline to be fair to him I think he was like I think he didn't you want to settle down juice like I'm 34 I do wonder whether or not the front row of Stiller Tina Fey Tracy Morgan and Shalame was don't forget Jenner and Jenner and whether that was like kind of like a hat tip to Adam silver like this we can't lose for these guys like kind of situation. First great to see Shalame back out there. Yeah, having fun again that it feels like the Oscars were a million years ago when was he not that he's living his life I'm glad he's not wearing his Dicks concerns on his face but I it's playoffs really feels like the Knicks fans have passed the Laker fans from a star power standpoint. This that was a pretty impressive five some that they had tried it out I was like wow. This is this is good I don't know what the Lakers equipment that the Lakers are really struggling as Jack is getting older I think they really Yeah, like that's true who's the mayor of the Lakers really tough like you you hope that in Zell but then Zell is like also a Knicks fan he's like a sports big a mist. The police don't make it on the screen. Yeah you have free of Diane canon like they can't gosh there in a knife fight with like a little like butterhouse. Yeah, they really need to double down on a on their fan base. Yeah, so I guess going forward with the Knicks. The only thing is bridges just seems like he's a section eight at this point offensively and that's just how it's going to go but they what the Knicks had in game four with the bean down to one. This is a real people staring at each other. The fans freaking out. All right, what do we got? And so we're going to come together and they did. It's not far away from where the Celtics are these next couple days now where they really look they they legitimately lost tonight. That was not a we didn't hit our threes. That's why we do it. It was like they get their butt speed tonight in the second half. So what is that going to mean and what adjustments are they spurs blazers. Thanks anyway Portland. Thanks for thanks for all your efforts and your concerns. Thanks Danny. Thanks Danny. You you tried you got mad at people a couple times you lost half of a tooth. Yeah, thanks to your holiday enjoyed your performance. Thanks good Henderson for that quick little cameo that boosted my stock before doing Harper took it to them. Don't even cling and can he make a three point shot or do I have I just not seen it. He'll take him. Yeah, he'll make he'll make you think about him. Yeah, he'll shoot at him. Yeah. Yeah, he'll take it. He's no drum and drum and just automatically from the corner now in Jesus. Yeah, so how is this a sweep without the when we can cushion. Yes, yes, it is, but you know, I want to give some flowers to this Portland team. They were in it like you know, they fought that was a they showed the value of you know pushing all the way to to the end. Because there was kind of an inflection point moment for their season where they could have found themselves in a lottery again without too much effort. But I mean, I love this revelation of Denny and I'm interested in their off season. They have cap space. They kind of need a point guard because I don't know. It's going to be the point guard. Right. It wasn't Damien Lillard supposed to be the point. Well, well, Denny what's he going to do? Right. He will be something to them. He will be a very important meaningful piece to them, but they have some money. Do they have some interesting pieces? They have 15 million bucks. You have to ask maybe Tom Dunton thinks he gets to keep that. I was going to say you're like I'm going to give them their flowers. I think Dundin might be like, I'm not paying for those flowers. These guys only flowers. They're basketball players. I got this email from a guy named Parker who had more ideas for Tom Dundin to save money. And one of them he had stuff like on the bench only have seats for the coaches for like the two best coaches. And everybody else give to paying customers because you can make more court side stuff. Use unpaid people to clean up the court. Half time shows just don't have a half time show at all. Honestly, there's a couple of these things that I'd be pretty into. I'm like, he's really sad the other way. I just think that like Dundin is obviously going to drive like if this keeps going like it'll be an embarrassment for the league. But like if he was like, you know what, you guys we don't we don't need somebody unicycling around during half time. Like just go to the bathroom, get a beer, come back, we're just going to play some music. He can have the scores table could just have two people on it trying to sneak some court sides in there. What else could he do house? I mean, the half time is easy. That's kids playing basketball. Yeah. And you know, you can depending on how cynical you want to be about it. You can set odds like, you know, you can you can bet on it. Oh my god. That's a thing. Same game for late within the game. Yes, that's right. He thinks he thinks you can say Parker thinks he can save money on the exercise warm up bike and maybe just use real bikes because they're cheaper. So the guys would have to actually pedal around. You could do that. You could just basically say to a guy you'd be like, you're either in the game or you're out riding a bike is not going to change it. We've gotten rid of the bikes. We say $590. So yeah, this would be some place or some are they're going to be cheaping out on a coach. They do have some cat some maneuverability with some trade stuff. They didn't have shade and sharp really for this series because he had a stress fracture thing. He barely played. He wasn't the same. And I do wonder like with his scoring. Could they have made this a six game series. Fun to know excited. I do hope he doesn't destroy it. I think I'm excited. Interesting team. We are right in the middle of the NBA playoffs. I'm making picks left and right. Did they didn't unexpected one on Monday night because I really like the slate. He did okay. See money line SGA 25 plus points K 25 plus points to bias Harris 15 plus and it hit was two to one. Can try that every time I like any sort of parlay or any situation probably just going to tweet it out. And if there's additional Fandall value like there is tonight where all customers get a profit boost. Oh yeah, you love those profit boosts. And if you can match that with the parlay or the bet that you like. Your win hits bigger Fandall give you better payouts on same gay parles on NBA playoffs. All playoffs long lock in your bets booster ads make the playoffs pay off with Fandall official sports band partner of the NBA. And to Fandall.com slash BS to get started Fandall player game 21 plus like states are 18 plus DC. Contact your Wyoming restrictions. Pi C terms at sportsbook.fandall.com game problem. Cut 100 gamble call 888 797777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat Connecticut. This episode is brought to you by Mick Lowe ultra. You know what my favorite thing about the playoffs is. I like turn it's usually maybe a game for might even be a game five game seven everyone's nervous. There's a different level of energy but game four game five. For one of the two teams.
realization with like five minutes left in the fourth quarter. What's like, uh-oh, our fate is suddenly in real flux right now. Who's stepping up? What are we going to do? Let's calm down. Can we rise to the moment or are we going to shrink from it? And you can kind of see it with different teams. It's definitely like, for instance, going to happen in this Denver Minnesota series. It's going to be a moment in one of the later games when all of a sudden, either Minnesota is taken here from Denver. And at some point, somebody in Denver is going to have to hit a shot. And you're going to look around and go, who's going to do it? Or in Minnesota's case, maybe Denver is, is, is, is, is punch in the back. And now Edwards has to step up or different Genzo. And you just never know. And you never know how somebody's going to respond to pressure. But that's why we love the playoffs every spring. Uh, it's as great as opening up a Michelabulture, a nice cold one. Chris refreshing the ultimate prize. Plus as the official beer partner of the NBA, they're giving fans a chance to win courtside tickets, custom merch and more. You could be at one of those games when the pressure rises. Michelabultra, superior is worth playing for. Enter now at mclobultra.com slash courtside. Michelabultra courtside 2526. No purchase necessary open US residents, 21 plus begins on October 1st, 2025. Ends on June 30, 2026, multiple entry periods. See official rules at mclobultra.com slash courtside for free entry, entry, deadlines and prizes and details. We're going to play a game of which underdog would you rather be? Lakers rockets, the rockets are plus 750 for the series. Celtics sixers, sixers are plus 1100 for the series, which seems way too high. And then a Nick's Hawks plus 560 for the Hawks house. This rocket's idea is is Durant. There's no Durant, right? I don't know. Is there Durant? Well, even if there isn't, is it better without them, right? In some crazy way better without them. Like, do you want them on the bench or do you just laugh it up with? Recheppered in Jabari last night. So I mean, it seemed like or the other night. So it seemed like everything was cool. Joe, you go first. So are you reading the prices as they exist right now in the Fandall sports book, Bill Simmons? They are where where I saw them a half an hour ago. Maybe they changed a little bit and what is the rocket's price? The rocket's price. I'm going to give it to you right now. The rocket's price is plus 730. Okay. So that's because no team in the history of the NBA has come back from a 3 0 deficit. Philly is still 11 to 1 and Atlanta's plus 570. And weirdly, I probably feel the worst about Atlanta. I feel like they had their, their, they're like, uh, the Turk and the Godfather. I missed my chance. I am not in one now. They had, they had the word, so he's like, so lots of, yeah. I missed my chance. Uh, I, who would you have house? I think probably the sixers just because. There's a world where Maxi has one awesome game and then beat has another awesome game. And then all of a sudden the Celtics are going home and it's like, what just happened? We got Edgecomb. I mean, at the price, that's right. Uh, we got one great Edgecomb game. He's capable of two. So if Edgecomb and Maxi together go off and they did do this a couple of times in the season, I mean, we even have, have we, there's, there still could be like a vintage Paul George game in there. I guess that's the one because of the vintage Paul George game look like. Honestly, though, he's right. It's like saying like a vintage Nell Carter performance. It's scoring in the high 20s early 30s and locking down one of Boston's wings. That's right. I'm going to regret saying this. I agree. It's, it's the sixers. It is, it is like, let's win game six and then game sevens are weird. Great theory about how the Rockets, I mean, the Lakers didn't want to win game four because they wanted to extend the series so that the next series would start later to buy Luke a more time. I don't believe this. I just said, cock conspiracy bills, attention. That the Lakers would lose game four and game five to push the next series to like Tuesday. Oh, they would lose both. Yeah, they, they, they basically throw multiple games. I don't believe this, but conspiracy bill did come across his desk. I did hold it up to the way it didn't pass the uh, do you think every time uh, Luca watches Lou Dort trip a guy. He's like, ah, you know what? This is getting a little tight. One more, one more second here. It's going to be fun watching SGA against, I don't even know who I'm the Lakers. If that ends up being the series. Who is Mars? Yeah, that, that's not going to last too long. Okay, next question. Which team would you rather be? Denver minus 142 or Minnesota plus 120 right now heading into game six. If your life depended on it, which team would you rather be? Which team would you rather back? So I missed it. What's the state of Nasrid? He came back in the game. I think he's okay. Okay. Um, man, that's really rolling downhill against Minnesota. Would I rather be Denver or would I rather be who? Minnesota. Denver's minus 138, Minnesota's plus 120 series. Yeah, I would rather be Denver. House. Why is that a question? I don't understand. It's a question. Minnesota just has to win one game. Yeah, but they don't have Anthony Edwards. They don't have their best player. They're not going to, I mean, well, can I give you that? What you're doing is you're saying that the version of the joker that we've seen thus far, even with, you know, an empty calorie triple double, uh, to stay off for the nation. That was not an empty calorie triple double. Why do you say that? He was great. He was fine. Here's my fear. The game five Spencer Jones, Cam Johnson. We're really good at home in a game five. What is that going to look like in a game six in Minnesota? When you're on the road and, uh, your team actually needs you. I just think it's easier for guys like that to play at home. That's one of the things that frustrated me with the Celtics tonight. Like home games are the time to bring out your bench guys and hope you strike oil with one of them. I don't really trust that many of these Denver guys. Of course, it's not going to play. You know, and that, well, and I don't think Minnesota needed that game. I just think that's the way the league works. It's like we're up three one. It would be nice to be able to steal this. They don't have Anthony Edwards but games, they don't give away games for them. I'm not saying it was a giveaway game. I just think there's a level of desperation that one team has versus the other. You could feel a little and feel it Boston. But especially in Denver, Minnesota, where Minnesota is like, "Hey, we don't really need this game." Like game six is the one they need. But that's, wouldn't you call that a must win basically though? That game six for them. I mean, I wouldn't because I don't, I think it's conceivable to go in somebody's building and win game sevens. We just see it over and over again now. Like, House, it's not like what we grew up in the 80s, where it was like game seven at home, you won. And if you could win a game seven in somebody's building, it was like a fucking miracle. I feel like anybody can win anywhere now. If Anthony Edwards was playing for Minnesota, they'd win this series. This is a Minnesota team that went to the Goddamn Western Conference Finals two consecutive years. They have no problem beating Denver and they demonstrated the idea for this series was that this is a new Denver. Denver reeled off 13 straight wins coming into the playoffs. I don't know the last time they lost three consecutive games. They just lost three consecutive games to this Minnesota team because this Minnesota team has, they know how to beat Denver. They are built to beat Denver. They know how to beat Denver. They have no issue beating Denver. But they don't have Anthony Edwards. So I think that Denver is going to win three straight games and they're going to beat Minnesota in the series. Well, it sounds like you should bet the Denver Money Line for the series then. Done. I'll tell you this. Stay list. I think the line for game five is out of whack. Minnesota is plus five and a half at home in game six. I think it's a 50/50 game and I don't really trust Denver without Gordon with him either playing hurt or not playing it all. They don't have five guys that I trust in a game like this and I think that's what worries me with them. So if you have with Minnesota, even if it's just I/O, McDaniels, Reed, Randall, and Go Bear and you get lucky with one of the bench guys, I think you could beat Denver in a game like that. So I'm I'm leaning Minnesota. I mean, I would take the points, but I so I something's a little off with Denver. I don't I don't like it. I think Gordon's too important to them. So you would really have to see Joker just go bonkers. You think he has that game in him? Like don't you I mean unless he's got some secret injury or or or a horse he loves. He's like he's got that game in him. Of course it. I don't know. He's the fact that he's just not hitting three's anymore. Where is me? That the NBA did the little bit of the playbook in game four. McDaniels had two fouls in the first three minutes of the game, which was just the classic and I don't you're not getting that in this game. And I bet McDaniels is all over the place. All right, so we disagree on that one. This one's probably little easier. Which team would you rather be Cleveland or Toronto? Cleveland's minus four sixty. Toronto's plus three eighty. I would be very worried if I was Cleveland though, because I think Toronto
on a span something with the mucket up small ball thing. And Cleveland has James Hardin. (laughing) - Does we make a concerns? - Zach Low called this one correctly. This is gonna go seven, and the home team is gonna win this series. And it's kind of unnecessary that it's gonna go seven. - Yeah, really does. - 'Cause Cleveland, you should have. It doesn't need to go seven. Cleveland has advantages in a lot of different ways. Except, is Evan Mobley a bitch? - I mean, I think it's time to go ahead and put it on the table. - I would use that word. - Look, what word would you like to use? - Because maybe it's step up time. It's step the fuck up time. This team was built to be a 55 win team this series, this season coming in. They were supposed to be comparable to the team from last year. - Yeah. - They hit the reset button and brought in some really important valuable assets at the trade deadline. Because it wasn't working, the formula didn't work. And I just would like to see the guys that were adorning with the, they're here, the leap is coming, here it comes. This is what this team is supposed to be on paper. And I'm still waiting. We're playing Playoff basketball games now. That's where their advantage is supposed to reside. Is that dude with his inside outside capacity? - I don't know, I'll just sit tight and wait for it to happen, I guess. - I said this to Zach on Sunday. He doesn't seem to have these games where it's like, wow, Evan Mobley is running a mock. He's just destroying Toronto tonight. Like he's kind of there, he does some nice things, but I don't know if there's that last level frame. This might just be who he is here. - Yeah, I've not spent a ton of time with this series. This is always the one that's here to be on. - Not locked in the Raptors' caps. - On 2B at like 1.30 PM, you know, like I'm never sure. The Mobley thing though is strange because you would hope that something like the hardened trade is the exact thing that would be like, look, like, I mean, hardened was very, very, very good for him beat. Like it's just like playing with a big man and being able to like facilitate that kind of stuff. And it just doesn't seem to have made an appreciable difference. I do kind of feel like Cleveland's playing with their food a little bit here and will win the series, but it's an unnecessary amount of labor for these guys, I think. - I picked Cleveland in six. The two series ones I liked were Cleveland in six and the Nixon six. Cleveland in six is now minus 105, so it's even. Cleveland in seven is plus 170. And if you wanted to get nuts and think Toronto upsets Cleveland in game seven and we have another James Harden moment, that is seven to one. I do think they found something with Murray Boyles that won't go in smaller, like they've, you know, they basically have turned it into an athletic rock fight and they made it really difficult for the calves and I'll be interested to see what the adjustments are. I'd probably lean Cleveland in six still, but if it goes to a seven, I would just be really nervous. The history of Cleveland sports, the history of James Harden, the Donovan Mitchell, okay, and then Orlando Detroit, Orlando is minus 240 and Detroit is plus 198, but we did find out that France is yet the latest one. Oh, now it's minus 250 Orlando plus 205 Detroit. We did find out, even though Orlando is up 31, that France has a calf thing and is gonna miss game five. - I can't think, it's like probably for the rest of the series. - It's a calf thing where you're missing a game which tells me that's at least a week and it's not 100% and the way that, I thought that team really found something with the five starters in Kane and a little black, but really like six and a half guys, so this changes that a little bit. I don't know, House, where do you stand in this series house? - It's the most impossible one to figure because of the schizophrenic magic. They were schizophrenic coming down the stretch. They lost seven straight games, then they finished the season on a seven and three over their last two. - They lost to our G league team. - When they needed a win, they played all their starters. - G league team and then they lost to Philadelphia. - Right. - In the play-in. And it really didn't even show up. - Yeah, they did not want to be in the playoffs against us. - Yeah, that was a one, two, three, cancun vibe they were giving off for sure, Palo, but France reminded us when, like he was really important to them. He really can score, he really can create, but he's France questionable Wagner. Tell me, take the cue out of the next to his name and go play. Just play, you can't play, you can't be on the floor. - Chris, it's hard to imagine, 'cause Detroit's so new to this. This is all happening so soon for them and playing as a one seed that I don't think they have like the institutional knowledge necessarily to call themselves out of this. So even without Wagner, it doesn't feel like this is Detroit ripping off three in a row. And they don't, there's no guy on that team where I'm like, well, he's gonna put it together. Kade's been playing, he's had a lot of turnovers, but it's been playing fine. It's exactly what you've been talking about where it's just they stood pat at the trade deadline. Maybe in three years, they'll be able to be like, see, that's why we did that. But this year, they're gonna regret it. And it's gonna be a little bit of like a bruise going into next season where you're like, your number one seed, you were the number one seed almost like wire to wire. I think they were pretty high up there at least for most of the season. And to get beat by the eight seed of a bunch of guys, most people were like, Jamal Mosley's gonna get fired in between play and games. - So make it fired. You might win the season, so good fun. - That's crazy. So I mean, I think that that's pretty unnerving for Detroit. - Well, you get to think on you because you have this great regular season and then you flame out in round one. And then you go to the next season. And no matter what the result is for the first three months, people are like, well, this was what happened last year. Like we've seen this happen with the calves. We saw it happen with the Phoenix Suns. There's these teams that can have these great regular seasons and it just evaporates overnight when you have like a flame out. - You got, I mean, I'm willing to be a tiny bit more generous with Detroit. They did, like Jade and I might have played an important role in this series. It's possible. You can't dismiss it out of hand. - You mean first. - You could have played for a minute for TMZ headlines. - Well, for, no, for, I mean, you know, he's kind of been a viable starter. And it's the case that like, you know, we complained that they didn't do more of the trade deadline, but they thought they were gonna have Malik Beasley last summer. They thought Malik Beasley was gonna play basketball for them. The best, one of the best three-point shooters in the league last year. - Yeah, but they've known for a long time. - Yeah, I know, I know. And they had all the trade deadline. - They put a gun to their head and told them to sign Keras LeVert when there are other fray agents. I mean, they, they, I don't think they covered themselves in glory. I think Orlando won. - They won 60 games. - No, but I'm saying I think that's pretty good. - I think that's pretty good. - He could feel it now. - Right. - I really like the Orlando minus 240. And I just think they will win one of the next three games because I don't, I, their defense, the rock fight nature of this. I just don't see Detroit winning three games. - Yeah, and Durin seems like he's on another planet. So, like, they, they, they, they saw if he was like, if he was bawling and like, it was just like, they just are losing close games or something, but he seems, I mean, he just got a new reach. - Yeah, right. We cover that later. Last thing, the lottery proposal. Shoms wrote this three to one lottery proposal that they leaked out. Latter is now 16 teams. This would be the idea. Teams four through 10 in the lottery order. Get three lottery balls. But if you fall into the bottom three, you only get two. And then everybody else, nine and 10, playing seats, niche conference also get two. And the losers of these 7A playing games get one. And then they had some other stuff about, no team would be able to win the top pick and get second of years, which I like. No team would be able to win three consecutive top five picks. I like that as well. And then you would not be able to protect picks in the 12 to 15 slots going forward. - Oh, interesting. - So I thought this was too confusing. I think the only ones I really liked out of this were the ban on winning top pick and the ban on winning three consecutive top five picks. This other stuff, like I still feel like there's gonna just be different ways to tank. Like would Golden State have rather been a playing team or would rather be in the four through 10 spot with more lottery balls than anybody else than the other six teams? I would rather throw away the playing game at that point, which to me sounds like even more severe. - So going into the playoffs, I was chatting a little bit with Zach about whether or not like the teams in this play in tournament, or if that's what you want to call it, we're like a validation of the concept of the plan or a repudiation of it. And like would you rather be in the the AJ Peterson, a cuff sweepstakes, or would you rather go get your teeth kicked in by Oklahoma City or a fought Detroit? And now it's like not only has Orlando now made this a series with Detroit, and that's super fun. It'll probably be a little bit hard in the second round, but like I don't know, man. Like I kind of think that improving the enticing teams that are like mediocre or low mediocre to,
duck the playoffs or be worse than they actually are because they might get into the, into the lottery. I, even, even if it's weighted that way, I, I still don't love it. And, and I, and again, I know this is kind of a superficial critique, but if you can't explain it to me in an elevator ride, it seems like it's not going to really be popular. And that's also one of the problems with this is it's like, the, it's not like the NFL draft where everybody is like, I can find somebody at 30 that could help my team go to the playoffs. Like, you kind of tune out after the first four picks. What about, what about you house? Yeah, I mean, this is the inherent challenge that's super unique to the NBA. And as long as the incentive structure rewards teams that, um, fair worse over the course of the season with a higher draft pick, then you are stone cold fucked. You have created an incentive structure for teams to go try and get that because the impact is outsized, the impact of getting a player that can change your franchise, you know, in a, in a, in a split second. I mean, you know, when B isn't a good example, because he's a once in a whatever kind of a player. And Detroit had the highest number that year and didn't get him. Yeah, that's right. I mean, in Washington has been up there in the mix for a handful of years. But, you know, Cooper flag to Dallas completely resuscitated and it's absolutely franches a dead situation. It's a miracle that they got that lottery. I'll never get over. I'll never get over. It's a miracle. It's like going to be a miracle and go say when's this year, when going to say guess it's gonna be a miracle. It's gonna be miraculous. It's gonna be a miracle. Um, I don't know why we can't just have the top 10 worst teams. Each get eight percent and anybody in from the one to 10, eight percent. And then we split the other 20 percent with how many teams you want to go and then put in those other things about the top five pick consecutive years and all that stuff. I'm fine with that. The thing I really don't like about this bottom three record being penalized thing, what happens if you just have the year from how and a bunch of guys get injured? Like Indiana, Indiana, I actually watched those games and felt like they were trying to win most of the time for the most part. They weren't doing a lot of that chicanery of other. They just had a lot of injuries. For the first part of the season, they're the second part of the season. I mean, let's, let's be. But there were teams earlier in the season and earlier, they just didn't have a choice what was happening. Yeah. But then there were teams like with no disrespect, Utah, who I felt like we're, we're, Utah, definitely could have been better than, yeah, why would they know just respect? Because they get very touchy about that. But it was, but Utah should have done that. Like if the system is going to tell you to do this and have Morgan and JJ and be awesome next year, you know, like they could be really exciting. I still wonder if there's some way to, to split, like split the seasons in half for the lottery balls. And if like in that second part of the season, like Argentinian soccer. Well, if your record is just way out of whack with what it was in the first half of the season, then maybe that. Maybe that should be, but this gets into your elevator things here. I do think we're going to have to be able to explain this in a sentence. It's like anything else. It's like good TV shows you should be able to explain in a sentence. A movie pitch should be a sentence. A pitch I have for a company should be a sentence. And the lottery should be one sentence. And it's like, Hey, top 10, the worst 10 teams, 8% chance each. You can't win the top pick two years in a row. And you can't get a top five pick three years in a row. And those are our new rules. And that's what we're doing. I think people would accept that more than what we have now. Yeah, three to only dangerous. Just like the teams that are 13th 14th worst try to try to dip in. Look at this. This is the proposal. This is fucking 400 words. I mean, that can't be your proposal. So hopefully this will not be what they end up doing. House just wants to win one more lottery before they pack it in. This is the one. What are your big ones, John? There's a big culture change happening in Washington. I was read about it. Culture change. Yeah. They're doing one-on-ones with like the whole staff of the players. Like I was reading about it. It was kind of cool. I was like Ted. I was there about to do a mailbag. We have a great great great Washington wizard question in the mailbag that we're about to do. What's life been like after see our month? Just just searching for answers after that. What's it for meaning? Yeah. No, it's been pretty good. Hi, what are you talking about? Yeah, no. Ghostbusters, baby. Yeah, Ghostbusters was great. Bill, did you see the PSG buyer Munich game today at all? I did the Champions League game. Saturday, I was doing works. I highly recommend you check it out. What was the final score of it? Five, four PSG. It's one of the best soccer football matches I've ever seen. Oh, really? This guy Michael Oli say who plays for buyer Munich is played out of his mind today. I was hoping he would go to Liverpool next season. You know what I did think was the second division Spanish goalkeeper clock that I get jumped by 20 guys. I watched that. I watched a bunch of angles in that one. Can that happen more? Because the goal is that much of pads too. It's like me that one. I want to see that one. Oh, it was great. He called cocked. It was good stuff. Yeah, everything I've had. Is that what's going on? I mean, like it's I think it's it's heating up obviously. But no, the PSG buyer game was like the like revived my my soul. It was amazing. Do you have a champion's league pick for for house tonight? I think PSG is going to win. You think they're going to win the whole thing? You got house's attention. Okay. He just we're the odds. I don't know, but I think the tough thing for personal is if they beat Atlético, the Spanish team, there's plus one eight to five s. Okay, good. I'm in done. They're running. Arsenal's run in as tight because they're they're going nose to nose with man city for the for the title. So it's a little harder for them than it would be for PSG. CR's just as soon as the sixers get eliminated, whatever round he moves right into World Cup mode. In England, just thinking about everything where we're going to go. Is that the who's your your World Cup pick? I my World Cup pick. He hasn't done all the all the research. It really depends because a bunch of guys have gotten hurt recently. So I have to kind of rethink a couple of the French guys got hurt. He's doing his preparing for Sean's doing a movie draft of the best Philip Baker Hall movies. So I'm running out of movie draft ideas. So they're doing that. It's hoping to get happiness with the second round pick. Hey, I don't want to keep house up very late, but I have to ask him one question. Rocky House loves this. What are you talking about? Yeah, I'm good. For the last like 10, 12 days, maybe a little bit longer. He's been kind of trolling me about how unquestionable it is that R.E.M. is better than the replacements. Oh my god. I didn't know where you stood on this, but I know you must think it's a closer fight than those two. No, that wasn't what I said. As usual, classic CR, you twisted my words around. I said, at the time, CR that R.E.M. was a much bigger band than their replacements. And I said that and we didn't put them next to each other. That is true. And now is the years of past. Bigger is different people. I know actually the placements were better. And that's been a thing that is different arguments. And you following me down the hallway and being like, the bum's lost is not convincing me because you said they're bigger. I say, I know they're bigger. And you were like, and they were better. And I it's like, I just don't agree. They had a more successful career. Okay. Again, two different like, you know, who had a more sick, in sync had a more successful career than minor threat. Okay. Now we're talking in sync had a, you know, made more money. He was more well known, you know, more critical, not more critical acclaim. But when we were in college, R.E.M. was the crown prince of alternative college radio. They were the band. I was a DJ. Yeah, no WC HC, the college of the Holy Cross, the hip stuff, 99.1 FM from the day I arrived, though, you know, the first time they let me on in that radio station within the first couple of weeks of school. They gave me me and Jeff Macer, the 10 a 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. Friday night slot. A freshman goes suck a fat one. Here's your radio slot. Friday night to the Holy Cross. It's actually a good spot to mount and do with Jill. Right. And I'm here to tell you, I didn't play R.E.M. in four years from 19, the fall of 1987 to the to the spring of 1991. I didn't play a single R.E.M. song. Not once in my entire college. Because they were two mainstream and you were how much wagon get you jammed with that place. Say it against the R.E.M. How much Tim did you did you do bang? How much amazing? Of course, of course, goes without saying. There you go. That's the only metric that counts. The mission of Burma, you know, replacement, lemon heads back like also all amazing stuff we could do. volcano suns bang it, baby. So what's your answer, House? But what are you more as more has established a lengthier career, but the replacements are irrefutably incredibly impactful for the moment that
they they arrived at and what they did. Okay. I agree on the same page. We're all on the same page. So it's Fugazi. Fugazi surpasses the replacements to be respect, I mean, respectfully. Uh, you know, it's got a much longer conversation. Early 2000s music is fucking back. Ben Simmons went to Coachella. Number one reason was because the strokes were playing. He was more excited about them than anything else. All that music is back from the A A S. The strokes, all that stuff is back LCD. I saw the backsy on back of the day. They were a little party for me. Like I saw them with guided by voices. That's the problem. CR and got my voices kicked their ass, right? It wasn't closed. Yeah. So that's the problem. First time I saw the strokes were they played with God by voices. All right. Can we, can we schedule like a late 80s early 90s? Please alternative rock. Is it the first time I've ever been mentioned on your podcast? That was pretty impressive. Definitely. There's a hundred percent chance. All right. House is going to stay because we're doing a mailback. CR is going to go and celebrate with a couple of VJ ads. Come Bruce, VJ ads, come lights. So delicious. Yeah. VJ lights. All right. Thanks so much. See you here. All right. We are in full swing for the NBA playoffs, great teams, great players, great action. Every single night, the stakes are the absolute highest. And when I watch, I love to bet on Fandall, especially when I'm on the East Coast back for a Celtic game, said I could just jump right in Fandall brand. I trust easy to build by bet. I know I will get my winnings instantly. So Wednesday night, a couple really fun ones because we have, we have Orlando to try Toronto Cleveland and Houston Lakers. And honestly, I don't think you can go wrong with the underdog money lines in any of those. I'm going to send out an official pick if I really love one of the matchups or a Parley situation. But I think all of those series are 50/50 series, especially like Orlando might just be better than Detroit. Toronto has really figured out a small ball line up to Bug Cleveland and Houston Lakers. Who knows? I mean, that series should be two, two. It's three one. Anyway, I will figure it out, check out my picks in the Fandall sports book app and on my social feed. Don't forget to boost your potential winnings before you place it. Fandall. Play your game. All right. You just saw a house with CR. Now we've gone into time machine backwards about 10 hours house and we're going to do some mail back questions. I had so many good mail back questions. People sending them into BS podcast
[email protected]. You came on and did the mail back with me. I think last month and you said after I just had a great time. To true story, I love the mail bag. It's one of, I mean, I'm not a sure that I'm allowed to talk about your re-apex, but the re-introduction of the mail bag into your steady stream of content is welcome in America loves it. Yeah. When I started my calm on those Boston sports guy 97, I think the mail bag was like the third one I ever did. It was encouraging people to send him a so I'm glad they're still happening. I have a bunch of good ones for us. First one is from Chad H who made a request. Would prefer if you could answer this one with house for obvious reasons. Uh oh. Yeah. Where do you think this is going? There are two or three possibilities, none of which are good. He said I was so excited for Arby's steak nuggets when they came out last year. And then it seemed like they dropped off the face of the earth. It was over before it started. I think this should be an NBA award. Who is this year's Arby's steak nuggets NBA player of the year named for the player that showed such early promise and then for one reason or another completely fell off the map? Wow. Tremendous question. Really good. I have a good answer for this that I can go first unless you want to jump in. I need you to go first, but I will say in Arby's defense part of the allure of the nuggets was their scarcity. It was a limited time run, a limited edition. Now I'm not suggesting that whatever player you have in mind and one that I'll think of in the next 35 seconds also should be scarce or should be a limited run. But there's nothing keeping Arby's from bringing back the steak nuggets in the same way. Right. This player that we're going to talk about could ascend yet. So the scarcity, I think what we're landing on here is it had to be somebody we felt like was going to be in our life more consistently and then it was abruptly over. Okay. But we know next season the player is going to come back much like the Arby's steak nuggets. So the candidates to me are basically anyone on Charlotte. We could go with we could go with conknipple that we thought we were going to get a great playoff run from him. All of a sudden it was over. He didn't win rookie the year and we're it's just a breath. And I think the answer is Jalen Durin, who I voted for second. I voted for him second team on B.A. I really thought you're getting daily content out of this now. Well, he hurt your feelings. You're really in your feelings about this. I really believe T.I. had him second team on B.A. I want to I want to write into the NBA and see if I can change my vote. Even though I already sent it in, he's been so bad in these playoffs for him. For somebody that I thought was just impactful and consistent night after night. And now it just seems like he's a mess that I wonder if it's but he's still playing. So I don't know if that qualifies. So I was trying to think of teams that came out hot and then fell off at the beginning of the season. We thought, oh, look at this team. And then they fell off. But I can't really come up with anybody that fits that very well. It does Yannis qualify, like the version of the bucks that we all lost money on because we thought that the bucks were going to be really something this season. And we got tiny tastes of him and like, oh, Hollins, look at this, what he's done in terms of. Like they've got the role players. It looks like this bucks team could be something. It was very fleeting. It tasted good for a minute. And now it's gone. Yeah, that's pretty good. I think that's probably the answer. There was like this. When Yannis came back and the bucks had hung around and it, but the thing is like the Arby steak nuggets came out of nowhere. Yannis we'd had for years and years. So I do feel like it has to be like a fast riser guy. Oh, player. Yeah. That we, that we didn't. Well, you know, it could be Lamello too. Like we didn't realize this. Oh, that's pretty good. Yeah. I think it's a pretty good answer. I'd like that one. Yeah. It'll probably end it. And then we were mad at him. And he just did a bunch of dumb things and we don't know where he went. All right. We'll go with Lamello. Alex from Virginia said, I know you and Zach are old white guys. Good start. And maybe you need Van Lathen to inform you of important information that the beautiful Angel Reese used to date Jalen Durin. Now she is the proud girl of Wendell Carter and has taunted Durin on Instagram during the series. So Carter may have taken Angel Reese outplayed Durin in a series and potentially even sent him home as a 1-800 dog. Wendell needs respect. So I didn't know about this until yesterday. So maybe that is because I'm an old white guy because she did an Instagram of of Kane on the magic who raising Kane came out of nowhere and dunked right on Durin's head. And she did an Instagram post about it and has been I guess I'm not I'm not really on social like that. So I sometimes I miss stuff and I definitely miss this storyline. I wish we could have incorporated into our bet. I feel like we might have even taken Orlando Moneyline if we had known this was a factor. But anyway, did you know about this as another old white guy game by game. I'm familiar with the who she's dating now and familiar with this current relationship. I didn't I didn't know the entirety of the history. I will say since game two with Orlando, I've thought this Orlando has been super live and I'm sure we we're covering it in the in the in the portion with CR so I won't elaborate right now. Okay. Zach wants to know for other times you mentioned people saying Denver beat no one on the way to their championship in 23. I mentioned I didn't say I felt this way, but this is a thing that people are saying now that Denver is only one one tight all they didn't beat anyone that year. Zach wants us to remember that all the experts picked both the Lakers and the Suns to win the West a year and the Suns team was allegedly stacked. And the whole reason I started listening to your podcast in the first place is you were the only voice outside Denver that genuinely believed the nuggets could win. I just feel like I need to defend our only championship as we potentially fall apart this year. Hey, it is one of those stupid narratives because Denver was not on the radar like that. And people did think it was going to be Lakers. I don't remember what the Suns nuggets line was that series, but I think people felt like that was going to be even right. I love this. I love it. That is to say that the storyline about a team with an undeserved NBA championship outcome. The only one within modern era that you could possibly take issue with poke holes in is the summer camp. The summer camp championship that the Lakers won. That's exactly right. I mean, did you see everything else come on? Did you see what Davis said about that? He felt like they didn't even really totally win and it was so weird there. That sounds like every other Davis. That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Shocker. No, I thought Denver, you know, when they played Miami, Miami was like a giant killer at that point. They've taken out a lot of good teams and you could make the case. The only thing you could really dig Denver.
it's that their fault was droggage got hurt. And droggage was in the same in the finals. And I think that would have been a really live finals for Miami if droggage is healthy. I don't know if they were one. We have examples of teams that suffer an injury in that way. You know, either as the finals get started during the course of the finals that the NBA history is replete with those examples. Denver earned that title. It was legit. They you can you can you can pave it. However, you saw the path because they then kind of this not like every champion of the last 50 years has those kinds of. And by the way, if we're going to do that with teams and pick them the 24 Celtics or another team or like who they play. If we're going to do that with half the titles, then we should swing the other way. And we should talk about the 2011 Mavericks title reverentially where they went through every good team in the west. I think they were underdogs. They they beat Portland in a series. They were down on they swept the Lakers. They beat OKC. And when OKC was really scary. And then right upset this Miami team that every thought everybody thought was going to win eight straight titles. Then we should talk about Dirk reverentially. We should talk about the 2011 Mavericks all the time. You can't have it both ways. That's fine. All right. Those aren't equal. We, we, but they're all hard. I mean, I'm not. Well, why were you trying to play off games? Yeah. We're on the side. I don't want to get into the business of, yeah, we're on the same side because you look at OKC this year. They get Phoenix and round one. They're going to get Lakers, Rockets, you know, that that winner in round two. And then, you know, potentially San Antonio, Denver, whatever happens. Right. And maybe who knows if one of those teams is even going to be fully healthy in that series. So I don't know. You can do this all the time. This one I did not know about. And I checked today. And it was not a big deal. It was, it was brought to my attention by Dave Workman, who said, did you hear Jay Moore's latest pod with Vlad A. Debats. Now, there is a really funny part of this where Vlad A explains why they took Marvin Bagley over Luca because they already had this leader in Deer and Fox, who was happy to be in a small market. And he thought Luca was a big market guy. It might not be a fit. It was like insane. It was like he had six years to workshop it. Anyway, Dave says, obviously he's married to Genie Bus. When they were talking about Luca, he said, quote, I knew about the Luca trade for like six weeks because of Genie had to keep my mouth shut. And I was like, don't trade AD. That's crazy. And then he asked thoughts. Okay. So this goes back to a great conspiracy bill thing that I've even tried to badger Rich Paul, who does a podcast for the ringer about. I feel like way more people than everyone claims knew about this Luca trade. I'm just always going to believe it. You've been saying it from the very beginning. I'm always going to say it. I'm always going to Cuban pretence. He didn't know the Dumonts pretended they didn't know it to the last minute. Jason Kid, who I wouldn't say has like an awesome truth history. He claimed he didn't know. JJ Reddick said he knew it the last second. It was basically every single person so far. I believe JJ the most. And I think Genie even said, yeah, we didn't know until the last second. Well, now your boyfriend just went on a, or now your husband went on a podcast and said he knew for six weeks. So I mean, the proof was in the pudding. You should you spell it out immediately. 80 wave of the trade kicker. That's it. That's all you need. Any wave of the trade kicker almost overnight for reasons that remain unclear because he was fine with the trade because he wasn't 100% happy in LA. And I just, I, what would you say over under people that know I'm going. If I give you over now over under nine and a half, would you? I thought you were going to set it at 15 and a half because think about everybody in that on the two ownership groups, right? Those ownership groups are you know, have minority owners, whatever. Yeah. Nine and a half is an over for me. Okay. This is one of the reasons I wanted to have you on. A fantastic email from Fergus Collins. All right. Fergus. I'm from Ireland. I mostly follow Irish sports, but I'm also a Celtics fan. Why is following Rory McElroy and following the Celtics feel like the exact same emotional rollercoaster? They both give me the most hope for success to a fan. Well, also giving me the greatest chance of a dramatic collapse. The Celtics last 220 point leads against the next last year. McElroy ties the round with Scotty in the 18th and Ryder Cup. The heat upset the Celtics and the playoffs. Rory throws a four shot final round lead in the Masters in 2011. Going up six unsaturday in Augusta countless articles about how no golfer has ever served a major. Then he's talking about the Celtics favor to win the East scrappy team, but always blows lead. He goes on and on and he said, how did I end up with both of these people in my life basically? It's a great analogy because Rory is the most talented. I mean, other than Scotty, he's the most talented golfer. Yeah. And it's over the last 20 years. He's really, you know, he's been in that upper upper upper echelon. And he, the greatest enemy to Rory is himself. And in a lot of ways, I felt the same way about the Celtics the last few years, even the other night in Portland and in Philly when they're up in game four by 25. And I'm like, I'm fucking, I might still have my seatbelt on. I'm fully prepared for them to just take 10 terrible threes in a row and all of a sudden we're up seven. There's something about their style of play. I just never feel safe, which I think is exactly the same feeling as Rory. So I actually think everybody's really good. It's great. Never feel safe with Rory any lead, whatsoever. I mean, going to bed Friday night with that six-stroke lead, you know, the conversations in my threads were like, you know, how, how is this going to get tightened up? We all know that it's, you know, that the six strokes are going to evaporate by hooker by crook. The only thing I wonder about, and it is a tremendous job by Furious. Rory has an element of unmet potential because there was a 10-year gap between the majors that he won. Was there a point since, you know, the Celtics won in 24, so they finally got the J's, the championship. But it felt like that was on time. It didn't feel like the J's should have won a championship earlier than that to me. They should have won in 22. They just weren't ready to win it. Yeah, I agree. They had a better courage. That was curry in the words infrastructure and that the Celts not being ready yet. But I think if you go back and watch those games, it's like, oh my god, how did they not pull this off? It was just curry was but know how you couldn't compete with it. That's right. I agree. 20 in the bubbles interesting because I don't think they were really ready that year and they had the Campbell Walker piece of it. But they really went toe-to-toe with all those teams that year and that was easily one that could have made the finals. And then 18, that game seven against Cleveland, we, you know, one of LeBron's greatest games ever. He plays all 48 minutes. And it's basically just LeBron against the Celtics. One of them is 103's. So they would made the finals. So if you say this whole run from when they got out or for it all the way to now and it's basically they've only made the finals twice, I would say that's a slight underachieve for the potential. Yeah, because I mean, you would point to Ferrari, the US open that he coughed up against Bryson when Bryson snatched it on the 18th hole with Rory missing a short putt or Rory lost the open championship. Cam Smith a couple years ago shot a super low score and Rory couldn't get any birdies to roll in. So it was right there on a Sunday, on the back nine of those championships and couldn't get together to cross line. Okay. And last year too, like they blow to 20 point leads to the next and then Tatum gets hurt and they, you know, squander that series, Indiana ends up making it and taking OKC to seven and OKC's young and not told already yet. And who knows what the Celtics would have been. But I think that's I think that's a good analogy. I think we're going to look back at how they had Tatum and Brown basically coming in at the same time a year apart, which is impossible now in this day and age to keep two guys like that who are that expensive together. But they also had cap space and a great GM and I'm like, man, they only made two finals. That's why I think there's some pressure on them this year. That's a great point. You know what I mean? Wow. And I like this. I agree more finals than that. We had these two guys all the time. Speaking of Tatum, Xavier in New York says, Dante Deepen Chenzo, they said he already went full Tatum surgery. Are we at the point where that should just be what it's called? Like how Tommy John became TJ, Territ fixed it immediately, no debate. Tatum bounce back. Have we now created the JT surgery because so much of it depends on how fast wears get it after they tear their Achilles. You have to repair it immediately of a better chance to come back. Will this be called the Tatum surgery? I can't I can't stand for it. And it's not because I have any particular feelings for the player that I think it's appropriately assigned to, but we did we lived through with Aaron Rodgers. Aaron Rodgers was threatening coming back and playing football games, you know, the season right after. But he got a different Aaron Rodgers got the different surgery though. He got the quickie surgery. Tatum got the one where he ended immediately. Yeah, but he got the one that allowed him to come back faster. Tatum got the one where they did the full heel but they did it within 10 hours of the injury and they feel like that.
and allowed it to come back 100%. I do feel like he might have, the doctor who did it might have created some new version of this. - All right. - I don't know. I don't like having Tatum's name involved with a surgery is my least favorite part of this? - I wanted to take Kobe. I feel like Kobe was his, his, his comeback. - But then he got hurt again. - Okay. - Yeah, he came back but then hurt something else. I threw this at Zach. I wanted to get your take from Rob from Peniscolo. Could you consider renaming the u-ing theory after Trayon? Got a few of these about the Hawks of that Trayon are eligible. My take was pretty steadfast. He wasn't good enough to be eligible for the u-ing theory. I don't feel like anybody thought the Hawks were screwed when they traded them. You're down with that, right? - No, and also I feel like an element of u-ing theory includes a kind of immediacy. The player is supposed to be part of your plan and the player is lost and you're not. - Like that's where it's getting hurt right now. - Minnesotans. - Yes. - Makes to find us. - Yes, that's the u-ing theory. - That would be the u-ing theory, exactly. Trayon had already been marginalized, like the direction of the team with the trades that they made, the acquisitions, the off-season acquisitions, the direction of the team. They were looking to. I feel like they knew what they had with Tray. You know the answer to this because they didn't extend him. Like if he was the most important player to them, then they would have extended him. So I don't ever criticize anyone for trying, you know, let's just be creative here. Everybody's innovating with the theory, but I feel like we have to visit. - Yeah, don't forget what the bones of it are, which was a superstar that the media felt was the single biggest reason the team would win the title. Gets hurt, everybody writes off. Gets hurt or traded or whatever. Everybody writes off the team and then they do better without him. That is fundamentally what the u-ing theory is. Edwards had been an example. Another one would be like, if Jalen Brunson sprained an ankle or something, and all of a sudden the Nick started running stuff through towns and were much better without Brunson basically. And we were like, whoa, it's a different Nick's team, but are they better? And that would be an example of the u-ing theory. Like, oh my God, we're so screwed. We don't have Brunson and he's better. - And it would be the Nick's. I mean, that would be pretty interesting. - Or if the Celtics last year of Tatum had got hurt and it came back from 3-1 and made the finals, and then. - Sure. - Yeah, sure. - It has to be that level of player. We'll hand someone from Chicago Rites. I didn't know this. He said a lot of people talk about Ripken's consecutive games played, a streak that you loved dearly, or Will's 100. I will always think the most unbelievable sports stat is LeBron averaging 27, 7 and 7, over 1,600 plus games, but never playing a single game that had the stat line 27, 7 and 7. I feel like it's more likely his points record gets broken than whatever the hell that record is. It's the perfect metaphor for a guy who's historical consistency. Never stops changing and evolving. I had no way to look this up 'cause I'm not smart enough. But if this is true, if he never actually had a 27, 7 and 7 while averaging 27 and 7 and 7 every year, that's fucking crazy. That's the single, that's crazier than BAM's 83 point game. So please can somebody tell us what's up for all of that? - Yeah, sure we got it. - Somebody to look that up. - I was on the 27, 7 and 7 for all the games that he played when you think about. - Never. - He made eight straight finals. So you're not just talking about regular season games, you're talking about playoff series after playoff series after. And they weren't like, you know, four O's or four ones. Like that's a lot of games to not get a 27, 7, 7, 7. - It can't be true. John Palmer asks, you'll love this one. Will pulling a Paul George become a thing? Every aging star dealing with injuries should be taken tons of alleged HCH and other alleged BAM substance get stronger and recover faster. The penalty of caught is a 20 plus game mid season vacation, which you probably would have missed anyway via load management, leaving you more time to recover and train. They come back healthier and better just in time to spin up for the playoffs, to giving up money, of course. But what were the other negative consequences for Paul George? Again, this is from John Palmer. So here's the thing. Paul George has looked really good in this six or Celtic series. Like he, I talked to this with Zach on Sunday night. It's like, I feel like he's resuscitated his trade value. So he cost himself what 10 million with the suspension, but he's resuscitated himself as an asset, whereas March with big was, he was the second pick in our worst contract strap. I don't think he would be the second pick anymore. So I love the concept of pulling a Paul George in general and trying to guess who would do this next year. It's like, oh, Zach Levine, he's pulling a Paul George. Now, it's got to be somebody good who needs the rest. Somebody like Drainball, like, somebody, yeah. Somebody who needs their 30s. We're in that stretch right before the playoffs. That would be to me, if you're looking for an opportunity for there to be genuine salary cap, circumvention. That would be one where the team and the player and its representatives are all like, you know, if you felt like, you felt like just taking a look. 'Cause like in terms of NBA public consummorship, I feel like it's, you know, getting as mad at the player for, oh, he got popped for his epist test. As opposed to he's sitting out deliberately because he's resting up for the playoffs. - True. - I feel like it gives you a pass a little bit to fail the Pistas. - Plus he really played the mental health card immediately, right, when he came back. - Amazing. - He was like, okay, I didn't realize, and that was it. Like Barry Bonds was like, fuck, why did I know that in 2004? - If only he knew. - Yeah. I was thinking of some of the best pulling a blanks ever. And I think my favorite one is Vince Vaughn and Swinger's saying, I want to grab two cocktail which is a pull me a Frado or whatever he said. Like putting the pull in a Frado was my favorite pull in a. But pulling a Paul George, pretty good. And now it's time for our new segment called Aura Comp. It is brought to you by new era, the official cap of the NBA. Today's players, I know they're incredible. It's also important to recognize the legends who shaped the game for watching today. As you know, I love to do this in my podcast constantly, bring up the past, bring up the history, everything. The new era NBA Hardwood Classics Collection celebrates a lot of those iconic moments and players who made that era unforgettable. So let's put the era side by side, the '80s and now, they wanted me to pick up top player now and compare them to a player in the '80s. And this is a little unconventional, but I think there's a lot of Yoke age and late '80s Magic Johnson, who Magic Johnson was allegedly a point grad, he really wasn't. He couldn't guard the other point guard and the other team. He controlled the game. He could post up. He did a lot of stuff with his back to the basket. He controlled the pace of the game, unbelievable passer. He could score 37 points in a game. He could score 20. He could have 20 assists in the game. He could have eight. He could rebound. He could get triple doubles and was just all over every single game offensively. And I think Joker, even though he's a center, when I watch them, they really remind me of each other. Joker is like the kind of spawn of Bird and Magic, but really closer to the late '80s Magic side, I think, is the comp. And when I watch Joker, it's hard not to think of late '80s Magic as Karim is bald and old and everything had to run through Magic. Anyway, you can relive vintage logos and timeless icons with the new era NBA Hardwood Classics collection. Headwear, available in a wide range of fitted and adjustable styles. I'm personally an adjustable guy because I have a giant head, as well as Hardwood Classics apparel. Here's what you have to do. You have to visit neweracap.com/ringer. That is neweracap.com/ringer. And you can shop now and you can use one-time code ringer for 20% off your first order. Go do it. D-Bob in New York, he says, I think the streaming resolution-- I'm sorry, the streaming revolution of the last seven years was secretly pushed by big advertisement. Before streaming, I never watched a commercial in my life when the game went to break. I flipped channels if I was watching a DVR. I fast-forwarded. Now I'm taking every second of commercials in because it takes too long to get out of the Amazon or Peacock app. Thoughts? It is so. D-Bob is on the money here. I thought I could touch it. We're on Peacock. First of all, if you leave Peacock, you can't get back for another seven minutes. It's like auto-locking out. I had no-- I thought it was me. I thought that I'm a pretty caveman TV person. So I thought it was because I'm using the internet to pull up my streamers or Peacock. Yeah, I'm doing it. And I thought, oh, I must be the only moron who can't switch from there to ESPN to see what's going on in the hockey game, because it will take me another 4 1/2 minutes just to get over to ESPN. So good. This makes me feel better. These sports on streamers, I think there's been some real ramifications that we weren't really fully able to assess until these playoffs started, because when Netflix had the Christmas games, it's like, cool. I'll just pop over and check out the Christmas game or I'll watch the Christmas game. But now, in late April, when there's hockey and basketball and baseball on, you really want the ability to maneuver around. And unless, like, thank God for me. I have multiple TVs, and I can keep stuff on. But if you-- Thank God for you. But if you're a college kid, you have one TV. Or if you're at a bar. Like somebody who's telling me, you're at a bar. You can go from--
portion of where that TV over to this portion where the other TV is somebody was telling me to bar in New York they could only have the Amazon on one one of like the eight TVs because they lock you out after after three devices. So the other seven TVs were like tied to ESPN and baseball and there was like the one Amazon TV and I was like that makes sense like I can't even watch Amazon with my dad and my daughter hopping on my Amazon at the same time. We really this is we need to sports bar sports are to really figure all this out because I just feel like Amazon should relax the device thing for the playoffs and peacock same thing where it should just be like during the playoffs 25 people can use my peacock or my Amazon and and then bar or maybe bars get a special exemption. I don't know there's got to be a better way to do this. There's got to be a better way to do this. I I just want the the back function. How do I get the back function restored? I can't have two TVs. Yesterday that for our Tuesday Mondays game. The first one ended on peacock and I wanted to go backwards out of it. Yeah. And I just went into and at best on the TV. I was like I was like, Pluto. I was like, what happened back on? Yeah, I just get it sideways. This email is no longer timely, but I really liked it and I feel like we got to figure out how to use it anyway. I am a proud female listener and I've been riding hard for the pod for decades. Now to business, the playoffs start on April 17th and I need to know which matchups are you fully locked in for and which ones are you not absolutely not drinking any fucking Merlot on. Do all eight matchups have some Pino in them or do any qualify as a Merlot matchup? Maybe you can spend quality time with your family and miss one. And this is written by Nicole quotes B.J. Diamond in large bought New York. I'm just reading the email. Chermet Chermet is what was I like the idea of the Merlot matchup though. I think it was OKC Phoenix was our Merlot. Yeah, I'm only interested in that to get a gauge on whether I'm going to live bet the spread, the second half spread or the fourth quarter is OK, so you're going to cover how am I going to live bet this? That's it. You know, do I want to live bet it? I did a fandal thing yesterday that actually hit where I had K 25 plus to bias 15 plus OKC and shade 25 plus. So I was rooting for shade of score. And she had five points at the end of the first quarter. And it was really fun because it was like, all right. I'm probably safe here. It's it's SGA and then shade just ripped off like 14 points in like three minutes. And it was like, this is great. I'm having so much fun. It is over. Yes. Unix was very, very, very plucky. They were they were. Yeah, but it was a really fun way to watch the Merlot matchup between OKC and Phoenix. So next year, I'm just going to bet the over on shape points. But I like the Merlot matchup because we don't have MBA TV anymore. So we needed somebody to replace MBA TV. And it really only applies to round one, right? Cause we're not going to have every matchup in round two is going to be the light and absolute full full on Banger big, big, we're going to Big Redland, aren't it? Well, Lakers, OKC, if Lucas, not back will be interesting to watch, but isn't Reeves likely to be back? I understand. There's a video case. They would need injuries in the OKC side. Um, Braden from New Brunswick, Canada. Check the average Roger Gideau hug time for the first rounds of 20, 26 and 2015. And said, uh, my instinct, which I said on Thursday that I thought the hugs were getting longer is correct. In 26, the average hugs were four seconds. And 10 years older, there were two seconds. And he wonders if this doubles each decade going forward in 20, 36, eight second hugs. Now he sent this before, um, the guy who stayed in the green room the whole time didn't get picked the nose tackle. And then got picked and came out at 19 second hug with Gideau. So that might have even bumped the hug number. Well, you know, that was emotional. The move is somebody should come out instead of going for the hug. Just a firm handshake, firm handshake, like almost refused to hug. I, I just would like to give you a business like handshake. Well, how would Gideau react? Would he pull the guy in Trump style and like just mall and what would he do? Yeah, I feel like I mean, because Gideau isn't tiny. He's not, you know, he's, he's not dwarfed by these guys. I feel like yeah, Gideau, he wouldn't, he wouldn't tolerate it. As soon as he gets your hand, he's Trump hugging you. Yeah, Listerney, why do we, why, why, why are the hugs longer though? What's the explanation for that? I don't know. Oh, I thought that's where we were headed on this. Well, you know, the hugs are twice as long as they were ten, ten years ago. So why? Because Roger's more comfortable. He's like, I own all this shit. I, I, I am the man in charge. The man who you want to hug me? Who have you hugged for more than two seconds in the last 10 years? That was a friend of yours. I'm not at liberty to discuss this out. I mean, wait a minute. A friend of mine? Yeah, a friend, a male friend. Uh, I had some very, but when you saw the Holy Cross guys in New York, I'm happy. Let me think about it. But when you saw Phineas and the Holy Cross guys, did you have a four second hug with any of this hug and then you go to the arm around each other. Yeah, those last it's four second full body hug. No, no, no, no, no, not, not, not, you know, not junk to junk. I said it's like the quick, quick hug and then the back. You're tight and then, and then I like the arms around the shoulders. Yeah, yeah, yeah, off the chopper up on the arms around the shoulder, like extends the hug, but it's not like a full nobody goes general to the general, which that was what that was my favorite. You do that. Good. I didn't do that for four seconds. You know, she full straight on like hugs. This is what, remember, this is my favorite NBA draft mom. And ever, Darius Miles and David Stern went full waste to waste general's general's hug for some reason. I need one of the funniest photos about time. Let's get the clip. Let's run the clip. Listener Bill doll said, I am a wizard season ticket holder. I'm sorry, Bill. My hot take is that LeBron is coming to DC this summer. And no, he's not. Here's the evidence. He was incredibly complimentary of the wizard junk or Steve Nash's podcast. I like that he called it Steve Nash's podcast. This is LeBron and Steve Nash podcast. Number two, he was seen hanging out with Jayden Daniels post Lakers game. Number three, he's a good fit with tray and Anthony Davis is old buddy. Okay. It's LeBron's team. Nobody's else. Number four, shifting the Michael LeBron narrative by actually winning in DC somewhere. Michael couldn't even make the playoffs. That's good. I like that. Great job. Now that this is spoken of the ethos and won't happen, but maybe those of us up in the 400s, we'll actually get some decent basketball here in the nation's capital, God can dream. I like the MJ angle. That's finished here. I did too. And I made the conference finals with the Anthony Davis and Trey young. It is kind of fun. I mean, that team with him on it, they would be better than any team that MJ played with during MJ's area. Can we talk it out for a second? So you'd have Trey Young, Anthony Davis, LeBron James, Alex Sarr, and who's your shooting guy? Who the shooting? He can't be cool about it, right? He can't. He's on George. Yeah, we like him. Yeah. Yeah. He's he's good. We do. We like him with good reason. And a little tray off the bench. Yeah. I don't know. That could be talked myself into 45 wins. It's a low 40s. Yeah, to 45. It's it's a, it could win a, they could win around in the playoffs. His goal could be like, look, just this LeBron versus MJ thing. I've brought to the table. I've played way longer. I threw an alley to my son in a playoff game. And now I've won around one series in Washington. I've done three things my good Jordan couldn't do. Also, I was never maybe secretly suspended by David Stern because of gambling. So there's four. Great, great point. Speaking of conspiracies. This is from Peter L. Assume the conspiracy theory that the NBA draft lottery is rigged is real. And you've just been appointedly commissioner with these powers. How are you arranging the first four picks in the upcoming draft lottery? Wow. It's a great. We had this conversation. What was it a month ago? Yeah. Who do we say was going to be the funniest to win? Well, go on state. Oh, golden state. Yeah. Um, I'm going to say, well, that's not the funniest. That that's an actual genuine like that's a conspiracy because that's what he said. So we're all right. So I get the commissioner job. And obviously immediately hire you as my Mark Tatum. I'd let you know it's all the second round picks. And out and out the second round, Joe House. Um, so the lottery teams we have, I'll just give you the top 12. Well, I'll give you all of them. Wash. This is an order of one to 14 for odds. Yeah.
So Washington, Indiana, and Brooklyn all have 14%. Utah Sacramento 11.5. Memphis, New Orleans, Dallas, Chicago, Milwaukee, Golden State. Okay, see, they're out. Not fixing anything for them. They're too good already. They don't need that Miami and Charlotte. So for rigging this, Golden State has to be in the top four because it's our last chance to stay of stuff. So it's more a question of who is the best guy for into play with. And I actually think it's Caleb Wilson. Wow. Okay. So I'm happy just putting them at four. So they end up with Caleb Wilson, even though I'm becoming increasingly concerned, he could go not for a hand, but for the Booser family. I think he's going to leapfrog Booser. I think his tape is too crazy. Like, I really think you'd have to, if we were in the room, I feel like we would spend enough time scouting these tapes. And at some point, look at each other and be like, we got to take Wilson. Like this guy is a fucking freak. Man, I watched so much Booser and he was so tough. I thought he was NBA ready every time I watched him play. I understand the limitations. I think there's a ceiling, right? He would have to have for Golden State. That's totally fair. That makes tons of sense. So we'll put Golden State for and we'll give them Wilson. So now we have three teams before. Can we, Charlotte has 2.4% odds, but can we have them jump to three and take Booser? Oh, and oh, wow. Wow. Right. That's pretty good. Lamello Khan, Bridges Booser. And who am I living? That's pretty good. Who am I leaving out? Oh, and Brainer Miller. And then Diabata. That's a fun team. Diabata. That's who I was thinking of. At LAN at 2, I was thinking because of Peterson, adding Peterson to what they have now as like the CJ McCollum understudy eventually moving in. It's not going to matter if it doesn't have personality because that team has a lot of personalities already. The New Orleans pick. I mean, the New Orleans pick. Atlanta moves up. So I'm thinking of them at 2. And then number one, like, why not, why not Joe House? Why not Washington? You have to Bansa. Why not? I would definitely fix it for me. That goes without saying. But I think the Bansa, that's, it's the most fun teams for him would be Washington or Utah for him to go and right away. And then in this scenario, the Clippers get the fifth pick. And that would be really fun too. And Indiana would not get any of the top four picks. Right. Because five to nine, the Clippers keep it. Yeah, it's basically five or six. They keep it. It can't go lower than six. Now, I do, I do love Indiana and I feel bad if they didn't get the pick, but I don't know. They put the protection on it then. They shouldn't have put that protection. Yeah, that also why did you give up all of that for Zubats? It was a lot. I think it's going to be awesome on that. I know, but that's a top four pick in this draft. Yeah. Fair. I don't know. Now that we're here and that they could actually lose the pick. This draft is fucking incredible. It's going to be really good. The other one I was thinking Clippers getting a cup or something. Well, the other thing you could do, you put Indiana in that Darren Peterson spot at two. And then you put Atlanta fifth and Atlanta gets our guy a cup at five. Who I think that's combination a cup and Atlanta, his name ends with first letters in A. There's like some A double A stuff. Okay. His game in Atlanta. Yeah. Yeah. It could be really special. Yeah. I feel like he'd be a hero in Atlanta pretty quickly. And they can run. So is that our answer for the fixing? Do it again. I think I agree. The bands don't agree with Washington. Peterson to Indiana too. Boos are to Charlotte three. And then Golden State gets gets Wilson at four Atlanta at five. Atlanta at five takes a cup a cup. And then there's one more team I wanted to take care of. Oh, we better go bet this. No, number six Dallas has to get top six because they need to get either a cup or or Wogler from Illinois. I want I want Dallas to fuck off. I'd like to invite the Dallas. They're fans are like so traumatized. Come on. I understand. This isn't they they they already. All right. So that'll be our top five. Yeah. Okay. All right. Good question. Glad we talked that one out. Corey writes in I'm 25 years old from the Bay Area in a lifelong Warriors fan trying to come to come to grips with the fact that Steph Curry will be retiring sooner than later. My basketball life will be changed forever unless the expendables happens. I imagine this is similar to how you felt when Larry Bird was during the end of his career. What advice do you have for coping with the loss of one of the greats house was in my place a couple of times in the mid 90s when I would break out old bird Celtics tapes because the Celtics were so depressing. It was all I had to go back and watch old playoff games and honestly Corey welcome to your future. If it gets super depressing with the Warriors all you have are the old tapes and reliving Curry games and I had a two and a half foot bong at the time. That was really helpful to get super baked and watch all the Celtic games and pretend they're happening live. I've talked about that. But that would be my advice. That's that's what the post career because you're never it's just never going to happen again. This is once in a generation. You get somebody like that. You're never and you know you you look at it so fondly. You say I can't believe I was so lucky to to enjoy that and you in the same way that Corey's being prepared. I mean, Steph is missing big chunks of regular seasons now. Yeah. And and you know, Bird was was so broken at the end. It's right. We know. Yeah. We know. We know. Yeah. Paul and Loser. I got a few people who mentioned and this has been in the internet too. Tatum, Halliburton, Lillard and Diffin-Chanzo, all at the number zero. And I'll tour their Achilles. Okay. Do you have to be from did not? Do you have to be crazy at this point to have number zero? Is this like a jinx number? Would you change your number if you were a zero at this point? I know. I mean, I was making the joke about Gilbert Reenas as agent zero, but he did have a debilitating leg injury. Yeah. What's up with zero? And the Wizards did give him a giant extension anyway. Are there any more zeros right now? I mean, the answer is definitely. Yeah. Tyrese Maxis is zero. The offseason number change. We need it. He needs to get more Christian Brown. Cool Abale and your team. I've just out on zero. Don't get rid of the zero. We've seen too much damage at this point. Kelly from Iowa. I know you'd like this one. Kelly from Iowa wants to know, can we please have Babydoll get Waymo to sponsor Tiger Woods? Come on, baby. Who loses here? I love the idea of Babydoll taking on Tiger Woods as a client and trying to keep it low and making just calling different people in his life and making it seem like you're the only person he's told. And meanwhile, he would tell 150 people in five hours. Everybody would know and there would be pictures of Tiger in a Waymo. I do like why couldn't Waymo offer Tiger like 50 million dollars to be the first Waymo sponsor? It's actually a great idea. That is kind of brilliant. I mean, you know, we have to get to the point where we can have a little bit of a chuckle maybe. I mean, we obviously just reached it right now. I don't know. A little Waymo sponsor for him. Chase from Canton, Ohio. I didn't know about this. Said that Cavs had a social media play off theme in 2026. That they called be the fucking difference for their fans. But they blotted out all the letters and fucking and just kept the C. So the t-shirts red be the C diff. And then apparently C diff is the shorthand for a close tree. I died. He's Diffish seal, which is a bacterial infection severe watery diarrhea of double pain. One of the most known treatments is mixing your poop with the poop if someone you share bacteria with. Oh, no. Is it to a dried up poop pellet? They put in your stomach. I'm not even joking. It was to know where does the stand in your pyramid of poop jokes? How could the Cavs win the title of the postseason theme of be the C diff and would anything funnier ever happen? You know, it actually would be funnier as if they got bounced and round one after be the C diff became a thing. Yeah, this is apparently this is a thing that happened. This is amazing. Poor Cleveland deserves. The fans deserve better. Now they did have LeBron for all the time that they had. They didn't get a little bit of championship, but you know, yeah. So if you, if you Google this, the C diff, I can't believe they did that. How do they not Google that? Mitch from Carl's bad wants to know you and Zach touched upon Kevin Durant's complicated legacy a bit on Sunday. Too often his Olympic performances aren't discussed and they should be. He was often the best part of the floor for a lot of things, including leadership skills, lack of the same team jumping, but I do think his Olympic performances should be mentioned. You agree with this. Totally agree with this. And the same goes for mellow, like part of what, you know, when those guys play with their peers and their peers find them and their peers, you know, revere the performance at that level and let them, you know, sort of take over the way that they have. That to me just says so much about, you know, who the
that player is in their era. - Yeah. - And so KD's ability to do it across, what is it, five goals? Is that what he ended up with? - Yeah. - That is something that needs to be mentioned. It's a top line on the resume for me. - Yeah. - One of the top four lines on the resume. - Maybe his legacy is he couldn't plan the bachelor party and he might have been a wild card at the bachelor party, but there's a bunch of different scenarios where he would have been really fun at the bachelor party. - The MVP of the bachelor party. - He meant the MVP of the bachelor party. Didn't plan it, didn't pick the location. You had to kind of fight friend to get there, but then he was tremendous for two straight days. - Yeah, elevated everybody. Elevated the whole thing. - But if you put him in charge, it might not have gone great. - Sure, that's fair. We've all got friends like that. - We'll never go to a bachelor party again. We don't know. - Who says who? - I don't know, we'd have to have somebody our age divorced. - Second marriage? - Yeah. - To second marriage, do second marriage people have a bachelor party? - I sure hope so. I haven't been invited to one, but I would go. - Chris wants to know, is he made Doka getting himself fired the most underrated Keta Boston's continued success? I can only imagine how quickly he would have mentally broken and buried Keta, Walsh and Sharman, and how the Celtics offense would look with Chris Bruchet and Xavier Tillman standing around while Tatum and Brown played Isobal. The Rockets are a bad sequel to 22 Celtics in the finals. Now, I don't think that's totally fair 'cause they did make the finals. They did have some good wins. The offense was really rough and we blame Tatum and Brown a lot. And now we're watching the Rockets basically do the exact same thing. Game 4, Zach and I talked about on Sunday, it was the first time they actually were like, hey, we should maybe attack Luke Connard and spread out. And it was pretty bad. What was your e-mail take? - Well, I honestly, the longer this has gone on, I'm subscribing to the theory that there is some dysfunction in the decision making. Guys are not all on the same page inside the building. It is Houston. Because the read Shepard bit is inexplicable. Our guy, Raheem Palmer, has been loudly all season long saying, you got to get Shepard his minutes. It doesn't matter whether how you feel about his contribution. He needs to be ready for it right now because Houston, for whatever reason, he thought they could play this season without a point guard. I do want to go back by the way. You guys, you and Zach on Sunday show in entirely appropriately giving CJ McComb his flowers. You mean Zach Sat in your studio and I said, hey, Houston, go get CJ Mother Ethan McComb days. I've got to be available for this season. - October, October of 2025. And look at this guy in the playoffs. But be that as it may, e-mail to me. Like even as early as November, you're watching end of game sequences. And it didn't make sense who was getting the ball. It didn't make sense the way the rotations were playing. I feel like there's something going on inside that building. We're personnel and e-mail are not on the same page. - Yeah, I would look at it when you talk about point guards that you know you're going to need in the playoffs. It's almost like scuba diving. Where you need to get you X amount of hours to become an official scuba diver that can go a hundred feet under the sea or whatever it is. I don't scuba dive as you can tell. But you can't do this until you've had this number of hours of instruction. And now you're finally allowed to go below this level. - Your body's got acclimated to the pressure. - Yeah, to me, it's like, I know it's probably gonna be frustrating at that fun to play this guy 25 to 30 minutes a game. But you're going to have to do it because in April, this is gonna be your one chance to do anything. 'Cause Fred Van Bleet's not coming back. - Yeah. - The crazier thing though is that they didn't trade for disown move or coat white. - Anything. - I just don't understand the thinking of that at all. - Nothing at the trade level. - I mean, the pistons, too. We said this at the time and the pistons were like, Kevin Heard or we're good. It's like, you're not necessarily good. - Doesn't feel like enough. - Yeah. - Last question, this is from Chris Krauss, who for some reason was thinking of car centric movies that I could parody with Conconiple. Feel free to add your own, he said. But here are the ones he came up with. Driving Miss Daisy, instead of solving racism, Bill teaches Con the value of 1980s pop culture and why being on his phone less than lying in self to be bored is good. Speed, instead of having to keep the car to set my own hour, Bill and Con have to keep podcasting. What will we run out for as their gas or list of topics? And then his last one, collateral. Bill already has the silver haired look. So he's obviously the Tom Cruise assassin. But in this scenario, it's Con realizing Bill is driving the houses of his least favorite internet trolls. Close shot of Con looking terrified as Bill beats a keyboard, where he'd a death with a copy of the Book of Basketball. If any of these are made, I only recruit producer credit. House, yep, these are my listeners. (laughing) This guy wants me to remake collateral with Conconiple where I beat people to death with a Book of Basketball. That trolled me on the internet. Pretty, pretty phenomenal. I don't know where they're from. I don't know where these questions come from, but I love all the house. - Great job, Kraus. - How before we go, how do you feel about sunny styles? You happy? - Oh, I'm over the moon. I just couldn't believe that he fell to seven for this. Well, I mean, this is why I'm out here repping the squad. I think what Washington did on defense. And styles is a perfect fit for our new defense of coordinator, the guy from Minnesota. He's so versatile, he's so fast, he's so athletic. It's gonna be a great fit. He's already, but the team has already embraced him. Amazing job. - Two things, dear to your heart, where he was the only one that noticed $100 at the end of the playbook allegedly and mailed it back. - Great story. - Whether it's true or not, it's a great story. - Whether it's true or not, great story. And then unbelievable high school basketball mix tape. - Oh, outrageous. - You love nothing more than that. The football player high school mix that. - That on free beat, I was like, "Even when Jake may had one, you went nuts. And you didn't even pitch rake, mate." (laughs) But that, I mean, you know, that gives your brain like, "Oh, you could do all of these things." Look at this. - It's great. - I really, if I was in the war room, I would really factor that in. The high school basketball mix tape. Look how generous he is with the ball and his teammates. Like this, maybe he'll be this way as a teammate. - Accounts, accounts. I mean, whoops like you is not a small thing. - All right. House, thanks for doing the mailbag with me. I appreciate it. - Always a pleasure. Thank you for your body. - See you on fairway, Rowan, and on the Ring or a Gambit show as well. If you want to check out More House. Happy playoffs. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to House and CR. Thanks to Eduardo and Gahau as well. Don't forget Ghostbusters. That is the new rewatchables, and it's up, and you can listen to it, and you have six days to watch. There's something about Mary, 'cause that's going to be the next one. I will see you on this feed on Thursday night. God only knows what's gonna happen with the basketball, these next couple nights, but we will have a big action-packed podcast on Thursday, probably taping at least the first part of it right after the game. So I will see you on Thursday. Go socks. (upbeat rock music) Must be 21 plus in president's leg states for Kansas, an affiliation with Kansas star Casino, or 18 plus in president DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Optumacryod bonus issued as nomadropa profit boost tokens, restrictions apply, including any token expression, max wage or amount, see terms at sportsbook.fender.com. Game and problem call 1-800-Gamber, or 1-800-My Reset. Call 888-797-777, or visit ccpg.org/chatcomenicat, or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. 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