New York Wins the Title, Brunson Wins Immortality, and Knicks Fans Have a Zihuatanejo Moment With Zach Lowe

This episode of the Bill Simmons podcast is presented by PayPal. You know a clutch move and you see one, a no-look pass, a buzzer-beater, a big steal. Well, imagine if your wallet could pull off moves like that. That, my friends, is PayPal. Right now, you can find offers from hundreds of brands like Sony, All Birds, and Viator, and save offers before you check out Earn Unlimited Rewards. Plus, you can add those rewards on top of credit card points. Now that is clutch. Download the PayPal app today, save those offers, start scoring rewards, terms and exclusions apply. See PayPal.com/rewardsterms, credit card points subject to issuers, terms, and conditions. The Bill Simmons podcast live on Netflix. It is late. It is almost midnight. East Coast time. I'm here with a, I don't know. Are you groggy? Is that close? Not groggy? Medium groggy? After that, not groggy at all. I'm a little too amped. So let's do it. Great. By the way, New Rewatch was coming on Sunday night now. It is from hell month, and it's going to be in that rocks and cradle. So get ready for that. And then we're going to go back to a somewhat normal podcast schedule, because the NICS have won the NBA title. It's been 53 years. This is, we'll start with the NICS, then we got to go to Brunson, because I can't believe it. I just watched the night from him. I think with the NICS, other than the fans and the dropping over in the way the city rallied around the team and people traveling to the games and just how much over and over again, they're fighting back to win these games. You know, these teams win the title, and then you look back years later, and you're like, "Ah, yeah, yeah, the 2019 Raptors. What was their gimmick? What was their thing? This next team, we're just going to remember it instantly. It's going to be Brunson and come back and the NICS fans. And it just was an indelible, indelible playoff run, 15-1 in the last 16. What was the last team that you remember just grabbing to 2014 spurs? What was the last one where you're just like, "Holy shit, I can't believe it came together like that for them." In terms of style and everything, just clicking into place and then finding a magical, something magical happened to the NICS at the absolute perfect time. They found the best version of themselves, a better version that they had found at almost any point in the regular season, locked it in and sustained it, sustained it through different kind of games, through foul chopper, through slumps, through different opponents. It's a magical thing that happened to them, and I think the 2014 spurs comp is the right one in terms of style. You know that when you see it. We were both at those spurs, he games, and it was like, "It's a rap. This is Irvana, he don't even know where the freaking ball is, different style, but it's stylistically coming together and having that magic and just like, "Don't mess with it, just to stand it, just keep it." But in terms of like indelible single season champions, like the ring feels a little extra special. For whatever reason, I think you go back to the 2011 Mavs for different reasons, a team that stands out is just a super memorable single season champion. I think this team, ironically, having taken a player from a different version of the Dallas Mavics will stand out like that for a ton of different reasons that we'll get into. And one of the things, I thought the spurs had a more talented team, and then it was a case of, are they going to figure out they're better than this next team? And then by game five, it's like, the nicks are better than the spurs, but like it's like, I know how this game, I was sitting next to my wife watching it, who was on her phone half the time, and their spurs are up 12, they're up 15, they're up nine, and I'm like, the nicks are, they're going to come back, like watch what happens with Brunson here. She was like, wow, you have like ESP with this Brunson thing, and I'm like, it's not ESP. This is, this is what he does. You could just see him kind of lurking and waiting, and then he took over the game at the perfect times. Nobody in the nicks, who has played well in their team? Like sort of bridges for half the game, maybe, did anyone else play well? Josh Hardett a couple moments, like who? I mean, this is one of the coolest things about the team is that even in a game, like, first of all, it speaks to their strength as a team, that for the second game in a row, and almost the third one in the series, the nightmare scenario that we all were talking about before the series, whether you picked in X or not, unfolded, which was cat foul trouble, Mitchell Roberts and not quite the same guy because of the broken finger, broken, whatever, Huck Portee's got to play all of a sudden, and they win these games anyway, and they won. Shama got hurt. Looks like he was done. Brunson turns his ankle, but by the way, twice ankle injuries, nicks, players down spurs, get baskets out of it on five on four, right? But the nightmare scenario was getting the nicks center rotation, hold up, if towns gets into foul trouble. He's been in foul trouble. Three games in a row. They won two of them, including these last two. And look, like Alvarado didn't have a game tonight, but Jordan Clarkson comes in and makes a basket. Huck Portee actually had like a couple of moments in the game. Mitchell Roberts, who's been not quite the same guy in the series, has a six offensive rebounds including the free throw offensive rebounds, like people have moments and Alvarado had a moment in game four, and that's what makes the champion is like, even in this game where you're kind of correctly saying it was Brunson just dragging them over the finish line with one tough shot after another. Guys had moments, role players who they needed, they just did little things that helped them just get it over the finish line. Just got to get one more game and they found a way to get one more game against the team that was again up 16 in the first, in the second quarter of the game. Two thousand of the maps a little bit somewhere with that. The one great player who was like the, the major planet that everybody ordered around. But remember that team where like Terry hit the biggest shot of game five. There was some, who's it? Deshaun Stevenson was in there, Tyson Chandler, Sean Marion. We go on to Jason Kidd, everybody had a little part, yeah, yeah, they had everybody had their little moments where they chipped in 2014 Spurs was the totality. This one was a little different because of Brunson who we're saving because we're talking to him in a second. I, I think this was the greatest team building title that we've seen since the two Isaiah Pistons teams. And now even with those, and that was, there's a great book written about those teams called the franchise, which I think is one of the best NBA books. But even that team had Isaiah who was, I can't remember if he was second pick of the draft in 1981. So they did have the blue chip guy. The next had the blue chip guy in town, but they traded for him. It was all signs and trades. It was one of those things where the team that kind of probably came the closest to this was the sons in 21 where they kind of patched it together. I don't even think a top 10 pick and eight and was their one version of town so they drafted. But the degree of difficulty of just putting the team together, making two ballsy moves, right? Firing tips last year. The town's trade. Both of them were real. I'm going to double down on a nine kind of moves. And then some luck with, with Toronto souring on Brunson. I mean, I'm sorry, Anna Annanobi, who they could have kept and they were just like, we've seen enough and they traded them. And I remember being 50, 50 Anna at the time being like, I don't know either. I don't know what to make. Annanobi. And then Dallas, not locking down Brunson and those are the two big ones. But who do you remember? And they'll ask like this century, who did a better job of putting together a championship team than this? I mean, look, it's all like, you know, do you, how much credit do you give the heat for clearing the cap space and getting the big three to come, right? There's so many different ways of team building the Raptors sort of bit by bit, by bit. And then they make the big swing for Kauai knowing he's probably going to leave. You mentioned the pistons. I think the 2004 pistons probably deserve a mention in terms of like, just like, like getting Chauncey mid career drafting Ben Wallace or getting, I'm sorry, I'm trading for Ben Wallace from Orlando, I think trading for Rip Hamilton and just like finding something that added up and getting sheet as the last piece in the door. I think that's another one that that comes to mind. I mean, they're just so many different ways to do it, but, but yeah, it's a, this is a, this is a masterpiece and they bit by bit, just targeted guys that they knew were going to play hard. We're going to play selflessly. They targeted size around Brunson, which is the one way you could do it and really make it work, protect him from all sides. And then cat was the upside moonshot at the end where it's like, we have this team that's pretty good. There's risk built into this trade contractually and defensively and whatever, but his shooting is going to raise our ceiling potential to a point where we've got to actually try it and it all kind of clicked into place. And then the Brunson piece of this. So I thought it was interesting. He ended on 45 points because I wrote down on my notes during the fourth quarter, like, I know it's different scenario, nobody's Jordan, but it was a similar kind of vibe to that last Jordan game, where I think the Bullscore 89, Jordan had 45 of those. Brunson scored 45. He actually got fouled with eight seconds left, Eddie and call it was an incredible no call. The ball ends up with bridges, but that would have pushed him above the 45, but 29 in the second half, 15 straight at one point. And they really like town. was in foul trouble. I didn't know where the points were coming from unless he did it and he's gotten at the point where he's like he's going to lock in, watch this. And they were tough shots. He's getting in the basket in traffic. He's going by Harper and Castle who were like, I think elite defenders. He's getting where in his spots and he was just able to weather the storm for them. And as soon as it was 83, 83, you knew they're going to win the game. But this is this Brunson thing, we were talking about all time, Nick's talking about, you know, could be the greatest nick of all time. I'm not ready to have that conversation yet. But why not? Well, I guess we could because this was one of the great photo performances of all time. So maybe, maybe we could, maybe Clyde Frazier's like, I'm willing to step aside, take the reins or will us read. It's Clyde or him. I mean, like, look, I grew up with you and it longevity-wise, Ewing's going to have numbers and I don't think Brunson can ever touch. But like, this is 45 points and a finals MVP is worth like 15,000 regular season points for the biggest city franchise that hasn't won a title in 53 years. I mean, I don't know what else to say. It was a Jordan-esque performance. One of the things I wrote in my notes was, I mean, this is right up your wheelhouse. Is Jalen Brunson the greatest underdog story in the history of basketball? Like, small guard, second-round pick, doubted every step of the way. Free agency signing, Luke Warm to negative reception, and he is now scoring 45 points in a decisive finals game and winning finals MVP. I mean, I don't even know, I don't, I'm trying to think like who else is even in the conversation. Yeah. Well, probably nobody had more points where he was doubted as a great player over the course of his career even leading up to the finals, right? Where you're like, I picked the spurs to win the series and one of the reasons I picked them was because I thought that it was just a great matchup for them against Brunson. They had all these guys to throw at them and they'd win be behind them. And in the first couple games, I was right. And he solved them as the series went along and I'm not sure, I'm not sure what he solved. Like, there was this great interview after the game when he could barely speak. It was one of the most authentic athlete interviews we've had in a long time because we're so used now to people milk and add or not that it seems rehearsed, but people being very aware of how they're being perceived in the moment after they won. And, and he like, he couldn't speak. And then he finally was talking about the fourth quarter about I just went back to all the hours I've spent in the gym. All those times, all the hard work I've put in and I was out there and I was just thinking like, this is like, I'm buying myself in the gym, I'm buying myself in the gym and it really did feel that way. He's just, there's been very few guys since I've known you and various few guys since I've followed the league that seem to get better when you need them to get better. It's the rarest rarest trait we have in basketball. And he has it. It was incredible. I mean, there have been other great second round picks like Janobli stands out, but he he was never the guy on a team like this. And then but other small-ish guard like Steph Curry in some ways is an underdog story. Like, goes to Davidson. He's a top 10 pick in the draft and by the time he reaches the finals is like an MVP winner. I don't, I don't dream on. Yoke J. I guess was a second round. Yoke, and he's he's European. Yoke, it should be one. But we we we were in on Yoke in the by the 2018 range. We're like, this guy's got it. He's special. Yeah. I mean, there is not, there's nothing like two years. I mean, there's two years before Jalen Brunson wins a title. There is a very loud debate about whether he can be the guy on a championship team. And there was a little bit of that with Yoke because of his defense, but not not quite as much. And I just think the small stature. It's just there's nothing I can remember that's that's like it. And again, it's not just that he's the best player on a title team. It's that he just scored 45 points in a game where his team scored 94. And they're just should not have been away for the next to win in San Antonio. A game where Carl Anthony Towns has two points and five turnovers in 23 minutes because of foul trouble. It's like unthinkable that they were able to win a game like that. And no bench points for two hours. It just like yeah, where's I check this box score at the half. And I was like, oh my god, they don't have a bench point. And then after that, I mean, look, I'll let you go. I'm sorry. No, the only thing I'd add with that 29 points of the second half 15 straight at one point was a 15 or 16. It was a lot, man. I don't know. I need to make a little trip. It was 15 at the most crucial part of the game when it was like 12. It was nine. And he just kept scoring. And I thought I wouldn't believe this if I just I was a dare. So I didn't see it in person. But I do think sometimes a guy is good enough that you can kind of break the will of a team a little bit. And I felt like that happened at the spurs. And we'll talk about them after the break about you know, all the things you have to take away for them and do you overreact? Do you under react? It was just bad timing. But I think you hit a point where you know that that guy's scoring when he has the ball. Who is your guy who can match this? And the issue with the spurs as the series went along is they couldn't figure out who that guy was. They didn't have that one. I've got this guy. That's supposed to be Wembee, but we just saw him in the second half so he couldn't do it. And it wasn't Fox obviously. And the other guys were too young and it was really they were turning Dylan Harper who's 20 years old. I mean, like that's the story about like there's a lot of stories of the series for San Antonio. Good, bad ugly Dylan Harper is the good story of the series for them. This this is I mean, in terms of ball control and who has the ball and who starts a point guard next year Dylan Harper is the answer to that question. This is Dylan Harper's team now to run or at least co-run offensively because he was just up for all of it except two free throws at the end. And missed a tough layup at the end. So Brunson, Isaiah wanted title as a small guy. Curried. Some people count as a small guy. I guess he's so unusual. I don't know to compare him to, but he had Bob Coos. He couldn't do it until he found Bill Russell. Jerry West couldn't do it until Wilk Chamberlain showed up. Chris Paul Nash never did it. Oscar Robertson couldn't do it until he played with Karim. Kid and GP needed old guy title. By the way, most of these guys are like significantly taller than Dylan Brunson. Like Dylan Brunson is listed at 6-2. I've stood next to Dylan Brunson. He's not 6-2. It's like he's 5-11. I would give him. But never wore down and you know, this is such an anomaly to have a guy built like him who had the kind of pressure that he had on him all during the playoffs. And then on top of it, the box score is not going to show that this was Castle and Harper and Champagne and Vicell with Wembee behind them for a lot of these points. Just kind of solving them. I thought the Spurs half court, especially in the first half of game four, it was like, oh, they've really figured this out. They're not giving up fast break points to the Knicks anymore. They're starting to solve the Knicks down. And then Brunson flipped it over the next three halves. Well, I mean, look, the statistics will say, well, they only solved it to a little bit of degree because the final offensive rating for the series was Knicks 110, Spurs 107.5. And I'm pretty sure 110 would have ranked last or close to last in the regular season. But here's the thing. You are in game 100, whatever of your season. You are facing a top two defense in the NBA and the best defensive player in the NBA. The unanimous defensive player of the year winner who has nothing to do but game plan for your team under the highest possible pressure with an officiating regime that is going to let everyone play super physically except Carly and three times, I guess. They sure did. And all you got to do in that, in that, what all that's solving amounts to in that scenario is scoring enough to win. And they scored enough to win over and over and over against the defense that was giving them different kind of looks, wembes and different places, different styles. They solved it enough to just eat it over the finish line. And that's enough. That's all that it took. Like 110 offensive rating in those circumstances. It's like, I'll take it good enough. 2600 minutes for Brunson during the season. Mistake games. Playoffs over 700. So he's at like 3400 minutes for the season. It felt like he was gaining strength. There's something to be said. We've talked about a lot. I always talk about it with the draft. It's going to be really interesting in this draft that's coming up because one of these point cards is going to fall and he'll immediately have the chip on the shoulder guy. Just like the top four whoever goes fourth, that guy's going to have the chip on the shoulder. Brunson to be doubted over and over again. I think now he's the 15th guy ever to win a high school championship, a college championship, an NBA title. And some of the guys that did it are like Kareem. I was going to say Kareem is the standard bearer of that. It's it's people like that. And to and just even when I kind of I he was one of the guys in that draft when he went in the second round. It's like, what are we doing? We just watched him in college. Like he's clearly a rotation guy. But he just over and over again kept kept shoving it in the data's faces. We're going to take a break and there's so much more to discuss. We haven't even hit like 80% of my topics yet. I can't wait. I hope you drank some coffee. I did. I drank I drank 8 p.m. coffee, which is just it's dangerous. I'm ready. All right, take a break. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra, the official beer partner of the NBA. My favorite NBA finals moment ever. Why have two? One was when I was six years old and I went to the famous triple over time game in 1976, Boston versus Phoenix at the Celtics one and and begin. came I still think the most famous NBA game of all time to do that are one of the Jordan games. I like to claim it as the most famous since I was there. But the other one was game five, nine, three, four finals, two, two Lakers Celtics. And it is so hot in the Boston Garden that people are passing out in the stands. Everyone's sweating all over the place. The Lakers are taking oxygen on the bench and Larry Bird unfazed. I think he had 35 points, 20 rebounds was just awesome. And won the game. Gave them a three to lead. They won and seven. And that is my favorite finals game ever. There's a lot of great moments. I was lucky to be there, by the way. There's a lot of great moments in the court, but the best ones are served cold, just like McLeod Ultra right here. A superior light beer that's only 95 calories. Yeah, 95 calories, even better. You're getting people closer to the game in the chance to win tickets, custom merch, and much more Michelabaltra appears worth playing for. Enter now at mclob ultra dot com slash court side, mclob ultra court side 2526, no purchase necessary open US residents 21 plus begins on October 1st, 2025 ends on June 30th, 2026 multiple entry periods, see official rules at mclob ultra dot com slash court side for free entry entry deadlines and prizes and details. Now it's time for our with the assist segment and it's presented by state farm on the court. No one does it alone. The biggest moments often come from teammates working together, which is my favorite kind of basketball, not a nice old ball guy. One poor setting up the other at just the right time. This season, the NBA has given us plenty of duos who made that connection. Look effortless. Normally you would say Murray and Yokech for this because I think they they brought the best at each other and won the 23 title together this year. I think my favorite combo is probably been castle and Wembee on those those hard roles that Wembee does when castles out of anyone on the spurs, I think is the best at putting it right near the basket for him. And he got to the point there in the finals where the next just started shoving Wembee as he was going for the alley. And just taking the non shooting foul for it. No, probably enough to change the rules, but I like the way castle and Wembee work together. And I think that's that's my pick for favorite up and coming combo. Maybe they could be like Yokech and Murray someday just like on the court. It helps to know someone has your back on the most unexpected thing might happen. That's where state farm comes in. They've got easy to use digital tools like the state farm app, which is excellent in neighborhood state farm agents when you want to talk to a real human being. Like a good neighbor state farm is there with the assist coverage options are selected by the customer availability and eligibility vary by state. I got a text from my friend Mark Samino who just said incredible. My life has changed. And I think I went through this as a Red Sox fan obviously in 2004. You're going to go through it when Croatia wins the World Cup in six weeks. That's a long shot. You really do feel like your life has changed. I mean, I wrote a whole book about it. You feel like there's a there's a piece that comes over it that the fear when you get older that you're you're just going to die and never see it or that your parents are going to die and they're never to see it or your buddy, your older buddy or uncle. And you know, when when the moment happens, you start thinking about all these moments you've had in life, all these people you know. And there's just there's no experience like it. But the problem is you have to really suffer and suffer for your entire life. And that's what makes it special. Unfortunately, but this is this is where we are at the next fans. What was the best text you got? I'm just I'm just I just get some people at the game and mostly just mostly just gibberish. Yeah, Sam Moral, a great center could be in just texted me dude, dude, what a team, what someone else, unreal, just stuff. It's just just just an expense to stop beside themselves. Just becoming go here. I'm sure New York City's going to be incredible tonight. I was thinking, what's the next? Who were places then now is our really sad pathetic drought team with generations of fans? It's probably Phoenix, right? I'll give you the candidates. Phoenix, Utah, Quipper, Sacramento, Atlanta. You have India and then that's one ABA title. So you have the Blazers that have it once in 77. You've washed in 78 Philly 83. And then you have Charlotte, New Orleans and Memphis that don't have the giant fan base to pull this off. So who did you bet? Did you mention Minnesota? Oh, and Minnesota is in there too. And Minnesota, I guess Minnesota. They have great fans. Yeah, and they also they haven't won a title of any kind since the 91 twins. I don't think. And they got and they got jobbed in the WNBA finals two springs ago, which I still remember you, Minnesota. Yeah, Minnesota is up there. I would say Phoenix, though, who who has just been in the mix decade after decade after decade and it said some really tough, tough beats and some really great players. And it just never happened. I might that's I don't have the amount of fans and nicks have. Yeah, that's the thing. There's no there's no team. I mean, really only the Lakers could travel like this. And I don't even think Lakers fans would travel to this to quite this extent. I agree. Particularly in the finals where they're traveling far. Of those teams you mentioned, I and they don't again, no one has the fan base. This is a small market team. I think Utah deserves a little bit of a hearing because like the nicks, they had these these iconic players that were just stopped by Jordan over and over again, right? Like are not twice in the finals, but just couldn't get over the hump and and they they were largely very good for a long time. They've obviously had a down a down few years as they've tanked now. I think I might pick them. I wish the Clippers had more fans because that's a great one because that goes back as long. They were an expansion team. I think right around when Phoenix came in the league. Then the Kings. And just no. Well, but they were Cincinnati. That's true. It's a city. So I don't think they won since they were Rochester in the early 50s was the last one for them. Atlanta would be a fun one. But yeah, we'll never see anything like this in the NBA game because like when the Red Sox one, we still had the Cubs in the Indians like on deck. In this case, no. All right. Do you have more next stuff for do you want to move to the spurs here? I yeah, go go and more on the next if you have anything else you want to hit? I'm just always big on. You just got to let it let it sink in just let you got to look juryate in the team that just want to tell us is New York City. Man, this is like. This is New York freaking city. Just got it's for and this is a team that unites the city. Why live for 20 years? And I wish I live there still now. Like not there's no other not even the Yankees. I don't think you night the city like this because there's too many meds fans that the nicks are the city's team apologies to Brooklyn. It's just true. And it's been on fire. I mean, I was there all this week for games three and four staying in a hotel the whole the whole time. The whole the city is like absolutely on fire. It could not be understated. How crazy this is and pleat like yes, there have been some misbehaving fans, deplorable stuff like that happens in every city. Don't let the bottom faders. Don't let don't let that represent like what's going on in the West Village in Williamsburg and all these places over there are watch parties. It's an absolutely incredible moment in New York City. My wife and I are sitting here like lamenting that we no longer live there and that we can't go outside like I just want to go outside. I'm not even a nicks fit. I actually grew up hating the nicks ironically. I just want to go outside and see something and then the burbs you go outside and you see fucking squirrels and deer running around and there's no one hooking their cars or nothing. It's just incredible and like you can't say enough about Brunson. You can't say enough about how they built the team. The Josh Heart Trade just sort of sneaks under the radar all the time is like how they got Josh Heart and then you know Brunson taking less money to facilitate everything just everything clicked into place and even I like Shamit who couldn't miss for six weeks basically. Just scrap peep guy and I think like again this is a this is a historical thing but this is up your alley. I tried to find a comp for them in terms of like you probably saw this on Instagram like good rig. There were very good regular season team 53 wins. That's like low for a champion that then that's and then to go from that to I'm looking at the finals number now 16 and three with a net rating of plus 15.4. I mean that that that's I think the greatest net rating in the history of the playoffs for a championship team. It's up there with like it's it's above not win loss wise but like it's 17 warriors. It's 96 bulls like it's all the greatest teams ever are the only ones that are in that universe of so few losses and such a big point differential. They just turned into an absolute bulldozer and I don't want it what I don't want to hear and I've seen a little bit of this is why they didn't have to play Boston they didn't have to play Oklahoma City stop Boston got exposed by Philly why are we sitting here thinking Boston was this great juggernaut that was going to really like push the next I think they would have pushed the next harder than Philly because Philly was injured but they got exposed San Antonio beat Oklahoma City Oklahoma City was banged up and it's just beat him four out of five times like just give them just give them the credit it's an all time dominant postseason run and it puts them in a position where and this is more in Europe will house than mine. I don't really think there's a single season team quite like this ever in the NBA who was good and then turned into whatever the hell this is. I can't think of any there I think what would the amazing thing to me, it was like that controversy. text meter in the fourth quarter. And he was just like, this is a replay of all the other finals games. And I was like, you're right. Cause this is the nicks are almost like playing karaoke of the other games that they've had. Where it's just like, oh, they're going to do the part where they're going to fall behind by 13. It's like watching the CSI episodes where you're like, oh, the 40 minute mark. Now I bet this guy now we're going to find out. Maybe he actually knew the victim. And that's what they did over and over again. I'm with you. I, first of all, you know, I hate that you never played anybody thing. You can only play who's in front of you. Second, San Antonio is minus 200 to win the minus one 90 to win the series. And we were, we were all saying during the last round, okay, see, San Antonio was going to decide the finals. I certainly felt that way. And we, so in a we were no, don't we me on that, don't we me on that one? I felt that way. A lot of people felt that way. We were all like the finals going to go through the West. I thought the five best teams, the next were the only good East team. And I think Denver, Minnesota were up there with San Antonio. I think those were the five best teams in the league. Now they only played one, but I don't hold them against them. And I thought San Antonio was an awesome team. And that was one of the scariest defensive teams we've had in a finals in the last 20 years. They turned Philly and Cleveland into freaking mush. Like just get out of here. You don't even belong in the same league as us. And like those were teams that fought tooth and nail to beat other good teams in the Eastern Conference, including the top seed, including a popular finals pick. And then Nick's just washed them, humiliated them, embarrassed them out of the playoffs. And it was like, you don't even belong on the same floor with us. Go home, James Harden. By the way, James Harden, just sneaking into the news today, just just speaking right in guns loaded. Um, well, I'll get I'll tell you this to credit the next. They are changing. I think, I think they are light and a little fire on some of the East teams because this is sustainable for the nicks. I think for at least the next two years, right? And if you're bossed and you have to change how you play, which is basically what Stephen said at the press conference right after the season ended, we can't play this way anymore. We have to be more inside out. The nicks have the ability to play inside out to hit threes, but Brunson in a lot of ways became their inside outside guy. He was the guy getting all the points in the paint a little bit of bridges, a little bit of towns who was terrible. Um, that was Minnesota towns today. Now they didn't get the friendly swiss lover, but it didn't matter. I will say three times in two games, a Wemba Nyama foul was reviewed and turned into a town's foul. Um, I didn't like the first two of them, which one was in game four. And the first one tonight, I did not understand at all. Like Wemba Nyama gets called for a foul, like kind of karate chops towns and then towns hooks him. But the chop, the chop comes first, which is like the foul. Yeah. And it precedes the hook and you go back and review it. Can you not just review that and say we're just, it's a no call. We're wiping it away. Successful challenge now to foul on Wemba Nyama. I got to make it a foul on towns. I thought he got a raw whistle in these last two games. And we have not even gotten to the fact that we are again for the second straight game. The league is going to be spared. The number one talking point between games five and six being is Wemba Nyama going to be suspended for game six because of a flakering foul review on the landing spot thing. I mean, like they're spared this whole officiate in discussion because the Nick saved their ass on it. I had that in my notes. He would have gotten suspended. I saw all this conspiracy. Although never suspended them, they'll find a way around. I think he would 100% would have gotten suspended between them, not upgrading the mush of Jill and Bronson to a flakering, which like I don't understand what their reasoning was for that. And like the outcry of that. I think I agree with you. I think he was going to get suspended for game six. And now, thankfully, we don't have to live in a world where the Nick's win game six with no Wemba and everything's a little not tainted, but just feels a little like we didn't get the send off that we should have gotten. There were a lot of calls that didn't like against the next day. It should be mentioned. There was 20 to 19 next three thread advantage that came. I felt like they got hosed on six or seven calls. I thought the not calling the foul on Bronson. I mean, when Bronson's trying to dribble, they'll clock out with 10 seconds left waiting for them to foul him. Gets hacked. There's three reps there. All them miss it. And the ball goes to bridges. Like that just could have been a steal the other way for the game tying layup. And we would have been like, Oh, let's look at the replay. Daniel son karate chopping Bronson. That was terrible. I can't believe. I can't believe they missed Wemba going under Bronson's feet. They never missed that call ever. They make that call 100 times out of 100 during this season. There's three reps. None of them missed the call. He fell down. It was terrible. And I don't know how you don't review that later. Well, they would they could review it later, but it would just have been between games. It's funny. Right. But at the time out, you can't review it. I don't know. When I first watched at naked eye, I actually didn't I saw Bronson kick his leg out a little bit. And I thought, okay, that maybe that's what they saw. And then on the replay, it's much, it's much more clear that that should have been a foul and a flavor's foul. And it was just not called. And then there was like the OG and an OB phantom loose ball foul after a scramble rebound very late in the game. We're like, I'm not even sure what what Scott Foster was like, yeah, but look, the next and you consider and do the foul replay, the foul count and the free throw count and whatever. It's like the fouls on towns are so pivotal and so he is such a bedrock in terms of how the next play and be coming into this game. The nicks were plus 48 with towns on the floor and minus 40 with towns off the floor that like, I don't really care if the rest of the calls are even or lean to the nicks favor because those calls by themselves are so pivotal. And three times in two games, not only is it when Banyama foul a race, it's then turned into a foul on towns. And I thought two of the three were bad calls and just like wipe it away, no call it. The third one was a clear foul when he shoved. Yes, we shoved Banyama into a nicks player. We were texting near the end of halftime. And I was texting you that I thought the next we're going to win, which I was texting you all day. And you texted back, hold on, I want to see what happens with these three towns fouls. And like, instantaneously, I got the text that he was failing somebody. Foster had that awful call on OG, the fifth foul. It was Brunson and just made a layup. It was 83, 83. OG had that weird loose ball call. And I wrote down on my notes at that point. It was starting to give me flashbacks to time to bring a selfish team into this game five, 2008 finals. Celts up three won. It's in L.A. It's two, three, two. My dad and I are in the stands. We think the Celts are going to win. And in the second half, the Celts just got host. It was the game where Ray out and fouled out, get 5,000, the second half. Paul Pearson, 5,000, the second half. And I was like, I feel like we're reliving that where they're just going to like take OG and towns out of this game. And as it turned out, it didn't matter. Because Jaylen Brunson just could not be stopped for a long, long time. And then really in San Antonio side, nothing happened. But I, I'm looking at guys I bolded down the stretch. OG had a dunk. Brunson had a floater. Mitch had that offensive rebound. OG had a free throw. Bridges had free throw. Like all the guys got to chip in a lot of nerdy free throws at the end for both teams. I don't like it. By the way, I get it. I mean, maybe it wasn't her. Sometimes you just missed, but boy, if you put me into line right there, I might pee my pants and go over two on two airballs. And run off the court and ever to be seen again. So one I was positive of was Harper missing the first one when he was, they were down three with like eight seconds left. I feel like the guy misses that 90% of the time down the stretch. We had a couple big, at least two big Josh Hark shots on the fourth quarter, wanted to shout out. He's the kind of there no no yes guy. But yeah, so when you look at the other next, OG goes three of 11. Yeah, but I'm just going big picture. You had it as finals MVP after game four, which I thought was aggressive. We've had it too. I think it was like 60 40 because Brunson is the engine, right? Brunson is the best guy to me unless he's awful has to get it. Well, and by the after this game, there were no, there were just no questions about it. But look, let's again, now that it's over, is the antidote be tipped the greatest play in the history of Nick's basketball? I mean, greatest in history, Nick's basketball. It's one of the greatest plays in the history of basketball. But it's great. I think it's the discussion would be of basketball for me for the professional basketball NBA. Is it one of the 10 best most important plays in the history of the league? And I think you could argue that it was. Now you're saying like non game seven versus game seven. No, we have two categories. Well, no, we were. I sent you a text from my buddy, Doug, who's a genius. And he was, it is a math genius. And he was asking me, like, do you think the antidote be tipped is the single biggest non game seven swing play in terms of finals odds? And then he showed me his math about how much it swung finals odds. And he said, give me some other candidates. And the only one, I gave him a bunch. And the only one that he mathematically said was as close to that big of an odd swing was Robert Ori shot in game five and 2005 pistons spurs, which turned it to machine left them open. Yeah, which turned to two point pistons lead into a one point spurs win. But yeah, I mean, like, it's up there. And just it's just it's just made for cinema. He's flying through through the air above everybody else, sprinting in with the kind of urgency that is like, I will die to win this game and gets his hand on it perfectly softly. Nobody else touches it. Only him. Only he's high enough to get it. And it's, you know what's going in as soon as he hits it. It's not, it's, he's got, he's got a preposterous level of touch and control on it that you as soon as it, I mean, I was there. I was watching it. I was standing up in awe. So like, as soon as I saw him running, I was like, one by guy, he's going to tip this thing in. So I did the pod right afterwards. And then was kept watching that whole sequence over and over again the next morning. I think it's one of the craziest fluke. It might even be a crazier fluke, but also great play than the Ray Allen shot. Remember the Ray Allen shot? All the guys, what was it that led to the layout? Oh no, it was the LeBron 3 before the Ray Allen shot, when all five spurs had a chance for the rebound. And it's like, you could do this a thousand times. And this might be the one time where you don't get the rebound. Not to mention that Ray Allen was the guy in the corner who had practiced the backpedaling like all those things that happened. It's like one in a million that that team that moment. So the next you have to have the spurs fucking up like the defensive coverage. Did you see that that camera from behind the basket of them kind of not knowing who to cover? And then it ends up. And I think that was legitimate where they kind of did. Oh, I thought, oh, they're playing him and they're kind of scrambling right before. And when he ends up on Brunson, which I don't, I can't imagine. Do you think that was the intention at all for him to be 30 feet from the basket? They're up one. I don't think so. That said, I don't think there was enough scrutiny or just curious questioning of, did you need to double team jail in Brunson with Victor? I mean, I think that was a, in all the attention on the Fox blunder that preceded that, which was all very deserved. And I've, by the way, I've seen some defenses of that decision by Fox, which are to me are nonsensical. We can talk about that if you don't. But I think I don't think that. And I don't know who called for the double. I assumed the coaches yelled for him to go do it. I'm like, it's it. So unanimous defensive player of the year. There's four seconds left in the game. He's just going to take a three. I don't know what you're also, you have great defenders. You don't need when be to come out. If anything, you have to be worried about some sort of tip. So anyway, when becomes out, that's lucky break number one. Lucky break number two, Brunson shoots it fast. And it has to hit the front of the rim and Ricochet right toward where OG's going, right? And OG's jumping, jump seven feet full speed. But you still need the ball to ricochet. If it hits the back of the rim, he's by it. I don't, he might be able to get it with his left thing, but it almost has to bounce the way it is. And then for him to just kind of tap it back the way he did, I think that's like a one and a hundred thousand play. Those three things altogether. Not to mention, when we could have blocked the Brunson shot, the only thing is, Towns was right there for the tip end of the Brunson of the OG tip. And I wonder if he would have tipped it in. So if that, and then you also have the spurs having Harper inbound the pass at the end on a play that would have worked. And Towns tips it. And like, why wasn't Wembee inbounding that? Because you're using him as a decoy for the play. The lob, the lob, right? Right. Like, how about Cornette? Could Cornette not throw? Why do you have somebody who's six inches shorter than the guy guarding him? Not to mention, Towns brings the guys over, the fans to kind of crowd Harper, which I've never seen in a modern NBA game in the last 30 years. But I thought that was crazy too. You could do a documentary about the last 10 minutes, the 10 seconds of that game. Oh my, you sure, you sure could? Because then the Fox decision, like you, like you could, it's like an hour of analysis. The Fox decision. I, I saw a couple of analytics people being like, this is unfair criticism. It's a totally analytically sound decision. Here's the math of like, well, he could put him up three of this and that. The reason why it was a bad decision, and I don't know if he could have killed as much clock as people think because OG was coming to foul and real fast. But the reason why it's a bad decision, despite whatever analytics you can conjure about it is, even if he just makes one out of two free throws, which is part of the analytical argument for why it's not a horrible decision. Well, you could miss free throw. You could miss both free throws and blah, blah, blah, expected points for this and that. Then you're up to, and the, and the tip does not lose you the game. You still have a chance to win it at overtime. There's just such a norm at one point is such an enormous difference. Then if that's all you get, it still matters. Zero is what you can't get. And he did pretty much the only thing that, that puts zero in a probable position to happen. And that was challenging and OB at the rim and lose. I don't know why he did it. I don't know why he wanted a challenge in an OB. I don't know how he couldn't have scored on the left side of the basket when he's left-handed. But the OG block slash tip. So I was watching, I watched the end of Bucks' son's game five to try to remember the drew play and the sequence of it. And the Bucks are up like 10 with three minutes left and kind of blow the game, leading to Booker who had been hot in that game with a chance to win. And Drew does the strip, comes back down and throws that crazy alley up to Yannis, who's almost by the rim and dunks it anyway. And I was thinking like if he had, and if he had fucked up that alley up or Yannis, whatever, like he would have gotten all the same deer and fox criticism. But guess what? It worked. And if Fox had scored to go up three, we would have been like, great play by Fox. I don't think we would have been like, "Ooh, that was risky. He's lucky." Risky, great play by Fox. Yeah. I was watching the 1990 game two finals, Pistons Blazers. Of course you were. Why wouldn't you be watching that? Well, it got served to me on Twitter because apparently I was watching last second plays and this popped up. But this was the Danny Young game. Remember this? No. I don't think so. But I'll remember when you described to me, which finals was it, a Blazers, Blazers, Pistons Blazers? It's the one where the Pistons went all the way back to Portland. Yeah. Pistons are up one. They imbound it. They break the press. For some reason, Gerald Henderson decides to score a layup with like three seconds left instead of just dribbling at the clock. There's no Blazers. All the Blazers are up trying to steal it. The Blazers imbound it. And Danny Young just gets a wide open three, but it's like a split second after the buzzer. And it was kind of as dumb as the Fox play. But it didn't. My point is, guys have brain farted like this over and over again in the past. Like these guys are tired. The amount of energy it takes to play these games is astonishing and unimaginable to regular people. And it affects your brain a little bit. And also you're built with such confidence and you're such an elite athlete that he justifiably thinks I'm quick enough to get this shot onto the backboard before before he gets to it. And he didn't. And like it's understandable. It's like well, very explainable brain fart, but a disastrous brain fart. You know what though? It's not explainable as the point guard. The point guard's the smartest guy in the team, allegedly. He's the game manager. He's the guy who he's the quarterback. He's a guy who makes the right decisions, right? Cam Johnson. I saw in Tommy's pod was defending Darren Fox. He was just like, you guys don't understand like how fast everything goes when you're playing basketball. And it's like they get a steal. The ball pumps out. It's not like you have a lot of time to process with that. First, he's got to chase the ball. He's in real time measuring OG behind him, but you know, I guess my thing is I don't think the spurs would have won this series anyway, regardless of that play because I think I really felt like they started to get exposed as a series go on. Look at what happened today. How many guys on the spurs did you trust by midway through game five? We lost all our confidence in Fox. Their entire bench was out. Cornet was unplayable. They couldn't really play Carter Bryant. Keldin Johnson six million of the air was just doing nothing. You go on down the line. It's like, I don't I can't find six guys I trust on this team. Not to mention the big fundamental issue with them was they got to give the car keys to Harper and they just wouldn't do it. They were hesitant to do that. And I think that was one of the things that cost them the series. Well, it is interesting for a team that was ahead of schedule and has a fun to be proud of and is like two bone headed plays away from this series probably still going on into game six. It does feel like there's a surprising amount of potential fallout in San Antonio. Just in terms of maybe not immediate, but just like the Fox question is arriving maybe faster than they thought it might say it's arrived. I think people are getting off the train. Well, I mean, I said after game four that I was having lunch with an agent in New York and we were talking about like his Harper's been so sensational. And that's part of the Fox question too is Harper. And he said, you know, how soon do you think like this first start thinking about or taking calls or listening or whatever. And I said, look, it feels early. It feels early because his extension doesn't even kick in yet. And they just made the finals and they're going to have to lick their wounds if they lose this series. But that contract is so big and so long that like a routine called me this off season and just gave me like a fair ish offer for it. I we got to have a meeting about it because this was bad. And I he's got a high ankle sprain, but this series was really bad in every possible way pretty much. And Harper was just sensational. And you could argue like we've almost already gotten what we hope to get out of Fox, which is like veteran mentorship a long playoff run that didn't quite the way and like I like now I just got like four more years on a huge extension coming up. I don't know. It's it's that's fallout. Keldin Johnson's a free agent. That's fallout. Just completely fell apart in the finals and didn't have a great playoff. So overall, he'd a bad playoffs. Can be interesting. Well, the thing with Fox. So the for people listening who don't know the size of the contract, maybe take a seat, even if you're sitting. It's four years, 221. And I had a bunch people over the last couple of days texting me like just that people that aren't doing what we do for a living, but just basketball fans. Like so they're going to trade Fox. Where's he going to go? Go through the teams. Like it's it's hard to find four teams that need an expensive point guard who like you'd be like, Oh Orlando, he'd be good there. Well, cool. Orlando's already like way over the tax. They're going to be a second apron team. And they're not training Franz Wagner for Darren Fox. I'm sorry. Right. Right. That one. That one goes into the David Stern veto. Uh, yeah. That's like the lead the league steps in. But they're looking at is something like Minnesota. Wondering if they'll take the last year Julius Randall's deal and DeFrancenza who has a torna killies. I, I honestly think that's what they're looking at for that contract. I think you're looking at can we get expiring's back? Um, and we're probably getting the one or two worse guys in the trade. We might have to throw a pick in it. Um, Atlanta is interesting because they're going to have cap space. Um, need a point guard and maybe have like the Kisbert contract and Reese's Shay and but I, I couldn't find a deal that I really liked. Well, that's what I think he's going to be on San Antonio next year. That's what I meant by fair issue in terms of like if it's like neutral to us and we don't have to give up a pick. Like I got at least seven meeting about it. But then you go through the teams and of course irony of all ironies. A team that absolutely could use an expensive good point guard and does desperate things all the time is the Sacramento Kings that I feel like that's probably not going to happen. Yeah, definitely not having. Well, here's the other problem with Fox. Like as a trade asset, this, this draft is like legendary for how many point guards are in it. And the Kings are in that range. Five guys who could potentially be starting his point guards, not to mention like some of the guys that have come in the last two years. So I think he's going to be on the team and I don't really know, I don't know how they, uh, how they get out of that. The only, the only thing I threw out and I don't really see the exact scenario for it. But you mentioned Atlanta, my, like there's like is, is there a team that gets honest that has to trade so much for him that is like, all right, we just need another good player in the door and this is guys getable and he fits well. Like that's it, but I, even that is a hard deal to construct. There was one, there was one that caught my attention as I was flying through the spot track teams. Jammer in. He's, he's in that same sort of boat, right? And if you're the spurs, you just basically that that's, that's all I could think. Oh, no, the spurs are not trading for Jammer in. No, but you, you get him and then you try to flip him and it's basically a three team deal, you know, and it was, I don't think that's happening. Um, so the spurs have two of the worst finals losses this century, in less than a week, including, uh, it was ambassad, which two, I mean, just think this all felt so good. Yeah. So today was like a walk in the park, compared to some of the other ones. Um, they, I did a thing about after game two about how they've had, and this is before game four, how they had had the their five worst playoff losses are worse than anyone else's five worst playoff losses. And then they added a six one to that. I don't know where you start with them when you're thinking about the season because they're a little like the Patriots win the Super Bowl, whereas like after the Super Bowl and the Patriots got killed, I almost wish they had it made the Super Bowl. It's like, it was a little bit better off losing the ABC title game. If the spurs just lose an okay, seeing game seven, we have no questions. We're like, oh, they're too young. Okay, C's really good. That's the way it worked out. But now it opens up a whole bunch of stuff. And we've almost gotten to the hour mark without talking about him yet. But this was an incredibly disappointing Wembee series. It just was for future, the league, face to the league, all that stuff. This was, I think a catastrophe for all those story lines. It was. I think that's a little strong. We're passing the torch from Jordan to LeBron to Wembee. I'm included. I have my hand pushing it toward him. And he just wasn't nearly good enough for impactful enough. He wasn't. So I disagree with you in two senses. I don't think he was catastrophically bad. I think he was a little disappointing. Defensively, I think he was like tonight. He was fantastic for two and a half quarters defensively. And I think faded a little bit at the end. He averaged 26 a game on 42% shooting, 27% on threes, 11 rebounds, three and a half blocks. I agree in the aggregate. It's it's disappointing. We can talk about why and what parts of his game kind of faded in and out of some of these games. Like tonight, for instance, I thought in the first half, he was just not rolling to the rim enough. It was just settling for pops and pop twos and drives that were never going to work in this series. And for some reason, just doesn't yet have the confidence or the consistency and just like the simple porzinga shot where all else fails, I just catch the ball 15 feet face up and shoot over you. Like that should just be a much bigger part of his diet than it is. He's passing him up and especially the 18 footers. But I had this argument with people throughout the finals. I think just story wise, narrative wise, this is the best. This is a better outcome for the league. The nicks win. They end the 53 year drought. Right. Total jubilation in New York City, history, all the alums are there, you wings there, the ghosts are exercise all that. And when we get some battlescares and get some bearers a little bit in some big moments and as to go back, it like it it was it felt too soon for him to already conquer the league. And now we get an offseason of like reckoning with the turnover in game two, reckoning with shooting 42% seven of 19 I think tonight. And like like some scars some some stuff to some stuff to build on. Miss free throws in game in game four in New York. I just think it's like a cool that cooler, but just like certainly a more literary arc than if you just sort of walked into that walk to just like I'm already the best where already champions New York you lose again. To be fair, I wasn't saying his play was catastrophic. I was saying the storyline arc of him being the next guy. And here it is. And he is now arrived. I think it's really flipped over the last. I just know, anecdotal with people in my life. He is now he's basically had an entire career of narratives in the spirit of two, two months where now it's like he can he play more than 30 minutes in a playoff game without wearing down. Why is he why does why is the first half so different than the second half? What about some of the dirty stuff? Like the next fans hate Wembee now. It's really interesting like they're just like that. Even the play with Bronson today. I got so many people in my life are like, there he is. He did it again. This is a guy that went into the last two rounds of the playoffs. Kind of with the unanimous approval rating that now I think there's questions. I think there's he's he's got people that don't like them. It's just that's what I mean. Like it's it went from like, oh my god. This is definitely the next guy. Here we go to now people going, huh. What do we actually have here? And what is he going to get better? And what is he going to add? And can he play more than 30 minutes a game without wearing down? And I don't know. I just think he left with a lot of questions. I do think it's worth again noting. Is he made the finals? And we just spent a lot of time talking about how the guards are than Harper were like a little bit scattershot. And Castle was very mad tonight too. And he was in the finals. They beat OKC. The dirty stuff is interesting because I do like clearly when he feels like he's getting beat up, there is a risk of him losing his temper. I mean, just ask Nasried. I do think some of the things like the landing spot thing and like a couple like a couple of like the elbows that end up getting in somebody's jaws. I think like he's just very tall and his limbs aren't just going to get to places where I get that like he doesn't really expect them to be or you don't expect them to be. I think there's a little bit of that. But it is interesting. The top three players in the league and whatever order you want them all left us this season in slightly disappointing fashion. Yoke shoots 19% from three in the first round and is just kind of not the same guy. Shay in the conference finals has an absolutely epic game seven but ends up averaging 26 a game on 41% shooting. And then Victor in the finals has a little bit of a letter. It's just like it's hard, man. Like they all they all ran into stuff that it was hard and they just they didn't quite live up to their usual production. Here's where he should get things. Game for Mitch goes for the kill leaves him in, right? He plays a ton of minutes and he just dives down the stretch. He just couldn't handle that kind of minute load workload physicality. He just he wilted. And part of it was because he probably didn't have the experience of playing minutes like that because they were really careful with him during the season. So it's like give us your 30 best minutes in the playoffs. You can't do that anymore. You got to get into the 40s. Look at Brunson tonight. Game five if you're digging him. I think it's got to start with all the town's foul trouble. Towns is out of this game at the beginning of the third quarter. He's out now for the next basically quarter and a third, right? How did Wembee not destroy the next at that point? They didn't have a center. They had Mitch Robinson. and who was terrible this whole series, they were, they had bridges on them at one point. They put a small ball line up on him. Like, if you're supposed to be, now I sound like I'm like a, like a fucking talking head like doing that. But if you're, if you're supposed to be the guy, you're our next guy. Here we come. We're about to hand the league to you. And they have a team that has no center out there. Why are you, why are you destroying them? I don't understand it. Okay. So in this particular game, the nicks didn't play with no center for a couple of different stretches. I tried to time it to the cornnet minutes for just the reason that they know this is untenable against one banana. And then I was a little surprised that they, they would like bring a hug 40 in when when banana came in. And they're like, fuck it. We're just going to go small against when banana, which surprised me. And I thought there was at least one play where I think, I can't remember which guard it was. I think it was Castle had him, it might have been Harper had him on a lob and went for a two instead in the paint and miss like the lob was very clear there. I didn't throw it. And there's another play where somebody just, he had bridges on him. And I think it was Fox just was like throw, throw the ball and he threw the ball and he like caught it and laid it up and in it. That exact moment Mike Brown pointed a missile rock. Just kidding. I get you're back in. Here we go. Like they, like they, it didn't last long and they did exploit it to the point that Mike Brown was immediately like, yeah, one bat like they figured it out, bring him, bring, we need the big guy back in with the broken hand. So he's talking a lot of shit in the first half of game four when they're up, right? So he was, that's not helping him either. I just think it's going to be interesting how this goes for him for the next couple of months. Because first of all, he's American. He's not American. He's French. Second of all, English, English is the second language. And I think a couple of times during the playoffs where he's just said things because he's saying things in the language that's not his and the way it can just get cut and interpreted seems a lot more aggressive. Like, what was that quote where he was like, we're going to come back and win or when they were down three, one, everybody knows we're going to do it. Yeah, I don't, I don't 100% even know that's what he meant, but he's French. Like, I think I think he's just trying to be confident. But I thought if you're going to be the big boy and you're going to carry yourself like the big boy, you've got to do better in a game where Carl Anthony Towne's only a place half the game because he's a felt trouble the whole time when it's three one. You've had two days rest. You can't play in the rest thing. I just, I was really disappointed. But again, this is part of the process with the young guys. We saw it with Tatum in the 2022 finals. We saw it with LeBron in the '07 final like this is, this is it. This is the taster and hopefully he vaults from this and goes up a level. But yeah, I thought there was a little more there offensive back. I got to be honest. I mean, his roles to the rim continue to be their best offense, right? And they got a ton of great threes that they missed on just him rolling to the rim. But yeah, you just, like he has these moves two or three times a game where he just decides, I'm scoring and I'm not going to settle for the shot you want me to take. I'm going to at least get to the dotted line and spin or fake a half spin and loft the little hook up or a jumper and it goes in. You're like, why is there not more of that? I just keep coming back to the Porzinga shot as like, that should just be easy money for him as a as a failsafe. Yeah. A jump hook, can we, can we throw a jump hook in there, you're seven, six, he'll probably spend time with the linger on the summer and come back with stuff. Who knows? How about just go to the gym and shoot some jump hooks? Do we need to keep them all as you want to teach you how to turn around and shoot like everyone as a jump hook. But we're playing basketball has one. I think this is all great that we're talking about this and he hasn't reached them out on top yet. And he's getting beat up a little bit by fans who say he's dirty and like we're talking about the lack of this go to mover, whatever. Yeah. And finally that, his shit talking to Mitchell Robinson early in game four, we said, I'm in your head. I'm in your head. And it backfire reminds me a little bit of like a Dwayne Wade in game two of the finals in 2011 where he hit the whole bench is taunting. There's a time out and the Mads gets so furious. He's like, we can't let this team clown us like this and they come back and win the game and they all cite that moment as a moment that changed their mindset. A Dwayne Wade sites that moment is like a whoopsy moment for him. Do you think OG is the greatest 3 and D guy we've had in the 3 and D era, because it has to be somebody who's not an actual, I could average 25 to 26 a game if I had to on a good team. I have to be like basically the third option. I know exactly what I am. I'm over here. I'm going to play bass. We're going to have some awesome concerts every once in a while. I might get to sing a couple songs, but that's all I'm doing. And he knows it. And that's just who he is. I can't think of a better version of this. It's almost like we should change 3 and D to OG. I mean, I don't even know what he is, man, because he just averaged 20 points a game for an entire playoffs. And I know that scoring is up because of 3s and all that, but that's, so maybe he's like a 3 and D plus, he's just OG is like the separate category for 3 and D guys. So that's not their running place for him. No, you know, I used to talk about 3 and D and D guys with the second D being drive. Like, you got to be able to make plays out of closeouts and he's good at that, but he can, like, he can do a little bit, a little bit everything, like he can bully a mismatch. If you got nothing else going on, he can hit an off to dribble 3 now and then he said 33 and double D guy. I don't know. Like, don't go into Barclay territory on that. But I just think he's a phenomenal player and it was a trade I love for them right away. You and I, I think talked about it at 1.2 about, you know, the quickly and an OB debate and all that. I just thought there was never any debate. It was just such a smart identification of right. If Brunson's our guy, what kind of guys do we need to get around him? And if Brunson's our guy quickly is never going to develop under us the way that he could somewhere else and bear it as bear it, like, we just need a different guy. And that was absolutely, like, a plus identification of talent. Yeah. I remember, I remember doing a pot about that trade and being like, I've no idea how this is going to play out, but I understand it from both sides. But not, but it's like, at that point OG, you know, he could miss some games at some point and it was like, Toronto always seemed pretty anxious to get off him. They didn't want to pay this contract that the nicks are currently paying and the nicks actually. This is great. We'll pay you. Yeah, they were delighted to do it. Can we, can we find a sponsor should deal for you under the table or something? But because we love you so much. By the way, Raptor's, you know, what I was seeking, like, very tangential winners and losers of the playoffs and of the NBA Finals, Raptor's and an OB, right? Ciacum. And Ciacum. And I had forgotten, they traded Ciacum and the Pacers pick that one of the Pacers picks they got in that trade is now the number five pick in the draft and it had quite a journey it went Indiana, Toronto, Toronto, New Orleans, New Orleans back to Indiana and then Indiana to the Clippers. And now it's the number five pick in the draft. I forgot about that. Amazing. Yeah. It seems like in retrospect, maybe an OB and Ciacum could have worked together as two forwards on a really good team, but watching it in real time and it was a team that never really made sense. Like, there was something missing when you watch them and none of us could put our finger on it. Like, I like this guy. I like this guy. It's just a lot of it with Scotty Barnes developing, I think faster than they thought. And I think they maybe got a little ahead of Scotty Barnes development in making their team building decisions, but they just concluded like, this is not going to be a championship team. The next championship team is going to be built around Scotty Barnes. Let's just pivot there now. And yeah, it looks. I also though. Oh, God. No, as you say, I also felt for Brooklyn next fans a little bit when Mike Green said during the game about Jose Alvarado or about Julian Champeni, the Brooklyn kid torturing his hometown team. I was like, ooh, that one's going to stink just a little bit. Yeah. That's a hard one. On the bright side for San Antonio. I think Carter Brands going to be really good, so a very bright bright side. I love Carter Brandt and next year, maybe he's a little more involved. The Harper thing's incredible. I really felt like there was a couple of moments tonight where I was like, wow, if the San Antonio wins this, it's going to be because Dylan Harper went to this crazy level that we've only seen a couple of times from 20 year olds in the finals. And it like it was like, is he going to score 38 points? Is this just going to be like he single-handedly changes this and then Trump decides to go to game six and all of a sudden the momentum is completely flipped against the deck. That's a dead already. If that game already feels like three weeks ago, the Trump game. Yeah. The playoffs are just so long. The Trump game feels like three weeks ago. You know how long the playoffs are? Here's a thought that popped into my head today. Just to pop. This is like how broken my brain is. You know when it popped into my head when I was doing Ring or 100 and I put this guy into Ring or 100 higher than I've ever had him and I was like, hey, man, Tobias Harris had himself a playoffs. Didn't he? That feels like seven months ago that Tobias Harris had himself a playoffs. I said, my Ring or 100 and I had Brunson fourth. I don't remember where I had him. I'm not looking it up right now. I was not fourth though. You had. So that means you had him above Luke. I put him above Lucas. Yeah. I put him above Luca. Why not? Why the hell is that? He's supposed to be above Luca. He just won the title. Yeah. Just revising out. Put him one. Why not? Why not? Why not have a ceremonial ring or 100? He's first now. So Harper, like, they'll have to figure out the Fox thing, but it'll be fine. Maybe it doesn't materialize until February. And then when be, as you mentioned earlier, because of everything that played out the last three weeks, this is his rocky three moment now. Now he's got to affect what do I need to add. I've now tasted my own blood. Um, a little bit villainy now in America, especially with the next fan base and probably okay, C2 and Minnesota. I have some teams that franchise that don't like being like, this is going to be how it goes. So we did the most intriguing players of the playoffs before the playoffs. We had a draft. We did. I picked Wembee for Apex superstar and you picked SGA, neither of us picked Brunson. For Crossroads guy, you took Mitchell and I took Palo and Franz as a combo. Who ended up being the Crossroads guy from the playoffs? Well, I don't even know what the definition of Crossroads guy is. Just like we leave the playoffs going, whoa, that I guess it's Fox. The Fox is our cross into the wrong side of the road. No, it's just like you're at the Crossroads with this guy and your team or that or this guy in his career. I probably Fox defensive stud. I had OGN and OB, you had Derek White. It's nice. Feel good star. You had Lamello. I had Tatum. Well, this was before the play in tournament. We did this. We counted the play in teams. Hot seat coach. You had Jamal Mosley, I had E-Mandoka, hot seat wild card. We really know. You had Zachary Richie say, I had deer and fox. We really nailed this one. Woo. Legacy guy. I had Brunson. You had Yokeh. I think I took Brunson before. I'm not going to brag about that. You had for second banana, Carl Anthony Towns, and I had Jaylen Durin. So you hit that. And you had Aaron. You had McHale Bridges and I had Aaron Gordon for third banana. I guess. Bridges. Maybe it's a four bridge. This is not the third banana now. The leap. I had Maxi. You had Steph Castle. I think we both hit that. Fine. Right? Yeah. Trade machine guy. You had Julius Randall. I had J.Dub. So one for two there. You win. Week link, you had J.L.G. and I had to buy us. And then we had a Coda guy for some reason. You had K.D. and I had Curry, neither of those hit, but boy did the K.D. Coda. Yeah. Coda. His career not hit in these playoffs. But that's what. Oh, and for Beloved Bench guy, I had Luke Cornett and you had Peyton Pritchard. Anyway, that was a snapshot of how we were feeling before the playoffs. And I don't know if-- I don't know if-- Bonus guy who has to be mentioned, I had J.L. and Brown to do at Anthony Edwards. Mm. Right. So I'm trying to think who we didn't have. Dylan Harper. Dylan Harper. Dylan Harper is the big one that's missing, huh? Wembee. Today, we don't know what's took Wembee. No, I had Wembee for-- Hey, baby superstar. Hey, baby superstar. You know who we didn't have was Miss Johnson. So what happens with him now? He's the coach of the Spurs. Okay. I don't think there's anything. There's not. No. You think they're delighted with how he coached the team in the finals? There's no universe. I think there are probably a little-- there are things to work on, for sure. But there's no world in which they're making a coaching change. Didn't think that were. I'm just asking you. Okay. Did the seat get a little hotter? No. Okay. No. Did for me. Top five NBA stories other than the finals. Now that the finals are over. Okay. We're just going to-- we're okay. All right. Let's do it. What else do you have? No, that's it. Give any more finals. I didn't know we were doing this. So let's go. I mean, number one's obvious. What do you think number one is? Yeah. Nice. I had the top 10 order of the draft. I've become-- That's number one or two. That's number one or two. Yeah. I'm really fascinated with what's happened to this draft because I'm-- I think AJ. I am now at-- I would bet anything AJ is going to be the first pick. Anything. Anything. I'll take the bet. He's minus 500. If I could do it in California. And I think Boosers is going to go to-- and I think Peterson will go three to Memphis. And we'll see how he handles that. And then Wilson for-- nobody knows who's going five to the Kippers. Nobody. People just had Wagler written in there. And now it feels like people are a little more lukewarm on him and maybe they trade back. But that five to 10 range is going to be fast and then Golden State's in there 11 hoping somebody drops. I'm interested in that. I'm going to-- I'm holding the honest straight to the end here. The Reeves contract? Does that provoke interest from you or you just feel like the Lakers take care of him? That provokes interest from me. I would guess the leak. I would bet the Lakers take care of him. But, you know-- Would you feel good about paying him 50 million a year after the series you just watched? Which series? The final? The next spurs series. Just thinking about like that level of basketball and-- Look, I don't feel great about paying a lot of players 50 million dollars a year in a salary cap, second apron environment. But what's my alternative? I feel okay. I feel okay, but then I then he's not on my team. And I have to figure out what's my team around Luca Dontic. The problem for them is they have to pay him because Luca's like, what do you mean you're not paying him? He's my second best teammate. And I think that really, to 250 plus million dollars, guys, makes everything really hard. So I have that. I have what does Cleveland do? I think is a really good one. I'm prepared for basically anything with that, although I haven't heard anything about them being involved with the honest, have you? I think they're always hovering on the periphery, but it would very clearly take-- It would take mobility, and it would take Yannis indicating that he would sign a long-term extension there, and it just feels like a pretty unlikely series of events. He has not indicated that at all. And then before we get to Yannis, LeBron, what happens with that is a good one. Right. It always is. It always is. This one's a really fun one because the Warriors is really employed now, like for real. I really feel like I'd to bet my life on a team, I think I would bet on that. Stop betting your life and everything on these things. I'm not actually betting it, but that's what I think that would be the move for me. And that's attached to the Cleveland Topic, too, at least they have to be at least monitored for that. Given how does he-- that would basically be him doing 30 million a year and then them trading Jared Allen to the Lakers? I don't know. I don't know how it works. I've been in the finals bunker, but it already takes an enormous pay cut, which I don't see. But who knows? We've never seen a famous rich guy take a giant pay cut other than Karl Malone at one time. The honest trade. Is that five storey lines already? Yeah, those are the five. Why do you have another one? Well, I mean, aspiration. Oh, wrapping up. I mean, Adam Silver kind of-- Adam Silver for the first time kind of acknowledged it is, which I think it was before game was. I guess, taking a while, we've got to wrap this one up, guys. A lot of billable hours, can we just get to the end of this? Yes. If you're the quippers, do you hope it wraps up after you have the fifth pick of the draft? Because that would be one of my hopes. Can we wrap this up in July, guys? Yeah. Finals lose my fifth pick. If I'm probably like Dan. You think they were rooting for a seven game finals just to shrink the window between the finals and the draft? All right, that's a good one, too. So Yannis, what are you hearing? I think the bucks-- I think, well, I mean, they're trading them. I would be shocked at this point if they didn't-- they obviously know what Miami's offer is. They have not traded them to Miami yet. So other things are afoot, and I don't know how many teams are realistically in it. You have talked about it. I would definitely watch Boston potentially dipping their-- the dive-in-in, not just dipping their toe in, but dive-in-in. Yeah. I think they dove in. From what I heard, they made an offer in the past week, a couple of days before I mentioned on Thursday. I don't know what the offer was, and I don't know who's in it, but they are-- hat was in the ring, which I was really surprised by as I said on Thursday, because I thought they were sitting it out. And I don't know-- do you think something changed? Do you think they looked at this from every angle or that they realized, oh, that's it for the Miami offer? We can beat that. But what would have changed their mindset? Because I do not think they were in on Janus at the beginning of the off season. I don't think they were ever out. The safest bet is always inertia, right? The safest bet is we know that the nucleus we have works really well, and there's some degree of risk in shaking that up for a 31-year-old who's been injury prone and we're going to have to sign up to a ginormous extension. It says that's a big pivot for a team that has a pretty large window now of being one of the best teams in the NBA when everyone's healthy. But I think it's probably just frustration with how the season ended, some public comments that have been made after the season that ruffled some feathers, I'm sure. And again, a dearth of how many teams are we really competing against if we go for them? And I'm not saying they're gone, gone for them, but maybe they have. There's Miami. I don't really know how real the Portland thing is. Is he signing an extension in Portland? I don't think so. I don't think he's going to say that up front anyway. Orlando, I'm not sure how real that one is yet. Toronto, I just don't think they have enough to get it done because obviously they're not putting Scotty Barnes in that deal, so I don't really know even if they wanted to do it or make an offer, what it would be. I mean, there just aren't that many teams that are going to, you know, rock the boat to the grid. The bucks are going to need it rocked. On top of that, he wants to go to Miami or Boston, and I think Boston over Miami because he has a better chance to win a title in Boston. This team is going to trade all this stuff on the side and just have him and Bam and then have to figure it out. Like, and it's been made clear, I think, Oklahoma City's out. There's not going to be a panic chat trade. Other team, I can tell you for sure, other teams have checked on chat and been stiff-armed. San Antonio's obviously out. The team that has been curiously unmentioned and I think is unmentioned because they haven't been in is Houston in terms of teams that have assets, right? Like I just, I'd, yeah, and then what am I, I don't know if it's top five, interesting stories, but just a team that has a lot of assets and I just like, is Brooklyn really just going to, like, what are they going to do? Are they going to be like the Reeves offer sheet team or the Reeves, like, count off her team? Are they going to be, are they willing to just be bad again? Like, what are they actually going to do? Yeah, because you do the Reeves offer sheet when they do, like, July 1st at 12 o'clock. Well, it's not about one or whatever, unrestricted, so they don't have to worry about that. But you can, I mean, you can't offer him the money until, at least you can do wink, wink before it. Um, I don't know, is he really going to leave the Lakers to go to the Brooklyn Nets to play with 17 point cards, none of whom are, in fact, guys. Here's the problem for the Nets and why I, I've been on this one for a few weeks, like, just of being interested in it. They don't, like, the best guys to take at number six are all point cards, and they just invested last year and a bunch of point cards, including to spend the eighth pick on a point card. So you basically be punning on last year's draft. I just think it'd be weird if they took a cuff. A cuff is the guy they should take if he's there, but how does that make sense with the rest of the team you have? I don't get that. So I'm with you. I could see them trading him, trading that pick for a star. I'm just waiting for the Nets rumbling that makes sense to me. Like, even like, they've, they keep, like, every couple weeks here, like, well, they're still a team to watch for Yannis and, and I'm like, well, okay, why? And why is Yannis going there and who else is going there? Like, I just, I don't know what the right move is. By the way, Nick's probably can be ruled out for Yannis at this point. That's right. Well, I mean, I'm sure Milwaukee in the back of their heads was wondering, could that be a potential shooter of something weird happens in the finals? It's not going to be this person. I mean, we, we did happen the next one, the finals in dominant fashion with a 16 and three playoffs. Yeah. I think Boston's going to get Yannis. Okay. And I think it will happen in the next week would be my prediction. I would not bet my life on it, but I think, how do you feel about that? I had pretty ambivalent. It's for all the reasons I did, like a month ago when I was going through the stats of all these guys in their 14th season or later and 32 years later these big guys that it's just history is against it. Now, we're in a different era. It's 2026. There's different ways to take care of your body and advancements of medicine. We have a guy on the Lakers who was 41 years old, averaging 25 points a game last year. So who knows, but I think it's pretty risky. I'm more interested like why they're in it now and I don't think they were in it before and is there, is there stuff they're seeing with Jalen Brown that makes them realize like, oh, this guy got a taste to be in the star and we can't go back to where we were in 2024 anymore. We have two guys who think they're the best guy in this team and this is not going to be resolved. Can I ask you a total devil's advocate question related to this? Again, it's a devil's advocate question. Okay. It's a rhetorical device. But if I conclude that I want to get Yannis and if just mathematically, I have to trade one of the Jays to get Yannis, why is it just assumed that it's Jalen Brown and not Jason Tatum after the year Jalen Brown just had and Jason Tatum is coming off in Achilles injury? Just a question that at least needs to be asked. I know the answer. I understand Jason Tatum is better than Jalen Brown, the first team all NBA, I'd grab him higher ranked and all that. But isn't it interesting? It's just it's just completely assumed. It's a fair question. He's younger, but he is coming off the injury. I think he's considered to be a more popular ticket selling superstar than Jalen is, right? Better sugar. Better sugar. Better has been a better player. I get it. Yeah. And I think there's probably like a slightly higher ceiling and then with Jalen, maybe you're thinking, it's time to sell high. He's never going to have a better season than the last one. Fair. I always wanted them to stay together, but the more I look at it, I just wonder, it's just a lot of weirdness during and after the season, like even little stuff, like like Jalen saying Tatum is going to come on as Twitch stream. I didn't see that. When did that? Well, this was like a month ago when he did that. He's like, we're going to have J, we're going to have Jason on, hasn't been on, like are those guys going to get along? I literally have no idea. And I don't know, I don't know if that's a piece of this or not, but you also have Yannis who has Drew Hanlon, who's, you know, also Tatum's guy and I just, I just feel like we see where the two leaves are going with this one. Now, there was, there were Trey Murphy room, I don't know how they would get Yannis and Trey Murphy. I'm not going to believe that one, that seems crazy. But do I think Yannis makes more sense in a Boston deal than a Miami deal of Jalen's in the deal? Yeah. Because that's a better player than anyone in Miami. Miami is like, we'd love to get Yannis. You can't have Batman out of aisle, like at that point or you make it a real offer or not. And you could offer all these picks and all these other things, but it's not, who's your centerpiece? You're trading a guy who won you the title in 2021 and has been in your franchise since five years ago. He's been in your city since 2013 and you're going to trade him for a bunch of stuff and you can't point to one thing. I will say, okay, just for the sake of fairness, I do think new lottery rules, 31-year-old injury pro and player going to Miami who guts the rest of its non-bam roster to get him. I think those picks, the further out you get to Miami picks, there's real upside. Real upside in those picks. On the flip side, what is Jalen Brown doing for me if I'm the Milwaukee Bucks? I guess what he's doing for me is like, again, there's upside if we become a 38-win team or a 42-win team, Mr. Playoffs and he just proved that he's actually better than people thought. Maybe we do, like get Jalen Brown, nail a couple of fringe signings, suddenly we're like a feel-good 47-win team. Is that better than, and then he has trade value, maybe we're flipping it? I don't, I think these are all questions worth. But don't you think that it's a three-tamer of Boston, isn't it? I can't imagine they end up with Jalen Brown. I would assume he goes to Portland or Atlanta or Atlanta, or Portland or somewhere else. I think that's all possible, those, the more teams, I got to say, the Portland one makes a lot of sense. It's been one of my favorite, my two favorite conjured up Yannis trades or the three-team or where Jalen Brown goes to Portland and some other stuff goes everywhere. And then the Bucks get their draft assets back from Portland and the draft assets back, he gets scooped back, you probably get something else from Boston. Wow. Scoot's getting thrown in there. I think he has to. If I'm trading Yannis, I need my picks back and I need to at least have scoop. And then if I'm Portland and I end up with Denny and Jalen Brown together with Klingon, with Dame, with Camara, with Sharp's there, like I still have Drew Holiday, like I'm kind of excited about that team. Well, some, some pretty interesting team. Some of those guys may not be there, but I was like Sharp or Holiday, maybe I wouldn't know. I mean, Holiday would want to be there. But I would assume Jeremy Grant would be going to Milwaukee if that would be the guy that I would move if I'm hitting him. Possibly. And I think Portland makes more sense than Atlanta and New Orleans. And I always like the band carol one. I mean, I've been talking about it since the beginning of last season when I had to remind myself, he was not really, he was kind of poison-filled because of the capables, he's not anymore. I just like, that's an interesting one. I don't, again, I don't know if that one has any actual legs. Do you think what Boston watched in these last two rounds would make them more prone to trade for Yannis? Because I actually think it would for me. For what reason? Well, I got to beat the nicks. Physicality. The nicks are kind of, we're kind of built to beat Boston and did, right? And then I have no inside out game and I'm jacking up threes, which Steven's made a point of saying in that press conference, like I'm tired of losing the way we're losing. We need to be more unpredictable offensively, we need inside outside. So all that ties to Yannis, I just, I don't know if it's a great idea. I'm really like, I wish I was more excited about it. Like part of me hopes my image is, get some and they try to figure out how to make the Tate and Brown thing work. These guys played together nine years and that would be my preference. But we will see. Yeah, there's a chance if Boston does it that it ends up being just kind of a lateral move. Like it, it's just like, if it's, if it's the deal we're thinking of, or Jalen Brown goes out, then like, yeah, maybe it just doesn't, do you play differently and maybe end up in the same place? Which has been largely a very good place. But although as you pointed out, they've had very, they've had crazy playoff success and some crushing playoff outcomes around it. There's no way they get, if they're in on Yannis, I don't see how Jalen's not in it. You're not getting him for Derek way on the rest of your picks, right? So it has to be, it has to be Jalen. Well, and it's just that then you're, if it's, you can't, I mean, you can't have three guys making $70 million on your team, but it's just not, it's not tenable. Is there a wild card I'm prepared to put my seatbelt on for this team? team team for you over the next 10 days. - Just crazy offseason overall. - Just like, I'm just ready for anything 'cause I think for me, Denver would be that team. I don't know what I'm prepared for or maybe I'm not prepared for anything, but I also don't know how they just run it back. - I guess I just am anticipating a more predictable offseason for Denver, but again, they've already said, now they haven't said, but it's been reported that everybody but Yokech is on the table, which, you know, there's some everybody's there. I guess I think we're all expecting New Orleans to do some stuff, right? With train Murphy and other places. I think like Minnesota always seems to be, always seems to be thinking outside the box, and they just watched Oklahoma City and San Antonio, and those are the teams they've gotta compete with. I'd keep an eye on them. Atlanta, I don't really know what their appetite is for something big, but they certainly have a lot of different directions they could go. - On a small scale, I'm interested in O.K.C. just 'cause they have, I think, 12 and 17 plus all these picks, like there's some sort of non-major move that could still be really fun for us. And then Charlotte with 14 and 18 in the draft could get frisky somewhere. And that's, I always thought that made sense as the subonus team, I had one person who is very, very into the Charlotte team who's like, well, we have Diabate, why do we need subonus? It's like, I don't know, I just like subonus. I feel like he's, I feel like subonus is undervalued now where he's just become like this sunk cost. I don't think he is. Like, I still feel like there are good teams for him. - There is center away from being really interesting, and he would definitely have the Tim Robbins. I just escaped Shawshank balance. - Right, getting out of Sacramento. - He's just, he's gonna be 20 and 14 wherever he goes, right? The problem is if your team can't play defense, which I don't know if maybe Charlotte's not the right team for him from that standpoint, but I still value him as like a kind of a by-low asset. - Charlotte's also gonna be in a position with 12, 14, whatever they end up doing is with the draft center. And I think that needs to be factored in as well. - Yeah, and then Houston's the other one that I'm, Houston might just decide to run it back. Just, hey, we had bad luck last year. Let's, we'll bring it over. - We have lead back, we'll bring Adam's back. And everything will be fine, but I find that one hard to believe. - It does feel like a long, long time ago that we'd shepherd the shot 30% in the playoffs and had one of the more disastrous turnovers of the last calendar year in the NBA. So long. - Yeah, that does feel like forever. - So in general, the playoffs, the first two rounds were pretty blah. The round three, Nick's Cads was awful, unless you were a Nick's fan. Okay, and Antonio had a really fun game one and a fascinating game seven. All the middle games were pretty, pretty blah. And then the finals was one of the most entertaining five game finals we've ever had in our lives. - I don't think you could even get a better five game finals. I think this is just the apex of a five game finals. I mean, every game was a nail-biter. The total score was next plus 12 over five games. Like, every game had you, they were similar and yet everyone unfolded a little bit differently and just it was edgy or seat the whole time. - I'm trying to think of other ones, 90, the 90 finals, which I mentioned earlier, it was actually a great finals, Pistons Blazers, just a good matchup, really good games. And that Blazers team had a little bit of spurs at us where they just did dumb shit at the worst possible times. But yeah, it's pretty rare to have a really good five game series. - You're talking five or less. - Five or less. - Well four is usually pretty hard to find a good four one. But yeah. - Well the leakers, the leakers would argue and they got swept by Denver in 2023. One of the all-time groups sweeps. - Well, Kenny Atkinson this year is, yeah. He thought that was, yeah, that was another one. - We really could do a really fun, just 15. - Hey, remember when that happened, moments from the NBA playoffs every year? And that's already been pushed back to the back of my brain. We're analytically up to one. Congratulations. - Yeah, when we had, in the first couple of, we had that improbable Philly Boston come back. And the one week where it seemed like Embed was back as an asset and then he just wilted in the next series. But we had a Paul George resurgence. There isn't a lot of funky shit happening. - All right, Sakwa, thanks for staying up late. - Oh, my third of the morning. - To be lying in bed with your heart pounding for the next two hours. - I won't, I'm gonna go have a glass of wine 'cause I can't go to sleep and that'll help me go to sleep. And I never, this is early for me on a team, but if I'm at the championship clinching game, I'm usually up to four hanging out with people who are celebrating. And so this is really-- - What was your best memory of that for the hanging out till five in the morning with the team that won the title? - One of the Warriors parties, I won't name which one. Was really, really fun. And I've finagled my way in. And one day when I'm retiring and I don't care anymore, I'll tell a fun story from that party. - Oh, I can't wait. - That is, yeah, that the, for now goes in the vault. And I still, the main characters and I still laugh about it every once in a while. - In your next podcast and probably Monday, I'm guessing? - Yeah, I think, I think morning. - I think we're just deviating from normal calendar, Tuesday, Thursday, like I gotta think a little bit more about this and talk nicks and I'm hoping to get a couple of guests and we'll just, I'm aiming to record tomorrow night, like wrap up the finals, wrap up the playoffs, talk about some of these all season stuff. And just, I like to luxuriate in the championship. - This is why we all do this is to have what the nicks just have. Let's, let's luxuriate in a little bit before we pivot to Yana. So although who knows, Yana's kick it traded tomorrow and then we have an emergency podcast right away. - The Big Bad West, one for three in titles last three years. - Yeah. - Okay. - Yeah. - They beat the hell out of each other. - Two of three. - Two of the last three titles have come from the East. We're back, baby. Who went in 22? - The Warriors. - Warriors, 21 was the Bucks. Three of the last five coming from the East. - 20 later. - The half, baby. - 19 Raptors, so we were all alternating. - Before the last seven. - Eight straight, eight straight. - What a slump for the West. - Eight easy new champions, you know, as much trumpeted stat. - Thanks to Gihau and Eduardo. As always, don't forget I have a rewatch and most coming tomorrow night. The, hey, and that rocks the cradle. - Scary next issue from hell month. And then Zach Wabble podcast probably in the next 36 hours. Zach Lowe, thanks for staying up with me. - Congrats to the New York Knicks. Thanks for having me. - Congrats to the Knicks fans. Thank you. Must be 21 plus in president select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas star Casino or 18 plus in president DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Game problem caught, 100 gamble or 1-800, my reset. Call 888-797-777 or visit ccpg.org/chat. Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. 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