The NBA Mega-Redraftables (2012 and 2013 Combined) With J. Kyle Mann and Joe House. Plus: Portland vs. “El Cheapo” for the Blazers With Justin Verrier.

The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by The Ringer podcast network where I have a new rewatch most coming on Monday, Kyle Brant and I did Karate Kid 2, a way better movie than I think it gets credit for, but more importantly, the gateway for us being able to do a Karate Kid 3 later in the year, which is the funniest movie of the 1980s. Whenever I came out, I think it was late '80s. Karate Kid 2, you can watch that Netflix. You can also watch Speed on Netflix in August and that's important because the next rewatchables will be the re-speed. Speed was one of the first episodes we ever did on the rewatchables. We had four people and I think it was less than an hour, so we needed to redo this. We blew out Speed. It's the OG crew, Me, Sean, Fantasy and Chris Ryan. So that's a week away and you can watch Speed any time you want. Coming up on this podcast, it's evergreen content time. What the hell else is going on other than the baseball trade deadline? I have been watching a lot of Red Sox. I've been enjoying the Red Sox, but really nothing's going on. So it's the perfect time. For the first time ever, NBA redraftables, we combined two drafts and we had a mega draft of 2012 and 2013. That's with me and Jay Kyle Man and Joe House. And then I brought in Justin Barrier for a very special one question mailbag segment about the Portland Trailblazers who are in flux all of a sudden. Portland, we're going to explain what's going on there and how El Chico factors in to all this. That's all next. We'll take a break and our friends from ProJay. This episode is brought to you by SAP. Hello, midsize business. We see your big ambitions, but how do you achieve the wins you want when your technology is holding it back? Hmm. I wonder, well, how about SAP Grow? It's built to grow with your business no matter its size, with AI embedded at its core working across every system all ready to go from day one so you can hit the ground running. Bring it with SAP Grow AI Cloud ERP for any size business. All right, we have done some redraftables on the Bill Simmons podcast. We have done everything from 1997 through 2011. We did a couple other ones as well, 18. We did the COVID draft, 20. You can find a lot of these in the Book of Basketball Podcasts as well. We have never combined two drafts. And Joe House is here and Kyle Mianna is here and we are combining the 2012 and 2013 MBA drafts because both of them are terrible. And even when you combine them together, you get only six All MBA guys. You only get three guys who made my top 100 revised pyramid that nobody's seen, but me and House. Only nine guys want to title. But four of them were KCP, Azeli, Crowder, and Snell. You have some iconic bus. You have two of the three worst drafts of the 21st century back to back. You have 14 guys who put a combine 20k minutes. You're 20 guys who started 400 plus games and really house the only major thing of this was the last draft diary ever was 2012. And then I was on the broadcast in 2013. Wow. Yeah. That's right. 2013. And you were in the 2012 draft diary. You and Jacobi watch it with me. You were the peanut gallery. My mom came over halfway through the draft with meatballs and rigatoni and all this stuff. Did the writing like, can you chart the writing, getting like sleepier? No, it's because I was smart enough not to eat until after I finished the diary. House was not. You can kind of see how started the diary. Yeah. How's your started eating? And that was it. Anyway, Kyle, why did drafts not work? What if you had to give one reason why we have a bad draft? Would you say it's just bad luck with talent? Is there a cluster theory that all of these guys are moving up the ladder and playing together and just not getting better because the other guys aren't that good? Is it situation? What is it in your opinion? Yeah, I honestly, it's probably just the wrong people were having sex the 19 years prior at the right. Honestly, I think to the day you've been talking about the guys first bad as it is. I mean, we have two guys by my count that made the NBA's top 75. Oh, yeah. And then in other drafts, I mean, oh, nine had Harden and Curry, 84 had Hakeem, MJ Barkley stocked in 96 at Kobe Nash, Ray Allen, Iverson. So, I mean, it is kind of crazy that we got that. And then also just the the incredible defensive talent that came into the league during these two drafts. I mean, with AD, with Dremont Green, with Rudy Gobert. So, you know, is it deep? Absolutely not. My first order of business was just a huge cutting of the chaff of the field. I was like, all right, only these guys are draftable period. And I just kind of went from there. Yeah, I remember. So I did TV for the 2013 one. And my favorite player was Ola Depot who went second, but when you go through 2013, it's probably the busiest other than the drug draft in 1986. It's the busiest you're going to get. Anthony Bennett goes first, which if you go on YouTube, I screamed out, whoa, twice, not knowing my mic was on, but it was just so stupid fine because they already had a power for their Tristan Thompson. And then they took Bennett who played the same position. They're even playing with small four or two. He was he had been in college for a year. It was nuts. He went first to Cleveland, Ola Depot, second Orlando, Joe Houses, Wizards, Togato Porter, Cody Zellor for to Charlotte, Alex Lynn, five, New Orleans, Noelle dropped to six. He was supposed to go first all the way down to New Orleans, got traded, Philly, Ben Maclamore, seven. Contavious, Caldwell Pope, eight, who's the second best player I've mentioned, Trey Burke, nine, and then CJ McCollum, 10th house in all time. Although you had auto Porter stock for a while. Yeah, he ended up being a good role player. And I he's still in the league, right? Isn't he a mentor on one of these teams or is he some capacity? I'm sure he's around the way out of he's not playing. Yeah, I don't think he's playing. So that one and then that one gets better later, which we'll cover. The other one was just your standard bad draft where Davis goes one in New Orleans kid go Chris to to Charlotte, Bradley bill three to Washington. And then it goes down. Waiters Thomas Robinson back to back. Dame Lillard six, Harrison Barnes, Terrence Ross, Andre Drummond, Austin Rivers, Myers Leonard, Jeremy Lamb. And you're like, oh, when are the good guys coming? Kendall Marshall, John Hansen, Mohawkless, Royce White, Tyler Zoward, Terrence Jones, Andre, Andrew Nicholson, that's our top 19 Kyle. I don't know what our draft guide would have looked back back then, but it really, really grew some. And I remember the Celtics had 21 and 22. And I was rooting for Jared Sellinger to fall to them at 21, which he did, but he had bad back issues. And then they took Fab Mello, the 22nd pick, who played a total of six games in the NBA. And was the center of your average. Yeah. And a center who average less than six rebounds a game in college. So, um, so with, so these two drafts together, House, you remember a more for Janus and A.D. and Dame, or for all the buss? I mean, it's, it's, it's very busty, the true recollection for me going through this exercise of looking at the players or whatever. Didn't feel like at the time, there was, I mean, Anthony Davis was humongous at the moment. And then he, he delivered, but otherwise, it was just a lot of oddity, uh, upon reflection. I'm impressed by the defense out of these two classes combined. And that's the best sort of attribute out of all of it in my humble opinion. And some 3 and D guys as well. Um, it's right as the league shifting to, we're not sure what we want. Exactly. Right. This is 2012, 13 Curry takes off in the 13 playoffs, basically. And during that season, the next year goes even up a level. But this is right where, I mean, I gotta be honest, I love Thomas Robinson in that 2012 draft. But to me, it was like, oh, he's a power forward banger who can shoot a little bit. But those type of guys just don't exist anymore. Kyle, these six eight guys who can't really shoot, they're not great rebounds. It's like, what are they? But for some reason, they made sense before this decade. I guess in one sense, you could, you could say that, um, the analytics movement, which was getting rid, it had begun. It was getting ready to really explode and be driven by the tectonic kind of shift of the Curry era kicking off kind of in, and I think analytics started to inform, um, archetypes of players that we just would never get taken there. Like an energy big like a Thomas Robinson, just absolutely. There's no way the analytics hate those types of players. Um, I was going to bring up the, the one, I don't want to move on from the 2013 broadcast because you were right. You had a ton of wins on that broadcast. I did. I had a good, I had a good telecast history. People should just rewatch it. because it's entertaining. You gotta scrub through 'cause it's a long thing, but there were a couple of moments where there's a point in the draft, or I guess it was between six and 10, and the only thing on the board, similar to this to your draft, it was like implied that you should take a guard at that spot. And you mentioned that all the teams in that range all have guards, it's like, well, I don't think that they should. And Jay Billis comes at you and says like, well, if they're the best player available, don't you think that they should take them if they're a guard? And I cannot imagine a more perfect comedic behind the back alley you passed to you at that moment, than a chance to dunk on David Conn because you did not miss a beat. You were like, that got David Conn fired. There are just so many good moments in that broadcast. - I mean, it was such a train wreck as it was happening, and it was also David Stern's last draft, which was the other thing. But it was, and Jaylin and I did the interview stuff that year, we interviewed all those guys, and that made us feel worse about the draft, not better. Joe House was very prominent during this 12, 13 range for a different reason. This is about a conspiracy bill. I don't know if we want to bring him in. You want to come in? There were some interesting lottery results all in a row here. - Oh, okay, now we're talking. - The decision happens in 2010, after the draft, after the 2010 draft, 2011 draft, which recovered Cleveland, who had lost LeBron. They got the number one pick. 2012, New Orleans, which was owned by the league. Lockout ends, they have to trade Chris Paul. They trade into the Lakers and falls through. They have to do this Quipper's Dail Instead, which. - Well, it didn't fall through. - David Stern dropped it. - He says for people. - For basketball reasons. - Yeah, basketball reasons. - He had basketball reasons. - So they take this Quipper's thing, which people at the time felt like wasn't as good of a trade. I like the Quipper's trade a little more, but whatever. And then they're trying to sell the team, and I pretty sure they sold it before the draft. - They did. - And then it was to the Benson family. This is true, that's what happened. - And then they got Anthony Davis. - They did. - Yeah. - They got the number one pick in the Droid image. - They did. - The number one pick in the draft. - They did. - It was just an amazing how it worked out. Meanwhile, Charlotte was like minus three and 63 in the Lockout season. I think they somehow had negative wins. 2013, who wins the lottery, the Cleveland Cavaliers. 2014, who wins the lottery, Cleveland Cavaliers. Who goes back to Cleveland two weeks after 2014 draft? LeBron James, what do they do with the first pick that they just got, which was Andrew Wiggins. They traded for Kevin Love. I'm just saying there was a lot of conspiracy talk on phone calls with House and I during this stretch. It just felt like the result always favored what the league would have wanted, I think would be a widow. - The best outcome for the league. - Best outcome for the league over and over again. I would argue Anthony Davis going to Charlotte probably in 2012, probably would have been a better outcome than him going to New Orleans. And even if you look at the two that you, Washington three, I think Davis going to Washington would have been better for you too, right? You went up with Bradley Bill, which was, I think for the most part a really good pick, especially when you consider what this draft was, but. - But Wall and Davis, that's what would have been amazing though two Kentucky guys, you know, Wall came in in 2010 and then Davis shortly thereafter and that was the run that propelled Washington into, you know, hey, we're making the playoffs a handful of years in a row. That's Nito. - Kyle, another thing that I loved about looking back at these drafts and we talked about it when we all did the post draft podcast on this feed after the 2026 draft. The arrow and teams just made terrible decisions with the draft. Like really horrible, where they were just, they had a power for an area, they were just double up with another one. They would take the wrong guard over a guard that goes, you know, four picks later, who's much better. They would take guys who clearly weren't ready for the NBA and put them in the worst possible city. I got to say going through all this stuff, it really made me nostalgic for an arrow and nobody knew what they were doing, right? Could you feel that as you went through it? - Definitely, definitely. I mean, like Alex Lynn, there's some pretty painful ones. I noted to that, you know, Cody Zeller, which he was okay, but I had this written down, let's see, in 20, because that charted this for another project I did. In 2011, 12 in the league, there were 68 guys in the league that were over 610 and weighed over 250 pounds. And by 2223, that number had dropped to 36. So the type of bodies in the NBA were really starting to change because of the pace and the space movement. And you're just not gonna see a Zeller or that type of guy get taken in the top five. So I mean, that's part of it. But yeah, you just don't see that anymore. And even Kate Gilchress, I don't even know that he would go number two today, just because of the way the shooting issues are. It's just not as, it's like they just didn't see the movement coming at all, you know. - I like Kate Gilchress heading into that draft and so did House. We thought he could be like this kind of monster defensive something and it's like, if he could ever learn how to sort of shoot, it was gonna be a bonus. But I do feel like, now he had some injuries, he had some stuff happen, I think he had some bad luck. But I don't know, I thought that was either him or Bill was a really good argument for the two versus the three of that year. But you mentioned the white guys and the big guys. So in 2013, Zeller goes for Lengo's five and Noelle goes six. And the Noelle thing was a big deal at the time. And I talked about it when I did the telecast 'cause he was gonna go one and maybe two. It seemed didn't conceive, but he's gonna drop out. And after Phoenix passed him up for Len, it was like an official what is going on. Like is there some injury we don't know about? This ended up being the, Philly took Michael Carter Williams 11th and then traded Drew Holiday for the Noelle pick and another pick with New Orleans and officially started the process, which is now by the way guys, done full circle. We are now at the end of the process with the LeBron signing. This is it, the first day of the process was 2013. The end of it was when they got LeBron. So that was weird. And then we had this Yannis element to the draft, which I've talked about on a bunch of pods before that. He was, first of all, he was three inches shorter than he ended up being, he was six nine. And just seemed like little team Akish, a whiff of Kevin Durant, crazy athlete, but you're also watching these videos of him playing in Greece and these weird places. And he always seemed like five years older than everyone who's playing against. And I remember Fran Fashela was the foreign draft pick analyst at that point and was bullish on him, but nobody was like, this guy's gonna be amazing. Milwaukee takes him and the rest of his history. Not only was he immediately like, oh, there's something here, but then he grew. And once he grew to seven feet. So Kyle, if he's seven feet heading into this draft, is he the first pick? Is he the second pick? What is he? - I don't know. I don't know if it's, would it be that much different, really? I mean, was it that he, I'm forgetting the timeline here. Was he, that he come to the combine and he measured shorter than they had claimed? - He was shorter. He was six nine. And so the feeling was like he was gonna be this perimeter, really athletic, like scoring, you know, and that's why all of these like best-case scenario names are being thrown around. But nobody kind of really knew what it was. Didn't seem like he could shoot, but seemed like he had this up and down, crazy up and down. He was a good passer. He was athletic. So there was something there, which is, when we did the draft, we thought he was gonna be somewhere between 12 and like 16, which is where he ended up. But him growing was, I think, one of the biggest things. One guy I really liked in the draft has been Mack Lemur, who just had all the prototypes, but was a classic, couldn't handle it off the court. And then Go Bear was 27th house, one of your favorites. And came out of the stands to shake David Stern's hand, my memory of that. - I remember that. - Yeah. - I think that, yeah, that was really fun. It was kind of the arrow and all the sudden, guys started doing that if they weren't invited in the green room. In Denver, gets him and immediately trades him to Utah for the 46 pick and cash. - They didn't have them very high on their board. - Tough one. - Clearly not. - So that was the big one from Go Bear, was the big later guy from that draft. And then 2012, Dremond ended up being the guy who fell out of the first round. And that one was weird. I gotta be honest. That one was weird as it was happening. 'Cause we'd watched him in college and he was just an excellent college partner and was clearly something. Golden State, he falls to 35. It's in, and go and stay take some. They look like geniuses, right? Well, they passed them up at 30 and took Festus and they didn't know. Right. And even the stuff that he was known for in college, he didn't, he reinvented himself in a way where it's just like perfect place, perfect time. And it just clicked. I mean, he deserves all the credit for being a brilliant. We can get into that more later. But yeah, even the stuff that he, he was to back to the basket, like crafty big in college, you know, he had a lot of weight to him that he kind of shed. Yeah, look, this is the Patriots took Tom Brady in the sixth round. I was like, what a pick. That's a pass on them in the fourth round in the fifth round. That Jay Crowder was the other one from that draft who went right in the forum at 34, which was another one where I was like, wow, that feels a little late. But that's what happens when you're taken. Bob Mello, I remember at Grantland, we had Grantland that year for the 2012 draft. So a lot of Perry Jones people at Grantland, we, we, we, he had a lot of stock. And it was like crypto in 2019, it just completely fell apart. But that was when OKC took him, it was like, oh, that's an interesting one. But in retrospect, they could have easily just taken Dremon that they were picking 28th with, you know, coming off the finals. That would have been a fast thing and pick any house. Any other things you want to hit before we hit the, the mega draft? No. I am glad that we combine these two drafts so that we can get to 10 good players. OK. We're going to ask a question. Yeah. Well, just a quick, a quick sliding doors thing. What happens if Cleveland doesn't screw up that pick? What if they, because on the broadcast, you suggested they take all the depot, all the depot has an all star peak at one point. What is that? What ripple effect does that have? Because I'm like, they probably still include him in a trade for Kevin Love, right? I would imagine, because, you know, Bennett ends up in that swap with Minnesota. And I'm just like, it probably ends up like a brighter timeline for Minnesota, I guess. But then they, they get Carl Towns. I just was kind of like working through the, because the fact that he wasn't, you know, a glowing prospect at that point made it easier to get off of him so quickly like they did. Yeah, it's, it's. So I'm going back and looking at the calves. So that would have been the 2013 calves, the year that they got LeBron. I thought, I was pretty adamant on every show and all the prep and on the telecast. I couldn't believe Old Depot was in the first pick, because to me, he only felt, he felt like the only sure thing in the draft. Like he was clearly, he was good in college in Indiana. The team was good. He was a little castelish where it was like, I feel like he could maybe there was, there's more there with him on the ball, he was a good defensive guard, super athletic. They finished 33 and 49 the next year and got nothing from Bennett. So you could argue maybe he would have knocked their pick. Like it, like it wouldn't have been as good. Maybe their records, like a couple of wins better than they don't get the number on pick, then they're not able to get Kevin love it. There is some whatever repercussions, right? That's, that would be the only thing I said. I thought it was weird. The Bennett thing was nuts. We, we thought Bennett was going to fall heading into the draft. Like for real, we thought he was going to fall into the eight to 10 range, which was the reason I did the, the whole thing. All right, we're going to take a break. During the break, our producers, Gahau and Eduardo are, we figured out this number system because we're making this draft competitive. We're trying to win this draft. We're going to have people vote on social media. We're going to draft eight guys each from these two drafts and try to put together the best possible team. So this won't necessarily be a traditional read draft. There might be some, I need a center. I got it. I got to take so and so here. So when we come back, we're going to do the mega draft. This episode is brought to you by searchlight pictures more than ever. American needs a laugh enter the super troopers to the rescue. The cult comedy classic returns in the most offensive installment yet with super troopers, three, a debauchery spatula party and over the top wedding, a dangerous drug smuggling ring. All of them are threatening the troop's future. Fill your leader of cola and roll up to the multiplex with super troopers, three only in theaters, August 7th. Get tickets. Meow. All right. During the break, we figured out a convoluted way to figure out the draft order. Gahau, it's numbers. We shouted out numbers and miraculously, I got the number one pick. House is second. Jake Kyle. We know the draft order is favoring the hosts of the show. Yeah. Gahau. I'll say. Gahau, then I'll be later. But you have snake snake. You get three and four, which is key for this draft. All right. So at the first pick of the 2012, 2013, two draft mega draft Bill Simmons will select Yannis and Teta Cooper, one of the single most amazing draft stories in the history of the NBA, falls out of the lottery. Philly, who knows they're doing the process, passes on him at 11. And I think it was probably the right move back then. I think if he went 11, we would have been like, what the, he went 11th? Jesus. Okay, see, passes them in 12. Took Stephen Adams instead. Can you, can you, they had a chance to have hardened Durant and Westbrook in Yannis. They stole it hard on the team. They and Westbrook. They could have just said, that's what a great is what ifs of all time. Well, they took Adams, which was, I think the right pick, right? Cause they needed one more big guy, but Dallas is at 13. Two years removed from winning the title. It was one of those things where the, the articles of stuff after we're like, we really liked them. It's like, well, if you like to me to take them, they end up trading, doing some convoluted trade, trading back. Utah is at 14. They pass on them. They take Shabaz Mohammed, which everybody should be fired for that. And Milwaukee takes them at 15. Now, what's interesting is Dallas took Olinik at 13 Boston, treated up to 13 for Kelly Olinik and not Yannis, who they could have put with Kevin Garnett and the Paul Pierce and the Ray Allen team. So anyway, and you know the rest, he's 10 All Star teams, 21 finals MVP, two time MVP, seven times top four, seven all NBAs has only made the conference finals twice house. Traded to Miami last month. And then, and then LeBron did inside with them. Dan LeBotard tried to do a fanatics conspiracy thing. That was the single most ridiculous thing I've watched on social media this month. I'm just saying. Okay. Michael Rubin sold the six-year stake four years ago. Good try. Yannis, first, you agree with that comment because you don't have the second pick. Yeah, thanks for reminding me of that. Yeah, Yannis, probably the best handling big guy of all time, I would say. Best driving big guy of all time, I think, is fair to say. Four players have had NBA seasons of over 30 points for game, over 10 rebounds, over five assists at over 60% true shooting. And he did it three consecutive seasons. Embed is the other one. Yeah, you're just talking about a pretty incredible story about just kind of where he came from. His first rookie deal total was worth 8.6 million. And his current five-year deal is at almost $230 million. So yeah, and he deserves it, man. I mean, he's just an incredible, he's an incredible player. When I was revisiting the stats, it was making me be like, man, I mean, it definitely made me think like I should probably go check this Miami thing out a little bit more on a granular level again, because god damn, he's good, man. I mean, it's it's a simple thing to say, but it's the right thing to say. Yeah, and you figure he'll have two more, and this was the case was I was trying to talk myself with Boston God in two more really high level seasons, if he's healthy. And then after that history, we'll say he's going to drop house. One of the things I was looking at, I was looking at my pyramid, which only you have seen the list of the top 25 guys of which Yannis is one of them. And so many of those top 25 guys are just pedigree guys that we would have bet the ceiling of this was top 25, right? If you go through top 25, Kobe's the first one where if you had said it 96 to 17 year old kid coming out of high school and you would just said he is going to be one of the 12 best players of all time. That would have been insane, but he did have the pedigree. He was the number on guy in high school. But then you go through the rest of them. Moses, somebody like Moses was the single biggest high school recruiter of the 1970s, like everybody was trying to go after him. He ended up going right to the ABA. Dirk, I would say is one and and Yokech is the other one. Is Yokech or Yannis more unbelievable to you? Yokech was the 37th pick in 2014. What's more unbelievable? I can't believe this guy was a finals MVP and is now a top 25 story from you for when you remember them in the draft. it's Yokech and the reason for that part of the reason for that is do you remember what he used to look like, right? Like a freak has always been a freak, and then freak got freakier because he got more muscular and he got taller, but there was nothing when you looked at the Joker to suggest that the career arc that that we've all enjoyed. Some people claim that the ringer enjoys it more than anybody else on planet earth that there's a lot of Joker love. And I think guilt deserved. Yeah, we're weird for that. Sorry, like awesome basketball. But yeah, throwing a match on that one, the Joker feels a little less likely. That's, that's it. Yeah, even if I go through the top 30, you know, like Kauai, who I think is a top 30 all time guy, and he fell to 15. And that one's a surprising one because nobody saw the offensive side of him coming the way it did, but he was still a lot of like Yoke, I think is the right answer. But I think Yannis is second, even I look at a guy like Barkley, you know, Barkley was a top five lottery pick was the most famous cut from the 1984 Olympic team was awesome in college and was the only question on him was he's gonna stay in shape. So yeah, anyway, Yannis, you mentioned, you mentioned something interesting though, but the pedigree thing because in 2012, Anthony Davis was coming off of one of the best American prospect years in history, where he comes out as the number one player wins every player of the year award in college, gets a gold medal, goes number one. And if you'd said in the next decade, there's going to be a lanky power forward that dominates the NBA and gets, you know, gets an MVP and wins a title. He did end up getting one, but he, he didn't, Yannis had the career. I think that we thought AD was going to have at the end of the day. I couldn't agree more. I think out of the last 15 years, I, I think that two guys I would have bet anything on were Davis and Cooper flag. Like just like, I know those guys are going to be good, but Davis, I remember house and I watching Kentucky that year and we're just like, holy shit, this guy's like, my kale crossed with, I don't even know what, but it just seemed like the only way things stopping him was going to be an injury. And if anything, I think it's, it's weird because he's won a title. It's like mildly disappointing. He's not first on this list. I think he's a top 75 guy all time that had top 25 potential halves. And he never got there. That's fair and reasonable. I might as well just go ahead and take him right now since we're talking about him. I am going to take him second overall on this draft. I'm not going out on a limb. He did arrive with the highest pedigree. We did love watching him immensely in college. He was definitely a can't miss. And yet he's on his fourth team. Now, of course, this was a long time ago when he was drafted, but that that is, that tells you something, right? Yannis only one team for his, his career until this most recent trade. I do wonder if some number of years removed just to finish the thought on Yannis. We'll look back and be like, why tell me again, why Milwaukee had trade Yannis? Somebody explained to me why they felt like because we know the thing is he's only 31. Yannis. Now, for sure, you've done the work, the legwork in terms of when do guys of this size tend to fall off, when does, you know, and it's often a cliff. But that kind of also applies to Anthony Davis, potentially. And he's two years older. He's 33. The thing that Davis has going for him that makes him, it's a no brainer, obviously, for him to be number two. But the all defense stuff was really meaningful. I mean, that that's for him to make that his calling card. Because when he arrived, I thought that the inside outside game was going to be the thing. I thought he might be a prolific scorer. He faced a basket and shot the ball in a way that that was confident. And you know, his three point shooting. I don't know if the number support this. I'm telling you the I test his three point shooting early in his career was excellent. I thought so, you know, easy pick for me at number two. I think during the 17 18 season, when they made the playoffs and upset somebody, I think Portland. But I remember during that year on pods, and I can't remember if I was writing or not, there was like a moment when it seemed my key was becoming the best part in the week. During the basically post all star in 2018, it was like LeBron was in his last Cleveland year. And he was, he had missed some games and he was trying to push them to get traded. And then LeBron took that title back like like a motherfucker in the playoffs. He was like, no, actually I'm still the best guy in the league. But I don't ever, like if you told me in 2012, Davis is only going to have two top five MVP finishes in his entire career. I would have assumed he had some dramatic major injury because he just seemed like he was so talented. It seemed inconceivable that he wasn't going to be an MVP and he never made it. Highest he ever got, he was 2018. He was third in the MVP. And there was that other moment he had in the 2020 playoffs when it felt like he was going to win finals MVP halfway through that series, right? And they were up three one. And I think it was game five. And it was like a few kicked ass in that game. He was probably going to win finals MVP legitimately. But he wasn't good in that game. And LeBron ended up winning and had a better series. But he never won defensive part of the year. His four year peak was 27 or 11. House. He's played a 807 games and missed over 300. I mean, there's a reason we've called him every other Davis. And it has been, you know, now he's on your team with the playoffs. I welcome him with open arms. I do. This is a situational thing. Like sometimes when we we all know people with kids that we like and families that the kids boy. And sometimes you you're like, oh, man, I wish that kid didn't have that mom. I feel like that kid would have a better chance. You're like, oh, man, that guy, that kid's dad sucks. And I do think that. Yeah, there's sometimes you're like, I'm not sure how much of a chance these parents are going to allow this kid. I do feel that way with NBA teams sometimes. Like Davis goes to New Orleans. What's a worst fucking team to go to the New Orleans in 2012? Like you're changing owners. They're owned by the football team. They had more weird injury medical stuff than just about any team. And, you know, this is a good put two drinks and barrier and barrier as some good stories about New Orleans during that time. But yeah, I just like if you do his career 50 times, this isn't the worst version of it. But I don't think it's in the upper echelon of what I would have said. All right, Yannis one. Davis to come and know on the clock with two picks in a row. We know who the first pick's going to be. But I don't know who the second pick's going to be. You could probably have known me guess who it's going to be. But my nerdy ass, my pick is going to my first pick is going to be Damien Lillard. Damien Lillard, top 75 all time guy. I think in this era of dribble shooting that kind of changed basketball in the way that we were talking earlier, wasn't just shooting it was ball handler shooting the ball, changing pick and roll coverage is changing the way bigs need to perform. Lillard just kind of has the misfortune of playing in the same era as Curry because he's just one of the best shooters of all time. He's a winner. I'll go and spoil. I kind of had this between these two classes. I had written down like the best moments in the worst moments in the best moments. I mean, it's hard to argue against Dames. He's got two series game winners. You know, we as we talked about before, you know, he put out the thunder and then he put out he blanking on it, but he's done it twice now. It was the thunder twice. Well, it was the Chandler Parsons was guarding him on the first one. And I was thinking, well, I'm even the grizzly. Maybe it's a rocket. Yeah. Never made a finals. Never went around three game. Western Conference finals once got swept. All NBA first team once, second, fourth, third team twice, fourth MVP in 2018, five year P cast 28, five and seven, thirty eight percent from three. I thought it was the right pick. He's also there's a chance and we're going to talk to very or I'm going to talk to very later about the trailblazers. There's a chance these Portland's last great player, like if something bad happens to that franchise, this was their last thing. I'm just going to read you some highlights from my draft diary because I've got this about as wrong as you can get. I still feel like I had a winning percentage in the draft diary, but forgot to mention the blazers picked aim six because of the Gerald Wallace trade, which might have been the worst trade of the of the 2010s all things considered. Brooklyn trading a top three protected pick to Portland for Gerald Wallace, who was about to become a free agent. And this was I killed Billy King over and over again, and he deserved every bit of it. It's it's like pound for pound, the worst trade of the decade. So they end up getting six. They have to give Damien Lillard that pick to the blazers. And it's like one of the all time, of course, even if it had been a top 10 lottery protected, they're probably doing that. What are you guys doing? But anyway, I wrote after the pick, we're watching highlights. It's me House and Jacobi. And I wrote, these are jokes I had. What conference is Damien Lillard from again? Has any top 10 pick ever had more highlights that happen against white people? Is it Weaver or Weber? Has anyone ever picked a backup point card this. this high. Did they just pick Jared Bayless again? Or am I crazy? Are these highlights from division one games? These are all quotes that I wrote down that one of the three of us said. And then, uh, and then I wrote later, I was saying Broussard was saying how they needed someone to stretch the floor for lower for Aldridge. And I said, lower can shoot. I might talk myself into this pick by midnight. I need at least two more drinks. And then Austin Rivers got picked later. And I wrote, I'd rather have a 20-year-old rivers than a 22-year-old Damien Lillard. Tough, tough draft diary for me in Damien. Everybody was excited about Austin Rivers pairing with AD, though. I mean, to be fair to you. I recall a lot of excitement about that combo. And I think, and Austin Rivers goes back to what I said about Davis before. Like, that's just, he went to the wrong franchise. That guy was the best part in high school. And I think you end up just, you go down a road and then New Orleans quit on him. And I don't know. I, I feel like his, there's another version of his career that's more interesting. But anyway, what did you think of Dame? Do you remember back it back then, Kyle? As a pro guy? I was, I was working for Zappos.com back then. I was just kind of, I was just in some dude who like to talk shit about basketball. Um, I liked him. I mean, you hear stories about him that he had like one of the best workouts. The people acted like they saw Christ when they came away from that workout where they were like, this is, this guy has it. Um, yeah, I mean, he's an interesting developmental story. You know, we were stayed. I guess he was Mountain West. I'm trying to remember what confidence they're in. Anyway, yeah. I remember going to see him as Ricky Yearn. He was going against Chris Paul as peak. And I had really good seats. And Chris Paul just destroyed him for two and a half hours. Sounds like, uh, no, it's what Chris Paul did. I don't know about this thing. The word guy. Yeah. And then it's like, Oh, he just went to Chris Paul college and a couple of years later, he's slipping it on Chris Paul. All right. Now it gets exciting. So we, the top three went how we thought, but the fourth pick, there's some good options on the table. Who do you have? I'm taking dream on green. Yes. I knew you would. I had him on my board in the fourth spot as well. Okay. Make the case. Uh, dream on green is one of the more interesting. Um, we were talking about like a player having a sober sense of who they are. I think he realized what he needed to be in the situation that he was in. Um, he's one of the best screeners. He's an incredible passer. Um, he, he happened to play with, he's high, high level processor on both ends of the floor. Um, he's been, he, he had one of the best defensive stretches for any player in the league, starting from like 14, 15 to 2019, the run that he put together, I think he might be one of the best post defenders of all time. One on one. Yeah. Really difficult to score on. Um, yeah. I just think dream on one of the smartest players, uh, one of the smartest players that we've had in NBA history, honestly. I don't have them in my hundred for the pyramid house, but he came closer than the next guy who I think is going to get taken in this. Uh, I did write down the five best non-centered defenders ever. Scotty Pippin House. Okay. Dennis Rodman. Sure. Kauai Leonard. No argument. Andrea Goudala. Interesting. Okay. Dremon Green speaks for itself, in my opinion. Would you put Gary, Gary Payton above any of those? Probably have, probably have the glove ahead of big with a lot. That's the spot. I think Dremon has has to be one of the first four. And Steve Kerr has, it's been interesting. He's, he kind of dances around it because he's always been very pro-pippin, like extolling his virtues all the time, talking about we're an unbelievable defensive player, but he's had a couple moments where he's like, I think Dremons might be one of the best, the best defensive perimeter guy ever. He's in the conversation. So I think, Kauai, I think that's the right pick. What are you going to say? These are, these are different species of defenders, though. You're talking about Payton. He's point of attack guy. You're talking about Iguidala and Kauai. Those are like assignment, switchable, like perimeter score matchup, dudes. What's interesting about Dremon is he's not a rim protector, but he's a rim deterrent to a certain level that he doesn't really have to be because he doesn't block a ton of shots. He's like a deflection machine. He just plays middle linebacker better than like hardly any player that I've ever seen. Like he's so, he's so smart. I made a video about this one time. His timing, he could snuff out plays. He had a really incredible discipline about like, I'm going to stay completely still so that this guy doesn't know that I'm about to make a play on the ball. And then make a play on the ball at the last possible second. Like he's one of the best ever at that. So I'd say he's a little different to those guys, just that he guards up the food chain a little more than the Pippins and the Iguidala types. No question. Made a second team, third team on B.A. 2017 defense supporter of the year, five first team all defenses. In the playoffs, five years stretch, that incredible five year warrior stretch they had where they, he played 104 playoff games, got suspended famously for one of them. 13, 10 and 7, 3.2 stocks, 38 minutes of game. And I always thought the 25 game winning streak to start the year. I love winning streaks as anyone who follows this podcast knows. I love the Miami 27 gamer. I love that 25 but no. He, you need somebody like him on the team to win that many games in a row. He's just a maniac. He's an absolute competitive maniac. And sometimes it tilts over the line. And I think it's had real repercussions for them. It had repercussions when he punched the brown in the balls did the flick up. It had repercussions when he punched short and pool. It's had, he's gotten dumb technicals in games. But that's just how he's wired. I'm a huge historical dream on defender. I think he's right on the cost by being one of the hundred best guys. I couldn't get in there just because we've had almost 80 years of great players at this point. But when you think like, okay, see, pass count him then Cleveland passed on him at 33 and 34. And when LeBron came back two years later, he could have already been on the team. So, all right. Kyle has Dame and Dream on. That's a pretty good start. I'll be really interested to see what house does here at five because two of his least favorite players the last 15 years are on the board. This is going to be gross. So bad houses in the spot. What do you have house? This is going to come as a surprise in this sense. I actually have come around on this guy. What is getting ready to happen? Oh my god. I like Rudy go bear. I'm a Rudy go bear fan. Coming all the way around. Guess how many conference finals? This is like a Toyota Roma DUI video all over. You know the answer. He's played in two Western conference finals. You know who else only has two Western conference finals? Anthony Davis. Rudy go bear. Eight time, all defensive first team member, four time defensive player of the year. Would you say he's the best defensive center of the step career? I think he would. Yes. Yes. I would. I would say that. I think I think since it's joking. No, he's been the best defensive center since. I think in a certain sense, Minnesota and Tim Connelly have been vindicated in terms of, you know, that the trade that they made and what it did in terms of propelling Anthony Edwards forward. I do think that there was a role that that Go Bear played there. And he's the face of COVID. So of course, I think he's the number one pick in the United States of America who announced COVID to America. Rudy fucking Go Bear. We had the Rudy Go Bear game. Yeah, you're right. One second team, two third team on BAs. In the playoffs, 96 games is average in the three three third teams, three third teams, three third teams. He's been all NBA four times. In the playoffs, 12 and 10, 1 and a half blocks a game, 96 games, two conference finals. So your team right now has Anthony Davis with Rudy Go Bear. So you're going size cheese. Yep. Not great. Would you think of that? I mean, Go Bear is one of the, he's a great elite rim protector for most situations. And I think just the thing that he's run up against in his playoff history is that when you're trying to paint a masterpiece, you just kind of need to iterate one step further than Rudy Go Bear because he just is problematic. And 80 doesn't have the same issues. Like he can't get played off the floor in the same way. He's offensively super challenged. Yeah, you mentioned, you mentioned just him as a teammate. He's run into that different times over his career. I had the best moments and worst moments. We've mentioned two of the worst moments for these two classes. Dream on punching Jordan pool. Go Bear touches all the mics right before COVID. The other one is Kelly O'Linnick, injures Kevin Love. That's the other one. Yeah, that's good. I rewatched that one. That was brutal. So yeah, that's Go Bear. I appreciate him, but he wouldn't be somebody I would reach for. Yeah. I am up with two picks. And there are two picks that I actually wrote. This is a great argument and didn't know who should go first. I'm not going to cop out and just take them together. And now I'm wavering. Well, I'm going to end up with both. them anyway. I'm going to take Bradley Bill with the six pick. Okay. Um, might be another. I wish he'd gone to a different franchise guy. Um, I got to see a few of those wizard Celtics 2017 playoff games and he didn't shoot well in that playoffs. But I really liked the competitive spirit he had. And I remember talking to House about that after. I think House, if you go to game seven, did I bring you to that? No, I did not go to game seven Boston. I just, I thought, I left that series thinking this guy has a chance to be pretty special. Like he was really comfortable in this game, in this atmosphere. And if anything, the wizards, I thought made the mistake, which I talked about at the time of like the Celtics just weren't regarding John Wilde or letting him shoot threes. And I actually thought if they had run stuff through Biel, they would beat us. That was also the Kelly Olympic game, which we'll get to later. But um, that kind of turned out to be the peak for him as like a competitive player. He's never made it to round three. He's only played 49 playoff games. His individual peak average 31 a game in 20 and 21 combined. He's made almost 350 million year. And uh, my friend Joe House during the draft, I already said when he got picked third right player, right spot, it was a very unwizard-like pick. We needed a guy who could shoot at the basket and nod at his teammates was a Joe House joke. Good joke. Oh, really? That's how that's a really good joke. I wrote hey now after I quoted you on the joke. Um, look, you pay these guys sometimes. Do you know what's going to happen? And I think that contract ended up being the worst thing that happened to him, unfortunately. But um, there's feels like this should have been more here, Kyle. Uh, the arc of how this has gone down for him, you know, some of this has happened. I know since I've been working at the ringer where, you know, in the post John wall injury wake that we had, he put together a four-season stretch that was pretty incredible. You mentioned that, I mean, overall 27 points over five assists, 1.3 steals, you know, 35.8% from three, gets the line a ton, where it was looking like, okay, this guy, we need to get him find a way for him to play serious basketball, and he'd sign that huge contract. And he had the no trade calls, and he had no trade calls in there as well. And so that drags on and on. And uh, it's, I just remember thinking about that. I'm like, this guy's developing and improving, but he's just do, it's wasteful just because he's in such a bad situation and then the injury stuff starts. So he's kind of had a sad arc. I mean, you know, he'll cry all the way to the bathroom. Yeah. Wipe his tears with $100 bills. But it's been an odd arc for him. House, you watched him a lot. He really was like an absolutely high-level lead score for years. Yeah. Really hard to stop really inside of the place. Yeah. Like just to get 30 basically any time he wanted. And I think could have been a score on a really good team, just never had the right team. I appreciate your restraint, though, House. I thought you'd be a lot meaner right now. No, I mean, in terms of this exercise that we're doing, I have him lower because what was revealed in my own experience with him was that he couldn't drag winning basketball out of a situation. Right. You know, as soon as John Wall got hurt and you know, the franchise wasn't disarray because directionally the owner and the general manager were kind of stuck about what was the right thing to do. Right. So they gave him a once in a lifetime contract. We'll never see a contract like that again. The combination of super max. Yeah. We knew it was happening. It was like, yes. You have to do this, but you shouldn't do it, which we we see in football sometimes too with the quarterbacks. Yeah. It's like, I don't want to give this guy a 50 million year, but what am I going to do is fine. The no trade is will never be forgivable. Yeah. It will never be. They'll never be an explanation that makes sense. Um, I'm taking Chris Middleton with the other pick. I almost took him six 39th pick in 2012. Um, went to Milwaukee and played there for a while. His career, like, if you go basketball reference, his career is a little better than I even realized that I was always a fan. 2021 NBA champ. He was the go to score on that team. I know Yana said more points, but when they needed baskets, they ran through Middleton. 2021 playoffs, Kyle 24, seven and six for Chris Middleton, 44% shooting. He averaged 20 a game for basically five years from 18 to 22 and was, you know, a good defensive player, too, before his body started to break down. I just thought he was a winning player and he proved it because they won the finals with him. So I really did think about him over Biel, but I couldn't get there because of the talent of Biel. So anyway, that's you swapped places. If you put middle, if you put Biel in middleton situation, it does make you wonder. He would have made it any plays next to a Yana suit because he was the perfect archetype of player to play next. Yana's collapses the, you know, the defense and everybody's, you know, freaking out as he drives the ball. Middleton just had this incredible, he was one of the best isolation pull-up scores in the league for two or three years there. You know, the injury started to catch up with him at age, but man, I think I honestly feel like people forget kind of how nasty of a scoring bag. He had people forget. This is a Twitter video. Chris Middleton was a problem. You want to go to another award. I have a team USA selection tells you I really like this game and the Celtics made the 22 finals partly because Middleton was injured and that playoff series and that was probably in the push of the top. All right, I already won the draft. So we're going to take a break. I have Yana spread the bill. Chris Middleton, you guys aren't winning. It's over. We're going to take a break, come back with House has next pick. All right, House is on the clock. He has Anthony Davis and Rudy go bare trying to figure out how to play them together and Anthony Davis wants to be out of the pain anyway. I feel great about that. Are we going to the Patriot League for this next pick? You know, I gave that a nice hard look and that is one of the things on CJ McCollum's resume that does commend him. But surprisingly, the career of CJ McCollum will outpace the guy that I'm actually going to take. But the high of this guy, if this poor guy didn't get hurt, was superior to any high that CJ McCollum experienced. And so I'm taking Victor Aladipo. It was going to be a question of where he went. Underrated time all star. Yeah, underrated injury, what if guy? Right, exactly. The defense is the thing with him especially made all defense of first team. Let the league and steals made one all NBA third team. One most improved player. All rookie first team. So like he came in with that at that number one, I mean, number two overall pick in the draft. And I think he kind of validated it. Like he showed us he did lead a team in scoring in a playoff series. So it just was, you know, never promised fulfilled because of the injury situation. 2018 23 5 and 5 led the league and steals 37% from three. So he gets picked by Orlando. Okay, he ends up stealing him in the obokit trade and then takes him with subonus and flips him for Paul George. And Aladipo goes to Indiana and becomes a star. I actually deep, I went on a rabbit hole with the Pacer's cab series from 2018. You guys remember the series? Round one seven, didn't it? Seven games went seven. There's a game five that's on the last five minutes of it on YouTube. It's in Cleveland series tied to two. They get a LeBron turnover with like 26 seconds left and they call time out. And it's basically old depot of winning the game. Old adipo is at the top. They've been trapping him the whole fourth quarter, but they it's just LeBron and old depot. He beats LeBron, goes to the basket and LeBron fucking stuffs it off the and blocks it and gets the ball. This was like, I think LeBron in that 2018 playoffs was the greatest version of them. Time out comes down. LeBron hits the game winning three. Block three. And then it goes to seven and they hung around in seven two, but the Cleveland one in seven. But he went toe to toe with LeBron in that whole series. I think he had 30 in game seven. But you left that series thinking like what an incredible trade. They got old adipo and subonus for Paul George. Like that was in everybody wins trade, but he made the all-star team the next year. And then he got hurt and I'd start having new problems. They fucked up the surgery on it. And he was never never the same. Where'd you have him, Kyle? Jim around here. Tours Patelotin and two didn't he? Yeah. Yeah, just just because of the arc and the body of work. Yeah, I ended up with him at 13. But I'm kind of, um, it's I guess it's something about the the spirit of this exercise is are we are we doing this like a battle world type scenario where the peak version of this person is on a team. No, you get the career he had. You can't. It's the career that the career he had, you're basically saying, this is probably what would have happened. Now in his case, bad luck with the injury, but you know, the what's interesting is we were talking How many guys are left? From this class like still active. It's crazy. You go back like 2011 six guys still active It it was amazing to me as I was going back the years you mentioned Lebron Yeah, and I got to 2011. I was like Jesus Christ We get to go all the way back and Lebron is still it just really hammered home You were talking about all the different and like whether or not AD was the best player in the world There's so many different years where we would argue about like oh, yeah, this guy's the best player in the world It's like Lebron it just further cemented it to me. It's just like god damn Lebron's unbelievable man like yeah, he he has so many I'm formulating a Lebron's ad case further. There is a case the career dwarfs The peak of Jordan. I personally did you read what I wrote? No, yeah, yeah, I've I had the same revelation recently Yeah, because you go through and it's there's just so many crazy games. I was looking through his advance metrics and There's just there's years where he's just like plus 21 on often, you know like crazy crazy shit and a lot of playoff moments I had so many playoff moments that I literally forgot about the 2018 Pacer series like a Block to save the game and then a game winning buzzer beating three in the other end and then happened in a row Kyle you have two picks Well, let's see I have good bookings here with Dremond and Lillard I don't really know what we're gonna do with y'all And I see if we're imagining these teams literally play each other. Maybe Dremond can take that assignment I Need some I feel like I have to take CJ though. I feel like the reunion of Damon CJ. They're back. I'm trying to trade them already Patriot in the house Here'll be my argument for this is that if you look at like the way that the that CJ name played with Nerkich You'd get a better defensive player than Nerkich at yeah at the same kind of fulcrum Playmaker you just because they talked about trading for Dremond at one point right or he he thought about going there There was some conversation about that Yeah, I think if you paired Lillard and CJ with Dame that would be a good offensive start I've got other questions to answer, but he's too good to pass up here for me So I'll go ahead and since house took all the deep I'll go ahead and take CJ house I was surprised with CJ just steady 20 for like 13 years But he's 19.5 points a game Regular season 20 in the playoffs like that's he's on the court is getting 20 basically Yeah, no no all star appearances no all NBA teams a most improved player award, which is not nothing But you know the the coming from the Patriot League. It's a hell of a career plus, you know the esteem that his peers hold him in and what he did with the basketball, you know The players association and you can see him going from you know at this these end of career moments He was awesome in Washington not only was he good for the young guys He was tremendously complimentary of the organization in a way that that really you know build up Excitement in Washington for what Washington was was doing CJ McCollum did that. I like times the playoff guy I don't like him as a should we have a second apron or not vote Because you know he was involved in that second apron thing, which is really bad Okay, so you took CJ McCollum with one pick come in who's the other pick? Oh, I'll go I but we can't take another non-shooter I think I'm gonna go with Harrison Barnes with my pick. I had it next all right. It's a really solid career Harrison Barnes Right place right time to in the cap spike 2016 where the Warriors decide they're going to go for Durant And Dallas is scrambling. They're like we'll give you 90 million for four years or whatever they gave up I think it was a sign in trade too But uh, but yeah still around now on St Antonio trying to get a ring Can I read you a Joe with Joe house said during the draft diary Absolutely, Harrison Barnes gets taken seven. So we make a bunch of he's got to be a static. He didn't go to Sacramento jokes This is what I wrote Jacobi and I both noticed that golden state starting five Steph Curry Clay Thompson Barnes David Lee and Andrew Bogot Looks sneaky good on paper Right until house says quote You left out the part that curry and Bogot will get hurt They're paying 25 million per year to Richard Jefferson and Andreas B. Adrian's and their coach was just above Then a sex extortion can't scandal with a stripper that was Mark Jackson And then I wrote yeah, but still So has you were not a golden staple labor in 2012 But I stand by it put it on your resume You stand by it. Okay. Yeah, well how about this? Did I know that that they were gonna Acquire Steve Kerr and make him the head coach immediately on the heels. That's he didn't believe the record states for itself I didn't believe in Mark Jackson. I can tell you that much you have the next pick and I'm gonna guess you're not taking Andre Drummond I kind of want to Um because pedigree wise it he's impactful like two all-star appearances Four-time led the the league in in rebounding he has an all-nb a team I was stunned looking at his for rebounding titles. Yeah, he's yeah for rebounding titles I Think I mean the problem is I'm immediately conceding I have the worst team in this and then the reason is because the number two spot In this draft format that we have is a dead man Here come the excuses you guys are getting there they go two guys at a time here they go And it makes no sense whatsoever for for this team except for Andre Drummond is a three-point shooter at this stage's career Pretty look at man. He's standing there taking up and down three. I'm taking. I'm taking on I'm taking Andre Drummond He went nice. Yeah, go ahead. He went ninth in 2012 to the trick And he's going to house his team right now and in my draft. I heard that I wrote He was dropping a little bit and they showed him. It's really funny The camera just stayed on him and he kind of looked at the camera and had this sad smile on all of us like to him after Where he had this smile like I'm a nice guy. I can't somebody draft me. Everybody likes him um, and we were all kind of in on him and then from my draft diary Billus mentions that drum and shot 29% on free throws last year What Jacobi helps with the mouth fall meatballs mouth full of meatballs amount on drum and How 29% in college it's like he Yikes He was on a Yukon team that should have been a lot better that had Jeremy Lamb. Yeah, that was that was not a great sign, but um Yeah, I was gonna say do we get that youthful athleticism of of Andre Drummond with the same wisdom of the corner threes, but then House I was gonna say it's gonna be a crowded elevator. I mean, it's kind of a crowded phone booth You got going there with Rudy go bear and you better obeyed. He's shooting development comes around under your watch I've got all three levels because I got AD in the in the mid-range Go bears there for office of rebounding and drum is my corner three guy with the whole adepo kick and shoot Yeah, plus there's a lot of perimeter guys left house still might be in this. I don't think house is done I'm taking contagious Caldwell Pope With my pick he went number eight in the 2013 draft um rings 2020 Lakers 2023 Nuggets In those the stats for him and those series in the playoffs combined 11 points a game 38% from three and basically played like 32 minutes a game played real minutes So we know for a fact This is a guy who can be the three and the guy on a championship team because he did twice six-year stretchers 11 points a game for 39 percent And somebody that I thought I thought clutch and the ringer's rich Paul did a masterful job Just continuing to get him money and leveraging the Lakers and other people um, but I know I can compete with him and then I'm just gonna Do can I do this? Well, that let me oh yeah Yeah Uh Can I treat this? You know what I need? Yeah, I'm gonna take Dennis Shroeder here. Oh Interesting Only because I need one more guard for my team And there's a couple swings left, but I have swings um Dennis Shroeder 17th pick in 2013. He's been on 11 teams. Did any of them ever end up liking the experience after the fact? We're gonna find out online Two okay see yours 17 points a game for them and pretty good shooting stats. That was kind of the peak for him And a really great international guard Um somebody that anytime we were playing Germany internationally. He was always just terrifying I've always kind of liked them And even in the playoffs he he's annoying like he's got a lot of confidence and he's gonna fit in perfectly with my team So Called well pups Shroeder Two guys who've been in a lot of playoff games house Yeah, I don't mind Shroeder at all. I thought that he was um One of the the more fearless guys on Cleveland in that playoff run just last year, like, yeah, those, those, um, shrewd or shrewd's minutes were kind of vital for them competitive wise, because those guys were like out there getting after it. Uh, and I, I always hold him in high regard for what he did for Germany. I'm not, I know it's kind of a silly thing, but he's a dog. We both like a dog for Germany. We both care about that stuff. Your thoughts come in. I just love to house be happy for Germany. I didn't expect that. Um, no, I mean, shrewd, shrewd has like the, uh, the Rod Strickland Robert Pak thing going on with you. The IMDB is just like, it's a different, it's just like an anthology show where he leaves town at the end of every episode. It's like, that was fun. And then somebody else talks them so into him. You're right. He's like, it's like the 10 McGinley thing. Even Sacramento is like, oh, I look good on Detroit. Here's a weird contract and almost immediately they're trying to get out of it. All right. How's your up again? I have absolutely no idea what to do here because all that's left, um, in terms of pedigree guys that I like are all big guys and I can't, I can't take it. What are you talking about? There's some other perimeter guys. I know, but, but, I mean, in terms of who, who it should be and who I'm stepping over. I don't know. Do I really want to do this? Do it. Do the dumbest thing possible so you can definitely lose the draft. I think I know what's going to happen, but yeah. I mean, it's, it's all big guys. You're doing another big guy? No, I'm not, but I think that that there's two or three big guys I have ahead of who I'm about to take. I can't do that. There's no way. I didn't realize House was going to take so much time trying to figure this out. This is hard. I'm the end of size one. Yeah, here we go. Yeah. Well, I, I put myself into a corner with this one because you might as well lean into the bit. It's the same guy. Like it's either Robert Covington or Jay Crowder. That's where I'm at. I have to choose between one of those two. That's not what I thought you were going to say. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. I guess I'll take Crowder. That's where I'm going to land. You need a guy that can hit three and can guard some wings and there are some unanswered questions, but no, yeah. I like take Crowder. I mean, he's, he's got a crazy playoff. I had it written down here. He's 115 playoff games in 11 seasons and over 3,200 playoff minutes. That's, that's near the highest in these two classes. He was just on competitive teams over and over and over again. Another giant defensive impact guy too. Like I, I love the defense on my team so far. So I have a great defensive. So he took Crowder. I did. That's a Crowder. I listened. I had him close. We saw him in four seasons. Be a legitimate three and D guy for good teams. 2016-17 Boston. Boston made the conference finals in 17. He was 14 and five, 37% three-pointering. He could guard a bunch of different guys. I liked him when he was on the Celtics and then he was on teams that lost the finals back to back gears. Miami 2020. Suns 21 and played big minute. He played 32 minutes of game for those teams. Hit threes. And you know, it was very similar to Caldwell Pope. I thought him and Caldwell Pope, I had trouble trying to figure out who to take between those guys. All right. Kyle, you have the, the, you don't have a starting five after this pick. So you're up next. I'm going to take Steven Adams. Yeah. See, that's who I wanted to take, but I did make any sense for my team. I almost, you should have, how should you should have just done it? Because that would have just been hilarious. Your team would have been a rugby team that would have been not fun to play. Well, it's not too late. They're still trying guys that I like. No, I think if with the shooters that I have, it's spatially with Dremon and Steven Adams, it'll be a little interesting, but he's like one of the best offensive rebounders alive. So I think, I think he's going to be a good fit with those, with those cards. 17 through 20 was 13 and nine. Somehow, he's still only 33 years old. I don't, when he came into the league, when he was like 17. All right. So here are starting fives now as we head toward the benches. Kyle has the first pick of the next round. I have Yannis, Biel, Middleton, Caldwell, Pope, and Schroeder. It's a team that actually makes sense together. House has Gobert Davis, Oledipo, Drummond, and Crowder. So needs, needs, needs more perimeter. And Kyle has Adams and Dremon, CJ and Dame and Barnes. So that looks like a basketball team. But this is a big pick right here. Who are you taking, Kyle? I feel like I need a wing. So I am going to take you to get Crowder. I really hope you take somebody that I don't want to take when I'm up. There's a guy I just don't want to end up with. I think I'm picking between two dudes here. Based on this guy's peak, how good he was at his best. Do it. I think I'm going to take Robert Covington. Oh, wasn't expecting that. I don't feel that bad about it. That's a pretty good pick. He's going to, I think defensively, I'm going to have a pretty good team too. Granted, he fell off a cliff, but Robert Covington somehow undrafted in 2013, even though we had a slew of bus. So he, I didn't remember this. He was fourth in the defensive player of the year voting in 2016. Somehow I didn't make an all defense team, but then made first all defense in 2017. And from 15 to 19 was 13 a game, 36% from three. And was a legit defensive guy. I remember on the Celtics played the sixers in 18. That was kind of the unraveling of the roco was a really big guy for like the basketball block community and the events. But and then we just left him open for the entire series in 18 and he couldn't make anything. And I thought that was where it was like, we sure this guy's good. He ends up being in the Jimmy Butler trade the next year. Never really got it back. But his peak is defensively. He was, he was a little jaded mcdoniously there for a couple of years. I'm having a little remorse as you were saying all that, but I think I still like him. There's not a lot left house. Please take the guy. I don't want to take. We we're still going with this thing. Yeah, we have more pit. We're taking eight each. Like there's 24 good players for these two drafts because, you know, I'm not I can't do it. I'm not going to take that guy. He would be super funny though. Anthony Bennett. Definitely not Anthony Bennett. Just take your guy out of Porter. I know. I just looked at it. The problem is that um, Covington presents better than Porter over the the body of work. Yeah. And Porter's best straight is a high three point average. Yeah, fully present for his career. I was shocked very good. He's good. That's a good. Those were the two I was picking between. Yeah, the leaving leaving open thing made me feel queasy. Like I've made a mistake. But yeah, he stuck around a long time. What I don't have it in front of me. How many playoff games did he play in? It wasn't very many. Was it very many played 527 games total. Yeah, so that's that's the issue. One season on the balls after the wizard's traded them. Yes. And then they kind of died after that. Who you taking us out of Porter? Oh, that's you is your pick. You seem so begrudging about it. Okay. I think that was a fair pick. Um, got this sucks. I'm just not happy about this. Crying on the yacht over here with your honest number one pick and come on. No, I just hate this guy. I don't hate him. Hate him. I sports hate him. Oh, man. God damn it. I don't even know who you are. I'm going to take a guess. I'm going to take Evan 40A. Yeah, okay. I looked at him for a minute. Just what's there to hate? He played 19 playoff games and won three. And it's the entire cruise three and 16 in the playoffs. Just was a classic from 17 to 21 17 points to game 37% from three. And another guy who when you watched him internationally seemed way more dangerous than he did in the NBA, who was the next GM that gave him that contract? The Nick, uh, who was it? It was before Leon and yeah, it was whoever there was a wall. Scott Perry. I Perry. Yeah. That was bad. Well, anyway, were you were you only asking him for some six man stuff? I had that I had that written down too. He had a few years in a row there where you look at the numbers. And if you didn't know about him, you know, I feel like, you know, years from now, we'll have to contextualize that for the younger generation. Like this 40A guy seems pretty good. And then uh, there's another guy who should go over this guy, but I'm going to take only because I need I need another big guy. I've seen him in big games. He killed Joe House's team He did, he did do that from 2015 to 23, he was a the 10 and 5, 37% from 3 and 22 minutes of game. And he was basically the seventh man on a conference final as them 2017. So you could win them with them. My daughter, one of her first favorite players, used to call him Father Kelly, thought he looked like a priest in a kid show. And then he tried to break Kevin Love's elbow for some reason in 2015, which was pretty weird. And probably changed the course of the finals. But I forgot that he signed with Miami as a fridge. And two, he culture tried to step in on him. You don't remember this? Left the 2017 Celtics. He culture came flying in off top rope farm. Okay. Oh, yeah, yeah. In fact, I had him on house of carbs. You did when he was playing for Miami. Yeah. And he was there. Oh, no, it was just after he left Miami. He really liked playing for Spowe. He's like, that guy is smart. Everyone loves Spowe. All right, how's your up again, Bo? You have Davis, GoBear, Old Depot, Drum and Crowder and Porter. Well, I have a couple guys that have a tendency to miss some games. I have some, I'm not going to do it. Nope, I need, I need some front court fill in. Wow. And I'm looking at my list. The guy that's played the most games of anybody on here. Remaining is, you want to set a rancid? Oh, he has a, no, he's in this. He was in the 11 draft, we don't get him. Oh, okay. Damn. I mean, I fucking knew house was going to cheat in this. It's like, no, you have him on this, this, this, this, this, this warpline. I know, but he took a, he took a year. He was in the 11 draft. We, okay. He was drafted in the 11 draft we did. Yeah. I wanted to do that team, but, yeah, can't do it. Okay. Then I'll just take Patrick Beverly. That's fine. I have a certain key counts either, doesn't count either. Wait. Oh, wait a minute. I need to look at who's in these drafts. He, it was his first year house. Just take Tim Hardaway Jr. Okay. He's the best guy in the board. I'll take him. Another shooter for you. Weirdest team. Tim Hardaway Jr. Career 14 points a game, 37% from three. Your team needed to be answering. He's there to help Miami now. He's the shooter for Miami. But how did he get to Miami? I'm just asking, just asking how did he get there on a short deal? That's weird. I'm excited for the response to this. Calm in. You're up. Well, Tim Hardaway's off the board. I'm so crestfallen. I don't know if I can continue. I have five draftable guys left. So this is perfect. There's a sneaky one that we haven't mentioned that is on here. I don't think I'm going to take him. I don't think I should take a big, uh, I should probably just go BPA here. I'll go with, I'm going to go with a microwave guy. You would not have expected me to do this. I don't think I'm going to take Terence Ross. Oh, I just stole him from me. I'd like that pick. Damn it. I thought that I was going to get away with it. Terence Ross. This is one of my awards. Uh, yeah. This is most likely to resurface with a social media clip was a problem. Oh, yeah. I was going back. That's true. And I'm, I actually, I actually started making the highlight real. So I'm going to put that out here soon. He had some, he was just a lather score, man. He could get going. I'm not going to lean on him hard. Come in and score some points, you know, spackle for me. That's all I need. He played 11 years in average 11 a game and was a good 36 points percentage from three. But I think is most famously was just thrown into every fake trade rumor for like four years. When he was in Toronto or it was always like, and Terence Ross and if they, and just always seem to be floating around as contract was, he was making 10 million a year for like five years. And his contract always fit with other contracts and, um, now this was the right time to take him. Who's your other pick? Uh, with my other pick. This is going to be your last pick. You have Dave Dremon, CJ Barnes, Adams, Covington and Terence Ross. One more. I wanted to take that curry. Do you have a Kentucky guy yet? No, I'm not that biased. If it's the right pick, it's the right pick. Oh, it's a Neuralin's. You're taking a Neuralin's? No. No, I'm saying. You were talking about the, the draft footage. It was the Neuralin's sad face draft footage was pretty, it was pretty brutal during that broadcast. Um, I was, I gotta say, I was not a fan heading into that draft. I didn't, even though I knew the talent was there, I didn't, I just don't like skinny big guys like that. And it didn't seem like he could shoot it all. He was a shop blocker, not a room to check. He just chased everything. Um, it's like, Will Barton, I don't think so. Uh, uh, let's see. It's, it's a shit sandwich here. I'll take Mason Plummley as my back. Oh, man, I want to thank God, I was going to take him. No interest whatsoever. I was going to have, because then Kelly O'Linnick would add somebody to live with, um, Mason Plummley. And I think we had both Plummley's were available in the mega draft, because they were in the, one was in 2012, the other was in 2013. He was in 2013, drafted by Brooklyn, first 10 years, nine and seven house, 23 minutes of game. Yeah. He would have fit in on your team. All right. I agree. How's your, your last pick is what? Good. Seth Curry. I liked the, um, character, I like his golf game. He's the worst career. Curry at golf. That makes me feel better. I know that he and I would get along great. His three point shooting percentage is effing phenomenal. I mean, the, the, this guy had, uh, you know, a single elite skill. Yeah. Making, uh, mostly open three pointers. Yeah. That's a really important role. And he played it for, you know, he turned that into a lengthy career for himself. Seth Curry. I feel good about that as a lot. Really good pick. Married to, uh, our beloved Callie Curry, beloved son and love, our beloved Doc Rivers. Well, love it. Um, brother love, Austin Rivers. So we also love, but yeah, that's, it's a great spot for him. And, uh, honestly, I couldn't be happier because I like the team that I have. I was really hoping I could take this guy as the last pick. He's lived on beyond his basketball career in other ways, um, on the rewatchables. We have a category named after him, the Deon waiters for best heat check. Uh, he was a beloved grant land guy and a beloved ringer guy for a couple of years to 13 points of game in eight years. They only played 419 games and one a ring on the Lakers as a bench guy, Deon waiters. I thought it would be great if he was the last pick in the draft and somehow this worked out. I wrote my draft diary, Cleveland took him fourth. I wrote, they just tabbed explosive Syracuse guard, Deon waiters, setting themselves up for an easy anytime you could take the big East six man of the year with the fourth pick and an NBA draft. You have to do a joke. That was kind of it. He was always destined to be a six man and, um, I still like his game. I actually think his career should have been better, Kyle, like physical scoring guard. I remember when I was doing all the pods with KD, we talked about him for like five minutes on one of the pods where I was like, because he played with him and, okay, see, I was like, why isn't Deon waiters? Like, why aren't we talking about him? It was like an all-star and I think he was one of those guys. All the other players really respected, but could just never put it together. There's like that Shucky Atkins award where you talk to other players and, yeah, I'm dropping some random 90s names on this show, but like you would, you listen to other players talk and they'd be like, yeah, I chuck a play and they hear NBA players be like, came reddish as another dude like that. And then they just don't stick for whatever reason. I feel like the ultimate culmination of all of this for the rear is if we could get some film director out there that, that listens to this show to put Deon waiters in a movie in one scene. To be the Deon waiters. Yeah. When he really goes for it. Yeah. I think it might tear a hole in the space time continuum, but this is great. It seems like a good idea to me. I mean, honestly, that's a great idea. So the two guys that didn't get drafted that I thought might were Jeremy Lamb and Wilbarton. And Wilbarton probably should have been drafted, but it was more fun to take. We're about to Aaron Baines. Roll player. Oh, interesting. Yeah. If we got 10 man rosters. All right. Here are the final rosters. Kyle man. Damn. Dream on. McCollum. Barnes. Adams. Covington. Terrence Ross. Mason. Plumley. So you have size. You're shooting. I guess you're turning the team around the two the two Portland guards. Covington has a shut down guy kind of like that team. House has Anthony Davis and go bear all the depot drummond, Jake Crowder, auto Porter, Hardaway junior and Seth Curry. I think he's tanking for the 2014 draft. I play. I want to be in the relegation zone like like Brooklyn. Oh, wait, they can't. They can't get the pick. All right. Go ahead. I have. I have. I have. Go ahead, Bill. Yannis. My team is Yannis. Beale. Middleton. KCP. Shruder. This is my eighth man. So we're going to have to we'll do a social media graphic. We're going to open up to the people. And we'll have both my team could beat your team. I like check how man's team is the best team. It's a pretty good team And my team is definitely the worst We'll see if people agree. I think we don't get you guys. You're good. You're good. I have a very good defensive team This is fun. I mean how sad is it that we had two drafts together and By the end of it the last round was plumbly Seth Curry and Dianne waiters like we couldn't even get to 25 guys Then Jeremy lamb we forgot to mention was the linchpin of the James Harden trade He's Jeremy lamb Kevin Martin and the twelfth pick which turned out to be Which turned out to be did I screw that up before? Yeah, Harden was gone already. I screwed that up When we were talking Kyle about the 2012 thunder Yeah No, he was on the 12 team. He was traded in 13 right? Adams was in the 12. I didn't screw that up then No, Adams. I did screw that up Adams was in the 13. Yes, so they had already they already made that trade because they made that trade in the 2000 after the 2012 finals Oh, it was going into the 12. 13. Yeah, that 12 pick was one of the things they got in the history So I'll clarify that all right any last thoughts house No, I'm glad to be done with this Jesus Christ, huh you don't have fun. What do you mean? No, I had a great time I'm just saying we got to a point in this draft. Do you just spread the names off like what are we I'm we so it's a Cody's L.O. Time Honestly, it could have been We're just guys name and dudes Just guys name or the dang can't believe you get taken I can I can believe it Michael Carter waves won the rookie of the year Didn't get taken in a 24-year pick draft credible I'd rather have Moharclist Anthony Moharclist didn't get taken Anthony Rob Roberson didn't get taken Austin Rivers didn't get taken John Hansen Mike Muscala Yeah, Tomas Santoransky. Yeah, kid Gilcrass a bunch of people all right Guys a true pleasure. Thank you. It was always for being on the mega draft. We're gonna take a break come back with Justin Barrier right after this This mailbag is brought to you by chat GPT the Bill Simmons podcast AI sponsor. Yeah, you heard me chat GPT Help me very recently sift through this Portland Trailblazer situation that we're about to talk about with Justin Barrier and I was going to do a mailbag segment just all the way through for this, but I'm gonna read one Portland email and then And then we'll talk to Varrier This is from Fred Huge kudos for continuing to call attention to Tom Dundin's extremely transparent plans to cheap out on the blazers piss off the good people Portland and eventually move them somewhere else But there's a lingering big question for you. What happened to your regular use of El Chico when referring to Dundin? This is one of the most elite nickdames we've ever had for a sports team owner and every time you see me to laugh Why did you retire it? Did Dundin send you a cease and distanced only it was a low-budget lawyer mail of cease and distanced printed on a square of single-plagged Charmin Just keeps going going. I did not retire El Chico. I actually forgot to keep calling them El Chico So we're gonna bring Varrier in and I'm going to To make a bunch of El Chico comments, but so this was this is a one-question mailbag because we're covering The blazers and El Chico I adjust the barriers here. You can hear him on the ringer NBA show He pops on the ringer website for fun time. We've been working together for a long time and a couple of years ago. Very are moved to Portland, Oregon and I talked about on a mailbag recently I'm Really horrified by this trailblazer situation. I'm not against relocation if Basketball just doesn't and hasn't worked in an NBA city and if the history is messed up or there's real reasons to do it Portland I used to call them the soccer moms. It was the only team in town. They genuinely loved them They won the 1977 title, which I think once you win a title, you should never have to leave and they get this new owner Tom Dundin aka El Chico buys the team Just had a lot of success with Carolina Hurricanes wins the Stanley Cup at the same time He is seemingly torpedoing his relationship with the city of Portland and trying to get out of A lease that ends basically right before the season would start in 2030 and we could talk about some ramifications Before we get in anything just give me the mood and Portland right now because I know this is a big topic Yeah, I mean the blazers are obviously a huge deal here and I think there would be more excitement about the upcoming season If Dundin started to serve dead cat in the concessions and that was the only option because he has just taken what was a pretty good momentum Going in off of last postseason going into this season with a team is really competitive We'll see about long-term ceiling, but there was like clearly something brewing after a couple of years of Just going through the tanking process and all of that is gone to the point where like on a daily basis at this point Everyone is fearful that not only is this guy trying to screw them over But also trying to do anything that he can get a good deal and if he doesn't get it He's gonna go wherever he can get it and he's done all kinds of money cutting stuff which If we did case by case some of it. It's like all right I yeah, maybe coaches should make 30 million for five years and you fire them after one, but he exact the other way It's like I'm gonna pay my coach for one year. We're not gonna have a lot of assistance I'm gonna I don't really want to pay a lot for my broadcasters Why do we have this many salespeople and just goes through and just chops it which is what he did in Carolina the difference Here what is the arena and the language that he's been using and The phrase first-class experience is the phrase we're using where it seems like they're latching on to that as a way to get out of this And there's a backstory with it where the Allen family that owned it They gave the arena to the city of Portland. They sold it to them for one dollar. It's Portland owns the arena It's allegedly not a state-of-the-art arena anymore. You've been there a bunch of times. I've been there since 2010 You can see if you see the arena itself. Their suites are pretty high. I Don't know. Do they need do they badly need a new arena? What's your take on that? I Think it depends on who you talk to if you're talking to NBA players and people throughout the league or used to a certain Metropolitan lifestyle and like just a sort of class of like new stuff going on I do think it probably pales in comparison to that I'm on the same mindset as you probably. I actually think the zag in modern sports is actually to go something with a little bit more history and just like you could feel the the weight of previous teams that have gone by because they put new big screens in there last year Yeah, and certainly that that adds a little bit of lustre to it But like it's fine as an arena. I just don't know what people expect from an arena experience You're going there to see the game not to see all these flashing lights and these big screens there But if you were to talk to people who are used to going to other arenas, they would say like all right It hasn't hasn't been renovated since I think it was built originally and probably is behind sort of where things have been moving Right mid 90s. There's a whole new wave of arenas that are better and more sweet-friendly I remember and I remember I think I remember this correctly they built it so the seats are closer to the court because they don't have hockey So it's it's tight and I liked that they weren't I just thought like you're surrounded by fans and this because the suites are higher. I thought the experience itself a go in there was great But obviously he's not going to care about that There's there's been a lot of good stuff written about this and I've tried to read as much of it as possible basically can they relocate and What are the rules to that and would that could he just do it and basically be like come sue me like Al Davis basically in the Raiders the biggest thing that seems to be working against him is that that least expires Literally right before the 2030 season start 2003 31 the least expires on like October 11th But you have to file for relocation before that if you're gonna switch teams and there's all this stuff in the least That's like you file for relocation huge penalties. We can sue you all this stuff So he'd almost have to figure it out and I remember Seattle, no coma city. We're in a little bit of a situation somewhere where you have the limbo year In the arena, but everybody knows you're leaving and if he's gonna leave I think that would be one outcome the other one is he could just be like Make up shit just be like we're moving and then test the NBA Which nobody has done for a long time Nobody's just been like we're moving. This is my franchise. It's a free country. I'll do what I want We haven't seen that in forever Yeah, that's where I wonder where the NBA's position in all of this is I don't think that they can come out publicly because Adam Silver basically answers to the owners They are basically his boss and come out and basically undercut Dundin's leverage and negotiations and basically Put out there that he's not going to let them go to Seattle or Vegas. I think the assumption is that those are off the market, but, and then the other options just don't seem all that attractive. But I don't think silver can come out and say that. I'm curious how much soft power he's wielding behind the scenes, how much other owners are saying things to perhaps chill the situation. But in a weird way, I think the most optimism I feel is that Dundin has proven to be such a transparent cutthroat maniac because ultimately he's looking for the best deal. And I think that Portland isn't in a position they really don't have any leverage to not give him that. And so there's been a lot of bluster suggesting that they're going to try to push back on certain things you've seen in recent days, this first class contingency that like that became a big sticking point. It was in the previous agreement. So it really doesn't hold much bearing on things going forward. As you mentioned, it's part of the bridge agreement that they sign in 2024 under the Alan ownership trust in order to just get them to the next deal. But if anything, it seems like Dundin is just causing a stir over anything because he just wants them to like be committed to the deal that he thought that they had a handshake agreement with to begin with. And so it's tough to really reconcile because on the one hand, your logic brain's like, well, Portland's going to concede and give him $573 million to renovate an arena that by the way, he said wasn't first class, which is why he needed the renovations to begin with. But on the other hand, he keeps bringing up these nut-celled things just to throw them off like kilter and to just sort of make things messy and chaotic in order to get his way. And maybe his way is just to go out of town. So it's hard to really reconcile the logic of it and just his general approach to things. It's tough because ultimately he has the nuclear bomb card. Yeah. If I leave, go look at Seattle. Seattle hasn't had a team since 2008. What is Portland if we don't have the blazers, right? This happened to the whalers in the NHL where the whalers left Hartford. They moved to Carolina ironically. And then Hartford, it's like, well, now you have AAA baseball in your kind of an area, SPN. And that's that's what Hartford is. Like, you need these teams, like they give you this credit. Look, it would happen on the OKC just getting the thunder. Like it completely transformed that city. So Portland has that piece. They also have a ton of history. They've had the team since 1970. The greatest sports book of all time was written about the trailblazers. They've always had moments of relevancy. They made the finals in 1992. They had some fun stuff that happened like during the day, Mara. It's Brandon Roy, a couple of coffee, maybe something happening. And pretty famously, a lot of bad luck with Bill Walton, St. Bowie, Greg Odin. They've just been in the mix in all these ways. If I was a blazer fan, I'd be really nervous because there's two things that conspiracy bill has noted. One is that you said the word chaotic, which I think is a good way to frame it. He also has and said anything or done anything, like literally not one thing that would endear himself to anybody in the city, right? It almost seems like he's, it's like watching, like marriage story with Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, where they're just both of them want to break up and are just being as mean as possible to each other, except in this case, it's only him. He doesn't seem to care about perception repercussions of anything. And then I think you said the NBA had to stay quiet. I don't know if I agree. Like I, like where's Adam Silver being like, look, we don't want the team to move out of Portland. We've had a team there since 1970 and they have awesome fans. Like that is not going to be an acceptable solution for me. He just hasn't said anything. And it's very similar to the Stern thing. Stern, you could see where he was thinking in the mid 2000s and I was talking about it in the moment, writing about it, where it felt like he almost wanted to make Seattle an example. Like if you don't invest in in your arena and your team, they might leave. That might be how this goes. Like they kind of did that in Sacramento too. They brought this, but that came in and committed to building a new arena or else they would have left. And it just feels to me like a little bit of a hostage situation. How badly do you love your kid? Here's what it will cost or you might never see your kid again, right? Like this is like really brutal stuff, I think. Yeah. One of my favorite things about sports is just kind of the relationship between the community and the sports team itself. Like it's one thing if the Grizzlies are successful. It's another team when that team embodies the spirit of the city and the grit and grind thing and they're basically have this almost symbiotic nature where like they're playing off of each other. Like that's a special thing and especially in modern times where like community is pretty fragmented at this point that really only is internet sort of community and culture and like some of the particular quirks of food and just the way dialect and everything else have almost been sanded down to like you don't really have anything. Like I honestly believe in this might sound polite and it's like sports are really the only thing that we have left. And that matters everywhere. It matters particularly important than where the Blazers really the only game in town no offense to like the timbers or the thorns or the fire who just started playing this year. It's like this is a Blazers town and it courses through the vein of this city, especially when they're good. Like Dame has a relationship with Portland and like I've never seen it before. It's more a small market Kobe that is a typical superstar with your team. And Dundin has proven that he does not give a shit about any of this stuff. All the things that we all care about as sports fans and his now customer base and his consumer base that he's going to have to even he does decide to stay tried to get them to buy back into the team when he's proven that he doesn't want anything to do with it. He's just pissed off everyone and pissed over all of the history and everything that anybody cares about. And he brought the Wailers before the first day after they ratified his agreement. He has the team in his possession. He goes down to LA to watch them play against the Clippers as his first game as the go-to owner. He's wearing a Wailers hat, which is just like a such a fuck you symbol to everybody. He wasn't the one to move the Wailers, but anybody who knows as he just laid out that was such like a craven pull of a team from a city and that got left in the dust and hasn't been able to recover ever since. I was asking around trying to figure out why would he even buy this team? Like a question like he's rich, right? He has a bunch of money. Obviously, he's a competitive guy and he's done. It seems like a good job with the Hurricanes, which is a completely different league. All these leagues are different, right? The W the challenges of owning a WMBA team versus an NBA team versus an NHL team. You're just dealing with completely different things. I don't understand why you would buy this team if you weren't buying into the community around the team in this city. It's basically like, it's like somebody buying a house on a street because he likes to street and not the house. He's like, ah, right. As soon as I move in, I'm knocking that thing down. But as you're buying, you're like, no, no, I love it. I love the upstairs. The backyard's great. But in the backyard, you're like, I'm going to fucking take this thing down. And my fear for people in Portland is that he looked at what the expansion numbers would be, which everybody is saying between seven and eight. And he's like, ah, I could just steal Portland for 4.25, whatever it ended up being. And then I'll just move them somewhere else. And yeah, I think Kansas City is, I mentioned them a couple of weeks ago. And I think I was the first one to mention it. First of all, Kansas City could make an argument. They maybe should have a team. Like they're, they've really grown. They have a state of the art arena. They've hosted big events. I think the cities grown. They're in a part of the country that they don't really have. Like, you know, I think they would help. They'd help with conference alignment. But I wouldn't, wouldn't be Portland. And what's dangerous about Kansas City is they'll take any team, right? Seattle, Portland's not moving to Seattle. Seattle doesn't want the trailblazers. They have a long rivalry in a history. And they know what it's like when you lose the team. I don't think they're going to want that. They didn't really want Sacramento either. They want like an expansion team. But I think Kansas City would be the one I'd be worried about, especially one of the minority owners is the St. Louis guy. Dungeons from Dallas. That's another thing that doesn't add up. You're from Dallas. You own Carolina. Why are you buying the trailblazers? Right? So that conspiracy bill, there's just a lot to work with with this. And none of it is really that good for the city. Yeah, I would always be like if there were only 30 houses in existence. And you just wanted one of those houses, no matter where it was. Right. And he's just decided that like I just want one of these and I will take it wherever best suits my preferences. That would just really see that's what they did with the Sonic's. They were like we're able to get in. And we'll move them back to this is our master plan. All right. Yeah. And it just like really brings up a really chilling proposition for the NBA where everything is gotten the money has become so big now where everything is bigger business than it even was when I first started covering the league almost 20 years ago. Yeah. It just it just feels like we're getting with especially with all this VC money coming in all the Saudi money slowly trickling into the league and some of this other stuff happening where it's just becoming more for profit nakedly in a way that I wasn't really ever familiar with in sports. And it's almost like what do you want from a franchise? Maybe Kansas City deserves a team. Maybe Austin deserves a team. I know that they've been mentioned. I don't see how that would work with San Antonio being right there. Austin's not getting a team. I think the spurs are more likely. They actually expand in Austin and play games there. They're not putting a team 75 miles from the spurs. It makes no sense. And so like I get that there might be slightly more attractive markets, but what does the NBA ultimately want? Portland has driven revenue when the team is good. These are like die hard fans that support the team. This isn't somewhere like New Orleans where I was for two years covering that team where they had to try so hard just to drive interest to get people out there when the team is good in Portland. People show up. It matters here. And so like maybe if Seattle is coming, they're just like, oh, we don't need two Pacific Northwest teams. That's the really only case I can make for it. Otherwise, this is a shining example of a small market franchise. And as we've seen with this new CBA coming in, Adam's whole position is like, I want to make it so everybody can win. How can you strip out a small market team and go to your other small market owners and say like, hey, this is for everybody. It's not for everybody. It's actually then just becomes about the biggest market and the biggest profit. Yeah. I've had people ask me over the last couple of weeks because they could tell I was kind of mad about this Portland thing. Like, well, why don't you stick up for New Orleans the same way? And I think the difference is we still don't have evidence that the MBA works in New Orleans. And you could blame the owners. You could blame the city. It's not a big enough market. Whatever you want to say, but it's just never worked. And despite the fact that they have, you know, a good handful. I don't know how many thousand fans. I don't think this franchise has ever been successful there. And we're going back to the 70s. They moved there already. You covered the team. And we've talked about this on pods before together. There's no, nothing you can point to and be like, see, no, no, for those three years, that's when it was kicking ass. It's just never worked. And I'm not sure they should have an MBA team. I feel way differently about Portland. Even Memphis, you mentioned earlier, like, Memphis, if you're doing this over again, Memphis isn't getting a team. That team's in Nashville. That's just the way it's going to go. But Memphis is proven that they can be a really awesome small market franchise. And that team is ingrained with that city in a really unique way. And I, you know, I don't, I don't, I don't wouldn't say they should move either. New Orleans would be the one. I think you have to look at them, fortunately. Yeah. New Orleans has the pride, but it never really had the bones in basketball or any of them, the success needed to drive any sort of energy in that city. There have been like flirtations with being a good team, but the best they've done is that team with Brandon Ingram where they, they've like, they challenged the sons in the first round. And they were fond and scrappy and young, but then that quickly peered out. And so they really never hit the, the stretch of success that they would need in order to get people engaged regularly. And so there've just been a lot of teases that haven't amounted to anything. It's a football. It's Pearl and Coach football is what they care about in the world. Which is fine. Yeah. But when I was there, like LSU gymnastics, sometimes which rate better than the pelicans. Right. It was brutal. Right. Portland. But what that one thing I did here was that because I, one of the things that was fascinating by it's like, why did they let this guy buy the team? Why, why is that El Chico get in there? And apparently they only had two offers because, because the price of these teams in general have gone up. And then the arena deal was dicey and it's a smaller, smaller market. And then the city is definitely, you know, it's been a little topsy turvy there for the last 10 years. And I just don't think they had a lot of people that wanted to buy it. Yeah. And that's gets into the whole conspiracy theory about how much the real villain in the situation is really Jody Allen who took over for Paul Allen after he died. And she was kind of the steward of the trust here. And there was an offer years ago from Filnet, obviously a local guy who wanted to invest in the area and is getting up in age. And as you've seen with Oregon, really wants to inject money into the area and to support them. He's really all he cares about seemingly. And it petered out quickly because the trust viewed it as a low ball. And it was also leaked to media. And they didn't like the approach that he took. And that was kind of the end of the story. Otherwise, it was just this most recent patch here where it was the Dundin group in Raj sports also owns I believe the thunder, excuse me, the thorns and the fire. And I think they're minor New Yorkers for the Kings as well. And they went with with Dundin and you have to wonder if the bridge agreement lease, which didn't have any protections in it to keep the team in Portland to make sure the next owners would still be in Portland in Portland was set up so that someone could do exactly what Dundin is doing. And you have to start to wonder what was really in it for Jody or the trust because all that money is just going to go to charity. And so why did she set this up so that the team wouldn't just be here in person. Well, they obviously got snookered a little bit. But this is so similar to me to Howard Schultz and Seattle in the mid 2000s when he just decided he had to sell the team and he was frustrated with the city. And he sold it to this group that clearly was a dangerous threat to move it to Oklahoma City and he said, fuck it. I'll do it anyway. I just want to get out of this. And he when we did the sonic boom podcast, he was the secret villain of the sonics leaving because he kind of knew what he was doing. It's like if you're selling your house or your condo to somebody who's clearly going to knock down the house, you're going to have a moment where you're like to it. How much do I love my house? Like this guy's going to come in and knock it down. I conspiracy bill also enjoys the Dallas piece of this with London. And is wondering if there's the any possibility to all of a franchise swap, which we have not had for a long time with Dallas and that whole situation, which has been terrible. Maybe it's maybe he switches somebody buys Portland and the Addison family ends up getting the Vegas expansion team. But I just I just wonder if he bought this team partly as like a chess piece for some bigger move, whether it's moving into Kansas City or St. Louis. I don't see NBA and St. Louis makes zero sense to me. Paul just people and say, Lewis, sorry, but I don't see it. But Dallas is that's that's the one that I'm like, huh. This guy's from Dallas. This is Dallas is also why didn't he just buy Dallas? Well, does that mean that we in Portland get Cooper flagged? Yeah, because one thing that would energize the local economy would be the great white hope coming to Portland, like the long 50 years later. Yeah, it's right happening. Yeah, so only two people wanted the team apparently. And in the arena thing is the biggest obstacle. You mentioned something earlier, though, about the new types of owners that are coming into the league. And this is this happened in soccer football is a little different because it's almost like it seems like these super rich families are moving in because it's. But in basketball, you if you have the most money, you could basically make this party arson. This is something the Fenway sports group did where they bought the penguin. They had the red socks. They bought the penguins. They bought Liverpool. And they're just kind of these rich stewards of the team. You saw the premier league almost get upended by all the money came in of people who weren't like traditional owners. And what you said earlier, like I do wonder is that where we're heading in the NBA. People who they want to sit courtside and seem like a big shot. And they just had a shitload of money to spend. And they know the one thing that always goes up is the sports franchise. And is this just who we're looking at next 20 years? People that don't care about a connection to a city. It's also in direct contrast with what silver is proclaiming he wants the league to be about, which is these small markets were putting in the second apron so that you don't have to spend over a certain limit. And that's the thing I don't really understand about this whole dungeon scenario because they keep proclaiming like that they can't make money here. The area is dealing with economic struggles, which is very true. And like not something that I think anyone here would dispute. But one, the team has always done reasonably well considering its market size and the passion of its fan. And two, they're not spending money on the team. Like they brought in John Morant and a cash neutral deal that didn't spend their mid-level exception. He's not going above and beyond. They're not even at the tax. It's not like it's not the first apron of the second apron. He's not even at the luxury tax at this point. And so and so it's just like his whole thing was coming into subprime money. And like that's his business. He's operating it more like someone that needs to really ring everything out of assets, which is why they went and swung the John Morant trade. They saw someone they can get for cheap hopefully that he could turn into something down the road. This isn't like big money coming in and we're just going to muscle everybody around. If anything, there were real concerns and rumors about whether or not this guy actually had the money to buy into the first place because I believe he had to sell piece of his NHL franchise in order to do it. And so it's just really all over the place. And I just don't know who this serves other than Dundit. All of this goes back to him getting what he wants and getting the best deal for himself. I don't see how anybody else the NBA, Portland fans, Adam Silver actually benefits for him being in this position. Hey, it's how it's it's one of the most perplexing things about professional sports is when people buy a team and either don't take care of it, don't have the proper TLC or don't seem like they seem like they care how they're perceived by the fan base. And the answer is what we said before, like he probably thought this was a good asset. He probably leveraged himself to buy it. And now is trying to ring out all the all the fat costs so that he could and try to make it more profitable. But this is something somebody said to me when the media deal happened. That no shit about like these rich guy circles is like these teams are becoming so prohibitively expensive to purchase and this person was telling me, I think we're gonna see stuff we haven't seen in the league in a long time. Like almost like back to the 70s and 80s with some of the cost cutting and weird trades. And by the way, we've been seeing it. And I honestly don't think that's why the Celtic straight to Jalen because if you look at the money standpoint, it didn't save the money for two of the three years, right? It's just they get out of that money in year three. But it was weird, you know? And the stuff with the Lakers, even what they just did and the stuff they put together in the Wall Street Journal reports that Mark Walter definitely seemed like he had a stroke or who knows how serious it was two years ago and people are wondering and that's like a heavy leveraged team. I just, I don't know who's coming into the league. It's the weirdest time for owners since like the 70s. When basically you and I could about a team in the 70s would be like, I met this guy at Dan Tannis. He has money, I think we can buy. I think we can buy the Quippers, you know? But now it's, I don't know. I don't know who these owners are gonna be. And then those are the guys who are on the committees. They're on the relocation committee. They're on the media committee. They're on the expansion committee. They're on the rules committee. And in the old days they were people that really cared about the league and the sport. And I don't, are we still gonna have that next generation of owners? I don't know. Yeah, it was like, it was stark when Parabot the Grizzlies originally because that was like one of the first instances of tech money really filtering in beyond the big markets. And I think people took note of that. Like, oh, things are changing here. This isn't a mom and pop shop. But I think the Walter deal with the Lakers was like the clearest indication of a family run business. One of the last few we have in this league feeding it to a guy who is just ungodly wealthy and also backed by other money where we have to really start to question the source of it. And that's the whole thing. Things have been nipping at the fringes of this for a very long time. Just kind of under the shroud of darkness. And like the league has restrictions in place and so that VC money can't be a certain percentage of this and all this other stuff. But it's clearly eating away at things. And I do have to wonder if we're reaching a tipping point where we have an owner coming in without the money in order to really perhaps do this. And then just completely strip mining it in order to run it as if it is a bare minimum proposition. And then complaining about not getting enough money to renovate an arena or else he'll just go wherever he wants. Like this is a pretty bad black eye for the NBA. And honestly, this is a pretty troubling stretch for the NBA pretty much this entire year with the tanking and everything like that. Honestly, Adam Silver has been in a crossroads for a while. I think this is really the moment where we really figure out if he's long for this position and like really what the rest of his legacy is going to be like. Because he came into this with a lot of fanfare by kicking out sterling and doing a couple of things that I think a lot of people celebrated, which were in retrospect pretty easy wins. He said a lot of big problems. And frankly, I've disagreed with practically all of them. And this one more than any of them. Yeah, and it's as a commissioner of the bigger legacy here is what do you stand for and who do you want to be, right? Goodell in the NFL is pretty clear from day one. He's like, we are the most unstoppable business in America. And everything is going to be about profits. And if we have to add games and jeopardize our players, that we're doing it. If it's 17 games, 18 games, we're going. And that's work for him. And that's at least we know who he is and what he cares about. Silver, the first five years, I really thought was more in the I'm not stern. I'm not like David Stern. I'm going to be more of a connector to the players and the owners. Here's my phone number. Ben said, right, I'm going to go. I'm going to do I did the song conferencing with them. In 2018, he was talking about really being concerned about the player's mental health. And lately, the last couple of years, it just seems like revenue, money, finance driven is the job. And I don't know if that's the job. I think the job's a whole bunch of things. In this case, you should care about Portland, a team that's about to celebrate the 58th anniversary of the title. And in a city, honestly, that kind of needs the team. You mentioned some of the stuff that's happened the last 10, 12 years. I don't know. This would be a really bad one. And I don't have a good feeling about it. I don't have an incredible amount of inside info. But everything that's happened, this doesn't feel like posturing to me. This feels like somebody who's already decided, I either want to get the team out of here or bend them over barrel and get them to pay all this stuff to basically make me want to stay. And those are the two-- those are his two moves. And neither move is good for Portland. Yeah, I think the only case for optimism is that he's just like sort of a Craven carpet bagger who only wants a good deal. I do think that the Portland will ultimately concede. Because I just don't see where they have any points of leverage. Because as you mentioned, what is Portland without the boys at this point? Yeah, they are. There are companies just leaving left and right. Things just haven't been great. Downtown's kind of a ghost town. I still love Portland's why I moved here to begin with. But it just seems like that is going to be the inevitable case. And so if they do end up signing the 20-year lease, that will be something. I wonder what the relationship with the city and the team will be from that point forward. And I also think that I'm most concerned about what pounds of fleshing picks up along the way. Because it's one thing, if in five years, they can be sued for going out. But if he managed to wrangle provisions in this next deal, let's say that they signed a 20-year lease. But there are outs, and there's no longer a threat of litigation. And he can leave in 15 years or 10 years. And it's just easier for him. I am starting to worry that that is ultimately his long-term goal. Because ultimately, he just wants the best financial product. And if he doesn't think that's going to happen in Portland, then I think he's going to find his way in order to get that. Now, I hate to say it, but just fundamentally for your life, it doesn't make sense to own teams in Carolina and Portland. It can be based in Dallas. That's right. Whereas if you move the blazers to a place like Kansas City, everything's a little closer to the stuff I care about. So I don't know. It feels like he bought the team because the price was-- you're buying in four billions around a good price for just buying into the league with the media deal, with the expansion fees coming. You're buying up in a league that the arrow still seems to be pointing up and he just got in and probably fooled some people. We'll see how it goes. We're staying on this one. And if you go and you Google the stories about it, there's new stories, basically, every two or three days of some new revelation or something, we'll see how it goes. All right. What was your favorite move of the NBA move of the summer? Ooh. I mean, LeBron, for the minimum, probably-- Not counting LeBron. Not counting LeBron for $4 billion. Everything that's happened, I haven't been like, whoa. It's more minor stuff, like the Clippers just getting really hutch more for two for 14. And I was like, ah, solid deal. I like that one. But nothing like life altering. I mean, am I allowed to mention Jalen Brown going to the Sixers? That is also a good trade. I would say what the Sixers did is pretty unimpeachable, considering they paid virtually nothing. And from last year, we were wondering whether or not VJ and Maxi would just be cool together? That would be a fun product to watch as we waited for NBA to come back onto the court, to what could possibly be the best team in the Eastern Conference. So they'll probably check that box. There's been-- it's really been more of-- I don't understand why that team is playing it this way. I don't understand what that team just did. There's been way more of those than, whoa, I see the vision. I liked what Atlanta did. I thought just kind of building around the fringes and bringing everybody back, but grabbing people from O.K.C. And now we're in the stage now as we head into the Eids of August. What's the-- what's the dog days of August? What do we say for August? Dog days of August? Eids of March. Eids of March. We're now in Benet and Mathurin, Benedict Mathurin, Peyton Watson, Territory. Update, Mathurins met with-- so yeah, it's time for the NBA to go away for a little bit. All right, Kaminga's own. Yeah, Kaminga. Can we get Kaminga on the minimum? All right, Vary, we can do on the Ringer NBA show with the crew. How did I have the first year with Kyle Mango, new guy? It's pretty good. Yeah, I thought everything worked out really well. Learned a lot about synergy stats that I never would have been able to cover, but Kyle's right on it. All right, so everybody important for us. Thanks, Vary. Thanks for coming out, Vary. Yeah, thanks for having me. Today's Mailbag, which we will have another good one next week, was brought to you by Chat GPT Work. Chat GPT Work helps you work even harder while Chat GPT works on your projects. You still call the plays so you're always in control. Put Chat GPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Try Chat GPT Work in Chat GPT today of Elbow and Plus and Pro plans. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to House and Kyle and Barrier and Eduardo and Gajal. Don't forget, new rewatchables coming on Monday, Karate Kid 2, 40th anniversary, by the way. I forgot to mention that part as well. How has it been 40 years since we wondered what the hell was going on with Miyagi and Daniel Sahn for real for the first time? That's it for the pod. I'm definitely going to have one midweek. So stay tuned for that. And we'll slowly ease back into, we'll just start doing some NFL. My prep's feeling really good. If you miss me, I mean, it comes as a podcast. That was fun. And I'll be back midweek with one more ceiling. Must be 21 plus some president and select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas star Casino or 18 plus and president DC Kentucky or Wyoming. Game problem called 100 gamble or 1 800 by reset. Call 888-797-777 or visit ccpg.org/chat Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org and Maryland. Hope is here. 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