The Jaylen Brown Colonoscopy Trade (and More NBA Summer Reactions) With Chris Ryan and Kirk Goldsberry

作词:李宇宙 作词:李宇宙 作词:李宇宙 所以我 didn't have a reaction pod to this jalen brown trade yesterday because I was getting a colonoscopy. And it was supposed to be last week and I screwed up the prep and the time they had was July 1st at 3pm. Pacific time. And if I didn't take that time, I would have gone on July 50th. So I'm like, all right, you know what? Like I can do a Thursday pod. I'm going to get knocked out. So I'm watching the the World Cup game and then go in, had a very similar experience to UCR where the guy said. Is I'm about to get knocked out? He's like, where do you think LeBron's going? I'm like, maybe Denver's and then I'm out. Wake up and all I want to know is what happened with the World Cup game and the guy is like, oh, they just had penalty. There's a penalty kick and actually saw the penalty kick and whatever. Come out. My wife's waiting and picked me up. And she goes, they traded Jalen Brown. I'm like, I had just woken up from anesthesia and I'm not as you guys know, not really coherent. And I'm like, where do you go? And she's like, to Philly for Paul George in two first round picks. And I'm like, I think I'm dead. I think I died. The anesthesia killed me and now I'm a dead person. And I'm like, and I'm just trying to process it. And it's, you know, it's like I have a head injury. And I'm like, is there more, are there more first round picks? Did they get the clippers first? And she's like, Zoe's really upset. So now my daughter who likes Jalen Brown and she, and I'm like, all right, can you read me what the trade is? She's been the trade. And then I stumble out of this hospital place. So when this trade happened at 320 Pacific time, I had a camera in my ass. And I had Paul George being rammed up my ass. And it was happening at the same time. And that's how I'm going to remember July 1, 2026. So we're driving home. And I'm like, I'm like, should I do an emergency pod? No, you're like barely coherent. You probably are giving me your social security number. I would just be like, so anyway, that's that, that's my story of finding out the trade. See our story was a little more pleasant than mine because he had just finished. They talked the Throne's pod. Van and Jomi, you tell the story. No, I was, I had just finished recording with Joe and Mal and Van and Jomi burst into the room. And I was like, it felt like LeBron. But I couldn't, I couldn't tell. And obviously, after a lot of guessing, you did not guess Jalen Brown. I did not guess. Because I didn't expect us to go back to this well after a foreford. I thought it was kind of Omerto. But I guess I should have, it's a big time for Browns getting treated between Boston and Philadelphia. But yeah, we passed, we passed back and forth 29 year old Browns. And yeah, I mean, it was, it was, it was very, I, in some ways, I feel like I'm still living in that moment because I, I'm, I'm processing it. It was also been like, because you were under general anesthesia for a lot of it. One of the most intense sports days of my life. Because USA is coming up. Yeah, you realize after, if you do 14 hours of watching sports and getting the, the social media drip about it, like your brain is falling out of your ears by the end of the day. So I did England. It did most of Ben, Belgium Senegal, the, the incredible work that all of our colleagues did talking about making the Lakers white again. And then USA and Jalen Brown hit in there. It's like, I, I, I didn't, I could barely, my brain was scrambled eggs at a certain point. Kirk, I, I spent yesterday morning. I was so delighted by how bad the Lakers moves were. I was just torturing all the Laker fans of my life. I did not think the Celtics were going to trade Jalen Brown. I'm a baby. I thought they, I thought they had canvas the league, not like what they saw. And they're like, you know what, let's just walk in a room and we'll figure this out. There's not a trade for this. And we can talk for about a variety of reasons why there might not have been a trade for Jalen Brown. But I was having such a great day. I was going to get this colonoscopy done. I was going to watch the team USA under anesthesia. And, and it was just going to keep rolling. And I feel like I used up a lot of karma points with all the taunting texts. I did tell my Laker fans yesterday because I thought what they did was hilarious. We'll talk about it later. When did you find out about this Jalen Brown trade curve? Oh, I have a boring story. I was sitting in a chair getting ready for soccer in a typical Shoms notification washed across my screen. And I did the thing where I was like, is this the real Shoms? This is, this doesn't make sense. So I like had to verify it and want to be tricked. The most shocking part for me, Bill Simmons is the fact that the Boston Celtics traded one of their best players to the Philadelphia 76 years. Like the historical part of that as a kid who grew up in Pennsylvania watching Dr. J and Barclay and Moses Malone go against your favorite team of your childhood. Like this is one of the great rivalries in the NBA. And I was just shocked to see a player of his caliber get traded from Boston to Philly. And as I sat there, it was like this is insane just because of the two franchises involved. And then the second reaction of course is like they didn't even get the best pick that Philly had. They got older and not younger somehow. And then you're just trying to. But it was it was I had of the three of us. I admittedly had the most generic experience finding out. He's being shy Bill because right after that he went and got his own colonoscopy. He just did. It was just in a bar. It made. He got a homemade one back. The Philly thing. I think it's the greatest rivalry in the history of the league. People would point to Celtic Lakers. But you're just talking about the finals where the Celtics just beat the Lakers every year. And then, you know, then they didn't play for a while. Then they played again in the 80s a couple of times. They put into 2000 a couple of times. That's it. They haven't been in a series together in 16 years. Boston and Philly every decade have battled in some sort of way. They've had some sort of playoff series. When we did Celtic City, which maybe we have to do a tent episode now called Celtic City. The team has fallen apart. We did a whole episode built around the 80s. Celtics Philly did Dr. J versus Bird, all that stuff back and forth. I can't even remember that many times CR when they've even made trades. I remember we got Dana Barros from Philly as a free agent. But for the most part, like, this is certainly the biggest transaction ever between the two fan chases. I know that we've like, there's obviously the horror for signing. But this is the last time I remember anything like this was like getting Jim O'Brien to coach. It's seriously, you have to go back to these weird moments in history. Because for the most part, the two cities and the two teams pretty much are like, this is shut off. It was funny. Other friends, because of the World Cup, I've been in touch with a bunch of my buddies in England. And they're like, can you explain this to me in like, primarily terms? And I was like, this would basically be like Liverpool signing Marcus Rashford if he was coming off of a career year. It's really, it's really, really complicated. And for the sixers, you know, they've been star shopping since the Jimmy Butler deal. Since they decided to break away from like the draft and develop model to like collate some of those prospects and get a star for a bead. So we've Butler, Orford, Harden, what have you? Then Paul George. Well, this is, and Paul George, but this is the first time they've done it. And I think that the star that the sixers were trying to compliment wasn't in bead. It was maxi. Like, I don't think this is a trade for in bead. I think this is a trade for the younger core. And, you know, I don't even think that Jalen Brown and Joel and Bee pair that well together. I'm excited to be proven wrong. But like, they both like been ranged. They both like having the ball on their hands and kind of surveying the court. You know, it's going to be really interesting to see how it works out in a basketball way. But this is, this is a different kind of trade than the sixers have made over the last couple of years. I don't think it's just for and beads purposes. He pairs better with the speed of maxi and VJ. The embankment thing will be weird. All right. You got to clear out again because I'm going to walk you through my, my thoughts is this happen. First of all, how many hours has it been and spend, I don't know, 17? This is the most unpopular trade with Boston fans since Mookie Betts. I still think Mookie Betts trumps it. Hold on a second. One second. One more. God. - Okay. - Oh no. - Oh my god. - Let's see our, why? (laughing) - You were saying, whoopie bets? - I think that's last season. - A more indefensible trade, 'cause there was no reason to do it. They just didn't want to pay him, and then they gave him a way for 10 cents of the dollar. This, we could talk about some of the defenses I've heard. Everybody in my life, and not only was there no warning whatsoever, not only was Jaylin the centerpiece of a honest trade that seemed like it was gonna happen, a week ago on Monday. But this was, I think the first Boston trade ever that came out of nowhere, but then had everybody going, ooh, wait, that's the trade, what else is in it? Is there a part two, and they're just, they're just wasn't. So, you know, you start thinking, how does Jaylin go for half as much as mid-30s aspirations, scandal, why? Right, your head goes there. (laughing) Why hasn't it made, why hasn't it won a playoff series in five years? Why, with the Cooper's won two playoff series in seven years and missed more games than just about anybody other than NBA, the last six, right? The last time we, everyone's talking about, oh, why? Now, Toronto, this is the piece that can push away. Why lost the fucking first playing game last year to the Warriors, the game I went to? This was like the 2019, why? I don't, I just don't think is there anymore. Anyway, so he goes for half as much as him. He goes for less than Desmond Bane. He goes for less than Jaylin Jackson. He goes for less than Kevin Durant did last year when Phoenix needed a trade-home. They got the 10th pick and two movable contracts. Just note that his voice broke on Durant there, just if we're keeping score at home. He went for way less than Yannis. And then during the same day, went for less than Kessler who played five games last year. (laughing) That's right for me. He played five thousand minutes last year. He went for less than Kessler. All right, so we have that. We have, I had Michael Rubin had his white party yesterday in the Hamptons. I know you're invited CRY at the RSVP now. I think it was at Lakers Training Camp, actually. That was the other white party. So apparently one of the Philly owners was there, and I'm not gonna say who. I gotta take this shit off long. And yeah, take that Red Sucks hat off. So one of the Philly owners was there and people were like, what's up with this Jaylin trade? And he was just like, we couldn't believe it either. Like basically saying, we can't believe we were able to get Jaylin Brown for what we gave up. Kirk, I'll start here, just on the trade itself, which is a 2021 first that seems pretty good. It's at least the Clippers pick. It might even be like a one-through rate Philly pick, or one-through rate protected Philly pick. But what would it have cost Philly just to dump the last two years of Paul George's contract? It's somewhere between one first and two, correct? - Yeah, it's funny you should ask. They were trying to do just that. I think before Daryl left, they were trying to do that. And the answer from what I heard was one solid first, the better first they have, I think, there wasn't included in this deal. So that's a team like Chicago or Brooklyn, a team that had cap space. And he's taking Paul George from us, will give you these picks to take him. - It's a huge plot point here, because once you start to do that sort of connect of math, you're starting to say, okay, the sixers won it out of the Paul George business, Paul George prison, or whatever you wanna call it, and they were willing to attach a pick. So they were gonna do this for whatever you could get back, right? They were gonna do this and to get a finals MVP, a guy who got real MVP votes this season, for essentially that package, it really contextualized it. And I love what you did too, because I was doing the same comparative math with the Kessler transaction. And the Desmond Bayne transaction, you're like, what is going on? What is going on with Jalen Brown's value around the league? 'Cause it doesn't stand up to any way, I would have evaluated his value. I was shocked at the market value had dropped this low, but you're exactly right to call out. The sixers wanted to get off of Paul George in the first place. - I see, I'm sure you were intrigued by the thought of getting rid of Paul George, regardless of who came back. - I got no hate in my heart for him. I was incredibly disappointed by the suspension last year. And not out of any moral thing. It's just like, that was just like we were actually, the sixers were actually starting to put some stuff together when he got suspended. And to have that happens, which is sort of an elective absence on his part, even though we never really got the full story about it. On top of like all of the load management that either the team and or he were doing for his various injuries, it was just kind of like, I'm tired of watching teams that are like, we're going to just try and make sure everybody's healthy for that second round series that we have. And it's like, oh, actually, you know what, just give me a good NBA season. How about that? - Well, you're going to get it from J.D. - I know, I'm just going to play 70 games a year and he's going to play 35 minutes a game and he's going to show up night after night and he's going to be a guy that, when and beads not there can be 20 shots for you and play 38 minutes and play bigger or smaller. - So, wait, I have like, here's my main question I want to ask, you guys. There's a new GM in Philly, Mike Gansy. - Yeah. - Good name. - Well, do you think President 'cause Jamir Nelson is the GM? And then there's a new owner in Boston. And those differing sensibilities, I think are worth bringing up. I was kind of joking when they put a camera on me and asked me what I thought of this yesterday and I was like, this does not feel like Brad Stevens made this call. But I also saw win worst. Yesterday was like, this is a trade made under duress and I just don't understand this. There's no reason why this have to happen on a Wednesday. There's no reason why this had to be the deal. Was the, I know that there had been reporting that the Celtics were not getting a lot of what they wanted out of the trade market for Brown but is there no, you were talking about going to Tuscano's 48 hours ago. They're like, what? I wasn't gonna go, I was, I wanted my dad to go as a representative of the Simmons family. I just thought, once the honest thing happens and it gets out and then they don't get you honest because they didn't want to put in extra stuff other than Jalen and Toofarce, which I wholeheartedly agreed with. And then they can't visit the league. There's no trade. The third year I think really hurts with Jalen 'cause it's like 63 million or something and they were obviously terrified of it. And I think there's two ways to look at this because I, you know, I still have a whole, I wanna go through my whole, my stages of process in this trade but there's two ways to look at it. One is the analytic stuff, which I wanna talk about later. We can talk about that after the break. And the other is that they feel like this relationship was unsavagable and was gonna get worse. And okay, so why is that the case? Well, you have the 2004, '24, the finals of VP Eastern Conference. If they just split those, I wonder if this trade even happens. The fact that Jalen wins both, that's a little weird. The Tatum Brown thing starts to get a little strange. Tatum gets hurt a year later. The time, that's a complete fluke, right? Jalen takes over the team. I've talked about it on the part of a bunch of times where he has the car keys and had an awesome season that I've been watching Advanced Metrics pick it apart, which is fine. I still feel like wins is the most important in Advanced Metric and he showed up night after night and went against everybody else's best guy and was great. And to me, the fact that they were so desperate to trade him and by all counts, last 72 hours, they seem like they were desperate. Like we gotta, we gotta, this has to come to a head right now. I don't feel like they could put the genie back in the bottle with him, was to take that. We have now opened this door where this guy thinks he's the guy. He's gonna come back. We have Hugo, we have Shireman. We have more Pritchard shots. We don't wanna be in a situation where this guy thinks he can average 29 points a game again. We have Tatum who can replace a lot of his stuff and this is gonna get worse, not better. That's the only thing I can think of for the logic of this trade because everybody's been asking me the last 17, 18 hours. It's not like they had to do this now. They could have waited till the season. They could have waited till February. Whatever happens since the season ended, seems to have given them this additional urgency. And it's maybe some of the things he said, both publicly and privately, the fact that it wasn't a 1A1B thing anymore. Like, I think Jalen probably felt maybe rightly so after last year, I'm equals Tatum. And they just wanted to get out of this situation was my take. That makes sense as it takes here. It makes sense. I mean, I like the timeline you built there because another element of it would be Tatum coming back, which was supposed to be this heroic act of selflessness and all that. And it almost seems like it just kind of threw everything out of balance. And I wonder if Tatum just says, I am out this year. I'm gonna rehab. And the Celtics have a kind of nobody believes in us, feel good, 56 wins. We got to the second round. We didn't have enough for the sixers or whoever they lose to. Like, does this even happen? Is Jalen Brown like, well, and then next year we get Tatum back and we're gonna be in great shape. The thing that I also go back to is Brad Stevens's postseason press conference where he was like, we are not going to be playing this way next year. And he seemed way lower on the team than the NBA community at large, where everybody I think was like, pretty cool. You guys really, you can- competed and he was like, this, I did not like this. And I guess I now we know who he was talking about or what he was talking about because he was probably, apparently, more out on the two Jay's and that everybody else and especially everybody else in Boston. And it's a bet on Jayland too that, you know, we can go into what the team will look like next year. But it's a bet that Jayland can replace all the, I'd sorry, Jason Tatum can, can replace all the Jayland stats and the production and being the number one guy and then the team around him will fit better than Jayland Brown being told. Go over here now. You're not the number one guy anymore. Kirk, you remember, so I've talked about this before on my pod when I was the first year I was doing countdown when Rudy Gay got traded to Memphis. And it became a very important like Sloan conference moment. It became this specific tipping point in the old way we talked about basketball versus the new way. And I was on that show arguing with Magic Johnson who knows more about basketball than me and has had way more NBA experiences than me and Will Bonn. Jayland was kind of neutral and I was arguing, I actually think this trade makes a lot of sense for Rudy Gay. I think he's overrated. Memphis, I think, turned him in a Tashon prince and for me, Grievous Vazquez. I forget who else was in it. But the team took off and they ended up making the conference finals because they determined whatever, even though Rudy Gay seems good on paper. And I remember Magic saying at one point, we're arguing about it. You need a guy, you need a closer, you need and I was trying to be respectful. But I was like, the stats say he's not that good. All the advanced metrics say he's actually not a closer that you're actually if he's your guy finishing games, this isn't great. And that's why they did the deal. So that was this tipping point for that era. Now we're in this different era where even though I voted Jayland fifth firm VP, I voted in first team NBA. I thought what he did last year was incredible. There are all these like deep analytics now saying like, no, actually wasn't that good. So as somebody who's in the forefront of the sole conference revolution, where do you stand on the analytics here? It's a great question. So the tension is Jayland Brown now represents this tension. He's going to be the person who gets associated with this. Is this guy? We have him in the in the ringer 100 bill is number 14 in the NBA after the season. Estimated plus minus over a dunks and threes, one of the best sort of nerdy sites going right now has him at 87th in the NBA. Okay, according to estimated plus minus. So this is don't shoot the messenger here. That's the tension. All these teams have these models. How impactful is this guy for winning? They measure all sorts of variables from player tracking things we didn't have 15 years ago during that Rudy Gare. But ultimately these models hate Jayland Brown as a factor on winning. You can look at just basic on off stuff. The Celtics had a net rating of 6.5 with him on the floor. And that goes to 10.5 when he came out. And the models just start stewing on these facts. But with those models, how much does that depend on did you have a really good bench? Well, I mean, if your bench comes in and is clean in the clock of the other teams bench, then the on-off steps going to get skewed, which I would always use as my defense for Jayland and Boston. And I want to come back to that bill because I do think the real reason here is depth and team building in the second apron era. And I think Brad Stevens is Chris's point out he wants a one 10 pole organization with one giant salary, not two, because you need to have the Nick Spurs finals. Those are deep ass teams with dudes who are playing 7, 8, 9 like Jose Alvarado. You need to have that kind of money. And if you have two guys make a 35% of your cap in the second apron era, forget it's Jayland Brown or Jason Tatum. That's just a hard math problem for anybody to solve. And I think that's really at the heart of this thing. I don't think it's about Vance Plus Minus or anything. It's like, do we really want to have two dudes in their 30s combining to make 70% of our cap and go on top of it that the Thunder and Spurs? Yeah, on top of that, two of the top nine contracts in the league just for figure by year, the next three. And maybe, I don't know, maybe they thought that was unsustainable. But then the counter that is, well, Paul George makes as much money. That's the head scratcher. That's the part that doesn't make sense to me. It's like, I get the financial thing. Yeah, you got, you got to add of it after one year, not two. I don't know. See are that the advanced analytic stuff. And it's weird because I've always been, I think, even dating back to the Great Land days, I think we were at, you know, we were part of the forefront of everything that was changing there. And I still believe in the numbers a lot of the time, but I still feel like there's something about durability and somebody who shows up night after night and could be the best guy in a team over and over again, except that challenge. The issue is, he wanted to be a title two years ago. And they were two years ago. I don't know. What are we playing for? Right? Like I look at you. I'm also somebody who's, my favorite basketball player ever is Alan Iverson, who is also not beloved by the advanced analytics community. I cannot claim to really understand a lot of the stuff out at certain point. I think that this is also as much as it's an analytic story. It's a media story to me. The turning point in some ways in this story publicly. I'm sure privately it was much different. Was this Bobby Mark's tweet that went out about an analytics guy, unnamed analytics guy telling him that Jalen Brown would be like the seventh best player on our team, not like on a, in the league. And that really got the ball rolling in terms of this debate coming to the forefront again. This is all going to kind of die down, you know, once, once all the, on all the smoke clears. But this has just been a fascinating couple of weeks in the NBA where the outside reporting is so speculative, but then like there are pieces of it that feel incredibly well informed. And so going back to Jalen doing live streams and saying like this was my favorite year of my career, which also had a lot of context. He also says a lot of other stuff, you know, that we don't need to get into. But there's like these little nuggets that then get taken and run with. And the idea that this guy went from a pillar of the franchise to a, we need to get him out of here with no deadline, contractually, league wide, whatever. We just have to get him out the door, even if it's to arrival in the division. And we're going to have to see this dude multiple times a year. It really speaks to like, I think the tension behind the scenes, but it's so fascinating because I want to know how much the speculation around it actually wound up fueling the fire. I have some, some thoughts and maybe a couple answers on that, but we have to take a break and we're going to come back. And I'm going to talk about my stages of grief with the Jalen Brown trade right after this. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. We are in the heart of the World Cup. Look at these little special bottles for Michelob Ultra. Every play matters here, FIFA World Cup 26 for you. The stakes are just aside. Michelob Ultra, the official beer sponsor of the 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 dot com slash superior access slash FIFA World Cup 26 Michelob Ultra FIFA World Cup 26 superior access. No purchase necessary. Open a US residence 21 plus begins on December 1st, 2025 ends on July 31st, 2026 multiple entry periods visit www dot Michelob ultra dot com slash superior access slash FIFA World Cup 26 for free entry entry deadlines, prizes, and details. All right, we're back. So in 2004, the Boston Red Sox in July traded no margarcia para, who was the most popular guy in the team other than Pedro. Now hold on. They traded them for Orlando Crabara and they asked a guy, Doug Bencavich and that who ended up clinching the ball when they won the World Series a few months later. And this was an incredibly polarizing trade and I wrote a piece for uspin dot com. Actually, it's kind of defending the trade because they had tried to trade no mar. The previous winter in the a rod thing. It fell apart. He had to come back and it was weird for half the season. There was some advanced stuff with him that he was slipping defensively that he was starting to hurt the team a little bit that he wasn't the guy that he was a couple years before. And they trade Crabara for him who was an excellent defensive player and just kind of fit the team better. Everyone in Boston lost their fucking mind. And then it turned out to be a great trade and Crabara was one of the many heroes know for. If you're a Boston fan, that's the only thing you're doing. We're talking about Fernando Cabrera to yourself. You're just like, oh, maybe this is like the Cabaritrade. I'll give you the stages of the end of the Irishman. So I hear about this trade. The anesthesia wears off. And I'm watching America. I think convincingly went to nothing, especially because we were playing a guy down for a half hour, including one of the great free kicks of my lifetime. Did you think he was making it C.R.? I did not think he was too. I thought he was going to be too close. The goalie did give him a wide side of the road. He gave him a little bit of space, but yeah, I mean that in the record. I do like the free kicks when it's over on the left because I feel like you can really blast it. I keep putting it. - So much. - Yeah, that was incredible. - Anyway, I was trying to focus on the game and I'm in three hours of darkness. Some things I wrote down, 'cause I wanted to write down my anesthesia thoughts in real time. (laughing) New owner chipped out, Brad Pannecht, Tatum demanded the deal, worst Celtics trade ever, haven't felt this helpless since they traded for Ben Baker. Those were five things I wrote down during the World Cup game. By the fourth hour after the game, a little more uplifting after we went to nothing, even though we lost our best player and our team to a bogus red card, I wrote down, take last year's team and replace Brown for Tatum, Garza for Mitch, 'cause they got Mitchell Robinson yesterday. - Enjoy that. - And Simon's for Paul George. Wait, are we better or worse? Starting to get signs of hope. And then I wrote down, didn't PG play as effectively as Tatum and Brown in the round one series, looked up his stats, 17 points a game, 55% from three. He at least like was a draw with Brown. And then after five hours and I had some texts, I'm trying to get faith, I landed on, this has to be part one of a second part of a deal. And I think that's where I landed. And I really wonder if the trade Murphy piece is gonna be the second piece of this, because I don't think New Orleans wanted, I don't think they wanted Jalen Brown three more years of him. And I wonder if George, one year less with Picks and you get Murphy and you get Jordan Poole's expiring back, and that's the end game here. And now that makes sense to me, Kurt Goldsberg, does it make sense to you? - I had a similar sort of come around this morning, I could feel my face again after I woke up. And I was like, oh, Kate, Celtics 156 games, is that right, Bill Lesher with this team. So assuming Tatum sort of slides into the Jalen Brown slot, and okay, there's a 51 team, right? But I had a similar sort of coming around to it. I'm not sure there is a second move, but that's a great theory. I do think what I said earlier, they value flexibility. The NBA did this to all the teams with this hard cap, second apron situation. Depth has never been more important. The only way to find depth is in the draft with cost-controlled guys. And overpaying dudes in their 30s is the fastest way to erase depth. And there's no shortage of teams that can save that right now. So I think ultimately, yeah, the Paul George thing of it all is still the weirdest piece. Like, okay, all that's true, Kurt, but they brought back a 36 year old guy with bad legs. And that disappeared for 25 games last year 'cause he gets suspended. So I love your theory, if they can now turn that into tree Murphy somehow and get Jordan Poole. So is PG available to get traded immediately or do you have to wait? Well, here's the thing. The trade doesn't get announced, though. I think January 6th. So you have a few days here. July 6th? July 6th. July 6th, okay. So you have a few days here to, you know, you can make it a three-team or four-team or whatever. Now, if they do something resembling the trade I just mentioned, maybe they won't. Now you're replacing Brown with Tatum, Garza with Mitch, and Simon's with Murphy. And then you have your younger guys or your older and some more Pritchard stuff. And that starts to make sense. If that doesn't happen and this is just the trade and you're gonna get a year out of Paul George and then he's a big expiring next year with Picks and you're gonna make a movie year from now, there is a world where they tell Paul George, like you're gonna play 49 games this year. And when you play, you'll play like 22, 23 minutes. We're saving you for the playoffs. We're gonna play these younger guys. We wanna keep you fresh for the playoffs. We want you to have one round, two rounds, three rounds, whatever. Well, you're gonna play bigger minutes. But on paper, whatever Paul George is, whatever we saw, this is where I sound. Like I'm just fine to trade. I'm not. I'm just saying, I'm paper. So the way you're justifying is if there is a hypothetical second move to be made that isn't like we're waiting for Yokech or we're waiting for DeBanza and Flag to come up, right? - No, it's more like you're using Paul George to get somebody's money back but ultimately flexibility, which I've been saying in this podcast since the season ended. If they traded Jayland, I really thought it would be for flexibility. That's why I never really liked the honest thing 'cause I thought I'd put them in the same position they were in before with these two giant contracts. But with the Paul George piece, and you're looking at it and you're like, "All right, maybe we get a year out of him." Less minutes, he's a more complimentary player than Jayland. Our chemistry's better. We can find out what we have with Hugo and Charmin, more pritchard, and we'll patch this together because we did this last year and by the way, maybe they're also saying Jayland wasn't as responsible for last year as he got the credit for. That this was assistant thing. It was depth. It was night after night being able to have 10 guys who were competent, was the three-point shooting. It was the defense. And that's the only thing I can think of. If that trade doesn't happen and PG just comes back, I still think that I think the thing they're risking here is the fans in the city. That's right. Your Paul George not, I would say he's been a slightly divisive guy over the years. You're risking Jayland going to Philly and Philly being really good right away. You're risking all of the Celtics, whatever the team they have now, not playing as well as they thought they were initially. And you're taking a last year, a feel-good thing where everybody liked everybody. And we're like, wow, this is great. I love this team. I love Joe Masuah. I love Brad Stevens. There's Chisholm. Now if this doesn't work out right away, you're talking about Chisholm walk into his seats before the game and somebody be like, yo, Chisholm. Fuck you. Steven's going into the thing. Hey, Steven. Fucking trade a jail at fuck you. Like this changes the energy. So they better be right on this CR because you've seen this in Philly. Yes. When the energy shifts in the cold weather cities, specifically Boston, Philly, New York, it can get dangerous. Yeah. And I think that the things that seem to matter to front offices sometimes are just so far apart from what matter to fan bases. And fan bases like establishing relationships with guys, they like seeing guys grow up. They like acquire new stars. They like developing kind of like a rhythm with team, a rhythm with the way the team plays. Now that can get stale. And you can find yourself as a Philly's fan and be like, I like these guys. But I've been watching this TV show for 10 years now or whatever. But I think that the danger is flexibility over fandom. And flexibility over who are we putting on a billboard if we're trying to build a new stadium? Like you guys sound like you are. And I think that that's a real dice role. Furthermore, for as much as you're like, this could work out if it's Trey Murphy. And there's a couple of ways in which this could not work out. That this could go very rough. More than a couple, including Jason Tatum with coming off an Achilles injury. With like all Georgia 36, Mitch Robinson, who has a big injury history. And they have all these injury variables. Yeah, and a couple of those guys that you bring up on every podcast, who I still don't really remember watching play, you know, I just mean I don't have a lot of like Hugo tape in my head. Didn't show up against the six, like we're not like ready for prime time. So like they are really nice regular season pieces. And they're really nice development stories. But I don't necessarily think they're going to win a second round series for you guys. So look, I haven't been out in the second round since 2001. So what am I talking about? I'm just saying that like there is an element to if you're counting on like another deal making this right or this all kind of coalescing in a way that we just don't understand yet. There's also like a negative side of it. There's a bad side of it. I would say there's a few bad signs. The coalescing, the betting on guys with injury histories Kirk, the fan reaction to this trade, which is the single most negative fan reaction. Even Mookie Betts, we knew that was coming for like a year. This was, I think way more contentious. I'm sure Brian Curtis copyright the now they tell us story. I'm dreading the now they tell us for this. The Celtics don't usually operate that way. They're not a big leaking after the fact organization. But the big question that they would never answer, that if I had a Brad Stevens truth serum where I'm like, you have to answer, I'm giving you this. I'm gonna give you a call and ask me an anesthesia. I'm telling this. This sounds like the beginning of an erotic film. You giving Brad Stevens a call. - By Adrian Lyme. From hell month, from hell, from hell, from this back. A disgruntled fan. Well, I'd say it's hers. The question I want to know is, were you thinking of doing this right after the season or did this evolve during the off season? Because my guess, my thought, is that pretty much everything Jayland did from the moment the season ended, pushed them to a place that they decided maybe this was untenable Kirk. Now, you work for a team. You're always judging the, though you're judging the chemistry of the team, you're judging the best guys in the team, the happiness of the team. Like the Spurs got LaMarcus Aldridge when you were there. - Yeah. - One of the reasons they got LaMarcus Aldridge was good. 'cause it was pretty clear in that last Portland year, he wasn't 100% happy that there was, Dame was becoming embraced, even though that Portland team was really good, it's what a Zac Lowe's favorite teams, something was off and then this person ended up getting him. So how much do organizations just think about the non-Baskable personality shit? - Yeah, I kept going to that. I don't think people understand the human element. When you trade a guy, it doesn't just affect that guy and his family. It affects all the spouses and the kids and now everybody's looking over their shoulders. So I know that RC and Pop are very, very careful with the trade tool itself. We don't want to blow up the morale. We want to build an element of trust around here. And again, they had the benefit of a different CBA era where flexibility was king and they had players who were taking less money, much like Jalen Brunson, which has enabled the next to find depth this time around. But I think you're right. I think there is a human story here where Jalen Brun had an awkward last few months. I bet there were tensions behind the scene and that's one of the only ways I can explain a relatively great front office making what I consider to be a bad deal to get away from Jalen Brunson is that it must have been very bad behind the scenes, some real tension that we may never learn about. If they and Shawnnessy's not going to write it these days, I don't know who will. But like who is, why did this happen from a human perspective? 'Cause the numbers just don't add up. Like you can do the double ledger here and it's just like, it screams like you started the podcast with. The Boston Celtics just dumped this dude who won finals MVP two years ago. - Right. - Who was the visually dumped? - Two a division rival. - Two, two, two, their historic rival. It's Bill says one of the greatest rivals the leaks ever seen. - Well, the thing, I always judge these trades by two things. A year later, would you be glad or unhappy that you did it? That's one. And then four months later, would the trade still be there? I'm guessing if this trade doesn't happen today, CR, but we get to the beginning of October and Boston calls and said, hey, Jalen Brunson for Paul George and two picks, you're still saying yes. So why would you do a trade? Why would you do a trade that's gonna be there in October now? Is the best case for they felt like this situation had gotten untenable behind the scenes? And who knows if Tatum, who's been, you know, and I've heard both sides of this. He hasn't said anything. He never went on the Jalen, this is a big thing in the local radio. He never went on Jalen's Twitch. Like, it is true, he never said anything. Now the counter would be, well, if he does say something, then that becomes a story. So he's got to lay back. - Does he say a lot about anything? I mean, I don't really think of Jason Tatum as the most demonstrative star. Like, you know, he does a lot of like, here's my documentary about my rehabilitation for my injury but there's not like a, it's a lot of carefully crafted docu-series. - Yeah, I'm going live on IG to break down the world cup. I mean, it's just, I know, this kind of stuff is like, what we have replaced reporting with is like, looking at like T-Leaves and trying to be like, well, obviously, you didn't go on Twitch. - Yeah, I told me, somebody told me in front of mine. - And, you know, like, that's for better and for worse, but I think that the only, my only counter to this would be I don't, now in retrospect, don't think Mike Gansy would have waited. I think this, the Sixer Steam was going to get changed. I didn't actually anticipate that. I thought that they were going to run it back and that it was going to be like, this is about cleaning up whatever Daryl did and we're going to do some depth stuff and we'll draft well and we'll figure out where we're at and hopefully Edgecomb develops and we'll be like a five seed or something like that and then be, let's just cross our fingers. But now in retrospect, I'm like, oh, this guy wanted to change the face of the team. This guy wanted to strip the paint and make it, make it into his own thing. And I mean, speaking of reading T-Leaves, his brother posted a picture yesterday of Gansy with LeBron in, you know, in the St. Mary's uniform from back in the day, which, you know, is probably horse shit, but his Tony Jones also reported that the Sixers required about LeBron and if that's the game he wants to play, like hell yeah, sure, you know, it seems like other people have had the joy of cheering for LeBron, I'll take it. But yeah, it's, I don't think the Sixers were going to sit around waiting for Jalen Brown. I think this was an opportunistic trade. - I don't think Paul George was going anywhere else. We should mention Waz and House and I do the worst contract strapped in the beginning of every month. - We should mention this. Embed was won and Paul George was two. And it wasn't even like, it was basically one of those draft starts at three 'cause we know these are the top two. Now, when we did this, Paul George was under suspension, didn't know if he was going to come back. It, the Philly think could not have gone worse and he had two and a half years left on the deal. Now he has two. But I thought he was really good in the playoffs. I said it over and over again. I thought, I was shocked by how well he played. I thought he really bothered Jalen ironically and there was a lot of clips about this last night of all these different times. He locked down Jalen one on one. Three point shooting was great. Even in the next series, that's weren't that bad. So that was, I thought the best he's looked in a couple of years. - But if it's Paul George. - If Paul George was on his set and you guys had won, I think I remember what the Sixers streak was or what we were definitely surging and Paul George got suspended, Boston would implode. Like talk to me, it would be, they would have an FCC violation. - I want to talk about the Philly piece in one second. This is my last thing on Boston 'cause I think we covered everything there is to cover from the Boston side. But the Jalen thing of just being with somebody for 10 years, ironically 10 years ago was when they drafted him. What they had with him and Tatum together, which led to a title six conference finals. And I was pretty steadfast all the way through even with the honest thing. I was like, I think this guy's really good at basketball. Like I don't really care what this guy'd say. I've watched him over and over again. I just think like this is a guy that bigger the stage, the bigger the event. Like he's gonna be there and it's gonna show up. Now people can counter and be like, well, what happened to Philly series last year? He wasn't good. Well, why'd they fall apart in three of the last four playoffs? I just wonder if we're ever gonna see team stay together like this anymore in the NBA with the way the Apernaz. And this feels, everyone's talking about the advanced metric side. And this is like the end of a certain era. To me, it's like the different end of an era. You could see it in the contracts that were handed out. One for seven, two for 14, two for 19. Kessler got one of the only long deals we had. All of the middle class, slightly upper middle class, slightly lower middle class. All those guys are on one year and two year deals now. Nobody wants two big contracts on the same team anymore. Utah, who really could have used Kessler was like, wow, you're offering us all this great take him. And then you look at the snowtime Lakers now with Reeves making 45, Kessler making 35 and Luke making the max. It's like, that's your team. Those are gonna be your three guys now. So Kirk, I just wonder like you mentioned the spurs earlier. If we're running back the spurs now, Parker gets traded in 2010. He's gone. Like they're like, shit, we have it. We got to pay that. We got to pay Duncan. We have to pick between Manu and Parker. Parker just had the off the court thing that happened with, you know, you could Google it. This is the time. Let's move him. We'll get younger. We'll get a young point card. And guess what doesn't happen? You're not one of the best teams in the league for the first part of the 2010s. You don't make two straight finals and you don't win the 2014 title. So I just wonder, is this the league now where we're the NFL? And it is the different champion every year. And it's by design. I mean, this is the first time in league history who had eight different champions in eight years. Welcome to the parody era. It is the NFL. And it is a direct byproduct bill of the new CBA that went into effect in 2023. And one of the things that I don't think is good is we're starting to see like beloved characters being dumped like Clay Thompson. Like this guy is gonna have a statue. He's gonna be a warrior hero. But he gets like dumped. So Jaylin's not the first one to go through this. But it's boring, but it's profound too. It's the instrument insists on giving the biggest paydays in the league to dudes 31, 32, 35 years old. And then they become toxic assets. They become toxic assets. We all know Bill, when the guys peak in the NBA, 28, 29. We watched the finals. It was all young dudes and guys in their 20s. - Yeah, I said in Yannis Peace last week on the ringer that like there were two guys among the 25 most minutes played in these years playoffs that were 32 and older. This is a young man's game. And part because the CBA makes it nearly impossible to build a good team around these toxic assets. These guys a little past their prime. They're making fucking $70 million. Like we're reserving our paydays for our guys who are a little long in the tooth and building a team around that guy in the second apron era is nearly impossible. And I'm not sure if that's good for the long term health of these fan bases in the morale of these teams. So, yeah, go ahead. No, no finishing finish. I'm sorry. I was just like, I thought it was all embodied by that concept by the viral video I saw today of a little kid just losing his mind about Jalen Brown leaving the Celtics. He had a Celtics jersey on his balling and Jalen Brown actually responded this kid. And it's just like heartbreaking. It's like you forget about that part of the business guys. Like it's my daughter is a business. My daughter who's going who really became a Celtic fan legit like the last few years and is going through all the stages now when you become a new sports fan. Like the honest trade and why are they trading Jalen? I don't understand. Why did Miami get Yannis for all this stuff? I've seen all those guys. They're not that good. And then yesterday she's face timing me and I'm like fucking out of it. And she's like near tears and she's like, I love Jalen. Really mad. I don't understand why they did this. You think you're dead. I'm like, I'm just aware by this is the afterlife. What were you going to say, C.R.? I was just going to say that there's a really interesting narrative history of the last 15 years to be written where Mori comes in and introduces a lot of the advanced analytic concepts to the NBA and changes the way teams are assembled. But that's actually the shame bad day trade, right? The shame bad day for really guys. Yeah, but he is actually in retrospect almost like what was he's romantic and compared to the way the NBA teams are run now. Like when he was just like, look, I'm looking at the underlying numbers and eight out of 10 times we beat the Warriors, given X, Y, or Z happening. It was almost like this faith that he had. Then you have like this draft capital craze that happens and that's Prestee and to some extent, the spurs and you see what happened with those guys. And now it's like it's Tim Connelly's NBA and you're just like, I'm just going to, I'm just going to have constant motion. I am going to wheel and deal and cats out the door and Randall is out for the door and Wamellos in. And then if I have to, I'll try and find somebody to take go bear and then if I have to, I'll do this. And it's just like this sort of churn that's been happening. The Sixers have been doing this too where it's like we rent a guy for two years and then we send him out. But it's almost like these contracts now. I think what Gansi did was really interesting is like all the Sixers deals are pretty much on the same timeline. So even regardless of the ages of the players and beat Maxi and Brown are all up the same year. So even if this doesn't work out, it's not something he has locked this team into for a decade. It's not like, well now what are you going to do? You've made your bet and you have to lie in it with Channel Brown. It's like, no, this is something that was very, very specific to Brown's deal. I don't know if he's going to be like, if you don't give me an extension on Owl, like that's, I think that is going to be an interesting question for a lot of these guys where it's like, I have two or three years left on my deal, but if you want me to come to your team, we have to like basically redo it. Well, I forgot to say this earlier. I do wonder if that's a piece of this Boston side with Brown was eligible for an extension later in the summer. And if they had said no, how would he react it? Well, you took care of Tatum. If Tatum was had an extension coming up, you would take care of him. Why not me? And they're trying to avoid all that stuff. But was it reporting about going the reason why the honest thing, aside from not including Hugo or whatever, like there was the rumor that he was not going to sign an extension with Milwaukee? And they were like, well, we're not going to treat Giannis and just be back in the situation with another star. Well, I'll go further on that because I have information on that that I've forgot to share last week. The Yannis to Boston thing was closer than I think people realized. And I still don't think Hugo was ever in the trade. But I do think it got to the point the Bucks had an arrangement with Yannis that he was basically going to approve the trade. They were going to trade him without him basically signing off on it. And he didn't sign off on the Miami trade for a couple days there. And they were talking about extensions with the Celtics. And it came down to it was like two years 30% of the cap could be the extension or three years 35. And the Celtics were pretty entrenched at two for 30. And Yannis wanted the three for 35 and they couldn't agree on it. And that was when he greenlit the Miami trade, a Miami throwing Yaka showness. And that's what it happened. So you can even think from the Celtics thinking they're back to what we've been talking about a while. It's like, can we compete if we have these two giant contracts on our team of guys in their 30s? And they obviously thought no. So they said no. And then they got out of the Jalen thing which they were desperate to do. Obviously, considering the trade, you mentioned Philly, they have imbed at 57, Jalen at 57 and Maxay 41 this year. Imbed goes to 63, 67, Jalen goes 61, 65. Maxay goes 44, 46, which is just three of our guys. That's all I see. In year three, you're going to have 170 million for three guys. And I think this is, you know, I've obviously had a lot of critiques about silver over the last couple of years. It doesn't always please me to do that because I like them and I've had a decent relationship with them. I think the biggest mistake he's made is hammering the second apron thing and basically taking advantage of the players. I think the players over and over again are just outmatched in these negotiations. They're negotiating against billionaires across the board. They're just going to be out man. You're not going to know as much about the future as all these guys who've made all this money doing whatever. What I don't like and what I think they should put in is the longer you're with the team, you should get some sort of cap and tax relief from it. I've been saying this forever about the Warriors and Curry. Curry's been on that team since 2009. That should matter. He just shouldn't be a blanket. Curry makes 61 million dollars a year. It should be, he makes 61 million. But because he's for every year he's been with the team, you get a percent off on the cap or the tax or whatever. So he's at 20% discount. Because I don't think fans want this. I think it's fun for us for content to just watch guys ship around and watch Lamella leave Charlotte, watch Randall leave Minnesota. Jaylen Brown, like it's fun to just watch everybody move around. But I don't think it's, I don't think it's good for the league. I don't think I, I care about the shit like the fact that Bert and McCale played their entire careers together. I just feel like that air is gone now. Yeah, I feel like that. Yeah, I think that, you know, if you're looking for one reason to understand why Jaylen Brown is on the Sixers today, it's the second apron. It's the current CBA. And I don't think this might have happened under the previous regime. And I do think it's worth thinking about that for the long-term health and sort of macroeconomic shaping of the NBA at large. And, you know, I wrote about it with with the honest last week because I think that was a huge part of what's going on there. And you just alluded to it with the Boston Miami sort of negotiations there. Like, this is the three-point line was the dominant game-changing artifact of the 2010s. The hard cap second apron is the equivalent in the 2020s. It's changing the game, but it's happening in the front office as opposed to on the court with shot selection. And I think the teams that learn how to use it the most and learn how to navigate it are going to be the most successful. And right now, that means Bill, first round picks are way more valuable than they were. Young talent on cost control is a lot more important than it used to be. And like I said earlier, a 33-year-old bit who's not living up to the $70 million dollars we're giving him is the most toxic asset in the NBA potentially and that you're talking about with him beat. Unless you're Toronto. Then you're excited. Yeah, that's right. There's nothing to see. You just had to leave the country. Did you see Kauai at the Blue Jays game? It was like Michael Corleone returning to Sicily. It was just like unbelievable. He was there for eight months. It was like he filmed one movie and was just out making the next one. Look, I remember writing about this in my book in the late 2000s about the 80s teams that we had, the Lakers, Sixers, Celtics and Pistons. And why those teams would kind of never happen again because it was so easy to circumvent the cap, pay guys, keep guys together. And we all romanticized the decade because we got all these guys to stay on the same teams. And when you know, Detroit traded dantly for a wire. That was like a cataclysmic trait. People were like, oh my God, they traded dantly. The Lakers in the mid 80s almost traded James Worthy for, I think it was worthy for Tarpley and a draft pick or something and backed out at the last minute. But we had we had moments like that, but they're always about basketball and not the other stuff. And that started a shift over the next 30 years. We saw free agency change. You talked about these different areas. Free agency changed it in the 90s because once the guys were on the young on the shorter contracts, you could see people likes to find Marbury be like, yeah, I want my own team. And he, Minnesota had him for three years. They had to trade them. Go and say that. See what? For one year, they had to trade them, right? Then we move in the 2000s and it was about these longer deals that really were able to help a team like San Antonio that could build a round donkey. And it was great. But then if you had a bad GM, they destroyed your franchise for a decade. You were done for half a decade. Yeah, you were done for five years. 2010s, three points shooting changes everything. And then this decade, it's second apron. And see how like, I really don't think we'll see a team go back to back for a long time. And even like Durant and Golden State in 16, I don't think that could have happened with the way we're doing this now. - Yeah, I mean, especially if you add the injuries that we're seeing and the kind of and the wear and tear that's happening to players. It just doesn't seem like a guy like Tatum who by all accounts takes care of his body as well as anybody in the league, you know, Haliburton, like these, these injuries are destroying franchises for not only the playoffs that they're in, but the year after. I'm trying to, it's, it's, it's a really good point about the way that the league was built was by creating these long-term relationships. And now, I think that you've replaced that with the dopamine hit of the transactional nature of the NBA, which is like really fun to talk about and really crazy to just be jacked into the matrix all day long waiting for signs that so and so is going here or this plane landed there. But I don't know if it's super good for the league, you know, I don't know. I mean, like Spandum itself has become a lot more individual. I don't think people are like, I have grown up and decided to dedicate my life to the Steelers or the Timber Wolves or the, the nuggets. Like I think they're a little bit more like I like this guy. I like it's player-centric. Yeah. So I like LeBron. Where's it going? Oh, is that in Denver now? I'm going to. I would not be surprised if next season there's just like a ton of buzz about Minnesota, just because Lamello has like a real fandom among younger NBA fans, you know, but I don't know. I just don't know if it's like totally great for the long term like is and is the NBA going to exist in 25 years? You know, I don't know. I honestly, it goes back to everything being financially driven, including like the fact that they want to expand, which I think is I've talked about over and over again. The last thing we need is two more teams. The fact that everybody has a chance, which is how the NFL was able to grow all the value of their teams, right? Didn't matter if you're in Cincinnati, Seattle, New Orleans, everybody had a chance to win the Super Bowl and you were never bad for more than a couple of years. And now we're back in that. I'll say one more thing about Jalen. And then I really want to talk about the Lakers, just because I want to cheer myself up because I thought what it did was important. Can I just ask you one more thing before you do your, your, your, your Eulogy for this? So I think the Sixers are better than they were yesterday morning. And I think the Sixers are in a position where if this goes well, and if in B gives you, yeah, if he's on the Paul George 45 games, be healthy for the playoffs, I think this team is way better situated to function during the regular season with a rhythm, especially if Philan comes through. Yep. If you have a band and team weight is not a bad pick up. Like that's like, there's a, Dean, there's a starting lineup that the Sixers have that I think is among the best in the Eastern Conference right now. Well, you know what else you did say? Are you turned Paul George into Jalen Brad? I was, I keep forgetting that. I keep the ads really locked in on Belgium, you know, like, like you had Paul George. And that's today, I'm Jalen. Now you have Jalen Brad. And look, you know what Jalen's got a lot of good ideas. I'm really open to them. Well, one of the things, so I had to obviously feel it did greatness. But one of the things that I really like about the team, as you know, I'm a durability guy, VJ, Maxi, Jalen Brad, those guys fucking play. Yeah, you know, VJ and Maxi played 40 minutes a game, Nick Nurse, because he likes playing guys 45 minutes in February. But you basically, you've turned and beat into the, like the proverbial all-time luxury. He plays awesome. If he doesn't play, yeah, I think you're okay. I think you can patch together rebounds and ring protections and be, you know, not a catastrophe. But you're going to have these three guys night after night, who are going to be playing and combined 105 minutes. And you know, VJ is going to be way better next year. That was the first thing the Celtics asked for was VJ and Paul George and Sixers are like, no thanks. Yeah, I'd probably keep VJ blow up I 95 to do that. Right. I mean, really what you want, and this is why the Celtics valued who go so much is having these perimeter guys who are two egg eyes on cheap deals is the single best lecture you can have right now. I think the Sixers are going to be good. It's interesting with the, the Celtics title ads were six to one really for the entire offseason. They're now 13 to one. They are for 50 plus wins on Fandall. Do you think they are a minus or a plus on that bet? You're betting the Celtics to win 50 plus games. I'm going to say a plus, but I'd be tempted. I think the bones are so good, Bill. You're going to tell me the price. If it's a plus, I'm in. Minus 135. So, and conversely, the Lakers are plus 200 to win 50 plus games. That was that with Confederate currency or with the back to Minneapolis. The thing with the Celtics, I think they're still going to be good lecture unless the city is so mad and so focused on how much they hated this trade that it gets a little black cloud over it. So, I think one of the reasons that this trade was what happened in 2019 when it was like, I'm paper. Look at it. Look at this team. Hey, we're back. We have Tatum in Brown and Kyrie and Al Horford and we're going to be awesome and the Egos and all that stuff never. And I think that was part of the fear and why, what leads to this trade. But I also think that could happen this year because of the energy of the trade and people just being mad. It fully starts out going like 18 and three. And the Celtics are like nine and nine and Tatum's having leg issues. And you know, there's a couple different scenarios here where we're like, oh my god, it's also a complicated thing for Stevens to sell to his fan base because to make it sound like he's really excited about this trade, he's going to have to sort of denigrate Brown on the way out. You know what I mean? Like, I think we'd go at better. I mean, I, it's a very, very, very delicate dance here. Yeah. All right. Jalen Brown quickly. 2024 champion. Yes. Indiana series made the shot in the corner, which was one of the great Celtic shots of this century. He was awesome in the Dallas series defending Luca going to a his game three. He has 30 and game three. They're up to nothing in the series. And both of them together really took it. And that was like the platonic idea of the J's together. You want to see what they wanted? Those two guys in that Dallas game is per the perfect part. I'm glad you brought it up. I was just going to add like on a team with Derek White and Drew freaking holiday. Who did Joe Mozilla? Yeah. Who did Joe Mozilla use to guard Luca Donchich in that series? Yeah. Jalen Brown. And that's why he won finals MVP. You know, he had a slightly more efficient shooting series than Jason Tatum, but it was the defense bill he called out. He is a he is a serious defender and and was more than capable in that series against Luca Donchich. And if he, if Tatum wins finals, MVP, I think all of this is a lot easier afterwards. Jalen gets the ECF Tatum wins the finals MVP, which I think he should have. I said it at the time. I don't I don't understand why he didn't win it. But I think the problems probably start there. Anyway, Jalen was amazing for the city. He showed up all the time. Never would it. However, if you ever got weird off the court, never saw it on the court. I thought he was reliable. There were frustrated things about him, which you get frustrated by everybody when you watch the play basketball for 10 years, right? But I just thought he was an awesome. You said he was an incredible guy in the community too. It really was. And honestly, that was the same thing for Mookie too. Like, you don't get a lot of these. The people that can bridge all kinds of generations and all kinds of different things that really seem to care about giving back and he was one of those guys too. CR, you want to stay for a quick Lakers hit? Sure. Okay. They gave Kessler four years, one 30 after giving up first in 2031 in 2033 and swaps in 2038. They signed Grimes and Mamo for four for 64 for 52. They let Konar go and sexting for two for 19. A guy that Charlotte, which was like a nine seed was like Kobe White's a major upgrade for us. They have Kessler, Mamo, Luca, Reeves, and Sexton. I think as the starting lineup in 8 and Grimes, Vandy, and Laravia coming off the bench in Brony. I want to throw him in there for fun. I'm just dumbfounded, Kirk. Yeah. I you're locked into this team now that I don't think has any chance to beat, not always saying Antonio, not only okay, see, but probably not Utah, probably not Minnesota. Even if Luca's averaging 35 a game, I just don't see how this is defensively a team that could hold up multiple playoff rounds. I just don't get it. So explain it to me. Kirk had so much trouble explaining it that his his computer froze. You go CR and we'll go back to Kirk. This team feels a lot like the 24 mavericks and it feels like a team that was built by Luca for Luca based on what he wants to play with secondary ball handler and Reeves. A big guy protects the rim. I guess can flush it, although I haven't seen a lot of Kessler over the years. I know he's a really good rim protector, but it's just a strange thing when all the word coming out of the Lakers was Mark Walters is here. We're going to have the front office from the future and Polenka's still there, and he's making deals basically based on what his star wants, right? I mean, that's just my read superficially. What do you think? I thought they need to get into a certain extension, right? Obviously he's signing off on all these moves. This is what he wants. He wants a defensive rim protector guy is around the rim and want shooters around him. The part I don't get is the lack of a defensive of anybody. I still don't know who's is Quinn. You watch Critten Grimes for a couple of years. He's really a lockdown defender. Cool player. Yeah. Who's guarding SGA on your team. Right. Who's guarding Anthony Edwards. What do you do when you play at the Edwards and Lamello together? Who's guarding Jamal Murray? I just have, oh, Kirk's back. I just have a slew of questions. See, we were talking about the holes that this Laker team has Kirk. And this feels like a team Luca built for Luca's purposes. Yeah. For Luca to get awesome stats. Yeah. I don't like this team at all as a guy lean spurs heavy, nothing's making me shake in my boots here. We talked about ownership earlier. There was talk Bill, like when Mark Walter and the Guggenheim bros bought this team for $10 billion from the bus family, they were going to turn in the Dodgers of the NBA and be the smartest, most aggressive team in the league. This doesn't feel like that to me. They have spent a lot of money on Austin Reeves, on Mamu and now on Quinn Grimes. But yeah, like I said, this is a franchise that expects to win NBA championships. I don't see this roster competing for championships against a Thunder team that's going to be pissed off. A spurs team that's going to be better and then all the teams in the east that seem to be getting good. I wonder whether or not the long term play here for the Lakers is to swoop in on a disgruntled Boston president and make him the front office. Brad Stephens. Wow. After Chisholm made him trade his beloved Jalen Brown Brad Stephens put himself up for. For front. I just re-agency a Joyce Lakers. I really doubt Chisholm made them do anything. If anything. No, no, I'm saying like if anything, I think he's probably guilty of maybe should have thrown his body in front of the trade versus telling them they had to do something. The bigger question for me, you know, Kessler four years, 130, played five games last year. I like him. Like he's a rebound in black. There's good advanced metrics. Should any center with the with the current setup we have other than Wembee be making more than like 29 million a year? Is it defensible? Like the Celtics are paying 20 million total for Mitchell Robertson, Garza, and Cata. Right. And Cata has some extension coming next year. But it just feels really easy to get bodies, even hook 40 on the nicks. Like, did you get him here? We did. I don't mind him for 15 minutes a game. I feel like there's a lot of those guys and is the difference between somebody like that and then or, you know, the Lakers are paying 41 million dollars for Aiton and for Kessler next year. How is that a winning formula? Counterpoint as a spurs guy watching the Luke Kornet minutes in the last two or three rounds of the playoffs. We were holding on for deer life, Luke is a good player, like no disrespect to Luke Kornet. But yeah, like if you have a really good solid backup, like the ability of Oklahoma City to have heart seeing and or a chat out there, I think it is very valuable. Obviously there's a guy in Denver that's worth a ton of money who plays the center position. But yeah, I like some of these dudes, but Kessler, I don't even know what position he is. I guess he should count and that won't be thing, but you could tell me he's any position in whatever. But Kessler, this is a massive overpay. Let's not lose sight of that. This is almost like a Rudy Gobert deal, but Rudy was like a multiple defensive player of the year or four at the time. And he is impactful. If you have Rudy Gobert and he's age 31, you're going to be a top five, top 10 defense automatically. And that's been the side of the court. The Lakers have been trying to build for years, but you said in passing your durability guy, the biggest question with Walker Kessler, is he going to play more than five games since he can play 20 games? He's been struggling with the same shoulder thing since college. So it's a huge risk on a player that hasn't sort of demonstrated that durability let alone that the competence to be a dominant center in the Western conference bill. Yeah. And you could see like Portland, I was really surprised they didn't want to make clinging the best guy in a Jalen Brown trade. Yeah. You know, it's different than the Hugo situation where Hugo was being treated as a throwin in that trade. I value him. clinging as the main piece to get Jalen Brown probably isn't holding me back. But I don't know, Sierra, maybe teams are looking at this as like if Kessler is going to make four for one 30 and clinging can do a Kessler impersonation for nine million a year. Maybe that's one of the best assets you can have. I also think I wonder if Indie, but that's obvious. That's where you get into like was Luca Doncic's like, yeah, you know, just get whoever you can get for nine million. I'll make him work. No. Obviously, we're happy. Right. Very specific proposition, but like it sounds like this was a team, like I said, that's been built instantly to suit Luca's preferences. And his preferences were obviously like a 2024 Mavericks even, even maybe even earlier vintage of that Mavericks team where he's got a diving, like room running center, a secondary ball handler and shooting everywhere. And then let's worry about defense when it's time to worry about defense. So you think Indiana who gave up two first for Zubat's and basically a 50, 50 chance that one of those picks was going to be five through nine in this draft and then it came up tails. But Zubat's on a way better contract than Kessler. And the price for these guys is two first. So you think Kevin Pritchett was going to the office to be like, yeah, I told you guys. See that Kessler deal. It's a little more defensible. I still do you agree with that character now? Yeah. I think that's a good kind of. But they played like Russian roulette with that lottery pick and lost and all that deal with. But dude, I don't know what the lakers are doing. I don't care about Kevin Pritchett right now. By the way, I do love the wall. I can't wait to watch the Pacers next year, no, no, there's nothing there. But what are we doing? What are we doing with Walker Kessler? Where are the Los Angeles fucking lakers, dude, like we go after George Mike in and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Shaq and Anthony Davis, by the way, like, what are we doing? Walker Kessler, how much are, where the fucking lakers, like, where is that swagger? And like, we don't get Walker Kessler. We get, you know, Nicola Yochich, we get, we get the biggest guy available. And it feels like they took a lot of their own flexibility out with all that draft capital bill. So I just, yeah, I know it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a small sort of silver lining for your day yesterday with your colonoscopy and the Jalen Brown. They started out great, but the lakers seem to have fucked their up their, their feet are a little bit in my opinion. Sarah, if, if Utah's in a trade, Kessler, I think Utah's one of the smartest teams we have, that would make me nervous. Sure. You're in a trade-em. You're this young rebuilding team. You already have a ton of pace. I have. I have. I have, I have so excited to trade Kessler. I'm very excited about the Jalen Brown trade. I have the same feeling about trading with Brad Stevens. I'm like, I really hope, I really hope that, that Brad Stevens just like hit his head. And this is what's happened because like, I don't want to be in, on the wrong side of these deals. I also, Verno made a really good point that I happened to agree with, which is like, it's very strange that that's the market for Walker Kessler and Jalen Durin can't find a job. Yeah. Well, this goes back to my question about, should any center except for Wembee and Yoke if he is a center? I guess he is. We'll count him as a center. I feel like he's like point guard on offense, I don't know what he is at defense. But Jalen Durin paying him $40 million a year, I just think is prohibitive to everybody. If he gets that, God bless him. But it feels like 25 to 30 is the range for guys like that that are like, good centers, but they're not game changers. And then I guess Yannas, if you consider him a center, which I wouldn't. So Utah has Triple J marketing, Bayley, Peterson, George, and then Sensebaw, Philip Pascay, Collier. So they took a step back from maybe, oh wow, could this team be a succeed if Peterson's good? I do wonder if they would have taken Booser if they knew that this Kessler trade was sitting there. I wonder if that changes the dynamics of that at all because I think it was a little closer. So you like it with what they have it. I just think if I'm doing the Kessler thing, I think I would just rather have Booser, but we'll see with Peterson. They obviously, they were all in on it. Wait, did it cross your mind yesterday too with Danny Ainsh, who's a main character in Boston history? Would he have done this Jalen Brown deal? Because it's interesting that Danny's fleecing the Lakers, in my opinion, on the same day that this Jalen Brown thing is going down with Brad Stevens. I think Danny would have traded Jalen a year ago and Tatum got hurt. He would have been, he was a soft rebuild. I think he would have completely blown it up and I think he would have traded him and I think he would have thrown away last year, completely, and probably been proactively a year too soon on it. I mean, the bigger question is, was there even a Jalen Brown trade last year? You know, I don't know what was available last summer, but well, so Lakers were all confused by that. Not to mention, the team with three white guys, three. I had, I had a. Like a team that's being led, their three best players are way ahead. That's great email. I got to find it from somebody who went back over the course of history of this from Jason Downey. It's from JD V and Washington. No, Jason Downey said the last time a team with three white guys as their best guys won a championship was 1958 St. Louis. If you go to white guys, Bert or Mikhail or or Cowan's and Hondo, Ken Luka Reeves and Kessler overcome three quarters of a century of NBA history. No. Yeah. I'm going to go no. That's a no for me, dog. See a fan, we'll put that up. No time Lakers. So then the Celtics concurrently get Mitch Robinson yesterday for three for 47, which I thought was a great deal. The nicks would not go over the second apron for Mitch. They've spent a lot of money over the years. We've seen title teams do this Kirk, 2011 Dallas, most famously with Tyson Chandler, where they're just like, nope, when the title hold no line, we want flexibility 2008 Celtics with Posey was another decent example of just didn't want to head into all the tax shit. Nuggets, right? Didn't they do that kind of with Brucey B? I guess probably. There was no way they could back. They could. They basically got poison pill to them. There was a reason Lakers situation when he got hot in the finals, they let him go. What's a bow or no to you that they let Mitch go? I mean, it's the theme of our podcast in his extent is like this, this is a hard cap world. Like they were living in a hard cap world, unless you're the Cleveland Cavaliers last year, the only team that dared go over this rule, the second apron. I don't think they had much of a choice, Bill. I do think, you know, as somebody went to the NBA cup last year and watched Mitchell Robinson essentially beat the spurs, that was like a premonition for, for, for how the finals will go, my opinion. He's such an important part of their culture, that bench unit that I think got us from the TIB zero to the Mike Brown era and obviously got us to a title level. But depth is very, very expensive in the modern NBA and this is exactly what we can, can, can start to see from a title team like, yeah, your second best center is gone. And to your team, I think it's a great addition for team struggle with rebounding down the stretch and some of those playoff losses. Mitchell Robinson is one of the best rebounders, if not the best rebounder in the league right now. And he showed it in big moments. So I like it for Boston. I'm not surprised to see, to see New York not, not being able to afford that many good players. I see our, I'm not going in over the second apron and getting crippled by all these different things for my seventh or eighth best player. I'm just not doing it. I just think everything is like context, it's like, if Sam Prestee did this, everybody would be like, Ah, see, he knows, but it's James Dolan, so they're like, cheap skate. Like Goddamn it. Motherfucker. You're not bringing Mitch back. You know, like it's his own with riding such a high after the title and then the speech came out that he gave to the team. And if he had just gone away to like Australia, right afterwards, he'd still be riding a high. I know, but it's the same kind of thing, you know, like I think we were giving Tim Connelly the benefit of the Dow because it's a really good GM with the Lamello trade. I know that you didn't like it. He obviously had his reasons, but then people are like, what is Tom Dundin doing with Portland? Why do they have five guards, you know, like everything is just sort of about like this sort of narrative architecture around it. That was my favorite Jalen trade and the one I was reading for was with Portland. Blazers? Yeah, with Drew Holiday coming back, Kamara and a couple picks and just call it a day. And I think that would have accomplished a lot of what Paul George saying is, but obviously Portland didn't want him. Yeah, I heard. Yeah, people just were turning down Jalen left and right. Portland was really sticky with the young, those young players with Milwaukee too, Bill. And then when he had in the fact that Yannis, I don't think would have wanted to extend in Portland. But yeah, I heard that they were not willing to part with their young talent and in either deal. But yeah, it would have been better to get younger if you're the Boston Celtics, but they just got older to either of you have the Lakers as a playoff team or as a playoff team. The way it's right now. Yeah, I think so because I think they'll be a good regular season team. So if they're all healthy and if they if they don't suffer like two months hamstring Luca, you know, I think that they will play well on a night and I think Luca. Yeah, hamstring Luca, calf strain Luca, Bill sent me on the wild goose chase about calf strains and hamstrings last year and I do think that's the right thing to bring up. That's no small assumption at this point with him or Austin Reeves, but yeah, if Luke is playing their playoff team, if they lose two of those three guys for any significant amount of time, I think it's going to be quite difficult. Luca's plus 650 now for MVP, Han Fando, Wembe's plus 210 is the favorite because Wembe SGA Yokage, Yannis, Edwards, Tatum 6th, Jaylen Brown, still 101 CR, you're talking about the all-time FU season by somebody just maxi throwing a Mally hoops the entire day. There's a dark side of this Lakers season though that I'm maybe I'll have to grab onto as I search for answers and happiness, collided Toronto, for Ingram and Dick and two first and 31 and 33 and a 27. Is it just crazy that he's that they relied to do this before they settled this entire investigation? It's just crazy. Yes. Well, I've heard this, so what would Adam would he just say you're not allowed to make it trade about the collide? I think it just would have been like, make the investigation a little bit more expedient if possible. Like throw a couple more lawyers at this thing, like whatever it is, whatever you're going to decide, it seems strange that the main character of this controversy is now allowed to go to Toronto and is this is like, I've seen people say this is kind of almost a shadow punishment, you know, or whatever we're basically I don't believe it either, but I just find this incredibly strange that this was allowed to happen. Can I give you some co-estats? Okay. It was interesting watching everybody talk about him like this is the missing piece for Toronto. Now they can make the finals. You just get sports in Asia sometimes with guys. Can I have played for the Quippers for seven years in the bubble in around in 2020. They lost them round two and seven to Denver. They blew through one lead. 21. They made the West finals. He broke down halfway through round two. So basically he had only one to play officers up to that point. 2022, no playoffs because he's heard 2023 lost in five defeanings. He broke down in game two. That's round one. That's 24 lost in six round one to Dallas. He played two games. 2025 lost in seven to Denver. 2026 lost the first play in game to the Warriors at home where they blew a big lead. And he was terrible in the second half. He's played 11 playoff games in the last five years. The last time he was part of a winning playoff series was made 2021. Why are we talking about this guy like it's the 2019 Kawaii in his back. He's not that guy anymore. I don't care. I know he was good. I voted for him for second team on B.A. last year. But as we talk about over and over again, regular seasons here, playoffs are here. And he hasn't shown up in the playoffs for the entire 2020s. He hasn't made it. So why is it going to be different this year, Kirk? It's not going to be different. But here's why it's the same shit that makes Jalen look bad relatively. These models, like the estimated plus minus, which is a great tool. But if you look at it right now, Kawaii is always a top five, top six player in that list. But to your point earlier, durability is a skill. And a lot of times these models, like fail to account for the simple fact that you have to play a lot to be a great NBA player. I think Julie Champagne. You're almost better up playing 10, 15 games less a year, so you look better in the models. Well, that's like what Paul George, like, look great in the playoffs after he got his 25 game break. And I do think that's one of the reasons the league is skewing so young is like Julian Champagne played over a hundred games of NBA basketball this year, like, and many of them in the playoffs. Like, this is insane. Well, we're asking these athletes to endure, and many other bodies just simply can't handle it. Disproportionately, older bodies with three existing injuries, like Kawaii Leonard. So I'm not surprised. I would bet very strongly he won't survive another grind like he did in 2019 when he, by the way, wasn't 100% then either when they won it all. But he was seven years younger than he is coming back. He was really good last year. They lost the first playing game to a team that then lost by like 20 in the second game CR. Uh, my, my takeaway from this transaction is just that the clippers have returned spiritually to the pre-Lob City era that this, there is Garland and Brandon Ingram almost feel like pre-Lob City Clippers to me. And I appreciate that. Maybe that is the clippers punishment is to go back, baby, as Brandon Ingram. Yeah. Yeah. So the Clippers traded Kawaii Harden and Zubat's. They got Garland and Wogler back. Ingram. Math or in, I guess, yeah, greatest truly pre-Lob City's Clippers. Yeah. Grady Dick is about as Oh, four Clippers is you're going to get as they had Jackson three and protected first one swap. Way more cap space. I'm still not sure why they didn't get involved in the Jalen thing, but what do I know? I am still confused why Kawaii was so excited to return to Toronto. And I do think this is, if I ever did another bad thing. basketball book. This would be another great NBA, whatever for me. Um, if he just stays in Toronto, he could have stayed with Siacum in an obi Lowry, Van Vuitt, Powell, Gassal in Abaka in 2020. And they probably would have gone back to back, would be my guess. Instead he jumps to the quippers, forces them to trade SGA and all their picks, aspirations scandal. Her key one four play F series in Toronto and two of the quippers. That's wild. As part of the front office that sent him to Toronto, it's almost a full circle moment. Don't trade great players to your rivals. Like, I remember the, the Lakers were calling us in 2018. Can we get Kauai Leonard from you? And pop was like, fuck no, we're not trading our best player to the team that we think is a real threat to our, our championship hopes over here. Um, and, and, you know, so we sent them to the Eastern Conference to Toronto, where it's for many reasons. But one of them was like, we're not here to help our rivals in Los Angeles. But one of the things built, we knew back in 2018. And it was, he was going to end up in LA a year or so later. He, he was going to go to Southern California. Yeah. And so I'm actually kind of surprised given that the emotional reasons he wanted to be back in Southern California. Now he's back in Canada. Of all of this stuff, it's like, dude, I thought you wanted to live in LA. Like, I thought that was the whole thing. It does. Yeah. And he was living in like an hour and a half outside of LA too. And seem like you love being in California. It does, I can conspiracy bill has, has, has done some deep dives. I'll, I'll just say that conspiracy bill was, I'm like, who's doing the aspiration scandal? It's like, we're working on it. We're gonna be our verdict. Yeah. conspiracy bill is gonna look at this over the course of the summer. Um, I quickly LeBron. Last shoe, right? Like, this is great that this is the, here we are. Here we are 15 years later. We're still waiting for LeBron. Yeah. I wrote a Brian Curtis trade rumors piece. Now we said we're in the trade rumors era for Greenland 2014. He wrote it was 12 years later. And it was a very, very, a piece that saw the future in a lot of different ways, including that we're probably gonna be here for the rest of our lives with LeBron. He, uh, he decided not to return to the Lakers. Okay. Yep. Um, I wrote down he decided not to return to the Lakers. Like I decided not to return to ESPN. But that was funny. Um, anyway, then we all knew where this was going. And, uh, do we left? Where is it going? Well, with him not being on the Lakers. Yeah. But like, where is this for six months? Because, first of all, I just have to say of our, our, our ringer podcast network colleague, Rich Paul, it's been doing a wonderful job. The ringer's Rich Paul, having all of us play a game of clue about, you know, with like, he wants to go somewhere that has both good indoor and outdoor golf. You know, and it's like, everybody is like looking up top golf like locations across the country. Well, he wants, he wants winning. And he wants to be happy. Sure. Sure. Um, wouldn't I guess that I, I find this fascinating. I almost find it kind of fun. Like, we're not going to get to do this that many more times, probably ever with him. So I'm, I'm down to go one more last time. We're on the cowers carousel. Kirk, I'm going to make a prediction. Yeah. I think this goes on for a lot of the month because it will get, um, stories day after day and conjecture and podcast content when podcasts are dead in mid July after everybody has gone with wherever I just think this, my, my guess with this keeps going and going. Something and I've seen, and we did, I did something with Zach about it on Sunday. Where could we go? And I thought saying Antonio made the most sense, but they signed to buy his Harris. So that's not happening. Um, Denver is a team that I think we always thought would be fun to see him and Yoke. It's together is no history there. I haven't seen this possibility mentioned yet. Hold on to your seats. What if he doesn't pick anybody? Oh, until like January, February range? What if he just says, yeah, what if he just says, you know what? I'm going to take my time with this one. Guys, I want to watch the league. I'm going to play golf for the next six months and the stay in shape. I want to make like a February, March, April, May, June, run of five months sprint. I own every single record there is to own right now. It's not like I'm playing for maybe did he get to 40,000 points? I don't remember. I don't even, he has so many records. I don't even know what the records are anymore. Does he just say, you know what? I'm going to wait. I'm going to wait to see who's more unhappy with their team in December and January and early February. And I will just have people keep talking about this for the next six months. I think it's in play. What do you think of that? I do. I think that that would be a, a sensational media story. And, and given, and now I think that there would be some resentment that would build up of like bronze holding league hostage and all this stuff. But the idea of him being like, let's see who's surging in January. And I will come in as like the great arm off the bench, you know, and if anybody can keep himself in playing shape, it's him, you know, it's the Roger Clemens move. As Kirk said, yeah, I'm still in here. I'm still good. Me an awesome shape. I don't care about regular seasons anymore. I'm going to pop in and out with somebody for four or five months. And also I think that it's worth noting like the math on like, who would he be offending if he did this, right? Like he's played for several different teams. As we've talked about over the course of this pod, like the rival race, the state of rivalries and, and there are no go zones in the NBA is kind of falling apart. So yeah, like why not? If, if Denver's rolling, I could see him going to Denver, but in January, you know, like if, well, especially at the market, it's not as robust as maybe they're pretending it is. And he's looking at lower than mid levels or so the only thing I think this would do is that if he does announce that this is his final season, which I guess everybody is assuming that this would kind of diminish the victory lap. Or maybe he hasn't decided that at all. We don't have any until on that. Like the one of the reasons I've always thought he was going to go the Warriors is I thought it was going to be a two year deal lined up with Curry and lined up with Kerr. And they'll be, I was calling it the expendables, but they'll just sell out everywhere. And it'll be this kind of appreciation to your tour, combined with the fact that they'd be pretty competitive if they could get everybody to stay healthy at the same time in April and May. But that didn't happen right away. So I'm wondering why, because I think the Warriors were ready for it to happen. And now it's on hold. So the Miami thing makes no sense to me. I think that would be so weird. You're going to have BAM and Yannis and LeBron all the like what is that team? Are you winning a title with that? Also Pat Riley basically like called him out when he was leaving in 2014. It was basically without saying it saying like you're taking the not cowardly way out. But also like the math. You're bailing on this after one loss. What is LeBron playing for? Like what is LeBron playing for financially? And what is LeBron playing for emotionally? Is he playing? He's playing to compete, which is weird because he was just on a team of Luca who we have as a top five or six ringer 100 guy and Reeves who is a top 35 to 40 guy. So it's not like he couldn't have competed on the Lakers. It's just the real issue is you can't compete if you're paying a 41 year old guy $50 million a year anymore. So he has to wrap around his head like where am I in this current ecosystem? I can't be one of the best two guys on the title team anymore. I just can't. So what does that mean financially? So that's what you wanted to go. Where do you want him to go? I want him to go to San Antonio. I thought that would have been awesome. Denver is just fucking weird enough that I would watch every league past game. And then a goal in the state I think would be super fun. Cleveland is the one that doesn't make any sense to me. And that might be one of the most likely outcomes. You're going to have him and James Harden on the same team. And if you put if you put LeBron on last year's calves team against the Knicks, which is put him instead of Wade and Struse getting all those minutes. Does the series change? Do you think the Knicks lose? I don't think LeBron has the problem against the Knicks. Yeah. So I don't I had the Cavs scenario. I don't know. Kirk that one seems lame to me. I don't think that gets him anywhere. It feels right in my gut though. Like the part where he's doing a victory lap in the Cavs jersey and the goal isn't to win a championship. So I think that's really the fork in the road. If this dude wants to win one more title, it's not Cleveland. I don't think that puts them over the hump. But it plays like San Antonio or Denver that is a player away. Chess piece away like. So I think we're going to learn about a lot about his motivations by when he chooses and where he chooses because I do think the story, the movie, the movie story is going back to Cleveland. And I feel like that's the way for him to be the most beloved athlete. You know how history and just make sure that probably is. So it might not. But I know it's lame. But I do think if I had to guess that's where this goes. But if he chooses a place to go win, I mean, Philly, Minnesota, Denver, San Antonio, there's a lot of compelling choices where he can be the fourth best guy. And hell, he would make every team. We kind of said, good. LeBron's career is watching. I think if I'm going to do that, if I'm going to latch on to a team, I'm waiting until the December to do it. That's not going anywhere. I want to watch all these teams. I want to play it out and have a good time and do the, is he retiring or isn't he? And I'm just in the news all the time, which is I think one of the things that's attractive to, it's the dialogue about what's happening with him that seems to be at least partly addictive to him and everyone in his circle. And by the way, next, what's he going to next? We knew he wasn't coming back to the Lakers. The reason I love that bill is like, again, the 82 game regular season is an obscene amount basketball for an older person to try to endure. I like this. This could actually set a template for Kevin Durant going forward or Stefan Curry going forward is like, I don't need to be out there until Christmas. Like, this is ridiculous. I'm just going to get a hamster. Yeah. And training has become and, and sports science and training have gotten so good that I can keep my body in playing shape, even if I'm not playing. Yeah. And I'm more likely to be relevant in April, May and June if I'm not playing October, November, December, meaningless basketball games against, you know, Orlando on a Tuesday night. He has 43,440 points. He has so many records. I couldn't remember if he had 40,000 points or not. He has the games record. He has basically the minutes name a record. He probably has it or is in the top five. So the regular season, I don't think helps him as much at this point. I think what would help him is, how do I, how do I stay in the mix? How do people, how are people continuing to talk about me as I try to do this golf side thing that I'm trying to do? And then can I just parachute into a good situation? Because I'm going to, I mean, the thing with LeBron is he could fit in any situation and be like fun LeBron, like he was before Luca got hurt in the Lakers. So just like, plot me in here. I'll figure it out. And then becomes this huge asset. And maybe he'll watch Minnesota for two months and be like, yeah, I feel like I could help those guys. I'll go in there. Or maybe he'll watch Denver and be like, oh, shit. Christian Brown looks healthy this year, huh? So anyway, like, that makes way more sense to me than him talking himself into being on the quippers and playing with Garland and Wagler. I just don't see him doing stuff like that. People are really quick things and then we'll go. Miami loses Powell because of the honest trade. So I feel like he has to be added to the honest trade that got me the all-star team last year. Basically, they lost everybody on their team except Bama Mitchell. I feel like the honest sweepstakes ended up just, there's going to be some peace right in about all the teams that affected negatively. And then Detroit feels like it's kind of blowing up their team and that we're right now it's 941 Pacific time, but they lost Harris. They replaced them with John Collins. Who's fine? I don't think he's as good as Tobias Harris. I thought Harris was that, unless you're seeing their number two guy that went to anytime they needed a basket. And was also like the veteran culture center guy who's seen it all and like, here to help Kayden during and then, and then you bring in John Collins who seems like I have no idea what kind of duty is, but it just seems like kind of more of a rent forward situation rather than like a three-year deal. That's really a one-year deal. And they seem paralyzed by all this stirring stuff, but it's weird to me that if they had this moment coming with their team where they're going to have this great reckoning, why didn't they go harder on last year's team? They extended herder, which I thought was weird too because I don't remember him playing in the playoffs. So I don't know what to make of what they're doing Kirk. And why not try to go after Jalen Brown would be the other way. If that's the price, a couple of first round picks and some Saturday cat flexibility, which the Celtics didn't even get. Yeah. And the Duran, they might end up with Jalen Duran still on their team. And that relationship is going to be strained now. So, you know, there's a case for why don't we just put in our armor on Jalen Duran? Yeah, you had a bad playoffs, but you're all NBA 22 year old. We're not getting another player like that in Detroit. Um, so if it ends up with like this quasi strained relationship with Jalen Duran and some number that is insulting to him, that's not great either. But this is a 61 win team bill that was on the rise. Um, and it feels like I had them down in my biggest losers of free agency so far because it feels like they're not getting back to 61 wins, right? Next year, like the I just don't see where they might lose. That's right. Who knows beef still? Yeah. Robinson, they waved my comeback. They lose Harris. This team was successful. And they just, I thought they were a score short, um, favorite signings really quick. I thought Ubrei to Indiana for two for 17. I really liked. They're gonna, they're gonna like it. Indiana's gonna be good. Like if they, if they get however 100% back, I know he battled shingles and stuff, but I really like that one. Um, I thought Konard two for 13 and Phoenix was, was a fun one. And then uh, Harris to San Antonio, I just really like, although if we, if we go backwards and we think about that finals, if they have to buy us Harris, who's losing minutes Kirk at that point. So we lose the brine minutes and we lose champagne or the two. Yeah, but champagne is tough because he'll make eight threes in a game and just win it. Uh, I love Jalen champagne and then related to sort of the spurs added three years to him. And that's a great story because he was a scrap heap guy. Now he's a paid, um, but it just gives them optionality. And I think Tobias is a shot creator. Like the spurs look terrible, uh, on offense a lot. Like the, the offense just doesn't look good. It gives them another shot creator. So I think somebody could take 10 shots of game where there's 10 or less seconds left in the shot clock 100%. So I like it for them. It gives them optionality and looks and everybody on that team is still getting better, but you know, I didn't understand the barns thing in relation to, to that, but, um, they just love barns, but I get it, but could they love them for one year for two million? That one year for eight. Uh, we still don't know where Peyton Watson's going. We don't know where math runs going. Um, my favorite free agent that's left is, well, I have to Rui Hachemura and Simon's. I think both of those guys, I really like Simon's last year. And, um, I think he's at least a 10 to 15 million dollar player. I thought there's a chance the Celtics would bring him back. Um, and then Hachemura, I was surprised that wasn't the guy San Antonio got Kirk. Well, there were, there were, that bigger sense on them. Yeah. Do you know that CR who makes more sense to buy a sire? So Rui Rui for what they, what they have. Yeah. I mean, I think that San Antonio's probably Kirk would know way better than me, but like a lot of your calculus has to do with what they expect. Harper and, and castle to be next season. So yeah, I, how that relates to Rui versus, uh, versus Tobias. I don't know, but it seems like it would have been an excellent addition. It's sort of strange. He's still out there. I don't know where he's going to wind up. And Ken Rich Williams is the other one that, uh, she's clearly somebody that could be one of your nine guys in a playoff series. Like he might be your ninth guy, he could be. So Uber is out. And then we're starting to get in the slim pickings range. We'll see if somebody gives Taris and a RFA, but for the most part, I guess the, so the biggest storyline left is what happened with J. Lambron, what they trade them. And we're just, and where's LeBron going? And then can Peyton Watson get some sort of deal somewhere that will force Denver's hand. But everybody's at a, yeah, how long does the craziness go? Like, is there anything that could happen in the next three days that then triggers somebody else to be like, you know what, actually, I also want, I don't, I don't want to be here, you know, but I think that this felt like a fever for the last 10 days. And now we sweat it out and we'll have the end of free agent seeing going to hibernation. You know what I really blame over everything else, me doing CR month. It's possible. Yeah. It was the first domino. I do CR month. Within a month, the Celtics have blown a three one lead in a playoff series to the sixers. And then we're trading the sixers J. Lambron and a trade where we get Paul George back. And I'll start with CR month. It all starts much like Jalen and Jason, CR get in the steering wheel for a month has just completely thrown the ringer apart. We also traded you AJ Brown into a football franchise and crisis, you know, and and he thought he was going to go play for variable. Is he going to play for variable? I don't know. I mean, like it's, there's a lot of things up in the air in Boston. You hate to see it. It really is. We lose the Maple Leafs lottery pick. Oof. The Red Sox season has been in all time disgrace and just when things were getting better and we swept the Yankees early goes out with elbow trouble. Grim times. It's also like 130 degrees in Boston this week, apparently. Anyway, all right. Kurt Goldsbury, joy the joy of the July 4th. CR, this was a true true pleasure. Thanks for being such a pro. Thanks brother. Thanks for jumping on here in the morning. Thanks to Gaha and Eduardo and Chris and everybody else that's Spotify. I'm going to be back on Sunday at some point with some sort of live show. And then the next rewatch will this is going to be Ali, which is coming on on on Monday. You can watch that on Netflix actually the next five days. But that's our ninth Michael man movie CR. I can't wait for people to hear it. I think if there's one lesson and one thing we want to leave people with a head into the July 4th, it's make sure you get your call and ask a few. Make sure you get it. But don't do it on July 1st. And then see our possibility will go live Monday night after 10 years. We're talking. We're talking about jinxes, nonjinkses, all that stuff. Congrats on Harry Kane. Great. Great to have football yesterday. It was really awesome. Legendary. Anyway, all right guys. Have a great weekend. Thanks everybody who watch. >> Must be 21 plus in president select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas star casino or 18 plus in president DC Kentucky or Wyoming game prom called 100 gamble or 1 800 by reset call 888 797777 or visit CC PG dot org slash chat Connecticut or MD gambling help dot org in Maryland hope is here visit gambling helpline m a dot org or call 800 327 50 for 24 seven sport Massachusetts or call 877 8 hope and why or text hope and why in New York for Louisiana call 877 770 7867