Down Goes OKC! Spurs-Knicks is Here! What the Hell Just Happened? And What Does OKC Do Now? | With Zach Lowe

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Or try live betting and jump into the action after tip-off. Or just follow me and my picks. Because every once in a while, I'll put them on social. Download the FanDuel Sportsbook app right now and play your game. 21 plus select states are 18 plus DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. Bill Simmons podcast live on Netflix. Zach Lowe is here on a beautiful Saturday night. We just had an awesome, awesome game seven. My favorite game sevens are when it's not just a series at stake or maybe even the title at stake. But I feel like there's. There's real big picture basketball shit going on. Like era shit, legacy shit, changing of the guard type stuff. And it just felt this way from the beginning. And eventually we'll remember it as the Luke Cornett chase down game. That was it. It's the Cornett game. Lock it down. Biggest play of the game. Luke Cornett, much maligned the entire series. Now, where do you want to start? I mean, that was incredible. I. I want to start with what you just. I want to start with what you just said about, you know, Tirico punctuates the game. It's. It's Wemby's world now. And it's absolutely remarkable that the Spurs are already here. They're so young. And I. Look, they've been a clear championship team for a while now. The experience thing didn't bother me. It didn't. It didn't. It didn't, you know, limit their chances to me. But when you see them all embracing after the game, all the young faces, they're so young. The joy they have. And Wemby's crying and all this. It's like they're already here at the pinnacle. And we are. What is it right now? May 5? Four months removed? I mean, it was really not until those December games, starting with the Vegas tournament. They played three times in like 10 days. Until San Antonio won those games, the story of the season was, is it going to be 73 wins? Are they going to be maybe the greatest regular season team of all time and have the greatest two-year run of all time and start of a dynasty? And the Spurs eviscerated that in a 10-day span in December. Started this series. Started this series with a remarkable win on the road and end it with a remarkable win on the road and go into the finals with De'Aaron Fox looking healthier, Dylan Harper looking healthier, and Wemby at the top of the league. And yet, you use the phrase changing of the guard, Wemby's world. I already want the 2027 Western Conference Finals to start because there's going to be a lot of talk about what is Oklahoma City going to do in the wake of this crushing defeat, their title hopes dashed, this rising phenom that they and nobody else has an answer for. What I want in my basketball fan soul is run it all back. Jalen Williams, you were injured, we're running it back. Chet, we got a lot of Chet talk to do. Let's go into the summer, learn, go into like the Australian outback like Dirk did when the Mavericks lost. Whatever you do. Oh, you want him to do the Dirk? To come back stronger. Where did Dirk go? Yeah, the remote parts of Australia? Yeah. Send him out. Yeah, and just come back and say, you thought it was a changing of the guard? We're coming right back at you again with the same core group that we had tonight. But these two teams going back and forth is awesome. And for the Spurs to be here is absolutely incredible. Wow. You just chewed up a lot of storylines there. That was great. Let's start here with the Spurs though. Young core team. The teams that make the finals, this just basically only happens once a decade. 77 Blazers, 86 Rockets, 95 Magic, LeBron and the 07 Cavs. 15 Warriors, sort of. Curry's like six years in at that point. We had the 87 Mavs almost, the 93 Sonics almost. There's been some almost. This is like the youngest, craziest run. Even the 86 Rockets seem more conceivable. To me than this. And then they go down three, two. I picked the Spurs before the series. I genuinely thought they could win after game five. I, I thought it was a wrap because of, because of Fox and because of, of Harper. They just didn't look right. Harper looked great in game six. We were texting before the game. Tell them what your prediction was before the game. Well, I mean, I Fox, I said, Fox was going to have 15 points on six of 14 shooting. I thought he, I basically said he's going to have a good game, not a great game, but you were worried that he was going to have it. I was worried for the Oh, for 11. Yeah. Disaster cataclysmic. Like, is it already time to trade him game? And I was like, I liked the shots that he was getting in game six. And I was like, I think he's just going to have a good, fine, productive game. Maybe the big, so what did he end up with? Uh, he was, I think you know, 15 points on six of 12. You needed to miss two more shots for me to get it exactly right. All right. So here's what I jotted down from the, everything we would want from a game seven standpoint, we had two fantastic teams. Yes. With two tremendous stars that I, I think played really well. And I want to talk about SGA in a second, but both of those guys were awesome in that game for different reasons. And you had two fascinating career moments for those guys too. You have SGA, you talked about it with Goldsberry after the game six, like we're throwing his name around with some pretty legendary guys from the last 75, 80 years. It would kind of be nice if you had a better series, could we ask for that? And he was lights out. And then you have Fox. You have Wendy going on the road down three, two in a series, um, battling foul trouble. We get down the stretch and I didn't feel like NBC. I thought NBC did it. The crew did a good job today. It was the one time where I felt like they should have been losing their minds that when we got that fifth foul so fast, cause he got four and then all of a sudden he had five and it was like, Oh my God, there's seven minutes left. Is he going to foul out? What are they going to do? Are they going to take them out? So we had that. And then we had, uh, the Chet self combusting piece. Um, which we have to get into too, but Zach, I thought this game had pieces. I had three series written down the 81 self Sixers, which were the last time two awesome teams played in a game seven like this. They both had 62 plus wins, same kind of chaotic rugby type game bulls Pacers with OKC and the bulls and 98 OKC in the bull spot of down six, down eight, down four, down eight, again, down to down eight. Just kind of trying to scrap back and getting into it. And yet the bulls came back in one and, and, and OKC did not. And then the other one I had was the 2016 golden state OKC game, ironically, and that was in golden state, but OKC just the shots, they just couldn't get good shots. Like you didn't even think about like all the offensive rebounds in the first half and then Wallace, like saving them down the stretch, but the offense, the non SGA offense was so hard for them. So explain it to us what happened. Well, I mean, Jill Williams and AJ Mitchell. I heard that that's part of it. And you take those guys away and it's like, oh my God, we're real short on creators. And honestly, when SGA didn't come out at the end of the first quarter, did you think he might play all 48 minutes of the game? Cause I did. Well, there was two panic things. One, he ended up, I think 44 minutes. That was one. And the other was they came out to start the third quarter. They had Wallace out there and J will and Caruso. And it was like, oh, we're doing this now. Like he's, he's worried this game's going to get away. So that. It was definitely like he's calling timeouts. I felt like he was desperately trying to hold on to this game. They did some interesting sub stuff too, with the centers, especially in the second half where I think they, he was kind of realizing maybe I can't rely on chat and may I'll start them in the third quarter, but I'm also going to have heart and staying in as, as fast as I can, if he's not there, but ultimately Chet's why they lost. I don't want to do the Monday morning, you know, first take just blame a guy. He didn't step up, send him to Siberia, but I voted for him. I think. He was the third team on BA. He was the number two defensive player in the, you know, of the year. And he didn't want to shoot. And it got to the point Zach, where they were throwing him past it. He wasn't even catching passes clean anymore. Like you, like he was as far in your head as you can get on a basketball court. Would you sat him or would you have stuck with them? I think without, I think if they have more options, they probably would have sat him. And then they sat him late from a cane when, when the, when it was almost too little too late. Um, yeah. I mean, there's just, first of all, SGA was everything you would ever want him to be in a game where I think there was some actual like career defining pressure on him after six and a series, like a scintillating game of shot making. He had the one annoying jump sideways into Devin Vassell, who he could, but, but when you get a guy airborne, the benefit of the doubt is going to go to you. When a guy bites at your pump fake so badly that he's flying in the air, you're probably going to get to go. I thought you couldn't go sideways on that though. I thought they took care of that rule. You shouldn't. It's inconsistently officiated, but it doesn't matter. He played like an absolutely brilliant game. Wemby played a brilliant game. And to me, the series, the series changed in game four when they stopped double teaming Shea. And that was, I think you and I did a podcast after that game. And I said, there's a little whiff of like, when the, I didn't really make this comparison, but I just, it was the first thing that came into my head of when the Warriors in game four of the finals in 2015 went with the death line up and started Iguodala. And you could, and you could sense like, oh, the terrain of this just changed in a way that is not going back into the tube. I thought not trapping SGA changed the whole series, made his life difficult, made the Thunder's offense life difficult. And I had, I talked with Goldberg. I had a chance. I had a checklist for what is Oklahoma city need to win game seven, even at home, because the Spurs had been the better team through six games. And the checklist was, there were three things on the checklist. They got one. I said, they needed to, one was a good Shea game. They got a great Shea game. Two was they going to need a really strong three point shooting performance from the role players. I'm not counting 12 of 35 as checking that box. I think that's like 34%. They needed a better than that. They were like 29% before the end of the game. And then the third one was, they're going to need to force a lot of turnovers and get out in transition. And the Spurs again, won the turnover battle tonight. That's been the story of the series since game two. So they only got one out of three. And I would have thrown an offensive rebounds for there, which they were getting in the first half. And then it just flipped in the second half, San Antonio, 15, 15 offensive rebounds and four at halftime. Well, and I'll tell you, Dylan Harper had two and both of them led to baskets and, and both of them were the result of Oklahoma. City messed up a rotation at the top of the arc. And the guy from the corner had to panic, rotate up at a shooter who was left open by mistake. And both times, I think it was Harper. Both times, the corner guy crashed and got huge rebounds. And, uh, let's, should we like chat? I just do, let's do, let's do SGA and when be first, and then we can talk about shit. So to finish the SGA thing, that was one of my favorite games I've ever seen him play. Cause I felt like, first of all, worst possible team for him to play, right. Would they have? I think it's just like seven perimeter guys for everybody to play. Like that's just, this, this is what this guy is now. He's the worst possible guy to play. If you're an offense first player, but they also had a bunch of perimeter guys who seemed pretty comfortable, at least trying to stay in front of them. They were trapping them really smartly and he was just solving it for two hours. Um, and I didn't think he was doing a lot of the flop stuff. I thought everything he was doing was just like really smart scoring. He made a couple of threes. Uh, and it felt like, wow, if they win this game, this is gonna be, I know he won two MVPs in a row and he won the title last year, but this will be like the defining game that I'm not positive he's had yet. The first game you would point to, and then he just ran out of gas and Reggie and Jamal, who I thought did a good job tonight. Uh, they noticed it right away. They, they noticed he started bailing on the passes and stuff, but that's about as well as he could play finished with 35. But as you said earlier, you don't have Mitchell now. Now McCain's taking up most of that Mitchell minutes and playing really well, but Jalen Williams was, that was it because Jalen Williams would have allowed them to go bigger, smaller. He would have been the second creator and they just, you could really feel it today. They didn't have that second guy. Yeah. And you mentioned the big man stuff. I think what they concluded was, uh, and just, you could see them trending this way. The whole series was, um, we cannot play another big man with Hartenstein because there's just not enough shooting and dynamism on the floor, but we do want to have a big man. We want to have as much size as possible because Wemby is just so dynamic at the rim. We need a second layer of rim protection. So we would like to play two bigs. The only two big combination we have left that we have any faith in is Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren. They just completely separated into those two in the second half. And part of that is like, if Chet's going to be a zero, like Chet is a floor spacing off the dribble attacking big man who can play with a traditional center. That's the whole point of him. And he, he ended up averaging like 10.5. Points per game in the series and was completely invisible the entire game. And you never want to read too much into one game, but when you play like that in this game, that matters a lot and is going to have some lasting effects that he and the team are going to have to get together and figure out, like, how do we not have that ever happen again? Because that was just not an acceptable performance of a guy from a guy of his caliber. And the whole series was leading to that. And this was the low point. I got this email. I got this email a few times before game seven, and I wrote down, cause I had a feeling we'd be talking about this, but Joe from Pennsylvania wrote, I have no dog in this fight, but if you're an OKC fan, would you be worried that Wemby is taking Chet's soul? He wrote this before game seven. Ben Craven wrote, do you see any parallels between what Wemby is doing to Chet and what Jordan did to Drexler? Greg in Toronto wrote, is Chet versus Wemby the best modern example of two generational unicorns where the mere existence of Wemby is the best example of two generational unicorns? Greg in Toronto wrote, is Chet the best modern example of two generational unicorns? This was their issue last year and it didn't. didn't really rear its ugly head even though they did play in two seventh games but that was the always thing you always would look at the threes the games that got blown out this series they suck from three there were moves they could have made during this season with the with all the picks and all the young players they have you know there were people sitting around like that like who knows when trey murphy's gonna get that's that's somebody that was the name floating around my head as i was talking yeah and maybe that's a move they make that's another thing is trey murphy we assume he's probably getting a trade over these next three weeks i think boston is a possibility we thought whoever lost this matchup was a possibility there's a couple other teams but you know you have two three weeks to trade for somebody like that um we we'll talk more okay see you later let's um we'll take a quick break and we're gonna come back and we got to talk about wimby and just everything we saw in this series and what that might look like against the next hitter this episode is brought to you by duluth trading company whether it's the 19th inning the 12th quarter or the fifth and a half shift overtime not going anywhere which is why duluth builds hard-working gear for folks who work their butts off their surefire arsenal work shirts are built for function and comfort giving a big foam middle finger to all that is futile and the new no quit utility shared is equipped with cooling and wicking tech oh boy to keep you comfortable all while being tough enough to take down your most daunting tasks when it's marathon work session versus you give no quits shop at a duluth store near you or at duluth trading.com victor wimby dama 22 years old if you're going to nitpick his performance in the playoffs you might say protect the defensive boards a little better um maybe take your time on doubles try to figure out how to get closer to the basket i don't know that's all i got i'm fucking awesome he's a maniac there and there are no knits there's no picking i'm not i'm not do i mean like everyone wants him closer to the basket all the time and i think the people who scream that all the time even though some of them are ex-players and i certainly am not um are underestimating how fatiguing it is to throw yourself at the basket over and over and over and over again when you're skinny and you do what he does on defense and just how hard it is like the days of just throw the ball into the post and post up and back down have been over for like 25 years and the reality is his games are like he broke through the other night and he took nine threes i think and his jumper was on again today and he made that step back over jaylen williams on the left wing i almost fell out of my goddamn chair it's always going to be a mix and that's for what this guy is doing i mean i i said it with goldsberry and i wonder where this game ranks five of oklahoma city's nine worst offensive games points per possession going into this game tonight we're against for the whole season playoffs included we're against the spurs like it's just a weapon that no one has an answer to yet you know when you really noticed it when he would come out of the game and sga was like when when i let murph out in the backyard he just runs around sg was like he's not out there he you could just see like the hopping and stuff and it's like oh my god hey look that's what the rim looks like i do you led with it almost as a joke i do think that cornet block if we're going to talk about the wemby on the bench minutes i mean that was if he finishes that fast break hartenstein or passes it off to wallace because it was kind of a two-on-one that makes it 97 93 wemby's in foul trouble crowds going crazy instead it's a block and i can't remember who ends up scoring at the other end to make it um 99 91 uh just uh it was a castle it was a castle jumper that yeah and their their transition defense the entire series was just balls to the wall oklahoma city just could not convert and transition as consistently because everything was contested the rebounds were contested like credit the spurs that's the kind of urgency it takes to beat a team like this four times and like that cornet that cornet block was i maybe the moment of the entire game i don't know but it's up there well there were two moments when it felt like okc was going to make a run and that was one so it's 97 92 648 left wemby has to come out and then there was that other one um when it was uh i'm gonna say it was like two minutes left wallace hit that second three and then san antonio inbounded the ball all this stuff's blending together and they just decided to run though let's throw it to wemby play oh yeah took it away door took it and okc just couldn't convert but it felt like oh my god this would be the classic young team falling apart piece but um i listen i really respect when somebody knows how to handle themselves with five fouls because they brought him back a minute later he came back with like over five minutes left and the announcers were talking about and i agreed like i'm just going at him and trying to get that that uh that six one and there were a couple times it felt like they could have attacked him and and they just didn't so there were a couple things san antonio did even in this game to try to try to get him a little more open a couple times they just put him in the corner and created space basically left him on one side and had him not really back down but he was at least 18 feet where he can go toward the paint with his right hand so maybe trying to think what stuff the knicks will try to do against them now that the knicks have that mitchell robinson finger thing i assume who's going to play but who knows they'll have towns to throw at him who's a dumb foul waiting to happen all the time other than that who are they going to be able to like og would be the other one i guess and an obi guarded him quite a lot i rewatched all the games this weekend to prep little josh hart maybe uh josh second or no josh didn't guard him much josh guarded steph castle uh a lot um og guarded him a lot probably towns and an obi and robinson and then there's like random guys who are in these games because they're regular season games like huck porty comes in and whatever uh i think we'll see a little bit of and and that is where the harrison barnes swap out of the starting lineup for champagny who was absolutely the best in the game absolutely nailed wow in this game tonight looms large because when the knicks would play around like that and put in an obi on when but yama harrison barnes was the guy that they would be like all right cat just like stand in the corner with harrison barnes and that's safe for you and that's not that doesn't really um exist anymore but the robinson i just want to flag it now i think he's a massive deal in this series because one of the other things i've come to believe watching wemby is everyone searches for like what's an answer what's is there an answer is there a player and like i said i don't think there's a answer to that but i think there's a there's one there's no individual player i think shooting is an answer and i do think an elite offensive rebounder and that's a lob catcher someone that he's got to think about like if i try to block every shot and even i'm gonna miss some am i gonna get am i gonna get punished on the other end of it or is there a lob threat and i think mitchell robinson yeah but obviously in the vegas game he had like a thousand offensive rebounds right i think that player type is a they then if they don't have mitchell robinson full throttle i think that's a bigger problem in this matchup than it would have been against the thunder i wrote anytime i watch a game like this i always write down in the second quarter in bold the guys who i think i trust in the game so for the spurs i had wimby castle fox vasel harper and champagne so it's six guys for them and that was before the kelden johnson renaissance in the second half right they had seven guys really show up in this game not to mention cornet who had the biggest defensive play for okc at that point by the way i just want to point out that's basically all seven guys who played in the game every other three guys played six minutes three minutes and three minutes i felt great about all those guys okc i had sga mccain caruso and then i had i heart question mark and j will question mark and those were the only five guys i had for okc now i didn't have wallace down and wallace came on in the second he didn't really play as much in the first half um and wallace should have been on there maybe i forgot to write him down but um but it's interesting i didn't have chet and i didn't have kelden johnson and kelden johnson who i thought really wasn't good this series um but then in the in the second half he had some big offensive rebounds he had a couple big threes that i there were some a couple no no yes threes uh and had the energy right kind of energy um whereas like from from the okc standpoint i dort was that guy for them last year um he would give them energy with defense with you know just like kind of veteran stuff and he just wasn't i didn't feel like he was the same in this playoffs look i think it's not second guessing i i i am certainly i was not alone said after game six like i don't think you can start dort and holmgren and hartenstein again in game seven because you're just getting boat raced at the beginning of every game would you have started harper and baylor and baylor shireman but i i again i've said after that game um i i don't know like we always say chest not checkers i'm not sure what mizula was playing i think he was playing boggle that night and neither neither chest nor checkers had been some bottle um i just couldn't believe he started that lineup again to his credit he pulled dort real fast and put caruso in and the damage was not as severe um as it could have been but the like every time the thunder got there were two times the thunder took the lead when they took the lead it felt like they had gotten to the top of the mountain and boy what a But instantaneously, the Spurs would go on like a 9-0 run to say like, no, no, we're going to retake control of the game. The first one is at the end of the first half when they finished on a 7-0 run right after the Thunder took the lead. And I think there was another time in the second half. And just like, that's so impressive to take that punch, to have the crowd going like that, four-point lead, three-point lead, whatever it was, and just instantaneously like, oh, an 11-0 run just happened. And it's not just they're ahead again. They're in control of the game again. And they got to fight back again from 7-8, 9 down. It's just like sensational responses by the Spurs. Fox, especially, I thought had a couple of big boy moments right when the momentum felt like it was shifting against them. And he had some old school. Did he win clutch player of the year? He might have. I don't know. For the second, he was like. He did. No, he did. I think it was the beam team year, which was the first year they had the award. I don't have my clutch player of the year by year thing framed yet. So I'm not able to look at it. But it was the old school. Fox ended with 15. He had three steals. And I thought he did an OK job anytime he was on SGA, too. Like when I don't even really know who OKC was trying to switch SGA onto because it felt like every single guy was at least, you know, passable with Wemby behind them. There wasn't like a like a black hole type person. If we got to the next series, it would have been Brunson. It ends up not mattering because it doesn't matter of the guy that's that's behind him. Like you said. Yeah. So Champagny hit six threes. And it was interesting. They didn't close with Vassell. He was on the bench. I felt like for most of most of the end because they were playing Harper, who we have to talk about. Listen, man. I've talked about it before. So have you. 20 year old point guards doing this on this stage on the road is unheard of. This is. Yeah, I'm trying not to use the word generational. But we're talking 1980 Magic Johnson at age 20 in the finals. And we're talking Derrick Rose in that bowl Celtics playoff series. 20 year old point guards are a mess. They're like, they're, they're like freshmen in high school, just trying to remember what their locker combination is and just trying to survive the day and remember where the classrooms are. They're not supposed to be running the offense. He had that one when he, we backed down, I can't remember who it was. He backed him down, did the footwork thing and kind of stopped. I think traveled, but it felt like might've been a travel, but somehow ended up pulling, but I just, we're, we're going to have 15 years of that. I thought that was such an important game for him because now, you know, the Knicks, that atmosphere is going to be even crazier. It's the finals. The spotlight's a little bigger, but I think they know with him, he seemed healthy to me to the last two games, which is the big thing. Yeah. Bounce back. His bounce is back. His power around the rim is back. And he tried to do that crazy dunk too. Yeah. In the fourth quarter, which was probably a mistake, but he was like, I'm going. I mean, they killed some clock before, but again, I, I was surprised that he just went for it, but I'm also not because he thinks he's going to pull it off. And imagine if you do, you just, I think Chad Holmgren would have just broken into like 10,000 pieces and that would have been the end of him. And like, I don't know what you, I just don't know what would have happened. Poor Chad. This is really going to be going to be a tough one for him. So Harper Castle Fox together. This was the dream when you get Fox, when it's like, well, have these three guys, sometimes we'll even be able to play them together. This will ease Harper into this to Fox on a bigger stage, on a better team. Fox is in Sacramento and, and would you call them in our over under pod? The Hindenburg or the NBA. I said, they were, I said they were, they were heading for a Hindenburg level season. By the way, we have a deer on Fox, Mike Brown. We got off the Hindenburg reunion coming up in the finals. We have a reunion for them, but Fox gets out of there. The ringers, Rich Paul smartly puts them on Wembley. The team, which was, I think a good move and, uh, and this couldn't have worked out better. I mean, he, you guess where else he could be on Sacramento with Russell Westbrook at the Rosen and, uh, waited to see who they pick, who they're going to, how they're going to fuck up the seventh pick. So you have that castle was, you know, I thought he was incredible. The whole series for his he's 21. It's not like he's 10 years older than Harper. Uh, the defense, when he had the four fouls, I was nervous for them because it's like, I don't know if you can survive if he's out of the game that long. I don't know. What does he become? What is, what is castle in five years for you? Who is he? I mean, an all-star for sure. Um, a multi-time doppelganger who like, who is it? I mean, you have to think who's a big physical guard who, who gets by with brute force and passing creativity around it. And by that time is probably a more reliable jump shooter than he is now, though he shot the three well in the playoffs. Like I don't, I'm trying to even think of who. plays with the raw power and like ferocity that he has like he he plays as if he plays with like a hatred of the guy in front of him like i just want to beat the shit out of you and go up right in your face um yeah he was tired of caruso after seven games i think he was had enough of him i don't know i don't know who he is knowing and no one is coming to my mind is like a great guard wing doppelganger for him it's somebody that definitely belonged in a different era and decade i think he would have been really happy in 2003 or 2004 being in like those pacers piston series but yeah i don't i don't really know even who to compare him to so the like a like a meaner is he taller than duane wade like a meaner um more aggressive more like powerful duane wade i don't know it's like a duane wade crossed with alvin robertson i'm gonna go back to the 80s alvin robertson um so anyway you have that you have this cornet sign in that they do that was really smart they played the celtics perfectly and then cornet every time wimby comes out they lose the cornet minutes and at some point i had a couple people in my life who like the spurs were like what's up with this cornet what a stiff i'm like he's not a stiff cornet's a good backup this is just for whatever reason can't get it going this series and then finally was able to hold the fort a little tonight but what's interesting about them going forward they have the wimps wimpy extension this summer regardless but they could still kind of dabble and make this team better i don't even know what you would do because you always want to base this stuff on who do we have in a game seven that we trust and we just went through it i i'm seven guys i like yeah they have small windows to do small to medium things the big things are over um i looked at it a little bit too and i didn't think too deeply about it because the series was still going on there it's not nearly as like financially dire as what's about to hit the thunder um and well and then and they have the carter bryant piece too like if he emerges keldon johnson expire next year but if carter bryant becomes that perfect like defensive physical banger who can also hit threes and play next to wimpy that's kind of what they need so well and the the the keldon johnson one is a big one because if they end up having to keep him at what a fair rate would be for a guy who just won six man of the year it get and they love him and maybe they will but if they keep him they're gonna i think they should probably want to resign extend or resign champagny they have a team that's going to be a good team and they're going to be a good team and they're going to be a option on him next year for nothing for three million dollars they get pretty expensive if they keep everybody together but again they have windows now and by the way we should we always do this thing where we we the collective we everybody um points out when a team like the rockets were the first team that we talked about like this um the pistons have gotten a little flack for like well they had all these trade assets and they did nothing at the trade deadline and look how it came back to haunt them in the playoffs the spurs did nothing at the trade deadline and they have a thought they were going to do something at the trade deadline and they didn't and they're in the finals so sometimes it goes the other way too i was okay with them because i felt like it was probably a year ahead of schedule they needed to taste their own butt in the playoffs as it turned out they didn't no they just they're drinking everybody else's blood but yeah it's just like let's take a year and see what we have because that's like what sam prestey would have done for instance but as it turned out it turned out to be an incredible move and they have a bunch of picks too like they're going to be able to have some maneuverability so how many knicks fans in your life were texting you over the last 48 hours asking you who they should be rooting for in this game oh just because i had every single knicks fan i knew was like what do you think who who should i root for and i'm like if i'm you i don't want to play wimby in the finals that's who i would root for so it's funny i said this with goldsberry like i just think you just have to say i don't care because the easy answer is like the answer they default to is the spurs because we beat the spurs you know twice and uh including in the the cup and like we looked pretty comfortable against them we killed them at home in march uh and the thunder of the thunder i'm like i just don't the spurs have risen to the level where there's just no great answer here and they're both bad answers but if jalen williams is hurt and aj mitchell is hurt i think the thunder might actually be the better answer because i don't want any i don't want any part of these guys but they're just they're they're just excited and i honestly like weirdly a lot of the them were a lot of my knicks fans friends and acquaintances and people i run into were rooting for the spurs regardless because they're just fascinated with wimby and they have a lot of people really just have bought into even casual fans that bought into like the flopping with oklahoma city drives me crazy and i just don't like the way they play like knicks fans were they're they're just like you know what let's let's have some fun with wimby it'll be it'll be fun at the very least i am uh delighted that we don't have to talk about flopping anymore thank god Thank God that's over for content and the most fun part possible series was Nick Spurs, even though the basketball historian side of me was like, man, okay. See going through wars to try to win two straight titles. Like that would be really meaningful. That would put them on this whole other, other level. But Nick Spurs is the most fun series. And if you're the league, Oh my God, this is like the, this is the all time wet. The only other wet dream. If you're talking wet dream finals, it's this one it's 2016 LeBron rematch against the 73 wind warriors coming off the clay Thompson OKC game. It's the 2010 Laker Celtics rematch, right? Those are the three wet dream finals for the league. And this might be number one, honestly, out of everything we mentioned, because you have the revival of the Knicks, you have 53 years and generations of fans waiting for this forever. And you have Wemby, your next guy, the guy who's ready to replace LeBron and Curry as, as the guy in the league already here. Um, it's, it's like what we had in 2007, except the rest of his team is actually good when it was Spurs calves. And it's like LeBron's here. Yeah. But he's playing with guys that have no chance against this Spurs team. This is different. Like Wemby could actually win it. And I feel, I feel like we have some history with Wemby too now. And I think the Olympics was really important with that. We've, even though he's young and he hasn't been around and he missed half the last season, I still feel like I've seen him in some basketball games. Like I feel like a shiny new car to me. He can't to you, right? We've been watching him for a few years now. We've been talking about him as arguably the best player in the league for five months now. Like he's here, he's been in big games. The, the international stuff was big and, uh, yeah. And this is, you know, um, another finals without any of the sort of older generation players that have carried the league for a long time. And it's the first, I think, well, I mean, depending on what you, how you perceive of Shay or whatever, but obviously there is a guy like everyone, everyone is fascinated by Wemba Niyama people who have watched two basketball games the entire year and kind of half watch them while drinking in the sweet somewhere at MSG. Like, can't wait to watch this guy play on a big stage. He did a thing today in the fourth quarter. It was, there were, it was like halfway through the fourth quarter, Dylan Harper, maybe even like four minutes of Dylan Harper ended up with the ball and he kind of lost it around the foul line. And all of a sudden there's a fast, quick break and the, the OKC had a two on one and they ended up throwing into the left corner to McCain and Wemby was hustling back and he's on like the three point line, but somehow challenged the shot. And he did like that crazy Wemby, like Freddy Krueger movie does. And he almost blocked it. And if he had blocked it, that would have been the greatest block I've ever seen. If he, if the, if I had had time, I would have gone back and slowed it down because he's running and you know, he's going to jump at it. And you're just thinking, he's so big that he's just Jerry McCain. It is at least going to know that he's coming, but probably also think he can't actually get to it, but I'm easing my head a little bit. Like, did he actually almost like, he almost had it. It seemed like he did from the, and that's like Tirico on the call. God bless him. It was like, Oh, Wemby did that Cornette contest. And I'm like, Oh, if only Luke Cornette could do a Cornette contest like that, that was, that was not the Cornette contest. That was something altogether different. I get what you're saying. I get where you're going. He started from very far away, but that was not the Cornette contest. 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Visit corepower.com to learn more. As the finals line for us. Okay. You saw it. You looked at it. I saw it. It was not what I would have guessed. Um, I'll tell you what I would have guessed after, but what is your guess? Spurs Spurs, very slight favorites. Like what is the proper terminology? Like minus one 10 or something like that? Like minus say like minus one 25 minus one 30 range is slight favorites. Yeah. Yeah. So I would have said Spurs minus one 50 and it's Spurs minus two Oh five. Two to one favorites. Very similar to the Boston Dallas, um, finals line. Uh, if you want to do Spurs sweep, that's plus seven 30. If you want to do Nixon for Nixon five, that's 16 to one or 12 to one. If you want to do the greatest night of basically everyone's life that we know from New York, Nick's winning six plus four 80. Look, if the Knicks went in six shut down New York city, they're sleeping in Madison square garden or getting home. I'm doing a live podcast from the street, just drinking with crazy people. And you may never see me again. Those are the only, those are the only two. I'm not sure we see really anybody again. I don't know what happens. I mean, that will be the highest price basketball ticket of all time. It will be in the running for highest price sports ticket. I don't know if assuming we get it, let's assume we knock on and maybe a game seven in these finals? I'm supposed to go there. I can't go live after game two because my son is graduating high school. Big moment. Last time I skipped a game for his graduation was the Curry game. Curry game for Boston Gold State when he graduated from eighth grade. Which you have stated was probably good for your emotional health to not be at the game despite its historic significance. I felt like whatever I did, they were going to lose. But I'm glad I didn't go. I missed the greatest game of Steph Curry's career. But my son obviously means more as he does for this high school graduation. But it almost guarantees game two is going to be good. I'm not saying I have those powers. It's good for Ben Simmons that he's stayed above NBA players that you don't really know in the Bill Simmons love power rankings. That he's sustained in these intervening four years that he hasn't fallen off at all, teenage Ben Simmons. And stayed ahead of the other Ben Simmons who is now a professional fisherman. That was another thing. I was worried. He was going to be like, what if Ben Simmons had been Wemba Yama? Like been the biggest star in the league. My son had the same name. Did inside the NBA work Ben Simmons into the Sixers gone fishing graphic? They must have, right? If they didn't, what a missed opportunity. He could be on another boat just fishing randomly. Not even on the Sixers boat. He's just on a boat nearby. Yeah, is that in a boat in the back? Yeah. You don't have to say your finals pick. Are you leaning? I'll save it for your podcast. The Zach Lowe show. A great podcast. Yeah. We're going to record. Are you leaning longer series or shorter? Longer. Longer. I haven't, I haven't made it. I haven't made up my mind on who I'm going to pick to win, but I will say, I think the line. I would not favor the Spurs by as much as Vegas is favoring. I agree with you off the bat. I think this next thing is real. Like, I think it's legit. I don't care what the level of competition is like to do this for this long. And you just. You just know, like, I, I know what my eyes saw, how they are playing, but the Mitchell Robinson thing is a big, a big X factor. The other X factor is the, the Spurs probably just feel like they won the title, even though they have another team waiting. But that was such a, to come back three, two, to do that on the road. It's about as emotional of a, just getting to the finals. I'm trying to think who would have had a more emotional. We just won the conference finals. When in the recent history of the NBA, because more, normally it's more veteran teams, right? I guess, okay. See beating San Antonio in 2012, but even that wasn't a game seven. Oh, we're picking like winners. Like they had to have, I'm just saying winning the conference finals, being that emotional to just win a conference finals, Miami beating Boston in 2012. It was a good one, but they were home. Yeah, but yeah, it's pretty rare to have, like, I remember going back to the nineties because I wrote down, it's funny, I went through all the games. Sevens and conference finals. Cause, um, what was rare about the thing today? There was every time it's under 200 points, like for, uh, basically before 1993, every game has been under 200 points, except for 2002 Lakers. King's overtime was 1 0 6 1 0 2. So usually they're rock fights. And then for the most part, the home teams always won until recently. And that was the fifth one in a row that the road team has won, um, which is. - Which is nuts, the home team's- - Conference finals, Game seven, conference finals, game seven specifically. But I'm looking at the list of most emotional ones. I guess LeBron beating Boston by himself in 2018 is up there. That was one of the most incredible things I've ever seen. He played all 48. I know he'd won a couple of titles already, but the emotion of just dragging that team that he had all the way three series, that was pretty nuts. That was the only emotional Eastern Conference triumph for that LeBron 2.0 in Cleveland. Because the other ones, I'm not even sure. I never realized what round they were in. And someone was just told, no, you're actually in the finals now. You get to play the West team. You just beat all these teams again. 94, Knicks over Indiana was one. And then Barkley over Seattle in 93 was another one. And then the most famous one for me was the Celtics Sixers won in 81 when everyone charged the court. And that's still, I think, the greatest playoff season of all time. The Stockton shot in Houston. Oh, that's a great one. That's a good one. 97. Yeah. The Matt Maloney team. That's a really good one. Um, but I wonder how much they have left in the tank. Wemby has never played this many minutes for this kind of a stretch. They've been really, really, really careful with him. Almost like a pitcher, not throwing more than like five, six innings. But he, he was 40, 40 minutes or around there for about a month. Um, so we'll see what happens. We'll see what they have left in the tank. Let's talk about, uh, what happens with OKC. Okay. I always like to play. What do you do with you? So we talked about the safest thing to do is just be like, look, man, we won the title last year with a big bullseye on us all year. It was the first time we became the villains. The flopping thing became a huge storyline constantly. Um, people just didn't like us. That's always a weird thing to deal with for the first time. And then we had some bad luck in the playoffs. We went against, um, a guy who's the best, the best player the league's had since LeBron and Curry from a ceiling standpoint. And a team that just took it from us and we were banged up and injured and let's not overreact. That would be the, that would be the safe, smart move. I don't think they're going to do that. Okay. What do you think they're going to do? I think you have to start getting creative with some of these picks because the thing that they have is they can go 130, 140 cents on the dollar in a trade and you're stockpiling all these picks. Now they just changed with the lottery form. Those picks might actually be even worth a little bit more than. Maybe they used to be, but, you know, I'm just not wasting this SGA window when he's this good, you know, when he's, this is four years in a row now where he's been one of the one to four best players in the league and you just never know when that window is going to end. So I would, I would try to get at least a little creative. What do they need? What's your, what's your all time fixer? Just improve the chat spot. What would be your move? I mean, but how am I improving the chat spot? Giannis? I, again, I have to aggregate, like it's, it's anything's possible when you have as many picks as thunder have, but the restrictions of the second, I'm not going to let that slide. Um, the restrictions of the second apron are real and like make it very hard for the thunder to make trades because they can't aggregate salaries. They can't take back a dime more. Like there's a lot of restrictions that just make this mechanically much. I think. Are they, are they over the second apron now or it's next year? They're not over it now. Uh, I don't know. I don't know if they're over it now, but I don't think they're over it yet. When the calendar flips to July 1st, they're going to fly over it. Um, so next year, just so people know SGA is 40, but then he goes to 60, 65, 70, 75. Chet and Jada both start five year, $239 million deals. They have Mitchell who they re-signed at three, three, and three, the best contract in the league. They have Caruso at 19.5. It's unbelievable that country. They have team options. For a Hartenstein, 29, they're under the aprons now. So they have team options for Hartenstein for 29. Dort for 18. They have to deal with case on Wallace. Um, whether you want to extend him or not, get him on a good deal. And then they have Joe and Wiggins and J will making a combined 30 million next year. Plus Topich and Sorber making nine forgotten man. Just another mid first round pick sitting there waiting to contribute next year that they might. If they are really under the crunch might have to use picks to try to get rid of. They have the 12th and 17th pick this year. They have a Clippers swap next year. They have a top five Denver first. They have a Dallas swap in 28. They have a Denver top five protected first and 29, and then they have their own first. What do we do to mark the moment when that Clippers swap is exercised and the Paul George trade ends? Do we have a, is it like when, like the last. So to Seinfeld, I was thinking like, do you have like a clip show leading into the final episode and then a party after I was thinking like the last episode of the Sopranos, like every podcast just goes blank when they're, when they're talking about it and people think we're all dead. I got a mailbag question wondering if they should, um, raise to the banners, Paul, George and Kawhi because of all the, all the good stuff that, that trade, not the worst idea. So, all right. So. So get creative. I mean, they can do a, they can, I think the, I think the number one need is shooting more than anything else. And I don't know where they get it, but I, but yeah, they can bundle a bunch of picks and move up in the draft. They can bundle picks and players and try to get like a low price player. And the Chet one is Chet one's tricky. Um, and the, and the jail and William, I mean, this was more or less a lost season for jail and Williams, like almost an entire like lost season. Um, and now they're going to jump up and make all NBA level money next year. And that is a proven. It's a proven big three on a championship team. We just saw it last year, but it, it, um, we just didn't see enough of it this year in terms of availability. And like this, this game tonight, I just don't think we can talk enough about what just happened to Chet Holgrim in this game. Like that was a disaster. Um, and I'm just fascinated where he goes from here personally. Well, and we've also seen a couple of times in NBA history where a guy had such a bad playoffs and followed him. Right. It definitely affected dirt. For a couple of years. There's no question. Um, Hey, one of the famous Celtics examples was Antoine Walker when Kenya Martin just destroyed him. And I honestly felt like Antoine Walker was never the same after that second net series. Like Kenny Martin just took his lunch. And then we mentioned Drexler earlier as another one where Drexler was the second best player in the league in 92. The next year, I don't even think he made an all NBA team like between that and kind of being a backup on the dream team and getting his ass kicked by Jordan every day. Like he just wasn't. He wasn't the same after that. So the question is, do you start to worry that that could be Chet? And then if I'm another team in the league, do I feel like this is my opportunity to try to go get Chet? And what is Chet? Like, what if, what am I getting in Chet? Because am I getting a guy who is this another, you know, it's hard for these big guys where it's like, we, we're doing it with Mobley and Chet, like, oh, they have this well-rounded game. Like maybe this is your, they're going to, they're going to develop into a 24 point a game score and the perimeter game is going to come along and it's just, it's hard. Like, are you ever getting that guy or is he going to be 19 a game? Second best defense player in the league, reasonable three-point shooter. I mean, the, the total vanishing of his three-point shot is astonishing. Inexplicable. I know it's like one of the best things about his game. And it's the thing that like, yeah, okay, sure. It's hard for you as a big man to a skinny big man to dribble against wings that are guarding you and get to your spot. You're not an overpowering ball handler is going to back people down, but that's the thing that should never go away. No matter what, no matter what or where. Whatever. You're going to get five open threes a game by spotting and it just, they, he got, I think he averaged less than two attempts per game and was completely invisible in the biggest game of, of the year, 27% from three in this series before tonight, what did he shoot tonight? Was it like one for two or something? I mean, he didn't even take a three didn't shoot a zero for zero. So you can just, wow. So he finished 27% really odd. It's not the percentage. How many did he take? He took 11 threes in seven games. He passed up a couple too tonight that, uh, Jamal and Reggie called him out for right away. Like, wow, he's got it. Yeah. Like they were about as harsh on him during the broadcast. As you hear announcers, the only one who will really do that is being Gundy, but they were over and over again. Like, where's Chet, what's going on here? Why isn't he straight up was like, hello, hello. Right. Like Ken, rich Williams attempted as many threes in the series as Chet did. But the other thing is, shouldn't he have? I like, if I had told you he's going to do zero threes in a game seven or 10, what number would you have believed? I would have believed the 10 because it was like, oh, they're finally like, this is their strategy now to pull Wemby out. They went smaller with Chet at center and he's just going to shoot threes. But he just, I, as I said earlier, when he wasn't catching passes clean anymore, that's when you know, you're in your head and when the ball handling pass, catch stuff goes sideways. So as long as they are assuming we're both right. Yeah. I think that's a good thing. I would have less picks and less swaps because who am I? you would like to do that. Who am I competing against for Giannis? I'm competing against Miami who I can top any offer they have. And now Orlando, because they, we didn't talk about this, but they hired Sean Sweeney, the, uh, San Antonio bench coach who spent what? Five years with Giannis, four years of Giannis in Milwaukee. And I think makes not the first person to make this point, but I think that entered them into the honest chat for trades. There's no question. So it's like, is Paolo on the table for Giannis? Is that even a possible trade? I don't know. You might be competing against that too. Sure. I mean, again, they traded all their picks for Desmond Bain. So I'm not sure how many sweeteners they can throw in there. Um, but if I'm the bucks and I could get rid of Giannis and just start over and have Paolo as the centerpiece, I'm, I'm doing that. But like, but like the thing about the thunders offer offers, whatever you want to say compared to the heater, whoever you want to throw out there is at least if I'm Milwaukee and I trade them to Miami or I trade them to golden state or something like at least I'm getting picks where I have some expectation that, um, I can bet against that team being successful. And some of these picks might end up being pretty valuable, even with the lottery rules changing. If I trade them to Oklahoma city, even if I like fleece Oklahoma city, they're just not, there's no world reasonable world that I can project where those picks are going to be any good. And I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm probably not getting any of my own picks back, which is another little side plot. I still kind of like the, uh, uh, Jalen Brown to Portland, Giannis to Boston, a bonanza of picks, including Milwaukee's own picks that Portland's have coming back and young players coming back to Milwaukee. I kind of liked that trade construction. I have no idea how interested anybody actually is in doing it, but I don't mind it. I keep saying it. I don't think Boston's in on Giannis. I mean, I certainly not sensed any great urgency from them to break up their team. I think the, the, the reason to trade Jalen would be to not want to have the two $70 million guys in two years or 65 or whatever it is. So to just flip him into somebody else who then is going to want an extension. That's the other thing with Giannis. To me, it's, it feels like a very un-OKC move. Like if we, if we're really gonna, like we've been with Presti now for 20 years, Presti is a huge chemistry guy. He's a huge put personalities together, certain types, be patient. Like even like, when that first OKC run, when that was when you and I started working together and the hardened trade was a big trade for them because they couldn't afford them, even though I feel like they could have. But then you look at the next couple of years, they remember they, how hesitant they were to do anything. And then that last year, when they thought KD might be leaving, they said that was when they went over the tax and they made some, some big swing trades and did like the Dion waiters and a whole bunch of weird trades that they did. I think for the most part, he's pretty careful. The one time he was like, I'm the Perkins Jeff green trade, which feels like it was 700 years ago now is a little bit similar to this chat situation. I think where it was like Jeff green, KD card in Westbrook. Those were like their four guys. Oh, they'll never trade. And then all of a sudden he did it. He traded Jeff green because he needed his center. And that would be like, so we know he could be cutthroat if he needs to be. I mean, Chet is now an all star and an all NBA level player. This is just a completely different comp. conversation. I mean, there was also the Ibaka trade, which was, you know, like when they got old. Yeah, it's a bigger situation because you're going to get a better quarterback than Kendrick Perkins. But the other thing is like Giannis plus J dub plus Shay, like the financial, I'm not solving any financial issues with, with that kind of trade. In fact, I'm just, I'm getting even more expensive. I don't see, I don't see them doing and messing with, you know, now you got the brothers there and it doesn't feel like an OKC move. I would say the move would be, Hey, we should have won and Jalen Williams got hurt and you talk yourself into that world and you don't do anything. But the question is, is check going to do the Dirk Australia? We don't see him again for four months because he's going to take a ton of shit all week. I mean, and, and look, I don't love piling on. That was dumbfounding. Like the whole series was dumbfounding. He had a couple moments in game five and six where he seemed to like crash the offensive glass, had a couple of nice takes against Vassell, whatever. This was a, just a dumbfounding game. And what, and again, the game where they, the, the need for anyone to produce offensively other than Shay was never more glaring than in this game. And he just didn't do anything. Wow. 32 minutes, one for two. Like you almost looks like it's like the James Harden 2021 Brooklyn game seven box score when he was on one leg. Well, and you're like, Oh yeah, he was hurt, but Chet was healthy for this game. And the last, the last two things I remember him doing on offense yet, you know, he had that nice block on Dylan Harper were dropping, dropping an entry pass. Now he recovered it, but it was, it took the, it took the, he like cut into the middle of the floor, Shay passed it to him and he dropped it and it disrupted the whole rhythm. And then he tried to drive on Victor and you could hear the broadcast gearing up like, Hey, here he goes. He's going to, and then he just like fell over and was like, I couldn't even see him on the floor. And like, those are my last two memories of Chet Holmgren on offense. Yeah. It's, it does have shades of that Jordan Drexler thing, but more like, it's almost like a boxing thing where the, or like what happened with Ronda Rousey when she was just, you know, beating everybody, making everyone submit. And then all of a sudden she fought a Holly home, got knocked out and like lost her mojo and like kind of never got it back. She ended up losing again. And that's why what I'm rooting for is comeback for vengeance because the end of Ronda Rousey was not that fight. It was the next fight against Amanda Nunez. When she was talking UFC, this is so exciting. And it was very clear that she was broken as a fighter. It would never be repaired. I watched, I watched. This is amazing. Let's dig out of it. Come back. Like everyone should be fucking pissed off. Like, no, we're not ready to pass the torch. We want to go at that guy. We want to do it together. I'm going to learn from this experience. This was my low point. Like I'm coming back next year. Jalen Williams got to be so frustrated that he just lost an entire season, lost an entire Western conference finals other than a few minutes here and there where he didn't do much. And just like go back at him next year. Glad you brought that up. What happened to Jalen Williams? He played. I have it in my notes. He played last year. He played over 3000 minutes, right? Regular season in playoffs. This year he played a thousand. I know. And I know he got hurt. I'm asking you, how do we end up with him playing a thousand minutes this year where it wasn't like a knee injury or torn MCL or like, this is just like a hamstring injury that he just kept having. For eight months. Like what the fuck? Well, it happens. I mean, we, it, it happens. And obviously everyone is a lot more cognizant of like, if we, if we push this too far, real bad stuff can happen. Now a hamstring Achilles, it's not the same, but they didn't push it far at all. I mean, if anything, they push, they unpushed it because they were just hoping he could be healthy for basically two rounds. And he couldn't even do that. He had a wrist injury too, that messed up his, uh, his, his, his like, uh, pattern in the middle of the season. But yeah, I mean, look, it just, he got hurt. And every time he played, he would get hurt and he would feel it. I mean, it's, it wasn't subtle. He would come off the court, grabbing his left hamstring, like something isn't right there. And it was causing pain and discomfort and it wasn't getting any better. And look, he played 37 minutes in game one. And I thought he played quite well in that game. You've talked about it a lot. Like took, took, like there was punishment from that game. Like there was, there were lasting effects that both teams had to deal with and overcome from that, from that crazy. Maybe that was their tactical mistake. His tactical mistake was unleashing him too much in that game. Cause that game, it's weird. Cause this wasn't a great series, but it had an all time game one and a really good game seven. And then everything in the middle, we're never going to remember. I mean, and I think like we have short memories and you and I were arguing about this a little bit before the series where you said Chet's the second best player on the thunder. I was like, I, all due respect, like, I, like, I think we're about to be reminded of what Jalen Williams is. And then he, we, we were, and then he was gone. Like that guy's fucking awesome. That guy showed out in the finals last year in a seven game finals. He's a six, eight monster wing. You can do everything like he's he's. And like, is it, this is a neutral fan. What you want, like get the gang back together and take a shot at like, isn't that more fun than panic trade for Giannis and all the gangs not going to be back together though. Well, the core gang, like the main part of the gang, like the side characters might change, but like the main part of the gang, that's more fun to me as a neutral fan than panic trade for Giannis. We get way older. So different. We disrupt. Don't we want, I would not do it in a trade for Giannis. Don't we want continuity? Don't we want to watch great teams? The core of great teams, not the top eight or top nine, but like the core of great teams. Don't we want them to stay together and grow together? Isn't that what we want as fans? Don't we want them to come back and try to avenge this? That's what I want. Guy by the name of magic Johnson. You might've heard from him or might've heard of him. 1984 finals sucked. Got the nickname tragic Johnson. Guess what? He was fine. That would be what I told Chet. I'd press. He's going to take them out. They'll go get an ice cream cone in downtown Oklahoma city. And I'll be like, have you ever heard of the magic Johnson story? 84 finals rock bottom came back, ended up winning three MVPs and three titles. That could be us. Chet. No, he'll bust the press. He will bust out an obscure eighties hip hop song rap song where he's like, you're going to like the lyrics to this. This is going to speak to you. Yeah. Just think about this later. Uh, can you be Joe Dumars for a second, Norm? general manager and i'll be uh i need another phone i need another phone i'm sam preste calling you hello hey joe um i've got i already threw the phone to troy weaver i already just threw my phone i'm scared i threw my phone to troy troy i have uh i have lewd dorts expiring i'm gonna pick that up the team option i could pick up the hartenstein team option for 29 i've got aaron wiggins to offer you i have the 12th pick in the draft and the 17th pick what else do i need to just get you to trade trey murphy to me sorry the phone went the phone our landlines are out there was a power outage we didn't know so no like give me the package again hartenstein 12 i'll give you 12 and 17 i will give you hartenstein and dort on expire on expirings and i'll take back jordan pool in the murphy trade i'll take back jordan pool's expiring you'll take back jordan pool now i will paying attention i will so you give me pool and murphy i'll give you 12 and 17 i'll give you the heart hartenstein expiring the door to expire and i'll take jordan pool for a year as an expiring so now i have eight centers on my team that i got to figure out how to play together okay yeah also instead of hartenstein i'll you can keep jordan pool throwing wiggins instead uh i need another pick or a swap that's actually good how about toe pitch have you seen him do you see him in garbage time i have any interest no i mean for me new orleans no i like he's fine i need to see more of him i need another pick or a swap to what if dumars says back is aj mitchell on the table that's what i would that's that's what i would say back three million a year um i'm interested uh how badly so what if we're talking how badly do you want to win the title you got a very you got a window with these three guys how badly you want to win the title sam aj mitchell 12 maybe 17th pick in a contract yeah there's something there that's the to me that's the move because i'm tired if i'm them i'm tired of not quite having enough three-point shooting you know what i mean i do um and that's a very intriguing that's a very intriguing trade also i have to trade for him before somebody else does like the celtics and the thing everyone's around the league i don't know troy weaver at all but the thing everyone around the league talks to troy weaver talks to him says is like he's always got to be a good player he's always got to be a good player he's always got a guy or two in the draft that he really really wants that he just loves and he has to have we saw it with queen and maybe if there's somebody in that range that 12 or 17 helps him get maybe in any year where they you know traded their pick obviously maybe he'd be amenable mccain i thought i loved how he played in the playoffs i'm on the record when philly drafted mccain i went nuts that was my favorite i watched him in la i've just always liked him i think he proved that he's a guy that can be out there for them in a real way and i wonder with sga mitchell and mccain um could you turn one of those last two pieces into something with murphy would be interesting um a couple things before we go just a couple couple mailbag questions tied basically tied to um tied to what we just watched okay um i had a whole thing on the pod the other day about if they had flopping penalties like they used to with flagrant fouls i saw this ben from dc said you missed the best part about your flopping point system the leaderboard they'd publish the leaderboard every week and it would be like shameful to be like the number one in flop points it would just be good so good one i love that i mean look look teams do that with their like hustle boards right and they track it in practice charges taken hustle this hustle that and like if you're at the bottom of the hustle board just like they're your names at the bottom there you go it's like being in the bottom and the in the barrel speed one in baseball like caleb durbin for the red sox he's like in the bottom five percent of barrel speed i love all these stats when you know when you know you're not doing great uh tyler in portland i had a whole thing about all the losers from the knicks cab series and he wanted to know why tom tibdo wasn't one of the biggest losers out of how this is played out the next and he said the second biggest loser were the seven remaining tip stands i just thought that was really mean um you just want to you want to throw a spotlight on his cruelty let's platform his cruelty do you feel like tibbs was a loser for how this has turned out for the knicks or what did circumstance make this a better circumstance and health make this a better situation this year for the knicks if tibbs is the coach are the next in the finals i don't think so i don't think so either but i also don't think that he's a loser in the situation i'm sure it eats at his crawl a little bit or whatever the right terminology is to see this happen but i also i'm sure he's happy for a lot of the people that are there that were with him um i'm sure it's an interesting emotional time for him but i don't consider him a loser i would flip it around and say how about mike brown as a winner he did a great job with the knicks he played the long game he pushed all the right buttons he was a good hire even though he was like their 17th choice apparently for the job i like that um this episode is brought to you by carhartt we spend a lot of time talking about football the players the coaches the big plays but there's a whole other team we rarely think about the people who make the game possible the workers building the stadiums paving parking lots growing the grass welding the goal posts even making the footballs they're committed to their craft and they're doing the work long before kickoff carhartt is proud to outfit those crews so next time you're watching a game take a second to appreciate the people behind it learn more at carhartt.com join the trades this episode is brought to you by seven up okay this one's a case for conspiracy bill let's bring them in ever notice lemon is everywhere from lemon recipes to lemon scented cleaning supplies and when it comes to lemon lime sodas why is lemon always first there's a reason a shadowy organization called the eliminate has been padding the stats keeping big lemon in the lead for decades but let me tell you something the sip is about to be flipped seven up is fighting back swapping lemon lime for their new lime lemon soda now lime comes first seven up flip the sip so clark from rockford illinois wants to know did all the negative national discourse on okc's flopping tweak how sga played a little bit over the course of this series in a negative way i i actually thought a little bit about that because they're so buttoned up of like well the noise doesn't affect us we don't care about the noise we don't care about the officials we don't care about the media we don't care what's being said they must be aware on some level like i think the tipping point for me was what was it underdog sports made the fake operation game uh and then they got a cease and desist letter from shane's attorneys or something like that it's like okay i wonder if this just is this shrieking noise is in his head at all but then he goes out and shows out like that in game seven and i think the real thing the thing that really bothered him was victor wembanyama not i actually don't i probably don't think the flopping thing bothered him sam from austin said on the zach low show good podcast after game six zach talked about how the spurs play a one-man zone with wemby roaming the paint while everyone else is locked up man-to-man goldsberry asked if zach had coined that term and encouraged him to take credit for it um sam thinks it should be called the unboxing one i i do feel like it should have a name but i was thinking maybe it's like the alien box or the box an alien something like that i'll workshop some stuff in my head yeah now that i know there's a groundswell of interest there's a groundswell people like the box and one i by the way have always loved the box and one i've always loved variations of it it's the two things i've never understood with basketball or why don't more teams play box and one and why don't more teams press like if i was okc every time fox was out i would have pressed because i i think he castle i like i don't think he's a point guard i think he was dying to give up the ball and i don't know why they didn't just go 94 feet with him in case on wallace i'm just so charmed by this that you i mean we're we're we're almost 30 years into this and you're just not giving up the full core press you just i love the you're enamored with like someone's got to do it someone's got to really make it part of their i mean the pacers kind of came closest for you last year of doing it the celtics were doing a little this year but i thought okc wallace was playing 22 23 minutes a game and i don't know if if he's out there i'm like hey when you're out there you're just going 94 feet with everybody they couldn't really do with caruso i'm just gonna say this i mean yeah dude if you want to implement these kind of tactics that may or may not work but that are certainly um unconventional i think you're gonna have to suck it up and try to get the gm job for the sacramento kings because your owner is the guy who suggested that his coach play four on five defense and cherry pick and if like if that's available you can go to the owner and say here in the job interview here are some crazy things i want to try you're going to think i'm crazy but these are going to work he's the right audience maybe this is your destiny you you can say the king through 12 we are going to press for five minutes a half max is going to rain all is going to be a full court press center for us we're doing it vivek is a gullible guy because vlade divac looked him in the eye and said we already have darren fox luca is a big market superstar he's not going to want to stay here and vivek's like you're probably right let's take marvin bagley i signed off so if he signed off on marvin bagley over luca i think he would sign off on my press idea this is and then you but then that you you have carte blanche you're What's working against you is you did not play for the Sacramento Kings in the early 2000s. That have been a big leg up for you in this in this race but alas i would have started smoking again too i got a bunch of emails today are you a soccer guy or now i'm ready for the world cup i don't know i watched the final do you follow what happened today i saw the penalty kicks that's all so psg won for the second year in a row and i got a million emails about this about how but i always screwed up my speech dyslexia he doesn't play for them anymore no but he left and they've won two titles in a row and people are wondering if they it's gone further than that it's like a is this the best ewing theory ever and b should we just change the name we're never changing the name but i i can't think of a better ewing theory than this of going all in on a guy the guy leaves and then they immediately win two titles without him when he's considered to be one of the best players in the world his first name i have to co-sign it his first name is killian right killing him i feel like that gives us gives you a lot of pun potential for like you don't even have to killian theory you have kills sitting there in the first in the first part of his name but he plays for real madrid i assume they're good and he's still very good like you know so how is that not as good as you'd think okay um i had a mailbag thing about um a single shot swinging a series how few times that's actually happened most famously ray allen um and joshua m wanted to know why didn't i mention john stark's his miss in game six in 1994. and a couple people have wondered about this why doesn't that get better pr as a do or die we could have won the title if that went in listen i watched a lot of basketball back then there was no way that john stark shot was going in i never thought it was going in and uh and by the way it was uh hotly contested by hakim elijah one of the best 15 players of all time thank you very much thank you very much thank you very much thank you very much thank you very much thank you very much thank you very much thank you very much i think there's a finger i think there's a fingernail on that shot and there might have been a fingernail on it but i just don't think that shot was going in i know it's like you could say oh if he had made that a bit i just so the interesting thing about that shot is they're down two i believe the knicks so that's a shot they they they're playing for the win but ewing has always contended i was rolling to the rim wide open at the nail and john had a passing lane to me and he didn't make it and stark's has always said there was just so little time on the clock that i wasn't sure i had time to pass it you would have time to gather it and shoot it but ewing it as always said if he had passed it to me we're going to overtime i'm making a little eight footer we're going to overtime well he did miss that little eight footer the next year um jack from chicago wants to know if we could see with these new tanking rules a spite tank of somebody who somebody else has their pick like the nets and like the nets could be an example right the rockets control the nets 2027 pick and the nets could be like it we don't care for one of the worst three teams we don't even have our pick and they just kind of tank it yeah watch this rockets and they just play five point guards for the last 10 games of the season and it's like silver's worst nightmare i didn't think of that do you think of that variable yeah it's come up i've seen people talk about it is one of the potential ripple effects of this sweeping change that is everyone is still trying to grapple with including what they've done to the second round which i did not even realize was in the proposal until that was like they had a couple shots and just got drunk and they were like wait did we change the second round last night too i don't remember i passed out we can do anything once they've gone for this we can do anything how about we make the second round of like we could do we could do anything we want do because there's some drafts where if you have 16 and 31 it's almost better than having like six right those deeper drafts where after the top five you don't even you just want to like throw darts against the dartboard um rob h had another one on this would this this weird new rule lead to somebody trying to accumulate a bunch of picks in one draft to have the most possibilities basically stack a draft like when when houston and brooklyn made that weird trade when uh when brooklyn wanted their picks back and they did and could we see something like that where i don't know the spurs have a 29 pick but they have three 28 picks and they're like you know what let's trade our 29 pick for another 28 pick and try to have four of these sure why not i don't know i mean no one knows yet but yeah that's not a bad theory i like that it could be weird yeah the biggest question i've gotten over and over again is why would i want to be the playing 10 the 10 seed trying to win two playing games so i can get destroyed by san antonio next year why wouldn't i want to actually could this lead to higher level tanking basically we're like yeah i don't i don't want to be the 10 seed uh i don't i i think i mean there's two directions that flows in right there's the team that's 12 and is four games out of the 10 seed and do they go all out to try to get it i i could see that team currently already i could see that team under any rule system you have having some thoughts having some thoughts about it but the other being responsible the other one where i'm eighth and i'm like i'd really like to be 11th i just can't see a team doing that to its fans especially since a lot of the teams in that spot are younger teams who really i think could use and value the experience and like look we saw orlando get in we've seen play-in teams have real success and get to the finals and in in miami and orlando took detroit to seven like you know counter golden state do they give a about march and april after jimmy butler's injury if they have this new lottery system in place i don't think they do i think they're saying curry's fine you're sitting out don't try to come back we're going for it next year we just lost our second best player and then you're just trying to get in that four to ten range i guess but like they have steph curry and they've always been honorable about having steph curry on their team even this year and they gave you i think you're maybe your favorite moment of top five moment for you of this nba season was that warriors clippers oh yeah top three top three easily you were so delighted leo from indianapolis wants to know if halliburton doesn't tear his achilles in game seven and then they win the best finals of all time what do the rest of the decade look like for the pacers would have been a fluke or would have just kept going so no halliburton injury and they win the title they win the title they lose turner is it just like a one-year fluke like leicester city basically in the premier league i don't think you lose turner if you win a title you think they wanted to keep at that price i think if halliburton's healthy and you win your yeah i mean i think that one of the reasons they punted on turner was next year's a loss for us anyway we might as well just save some money gallop burns hurt he's out for the year it's an underrated what if um i just think as a fan i still and will forever feel just so robbed of what that because we could have even had what we had yeah even what we had tonight could have been at that level um did you see shea by the way game today it was the biggest game of his career i did it's like you played in a finals game seven how was that not you're not ever playing in a bigger game but i wonder if he just in his memory now that game even like that game is so weird to look back on like i wonder if he can even conjure what it felt like before tyree saliburton tore his achilles if he could even bring himself back to what that what the stakes were because then that injury happens and it's like i just felt like i was in a haze for three hours and not even paying attention to the game because you knew what was going to happen i mean that's almost a good one to end on but i am going to end on this okay mason from seattle sent this before game seven i feel the exact same way about ai as i do about wimby he's a foreign unknown technology that's arrived to dominate our world for the future and there's nothing any of us can do about it i felt genuine dread after watching game one the same dread i feel when i think about how ai is eventually going to take my job in a year that's pretty dark um but i just want the only reason i wanted to mention that email is that's how astonishing this postseason has been that we have seemingly normal people sending mailbag emails comparing wimby to the the most uh generation-changing technology we've created since the internet i wish i could remember who it was who summed it up i don't even think like that's a that's a dark that's a dark version of a thought pattern that i don't think is like fringe fringe um i think it was harrison feigen who's a lakers blogger but i might be miscrediting somebody after game one somebody tweeted um wimby is the first player i've ever watched in my life where i thought maybe they might actually have a chance of winning the game or they might have the chance of winning the game or they might have the chance of winning the game or they might have to change the rules for this guy and i think that like that tweet like got some traction because i do think you watch it and you're like is this a wilt thing where like fundamental things about the gym are you gonna have to change like i it because when in his best games where it just feels so hopeless to ever do anything near the basket i think those thoughts could reasonably like creep into your mind i love how much he cares i love how he reacted after the game um we'll see how he reacts if they actually win the finals but the mountain that they climb and you know the more we're talking and think about it you're okay see you have that semi-magical year last year but the game seven wasn't That's pretty weird with the Halliburton injury. Like it was just a weird way to win the title, but you're taking any title you get. But now you think they started out the way they did this year. And it's like, holy shit. Oh my God, what are we going to do? And now the, oh my God, what are we going to do has just shifted to Wemby and away from OKC, which to me is the most, it's even more stunning than San Antonio being in the, in the finals that the, what are we going to do has just shifted teams in real time. And I think the other 28 teams are still like, what are we going to do about OKC when they get healthy and they, they make whatever moves they're going to make. And I think that's the ultimate compliment is these two teams are going to be staring at each other one way or another, and they're the ultimate measuring stick. And I think that's why one of the reasons why, if you want to psychoanalyze it, why Shay would call that the biggest game of his career, why Wemby would weep after it, because they both have so much respect for the other team that they know what the challenge is. Yeah. Well, there's four guys in this, this draft that levitate above everybody else. The order has been in great debate. There's a chance Peterson could get to four as crazy as that sounds. I know you've been doing some stealth. How are we talking about the draft? Where are you going with this? Because I wonder like with Chicago at four would OKC, would that be the power move that we talked about earlier? Like the, what would they do move? Maybe they just go all in and try to get one of those four guys. If I'm a team, try to keep, keep their nucleus in place. I've done my, I've done my just enough to be dangerous. YouTubing of those four guys. Yeah. If I'm Chicago, I'm just not even picking up the calls. I mean, you got to really do some crazy ass stuff to make me just not be psyched to take whichever one of the four falls into my lap. But that could be, that's the opportunity for OKC though, to be like, we're overwhelming you with a stupid offer, but I'm not even know. I don't know. You hear those stories about when people don't want to leave their house and somebody knocks on their door and was like, I want to buy your house. It's not for sale. Here's the offer. And like, Whoa, I guess I'm moving. I mean, that would be the overwhelming thing is like, I got, I, they have some Denver swaps, a Clippers pick a Clippers swap, their own picks. Like they could throw 10 first round picks at me. If I add them all up, are they as valuable as one of these four guys? What if I put shit in the table? I just want to start over, man. Just let me start over. I think Benny, the bull just wants to start over. I think you've talked me into it for, for Chicago, but also for OKC. Okay. I think the move is deep breath. That San Antonio team is awesome. That's going to be the team we battle for the rest of the decade. And I just, I guess if you, if you offer me 10 first round picks in Chet Holmgren, I guess I just have to do it. I mean, I don't know. But then if you're Oklahoma city, you're out, that's it. You gave everything for, you know, you know what the example is. It's when Kawhi wanted to play with Paul George. It's right. Ironically. And what did Preston do? He said, well, I don't want to trade Paul George. And they're like, what about how, what would it take to trade him? He's like, uh, four first three swaps. And then you have to give me SGA. And they're like, well, we can't give you SGA. And it's like, well, that's what it would take. And he just kind of ground them down. Maybe that's what one of these teams in the top four would have to do. They also got to figure out what Wallace is worth is the other thing, which we didn't talk about. Cause, he, do you do an extension with him or roll the dice with him as heading toward a restricted? What's his price? Is he like in the 25 million range? Probably. Right. Yeah. I think you're 20 to 25. You're his agent. You're at the very least throwing around like, you know, Christian Brown, Jalen Suggs type. You're mailing the Christian Brown contract to them. Well, no, I'm like, this guy, this is what Christian Brown got. Our guy's better than this guy. exactly. Um, yeah. Oh, I'll leave you with this. Why does Denver have to trade? Anybody to sign Peyton Watson? Fuck off. You have Yoko on your team. Dickheads pay everybody. Clip this out. Denver fans clip this out. Cronky's got a kajillion dollars. Just pay Peyton Watson and keep everyone else on your team. Cause your owner is super rich. How much did Arsenal, what are we doing? Just, just for making the champions league final. Isn't there, they must, that must make gargantuan amounts. Yeah, definitely. Although they own Arsenal, right? Yeah. Joker was there supporting Arsenal. Yeah. With, uh, at least one of his brother. All right, Zach Lowe, what's your podcast schedule this week? I think, uh, we are going to record Monday night. Uh, so I'm going to San Antonio, uh, for game one of the finals at least. And, uh, flying Monday, uh, Tuesday, there's going to be some interesting podcast stuff happening that the NBA is organizing that. I don't know if I should really say anything, but now I've said something. Uh, but so I don't know how that's going to work exactly, but so I'm going to do a traditional episode where I just do a deep dive finals preview. I've watched my film. I've got my notes. I'm ready to go. I'm going to make my pick. So I don't come out either Monday night or overnight into Tuesday morning, like usual. And they'll have some fun in San Antonio. Hopefully you see a great game and, uh, hopefully we get a great finals and boy, the Knicks and the Spurs. Woo. All right. So I'm going to be, I'm coming back with my pot on Tuesday. We have tomorrow rewatchables. It usually runs Monday night. We are running it tomorrow night because I'm not going to have my podcast because we did this and we did 2001 space odyssey. And it's one of the best episodes. We've ever done without spoiling, uh, what happens. Um, I would highly encourage people to check this one out. Um, Zach Lowe. I w I don't know what I'm going to see you again. Cause this final schedule is weird, but I'll see you after one of these games. Yeah. This is like, I'll see you after probably game three, but we'll, we'll talk about it this week. Say travels in San Antonio. You won't see me after game six in New York city. That's the one thing I can guarantee. I don't know. I'm going to say goodbye to you before game six in New York city. In case that's the last time. Thanks to, uh, Gahal and Eduardo and Chris. Everybody else at the ringer. And I will see you, uh, on this feed on Tuesday. Thanks. 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