The Giannis Never-Trade and a Mega-Mailbag With Zach Lowe, Plus Wyndham Clark’s Second U.S. Open Title With Joe House

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Credit card points subject to issuers, terms, and conditions. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ bill simmons podcast we are live on netflix we had zach low and something happened and he just disappeared like two minutes before we went live but that's fine i can i can carry the very top here because i want to tell you we have a new rewatchables we have two coming this week we have from hell month still going really strong we have domestic disturbance coming on monday and then the good son is going to be thursday and then the next monday we're doing pacific heights so three more from hell movies then we'll get into a more regular schedule after that um check out all of our ringer basketball podcast by the way because we have the draft on tuesday night i'm going live on netflix hopefully zach's um laptop will be working it's our computer and camera will be working at some point he will have a show i think on monday we're gonna have uh on my show on tuesday it's gonna be joe house because his team has the number one pick and that's the rule of house has the number one pick we're good and then uh jay kyle man will be joining us as well and now zach low i think is this working zach how are we feeling are we are we live on my back we're live i just did my intro let's go oh my god okay my computer just died it came back to life i don't know what happened i don't know what's gonna happen but i just i popped into netflix just like that i'm live okay you did i thought pleasantries i thought the bucks are the miami heat or miami heat media members might have sabotaged your feed okay so we can talk about the trade uh we have the honest trade hostage crisis uh what day 305 day 307 i don't know how long this has been going we were kind of hoping it would happen this weekend i think i think it's going to happen tomorrow sadly not not good for our podcast maybe not good for you with whatever week you had planned out but i think it's going to happen tomorrow and i just am discounting 95 of everything i'm reading so we're at the very top of this podcast we're talking honest quick we'll talk our just knowing enough enough about the draft to be dangerous takes and then i have a mega mailbag that i'm going to bring you into and then at the tail end joe house is going to tell us what happened in the u.s open so the honest trade are you surprised it has not happened yet are you tired of talking about it where are you i'm not surprised it hasn't happened yet i i totally understand both why milwaukee wants to take this as far as possible and why other teams are perhaps a little frustrated with milwaukee's community communication style i understand all of it i i understand every party involved i kind of thought it would be done by now they clearly want to do it before the draft their owner jimmy haslam came out and said we'd like to do it before the drafts if he's not going to extend um i thought it would happen before now i still would lean to it happening before the draft like you uh i'm not frustrated bill like i just it's just got to roll off your back there's nothing you can do am i going to a world cup game on tuesday am i tentatively throwing out the first pitch at city field tomorrow weather permitting weather permitting like all those things are happening it's just nothing i can do i can't control these variables i just gotta i just gotta roll with it just gotta roll with it peace peace serenity now serenity now it's all i can do is this the highlight of the met season you throwing out the first pitch i can't think of any other highlights i mean the state of the rotation is such that you would not be the first one of my friends to joke that hey if i look good they might have to throw me out there for a few innings just eat eat some eat some innings for them oh you could be like crap like the eddie harrison major league the crafty over 40 um junk junk picture throwing junk um so with the honest the honest thing my feeling has not changed for a week i think they know what miami's offer is it can only be so far um they're not putting bam in it so at that point it's pretty easy to figure out everything that's in it and they're just waiting on boston to see if boston is going to top the offer maybe they're trying to get them to add stuff to the offer that already happened um i still think i would still bet on boston and as we talked about last week i'm still conflicted about that i don't feel great about the honest trade but um so there's been some stuff floating around in the last week that that i don't want to discount but i just don't believe like i think hero if if it ends up being miami i think hero is appealing to milwaukee he's from wisconsin i think that would be a piece they want um i don't when once we start getting into three team or four team or stuff i i just become a little more suspicious and the other piece is i think kuzma is the yannis tax for this trade for whoever gets him and i haven't seen that really anywhere in a real way but um for miami it would have to be wiggins being in the trade and then kuzma going back um to miami he's an expiring deal i think they just want to move off him and then for the celtics i think that might be a piece of this like if it is going to be yannis and jaylen as the principals the celtics have this trade etc and i think the yannis tax would be well you have to also take kuzma so i wonder if that's a piece of this have you heard anything about that it's a great call uh i have not dug so deep as to get into the kuzma sediment layer of this but um it makes a lot of sense particularly for miami because i think they would like um to to end up with wiggins and powell who's an unrestricted free agent on this theoretical bam yannis team both of them not just one of them because they're going to fill out the team they have lost rogier as a salary matching tool which makes it even more difficult to do that and it's doable keeping both of them if it's just yannis if it's yannis plus a tiny salary but if it's yannis plus another 20 million or whatever kuzma is making it becomes very very hard and then there you get into the concerns that i think are very real for miami is like if we do this and all our first round picks are out the door and yakuchunas is out the door and all our young guys are out the door what is it going to amount to you could argue like what is the present state of the team going to amount to but at least you have some optionality down the line for whoever the next star that becomes available is but like you know as miami has seen a you never know who it's going to be and b you may not get them like you didn't get damian lure you haven't got kevin durant you may not get yannis now right and then on top of it you're getting a guy that hasn't made even the conference finals in five years who has had trouble staying healthy who's 31 32 years old and you're banking that he's going to completely change your playoff destiny so the more you put in the trade the less likely that goes but like if if wiggins and kuzma have to be the extra piece for a miami trade and now you don't have hero where hakes and wiggins you're just removing all those guys out um and you're basically just you have to you know bring back norm powell you have yannis you have bam um and then you're just kind of doing the miami zombie thing trying to revive careers all over the place you're probably still in a playing game but i also don't think you're a title contender so we'll see boston's a little different because i think they could talk themselves into this tatum jalen thing might have reached the end jalen got a taste of being the guy and now we're resetting the team we're going to be more inside outside and hopefully we can ride yannis for three years here um i understand it i don't agree with it so so how much if you're if you're going to be more inside if you are brad stevens how much extra are you going to put in because you know they're just they're asking for derrick white i'm just making this up to be clear but just like derrick white plus two first round picks what about jalen brown plus two picks and a swap like which what's your threshold of pain i wouldn't i wouldn't do that at all you're just going like one for one and we're done that's it take it or leave it yeah i'm not taking yannis but also getting rid of derrick white like part of the reason to get yannis would be that you still have derrick white and he's like the perfect guy to play with yannis so agreed if he makes to me it's like i i would suck it up with kuzma and if it's like yannis plus the kuzma trade exception thing for jalen i think that's a that's a pretty fair trade jalen was one of the you know the eight or nine best players in the league last year and he's not even 30 years old yet and then if you're with the way the new lottery rules are you you're more competitive than you were and you still have a chance to win and you're more competitive than you were and you still have a chance to win and you're more competitive than you were and you still have a chance to win and you still have a chance to flip jalen i still i'm i'm still rooting for the snare with the celtics if they if they decided that they actually have to move jaylen i think there's other teams that i would rather look at than yannis like if if the quippers number five was on the table um if new orleans with murphy and herb jones and you know patching together a bunch of contracts and try to reset and have more flexibility i would still prefer that over the yannis it's it's not a hail mary but it's a little bit of a hail mary what's coming with the number five pick because you're you're trying to you're trying to you're going for the title or the the trying to win this coming season right so are you getting kawaii in the number five pick that seems like too much for the clippers to ever do like what's coming with i think it's collins collins and the five and maybe one more thing collins is a free agent isn't he is colin but can't you team option him and keep him so you can trade him i thought i think he's unrestricted is he unrestricted he's unrestricted yeah all right well he's out but the clippers have a ton of cap space though so i guess i mean that would be part of the deal right you could just you could do jalen and the five as the principles because the clippers really only have kawaii and garland as their big contracts i just think the clippers look i again i can't sit here and claim that oh yeah i've been on the phone with everybody with the clippers and they're telling me exactly what their plans are anyone sort of posturing like that is lying to you but i just think this this pick from indiana is such a gift from the basketball and the lottery gods yes for a franchise that has not had any after the shea kawaii paul george trade to not quite reset but to at least get a blue chip young guy in the door at least i have a shot at like this guy could be on our team for 12 years and be really good i just don't see them passing it up for like hey if we get jalen brown jalen plus kawaii plus garland like we might be able to throw a couple punches at the spurs in the thunder and everyone else in the i just don't see them doing that that's just my gut though that's not reporting that's just my gut i think you might be right i was thinking about the bogdanovich contract not collins because collins has the team bogdanovich is a team option for like 16. um but the clippers are still way under the cap and could do stuff but new orleans would be the other one i don't know what to make of atlanta anymore like i thought it was interesting today they they extended mccollum for one year for 21 which i thought was really smart they had the eighth pick um the weirdest part of this draft is the fifth and six picks are both point guard picks and yet the teams that have those picks have point guards which is one of the many things that make this complicated if i had to bet i still think boozer goes to utah but i wouldn't bet my life on it but um i i still feel like i'm leaning boozer versus rolling the dice with peterson peterson goes three wilson goes four i think the clippers if they stay at five have to take uh wogler i think mikhail mikhail brown goes six eight cuffs seven to sacramento and then atlanta is the first one that i'm really on the edge of my seat for i don't know what to make of them and it would seem like fleming's makes a lot of sense they could go nuts and take a center um if i were them i would take brandon burris i just think that i just think he's the best player that's available at number eight but would it do you feel like atlanta is the pivot team why why would um why would the clippers not take burries is that too much of a reach at five if i were them i would take burries at five but i i don't feel like i feel like in the rankings he's probably a couple spots behind those other guys i think he's pretty consensus 8-9 now they might not care and have their own rankings but i think for him he's a much better bet i love burris i feel the same way about him that about castle two years ago i think he's a guaranteed really good pro the hawks have 8 and 23 um and a ball handler makes a lot of sense for them because you saw like once once trey went out they kind of cobbled together a functional offense off screens and cuts in motion then as soon as they got mccollum it was like oh a real high level skilled ball handler changes the complete changes the dynamics of this team completely they're really hard to guard it's really hard to hide any bad defenders against them they need a ball hand like jalen johnson not quite an important ball handler nikki likes the under walker same deal so it'd make a lot of sense for them to take a swing at one of those guys with that pick it's also like a an interesting first trade ship to like are they going to cobble things together i think that's a good point i think that's a good point i think that's a good point i think that's a good point i think that's a good point i think that's a good point i think that's a good point i think that's a good point i think that's a good point i think that's a good point and try to get trey murphy the third or somebody like that i i don't know but i agree they're in a very interesting spot i have a i have a follow-up well by the way in the hawks at 23 you have all these i think guards that have a chance to be really good i just feel like one of them's gonna fall and you might be able to get a corey the the point guard he's like 6-1 he's a little kemba walkery christian anderson could be around there um and they you just might be able to get one of those guys at 23 and get a blue you get burry's at eight there's like a lot of guys that are going there's like one version of him in the draft like just an old-school two-way two-guard and then hope you get lucky with a point guard later i have a celtics question for you yeah um you mentioned has the tatum brown thing run its course the other side of that coin is the celtics have been extremely quiet and extremely careful about this whole yannis thing it's all been sources say the celtics are interested in yannis sources say there have been talks whatever the the leak that says specifically jalen brown has been offered for yannis has not really come out yet it's just everyone making the very logical no other way to do it deduction and then there was a brief like what could they do it without including jailer brown which i didn't buy it for a second i don't think there's any way to do it but my point is the celtics have been i think very careful because they know having done this dance a little bit with durant and brooklyn that there's collateral damage to a guy who thinks he's been a celtic because he's been a celtic for a long time he's been offered they can probably plausibly go to him now and be like hey man like it was never out there that we explicitly offered you like just ignore all that stuff do you think that that is too far gone like that collateral are you worried about that kind of collateral damage if this doesn't happen and how does he how does jalen brown feel about it is there still a path forward i mean i said a week and a half ago i know they made an offer and they're they're definitely involved in this and they're definitely the other team like there's no question um the bigger question to me is how much does jalen brown even care like my fear with all of this and maybe this is part of the reason they're thinking about not blowing it up but changing whatever they're doing is that he got a legitimate taste at being the guy last year and having his own team and that's a real thing and that's something that has submarine a lot of mpa teams over the course of history and has is something that's submarine other facets of life like i joke lean was talking about the wire when he was talking about the wire when he was talking about the wire when avon went to jail and stringer bell took over the business and was kind of the guy running the thing and then avon came back and they and that's the tv fictionalized version of it but when you have a taste and it's your team and you're the guy it's pretty tough to just be like okay here you go i kept it warm for you and i i think what's different than a couple years ago is that um you know if jalen had his own team i don't think he's season ended he's just done a lot of like small things that make you go huh that was like two two 90s song lyrics in a row all the small things i guess that's post 90s and things that make you go hmm all just the sandwich together nicely done uh there was some there was some the twitch you're not enjoying the twitch stream i don't think the twitch the the this was the best season of my career i don't think the twitch the the this was the best season of my career i don't think the twitch the the this was the best season of my career um i don't like tatum hasn't come on the twitch it's like all these little tiny things where i still don't have a lot of hardcore evidence that these guys are fired up to play basketball with each other for the next 10 years i would rather it worked out and they stayed together because i think that's the rarest thing you could have in sports i just am dubious that it will but you've done not to derail the mailbag i'm sorry but you've done a very smart thing which is this is there's so much yannis mania that this is being framed as it doesn't have to be you can canvas the league for jalen brown trades however i will say just scanning and i i remember doing this at the time finding the one if this is your priority and i think it should be that keeps you at or near the top of the east with like a reasonable championship equity next season is not like the clippers one that you propose does not do that in my opinion it's a huge step back for the team so like i remember i remember landing in places like houston um that that have a lot of just stuff that and picks that they can throw in um and i just i'm struggling to remember sort of who else fits the bill is like here's the pelicans are the other one that's why you have murphy and jones and all that there just aren't that many who can throw back here here's some stuff that is different than jalen brown but keeps you at a 58 to 60 win pace which is what they've been at well the only thing with that clippers one is you're resetting your salary in like a pretty crazy way because with the clippers able to take on his money and you basically have to basically take that fifth pit back plus you have the trade exception you now you really have flexibility to do a bunch of different moves like i like what about like i remember thinking about like like and i don't think either team i don't think cleveland would do this but like a jalen brown from mobley like that would be the kind of thing that i'm talking about where it's like here's another pathway that's not yannis but satisfies that makes us just as good now as we are and it's it's just hard to find those deals are really hard to make we have a fake trade in the mailbag oh good that's another one for this but yeah i mean he's been doing it for a long time he's making high 50s so any trade unless you're getting a draft pick back and a bunch of flexibility you're looking at another guy who's in that range and a team that's probably staring at the same way I guess the bigger thing for me is with the, with the, I think the Knicks have at least a two-year run here where they're going to be really hard to beat because of the team they've assembled, all the guys at the right points of their career. And there's a real selflessness with this, like that the model for them would be what happened with the seventies through 73 Knicks, where they won two titles, were able to stay together, or even like the 08 to 2012 Celtics. So you kind of know that's the team, that's the bar you have to beat. That's a team that feels like they can beat Boston as or like, or like the, the, the early two thousands Pistons who only get one, but are in the deep, deep conversation for a half decade and probably should have gotten another one in there somewhere. Yeah, I, I, I have a, a really special guy, which that Pistons team did not have. That Piston team was a totality. Brunson is unlike anything that Pistons team has dismissed the Knicks repeat chance at your apparel. That's all. This is a really, really good team. And if they're, they're healthy, they're deep, they're smart. They know how to play. They're incredible. Incredible problem solvers, something magical happened to them in this playoff run that it like, maybe it's completely sustains. Maybe it doesn't, but like, I think they're going to be a force for the, as long as they can keep this core together. Yeah. And I, and Brad, his press conference was so telling right after the draft for the Celtics where he was clearly like really, really publicly unhappy for the first time in a while. Not just that they lost to a team. I think he thought they were better than, but that he just didn't know if the style worked anymore. And even if you go back. We have a great mailbag question coming up about that. Oh, for Celtics team, that team was still able to play more inside outside than the team last year. That team last year ultimately was just threes and jump shots and PR weirdly Pritchard as the only inside outside guy. So I think I'm prepared for anything with them. I don't know what's going to happen. And I still feel like I, I still feel like it's going to be honest and then I'm going to have to spend the summer talking myself into it. So the other stuff, honestly, that is a really appealing part of it for me. I just want to witness you've come into grips with it and then going all the other way of like why this would be the perfect fit. The honest I've loved you on this all shape of his career. He's, he's totally rested. I'll talk myself into it. And it's the same thing. Like I said last month about if Miami gets them, wherever you honest goes, the team and the content from that team is going to be way more fun. Right? Last year we were in this honest situation really where it was just like, this is just a wasted asset. Right? It's going to be a lot of fun for us to watch and discuss and wherever he goes, it's going to be a lot more fun. Um, the other thing I want to see with this draft, the, the, uh, 11, 12 range of golden state picking right before. Okay. Um, and I'm sure you've heard this too. These teams now that see it through the prism of I'm tired of watching. Okay. See, just nailed the draft. How would they be thinking about these guys in the spot I'm in? And there's a couple of like classic. Okay. See guys. There's a couple of guys in the top range right after that top eight where Yaxell, um, Morris Johnson, like these are just guys that okay. See we'll pick. And then you'll, you'll get texts from 20 teams being like, fuck. Okay. See, did it again. And I wonder if that's going to change how people see the draft with their own spot. It's like even Atlanta at eight or the words that 11, like, ah, I wonder what okay. See would do here. I will call you. I heard you say that with Legler a couple of days ago, I will say that the spurs had that kind of reaction. Maybe 10, 12 years ago where they would take a guy and be like, I remember vividly this happened with Kyle Anderson. Like, oh, of course the Spurs steal Kyle Anderson. And then it turns out he's just like, whatever, like it's sometimes he's like, oh, of course they draft this guy turned into like, of course the Spurs drafted Josh Primo. What a steal. He's going to be. Oh, yeah. That was that a steal. Okay. Uh, so just, you know, he carried away with it. All right. Aggregate that. Zach Lowe says Presti overrated. Oh, I know. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. Uh, we're taking, we're taking a quick break and then I have an awesome mega mailbag and Zach can recover from eviscerating Sam Presti right after this, this episode is brought to you by Michelob ultra. We're in the heart of the world cup. Look at these little special bottles for Michelob ultra, uh, every play matters here. FIFA world cup 26 for you. The stakes are just decide Michelob ultra, the official beer sponsor of the FIFA world cup. FIFA world cup 26 is giving you a chance to win $1 million worth of tickets and prizes. Michelob ultra from the pitch to the poor superiors worth playing for enter now at Michelob ultra.com/superior access/FIFA world cup two, six Michelob ultra FIFA world cup 26 superior access. No purchase necessary. Open to us. Residence 21 plus begins on December 1st, 2025. Ends on July 31st, 2021. On July 31st, 2026, multiple entry periods, visit www.michaelobultra.com/superior access/FIFA world cup 26 for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes, and details. All right. Mailbag time. All right. Some really good ones. This is from, I hope I pronounced this correctly, Pacho and Dusseldorf, Germany. He threw you in this mailbag question. Okay. He said, I want to know how you and Zach think a tournament of the last eight champions would actually shake out. Here's how the seating landed based on win percentage. Number one is okay. See two Boston, three Lakers, four Toronto, five Knicks, six Nuggets, seven warriors and eight bucks. How does it shake out? So first round would be okay. See one versus bucks, eight Boston and golden state Denver and the Lakers and Knicks Toronto. So let's, let's go through the one, eight. I have okay. See over the bucks in five, 2015. 25. Okay. See against that 21 bucks team. I think, I think the thunder handled them. I didn't make specific games picks, but I took the thunder. So it's a thunder and six. I'll give you honest a couple of games. The honest drew holiday, Chris Middleton. I'll give him a couple of games for sure. Okay. I think. Okay. See, it was better. That bucks team. God bless them. Great team. They got a really nice pack. Connaughton playoff run. Middleton was great. I just think the okay. C team was really good. Uh, Celtics. The 24 version going against the 22 warriors. So they almost beat the 22 warriors. And then 24 team, I think was just better. The guys were older, more experienced. I have to sadly take the Celtics. I think it's the Celtics. You put, you throw drew holiday and Porzingis into the mix and it's just the depth and versatility are a different animal than those warriors could, could summon. I think. Yeah. But congrats. Listen, there's no losers. These are eight champions. We're not. Yeah. We're not going to go up for, for some inflammatory. All of these are wonderful teams, great teams. And one of the, one of the common themes we're going to run into is we debate the merits of them. And I, I focused like on match-ups and, and, and like how they met would match up with each other and what they look like in the playoffs more than like regular season, win totals and net ratings. Cause if we're just going to do it that way, just pick the 25 thunder the whole way, if you're going to do just do it that way. And you're going to run into like debating the, the difficulty of their playoff paths to the title. And, but, and that, that's a common, it turns out that's like a common thing. You don't always get the 2011 Mavericks path where you just have to beat all the best teams. Like a lot of these teams in the moment, people said, well, they didn't have to play this team. They didn't have to play that team. It's actually pretty common. Denver over the Lakers sets 23, Denver against the 20 Lakers and that 20 Lakers team did have, this is where it gets complicated because KCP is KCP is in both in both teams. I don't know what we do with that. Okay. I didn't think about that. It's a double KCP. Uh, Caruso was on the Laker team as well. They had Rondo. I, uh, I just think Jokic had the Lakers number over the last few years there. And, um, I would take Denver over the Lakers in six or seven would be my pick. I'm going nuggets in seven, uh, best player and the best version of that team. I think that we've seen the 23 nuggets where we're going peak against peak, right? We're going like peak form. 23 Nuggets versus Denver. This is 20 Lakers. That 20 Lakers is a really good team. I have always been Lakers fans, a proponent of like the bubble title counts just the same as all other titles. It's special in its own way. I'm not saying that there's nothing about that. They had Danny green too. You forgot about Danny green. They had a lot of good role players on that team. I just think that Denver team was, was pretty awesome. And uh, I will take them in a long seven game slug. I feel the same way. Plus Jokic was on that 23 playoffs that Jokic had is one of the all time heaters. I think he was 31, 14 and 11 or something shot 50% from three crazy. All right. Last one's a fun one. Nick's in Toronto and you have OG and an OB on both teams, but we have to factor in the appendicitis for OG and an OB you do. So he's wiped out in the Toronto side, but playing for the next side and, uh, all due respect for Toronto, which I think was the prototype for the, every single guy in our team can create a shot for themselves, which was really one of the first times we had seen that with, uh, with the title team, Kawhi was great that year, but I think the Knicks beat them. How many games do you think it's a good series? I had Nixon six and we're going into Toronto and when, and, and, and going into the air Canada center. Oh no, that would be, they would be winning an MSG regardless Nixon six. What'd you have? Uh, I think this is a tougher one. Um, then I, I initially just circled Knicks cause a, my brain is dumb and they, this just happened. And so I'm overrating them in my head probably a little bit. But they are just an awesome team. They solved all comers. They just had the highest point differential in the history of the playoffs that Raptors and, and our last memory of that Raptors team is, is tainted by Durant injury. clay injury kawaii was kind of running out of gas toward the end of that series and van vliet carried him over the finish line van vliet heat check young siakam young and an ob who didn't play but young siakam was already really good the abaca gasol combo was really good it's a really versatile well-rounded two-way team i'm gonna give them a seven game loss to the knicks i think they take the knicks to the distance in in that series but i'm taking the knicks that sounded like somebody that's going to toronto for a world cup game in two days didn't want to be yelled at yeah well look um next next round is much better and much tougher yeah i'm not gonna like what's gonna happen in this in this room we have okc in the knicks and we have denver in the celtics and i think that's an easier one i think denver beats the celtics yokage always beats the celtics and uh i don't care how good that 24 celtics team was i don't think we're beating the 23 nuggets unfortunately so i have them in six the other one's a tough one who'd you have in the denver series that that's the like the dream series we didn't get right like that whole season when boston got won the title the dream was denver boston like they'll all go the two regular season matchups were like the most amped up matchups of most hyped up matchups of the season i remember vividly watching one on a plane and praying the wi-fi would stay strong enough for me to continue watching the game because they didn't have live tv on this particular flight um i went back and forth i'll take denver and seven just defaulting again too they have the best player and that team was just humming like aaron gordon it's like peak aaron gordon peak bruce brown peak peak everybody involved pretty much and so i will take denver and seven but i think that celtics team was was awesome um and solved some of its like late game you know whatever yips or whatever they had no question that would have been an awesome series okc over new york is an even tougher call i went with okc in seven um because all the dudes they would have had to do it again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again to throw up brunson i think the big what if of these playoffs that we just had is if okc just beats san antonio and seven do we feel much better about san antonio than we did after five finals games and then that okc team was just all my knicks fan friends were like thank god we didn't have to play okc that was a much tougher matchup for us so i would go okc in seven in that one uh but i really waffled and i couldn't decide my heart wants to take the knicks yeah and i think i think the knicks again their level of problem they're a very difficult team to play against they're an unusual team in a lot of respects with the with this six foot nothing guard who gets whatever he wants in a shooting five and all this wing versatility wing size around them i mean what do you make of oklahoma city needing seven to beat denver with michael porter jr playing with one arm and aaron gordon playing with one leg and then seven to beat indiana like like this is what i struggle with because again if you're just going to go on newness on paper regular season plus combined resumes it's oklahoma city and it's not close but the playoff resumes are new york's run better however you want to quantify it was certainly more dominant easier conference albeit i think i might actually take the nixon seven to win to win this matchup over that specific oklahoma city thunder team i think i might i think something just because of the inexperience and i i just it wasn't it was a very good playoff run by oklahoma city great championship run i just think something crazy happened with the knicks and they just found nirvana and found magic so i'll just whatever this is a fun extra i'm taking the nixon seven forget it sorry it's a great one i uh here's here's why i took okc all the guys they're amazing there's no wrong answer just all the guys to throw a brunson which san antonio had but the difference is in the last five minutes okc had shea and san antonio didn't have anybody and that's why they kept losing those games i'm just me all right so i have finals denver i have over okc so um just because they came so close to beating okc anyway and that 23 denver team was way better so that one was an easier one for me so you have denver versus new york in your matchup so here you have i went denver and seven it's crazy that we both ended with the 23 nuggets who were pilloried for having two play-in teams in their playoff run and yeah and how soft it wasn't playing miami in the finals and all that i think you know i think it's a good thing that we both ended with the 23 nuggets who were pilloried for you know power ranking these i think 23 denver 25 okc 26 nick the last four to me are stronger than the early parts of i agree with that of the run um the last four are really really good single season teams just awesome teams top to bottom yeah i think the 23 nuggets were the best of the eight so we agree okay it's fake trade season for the next part of the mailbag first one's from mac he said i have to say that you were early and so right about harper i'll take all i know you're right about harper i'll take all i know you're right about harper i'll take all i know notice dylan harper was awesome compliments in the preseason which was the single easiest thing to know um i know that dallas is contractually obligated to have their best player be a white guy but hypothetically okay let's say you were the spurs gm and dallas calls offering flag for harper do you say yes what if the wizards call and offer you the first pick for harper harper is not getting traded for any pick in this draft i've already litigated that flag for harper is more interesting dallas obviously isn't trading flag nobody's trading anybody but i'm wondering what from what we know now i still think flag should go first but i i did waffle way more than i would have two months ago so the question is not who goes first in the draft it's to the spurs who says no to flag for harper or do the spurs say yes or no i mean it's actually a better trade for san antonio because they already have a point guard right i think i still i just think they say no anyway because what they just saw with harper in the playoffs is a known commodity they've gotten a year to know him and within their walls they know how he fits with one banyama he's a more i i it's a it's a more of a sea change to go to flag as the supersized point forward you look you can't lose with either of them but i think they would probably be like i think it's a double no i think it's a double no yeah i mean the mavs the mavs aren't in a hurry the mavs are saying no as well for sure they hang up faster flag on that spurs team would have been fascinating like literally what they needed not that harper wasn't what they needed but flag now they're saying no to flag for sure they're saying no to flag for sure they're saying next to webby would have been really fun this one's a little more realistic even though i don't think it happens from aaron and oregon who says no austin reeves for jalen duran double sign and trade lakers get their big for luca to trick it's a perfect fit next to kate avoids overpaying duran and then he adds also is everyone sleeping on dame freaking lillard joining this portland team that got a win in san antonio so he's true dame's coming back he just did the two-part question that you do at the press conference when you only get one question adam two-parter for you and there's just completely unrelated it's like hey what about expansion b aspiration that finishing anytime soon tags i'll take it from here um uh yeah we are sleeping on dame it's it we're i'll talk more about portland later uh what was the first part i already forgot this is the danger of the two-part question duran duran reeves double sign and trade just so who's i'm just going beef stew paul reed all in on those guys and finding a center down the line it's like austin reeves is a better player right now than jalen duran um i feel like his they they need secondary creation around cade they more urgently need what regular season jail and during was in terms of like rim running all that stuff so i'm just i'm that's too much these are huge changes i'm saying no it's too much for me to contemplate as the detroit pistons i'm saying no as well for both teams i do think detroit needs to get during somewhere between 30 and 34 to 5 seems doable to me yeah i don't think i didn't he can't be a max guy this next one's fun level quips trade fifth pick for palo banquero quips already have garland drafting garters redundant magic could choose a cuff to pair with sugs and franz and fix their luxury tax issues what are your thoughts it did make me pause as earlier in the podcast i had a jalen brown for the five you said that wasn't on the boston timetable which you're right um this is a little more on the uh magic timetable pretty good trade that's a good one so basically when you save 35 million on the cap and banquero is still very young so it's sort of a although he's making a max salary my whole thing about the clippers and being just overjoyed to have a blue chip young guy kind of still applies clippers gotta think hard about that gotta think really hard about that there is something a little depressing about pairing two of like two guys who are leaving disappointing postseason teams uh or i guess the cabs are no longer a disappointing Arlen and Ben Carroll feels like, hey, we got the discards from teams that just didn't do quite as much, didn't play quite as well in the playoffs as we wanted. That's a good one. I don't know if I. The film I've watched of the draft guys with the Clippers, I'm just saying, I'm going to make the pick. I'm making a pick. There's enough guys that I would love to have on my team that I'm just going to make the pick. Would you trade the fifth pick for Mobley? That one gets really interesting because that solves a lot of luxury tax shit for Cleveland, too. I probably. I think. That's hard. That's hard. As the Clippers? As the Clippers, I probably would. And I just think Mobley's a little bit more. Is he better than Ben Carroll? I think he is a little bit better than Ben Carroll just because of what he can do defensively. He's like a total no and A-plus commodity. And he's very young, but. See, I wouldn't do that trade if I was the Cavs. You would. I would not because. You would not. It's all guards on the fifth pick, and I think I would rather- Oh, I wasn't even thinking about it from their perspective. I don't think they're- Clips, I would do it. I don't think they're moving Mobley almost for anyone right now. Good. They shouldn't. Adam from Santan Valley, Arizona had a three-teamer where the Warriors got Anthony Davis and Klay Thompson. Washington got Jimmy Butler in the 11th pick from Golden State. And Dallas got Pods and Moses Moody in the trade exception from AD. The 11th is way too much for Anthony Davis. I don't think he has that kind of value. I do feel like there's a next year's first from Golden State with the Butler expiring for Davis is like in the vicinity of what I think. And I don't think Davis wants to be in Washington and neither do you. But I don't think he's worth the 11th pick with the injury history over the years and his age and his salary. The Warriors just, you gotta, you just gotta think a little bit about tomorrow too. And I think they've been pretty open about that. Like, yes, we want to win around Steph. Yes, Anthony Davis would help. You gotta think a little bit about, about tomorrow. Why was Dallas in that trade? What was Dallas getting out of that? Just to get Klay Thompson back on Golden State, which I fully support. I think Adam was thick rain. All right. This is the best one from Doug from Sleepy Hollow. You discussed Chicago Memphis trades to get Peterson to Chicago with house. But the ideal one is staring us in the face. Number three for number four and a sick new Hyatt in downtown Memphis. Oh, come on. One of the weird sub pots of the season finding out. But NBA players hate Memphis because of the hotel. Well, the governor of Illinois is rich because his family owns Hyatt and he's currently taking heat from Illinois sports fans because the Bears are threatened to move to Indiana. With one move, everyone wins. Bulls get Peterson. Memphis gets Wilson and a luxury Hyatt in downtown Memphis. But that's not helping me. That's not helping me as the Memphis Grizzlies. It's helping my opponents rest better and be happier when they come to my city. And that's a great point. I want them to be unhappy. No. Yeah, so Memphis says no. They're like, this hotel thing's an advantage for us. The players are pissed. They don't sleep well. They can't get good room service. Like, we like where we are with this. Screw you. They hang up. Oh, this was the Jalen Brown trade they got. This is from Sean T. Jalen Brown and Hauser for Jamal Murray and Aaron Gordon. Ooh. That got an ooh out of me. It's funny because Jalen Brown and Jamal Murray was the big Boston who were they going to take at three 10 years ago in the 2016. Jamal Murray was one of the guys people thought Boston was going to take. Denver would save a little money on that one too. They'd save a lot of money. We're going to have to ignore that element of I think it's $81 million coming back to the Celtics and Jalen is at 57 and Hauser is at 67 for 81, 68 for 81. Yeah, you could throw in one more to make that work potentially. Pretty good one. Wow. Wow, you're really deliberating on this one. I like this one. So this will give the Celtics Murray with Derek White, Pritchard off the bench, Aaron Gordon, Tatum. You're still hurting at center a little bit, but that would be it. I think I'm a no if I'm Boston just because. Oh, I thought it would be Denver that would be the no. I mean, it could be either, honestly. Again, I have no prep for this, listeners. This is just being thrown at me blind. Yeah, that's what we love. I love torturing with this. The Gordon leg issues are really worrisome to me and I just like $95 million of Jamal Murray and Aaron Gordon in 2029 makes me a little nervous if I'm the Celtics and I care a little bit about maybe cleaning up my books at some point, which is one of the things you've talked about with Jalen. It's a double no. I think the more realistic one would just be Jalen for Jamal Murray straight up with maybe some massaging from the Denver side. Randy in Sacramento, would like to propose the following King special. Oh, boy. Where everyone wins. The Spurs received DeMontis Sabonis. Hawks received De'Aaron Fox and the Kings get Risa Shea, Kaminga and the Spurs 20th pick and maybe their pick swap back. I'll go way more simple than this. What if it's just Fox to the Hawks, Risa Shea and Kaminga to Sacramento and Sabonis and Buddy Heald to San Antonio? No picks, nothing else. That actually works on the trade machine. This person, this person needs assistance immediately. This is absolutely an insane trade. Insane for who? Everybody involved. So, so the Spurs are like, hey, we just made the finals and won 60 whatever games. Here's Sabonis. Like, how about we upend everything and try to pair Sabonis with Victor Wembenyama? That sounds amazing. Yeah, but some rebounds. The Hawks are like, hey, we're a pretty good young team. Yeah, we just resigned CJ McCollum for one year. You know what sounds great? Four years and $220 million. There's a year in Fox for a guy who just picked at number one and Jonathan Kaminga. And I, and the Kings are getting what? They're getting Kaminga and Risa Shea. Yeah, they have to opt in to Kaminga and they get Risa Shea. That's it. That's all they get. That's actually, that's actually not even, the Kings are not making out like bandits there for a guy who called this, a Sacramento presumably fan who called it the King special. That one, that one broke me a little bit. It broke my spirit. It broke my morale. I'm a little flustered by that one. Sorry, Randy. And then the last one, this one's from Ellis in New York who says he loves the pod. I know the Nuggets have no plans to trade Jokic. Okay, let's go. I was waiting for this one. But could the Thunder offer something like Chet, J-Dub, and Picks for Jokic and Aaron Gordon? What's the mother load? How far could it go? It did. So I texted you and I was like, got this Jokic trade. They're not trading Jokic. You texted me. I just want to be clear. 55 minutes before the scheduled start time of this podcast, you just texted me. Hey, build some fair, realistic Jokic trades. Okay. So they're not going to trade him. But I do think if they ever did, Utah would be the team because it's reasonably close to Denver. Is that who you had to? I have six teams. That's how I roll, Bill. You give me 55 minutes. Notice I give you six teams. All I needed was one. I can't believe you had six. Ellis gave me, Ellis gave you one, which is okay. Season obvious when you pair Shea and Jokic and you just figure out the rest. I wouldn't trade both Chet and J-Dub, but one of them. I wouldn't either. But Chet, 12, 17. Yeah, I got a million things. And a couple others. They get, Kaysen's got to be in it. Give me Sorber. They own the rights to multiple Denver first round picks. So I get my picks back. Like there's a lot of stuff there. And Utah's, I'm surprised you landed on Utah too because I have, there's a Utah trade to be made. The problem is, I really want to sign and trade Walker Kessler as part of that trade if I'm the Jazz and the Nuggets because of the apron stuff can't take a player back who's acquired in the sign and trade because I don't, he's the one if I'm getting Jokic. So I have to make, I have to make a three team trade and it gets a little, it's complicated. It was, here's my question. In your Utah trade, was the number two pick involved? Yeah. A hundred thousand percent. Okay. Yeah. It's a, it's a full blow it up for Utah. That was the only one. Yeah. I had a number two marketing and all the other picks they have where they, they basically, and I had them keeping Kessler in the trade, not just for the reason you mentioned, but I also kind of like the idea of Kessler and Jokic together, but, but Utah is one of the few teams that could make a fuck you offer. I think. And you also have to figure you want Jokic to be happy and he kind of likes being on that side and the mountains. Just, you don't have to say what the other offers were, but what were the other four teams you had? I want to, I want to say, all right. So first of all, here are the three different challenges for this, right? Whatever team get, we're seeing now with Giannis, whatever team gets Jokic has to be in position to win immediately. That's number one. Number two, their picks in this new lottery world have to have some upside for me as Denver, where it's like, okay, I'm not going to get the 25th pick every year. And number three, Jokic has to be willing to sign that extension. So we talked about Utah. We talked about, um, okay. See, uh, Houston, Shangoon, Jabari Smith, junior nets, pick son's pick a bunch of swaps rockets pick. So I get bites at the apple from different, from different teams who could bottom out in the right year. Um, Portland, Donovan, Klingon, scoot, Henderson, Jeremy grant, all the bucks picks, all the blazers picks, anything of interest there, for you. Um, you get all the Milwaukee stuff. I don't know if Portland has the headliner for that trade necessarily. No Klingon plus scoot is not as sexy as it, as it might've been. Now the number two pick to me is a much more important headliner. Charlotte Lamella ball or Brandon Miller. Take your pick. Number 14, number 18 salon, a Mavs pick a heat pick all the future Charlotte picks. No, no, and I need, if I'm trading joker, I need something incredible back the Lakers, the Lakers straight up for Luka Donchik. Just cause I thought you'd have a little fun with that one. Hold on. Let's talk this out. I keep LeBron Reeves and I get you. Okay. And we're going all in to win the title with that group. We're not going to have, we're not going to have a lot of defense, but we'd already don't have enough. Throw in more Luca though. More than Luca, right? I got to throw in a pick or two with that future. Something, anything. I don't know. I mean, that's pretty good. Um, Wyndham Clark just won the, uh, us open. Okay. I might have always, I've always said, you always said Wyndham Clark is my guy. David Sherman said, one of my favorite takes you've ever had is the NBA should word larger, smaller trophies to the NBA champion, depending on how important and impressive the runner triumph is. What size would you give the Knicks after this year? Obviously, known as getting a bigger trophy than the 2011 Mavs. blah blah blah so i actually that idea was for the mvp not the nba uh not the lawrence o'brien trophy um because i feel like every championship is special um i think you just threw out the trophies full name not the larry o'brien you just call it lawrence ironically probably the worst commissioner of the leagues ever had um just overwhelming about evidence i think this is a better idea for the mvp because we have some incredible you know like the shack 2000 or lebron 2012 mvps where it's just like these are the biggest 40 pound mvps and then there's the other ones were like carl malone during the lockout was a great one every chance every chance you get three pounder i want to tell people both privately and publicly any chance you get a slander carl malone you're not passing it up i feel great about it i have text threads with carl malone slander it's just great about it feel i feel one of my least favorite non-celtics ever um i wish he had had a cup of coffee with the celtics at the end of his career so the trophies if we if we gave them three maybe three sizes only for how impressive the run was um i still feel like the 2011 maps would be higher than this next title but i still thought it was really impressive it was a level two for me it was level one level two level three being the highest three is the highest that's and that's really just 2011 maps i don't even know who else is on that uh this was a solid level two the level is are we combining difficulty memorability yeah the whole thing yeah the historical significance the knicks had a bunch of it but i don't know the path i don't know you could get them i think this is a level three i think the knicks just had a level three and my case would be 16 and three in the playoffs greatest point differential in the history of the playoffs um collision with wemba nyama which we will always remember because the next face of the league and all that entered a hero and left a villain in very simplistic terms uh and first title in 53 years for the biggest market and one of the most historic franchises this war i think it's a level three despite now that you could nitpick the opposition it's a level three you know what else you're right and you left out the greatest comeback in the history of the sport the one of the most iconic plays of all time it's a level three my apologies next fans you were you there's a level three title um this next email is really good it's from sean and charlotte who fancies himself as an amateur mba historian he said the knicks playoff run was 100 unbelievable i clocked your shawshank redemption reference in your june 14th podcast um was the patriots 2001 superbowl like this for you do you actively remember thinking you didn't have to cringe at that refrigerator paris well touchdown anymore the rest of your life and he's right um but he said seeing the history of the history of the history of the history of the history of the history of the history of the history of the history of the history of the history of the people i don't have to think about anymore michael jordan scotty pippen horace grant q hollins phil jackson hakeem reggie miller rick smiths pat riley pj brown scott laden isaiah thomas kurt rambis jeff hornacek david fizzdale trey young and tyrese halbert that was sean and charlotte and it's such a great point when you win a title all of these horrible skeletons you have in your poltergeist pool just vanish into dust why did he include you hugh hollins hugh hollins that was the the that was a phantom foul in the nick's favor was it not i know but then it led to them making the final so maybe he sees hugh hollins and it led to more pain i don't know why he included him okay um but it's a great point because i remember when the red sox won in 04 and the aaron boone game had happened the year before remember when the yankees won and i remember exactly where i was yeah and that was going to haunt me the rest of all of a sudden that aaron boone homer nothing means nothing to me anymore it's just dead and that's what happens when you win a title is all the all the skeletons just vanish i felt terrible i remember exactly where i was in that game i i was a neutral party in as much as i was not a neutral party i was a mets fan growing up but my dad is a red sox fan so i was cheering for the red sox i i was at the i think it was called the lion's head on the upper west side slash morningside heights and it was a it was the cool it was a mixed crowd half yankees fans half red sox fans rowdy i just remember r.i.p feeling the absolute worst for tim wakefield who just had made such a great career out of being a knuckleballer was an iron man and annings eater beloved member of that team and just watching him walk off the mound i just man this this anybody i would have been i would have felt less bad if it had almost been anybody on the red sox but him they gave up that homer so beloved that none of us held it against him that he gave up the season-ending homer we all love tim wakefield it was never it wasn't like a calvin shiraldi bob stanley thing and then a year later he became one of the playoff heroes yeah but that is a great part of winning the title this episode is brought to you by michelob ultra whether you're racing to build the biggest sandcastle seeing who can throw the fastest pitch or competing in a championship match it's always better when there's a prize on the line like michelob ultra smooth refreshing and so satisfying after all that hard work superior is worth playing for michelob ultra superior light beer enter for a chance to win superior soccer basketball golf prizes at michelob ultra.com slash superior access enjoy responsibly copyright 2026 anheuser-busch michelob ultra light beer st louis missouri did you know that psoriatic arthritis may progress over time and could cause permanent joint damage if left untreated listen to 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moved visit mazda usa.com discover how confidence comes standard consumer reports does not endorse products or services visit mazda usa.com to learn more jeff from new york now it's gonna get a little dark but the next look at the best they've been in completing only owning the city with this title it's officially over for the brooklyn nets they are a zombie franchise playing in a gentrified mall why not move the nets to las vegas buy out robber para move the grizzlies to seattle and let the new ownership groups pay a massive relocation entry fee to the other 30 owners instead of expansion you get you still get a lot of money seattle gets sonic back vegas gets a roster we don't have to watch 31 expansion teams who says no i do wonder do this did the size you think have like a secret meeting being like is this ever going to work here what do we do i mean i think i think this is not even a i mean the the relocation thing is a little bit crazy but this whole like existential crisis of the brooklyn nets is a franchise is is a real thing because if you did like ancillary winners and losers of the finals and the playoffs and the next title run the nets are near the top of the list because this just underlined irrelevant is too strong of a word but new york is a multi-team town for every sport it seemingly accepts nba basketball and i guess wmba basketball because of the liberty who decides also on our like a phenomenal fan experience and a great team um it's just like this this high like i i found myself imagining what would a nets parade look like if if they had won during the durant it would not have been like that it would not have felt like that it would have been 20 to 10 like that and i i and why i find it interesting is because it's not like it's not like it's not like it's not find it interesting is because obviously the nets have been kind of tanking since that team broke up and failed uh the lottery gods have not been kind to them they were not kind to them again they're picking sixth on tuesday and they have just drafted a bunch of point guards that's a point guard spot um i just wonder sort of how aggressive the sides want to be i'm like hey we gotta like we this is embarrassing like we gotta put something together that creates a little buzz and i'm not sure how we do that like do we want to go out and get this guy that guy just i'm interested to see how they respond because i do think the knicks winning and the the outpouring of emotion from the entirety of new york city is like a meaningful material change to like what the brooklyn nets mean to the nba i really do i'm sorry to nets fans by the way i was lying underneath for decades the opportunity with the nets was that the knicks run had been so awful for 20 years could you steal some knicks fans based on how they tried poorly running weird and duran and kairi were like a couple moments earmarked for the knicks and they went to the net And that was in that whole thing. And then they got hardened and we've talked at nauseam about that. I actually watched the foot on the line three from Durant. It's like mass chaos and Barclays that has to be the loudest and crazy when he makes it and actually goes in and the fans thought they win. So there was some energy there. And if you're the size, you have to think like, okay, well go back and watch some of those games. Like there wasn't nothing. No, but it wasn't nothing. I honestly feel the same way about the Clippers. I just think LA is a Laker town. There's very few Clipper fans. And I don't really fully understand why Ballmer just want to move to Seattle and just be like, you know what? I tried to, obviously he can't now because he just built this into a dome and he's just kind of all in, but there's just a couple of teams. It's the same reason why we don't have two teams in Chicago. The NBA makes way more sense and works better. I wouldn't, Memphis wouldn't be the team I move. I would move New Orleans if I had to pick. A team to move. That would be the, that would be the one we've never seen professional basketball succeed ever in New Orleans. And it's not the fault of the fans, but it's a small market and a team that's run horribly. And if you were just going to say relocation net somewhere and, and, and the Pelican somewhere, and we don't have expansion, here's the other, that makes more sense to me. This is maybe obvious, but here's the other thing that happened with this Knicks title run an entire group of young fans in Brooklyn is in Queens. In every borough and every area of New York is they're now Knicks fans forever. You've lost an entire generation. Even some fans who may be like flirted with being a Nets fan have now pivoted to, to being Knicks fans. I watched it happen in Boston after I left with the Bruins because the Bruins, the owner and some of the stuff that the Bruins really like faded and became like just the hardcore Bruins fans and nobody else. And then this new Bruins group came in and completely rejuvenated the city on the Bruins. And the same thing happened with the Patriots. And all of a sudden you had all these people who are, you know, under 25, under 30, that just love those teams that might not have been there. And the same thing's going to happen with the Knicks. All right. You had no prep for this question. Okay. From Joshua. I was thinking about all the sets of NBA brothers. All-star weekend should capitalize by creating a brothers two on two tournament. What would that look like? I'll give you the eight, uh, eight brother teams. Okay. The Thompson's Dylan and Ron Harper, Giannis and pick a brother Franz and Moe. Wagner, Jalen and Cody Williams, Aaron and drew holiday case. And then Keaton, Willis, Wallace, and, uh, I'm sorry, Wallace and, uh, Steph and Seth Curry. Um, so basically it comes down to, I would say the Thompson twins versus the Harpers in the finals would be my guess. Unless you just think Giannis could one man it. I really would be curious of who Giannis would pick. Wouldn't this tournament be amazing though? First of all, if anything, is better than the taco bell pool and weed or school taco bell skills, presented by spike sprite. Um, uh, I think Giannis would try to pick all of his brothers and just sort of like sub them in and out. And I think the, the league would have to make him pick. No, you have to pick one of them only one. And you have to snub the others and create family drama that will last generations. You have to do it. Uh, I think the Thompson's find a way to bully and defend their way into beating the Harper's and everybody else. And they would be my guess. But Dylan Harper is the Dylan Harper, Ron Harper, Jr. So game seven starter, Ron Harper, Jr. Is a nice team. Yeah. It's a playoff experience for both Thompson's probably a rock fight with the Thompson's, but, but maybe, uh, I don't know. I'd have them in the finals. Thompson twins, minus one 40. I mean, imagine trying to score on those guys two on two. My God. What a, what a, well, the brother tournament. I love it. Um, this is from studs. He says, has the Luca Brunson. team overtaken the Harden, Katie Westbrook, OKC team as the biggest, what if we kept this team together team of the 21st century? In retrospect, none of those OKC guys proved they could will a team to a championship single handedly. Brunson already did it. Maybe Luke could do it someday. And then he says, time is luck. Stuts from Charlotte. That's a reference to Miami Vice, the movie. Time is luck. Big theme. Heat too. Michael Mann. Um, so the only other one, 2022, the only other one I would say is the, what if we kept the team together, but it's not this century was the 95 magic. But I do think those two were in the finals. The Brunson thing in a lot of ways was even worse than the Harden, um, the Harden trade, which we hated. And I think we did multiple pieces of podcasts. It's the first year we're working together. It's single handedly made Grant Lynn's NBA cover. It's profitable and workable for like two years. It's great. We loved it. We loved getting content out of the Harden trade because it was so stupid. The Brunson thing was worse because it was four for 55. And if you remember that last season, even though they said we weren't talking four for 55 during the season, Rick Brunson did go to Dallas and say, if we, it was like in January of that last season, we'll do the four for 55. And Dallas is like, we don't know. I still don't understand it. It was inexplicable. It was, it was happening. Well, it was, it was for trade purposes, right? Like that was why they, if they extended him, they couldn't trade him at that deadline in case something big came up for Luca. And it turned out to something big was on your team. Like the guy that just won finals MVP and scored 45 points in an all time great closeout performance. So what do you think is a bigger, what if we kept this team together team? It's probably still okay. See, because of the sheer totality of the guys. I think this is to pick Dallas is a little bit of a prisoner of the moment take because it was, it was just. It was just, we like Luca and Brunson clearly could have been special together, but one was still coming off the bench for the most part. And yeah, those three guys together, all of whom have won MVPs in the regular season is just so iconic and had shit like was, we had, we, we saw proof of concept. They make the finals as like in the roles that they were probably going to have or Harden was going to start eventually. And then poof, it was gone so dramatically and so quickly. Yeah. They were just iconic players for all different reasons that I still think that's the one. The other thing Harden would have bought them was backup star power when either guy got hurt, which is what happened the next year in 2013 when Westbrook got hurt in the playoffs. And then in 2015 with Durant, everybody just would have been a year from hell with injuries. He also that four for 64, remember he goes to Houston. They immediately give him an even bigger contract than that. Four for 64 for Harden was like a bargain where the league was going. Yeah. Post lockout. So yeah. I remember everything. I remember Harden's first game. I believe it was against the Detroit Pistons as a rocket and it was a meal like, oh my God, this guy's going to actually do this game in and game out. Holy smokes. Sid McCollum in Salem, Oregon. He said, uh, I was discussing me being the NBA commissioner and naming house as my deputy commissioner, just so he could announce the second round picks. It's a joke I made a month ago. And he said, with houses affinity. For sure. Yeah. For food and drinks. My mind went to sponsorship opportunities for each pick house comes out the different food or drink option for different sponsors and league partners and says Arby's steak bites brings us the 31st pick. And with that, the next select blank, I S I'm not going to be the NBA commissioner. I still feel like house could do the second round and they could, they could have food sponsors for each pick. I think he would do better than Mark Tatum. Honestly. I think it's a great idea. I think he could be eating when he walks out on stage. Like I, I think it works. I think a different surprise second round announcer every year is a great gimmick. Just keep, just, you just got to keep it under wraps and just so sure comes to the smoke machine. NFL does it. Yeah. I mean, I saw they had different people coming out, making different announcements, but just one guy could be, could be anyone. It could be a music artist. Could be Joe house. It could be you. It could be anybody. I'm available. The more, the more tough to pronounce names, the better for you. Kobe from Oakland now in Vancouver says Harper quickly emerges as a prodigy and potential great, but Fox is at his way. What similar MBA situations from the past can help us predict future outcomes? And he said the first one that came to mind for him was Curry Ellis, where it was the two of them together. Now that team had never won anything. This team made the finals. So I came up with four and then I came up with the winner. Okay. Not prep you for this. No. It was the Michael Kevin McHale situation where McHale eventually took over, but the, but it was kind of the way it was going to go anyway. So I don't think that counts. That was pretty seamless. The transition. Yeah. There was a James worthy Jamal Wilkes situation on those Laker teams, but that was also one guy was getting older. One guy was about to take over. I don't think that counts. There was a Jamal Wilkes, Rick Barry, mid seventies warrior situation that Jamal Wilkes solved by signing with the Lakers as a free agent. And we never found out. Um, and then there was a Norris. And then there was a Norm Nixon magic Johnson situation. That was the one I thought where you were going to, you were going to start with where they traded. Norm Nixon got the number one pick from the Clippers. They took Byron Scott, similar to the Jalen Brown trades. We were talking earlier. I don't have that as my answer either, because that Laker team won a title. The answer is Adrian Dantley and Dennis Rodman in the late eighties Pistons when they traded Dantley because Rodman had to play more. That was the whole point of the trade. They had this absolute. One. One of a kind rebounding defense force that just needed more minutes in Dantley. Wasn't ready to play less than they solved that by trading for a wire who was, uh, I isaiah's buddy i was gonna say that they won two titles that's all chicago connection right between mark weyer and isaiah they won two titles but that's a really good parallel to this because adrian danley a little bit older the question for me with fox because there's some interesting stats about didn't finish at the rim as much this season um not as fast like he was probably the fastest or one of the fastest guys in the league didn't seem as fast so is there wear and tear is he getting older or was he just hurt this year did you land on an answer for that i think it's probably a little bit of both i mean that level of speed and athleticism doesn't last forever and then you throw in some playoffs some ill time he started the year coming back from what it was a some sort of leg injury hamstring or a shin or something or calf rather or something and then finished it with a high ankle sprain but like also that's life in the nba how many guys you're not getting through a hundred games just like oh i was just healthy and energetic the entire year that's just not realistic and i i just think like you can throw all the fake fox trades you want out right now like i don't think any team is trading for him without another season of him kind of rehabbing his game and his trade value a little bit i i don't see any realistic trade this offseason so you think he's a top five when was in house and i did the worst contracts draft he's top five for you now 221 for four years it's i mean it's just it's a huge number and people are already like is he the third best guard on his team and he's a very very good player but if you're having that conversation and that number hasn't even kicked in yet like it's probably in the top five it's a gulp and a sigh when you hear the numbers it's like uh steve from tobaccoville north carolina sure he thinks we should have a playoffs participation trophy shout out to vince goodwill which goes to wow fits is a nice guy which goes to the team who lost to the team who lost to the team who lost to the team who lost in the finals so he said you're gonna have to well i'll walk you through it the 26 trophy our winner would have been the houston rockets they lost to the lakers who lost to the thunder who lost to the spurs who lost to the knicks this trophy reminds the team's fan base that wow they made the playoffs they weren't anywhere close your thoughts so i kind of like this it has to be a first round loser it's a first round it's a first round loser who loses to the team that lost to the team three times in a row well it's not it's not dissimilar to the thing you hear from the fans sometimes if you know our team loses in the second round and it's a crushing disappointment we were the higher seed or whatever it is and then but the team we end up at loss losing to ends up winning the titles i kind of feel better about my you know my second round loss it's a cousin of that so the rockets the turnover is at the end of what was it game two of that series you're disqualified from all of the awards i don't i don't want any of the awards maybe it's not an award maybe it's maybe it's like a like a voodoo doll or something did we ever figure out what do we ever figure out what missoula did with the coach of the year trophy do we do we know that oh my god i look at ebay every day i'm ready to bid on it on ebay it's definitely in his garage robbie wants to know if jaylen brunson was actually the best free agent signing of all time and says i find this hard to believe you do robbie well i have a couple that i think were bigger okay i think shack to the lakers in 96 eight years three rings four finals one mvp that's just a bigger signing than brunson sorry lebron and bosh durant to golden state that's two titles lebron back to cleveland in 14 and then bringing cleveland a title i think has to be dead even with brunson to the next so i would have it tied for fourth i i think part of the reason why people would make the argument that it should be higher and i'm not sure that it is the shack one is a great is a great call and obviously like doomed orlando forever and ever and there's all sorts of controversy about who offered what and when and what went wrong and all that um but i think brunson is the only one of those that's not a max right like brunson is not a max and you kind of have to piggyback on top of it the extension that wasn't a max that has allowed them to sort of wiggle around under the second apron for a little while here uh that's going to be pablo's next five parts here well he's the next fan i guess he can't do it the jaylen taking less i'm still still i don't think so dubious i don't think there's any secrets there he knew exactly what he was doing he trusts that he's going to be taken care of on the back end because he knows all these people and he wants to win and it helped them win i don't think there's any like i think it's a unique one-of-one situation that is that is unreplicable a couple other ones gus williams to seattle that led to a title jamal wilkes to the lakers chauncey billups to detroit rail into miami the shot robert horde to san antonio in 2003 and then uh nash to phoenix was a great one i think if the question is what's the savviest free agent of all time signing of all time i think brunson might win where they went higher than a lot of people thought um it was not a well-received signing right it was four for 106 from a team that wouldn't pay him four for 55 and the way it worked out a couple other random ones richard lewis and carlos boozer both really good ones didn't lead to titles richard lewis led to a finals but uh okay i'm really excited for this next question we're almost done by the way james james phelps yeah have you been watching the world cup zach well uh i don't want to talk about the world cup but yeah i have been watching some of it he likes james phelps likes that in soccer they have specific jersey numbers for certain positions attacking mid number 10 striker 9 defensive stopper usually 6 so what would you do for basketball and should we do it so it's a two-part question what would the numbers be because he said like shooting guard 23 small forward 33 and would you like it more if the best players on teams wore the numbers that the best players wear like in soccer i gotta say i did thought experimented out and i kind of enjoyed it i can't believe you i can see you doing this i can see you you put out a pad and paper and you started right you took this thought about it some time in your life that could otherwise have been spent with your wife or children was spent was spent on this the mailbag you have to take to the end with all questions 23 shooting guard 21 power forward in honor of duncan okay six for center for bill russell sure 33 small forward for bird and then one or 32 for point guard i would vote for 32 because of magic the thinking is the best guys ever would all get the numbers but i do like i do like the concept of like if san antonio right now it's like well harper fox is wearing 32 should harper have it it's the point guard number who's getting yeah okay and when he's the other thing when he would wear six in this when he would wear six this is particularly artful what you're doing because lebron is not represented except he is he's 23 6 and 23 so 23 in soccer 10 is like the number i know that much that's the best guys luca modric so in this we have 23 which is shooting guard but it's also like lebron basically could it's not like you can pigeonhole him so 23 is like the number and that's you know like orlando palo wanted 23 but franz thinks he should have it i think it opens up for a lot of you're just creating trade rumors you're just creating rumors whose team is it your whole your team is being perhaps tatum's out for the year jaylen where's jaylen where's the 33 33 yeah i do like this though i think i've been my mind immediately went to jay crowder can't be 99 we were just we were censoring individual expression like this i mean like you know i i like numbers i like being able to pick my number ethan from cleveland says when yannis forces a trade it'll be the second time this summer team owned by jimmy haslam has traded a generational talent he screwed up the browns and bucks so badly his teams are forced to trade both garrett and yannis in the same offseason miles garrett um does this move him toward the top of the list of one of the worst owners in recent sports history i don't know i don't know i mean just his browns work alone has done that i can't really hang the buck stuff on him as much um because when he got there it was kind of that was one of the reasons um that uh lasry sold in the first place because it was like i'm gonna get up from this black table right now because they just changed dealers on me and he just got out with that said it is pretty crazy that he presides over those two teams that just traded their two best franchise guys they are one of the two teams with phoenix that i have to remind myself when i go on spo track i gotta scroll down a little further to the dead money section to get their true cap numbers like oh my god bradley what are you doing here oh my god 22 a year for nothing i did the i did the sun's cap sheet earlier today because of their gillespie and jordan goodwin deals i was like oh they're in pretty good shape and i scrolled ah yeah tax dead money sounds like a movie we could rent on roku uh moses says my question regarding darren peterson why would anyone draft this guy in the top three it's not often we see a guy with this many red flags pan out i really think he's going to be a bust i would gamble on my four but i would much rather have the other three thanks love the podcast what a what a bus so he's gonna he's a bus and he's like i'll take him before that's like if you're a bus just go all the just don't take him moses was all over the place um i do think flags that the moment of truth, I'd be a little nervous when these other three guys, I think are all going to be really, really, really awesome. Like you better really be sold on the reasons Peterson had the cramping stuff and some of the other stuff happened last year. I don't, where did you land on him? I mean, when you look at the YouTube clips, it's out of control. He's, he looks awesome. Uh, I think the upside, I think he has scary, scary upside. Uh, I would take him with one of the first two picks just because I've heard all of the teams have seen every bit of medical data that they would want to see and have come away feeling like, okay, like there's nothing here that is of long-term concern. So you like them more than Boozer? I love Boozer. Boozer's so good. He's incredible. Um, I think his floor is, is maybe even higher than anyone else in the draft and the ceiling's pretty damn high too. I just think those two guys as fulcrums of elite offenses could be so special that. I don't know if I could take Boozer over any of them, over either the DeBansa or, uh, Peterson, but I, I love Boozer. I was absolutely blown away by the Boozer tape, as I've mentioned several times on the Zach Lowe show. This is the most Zach Lowe question possible. It's from Connor and Bend, Oregon. Every time I listen to people praise the Knicks roster construction, I think to myself, my Blazers did it first. 2015 Dame, Wesley Matthews, Nick Batum, all of them. I don't know if I could take Boozer over any of them, over either the DeBansa or Peterson, Aldridge, Robin Lopez, a season that ended with the Blazers getting dog walked by Memphis, Dame getting his playoff lumps and West tearing his Achilles. Um, with my dread at the possibility of our new owner moving the team, it's nice to imagine another reality where the Blazers won a championship. So Dame wasn't, Dame wasn't really Dame yet in that playoffs in Memphis. He, he, uh, was 16% from three, uh, Memphis beat them in five, but he is right. That was the construction. It was a little bit. It's similar to that next construction. Aldridge left after the season that Blazers team. I went back. That team was really good on paper. They also, they traded for a follow. They had CJ McCollum younger. They had Myers Leonard. They had Alan Crabb a year away from getting paid 72 million by the nets. Um, pretty solid team. The West Matthews thing killed them though. Uh, look, that could be my burner account from Bend, Oregon, who emailed that in because it's one of my most beloved forgotten teams ever. I absolutely love that team. It's Nick Batum. It's Robin Lopez, Wesley Matthews. It's everything just came. They were a classic greater than the sum of their parts team. And they were super fun to watch. And then one by one, it all kind of came on done starting with West tearing his Achilles. And then LA leaves in free agency, I believe after that, after that playoff loss too. Um, and so that was hanging over the team all year. It was a beautiful team to watch. They won a lot of games and I do think they had an outside chance of having like making a finals and they, they just didn't. And that's, that's tough, man. It's hard to win a title. These two are related ones from EB who says he's a Homer Milwaukee fan. He gets upset that people don't mention Giannis's 50 point closeout game six. Why is Brunson's thing over that already? So he had a whole thing about that. And then Jordan from Hoboken said, um, everything you have said on your pods about Jalen Brunson should also apply to Eli Manning being an Alphona championship team. Trump's everything. Eli did it twice. You bump Brunson all the way up to 41 on your Pantheon or your pyramid. Imagine if, uh, he did what he did twice. He likes to be in the hall of fame, blah, blah, blah. Um, here's, here's the difference comparing Brunson to Eli Manning and Giannis. This will be the first podcast. I can't wait for this. Um, there was a real inevitability with what was happening with Brunson in these fourth quarters that I think kind of, kind of Trump that, yeah, as great as that Giannis 50 point game was, it was a lot of chewing your nails that he was going to make free throws. And he was on a little bit of a heater. And then Eli was basically would have a couple of great throws, but it wasn't like he was dominant. What Brunson broke the spurs by game five. I just felt like I just value a little differently what he did the playoffs and especially game five. And I think it's hard to compare it. Uh, Giannis, first of all, Giannis is 50 point closeout game is being mentioned because every graphic on television that has had like, here's where Jalen Brunson's closeout game ranks NBA history is mentioning that game. It's an all time classic game. The drew to Giannis lob is one of the craziest, most iconic plays. Okay. No, that's the end of the series. Game five was in Phoenix. And then game six was the 50 point game. That was the game when he couldn't shoot the free throws. Um, but he, he has a preposterous free throw. Line in the, he made a member. He missed the two near the end of game five. And it was the whole thing of, yo, Giannis is free throws. And then he went on the heater and game six. I just, I felt like Brunson was a level above it where, I mean, when it gets to the point where you're down 10 and you're just like, ah, here comes Brunson. That's a, that's a whole other level against, against one, but Yama and that defense, uh, to, I mean, look, they're all, it's all incredible, but Brunson Brunson, Giannis, two great closeout games. I, and I don't, you know, I don't have a strong take. I guess Brunson Brunson is just sexier because it's like a six foot, nothing point guard in real time. Problem solving is a hard work title, but just problem solving. It's like, you're over there. You're over here. We're going to do this. We're going to do that. And I'm just going to get to my spot, no matter what you do and make tough shots, tough, classic NBA shots. Giannis is not a classic NBA shot shot maker. Brunson is set from seven Oh seven says, Hey, conspiracy bill was that finals loss all part of Wimbledon Yama's long game to convince us. That he's not an alien. Oh, interesting. So like he's like, he zagged on us. Cause he was like, if I win the title at age 22, they might investigate me. I, they might find out where I'm actually from. I really liked this idea as an ex, as an old school X-Files fan. I'm all about, have you seen disclosure day yet? No, I still haven't. No, I haven't seen it yet. I might, it might be a solo. I'm just going to drive to movie theater in the middle of the day by myself and watch it. Um, man, there's, there's a Chris Paul question here that I'm going to skip. It was about Chris Paul in the pyramid because we're running out of time. I'll save it for the next time. Um, Tiago wanted to mention that he's forever grateful for Leon Ross, Leon Rose and the Knicks. Has there ever been a front office roster combination that saved the image of an owner more than these guys saved Dolan, who is considered one of the stupidest owners of all time, mishandled the team for decades in the market. And now, um, they win the title. It's a really good one. I didn't think of like, I couldn't think of another owner that had his legacy just flipped like that. The only one that was close was Steinbrenner 96 because they hadn't won for 18 years. And he kind of, he went crazy Steinbrenner in the eighties and early nineties was like, Oh my God, this guy's deranged. And then all of a sudden they filled around the farm system and they built this next dynasty. And it kind of flipped the Steinbrenner narrative again. So when I get to go so deranged, they had Larry David, made a Seinfeld caricature. People were like, that sounds about right. Like that doesn't seem too deranged at all. Yeah. Um, but yeah, that's, that's a good one. And then, uh, there was this email from David Hartman. Cause I've been talking a lot about home field advantage and home court advantage and what's happened. And he reminded me that, uh, Wertham and Moskowitz did that book scorecasting when we were really good in the first chapter is about home field advantage. They crunched the data, the waiter, the writers concluded the single biggest factor was referee bias. They dismissed travel, crowd noise, everything else and concluded subconsciously or subconsciously the refs don't want to piss off the home crowd. And then he said, it's in the last 15 years, we have technology replays. We have these referee grading systems are different. Pretty good explanation, right? I got to tell you, it's a good explanation. I think the referees are tougher and better trained, um, tougher in terms of like, I don't think they care about the crowd. I will say I'm getting it's it's old man yells at class. I'm getting pretty close to the, how about we just review nothing solution to basketball. Just like, how about there's no reviews because I just, these games just take forever. And the reviews sap all the soccer's fast. Well, they're banging these out and it's like, how is this a hundred times easier than basketball soccer? Do, are they stopping the clock for the hydration break in the world? Okay. So they're at least stopping the clock for that. Um, cause I would love to introduce soccer to the stop and stop. I would love to introduce soccer to the stop and stop. It's a stopwatch. It's a great, great advantage. Seven, seven minutes. I'm just going to do seven. Everyone good with that. That would have been funny if they did that for game five of the finals. The Spurs now have two extra minutes. Four. Okay. I guess it's four, four on the dot. Caleb wants to know Jimmy Butler demanded a trade from Minnesota because he hated playing with towns and Wiggins and now Wiggins and towns are now champions and Butler is not. And likely we won't ever be one. Is he going to snap this summer? I thought it was going to, the question was going to go the other way and say, who was, who has been most wrong exiting a team, uh, about the internal makeup of the team they exited. Pretty, pretty crazy though. Um, and then just like cat and Wiggins got it done. A couple more really quick. OG Lawrence from Toronto asked if OG is the goat player with all-star selections, right? Now, probably Andrew Andre Miller was in the lead before that finals. So I, I, I did the research. You want to hear the, I did a deep dive, uh, basketball reference i i looked at og stats and only regular season stats because that's the only way you can do it and i went uh over 7 000 career points he's right around 7200 pr above 13 win shares above 35 value over a placement player above 10 because that's where he is no all-star appearances um the most points scored for the answer is no i just despite the fact that you can you know you have to account for what just happened in the playoffs like 21 a game on insane shooting the iconic tipping i mean eddie johnson has 19 000 career points and never made an all-star team my our friend eddie johnson from yes johnson and termini i was surprised too he's on this list no all-stars no all-stars is not an all-star as part of my search well he deserves it he's a yoka chander eddie johnson that's what you get for hating yokage andre miller's up there cj mccollum just in the news today like three games into this playoffs would have been the answer to this question uh and i just think there are too many uh sam perkins is on here robert or he is on here that's an interesting one oh robert horry is a good one yeah i mean there's a lot of there's a lot of uh a lot let me see who else i wrote down because sam perkins is a nice one too yeah no there's a lot of um there was michael cooper marcus canby jason terry lamar odom um is is on here uh there's some good ones tony kukoc so what do you think the answer is i think the answer is i can't i right now no just because like the career stats are and he's missing he's another like seven eight years yeah but but because those guys are pretty like jamal crawford has 19 000 some points um those are pretty accomplished dudes grant hill is or i'm sorry good george i saw george hill it's george hill forget it no grant hill you're got george hill um i just think there are too many like aaron gordon is a good one for this uh another like you know championship second third third wheel that's a really good one and and put us from the stats so i mentioned mark mikhail bridges by the way he's on this list too consecutive game street that he's kind of messed around with mark i messed up this email he said he watched without limits couldn't help but wonder if the knicks figured out the bill bowerman success equation and basically how he told steve bronte and stopped front running because he'd lose you're burning out your gas in the beginning spur style i screwed this up when i did the pod and i talked about how he would roar from behind the wheel and i was like i'm not gonna do that i'm not gonna do behind bowerman was the one that was like you're expending too much energy stay behind come up in the end and was that basically what the knicks were doing with the bill bowerman strategy of they would let the spurs punch themselves out basically and then come in late so i wanted to apologize to him okay this is the last one zach jeff m he said in honor from in honor of from hell month on the rewatchables two coming this week i wanted to present the case on the having one of the worst from hell years in sports history we lose the final after our beloved star tears his achilles in game seven after hitting three threes the same star gets shingles derailing his recovery our tank season is rewarded by losing our lottery pick in a 50 50 coin flip our arch nemesis wins the championship without having to play us and simultaneously kills the halliburton shot and reggie miller it's been one gut punch after another i fully suspect halliburton to get attacked with africanized bees this summer okay riding with you for almost 20 years by far my longest relationship that's jeff m and then samir chimed in i've had enough of everyone applauded in the 26 next without mentioning they never went through the team that knocked them out the last two years i can't remember another nba team who just got to avoid beating their bugaboo team to win it all just a brutal way to wrap up the most devastating pacers year so i got a lot of pacer emails like this and when you talked about winners and losers i think the nets were the biggest loser of that finals i think the pacers were like second the pacers a year ago were riding high with their fans and a year later on top of everything else that happened then they had to watch the next one the title it's brutal you know it's funny that it didn't pop into my head that way it funny because the halliburton shot has been so in my mind because of what happened in game one of the conference finals this year where the knicks pulled a reverse comeback and have the shot that hits the rim and bounces in so it's not like that team's been forgotten but yeah you're you're right the pacers eliminated the next two years in a row the first time they won the conference finals they won the first one i the knicks just like ran out of players i think they were the better team in that series probably and just like everybody got hurt including brunson in the last game and an obi could barely move if you remember that uh but yeah i mean look the pacers this is why they're one of my more interesting teams coming into the next season a like half their team is extensionals will and b they just made the zubat straight that became a little bit more painful for them than maybe they anticipated but they're loaded for bear next year like why not why not them as your east favorite why not the biggest question would be halliburton what's he gonna look like next year agreed but zubats will be better for them they basically have everybody else back in some form um same coach all that stuff and i i got an email from mark j a couple people asked this too the uh halliburton actually getting hurt in game seven is that officially move into like one of the higher levels of great what ifs in the league i no question it's also like if they win that game does all the brunson stuff happen with halliburton last year to some degree probably i mean his stats weren't as good he was 18 9 and 6 in the finals brunson 33 in the fight like there was something different to what brunson was doing but halliburton was in the vicinity what if oklahoma city has still has not won a title like what i mean again if we're doing what ifs like they lose that finals and then that this year happens exactly what as it happened and they're still right like what is this offseason like for them if they haven't won uh a title it's also like the one of the most i mean there's been obviously like gruesome injuries happen more than you would like there was just one in a soccer game the other day for canada right like those are horrible but in terms of just like taking away the drama and of a big moment like that i i can't remember anything quite on that level to the point that when brunson went down in game one of these finals i had like ptsd from that like you do not like we've just spent a week hyping up this finals everyone is beyond amped up please do not let this be a thing that just erodes the finals and like that i can't remember ever feeling like that during a game like that was game seven forget that he starts hot and all that it's like this magical run by a team that pretty much no one saw getting that far in the playoffs and they might actually never won the title never won the title um obviously aba they won titles but 50 plus years ago but like i just and then the whole game was weird after even the pacers being weren't the pacers ahead at halftime by like or was it was like a one point game at halftime it's just it felt like you were a zombie the rest of the night sga talked about it during the playoffs actually saying he wanted to win again because it was so weird the way they won the title the first time he almost wanted a normal version of the same experience that halbern thing was like a black cloud over that whole night um all right zach low doing a podcast tomorrow uh i think so we we're all kind of on yannis waiting on yannis and we're in call like we're like doctors we're on call with yannis yeah and then yeah the mercy of yannis i have a busy sports fan week uh coming up and so we're gonna have to find ways to to pot around that and i'll during the nba draft i will be in weather permitting in whatever stadium they're playing in toronto watching croatia play panama and i can't i really it's my first international soccer game first big international soccer game ever i really wanted to just like i want the i want to sing the songs i want to drink i don't want to be sober now i got to be sober because the draft is going to be happening who knows i might podcast that night after the game i'm robbed of like full hooliganism i think it's just just pod the next day just have the whole experience i'll be there with my my croatian brothers and sisters we gotta we gotta win this one gotta win gotta get a w all right good luck thanks for popping on gonna bring in uh joe house right now to recap the u.s oh boy bye zach bye have fun this episode is brought to you by workday guessing is for game shows not your business especially when your margin for error is zero workday is the enterprise ai platform for hr finance and i can't wait to see you next time bye with a deep understanding of your organization's context and guardrails so every ai action is permission aware giving you accuracy 24 7 and the ability to not just get work done but get it done right it's a new workday this episode is brought to you by core power protein shakes you know how we always talk about the little things that separate great athletes post-workout recovery is a big factor core power protein shakes help you keep going after your workout with high quality protein to build muscle and electrolyte recovery it's all you need for your recovery one bottle available in 26 and 42 gram protein options to pick what works best for you visit corepower.com to learn more this house coming on i see a black a black screen i still see a black screen can you hear me there is yeah we did it hey we did zach low bye zach um hi boys i saved one last mailbag question for you before you tell us what happened let's go because we did a bunch of pacer ones but i had to save this specifically for you connor from indianapolis did the last two years of the dana pacers mirror the plot and boogie nights up until game seven of 2025 finals being a pacers fan was like being a 1970s dirk digler fan things were looking great then the ball dropped and it's 1980 haliburton gets taken out like little bill's wife to team tanks and loses their pick like amber waves loses custody of her kid all while seeing their rival the knicks replace them like johnny doe So watching the Pacers on League Pass was as bad as Dirk's music career. Can you give us more sports parallels to the cast of Boogie Nights with the Pacers? Keeps going. So that would be Kevin Pritchard. The GM is Jack Horner. Halliburton is Dirk. Pascal Siakam is Amber Waves. It's my dojo. We got to do somebody. Kevin Pritchard is worse than Jack. Kevin Pritchard might be the carnal. Yeah, he should be in jail for what he did. The number five pick. Nemhard is Reed Rothschild. That's pretty good. Aaron Neesmith as Roller Girl. Sure. You never know when he's just going to pop in and change a game. TJ McConnell is Becky Barnett. O.G. Toppin is Buck. That's pretty good. You kind of never know where he fits in, but he's always ambitious. Miles Turner, definitely a little bill. Just out. Matherin is Todd Parker. Todd! And then Brunson's Johnny Doe. And I think that's it. You went through the whole thing. Yeah, I did bogey nuts and pacers for you. Okay. Great job. So we started this live podcast during the last few holes of the U.S. Open. I assumed Wyndham Clark was going to take care of business. You're going to be talking about it with Nathan later tonight on Fairway Rollin'. But he made it a little hairy. He won by a stroke? Yes. What happened? He bogeyed the 17th hole, which is a par three. He was on the green and, you know, he left himself. This was part of his. His true secret sauce. This entire golf tournament. He made so many pars from, you know, 10 feet, from six feet, from 13 feet. He saved par like crazy. And then it came all the way down to the very end. And the 17th hole, he had a reasonable five or six footer. And he missed it. He gacked it. But he validated because he came out on the 18th hole. His approach was short. He was 15. He was 52 feet from the hole on his, the putt that he had on the 18th hole. He needed to get down in two to win the golf tournament. And he putted it to like two inches. I mean, it was an awesome putt that he made on 18. So you're rooting for the playoff. And you also don't, you're not a big Wyndham Clark guy. Well, I don't, I don't think I'm alone in that. Yeah. Can we dive into this? Sure. Yeah. So he wins wire to wire and he's American and it's the U.S. Open. And yet you could feel it in the crowd all weekend. Um, tepid applause for the good shots. And then, uh, if something bad happened, you could hear a couple of people doing like cheering over there. It was just what it seems like all of these little tiny things that he did, but nothing major, but they all added up and people have just decided. I don't like this guy. Well, there were, there was a back to back speaking of major, a bit of misbehavior last year at 2025 at the PGA championship, he threw his driver, snapped it, and it came close to hitting somebody behind him. He was angry with the shot with his driver, snapped it through it and, and almost hit somebody. And maybe that person shouldn't have been there behind the team. I mean, that person was not in harm's way, should not have been in harm's way. And then he, he, uh, the, the real cherry on top of the, the, the most infamous misbehavior was at Oakmont where the U S open was conducted last year, outside of Pittsburgh, one of America's. All-time great courses, a great us open menu with all of this history. Like when you walk into the clubhouse, the history, it's, it's the same, you know, floors that people have been walking on. And when you go up to the locker room, they still have the wooden benches that have spike marks that, that are there that have been there for 80 years or so. And homie played terrible on think Friday and went up in there with some kind of, of weapon and smashed in one of these lockers that have been there for, you know, decades, um, and kind of rolled out without going or, you know, doing the appropriate thing, apologizing. Yeah, no, my bad. And so, um, you know, he's been living with that since, and, and it really made him unpopular and there was not a giant act of, of remorse and contrition to follow quickly enough. I think for at least sort of golf sickos to, to where it was clear, like he he's, he has. Owned it since then. And he did, you know, pay for restitution. He did make a charitable contribution from this a little bit. Yes. And, and, you know, in some respects we've been missing, speaking of Patrick Reed, a villain in golf, I was going to say, all this sounds great. Like we always talk about how fucking boring golfers are. And then we have a guy destroy a locker at Oakmont. Everybody's like, put them in fucking jail, right? That's exactly right. Definitely. People get so mad. Pick a side. Do we want charismatic? Fucking crazy golfers or just boring guys? What do we want? Well, he, he, he got his act together and today was especially, uh, compelling because the entire crowd was rooting for Scottie Scheffler, who he was playing with. He was, the crowd was rooting for Scottie Scheffler because it was Scottie's chance to, to win the grand slam, his first chance to complete the grand slam. He didn't have it. I watched the first 15 holes before we went live on Netflix and he just, he couldn't get it going every time he felt, I mean, he was getting, he was getting, you know, his, his, especially on the back, his approach play was very good. He was putting himself in position to make birdies. He just couldn't get any of those putts to drop. And Clark hung on. He got out to far enough lead on Thursday. He just hung on for dear life. I mean, after Thursday, he shot two over par over his remaining three rounds. But not the right two over for you. Cause you had, you were shorting him yesterday. I sure did him yesterday with some wagers. That's true. I had him over 71 and a half strokes yesterday. He did that today. Did you have that today? I didn't touch it today. I did. I left alone. They were all, all the bedding. Well, he did. It was a classic. He's up six. Whoa. Now he's up three. Yes. Yes. Like within like half hour of when the tournament started. There was regression built into the performance, uh, especially yesterday. I mean, he really pulled the, the Saturday round, even par out of his butt. I mean, it was a miracle that he saved par from, from several places. And he, he had really the, the, the whole of the tournament was the Eagle. That he made on 16 on Saturday in front of no fans whatsoever, because yesterday, Saturday, they started the final groups off at three 45, three, you know, three 30 in the afternoon. Cause they wanted for television purposes to, for it to be some prime time and for that golf course, you know, out there in the Hamptons to get some of that late afternoon glow, everybody got the fuck out of there. Everybody's like, I'm not sticking around to watch this. There's trains that take two hours to get to New York. Right. basically empty but the shot of the tournament was his uh approach on the 16th hole he made eagle the only guy the entire golf tournament to make eagle on 16 and that that to me um was really the thing that well he won by a stroke so that ended up winning him the tournament yeah and then uh sam burns was was great today i got to see his whole round hard charge he did it 49 footer at one point and did the whole thing but it was just he had putts on 17 and 18 if either one of those fall now he didn't really make a great stroke on the on 17 but on 18 that ball was half a rotation from going into the hole and then we would have had a playoff and then that would have been something uh would that have been 18 hole playoff or just a sudden no so they changed that rule it's now a like two hole aggregate and i think they play the same hole on on repeat that's right i forgot they did that a little while yeah i remember that um all right so what's your grade for the tournament it sounds like it was a like all the golf threads were on and all the people we know everybody like really seemed like they enjoyed rooting against wyndham clark which is like a fun it's a fun wrinkle for a golf tournament it was like we don't really have the american villain ever yeah we we didn't get kind of the the carnage that this uh golf course can deliver because the there was anticipated wind in the forecast thursday and friday and it never really materialized wyndham clark was supposed to be on the wrong side of the weather forecast on thursday his 64 was what won the golf tournament uh 64 thursday afternoon when the winds were supposed to be at their worst so that piece of it and uh there was some complaints you know the the usga was very careful to not have the golf course get away from them to where the balls were going to be because of the wind you know just rolling off willy-nilly so they watered the golf course and there were some complaints that it was a little bit too easy earlier on but you know i i give it the whole thing overall i guess a solid b i mean wire to wire is pretty impressive out of windham he went out and did did the damn thing and we got one hard charge out of sam burns on sunday which is i guess all you could ask we needed somebody to do it yeah six-stroke lead going into sunday um you know leaves a lot to be desired in terms of the drama but we got some drama i'm asking claude right now how many two-time u.s champions in golf have there been what's the answer i think six seven u.s he won this a couple years ago in 23 yes and then he wins this one it's more than six or seven but still thinking yeah it's more because tiger and jack tiger and jack both have multiple 24 men yeah okay yeah i've done it i was thinking about there was a stat about how quickly um guys have won you know after you win one how quickly do you win your second game and then you win the second game and then you win the second game and then you win the second and he's in in the top um handful of guys he did it you know in pretty short order where is he in the uh the pecking order for american offers now pretty high one yeah i mean he immediately puts he changed his his putter at the masters this year and he was like putting 135th on tour going into that tournament now he's number one on tour and it was his putter that saved his ass all week long and now it seems like the sky's the limit with the confidence that he has putting wise because you know this shinnecock is an enormous putting challenge and you know he was all around though very good off the tee he was in the top 15 in his short game he was top 15 and his putting he was top five that's how you win a u.s open but he's pushing himself up fucking drives too jesus yeah oh well because they they had the benefit of a very firm golf course so a lot you know uh bryson had a 401 yard drive on the 18th hole before he missed the cut on friday um but the yeah by the way that was your best pick of the week thank you yes i did you shorted bryson you said he wasn't going to make the cut i did say that like four to one uh no no the odds went way down it started off near two to one for the week and then as it got to be wednesday going into thursday america woke up and jumped on i would like to say very humbly on fairway rolling two weeks ago i said i am betting to win at the u.s open windham clark and sam burns i had two picks that were from weeks ago that i said i just want to have some money down at the time sam burns was 40 to one and at the time windham clark was 35 to one so um you could just see those both of those guys coming in in in very well you should you should text me that info as you're asking to borrow money to pay for your saturday windham clark bets well you could you could also listen to the show you could listen to the show that i mean that would be another i'm just trying to you know because you did get killed on saturday i got you told me windham was gonna hit like a 75 i thought he was gonna shoot 73 listen there's so much to bet on right now it's at i mean this world cup i'm just waiting into these i'm not even asking to bundle anymore i'm just like belgium all right i i walked right into it hench uh put turkey into a parlay for us even after i swore off turkey i told everybody never betting on turkey again all they did was was take shots on the net that didn't go in for two hours turkey sons of bitches and i did it again i had a three parlay on friday and that was the last piece it was like four to one and then all they did was just shoot the ball over the net and head the ball to the side we we said don't bet on turkey anymore and then we did it because we're more unbelievable paraglide what team is what team is yannis on i miss you and i want to but we don't know he's gonna wait until the most inappropriate time possible to the trade is going to be announced the draft one minute before the draft um i've loved the world cup though are you are you did you get on friday oh i mean you know it's must see tv at this point now this is because of how dominant u.s was against paraguay and and the like eye-opening reaction to the soccer by the soccer community yeah taking u.s seriously like well oh if if the soccer community is invested in this team and thinks that they're capable of great things and i want to see it i want to see what they're capable of and i thought that performance against australia that was a trap game um but they didn't get trapped they let themselves you know i'm feeling i love my my guy is mckinney i love that guy mckinney i feel like he's the the straw that stirs the drink i love i honestly they had the most likable group of dudes they've had i love jedi the freeman how about that antonio freeman's son amazing unbelievable we've been begging for yeah right this is these are these guys are badasses let's get our athletes i didn't feel like we flopped that much i just really uh ballaghan's been great and we'll get ballistic healthy that's the key what's happening with your team on tuesday night they're gonna still think you're taking aj i sure do yes i do think that because they're trying that this always happens around the draft or it's like sources say the the wizards taking a longer look at darren peterson it's like they're taking aj my phone has sources say uh they're taking a long look at peterson and that's just people said telling that saying that to me but i i'm not i'm not permitting it i'm not i'm not uh acknowledging it aj one i heard utah maybe had a secret workout of peterson this weekend okay um i don't know what happens at two though i i still think they're taking boozer but if you know one workout and obviously they have to do all the diligence on peterson what would you do if you were utah take boozer i would take boozer too i think he raises their their floor and for that team what they've assembled you want somebody that's not a question mark in any way shape or form that can immediately come in and help the team and they're going to be able to do it they're going to be able to be overall you know help that the the the tide rise up you know and be on the same time i like having crazy front court depth and figuring it out because i think it's easier to get guards than before you don't have another pick though right uh no i think that you don't have one in the first time all right and you'll try to trade anthony davis at some point um all right you have to go do fairway rowan i'm gonna see you on tuesday night live right after the draft me you j kyle man right afterwards uh i cannot wait we'll do winners and losers all kinds of stuff maybe we don't need drunk house but maybe like a couple of drinks house yeah i have to toast aj i have to welcome aj to the city with an appropriate probably maybe sing a little washington song um thanks to zach glow thanks to joe house i'll see you on tuesday night thanks to gahow and eduardo as well thanks to everybody who watched on netflix i'm gonna see you again on uh on tuesday night thanks house my pleasure must be 21 plus and president select states for kansas in affiliation with kansas star casino or 18 plus and president dc kentucky or wyoming game prom call 1-800-GAMBLE or 1-800-MY-RESET call 888-79-7777 or visit ccpg.org chat connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org in maryland hope is here visit gambling helpline ma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24 7 support message exits or call 877-8-HOPE-NY or text hope ny in new york for louisiana call 877-770-7867 having uncontrolled eosinophilic esophagitis or eoe can mean you're stuck in many ways like cutting your food into tiny pieces or stuck chewing food for a long time with that with that dupixent dupilumab a prescription medicine for patients one year and older weighing at least 33 pounds can help with that it's a breakthrough treatment that can reduce inflammation in the esophagus and improve swallowing you can get with this or you can get with that how about this dupixent is not a steroid it proactively treats eoe so you can get ahead of it severe allergic reactions including skin reactions can occur get help right away if you have trouble breathing or wheezing or swelling of your face mouth tongue or throat tell your doctor of new or worsening joint aches and pain or a parasitic infection or asthma don't change or stop other treatments without talking to your doctor feeling stuck with eoe start treating with dupixent talk to your gastroenterologist or allergist today about dupixent learn more at dupixent.com or call 1-844-DUPIXENT before this there's this as you celebrate the game take a deeper look at its roots the people grow in the grass paving the lots welding the goalposts inspecting every football the hard work and people that make every sunday possible carhartt is proud to outfit the crews behind the game visit carhartt.com join the trades to learn more