The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by Paypal. We're also brought to you by the Ringer podcast network where I had an unexpected Friday podcast. If you missed it, LeBron picked the Sixers. I had Zacklow coming out anyway to take redraftables for this podcast, but we ended up running all of it on Friday. So if you wanted to hear our gut reactions to that, that's what went up on Friday's act that's up there on his podcast as well, rewatchables obsession live on Netflix at 7 o'clock Eastern, 4 o'clock Pacific. It's going to be me and Chris Ryan and Joanne Robinson who is fresh from Comic Con. Can't wait to talk about that movie. It is the first same year movie we've done for 2026. I'm sure we're going to be doing the Odyssey at some point, but we try to do one movie from the year itself every year and this seemed like a good one. It's been really fun movie to talk about. I loved it. So that is tomorrow's stay tuned for that. Coming up on this podcast, House of Agriculture talk about the losers of the LeBron saga and then I have a big ass mailbag with a lot of good questions. So thanks to everybody who made other than that stuff. And then after House, my dad finally agreed to come on three weeks after the Jalen Brown trade was so mad about the Jalen Brown trade refused to come on. And now he's going to finally come on and we're going to talk about the state of Boston sports for the last 35, 40 minutes of this podcast. So it's a little Sunday. Surprise for you. I know I said I was going to have a podcast on Sunday, but we're going to do it. I am not sure about the rest of the week yet. So stay tuned on now. You might not be seeing me until next Sunday, but we will see. Anyway, let's take a break. Pearl Jam and then my buddy, Joe House. All right, take it this Sunday afternoon, Joe House is here, our baseball teams made a trade last night. Yeah. Early for me. You liked me. I like early. I'm happy for both of us. There we go. And I'm happy that baseball back in my life, Washington hasn't been competitive since 2019 when they won the World Series. And they weren't supposed to be competitive this year, which is why they have a historically bad bullpen. Yeah. But really bad. I saw it when they put the red socks, you didn't have a single guy. You enjoyed it. Yeah. You saw it and you enjoyed it. Yeah. We made a trade. Anyway. It's good baseball. Let's go. We're going to do a mailbag. I want to talk about a little brown signing to Philly happened on Friday. And I wanted to do a quick thing about the biggest losers from the little brown signing. Let's go. Hold on a second. It's warm. Let me get a little warm up here too. It's a little warm. Oh my God. I don't know. They actually sold those. I thought that was a joke. Well, now they need to do the Kale Wilson Jizz Room one and then we'll really be cooking. So what did you lie? That was a fun one because that got aggregated in a way that made me sound like a psycho, which I kind of enjoyed. I was trying to make a joke about how I've said the bulls fans were then I was trying to make you laugh. I'm going to, it was the manly, ejacula graded. I love that. As you know, I don't care. Of course. The LeBron saga. Biggest loser in your opinion. I have a list. I have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven losers. Who is the biggest loser of the LeBron saga? It's close. It's close, but I'm going to say the Golden State Warriors. And specifically. So I had number one. Let's see. This is why we wavelength. I mean. Steph Curry. It's my number one. It's Steph. And ownership didn't help by coming out over the last handful of days and making a non-commitment like, are we putting Steph in NBA hospice? Is that what we're doing? It's his last chance for relevance and it's gone. I wrote down, it is the saddest older NBA superstar situation since 2011 Nash on the Suns and 2007 Garnet before he got traded at Boston of just guys now in purgatory who clearly have more to offer and it's not going to happen. There's a couple of pieces to this. One is, why didn't they trade for Jaylen Brown? They weren't interested. Why didn't they? They were like, they didn't even counter. That was one, when the Celtics were canvassing the league doing the Jaylen fire sale, which I'm going to talk about with my dad later, words by all accounts, both sides just not interested for Jimmy Butler's expiring and some picks. And the irony is if they do that, I think Lebron goes there, right? I agree. I mean, the stories of Lebron playing golf with Dremont every single day in Los Angeles, those are true and not only are, you know, from sources on the ground, our own Nathan Hubbard observed it with his own two eyes. Right. Right. So, there's so many things I don't understand about that. One is like, who do the warriors think they were going to get with Jimmy Butler's expiring and first run picks if it wasn't Anthony Davis or Jaylen Brown? And why are you so desperate just to waste the end of the, of the Steph era? You already did this. Not in a wise men and coming out too long. Right. Do they just think maybe Steph can't be the best guy in a championship team anymore, 22 can never happen again. So even stack in the deck, they have no chance against San Antonio and OK, see, isn't it, isn't he entitled to find out what he's never, the best thing about him is he's like Duncan. He's never going to bitch about this. Right. Yeah. He's not. He's not going to go on his behalf. We'll bitch on his behalf. I think it's outrageous. It is. We saw it in the Olympics, like this is somebody who should have more relevant basketball moments than it shouldn't be in a playing game. And I don't know what they're doing. I don't understand, Butler's not helping them this year. Even if he comes back, it's not like he can play 40 minutes a game. It's almost like they know they're going to get their money from Steph for the season tickets and the suites. They make the most revenue in the league. They make more revenue. I think, I think they make more than the next two from their situation with the stadium and the tickets and everything. It's like they don't want to live the afterlife of, oh, we gave all this stuff away to have Steph have one last run and it didn't work out. I would have traded for Davis. Well, the only feasible and reasonable explanation is that they think that keeping their powder dry now gives them an opportunity once the season gets going. We can do a ranking at some point. We are in these summer months of who are the top three or four guys that will be discontent and malcontent over the first third of the season that the Warriors can draw to. It's going to be a long list because, well, you look at the conference odds on Fandall. They are, let's see, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, Denver, Minnesota, Houston, Lakers, Golden State is seventh best odds to win the conference at 27 to one. And honestly, I would book that bet right now with, because I don't, I don't think there are moves left. Is there like a Durin sign in trade move? I don't know. Anyway, Steph will never say it. And maybe he doesn't care. He won the four titles. He got his 22 title. He wants to end in the Bay Area. And you see it when, when San Antonio made that run and Duncan's there and Manu and, you know, that like when you go start to finish with a team like that, you're just there for your whole life. And maybe that's all he wants and doesn't care. Very fair. You know, it's not fair, not fucking trading anything. You and I feel the same way. What would you have traded Davis for as a whiz fan? What would have commanded your attention from Golden State? Yoxel in picks. I would have taken Yoxel in picks. So you want to take in the Butler expiring, and you have to take the Butler expiring. That's the, that's the, that's the requirement for the money, 2931, a 30 swap, something like that. No, Yoxel. I don't know. I mean, Anthony Davis doesn't really put a basketball. The problem is you need a commitment from Jimmy Butler to do some mentoring. This team is super, this Washington team has a very rosy picture of the mentoring role. Yeah. But Davis is going to play. We'll see. He's a good guy. Everybody likes him. Yeah. I thought trading for, not trading for Jalen was irresponsible. My next loser was Jalen Brown, who could have been the guy in Brooklyn and Milwaukee, could have gone to Golden State, could have gone to Charlotte, could have just stayed in Boston, but clearly was feeling it. And now he's the fourth option on the Sixers, trying to figure out how to be like basically there. Do it all big minutes. Okay. I'll take over these three minutes in the third quarter, but, you know, the fourth scoring option on this team basically, right? I, I, you think this is good for him.
I do it. I do it. I do it. I do it. I do it. I do it. I do it. I do it. I do it. proposition. I don't know that I really agree with this idea that he wanted to be the lead guy on a team. His expression of enthusiasm for the way that this particular Celtic circumstance played out to me doesn't extrapolate into this is what he wants in his basketball career. It was a unique circumstance. He was really good. He played a great role in dragging a team that that was forecast to be much worse into a superior position. And how fun is this that he's that he's about to embark upon this situation in Philadelphia. They are the traveling road show. Everybody in America can't wait to see them. Hopefully. Good points, you know, LeBron and, and, and, and, uh, and be able to play some games on the road for some of these, uh, high wattage matchups. But, but you think, you think you're going to enjoy it. 18.2. You should rate this year. It's fine. It doesn't matter. Winning is what matters. All right. I mean, well, it is what matters. All right. So let's make these guys the second biggest losers. Then Miami, they got dicties. Nice and hard. By LeBron and his camp, they really, yeah, they have, they had that eight and a half million, uh, spot burning a hole in their pocket. And now they're looking at it. Bradley Beall, DeBron and Rosen, those guys deserve eight and a half million. LeBron deserves 80 and a half million. But, yeah, those, they, they, I almost said Miami as my number one, uh, biggest loser, because they, there's nothing they can do. They're so fucked. Like they're, they're, there is, uh, nothing in terms of assets, roster moves going forward. They just need it. They just did it. They made all moves. Yeah. That was it. Right now. So they're still seventh, 13 to one, seventh best odds to in the east. Um, that feels right. Yeah, it's interesting. I'd have Indiana over them too. Right now it's nicks plus 320, all the way through Philly, Boston, Toronto, Detroit, Cleveland, 12 to one, Miami's 13 to one, Indiana's 14 to one. Okay. I mean, that's fair. Like if I gave you a choice bet on the conference finals, you could have Miami or Indiana. Are you ever taking Miami over Indiana under no circumstances? Would you take, would you take Orlando over Miami? No, no, we got to see Franz Wagner play. Would you take Atlanta at 20 to one over Miami? That price I might because Atlanta, Atlanta is not done. Atlanta is trying. They have done a really interesting job in terms of, of, you know, building a team. Um, and it feels like the ceiling is pretty high. 20 to one is kind of a good price in my opinion. It's not bad because they have room to do other stuff. Yeah. They have room to do stuff. I have to say, at gunpoint right now, I would have nicks, San Antonio, the rare finals rematch. Oh, how great would that be? Yeah. Somebody asked me that this weekend. Who do you think would like, like, be it to guess right now? What would the finals be? And I was like, I think it's the, I think it's a run it back. Almost like Miami, San Antonio and 13 and 14. I'm going to go on to Fandall. They offer the final matchup market. It's probably not there yet. But I'm definitely I'll tell you what it is right now. Who do you want? Oh, uh, Philly and O.K.C. Philly in O.K.C. Yeah. Yeah. That would be 11 to one. Oh, no way. No bad odds. No chance. Zero percent chance of bad odds. No, thank you. Um, okay. Well, I didn't, Miami, um, forgot the part that it ended badly with a brown there. Anyone two titles there. And it became clearer and clearer that, uh, you know, he wants to win the title. That's why he did this. I admire it. Great job by him. It was a title chase pick. And Philly had more to offer the Miami. My next loser is Philadelphia as a place to live. And this comes from Jeff and San Francisco, this email. Isn't LeBron choosing Philly and then immediately declaring the need that he'll be living in New York City, the ultimate pool and a pond. The pond is good for you moment. Catashek Philly is some of the proudest dedicated fans in sports. I can't imagine this will sit well with them. I just wanted to read that email because Philly is definitely starting around. He doesn't even want to live there. He wants to live in like New Jersey or New York, settle down. Um, Golden State in general, as a loser. Um, they have Butler coming back in March. They have KP and Horford as their center combo. I don't trust either guy. No. Drayman opted out. Now they're going to have to, you might just leave or they'll have to opt back in. And uh, they have no actual point guard in the roster right now that I can find. You know who needs a backup center? The Sixers. Drayman likes playing golf together. Drayman and LeBron. Drayman, he's not, he's selling them money accumulation mode. Yeah. Understandable. I'm just saying. I think wonder if there's some sort of Jayland Duran dream on something. Because he, you know, he went to college in Michigan. Would be fun on the pistons. Put him in the East. But um, yeah, the Golden State in general. Here's my question. I know he doesn't want to get traded. I know he wants to retire there. Are there curry trades you would entertain? Absolutely. Yes. I mean, I, I had this conversation last year. It was on the table last year, really as soon as Jimmy Butler got hurt. Why wouldn't Golden State? I understand all of the economic impact that goes well beyond, you know, just playing basketball games. Well, the tickets are paid for this year. For this community. But yeah, I mean, that's the most rational move. The most rational, the rational economic actor, rational basketball franchise move is to trade Steph Curry. So undeniable. He's getting traded. Is he going for a ring or is it just he goes home to Charlotte? I don't think he's ever getting traded just for the record. I understand. But who knows? I think he would want to play with the competitive team. It's not, I wouldn't call it ring chasing. I wouldn't, you know, impune Steph Curry's motivations in that manner. He wouldn't play with the competitive team. The same way that the bronze choice was the most competitive team, according, you know, and not Minnesota. That's all. Can I throw a scenario at you? I'm listening. It's not a ring chase. But what if San Antonio with Fox and all of the picks they have just said fuck it and went to go and say I'm like, we'll do Fox. You put, you put the picks together or any way you want for a couple years of Steph here. And we're now we're trying to acquire a 2024 Olympic Steph. And he goes to San Antonio and tries to grab a couple more. It's pretty interesting. I mean, speaking of the traveling circus, it's already, San Antonio is already one, you know, must see when they come to your town. You have to go see them, hoping that Wendy's going to play. Yeah, because people always say like, oh, they tried to back the Charlotte. He's not doing that. He's not winning anything in Charlotte. But with San Antonio, who has Atlantis first round pick, they have a swap with Boston. They have swaps with Dallas or Minnesota in 2030. They have a 2030 swap with Sacramento and they have all their first and they have other stuff too. You know, I don't think they'd put Castle and Dylan Harper. Those guys would not be on the table, but maybe Carter Bryant would be, I don't know. You think Sam Prestee is working on the package right now? For I think he has a Steph package. Just so you guys know, I have a package. Prestee is on a heater. He loaded Atlanta. He loaded Atlanta. He squeezed the shit out of them pick and then he squeezed Denver with that Spencer Jones thing. I love it. We've talked about that. I tweeted about this day. We talked about this forever. Why don't teams try to screw each other over, right? Just go for Jayland Duran, day one of free agency. Just offer them four years, $230 million, whatever the max is, knowing that they're going to match it anyway. Why not? You're competing against all these teams. You're trying to win a title. Couple more losers, quick Cleveland. Yeah. Left at the altar by LeBron for the third time. I will always for the rest of my life. I think that his plan was to go there and say he was under the assumption. Things would be able to change on the team before he got there. Nothing can change because they can't trade James Harding because they have Zid or Wink Wink deal with them.
Nobody wanted the other guys and he just wasn't playing for Dan Gilbert on the minimum. Okay. Yeah. From a basketball standpoint, much better chance to win a title in Philly than I think Cleveland, right? We agree in that. No doubt about that. I'd never liked the Cleveland fit. And then Brad Stevens hadn't given Jaylen Brown away at the very first moment. He could come up with it. Brad Stevens is the loser. I have him and I have the Celtics who basically traded Philly. Jaylen Brown and LeBron James for Paul George at two first. That's what he did. Tough trade. LeBron to Cleveland makes more sense because Cleveland was in East and Conference final last year. And then the narrative plays out a little bit better. Jaylen Brown had the whole thing up. I have like a couple of Celtic fans in my life who saw the Odyssey and think the Jaylen Brown Philly trade has Trojan Horace potential. Oh. Here's our gift. It's Jaylen Brown. Good. And then you'll get LeBron too. Listen, we're going for straws here. Keep enjoying those articles. Last loser I have is the Lakers. This is an email from Peter in Orange County, California. Hi, Bill. You've spent a material amount of your professional capital, fairly and unfairly dunking on the Lakers, not untrue. The Lakers tossed you a car millenous meatball and you didn't even swing. LeBron signing for four million year at the Sixers is an enormous fail for the Lakers. When are we supposed to see the Mark Walters effect? This feels like a continuation of the bus kids and their delusional ineptitude from Peter in Orange County. It is interesting. It does make you think like could they have played this LeBron thing better or which would be my theory, they clearly wanted it to end. Right. It feels like a lot of January, February, they were like, you know what? We're good with this whole LeBron thing. We've kind of had it. But they could have had Walker Kessler and Reeves and LeBron and to be fair, like LeBron did deliver a playoff series win for franchise as his parting gift. Like it's not a small thing that they beat Houston. Yeah. With with just Epping LeBron. I mean, it's stunning. It's a real indictment of Houston. It was a real indictment of Houston. Okay, D, but it's funny. I didn't see any of those games being replayed on NBA TV. It's like, oh, it's game three Houston Lakers. Sit down. It's just rock fight. I didn't think the WNBA All Star Game last night. Oh, that was the video. That was a rock fight. I do wonder if there's a what if with that though? If the Rockets just win that series, does LeBron even say that's it? Maybe I don't have it in left to offer. I think I do think that gave him the idea that he could maybe be a bigger part of a championship team. It felt like to me no matter what he was going east. As he taking in all the circumstances of the way that these playoffs played out. On what? You said on the podcast last week, you said he was going to fill it out for you, and I mocked you and made fun of you. And we bet dinner. Well, the victory lap is dinner. And this is the funniest thing. I didn't get a chance to text our good buddies, um, Chang and Nathan, but you know where we're going. No. We're going back to Capitol. Oh my god. I mean, that's in pre-spec credit card them it. That's hilarious. A lot of regular NBA people, by the way, Jay Kalman had it in early July. Even Raheem, the dream, Raheem, the dream had a dream. Raheem was driving his car and had a vision. Both of those preceded me coming on your show and saying that I thought it was going to go to Philly, but I'm the only one that that bet with you. So we're going to have a great dinner. I uh, I wish I had thought of the whole he could live not in Philly and playing Philly piece. That would have at least, because I was just no way. Philly, get the fuck out of here, but he's clearly going to live in New York and then have some, I don't know, some nice condo and the Philly Ritz or wherever and he'll can stay there some nights or live in New York, but yeah, the other element of that super short flight down the West Palm. So there is magnificent golf in Philly, New Jersey and New York. Of course, it gets to be cold and then there isn't golf, but jumping in the PJ and going down to West Palm and then knocking out all the bangers that are down there. Oh, he got a strategy. Grove. He could go to Charlotte. Right. Anyway, he got to Georgia. Yeah. Tremendous golf. Short PJ ride it away. Straight down the East Coast. I have a mailbag. There's a lot of LeBron questions. So I want to take a break. Let's go. And then we're going to do a really fun mailbag. All right, mailbag time. Thanks to everybody who sends in questions. I truly appreciate it. It is BS podcast
[email protected]. First one comes from Martin. He asks, like you, I want to see LeBron in Golden State, but it seems like he realized he couldn't win a ring there without staying tied with Steph. Any chance that was a disincentive to go there. This is something I heard for the last month about LeBron not wanting to go to Steph's team. Steph's city. And now any time I mentioned the expendables, people always poo-pooed it because of that. I think he was going to go any, the more we learned about this, he was going to the team that gave him his best chance to win the NBA title. And there was no other reason. I agree with that. I don't think that this notion of going to Steph's team was a disincentive. I think the idea of him coming, those two guys joining forces of what a magnificent story. I don't think that he thinks about, you know, that it would be a co-tails kind of situation. Yeah, so the three best teams of the league didn't want him. Oklahoma City is San Antonio in New York, right? So those three are out. He's never going to Boston. He hates Boston. He's not going to Detroit. So there's five teams. He decided he couldn't win a Miami there out. That leaves Cleveland, Minnesota, Philly, Golden State. Minnesota is too cold. He's not going there. They're out. Cleveland can trade hard and he's not playing a minimum for dang over. They're out. Golden State won't trade for AD and didn't trade for Jalen Brown. So from a pure, I want to win the title. Philly was the move. I agree. Of course, I realized that now. I could have realized that five days ago. The fifth title. He took some ring chase abuse. I don't think it was fair because I think he loves playing basketball. I think a ring chase would have been going to San Antonio. Sure. Agreed. That's a ring chase or Oklahoma City. Those are the two ring chase teams. Or the next. He could have gone to the next at the price. He agreed to go to doing that. That next thing has to be like, did we want without you and we could have come here 10 times? No, it is a different next team and we'll have the opportunity to talk this through the impact of Mitchell Robinson not being on that team is it's not immaterial. It is material and they don't have an answer yet. I trust implicitly. Did they get drummed? They got drummed, right? Okay. I mean, they have a lot of bodies at one point. They lead the NBA in offensive rebounding rate. This happened with the Celtics when we lost Posey. Even though it was probably the right move, he's done like a five-year deal in New Orleans and I think it was good for maybe another year and a half and then his career kind of died. But we would have had a much better chance in '09 if we had Posey, right? You would make these decisions money-wise and the second apron or not. Next question is from Rob. It's a step-related one. He asked for conspiracy bill. Conspiracy bill has had a great summer. A lot of people are checking in with him. What if LeBron was secretly being a double agent to the Warriors to keep Steph's stuck at four rings while he chases his fifth? Conspiracy bill looked at this one. I don't think LeBron's measuring himself against Steph with rings or any of that stuff. I'm going to pass on that one. I got another email. Oh, I accidentally deleted. I'm sorry, I deleted. The person who sent this was asking if LeBron could win the assist title on Philly. So my bad for not giving you credit. It's a great question. I forgot this because I forgot everything that happened in 2020 because I don't remember one thing that happened that year. He won the assist title on 2020. Do you remember this? I did not remember that. 10.2 assists a game on the lake or see that won the title won the assist title. It wasn't by like, you know, an inch. He won by like the next guy. I was like 9.3. So our leaders that year, just sent me down a rabbit hole, the 2020 leaders. James Harden, 34.3 points a game was the points leader. Andre Drummond, 15.2 rebounds a game rebounds believable. LeBron and assists Hassan Whiteside in blocks 2.9. George Hill 46 points 46 percentage fair out 3s 46.0. Can you guess who led the league in steals in 2020? You're not going to be able to. So I'll give you the answer. No. Jimmy Butler. Ben Simmons. Oh, amazing.
So I tried to figure out that was the weirdest combination of people that ever led the league in the major categories. Don't ask why, but I went through basketball reference and went through everybody and I landed on 1978. Does that count? I knew you was like this. Yeah, there's some bullets involved. The only normal one was George Gerber and 27.2 points a game won the scoring title mid-sense. He won like five or six score titles. Our rebounding leader was truck Robinson at 15.2. Leonard Truck Robinson. Good job, truck. Assess Kevin Porter, former bullet, 10.2. Ron Lee led the league in steals 2.7 and George Johnson was our block leader at 3.4. So if you're going to make a starting five of point steals rebounds, assists, and blocks. And you make the weirdest starting five possible. It's 1978. George Gerber and truck Robinson, Kevin Porter, Ron Lee and George Johnson. Is that any like a 35 win team? What was that? Yeah, what was that 82 and 80 to an old game? Yeah, that's a nice thing. Let's see how many games they win. Who wins a series of them or Drummond, Ben Simmons, Lebron, Whiteside, and James Harden. They win in four. Yeah, sure. That's a sweet. Nobody's beating 19 20 sweeps it. Yeah. All right. This is one of the best questions I've got all year from Leo and Seattle. I hope you get a basketball team soon, Leo. Who do you think will play more games for the 76ers franchise from this point today going forward? Lebron James or Joelle Mbied. So from right now going forward. He says, let's say Lebron plays 100 regular season games and 16 playoff games over the next two years. Well, Mbied surpassed 116, not just for the next two years, but for the rest of his six years career. This is amazing. So Mbied's last three years, 39 regular season, six playoffs in 24, 19 total and 25, 38 and seven last year. Put 109 total last three. So let's be generous and say 45 regular season. They'd play the same amount of playoff games. Lebron's going to be 57 of 60. Yeah. That's why you can't win the assist title. By the way, he's not going to play enough games. Isn't it 55 for the assist title? Oh, even if it's 55, I don't think Lebron's playing 55. So who do you have? That's amazing. Rest of their career on the Sixers also includes one of the guys can get traded. Joelle could get traded to your team tomorrow. Yeah. Yes. I think I'm going to take Lebron. I'm going to take Lebron. I am going to take Lebron. It makes a lot of sense for Philly to have eyes and ears open to Mbied trade deals. It really hurts me to say, but I listen to you with Zach, and then I listen to Zach with Washington and CR. There is a type of logic to it. Again, it will not be before Christmas of this upcoming season. Because Washington wants Anthony Davis to play. See, I disagree. I think if it happens, it has to happen now because if in Bied's playing and playing well, they're not going to trade him. And if it be gets hurt again, they won't be able to trade him. But right now we're in this kind of no man's land with it where it's like, well, you look pretty good in the playoffs. Well, that is not going to be Washington. That's all. Okay. It'll have to be for somebody else. So you wouldn't take in Bied and all the rest of their picks and Phylon, whatever they have left for picks and Phylon and some swaps and for Davis. It's not enough. It's not up to me. First of all, because I might count into that. But really, I really, I have my head around the idea of AD is mentor. I love it. It's flying out to Vegas. I love it. I love it. I love that you have talked yourself into AD. Somebody you've made fun of over and over again for not being able to stay healthy. Or Joel and Bied. I just forgot. Or Joel and Bied. Which one? You sent me a picture once. And I probably still have it. Of when they announced the NBA 75 and Anthony Davis made it. And you were so upset. You wait like five pieces, pieces bars. And you sent me a picture of all the rappers. And you said, I'm so upset. I just said off his sugar bars. And now he's on your team. Well, that's two different deals. He can be a great mentor to Alexander Sard not being the top 75. He's going to be a mentor for ice packs. Yeah. Oscar from Kansas City had an upbeat LeBron question. He said, LeBron joined in the Sixers feels a lot like Tom Brady going to Tampa in all time legends signing with a completely new team. 2020 bucks were loaded ready to attend Brady brought them the leadership experience made them champs. Do you think this is a valid comp? I've seen this online a bunch of people mentioned it. I completely disagree. And I think it's insulting to Brady. Wow. Okay. Brady. So I went back and I looked at my 2020 NFL prep for that year. Brady of the third best MVP odds for that year. He had just been the best guy on a Super Bowl team two years before. They're over under people weren't a believer in the supporting cast. They're over under for wins. It was a 16 game season was eight and a half. There are plus 160 for their division. 10 to one conference 12 to one Super Bowl minus two 10 to make the playoffs. They went 11 and five. There are underdogs in the last three playoff games. He won Super one VP. He won the MVP of the entire fucking league the following season. LeBron's not doing any of that. Yeah. Yeah. So that's why it's not a perfect. I have a better one. Okay. I'm listening. Well, another one I thought of was bread far of on the 2009 bikes. Okay. But they went 12 and four with him. Yes. And they he throws the interception in the Saints. The bounty gate. He's probably got nine concussions in the same game. He was fourth MVP last year. That's not happened with LeBron either. So that's not a good one. Let me give you Montana and the chiefs. Oh, wow. Wave machine goes there 93. They have Marcus Allen who ends up sixth MVP that year. They have Neil Smith and Derek Thomas. So we're two of the best offensive players in the league. They had a really good team. And he was like the last piece. No one Superb odds a year. They go eight and three with them and he gets hurt. They make the AFC title game anyway. Dave Craig. And they lose the Buffalo. And then the next year they go nine and seven lose to Miami and a wild card game. But to me, it feels like Montana chiefs. That's pretty good. I like that one. Yeah. He's like the last piece. He's not the piece. You know what I mean? Yep. Rob from Perth, Australia. Oh, love Perth, Australia. I like the Australian emails. Are the sixers now an overbooked WrestleMania match. Down by 10 in the third hit LeBron's music. He comes running down Sharon hand, a whack runs in the back. Oh, the next to back in it. He gouges JB's eyes. Hit him. Beans music. It is funny. Like they do have an embarrassment of guys who can take over a game and make something fun happen. Yeah, I like that. Me too. I think the concept of that. Me too. All right. This is a multi-part question. This first one's from Nate from Richmond. Listen to the fight club rewatchables featuring me and CR and realize that the Tyler dirt and split personality is reminiscent of how you talk about conspiracy bill. When someone invokes conspiracy bill in a mailbag, you act like he's a completely different person with his own agency and beliefs. He acts on his own accord and proposes ideas regular bill would not. I wanted to fight the young conspiracy bill or the same person before he and acts his own version of project mayhem. That is true. When I become a conspiracy bill, I move. It's like Mr. Miyagi and Mr. Miyagi would talk about himself in third person. Yes, he becomes a different person. Different person. Well, Tim asks for conspiracy bills take winning the vote in Ohio, Florida, California, and Pennsylvania would net LeBron 120 of the 270 electoral votes. Is LeBron gearing up for a presidential run in 28? I mean, Pennsylvania would get him there. 120 still feels like you need some work. When a governor Shapiro is taking some credit, by the way, he governor Shapiro said he was lobbying to get LeBron there. Governor Shapiro wants a victory lap. Should we pour him a little subtle down juice? You think he was the one, the one swinging this one? He tipped it. He called. They're like, hey, come for Shapiro. An amazing idea that we should go after LeBron James with our free, with our free agent buddy. All right. Now we didn't really need conspiracy bills for this next one from Mike from New Orleans. Can I get conspiracy bills take on this new blazer's owner? The league wants to get back to Seattle. The expansion buying could be that much greater if the new owner knows they don't have to share the Pacific Northwest market. With the Portland trailblazers. This new blazer's owner seems to be following the playbook owners take. When they want to make their teams take their teams out of town and then blame the fans for making them do it cutting costs going more with the community saying it needs taxpayers give me new arena. Where we seen this before Oklahoma City. We did the sonic boom podcast about that. Maybe he takes the team to Vegas. Maybe we get one expansion team instead of two in Seattle rejoins the NBA. This did get conspiracy bills attention. I've been on this Portland thing. I had a guest scheduled in mid June. I was going to I was immediately fascinated by what was going on. Yeah, and then had to bump because there's so much
basketball going on. So maybe I'll have that person on, um, on the next pod, but it, there's been a lot of like, huh, hmm, where it just feels very familiar to the O.K.C. situation. And, um, antagonistic unnecessarily, that's the word. That's literally the word. Like he, he arrives, the paperwork is, the ink is barely dry. And it is one fuck you after another from the good people to the good people of Portland. Like disrespect after disrespect, after disrespect. And do you blame Adam and the, and the league for you bring, because this is very similar. I'm going to criticize Stern 20 years ago, which I did over and over again. I have to criticize Adam for this. They bring in the O.K.C. group to buy the team from Howard Schultz. And they were like, no, we want to keep the team here in the moment they got it. They're trying to get it out of there. And Stern was complicit. It's hard not to think. Silver had no idea this was a possibility when the team didn't have a lease. You know, they didn't, they don't have a lease in three years. Yeah. I, I, I think that the league was fully aware of the circumstances of, of Portland and the relationship with that, uh, state and the city and the community. And it sure does feel expendable, because we haven't seen one thing come down from the league. This feels like it's beyond posturing and gamesmanship and feels very fuck-you-ish now. I really agree with this. And also, I've said this, I said this on the last part. I'll continue to say this. I don't think the city should have to pay for Jack's shit. You, you know, I agree with that as well. It's bullshit. Yeah. You guys are all fucking rich. Build your own stadium. What are you doing? Why are you making? Portland's, by the way, I can't say the city of Portland's been doing great, that great the last 10 years. Like the last thing they need to do is send money toward a basketball arena. The people of Portland agree with you. This is where if our sports are, one of my rules would be, if you win a title, you can never leave the city. So you'd be protected forever with Washington. You win. You're there for life. Unless the people vote you out. But yeah. So conspiracy bill. This would be, this would raise the price of the Seattle team if Portland was moving out. And we only had one team in this whole corner of the world. Because I think they've had an easier time getting the biggest money than the Seattle money. Well, it's, what do you mean raise the price? He's not paying expansion. I'm not talking about for him. I'm talking about for the Seattle expansion, but buying the Seattle team. And I know I'm the only game in town now. Yeah. In Pacific Northwest because this guy's blow torching his Portland relationship. Right. I like the Blazers fans. This is brutal. It's happening. I agree. And I don't know why Adam's not saying anything about it either. It is such a breach of that social contract between the franchise. When you're the only franchise in town and the civic pride that comes from that. Right. And when you let somebody walk in and just take a shit on decades of that, that commitment by that community to that team. That's a bad look, bro. And I mean, look, the track record here of what the league has done in admitting new owners, these fucking people down in Dallas, what they did. And right, we're right on the heels of that. And this guy's going to come in and light Portland on fire. Fuck off. I really appreciate you not bringing the Celtics owner up there. Because I like him, but he could have in the wrong hands. He could have been thrown into that conversation. Straight to Jalen Brown for giving some time. They won 56 games last year at least. They didn't know. I this guy. So it's funny because some of the stuff he's doing, I said this to Zach on Friday. Some of the stuff he's doing, I actually, you know, like, do we need 20 assistant coaches? Do we need to do we need the overboard stuff? Like he's cutting costs and where it's like, all right, I can see his point there. But this is he's like, he just gutted all the broadcast teams. He I think he got it. Coach, he is a coach on a one year deal. Nobody's ever done that before. I think that's shameful. I think what he did to Mike and Norie was shameful. Now, I mean, a million times out of a million times, Mike, I should say, yes, I do want to be the head coach. It's one, it's there's 30 jobs. And now his it's just a two year deal. Why is that a one year deal? There's some there's some line between whatever happened with Mike Bootenholzer and Phoenix, right? Where he's one year and out and he's just gone, but gets paid for four. And this Mike and Norie only being, I don't know, I am going to my pledge to the people of Portland. I was I tried to be an asset for Seattle and I didn't work in the team moved in 0708. I I promise to use this podcast to shine a bigger spotlight on the situation over the course of the summer. Yeah, this is bullshit. Yeah. They won the 77 title and the 58th anniversary is coming up and that's all that city should be talking about. They shouldn't be worried about this fucking guy. Okay. Mitchell Sherwood from Indianapolis. Oh, this is a good question. Actually, let's take a break. This is such a good question. Goddamn. This is a good question from Mitchell Sherwood and Indianapolis, Indiana. What would be the best LeBron Sixers comp in 1999? If Michael Jordan's bulls imploded like they did, but he decided he didn't want to stop playing and he wanted to find basketball happiness somewhere else. Would it have been the 1999 Spurs with Duncan as Maxi and Robinson as a bead? The answer is no. Oh, I did do the research. There's a really obvious pick. Any guesses? No, I'm not gonna. The nicks. That would be that would be my next. Nicks would have been a good guess. The 1999 Lakers. Okay, remind me. Shack in year six, Kobe in year three, they had on the roster to start the air. Robert Horry, Eddie Jones, Rick Fox and young Derek Fisher. It's a pretty good team. It was the strike season. They rolled the dice with Dennis Rodman, complete disaster. Yeah. Mid season, they traded Eddie Jones, Elden Campbell for Glenn Rice and JR Reed. They also fired Del Harris after 12 games. That's right. They did that. Not a great coach. Dan up with Kurt Rambus and even worse coach. They make the playoffs. They beat an old Houston team that had Pippin and Barkley and Hakeem on it. They beat them in round one. Round two swept, sent home packing by the San Antonio Spurs. Duncan 29-11. So that team could have been Shack, MJ, Kobe, Rice and Robert Horry as you're starting five and MJ ring chasing for a seven. That's pretty good. They wouldn't, who would they, they need a coach, though? Well Jackson comes back of MJ back in, right? Okay, there we go. There we go. He's like, I'm thinking about signing them with the Lakers and Phil Jackson's like, I'm in. Speaking of ring chasing. Yeah. Would you have held that against Jordan? I mean, the bulls are basically like, we don't want, we don't want you nowhere. No, no, no, no. He more than anybody in, you know, modern basketball had the perfect out to go to a different team and try and compete. I mean, I did a piece about this. The first summer of the ringer, which was 10 years ago, I wrote a whole piece about how Michael Jordan didn't necessarily want to retire when he retired. It's a great point. And I agree. Part of it was the bulls imploded. They didn't want him back and he didn't really know what to do. Pippin wanted money. So he left immediately. He didn't really have a team to go to. But didn't the other thing was he sliced his finger on the cigar. Right. Cutter. So he would have been out till March and was a lockout. And he just, it just ended up not happening. That Lakers team would have beaten this verse. That would have been something. Can you imagine all of a sudden that would have been the best series of all time? Oh my God. He was still, I mean, the whole thing ended up with him in Washington. Two years later. I know. I know. Exactly. So yeah, I think it's the 99 Lakers is your answer. That's cool. Another LeBron question from Maox and Cincinnati was looking back at the rewatchables. We did those rewatchables. I'm going to put those on the Book of Basketball podcast speed. But we did want about the 95 Bulls Magic series. And one of my big points was everyone misremembers that series. The Bulls was actually, they're pretty good that year. They're better than I think people remember now. His case for LeBron was that 2018, when he was at his absolute peak 34, 99 in the playoffs, then has 51, 8, 8 game one of the finals. And people remember the Jair Smith. Yeah. He called it the Jair Smith lobotomy play, which I think is a good. It's good. Good one for it. But his question is, if they win that game, could they have won the series? Which is something we've talked about, oh, that sock, that would have been a much better finals. Could that play have actually changed LeBron's legacy? Because if he beats the 18 Warriors by himself, he probably takes the goat thing for MJ. That would all that would have done has turned that series into a four one. So I was thinking it goes six. I think they win one and Cleveland. But I think it's a two, three, two. I still think they lose and six. But I do think it makes the Warriors go. And that was wasn't they weren't the happiest team near the Dallas.
- That's right, that's right. - Could that have unraveled them a whiff? - Maybe, that was an incredible team. - Great platform. Even from New York wants to know, what exactly will take for Sixers LeBron to avoid becoming nimble, like Celtics, Shaq, or Wizards Jordan, where the Jersey looks weird and we don't remember it that fondly. And then Joseph sent an email, how far away is LeBron from his, okay, maybe I played one season, two long season. So I'd like to combine those two together. I don't think it's this season. We are moving a little closer to the finish line. I was looking at it as per 36. And the number is like, if you, as both of us have done, we look at these basketball references and once it starts really going down near the end, it just keeps going. There's no like bounce back. In 22 per 36, he was 2986. Last year, he was 23. The three point was 32%. All the other numbers, like his, you know, some of the advanced stuff, not quite as good, but it wasn't bad. Like it was in the ballpark where it should be. But if it goes lower than it did last year, then we'll be off. My point is, I don't think we're in 2011 Shaq, Celtics. We're not even, we're two years away from that, I think. - I agree. The most important element to answer this question is tell me how many games he's gonna play. Because I thought last year was masterful. Yeah, the sciatica for the first, however many games that was, was literally brilliant. And so they need to come up with the functional equivalent of that. Because it just, he needs cover to his version of the ball, George Suspension. Like he just goes away for 25 games from February March and comes back, raring, ramping up. - That actually is kind of fun. That would be, like, what could we invent for LeBron? What would LeBron's transfers be? - Well, he's all, how about a back problem? Well, he just, that was the sciatica last year. - Nobody blinks. If anyone over 40 tells me they have sciatica, I'm just done. I trust it. - And then, but the problem with that is, he can't play golf. Does he really want to take three months off from playing golf? - How do you figure out the golf thing? That's a tough one, that's a tough one. You know what, he could wait until it's freezing cold on the East Coast and then just quietly sleep, like go to play simulators, he loves simulators. And that could be it. - I love, you might be the world's preeminent expert on LeBron's golf career. - Oh no, he, I mean, I'm telling you, there's the simulator thing, it's coming. Wait till you say it's gonna be amazing. But yeah, that would be one way. - He can't be seen down at Apogee, down in West Palm, out on the, or at Grove 23 with MJ. - Right, you can't be fake in the injury, but then you're also playing 27. - Can't do it, can't do it. - So Joseph's question, he talked about that maybe I played one season too long and he had examples of shack at the end, dunking at the end, dirt at the end, the last three KG, the last two Paul Pierce, last six Vince Carter seasons, et cetera, et cetera. I want to step further, I did my one season too long team, all the time that you'd enjoy this, didn't prep you at all. So it wasn't just about I hung on too long and I played too many, this was like a specific, it had to be like the actual season itself made them realize, oh shit, maybe I shouldn't have done this. Hakeem going to Toronto in 2001 has to be this center. - Yeah. - He could have played his whole career with Houston. And just say that one last year, like you ended it too, but you ain't bounced around, he was in Seattle or they hit a multiple, so that's my center. Pippin ended up on the O3 Bulls after the Portland run, which I forgot, I kind of wish that didn't happen. I wish he had just ended with Portland. This is a good one, Elvin Hayes for the 1984 Houston, your guy at the Big E, he came home. - He came home and he's having his last season where he's washed up, but then they're trying to tank and he has the famous game where he plays all 48 minutes 'cause they're trying to tank and they're running into the ground. So that he has to be on the team. - I want to be with that, I want to watch that. I forgot, the 48 minutes is leather. - It's the whole game, never comes out. They're like, oh Elvin, stay out there. He's like having a heart attack. Al and I ever sit in Grizzlies. - Oh yeah, for sure. - In all time, I was there. - And just that made everyone just sad. - Yeah. - So that's one of my guards. And then I'll give you a choice for the other guard. I could give you Magic Johnson on the 96 Lakers when he came back and it was fun for a second, but then when we got to the playoffs and it's just the team wasn't happy and it just was like, why did this have to happen? Or I could give you Chris Paul this year playing for the Quippers and having the birthday party and only having two Quippers show up. - It's Chris Paul by a long shot. I still, it is, that's a worse misstep by the Clipper's organization than circumventing the salary cap to pay quiet. - Allegedly. - Allegedly. - Still going on. I like this stuff about their mad now that this is taken too long. I have one more for the. - They have a right to be bad, go ahead. - The best one season too long I ever. I only did guys, people have heard of. But the number one was George Macon on the 1956 Lakers. Macon retires. He's like the best basketball player of all time. He wins four titles. He retires when the shot clock comes, takes a year off and then comes back with the shot clock. And now we're playing faster and by all accounts was a complete disaster. So I'm gonna add him on there too. Okay, a couple more. Paul Peters was listening to me and CR talking about World Cup and England's baggage and teams in baggage, teams coming in and basically fixing the baggage. And Paul says we should call these guys baggage handlers. - Oh. - The baggage handlers hold thing and say, fuck this baggage and kick it away as far as you can. And he said, who are some of the first class baggage handlers? So I, for Boston we had three. We had big poppy obviously. We had Tim Thomas, the goal tender for the Bruins in 2011 where you just went on absolute all time heater and then Bill Bell check. Some people would say Brady, but it was Bill Bell check was our baggage handler. - Sure. - This is awesome. I love this concept. - So all time baggage handlers across sports, I have big poppy LeBron 2016. - Yeah. - Jalen Brunson a couple months ago. Mark Messay with the Rangers. And Johnny Padre's on the 55 Dodgers. Two wins, game seven, shut out, flips it. They're just getting their ass kicked by the Yankees forever. And then finally flip it and he wins. So I had five. Who is your number one Washington baggage handler, Ovechkin? - Wow. Probably Joe Gibbs. It took Ovechkin a long time. Now, the Washington capitals came into existence in 1974 and they won the Stanley Cup in 2018. With Ovechkin three quarters of the way through his career. - Yeah. - He keeps playing. I think that the arrival of Joe Gibbs with that Washington, 'cause that Washington franchise, as it was a little brother to the bully Dallas Cowboys. And that rivalry between Washington and Dallas, Joe Gibbs arrived and really changed that whole arc. Washington was dominant. - How about on the Nets? - You didn't really have a lot of baggage with the Nets. - No, I mean, I guess they don't have that. - 2005, 50 years old. Joe Gibbs is a good one. I have franchise cities most in need of a baggage handler. Buffalo Bills, Josh Allen. They've been throwing him in central casting for that for 10 years. Please be our baggage handler. - Could it be Joe Brady? - Joe Brady taking over as the baggage handler and ushering Josh Allen through Vikings. - We're doing our research now. - I'm quietly bullish on the Bills. - I know we're doing our football research now. - You're bullish on the Bills? - I'm bullish on the Bills. - 'Cause it's scheduled. - That's one element of it. - Vikings Lions, and then the number one team is weirdly the Maple Leafs. - Oh yeah, oh wow. - They really need a baggage handler. - They need a baggage handler. - The Canadians are getting close and the connox have been there forever 'cause they've never won. But really, and pick a Canadian NHL team, and they all need a baggage handler. - That's true. - The Canadian Hockey needs a baggage handler. - KWT sent in, is Bill calling Telemachus from the Odyssey, Temeculous, for my entire MVP pile draft, first pick in the pop culture speech, just like say, redraft. I did call him Temeculous, the entire thing. I knew I was doing it. I couldn't remember his name was. I was gonna look it up, but it was Telemachus. - Listen, it's the Odyssey. - Telemachus. - We're gonna have some mess ups. Okay, Jeremy said, butler over clay in the 2011 redraft. I know it was Zach's pick at number three, but you signed off on it. You're the guy who wrote an entire book about the secret. You're taking the poor man's version of Torelloans over the poor man's version of Bill Russell, question mark. Bill Russell's a little strong. - Poor man's Bill Russell. - I would go Sam Jones, maybe there. - Yes. - Bill Russell. - That'll do. - So I had when I did my rankings when we were about to do it 'cause you've done the redrafts. You rank your guys and then you get them in the order.
I did have clay. I had a butler and I kind of led Zach bully me on it. And now I feel like I kind of had my pants pulled down a little bit. I regret it. I'm going to stick with having clay above butler. I'd rather have clay. I mean, better teammate, better can fit in with anything. And Jimmy Butler flamed out and four franchises. He didn't play him out. He quit on a couple. Yeah. I don't know what I mean. Middle fingers. Giant middle finger. Zach's very intimidating. Would you see him throw out the first pitch at the meds game? Zach, when did that happen? Yeah. Yesterday. Zach Lowe. It was a Saturday game. Looks like a strike. Little high. But it was down the middle. Nice. I was proud. Okay. Great. It's a good one. So it goes. How much on that? I've been. Tim Leane wants to know. He sent me a long text. But basically, like, why wouldn't they do a sign and trade with the trade and be for Durin and Philly throws in a pick? I will say this. He said there'd have to be some other stuff. They'd have to cut somebody. But we'll say this. Celtic Fan Bill got terrified by this. I understand. Celtic Fan Bill did not like this trade. Celtic Fan Bill is counting on Joe LNB to do the same kind of up and down injury plague season that he always has. Durin is a beast. I mean, you know, part of the Allure, I've been talking about Jalen Brown's magic elixir. The secret sauce is how much playing time he can consume high level playing time. 200 minutes. Oh, Durin could do that. Now, obviously, the ceiling and what he's capable of, and I have what we saw in the playoffs, but under the tuna, lige and supervision of LeBron James, maybe that could be rehabilitated a little bit. I hope that doesn't. That's an interesting one. Rob said, I'm a fan of LeBron's decision to go to Philly. I was listening to your podcast. It was Zach about it. You mentioned Kauai was the best part in the world in 2019. I think that's this is generous. Once I'm before you said 2018 LeBron played the best game you've ever seen in person. So how could Kauai pass LeBron? The answer is he did. I don't know how to tell you. LeBron went to the Lakers and basically took the year off. Kauai went to the Raptors and kicked everybody's ass with one title. And it was probably the end of the year. That was, LeBron was in year 16 at that point. I mean, LeBron had been the best player in the league from basically the 0809 season all the way through to the 17-18 season. He had been the best player for 10 years in a row. And even when Curry won the MVP, everybody kind of is like, I know LeBron's still the best player. Curry's even. Yeah. Yeah. 2011 redraft, calling from Connecticut wants to point out, we missed this. Curry Joseph went 29 to the Spurs, one pick ahead of Jimmy Butler. The Spurs had just won 61 games that could add Kauai Leonard and Jimmy Butler. Wow. That's a wow. Spurs culture and Jimmy Butler are not positive about this one, but maybe they could have gotten them in early and gotten some good habits. I bet they could have. That completely changes the next three playoffs. I mean, maybe he doesn't play in 2012 playoffs, but 13 and 14, he's playing. That team was a absolute no fuck around team. He would have been, I think he would have been fine. He would have walked in and like, oh, I'm surrounded by all these winners. Right. This is how winning. This is what it looks like to be a winner. The discipline, the commitment. Matthias sent in the question, I've been a fan of your content since the Anthony Bennett pick. I don't get that a lot. He saw you on television. My question, is this officially Chris Ryan's year? Is he the big winner of 2026? Can anyone beat him in the next five months or is this over? This is great. What a great question. So I'm going to give you four choices for the next thing that could happen for CR. Eagles start out 12 and 0. Michael man cast him in heat to like just call them up and says, you're going to be in heat too. I have good news. Netflix just hires him to run TV. Or we do an aliens rewatchables episode of first September 7th for that episode. Most likely out of those four. I mean, the most likely is that aliens who want you control that. Yeah. What's happening? Aliens is happening. It's September 7th. Eagles 12 and 0. The other three aren't happening. But yeah, that'll be the next for the year of CR. The next year of CR moment will be the aliens rewatchables. Jeff M said he's been leading listening and reading and watching me since the early 2000s. And he thinks my apex for homerism content occurred during my Damon versus Leo conversation with CR. The categories for that comparison, favoring Damon so dramatically reminded me of a ranking of best US Presidents using criteria like most use of the word huge best neck names for political opponents in most orange. I have no counter. The fix was it question for house for Greg and DC are you following this weird story about Brandon I you basically stalking the commanders trying to get them to sign up. He just bought a house in Virginia near the practice facility. Should they make a movie called single black receiver about I you trying to be a friend Terry McClure and then take his job. There could be a tiny hardy Nancy Kerrigan angle. That's epic hilarious and wonderful. I am almost to the point where I don't want to make fun of this guy. I think he's seriously mentally not there. Yeah. He's not playing full deck of cars. Yeah. Did he really move to Virginia? Who the fuck knows? He's like an insane person going on to social media. And basically every time he does it takes his wallet and sets it on. He has to buy a new wallet every time he goes on because it diminishes the interest of the rest of the league of him playing any football whatsoever with anybody like the best he's going to get from any team. And I don't think it's going to be Washington is a tryout. And his ass they'll cut him at the first sign of any nonsense. I don't understand it. And I honestly think there's something going on that's not funny. What did you think of the Kyle Shanahan car accident, which seemed terrible and not getting reported for 14 days? I thought that was weird. That seems like that's, how is that not going to affect their season? I thought that was a terrible story. That was the end of the NFL story. I hope that was like a legitimate car accident was not hurt, right? That's the thing. What I don't like about the story, the concussion, yeah, like you, it's a severe concussion. Right. He can't, that takes a long time. I thought that was, I felt bad. I don't like it. I feel bad for him too. Matt from North Hollywood is upset that I applauded Matt Damon's beard. He said, this isn't so shaded, Damon. Let's stop giving credit to men who grow shipbeards. Looney and Seriana great beard James Harden Bizarre, but a strong example, Christian Bale and the Caprio, great actors with shipbeards. Our society needs to stop giving every man with three hairs on his chin or fucking participation trophy. I don't have a lot of notes. I thought Damon's beard was good. Brian W wants to know the one name athlete, Hall of Fame, No Mar and Messy LeBron, Madonna, name anybody. What about the two name Hall of Fame? Oh. He said, the charter member is Harry Kane. I don't think I've ever heard him referred to as anything under the Harry Kane in any broadcast. This reminds me of our friend, Nick Aida. Hey. That's great. You're right. We always had a joke about Nick Aida. It was just became one name and he was just Nick Aida. Now, I was trying to think of other athletes who are one name guys and I came up with Bonax. Does anyone ever call him Bo or next? He's just Bonax. I can't think of it. He is Bonax. It works too. Grant Hill, did you ever call Grant or Hill? No. Never. Kevin Love. Yes. There's some K love with him, I guess, but nobody ever called him Kevin. Chris Paul was either CP3 or Chris Paul, but never Chris or Paul. Pretty strong. Pretty strong. And then my favorite one, Isaiah Joe, oh, he's just Isaiah Joe. He's nobody's ever called him anything other than Isaiah Joe, but it's like Nick Aida. But it sounds like a nickname. It's an amazing name. It sounds like a nickname. Any I miss though? Well, it's two words, but it's not a big poppy. Two words. Okay. This is an incredible, I've been saving this email from you. It's from A from Paris. Oh, I like Paris. He said, everybody thinks the Spurs and Thunders are playing in the 27 West Finals, correct? We would certainly bet on this. He said there's been a bunch of East Finals rematches over the years, 22, 23 Boston, Miami, 17, 18 Cleveland, Boston. There was Miami, Indiana, Miami Detroit, India, and the Nixon, the 90s, Detroit Chicago, Boston, Detroit, 87, 88, Philly, and Boston, 88, 182. We've had, in the last 45 years, seven Finals rematches, Golden State Cleveland, Spurs, Miami, Chicago, Utah, Detroit.
Lakers, Boston Lakers, Philly Lakers. Okay. Can you guess the last time we've had a Western Conference Finals rematch? Oh, this is outstanding. Western Conference Finals, because for a lot of that Golden State era, it was rotating. It wasn't just Golden State. Give me that. Give me this. What decade do you think this happened? Well, then when you put it that way, it makes me think we're going all the way back. Going back to the '70s, it's like we're going back to the '80s, because the last time this happened was 1982 and '83, the Lakers and the Spurs. Wow. Somehow, this has never happened since. How did the Spurs, over their run, not encounter anybody a second time? Because there was a couple times with Spursons or Spurs Lakers where they would meet in like round two instead of round three. Four of them was in there. There was a Minnesota, Sacramento, somehow, when the Lakers and Spurs, I think they put it five times, but it was always in different rounds. Yeah. Or staggered in some way. Yeah. 44 years. That's insane. So if it's not one of those two teams, who is it? In the West? Yeah. The odds right now are, it's funny. San Antonio has +145 O'Casey's +144 to win the West. The next three are Denver, 12-1, Minnesota, 13-1, Houston and the Lakers, 21-22-1. A book either of those bets. Go and state 27-1, Portland, 13-1. Yeah. The West is like these. It's so much better than the West. It's like staggering. The answer is Denver. Yeah. I think so too. I feel sadness in my heart for them. I don't. They have to move Jamal Murray. Sadness in your heart. Because speaking of losing years of staff, we're going to run a run near of losing years with the Joker. How many teams conceivably could you see in the Western finals? Because for me, it's four because I would throw a Minnesota in there. I don't think it's, they've done it twice. But is there any other team you would even give a conceivably to in the West? Not me. O'Casey, San Antonio, Denver, Minnesota, no one at you wouldn't say Lakers, Luke on a heater, Kessler? No. No way. Nope. Have you seen how many white guys are on that team? They're over under 29 or something. They're the fourth worst odds in the West right now. With good. What do you mean? Like it at the bottom of the entire thing? Yeah. Well, that's deserved. If you looked at their roster, they stink. Unfando, the worst is Sacramento. And then Clippers, Memphis, the whirlwinds, basically. Okay. Wait. I think I have two more questions for you. It's my track. Are you hungry? I am. I'm here in time. I'm here in time here on the East Coast. I want to shout out Justin from Dallas. I guess we have one question left. As a mayev's fan, the Luca trade felt like in Game of Thrones when Ramsay Bolton cut off three on Greyjoys, Dick and Balls, and then mailed them to his family. I'm guessing for you that the Jalen trade wasn't quite castration bad because you still have Tatum. But what is it? Is it Lieutenant Dan getting his legs blown off? Luke Skywalker getting his hand cut off by his dad, where the British guy and madman getting his foot run over by a lawn mower in the office? It was none of those things. We won the title two years ago. I'm fine. But he compared the Luca trade to Theon having his Franks and Beans get cut off and mailed to his family. I think they're never going to get over this. Why would they? Why should they? They Cooper flagged. Move on. You've Cooper flagged now. Start moving on. Move forward. Start healing. How can you? The team went to the finals, and then the leadership was like, fuck that team. We're going to be got awful for them. I'm trying to put them in the right headspace. I mean, I appreciate your encouragement, your gentle psychological ploy here. But they, they, that ownership and leadership that they, that is, that they did a bad thing. Good bag of mailbag questions. Phenomenal. Has the summer come in? It's great. I'm so happy to get LeBron settled, because now I can, what should I watch? I like today, tonight, this Sunday night, July, the whatever, my, my July, the 26th. I can start watching TV again. What am I going to watch? You, LeBron was putting on hold, or it was because the majors ended. There's golf. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Golf, the golf majors finally ended. But yeah. First of all, thanks for thinking of me with this question. I obviously watched a ton of TV. Yeah. Kate Fear is the worst well done show I've ever seen. Okay. I think it's almost worth watching, but it's really, really reprehensibly like you can't believe how bad it is. But it's incredibly well done. Okay. I've never seen a show like it where it's like really well done and awful, like awful. I don't think I can do it. Okay. That's not going to be at the top. Some people like that widow's Bay show, which I gave my wife and son watched the whole thing all the way through. So I'm not going to watch that. My wife and I and my wife, we watch five star weekend on peacock and it's really awful, but you get to go to an end-tucket for eight episodes and watch all of these women who hate each other just get mad at each other and do different events. Here's what I'd recommend to you though because I've been watching this. I've been watching homeland season one on Netflix. Oh, wow. You went back. I went back. Many years ago, barely remember anything that happened and my wife and I were just at a loss for anything, but one of the TV show where we're like, we need something to like, and so we just ended up stumbling into the pilot. House. The pilot is so good. I was actually, I saw a fantasy in CR and Greenwald a bunch of people last night. I was talking about this last night. It's so good. And it actually made me nostalgic too when TV was more normal where they were just like, they have three ideas. It's, Brody comes back and did they turn him when he was over in Afghanistan. Claire Danes is nuts and Brody's wife is banging his best friend. And those are like the three things and they're just like, we're not going to be 50 characters. We're not going to be 40 plots. We're not going backwards and forwards. We're just going to have a TV show that you can follow. That's really good. And I got to say I've really enjoyed it. We watched five episodes over the last couple of days and I would highly recommend diving back in. I didn't remember anything. I have the fondest remembrances of the quality of Homeland for several series, for several, I mean, several seasons. So wow, maybe that's what I'll do. I don't know. I feel like I'm behind though, like the cultural, you know, zeitgeist to not be caught up on the show. You're not behind anything. You're not missing much. All right. I think so I watched a movie. You told me I should watch obsession. We're doing that for rewatchables tomorrow live on Netflix. Oh, how about that? There you go. You should definitely watch obsession and some peacock. Okay. Okay. Yeah. That's a good one. Try and think of other movies. And you got to say the Odyssey at some point, right? But I'm going to do that with the 70 mm and the IMAX and the whole thing. Yeah. That's I would I would give Homeland up the pilot a world. Okay. I would be shocked and I would encourage the rest of America to follow suit. There we go. Really, really good. I was I was just like, wow, we really knew how to do it back then. Anyway. All right. House. Good to see you. Maybe I'll see you on the West Coast at some point. Looking forward to that. All right. Thanks for coming out. We're going to take a break. Come back with my dad in one second. All right. My dad is here. It is Sunday afternoon after yet another Red Sox winning series. They have won six straight series. They have turned their entire season around. They have won the attention of Boston. I've been watching a ton. It's suddenly a very likable team. And it all happens starting really the day after the Jalen Brown trade. The Celtics acquire Paul George and the Red Soxies and flips immediately. And you have refused to come on the podcast since the Jalen Brown trade. You're upset. You're not upset anymore. You're right. You're rationally discuss it. No. I'm still upset. I guess I'm ready to discuss it. Well, that's a dramatic pause. But you know, I've been really excited about the Red Sox last month, as you mentioned. And I went to the game where they won number 15 in a row with Nephi Ryan. That was a lot of fun. I'm really down on the trade they made last night. It's on the Christmas tree trade. Yeah. You have a starting pitcher who you pitched in the playoffs last year. Yeah. 24 years old. Lefty. Lefty. Our favorite kind of pitcher. Yeah. And they have about 12 guys who play second or third. They all hit about 250. They're all the same guy. 250. I don't think we needed another guy. I don't get it. I don't. They never get it. They needed righty pop. And they had a glut of starting pitching, I think. And I, you know, early, he's on my ale keeper team, too, his, his, uh, his elbow was hurt. There was a minute where it looked like he was.
going to be out and have that, but was hurt. Well, I mean, his elbow was hurt. And for a second, it seemed like he might be out for like 12 months. And then like, no, no, no, no, and he's, we need rest. I'm talking about, but early, early, yeah, he was hurt. So he's coming back and that, I don't know, I wonder if that was a piece of it too, but I thought they needed another bat, though, from watching them really for the last four weeks, every game, like, but you texted me that he's a terrible defensive player. So, so where are we playing this guy? I don't know the D H. He's 225 pounds, which is not ideal for an infielder, but I didn't know he's that heavy. Yeah, he bounce it. Well, he's strong. He's, I think he's Australian too, but I think he's going to bounce around and and be D H and they need another ready with. I don't know if you saw the globe today, but Durban said he'd be willing to move to second base. I saw that. Yeah. But if this guy is not a good defensive third baseman, that's no good. Well, Durban's played a good third. I've been waiting to have you on. I didn't want to jinx the Red Sox winning streak, and they won 15 straight, but they had to gain that night. That would have been, you coming back from that game would have been good to have on, but I don't want to jinx anything that was happening, but they lost the couple now. So it's going to talk about Durban. There's a few Red Sox things to talk about. We'll talk about the Celtics straight after this, but Durban. Okay. So I'm in that, I'm in that Boston sports thread with a couple LA friends out here. And Durban was so bad the first month of the season that we name, you know, you need to name the text threads. We named the text thread Caleb Durban 600 OBP or 600 OPS watch, right? He was so bad. We changed the title to 500 OPS watch, which is like if you have a 500 OPS, you shouldn't even be in baseball. The first two months, he was the worst batter I've ever watched on the Red Sox since like Jack Park. And then all of a sudden, he flipped it. And now we keep changing the thread. And now it's like 700 OPS watch. He might get to 750 by the end of the year. He said, all these clutch hits, he's a great teammate. Seems like his teammates love him. And it's been this unbelievable turn of events. Well, I think I read that he has the best defensive third baseman rating right now. Yes. And you know, last time I was on the pod, we talked about him not very positively. He was terrible. He was a automatic out. Yeah, he was. But you know, they said that he he brought his feet closer together. And I don't know what makes a difference with the hitter, but suddenly has a lot of confidence. Well, he tried he dropped the driveline stuff and they got his own hitting coach, which was a big story. I thought that was fun. Oh, he got like he got like different hitting help than whatever the instruction was and just started. But keep driveling guy the head on the roster left the Red Sox. Maybe that made a difference too. So it turns around because of him that all the sudden every starting picture they have seems like they're throwing six or seven innings. Chapman, this Guerrero comes out of nowhere. It's 35 years old, throws over 100 and it's been the slides out setup guy. And then the heart of the line up out of a braille got cold lately, but a braille and contraris. But I was saying quickly on the Wednesday pod about contraris has been in my opinion, Nikita, everything. He's just a maniac. He's our kind of guy. He's a lunatic. He's been a lunatic from day one. He just really gives a shit every game. Yeah, he does. I think you heard it. I watched the game yesterday and he heard his finger sliding. It's second. Yeah. So he probably shouldn't have been playing. He should be resting, but it's kind of affected his swing a little bit. He's one of those guys though. Yeah, the camaraderie on the team is terrific. But who would have nobody could have guessed this turn around? I got to say I was not watching. You were watching way more than me and I was making fun of you because it just felt like it hit rock bottom. Everyone was going to get fired. They already fired Cora. Brezel was going to be next. The Roman Anthony. I mean, they don't have Roman Anthony, who is going to be the next head Williams. They don't have crochet who got hurt. And Trevor Story, who I think is the most expensive guy in the team. And he goes out and somehow that made everything better. And my earn it was supposed to be good too. And it's just that's right stiff, I guess. A month ago, the crowd was chanting sell the team, sell the team. And I think Brezel's job was on the line, you know, just my personal opinion. But too many mistakes have been made and all of a sudden they're winning. Look, you know, this manager, he's very even killed. Yeah. He's making a lot of decisions that Cora never made. I like Cora, but Cora never liked a bun. We had three sacrifice buns today. And they all meant something in this game. He might have run us course. I think he's a good manager. He managers weren't at his welcome. Well, we've talked about coaches and managers that eventually the voice, the players get tired of hearing the same voice. It happened with Francona. And I don't say it happened with Brad Stevens. I thought they wore out with him now, last year, remember? You mean as a general manager? No, as a minute. Oh, the coach. Okay. Sorry. It's been as a coach. Okay. But yeah, Francona. It's felt like he was welcome. Well, they're 54 and 50. For the wild card, they're right behind the Yankees now. And I don't know. They're seven back from Tampa. They're going on a road trip right now. They're still getting pitching. I don't know if Jake Bennett can continue to throw like this, but Ranger pitched today and was great. Well, I think that's the other thing that concerned me about the early trade. It's like they feel they have too much pitching, but the game they lost after the one number 15, they threw that guy out there. It didn't even last a minute. That double. Yeah, well, they were trying because they have this Bayo who can't pitch in the first inning for some this unique situation where it feeds as long as he doesn't start, he's great. I would have liked to have seen Bayo in that trade last night. Instead of early. Sure. I don't know. I don't think he has a lot of trade value right now. I don't think so. Well, I didn't like the trade. So I decided I'm wearing my Patriot hat today, which I don't. It's a pro test. It's a pro test. I was going to wear the Red Sox hat when you asked yesterday about coming on the pod, but didn't like the trade. Obviously can't wear my Celtic hat. You should have brought, you should have brought your younger dog and held the dog during the podcast like Mike Frabel for, that was a classic. That was a classic. It looked like he was holding for protection. So do you think this Red Sox thinks sustainable? Because I know you've watched the entire season because you're not in a job. Well, it's not today. I don't have a job. I'm retired. You're retired. Yeah, okay. Don't have a job. Not having a job kind of denotes that maybe you never had a job. It is true. You did work for a long time. Yeah, okay. All right. So you're retired. You watched a lot of Red Sox, even when they're bad. I think it's just I think it's sustainable because two things I do think the pitching is deep. And they had that iOS and the guy they drafted last year. And he's lights out there in the miners. You don't think we're going to see him this year, do you? I think we're going to see him. Oh, wow. Because sometimes the mariners are in the same boat with Kay to Anderson, who's the best prospect in baseball now. And they've been really careful about whether they want to bring them up or not. These guys are have all these innings limits. I didn't know if Einstein would potentially come up. You know what they're doing with that. And they pitched him three innings last night. They're they're not letting him go of the full nine innings yet. See, this is one of the many things I respect about you as your devotion to minor league baseball stats with the Red Sox, whatever's going on in Worcester or wherever else here. Well, he's in Great Boat, Portland, whatever. He's a double A. Greenville, man. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. No, I so I think they have one more trade in them. And it's interesting because the A's catcher who I thought made a ton of sense for them, yes, uh, got hurt. I think he's out for the year. He's gonna be up with you. Yeah, I thought I thought that was a possible trade. I wanted them to get him or the Colorado catcher, like just really take a swing and go after somebody. I don't know. The question is whether they would put areas in a trade is their best prospect. This is 20 year short. He's a shortstop of the future. Yeah, we could be the next Marcelo Meyer. Yeah, there's catching those catching is their their weak point in terms of uh, batting average for sure. So did are there are there people that roam the streets every day looking for Roman Anthony or what happens with it? Is it is the second Netflix true crime series? What happened to if they roam in the streets in Florida, they're going to look for them, but he it a finger injuries could be out for 12 months. It's really strange. And uh, it's like the reporters, the journalists are staying away from it. Uh, there's not any reporting about him or criticism or what what's taking this finger injury so long. That was in the World Baseball Classic in March. Yeah, with big at bats. Except Myra and both of them have been injury prone. Every single time he gets hurt every year. We yeah, in our ale keeper league, we had him. We traded him before the season this year. We didn't we didn't want to go through it anymore. Yeah. With the with our real team and our fake team at the same time, but even his injury is weird. The finger injury nobody's ever had in the history of some
or something that nobody's heard of. - Yeah, and the Roman Anthony injury, it's not 100% clearly explained to me exactly what that is. - Well, that was talking about that one. Yeah, it was some sort of finger thing. But I mean, for what the hype was with him and how important he was, and plus they gave him 100 million bucks already, it's the equivalent of like if Tatum played his rookie year and then just didn't play in 2018 or 2019, or if I don't know, Drake made in play in year two. Like that was, this was supposed to be the guy. This was supposed to be the meal ticket of the team and now Contreras is the guy. I just, the odds were like 100 to one. The Contreras thing was, "Oh man, they didn't get Peter Lanzo." This is so disappointing. - I mean, Anthony was gonna be the guy. He was gonna be our outfielder that everybody talked about. And our outfielder's having a good season. - Really good season. - Duran, they had a good game today, three hits. Maybe he'll get hot again. I think he would have been probably training. Well, I think he probably would have traded earlier if Anthony was around if he had too many outfielder's. - I think he would have been traded if he could hit or play defense or throw a ball. That was a very good three of things. I'm not giving up on him. - Well, he did it two years ago. - Yeah. - And then not any of the other years, but it's very weird because he carried them a little bit once some games and now he can't hit. - Yeah. - It's a strange game anyway. - Well, regardless, they save the World Cup comes and you watch, I love how much World Cup you watch for somebody who doesn't follow Sacrador, but you somehow really threw yourself in every four years. - I think I watched as many games as I could possibly watch. - Yeah, so that starts in second week of June. Red is the Red Sox season has never looked bleaker and then all of the Scots came to Boston and they had games of Foxboro. And it felt like the World Cup just kind of moved the tension away from the Red Sox for like three weeks. And then they got the shit to get. And then the Jalen Brown trade. And nobody really even put serious thought into them until July 4th range and then they started winning, you know. Maybe that was part of it. They didn't feel the pressure of, this is a city with a lot of pressure on sports themes obviously. And they didn't feel it. I mean, I told you the World Cup story. I walked the two dogs. I was on Beacon Street near the cheers around noon time. And about 40 guys came out of the cheers, was killed time. And took over Beacon Street singing and dancing. And it energized the city for the whole time. It was great, great to be here then. It was my daughter said it was her favorite night. She's ever had in Boston was the one of the NBA finals games at the same time with Scotland's World Cup game. And they were out of bar with 200 Scotland people there. I mean, to drink Boston, where Boston has no beer left at some of the bars is pretty, pretty unprecedented. Yeah. And I never, you know, I never heard of or read of any altercations. No, Boston can be pretty cruel when there's 40 to 60 men walking around with kilts and I never heard any problems. Yeah, the stereotype and we should mention we're part Scottish. We have, we have some Scottish in us. But the stereotype was always like the Irish were like the sadder drunks and the scots were like the angrier drunks. And that wasn't, didn't seem like that was the case at all in Boston. And if anything, like they're arranging these Scotland, Boston, like these joint things they're going to do, the mayors were talking to each other. So unexpected love fest. Well, and right after that, the Norwegian showed up and they have video of them on the trolley car, like 30 of them on the floor of the trolley car doing their rowing thing. You can't make this stuff up in this city. But it seemed like it was, it seemed like it was a huge success though. Oh, it's huge, huge success. Even the travel out to Foxboro went well, I guess. Yeah. They sold well the tickets. Yeah. How are you speaking of Foxboro? How are you feeling about the pets? Well, my Patriot had one and I'm feeling pretty good. You were excited for AJ Brown. You always like having a stud receiver. Well, I feel like we have a stud one and two. Yeah. I can't remember the last time I felt we had good receivers. But we didn't have a one, you know, awesome welcome, right? Well, digs had a good year, except he played half the game every game. And it was a step slower than I think in his heyday. Didn't seem like Seattle had to defend him in the Super Bowl the way these two guys are going to be treated. Especially if they, if they have to double AJ Brown, we're going to have guys open for Drake May. Of course, you and I keep talking about the, I don't think the key is that part. I think the key is your offensive line. Because that's what let them down in the Super Bowl. To say the least. Well, it seems like it's a little better. And the variable thing has calmed down, I guess. Hopefully there's not another story, but that was super weird. Super. Yeah, negative. Not it's a recent, no recent stories in the paper. No, it seems like it's, we'll see if there's one more coming. But yeah, it's just, there was such good vibes from the variable era and family leadership. And it's not quite, it's not, yeah, it wouldn't say it's 100% the same anymore. Yeah, it's tough to, we'll see that. They'll just, they'll be, I've been doing all my, my prep stuff. And the schedule wasn't as horrible as I thought it was going to be. Like obviously they start in Seattle week one first game, not ideal. And then they go home Steelers at Jags at bills. So it could be a one and three or two and two, two and two would be ideal. But then after that, it gets a little easier. They got the Jets twice to get the dolphins twice. They played the Lions, but it's, it's a way it's in Munich. They have a charger game that's going to have a million Boston fans at it. So I don't know. They do these stats on strength of schedule based on how the teams did last year. Yeah. Every team is different this year. Teams lost players. They're not going to be as strong as they were last year. And they have like, they have the chiefs at Kansas City on Monday night, week 15. Who knows? The chiefs might not even be good. They have the Broncos week 17, but that's home. So it could be satisfied with 11 and 6. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They play the AFC West and the NFC North. But they're lucky. They play the Raiders early. They play the Raiders week five. So that those 12 cousins at that point, they won't have windows in there yet. But that hurt his last year by playing the Raiders early. I know. But I'm saying they're, they're cousins in it. They, I really don't think windows will be ready by then. And then, you know, the dolphins and Jets both project to be pretty awful. And I also, the bills are like one of the AFC favorites and I don't totally see it. I don't know why they're ahead of us. I don't see that as a Homer fan. Like I honestly don't see it. I don't see where the bills are off all all around the quarterback. Right. But that's the case last year, you know, and he doesn't have the receiving core that we have. Well, he doesn't have the defense. Yeah. You know, so I don't know. I don't know. There were, there were a lot of signs before the schedule came out and everything that it would be a big regression team Super Bowl hangover. But yeah, I don't think I'd age a brown. I think that a really good draft. I think that should be all right. A fun time of sports in Boston, because the training camp is this week for the Patriots, Red Sox on a roll, they go on the road now. Hockey is just gearing up in terms of the Hockey combo yet. No, come on. Now you're pushing it. Oh, come on. It's in July 26. What are the hockey conversations except hockey starts in September now. The Bruins have something you like though. Well, they made a couple moves I like to like the goalie they're going to go with. Yeah, you like the goalie, yeah, um, I liked their draft the last three years. Hopefully those guys can contribute, but it's a crap shoot. All right. That was enough for a play. Celtics trade. Jaylen Brown. Is that it? Celtics trade. Jaylen Brown for Paul George and two first. And he goes to Philly, which then intrigues LeBron James enough to go actually signed with Philly for four million dollars a year. And this is the team. My entire life, we've hated the most. The biggest win we ever had together was the 1981 Eastern Finals that come back. I remember we went through the 1977 playoff games when Philly beat Cowns and Have a Check with that team of Dr. Jayce first year beat us in the playoffs have a have a check. You remember why we lost the 77 one right? Well, because we didn't sign Paul Silas. Exactly. Right. The maybe one of the only mistakes we had our back made. So then actually took one of two mistakes you made. We beat them and they beat us in 80 and 82. We beat them in 81 and I think 84 85. I don't think they play in the 90s. We beat Iverson.
with the Paul Perissante on team, we beat them in round two after Derek Rose got hurt in 2012, game seven, which was Rondo's greatest game. Then we have a bunch of stuff against the NBA Sixers, which we win every time. That huge comeback game in the playoffs against them. Against them. And then we, it felt like we had their number and then they come back and beat us last year and seven and then got trounced by the next, which kind of made it worse. I'm still shaking my head. We're up three, one and how we lost that series. And you went to all the games, the game two and game five were the ones that lost the series. Yes, the game seven, we didn't show up. And then B, let's face it, and B played really well. He did. And then the next did something to him be that seemed to knock him out for a loop. One of the, I think it was Adam, somebody elbowed him in the stomach. Oh, in and over. Yeah. Yeah, we had the appendicitis surgery. And I'm not saying that we should have done that, but it should have been more physical than we should have been. So the season couldn't have ended worse. No. And then, uh, and they lose game seven on my daughter's 21st birthday. Well, every other podcast I've done with you, I had myself to cut on. Yeah. Well, you weren't happy with the coaching strategy. Too many minutes for Tatum, all the same stuff I said on the pod. Yeah, you, we've talked about. Tatum does the play game seven whole thing. Go to, we go into the draft for agency. They're trying to figure out this jail and brown thing. Did you want the Janus trader? You didn't. I would, I would have, I would have, uh, been looking forward to watching Janus. Yep. So you would have put, because they only made one offer. I mean, there's been so much written and talked about this. They made one offer. They never made a second offer. They never tried to up it. Miami up their offer like five times. I would have, I would have kept upping our offer. So you would go in the trade? Well, I don't know what the trade would have been, but some of it is looking back now by not doing everything they could to make that trade. We made one of the two worst trades that I've seen in my lifetime. So what was the other? The Don Chick trade. I put Jalen Brown's trade in the same category. So would I've rather seen them put more assets into Janus trade? Sure. For what happened when we didn't get Janus. Yeah. Or don't trade Brown right now. Hold on to him for a while. There's no urgency. Well, they could have waited to see where LeBron landed before. I feel like Philly is doing that trade regardless. I don't think so. I don't think Philly, if Brown wasn't on Philly, I really don't think LeBron goes there. But I'm saying wait till he goes somewhere else and then do the Philly trade. But I don't even think it was on their radar. Exactly. It wasn't on my radar. I never expect him to go there. But we've always talked about when you make trades that the other team not only eagerly says yes to, but we'll also do four months from now. Then why are you doing the trade? And that's the part I'll never get a good answer on. No, me neither. You know, and the whole philosophy in Boston has been in Brad, we trust. And I think he's been a terrific general manager. I'll never understand this trade. And the other unfortunate part, I really like Chisholm coming in as the no owner. Yeah. I as a fan because he talks about himself as a fan. I don't know why he would have ever approved this trade as a fan. Forget being in the owner. Yeah. But it made no sense. It's, you know, I read an article they're going to save money. They're not saving money. Maybe they'll save money down the line. Right. You're three. They'll save money. Okay. Year three. So it's two more years of Tatum in his prime playing with the injury prone Paul George next to him. Uh, makes no sense. And you like Simon's too. And then he ended up on Philly too. I was shocked when he ended up in because we had room to bring him back. Yeah. And we, even I talked about the playoffs, we missed the third guard in that playoffs. I know Pritchard played, but we missed Simon's minutes and we got nothing out of the guy we got at center in that trade. My fear is that was another flood by Stevens too. My fear is that they treated this Tatum as his Achilles injury as almost like a two-year window to reboot everything and then go all in a year from now. His mouth is my fear. We said that a year ago when they let go of four of our starters. Well, but that was year one of year two. This year two now is all right. We do Paul George. And then he's an expiring next year. We've reset all the tax stuff and now we'll go back in and try to compete. But he's not an expiring. He has two years in the country. He has a player option. I know he's he's he's he's going to he's going to do the player option. Nobody's going to sign him. I know. But next year who opt-in and then he'll be an expiring contract. They'll have all their tax stuff reset and then they can do. That's the only thing I can think of and I I don't agree with it. But I don't well again, I don't agree with it for the reason I just said. So you're talking three years from now. Tatum's three years older. Two years from now. If if Paul George is an expiring and you have these picks, I listen, you you took a long time to come around on Jalen Brown. He was probably the most frustrating Celtic of the last 10 years for you. I need to be clear on something. I thought Jalen Brown carried us last year in many ways. The I test. I know they keep talking about the stats versus the I test. And I went to all the games at most of the games at home. He carried us. His numbers weren't always that great. His efficiency wasn't that great. But we won 56 games. I probably had had enough for watching Jalen Brown. So I'm not opposed to the fact they thought it was time to trade them. Yeah. I thought the trade was horrendous. And I'll never understand why they accepted that trade. Well, you said on the streets of Boston, in your as you as you roam around people, people are really because I don't have a job and you and you walk the dogs. But people and people, you know, they talk to the Celtics about you. But across the board, people are pissed. There's no there's no other side on this trade. It doesn't seem like. Yeah. People obviously talked to me. They recognize from the documentary and podcasts. And I look at you. And I haven't met one person who was in favor of that trade. As a matter of fact, it's not just in favor or not in favor. People are really upset about it. Yeah. Well, also he did he did a lot of stuff in this city too, which we always talk about. I don't know. I felt like that has to account for something is your factory and all this stuff. I guess somebody actually cared, somebody actually cared about your city and trying to get back to it and put real time into it. And, you know, I don't know. And I talked about once, it seemed like once his name was out there in the honest trade, it was inevitable, probably you didn't have to move him. But they didn't have to move him so quickly. They didn't have to move him for that package. Well, I wonder it seemed a little dicey or behind the scenes that maybe we were led to let on because there's stuff that pops out after where it's like, you know, there was a couple, I don't want to name people who talked about this stuff, but there were a couple people who mentioned like it bothered him. Who knows if this is true of bothered him when Tatum came back and then Tatum was announced last and Jalen had been announced last, but then he was announced first. You know, I did notice that it bothered him that they hired a couple of Tatum's friends to work for the team, which is true, but none of Jalen's friends. And once it gets, once we start going into that, maybe they saw a lot more like a little stuff than that that you and I don't get to see. Well, fine. That's no excuse for her when she's trading. It's no excuse. It'll never convince me ever that that was the best they could have gotten if they waited. Yeah, even when the Red Sox traded Nomar in '04, both of us were pretty even though Nomar on paper was Nomar and he was one of the most famous biggest Red Sox stars. I think of the past 35 years. He really got to like a really high level. He did. But he was unhappy that whole year. I remember writing a column about it in the middle of the year. Like he just looked miserable because they tried to trade him already. His defense was going sideways. And they kind of sold high on him. And I do wonder if the Celtics part of this was they're, they feel like they're selling high on Jalen coming off like him being 6th MVP, 2nd Timo NBA, carrying a team into 56 and they're like, I mean, how does that, how do you sell high? Well, I was the irony. They didn't sell high. It's almost like they want to get out of this before they had to attach pit. I still don't understand it. People have been asking me all summer why they do this. You must know
there must be an inside story and there's really not. It just feels like they felt like he was gonna, if he didn't get an extension in July, it just was gonna start some feel like the 2019 Celtics, which was the unappiest Celtic team of the last 10 years. I think they wanted to avoid it. - I know you weren't a fan of just keep loading and loading a deal to get you honest. - You like Gonzalez a lot if he was ever in the trade. - To me, it was more, I don't, I just don't think Yannis was a good bet. If you were, if you were to tell me this was 2021, Yannis of course, I would have done four picks, I would have put in Hugo, all that stuff. But I just don't think Yannis is a good bet. I've done 10 podcast segments about this. Like the history, you're betting on this history being the complete opposite of what we've seen from big guys as they get older and start playing less games and having more injuries. I just wouldn't have done it. And I thought their offer was pretty fair. Like I look at this step of walkie got back, I don't know, they just got back a poo poo platter. I would rather have Jalen. - I agree, yeah. So like to me, it's like Jalen and two first for a guy who hasn't really been healthy for reliably healthy for a long time. And I really, I don't know if he would have been a great fit to take him either. That was the other thing. So I didn't think it was a slam dunk. But I just, but I just would have waited. Even if they went into the season with Jalen, I mean, the crowd liked them, Boston liked them. As you mentioned, he did an awful lot of charitable work in the community. - And we won with them. We want to tie to one with them. - We won with them. - Yeah. - I would have waited until a fair offer. You know, when people I talk to $47 on the dollar, we got back. That's the opinion. And it makes no sense with all the good moves that Brad Stevens has made. It was, it just made no sense. - Well, the Zag, the Zag take would be, Paul George was the best of the three forwards in that playoff series. - In our series. - In our series, he was the best of those three guys. He was. - Yeah. - And then he did play the best. - Okay. And then the next series against the Knicks. - Not as good. - Yeah. - He was okay in the next series, but not as good. - So we'll get forward games out of him this year, I guess, huh? You know, it's not sustainable. He's always hurt. You had him in with the Clippers. I don't think he was your favorite player. He, you just never knew when he was gonna show up. - Yeah. - Now he's gonna have way less pressure on the Celtics team. But yeah, again, I don't, not to be the dead horse, but the, the then LeBron James decision on top of, did the Jellum Brown going to Philly? I'm sure he never considered Philly until Jellum Brown was there. Philly's gonna be, if they stay healthy, they're a monster. And they're, and we hate Philly. We've hated Philly for 40 years. - Yeah, I do. The funny thing about even if they get 50 games from LeBron and 48 games from M&B, those other three guys can carry them during the regular season. We just watched it with Jalen. Jalen and Max and Edgecomb are all gonna put big minutes for them. So, you know, and then they have a bench. They already got called by Pope who, you know, he's an 11th man at this point, but you already seen these veterans trying to jump on teams. - And slamming. - They already had Simon's. - Yeah. - And they have Phylon to trade. - And if they want them for somebody. - I thought that was a great draft pick by them. He dropped. - Well, can you, can you set the record straight for America because you actually went to the games? Hugo, who's not, I think he's 20 now. And it was the wrong narrative 'cause it was like, oh my God, Hugo became the deal breaker in the Celtic, that wasn't actually what was true. They just, they made one offer that never made a second one. And then somehow he became the Lynch Pan for why they didn't get Yanis. Putting that on the side. You loved, you loved Hugo. Like you, you thought he had a chance to be a really special player, right? - Yeah, I thought Mizzoula underutilized him all season. - Especially in the playoffs. - Well, I thought, you know, we won 56 games because we went 11 to 12 deep all season long. - Yeah. - And then we get to the playoffs against Philly and Mizzoula shortens the bench to like eight players. - And played your guy, Bruceovich. - Oh, terrible. He didn't even play game seven, he was so awful. - Yeah. - Yeah. Yeah, the coaching, you know, that's another issue, but the coach, he got so outcoached in that playoffs series against Philly. I mean, nurse took him to the shed. - He really did. The game two and game five, those two games specifically, where the Celtics had big leads at home, I think in both games and game two, that sixers increased the pace on them and it's a tough one. I don't know, it feels like our window closed, but we kind of knew it after 24 when they loaded up and they got poor Zingas in holiday and we'd made the finals in 22 and it felt like that 22 to 25 probably was going to be the real window for us and then Tatum gets hurt and the next two big comebacks, Tatum gets hurt. - Right. - 23 to lose game seven, Tatum gets hurt at the beginning of game seven. - You know, when I look back, we never should have lost the Golden State Series. We were the better team. Curry just beat us. That was a championship we let go. - And I thought they ran out of gas in that. The four straight rounds, they weren't ready for it the way. - Yeah. - You know, there is something to that. Like you could say with Wembe this year, when you haven't been through that before, playing 11 straight weeks and just having these high level playoff games over and over and over again and teams like honing and on what your weaknesses are. They remember how good Tatum was at the beginning of those playoffs? He killed Durant. Remember he like really took Durant to the woodshed by the end of the finals? He was a corpse. Like he just ran out of gas. - He did run out of gas. - Yeah, you know, that's the other question nobody wants to talk about, do we have 100% healthy Tatum? - Yeah, and what happened in game seven? - We still don't know what did he get injured? Why didn't he play? That wouldn't have slipped under the rug too. It's with the Roman Anthony Finger situation. - Yeah. - You see him. All right, so rank your optimism for the four franchises right now. - That's a good one. - Patriots won? Patriots won Red Sox too. - Red Sox too. - Bruins three. - Oh man. - Celtics four. - There's four. - Celtics four. I think the Knicks and Philly are much better than we are. - Vegas does not agree. - I know. I saw the odds. - Yeah, they, and there's a flip side of this coin case where you could say Tatum has all the brown minutes from last year. Who go and everybody's a year older? They have more to have Mitchell Robinson, Paul George being able to do a facsimile of something. - I'll tell you though, what worries me is, these Achilles injuries play as come back. They're 85%, maybe 90. It's tough to be 100%. And it's gonna be interesting to see if Tatum goes to the basket or what his lateral movement looks like. Will he always be thinking of the, you know, he didn't, why didn't he play game seven? I mean, we both read the same things, but to set out of game seven, I'm sure Jalen Brown is thinking, he sat out game seven. I was in there playing, I carried the team all year. - Yeah. - And I got no respect. I can, I can understand that part of it. You know, if they win that game seven, and Jalen has like a heroic game seven to beat Philly, the trade doesn't happen. - True. - Probably. - What we never could've expected is him getting traded to Philly. - No. - Like just the heading into South startup three one in Round One against Philly. And if I said to you, they're gonna lose the last three and then Jalen's gonna be traded to Philly and put it LeBron. The ads would have been like a million to one. - Well, that's putting aside that we got Paul George back. If you get a trade Jalen Brown and you think it's time, trade him out West. Nobody wanna know. - Well, we see him once at home every year. - There wasn't a market for him. That's the other thing. - Then wait for the market to develop. - His team's needed a higher you as a consultant. - Teams are gonna have injuries. Wait for the market to develop. Can you imagine him coming into Boston two or three times in the regular season? - Yeah. - Well, he's in, I don't know if this is the best situation for him in Philly, but I guess we'll find out. But he went from, it's time for me to have my own team to him being the fourth most important person on this team. - It's a valid point about how they're all gonna mesh with they all want the ball. He's basically gonna have to be there Derek White. - Yeah. - And I hadn't thought of that part. How are they all gonna mesh, but?
thinking about our team and our starting lineup and Paul George getting injured 19 games into the season. And, you know, wow. Just send your check in for the season tickets. Yeah. You know, and maybe the Celtics are going to be unhappy with our conversation today, but believe me, I thought it was fair. I've talked a lot about the season ticket holders who are, I rate not that they traded brown necessarily, but the package that came back. Yeah. Well, I guess the best thing we can say is Brad Stevens has done right by us over and over again, and if he believes this was the right trade, he knows more about basketball than we do. I didn't realize you worked for the Celtics now. No, I'm saying that's the only thing if you're saying, all right, how is this going to work out? We'd be like, yeah, Brad Stevens has been really good at this. Maybe he knows more than we do. It's the only thing I can grab onto. Because I wouldn't have made this trade in a million years. I just would have waited. I would have waited till September. I feel like the trade's still there. And then like, you know, it's like, maybe Detroit's in a contract feud with Durin, and they need to do something and they say, fuck it. We don't want to be bad this year. All right, here are five first rounders and, you know, who knows? I agree. Yeah. That's what I mean. There's still free agents that haven't signed restricted free agents. There's still injuries that haven't occurred yet on other teams. Brown could have been very attractive to another team in October. All right, Dad. I'm glad the Red Sox have revived your summer. I'm glad you enjoyed the World Cup. I'm glad we were able to talk rationally about the Celtics trade. I'm glad to we can talk rationally. That's training camp. I thought it was rational. Go see the Odyssey. It's only three hours. Okay. All right. Good to see you. Good to see you. Thanks. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to house. Thanks to my dad. Thanks to Gauhan and Eduardo as well. New rewatchables. Remember, we're doing it live on Netflix. If you want to hear us talk about obsession, me and Chris Ryan and Joanna Robinson. It's going to be 7 p.m. Eastern time, 4 p.m. Pacific. We are doing a bunch of bangers in a row for rewatchables. I'm just warning you now. Buckle up. Put your seatbelt on because we're going to tear through some because we're in the dog days, the dead times of the summer. We're basically looking at summer slam. What's the FedEx, the golf, whatever the playoff is for that. Preseason football. WMBA. I like the links. I'm really into the links. I already have a wager on the links to win the title. I've been into them. But yeah, not a lot going on. So it's going to be an erratic schedule for us on this podcast. But maybe one more this week, you might not see me again until Sunday. Enjoy the first part of the week. Yeah. Must be 21 plus and president select states for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas start casino or 18 plus and president DC Kentucky or Wyoming. Game problem caught 100 gamble or 1 800 by reset call 888 797777 or visit ccpg.org/chat Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghuplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 sport and Massachusetts or call 877-8 hope and why or text hope and why in New York for Louisiana. Call 877-770-7867
PodcastTranscript AI