The Seven Teams Without a Playoff Series Win in the 2020s!

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Michelob Ultra Light Beer. St. Louis, Missouri. Coming up on the Zach Lowe Show, it's September. Very little is going on. Most of it is Clippers related. And that's why Law Murray from The Athletic is here. He covers the Clippers. What's going on with the Clippers? Why can't they stay out of the news even for silly things like Bradley Beal having Chris Paul's number all of a sudden? Is anyone answering the phones with the Clippers? Do the landlines still work? Do they have landlines? What's Chuck the Condor up to? We get into all of that. And then the meat of it is we take the seven teams. There are only seven that have not won a playoff series in the NBA in the 2020s. Arbitrary deadline, sure, but it's fun. And we draft them. And we do two drafts. Draft number one, who's most likely to break that streak this year? Draft number two, even more fun, which one we most like to run as GM for the next five years? There are seven teams. I'm going to tell you which they are. You should try to guess them. And that's all coming up with Law Murray. And then special guest, Luke Eplin is here. I'm not sure. I'm not sure you've heard of Luke Eplin. You should. He just wrote a great book, Moses and the Doctor, about the 1983 Philadelphia 76ers, but more broadly about Moses Malone, Julius Irving, the ABA, their journey to that title in 1983 for a team that is loaded up to try to win its first title since 1983. That's all coming up on the Zach Lowe Show. Welcome to the Zach Lowe Show. Law Murray from The Athletic is here. He covers the Clippers, which means he's been extremely busy, but he also covers the whole league. He knows every team's rotation inside and out, which is going to come in handy for a fun little draft gimmick idea I have for today during the doldrums of September. Law, how are you doing? How are you dealing with the 100-degree heat, both metaphorically and literally, the heat on the Clippers and the heat in Los Angeles? Man, I'm trying to limit my movements as much as possible. I'm just trying to survive and subsist. You know that September is supposed to be the quiet part of the year for us. Chill out as much as possible so that you can actually prepare to cover this league for nine months. And between this year and last year, that's been a myth. Something that you can actually put in practice. And yeah, we've had some crazy weather out here. You know what, man? I'm about as ready for pumpkin spices that, you know, the girls at the coffee shop right now. So, you know, I need that fall weather to come in real quick. I've never dabbled in any pumpkin spice anything, coffee-wise. And you don't need to. I assume it's bad, which is why I haven't done it. I've tried the pumpkin beer before, which was like, I don't understand why we have to do this. Anyway, look, Clippers have dominated my last three podcasts. I'm going to take a little break from them. Obviously, I've done all the verdict. I've read the report five times. I just want to ask you this. Have you talked to anyone in any kind of position of power with the Clippers since the verdict came down? I've placed a few calls. Didn't think anyone would pick up. Nobody picked up. Not really even sure who's running the team right now. I assume it's Trent Redden, but it's not like I've confirmed that with anybody because no one will pick up a call. Are they just like, no one's answering any calls? Or is there any business going on? I mean, everything is kind of radio silent right now. But even from a communication standpoint, like Wednesday was a loud day last week and they released one statement immediately. And then the letter from one of the many David Kellys in our lives now came afterwards. And it's been nothing. Even on social media, it's been nothing. And to your point, they promised litigation. That's the only option they have. There's a board of governors meeting next week. I wonder who is supposed to sit in for that, given that two of the people who would normally be in that spot have been suspended. You know who they should have to send? Chuck the Condor. Chuck the Condor should have to come to the board of governors meeting in his stupid fat shoes with his stupid beak and sit in the board of governors meeting and give a press conference afterwards where he just answers no questions because that's the most of the. They might as well just have a mascot no commenting because no one's going to comment anyway. Mascot was made for you specifically, Zach. Just so you know. No, Chuck stinks. You started writing about mascots and that's when they're like, you know what, we need to participate. Don't blame me for Chuck the Condor, okay? You can blame me for a lot of things, but not for Chuck the Condor. Okay, but the one thing that they did make news today was Bradley Beals taking Chris Paul's number, which is like of all the days to do this. First, Chris Paul goes on a podcast. I can't remember which one saying he's never been more disrespected in his career. He's never been more disrespected in his career. Though when the Clippers waved him in the middle of the night, bam, one night last year in Miami, I think. And now Bradley Beals. Bradley Beals is a great player. Take his number, whatever. I mean, I don't know. Can they just like retire Blake Griffin's number out of nowhere for just some dose of goodwill? Can I just say this? Because I don't really make this point publicly. I've made it privately plenty of times because a lot of people have asked me about this team that I cover. This is the most a-historical franchise in the league. Certainly. And I don't, you'd have to involve some other sports leagues. I think they'd be up right up there too. When I say a-historical, obviously it's a bad history, specifically in the 80s when this franchise moved to Los Angeles. But under the current ownership and lead of the president, business president specifically, I mean, they have not, this isn't, an intentional choice to not really honor any part of their franchise's past. But the way that they have handled things with the recent and successful pillars of their past. I mean, you don't get Kawhi here without Lob City. I truly believe that. They have shown that they're not very interested in that. They have not, even right now, they are not showing that they are interested in even addressing their fans in any way possible. You know, everything has been defensive about what has come out. And I mean, I don't even put this on Brad because Brad gave up his number last year. He was here before Chris and they have a great relationship. And, you know, Brad wore zero so Chris could have his number. This isn't about Brad. This is about who makes these decisions to say we're keeping this number out of circulation, which they did when Chris wasn't. He's been here for seven years. And now the first offseason Chris is done playing. They give this number. So Brad's taking the heat, but let's apply the heat where it absolutely should be. And that's on a Clippers team that has been increasingly toned at for the last couple of years. I was just Googling now to see what number Chuck the Condor wears, if there's anything embarrassing about it. He wears 213, the area code. So there you go. Yeah, look, I mean, I don't want to talk about the Clippers anymore. Here's the. Here's the gimmick for. By the way, by the time this comes out, who knows, maybe Ballmer is through the league. I will be at Board of Governors next week, eagerly awaiting all the fallout, all the comments. I've talked to a bunch of owners about this. They are all kind of like, wow, okay, the report said a lot of stuff that, you know, really solidified everything and like he's getting what he deserves. But anyway, okay, on to today's gimmick. In thinking of like fun things to do in September, I just started kind of tooling around and I came up with this. Seven teams out of 30 have not won a playoff series in the NBA in the 2020s. So in just the last six seasons, seven seasons, I guess, 23 of the 30 NBA franchises have won at least one playoff series. There's a couple that are just squeaking in, in 2020, the Rockets and the Raptors, that's the last time they won, are arbitrary cutoff dates and round numbers stupid or are human caveman brains stupid and we like round numbers? Yeah, but we got to do something. So seven teams, have not won a playoff series in the 2020s. Here they are in no particular order. The Charlotte Hornets, 2002, I think is their last playoff series win. That's a long time, Law. You were like barely born in 2002. The Washington Wizards, the Sacramento Kings, who have the second longest drought, 2004. The Chicago Bulls, the New Orleans Pelicans, the Portland Trailblazers in the Orlando, magic. Those are the seven teams that have not Not one, a single playoff series in 2020, we're going to draft them, rank draft them in two ways. First, we're going to pick, and I'm going to give you the first, you can choose if you want the first pick or not, who is most likely to break that streak this coming season. And then more fun, which team of these seven, again, redraft would we most like to run for the next five years and run, I guess is GM. So we got to work for Tom Dundon if we want to run the Blazers. So we got to be, we don't get to be the owner, the governor, we get to be the GM. Okay. You can have the first pick if you want. Let's start again. Orlando, Charlotte, Washington, Portland, Pelicans, Bulls, Kings, who has the, we're going to start, who has the best chance to break their no series win streak this year? Do you want to draft first in this round or the long-term round? Oh, give me the first pick in this round. Okay. Yeah. Um, first pick, I'm going to go with the team that damn near knocked off of one seat and that's the Orlando magic. Um, they are, they, they have the strength of continuity, uh, the strength of being a good team. That's been in the mix. Um, um, we are waiting for Franz Wagner and Palo Bencaro and Jalen Suggs to play a respectable amount of games together in the same season. Um, they have a foundation of defense. They have the things that I think they, they are well suited for playoff basketball. They've lost what? Two games, sevens. They've lost what? Two games, sevens. They've lost what? Two games, sevens. They've lost what? Two games, sevens. They've lost what? Two games, sevens. They've lost what? Two games, sevens. Two games, sevens. They've lost what? Two games, sevens. They've lost what? top four i don't know where did you have washington yeah yeah i had washington in that four four spot as well i mean fit is a complete theory and um we just you know but improvement is one thing like we're not talking about hey will you improve they'll be they'll be better they're trying to win games they have veterans um they i don't think they've won 20 games in the last three years like they're going to clear those very low bars um like for me we didn't you didn't like aj devonta i'm i'm so intrigued to see what kind of player that dude is going to be in year one you know like how much of a workload will he need to have being at this isn't cooper flag you know cooper flag had to come in there and jason kidd was like hey i made yannis a point guard we're just going to do that because we have a complete dearth of any other players in the league and we're going to have a complete dearth of any other players in the league and we're going to have a complete dearth of any other players in the league and we're going to have a complete dearth of any other players and we're going to have a complete dearth of any other players gotta be the pelicans i got i got the gotta be the pelicans i got i got the gotta be the pelicans i got i got the pelicans at five pelicans at five pelicans at five it's another team that didn't really do it's another team that didn't really do it's another team that didn't really do much with their roster at all much with their roster at all much with their roster at all um we're waiting on the official um we're waiting on the official um we're waiting on the official acquisition of benedict mathurin that's acquisition of benedict mathurin that's acquisition of benedict mathurin that's obviously obviously obviously um just a formality at this point but um just a formality at this point but um just a formality at this point but i mean that team i mean that team i mean that team they expected to be better last year they expected to be better last year they expected to be better last year they weren't we'll see what jamal mosley they weren't we'll see what jamal mosley they weren't we'll see what jamal mosley has to do jamal mosley has to do jamal mosley has to do jamal mosley inherits a lot of the same issues in new inherits a lot of the same issues in new inherits a lot of the same issues in new orleans orleans orleans right down to a right down to a right down to a normal one overall normal one overall normal one overall pick out of duke at power ford pick out of duke at power ford pick out of duke at power ford you know trying to figure an offense you know trying to figure an offense you know trying to figure an offense around that ball heavy player um around that ball heavy player um around that ball heavy player um and go from there so and go from there so and go from there so um we are not saying to you folks that um we are not saying to you folks that um we are not saying to you folks that these teams will one make the playoffs these teams will one make the playoffs these teams will one make the playoffs or two win a playoff series we're just or two win a playoff series we're just or two win a playoff series we're just ranking a set ranking a set ranking a set of teams and new orleans is a team i of teams and new orleans is a team i of teams and new orleans is a team i feel better about with that specific sheer talent has to be the pick here. It's actually, it's, I would probably even place them higher. Again, there's just a conference thing where if we're talking about winning a playoff series, they're just not going to beat the best teams in the West. But you know, you put Dejounte Murray, who looked pretty good in his brief appearances last year, Trey Murphy, Herb Jones, Zion, you've got something there. Those players have barely played together. That's something. The starting center thing, you would assume they would like to start Derek Queen. He and Jeremiah fears are the two most important young players on the team. Like both of them a lot. Queen and Zion together looked pretty unplayable defensively last year and forced Zion to kind of figure out and you throw Murray in and this is doubly. So like, how do I exist without the ball as much as without having the ball as much as I used to have it? And, you know, there was like more of Zion in the dunker spot, more of him just trying to figure it out. Maybe that's healthy. Maybe it's not. But even coming off the bench, you know, you've got fears, Mather and maybe. Queen, maybe Yves Misi who started a bunch of last year, Sadiq Bay, who was just bullying dudes one-on-one all year, making mid-range jumpers. There's just a, there's just enough talent here where they should out, out point the bulls and the Kings. And we don't need to spend a lot of time on the last two teams. I think in all the excitement, I will take the bulls sixth, by the way, over the Kings and neither of these teams has any shot in hell of winning a playoff series. So who cares? I just think I will keep it brief. I think in all the excitement, over Caleb Wilson, just like, I can't wait. Caleb Wilson's awesome. Uh, Norm Powell's here on a two-year deal. Booze Ellis made a big leap last year, kind of fringy, most improved player conversation guy could be in that conversation. Again, Nick Claxton is on the team for some reason. Giddy is just kind of what he is, which is a 18, eight and eight, but how much is he actually helping you win at the highest level? The bench is going to be pretty inexperienced. I would say if they play the guys that I hope they would play, uh, Trey, except for Trey Jones, who had an like sneaky, really good year for them last year, I think for all the excitement about their team, they're going to be pretty bad, uh, this year. And that's completely fine. I just think there's no world in which I can take the Kings anywhere other than last year. So you get the honor of taking the Kings, uh, last and we will revisit them later, but anything you want to say about these, these two teams? Yeah, I'll just, I'll just say about the Kings, um, a team that I didn't, didn't have last actually. I, I had the bulls, I had the bulls last. I just, I just feel like the bulls are, um, I feel like they're going to fire sale, um, at, in, in, in mid season. I'm glad you brought that up because part of this discussion should have been, and I should have mentioned it with Charlotte in particular early is they do the Hornets. If like they're way better than expected or even a little better than expect, like, oh, we could be seventh or eighth in these. They have, they have everything they need to go out and get a big time player. If any big time player that fits them become becomes available more so than any of these teams. Well, Portland is right there with them too, but not quite as much. Uh, we'll talk about all that stuff in the second draft, but yeah, like the fire sale. So who do you see as the fire sale guys in Chicago, man, Norman Powell, first of all. Um, yeah, I just feel like norm is going to get buckets. I think he's done a great job in the first half of seasons, the last two years. And some team is going to be interested in him. It behooves the bulls to, to see what they can get for him. Then, um, I think that his values who that team decreases significantly after the trade deadline. So I don't, you know, not saying he's definitely gonna get traded. I can just see him being involved in teams saying, Hey, can we get Norman Powell around January, February, um, Nick Claxton, um, to a, to a lesser degree, uh, same thing. And then you mentioned Trey Jones, like Trey Jones, a real good basketball player, man. Like he's solid. Like he's just not exciting because he don't jump high and he doesn't really like shooting threes, like at all. And you know, but this is a dude who as a, as, as a non-explosive is 55% of his field goals. And you know, that, you know, that assist to turnover ratio is in his genes. We saw Tyus for years, not turn the ball over and facilitate good offense. Like what does that look like for a team? You know, um, if some team takes on, uh, Trey Trey's got a team option, um, for, for 20, 27 as well. So again, eight million bucks, like really good money for a, like a backup, like a top, top level backup point guard who can fill in as a starter. 0 : And he can play with a lot of different dudes. He played next to giddy last year as a starter to non-shooting guys, but Trey Trey makes it work. So what does that look like come February? We'll, we'll, we'll have to see, um, the Kings. I think I'm just giving the Kings just a little bit, I mean, credit that they don't really deserve, but I'm just intrigued by Sacramento, uh, from the standpoint of they had a bunch of dudes who just didn't play last year. The modest basically had the year off. Zach basically had a year off. Um, Deandre Hunter gets there. It's scratched in the eye. He's done after two games. Uh, Keegan basically had the year off. Those are four starters. 3 : That's fair. That's fair. You know, 0 : It's a seventh pick in the draft. Ben Simmons is coming back. They, they drafted some and, and, and still in Cardwell's case, not drafted, but found undrafted. They, they, they found some contributors. Again, we're not saying these things will be good in the playoffs or competitive in the playoffs if they find a way in there. But I do want to see with a more respectable amount of gains played, what that team looks like. Cause Jack, I don't know about you. I did not see a 60 loss Kings team this time, last year did i think they'd be a playoff team no but they had been in the mid 40s not mid 40s they had been around the 40 win range the previous few years everything that could have went wrong last year went wrong are they a 60 loss team or are they closer to a 50 loss team are i'm intrigued to see uh what it looks like with a maybe a more cohesive roster it's a great that's a great slogan for the 2026 2027 sacramento kings maybe we're just a 50 loss team come out and see the kings at the golden one center um like the bulls by the way the kings are a bad team that controls their own draft pick in a new lottery world where it behooves them to maybe try not to be one of the three worst teams in the nba and go into the relegation zone where you get one less one fewer ping pong ball so they're incentivized as are the bulls to try to win on the floor flip side, they have a guy who has all but put a trade me t-shirt on in DeMontis Sabonis who fired his agent, hired a new agent at CAA. And, you know, I think it's an open secret that would like to not be on the Kings. He's a floor rate. He's an elite floor razor, whatever you think of his limitations defensively, the lack of shooting range that just hasn't really come along. You've got to kind of play through him on offense and, and mitigate him on defense. He's a hell of a player. He's an all-star. He's a floor razor, both for the Kings. And we will get into this in part two for maybe a team that starts off slower than expected, gets scared off by the new lottery rules. And it's like, Hey, this guy's got only got one more year left on his contract. Yeah. He might, we might have to pay him his next deal. It might be a little too much, but he's going to help us win 38 games or 35 games. And now that's a bigger deal does we don't want to actively suck, but you're right. You know, you put in Levine. I don't know how much he wants to be there. I don't know how much, if any, 3 : Value he has boy, did they need Keegan Murray to have a bounce back here? I like Nick Clifford as a bench guy. I like Maxine right now as a bench guy. And I am proud to say you brought him up first. I am proud to say the Zach Lowe show leads. This is an official statistic leads all NBA podcasts that are not Kings podcasts in mentioning Dylan Cardwell's name. I am like a Dylan Cardwell super fan. I'd like to be friends with Dylan Cardwell. I feel like if he followed me around everything good, I did even something simple as like picking my daughter up from school, driving the carpool without any sort of beeping or incident, he'd be pumping me up and cheering for me and raising the roof. And I'd be like, I like having Dylan Cardwell around. He gets rebounds and he makes everyone happy. So thank you for mentioning him. All right. That's our draft. So in order of breaking the playoff streak this year to review Orlando, Charlotte, you took Portland three Washington, New Orleans, Chicago, Sacramento. 3 : Let's take a quick break and we'll do the more interesting discussion of like, which of these teams we want to run for the next five years. Some at speed, some at power, some have their own podcast. It's true. That being said, no two players are exactly alike. And the same is true off the field. That's why State Farm takes time to get to know you so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget like a good neighbor. State Farm. 3 : All right, new draft. We're taking the same seven teams, the windless in the playoffs teams in the 2020s. And now instead of just focusing on this year, we're zooming out next five years, which of these teams from best to worst most want to run to least want to run. 4 : What do we want to be the GM of? I get the first pick in this draft. And to me, this is a pretty easy pick and it's the Charlotte Hornets. I have Brandon Miller. 3 : I have con can nipple. I have a whole ton of extra draft picks starting with the Mavs top two protected pick this year. I have a heat lottery protected pick this year that becomes unprotected if it doesn't convey this year. And I have these 2033 picks unprotected from Phoenix via the miles bridges trade. And from, I believe Minnesota via the little ball trade I'm just so rich with assets. 4 : I'm pretty lean 3 : Cap wise. Like I could get room if I need to get room, particularly in like the summer of 2028 before con can nipples new deal comes back. I got to figure out Brandon Miller. I can get a decent amount of room that year. I can always maneuver, you know, to get more room. If I want to not bring back Tijon salon, if I want to not resign Musa Diabate, who I think they should resign. If for some reason I don't want see on James down the line, I can cut Finney Smith and all that stuff. 4 : Like I got just a ton of flexibility. And I got a pretty good team. That's pretty exciting right now. The lamello trade. You and I kind of both agree where we like lamello more than most. It's going to be a step back, but like long-term I didn't think that re that hard about who I would pick first in this draft. I really would like to run the Charlotte or it's there in a good spot. 5 : I would have picked Charlotte number one as well. I mean the lamella ball tree, it hit me, hit me in the, hit me right in the sternum, man. Just cause I really wanted to see that team take a step, but you know what? They determined that they were selling high. They got a great year at a lamella because they managed him. Right. You, you said, Hey, health is a thing for him. We'll see how he handles physicality. If he makes the playoffs, which he better that Minnesota team better make playoffs next year. But I mean, they sold high, maybe it's a short step back this year, but they are setting themselves up. 4 : To be the team that they want to be for years to come. And even now they look, they look deep. I'm worried about the ceiling of that team in the short term, long-term. I mean, they, they have a lot of flexibility and to pick a team. Number two, I find is really difficult here. 5 : So, so, so to your, to, to your point, I had number one with a bullet and number seven with like, whatever the opposite of a bullet is like a nerf ball, a two to six. I actually think six is pretty clear too, but two let's just be generous. Say two to six. You could really order any way you want, depending on what kind of GM situation you'd want to walk into what kind of moves you'd like to make right off the bat. I'm very interested in, I, I switched teams around multiple times. I'm very interested to see how we do this. I had a number two pick. I liked a lot. Well, let's see if it's the same team. 4 : Yeah. Um, 5 : And I don't feel great about this, but I'm actually going with Washington here. 4 : Oh, I did not have them number two, but I had them. I had, well, I won't spoil where I had them. 5 : Yeah. Don't spoil it. Um, I think the reason it's difficult is obvious. Like, um, the, the page, right. They might pay Anthony Davis. And if, even if they don't, they gave up, they gave up draft capital to get him. And the fit 5 : Is like, 6 : Okay. What does the, what does it look like? Uh, so that's not, that's not as great. Um, but they are a team in a, in a pretty good market. They just got the number one pick. They've had draft picks that they've been developing for the past few years. So they have a core of prospective role players ready to go that they have decisions to make on, and I don't, yeah, I, I want to, I want to see how good AJ can be, because I think the best thing that you can have as a franchise is a blue chip guy, a difference making guy. Like we talked about this draft for a long time and we saw that teams tanked aggressively in a way that made the NBA change their rules before this draft. And the Washington wizards got the number one guy in that draft. I think that even with Trey's contract, the lack of, uh, success in recent years, what you gave up to get ad, what you might get to keep him, what happens if you don't keep him? I think those are massive questions, but they're number two, because I like their number one guy, um, more than the other guys here. 7 : It's interesting. I had the wizards three, which means I had them above teams that are like a bunch of jerseys. So I think they're objectively way better than them. And in the case of Portland, I don't want to spoil. It probably has better draft equity coming from other teams than the wizards. The wizards have some stuff. They have an extra pick in 28, a couple of swaps here and there that could be good. They could be not good. We'll see. But just like, it's just about AJ Devonsa. Like I have, I have a 19 year old who was a legit number one pick in a great draft, has a chance to be a franchise player. We'll see like Orlando has a couple of really elite borderline, all NBA, if everything's going right. And they're healthy guys in Paolo Bencaro and Franz Wagner, maybe AJ Devonsa never even gets as good as Paolo Bencaro is right now. And Paolo Bencaro is still young. I just would bet on the upside. And I've got like, I'm even factoring in, like, I'm even holding the following things against the wizards. A they may not have any cap room at all until December of 2029, because of Trey young's giant contract and all the other deals they have to negotiate or renegotiate. Um, uh, and God forbid they pay Anthony Davis and dip further into their cap room. Uh, I even just like, I, in trying to be, pessimistic and realistic in my assessment of them like let's assume Bilal Koulibaly like doesn't quite make it uh and maybe they re-sign him to a deal that's like you know fair for him around the mid-level maybe they don't maybe he's not part of their core let's assume Bub Carrington who I don't really love and hasn't quite figured out his role in the NBA although he shot the three well pretty well last year very well let's assume he doesn't make it let's assume one of Will Riley and Trey Johnson both of whom I really like end up kind of being empty calories you know gunners that don't quite fit I actually don't think that's true I like that both of them on my team I like DeBansa I like Saar I like George I like the extra picks um and I just think DeBansa is is that enticing um I actually had the Wizards third as I said which means I had a team ahead of them which I will now take with a third pick for the exact same reason and it's the Chicago Bulls uh I have Caleb Wilson on my team Noah Senge we'll see what he becomes uh Dalen Swain we'll see what he becomes but I have Caleb Wilson and I have Matas Buzelis and I have all the cap flexibility I can need going forward now again kind of feather in Washington's cap is that cap room is not like the the years of cap room getting you like superstar free agents and being used in that way kind of over and so Washington not having cap flexibility not a big deal I'd still rather have it than not in the position of these teams because I can be predatory taking on some bad contracts to get picks taking on a player nobody wants but I think is good whatever the facilitating trades whatever it is they've got a lot of that they control all their first round picks they don't have any extra firsts which I don't love I like to be able to short some other teams like Portland is going to be able to do Washington's going to be able to do Charlotte as I said certainly can for many many years um they've got decisions to make like I don't I don't think Rob Dilley's going to be able to do that I don't think he's going to be able to be able to do that I don't think he's going to be able to do that I don't think he's going to be able to him is really slated to be part of this core long term we'll see he could prove me wrong I think his his uh team option is sort of like another interesting up for grabs decision they've got some they've got a a potential you know long-term hole at center uh I like Jalen Smith I might be interested in extending him if I were the Bulls but I'm not sure he's a starting starting center on a good team Claxton's all right as a placeholder but just to me look it's Caleb Wilson at the three and the four figure out the rest and the rest of the way Giddy is still very young if Giddy's a good player and if he's if you want to throw him part of this core too that's fine um but figure out the rest I've got all my picks I got cap flexibility and I'm and at some at some level law I would just like to save the Chicago Bulls they're a cool brand they mean something to me as an old 49 year old old basketball fan um the the Alan Parsons project theme song from North Carolina like that'll still gets me pumped up I would just like to be around that so I'm taking the Bulls and that's that's it so we're three in what do you think was I too high on the Bulls well the Bulls for your the reasons you outlined were a team that I was like this will make it difficult with the Washington decision the reason why I basically went with Washington or Chicago besides AJ uh the Bulls are still owned by someone who just doesn't take full advantage of the fact that they're in Chicago literally the biggest market in the league outside of New York and Los Angeles and now now all right but so by alternatives that's a challenge but my alternatives are well if you so so I had them over Washington you get Ted Leonsis as your owner my alternatives for the rest of the draft are Tom Dundon the DeVos family Gail Benson and or whatever it becomes of the pelicans and that market which is struggled to really sort of um develop a a big following and Vivek Ranadive so I feel good I feel good uh taking the Bulls uh in in the third in the third spot over for even despite the Reinstorf concerns right oh um should we go on to number four then yeah you got the real hard pick now number four I am very curious to see what you did here and whose fans are going to be insulted by this pick yeah I'm I'm just going with the Orlando Magic um I think they should be they should they should feel like they should be hired so when you pick the Orlando Magic here behind some of the teams that we've had we are obviously saying that we don't love their future situation but that's up to the players and it's up to what happens this season I think you know the question you have with Orlando is are they stuck or are they in a good spot um they I think it's a little bit I think it's it might be a little bit of both um which is a weird thing to say but go ahead that's why they're here like Franz has a long-term contract Paolo has a long-term contract with a player option Desmond has a in I think the way you have to talk about the NBA these days he has a long-term contract and you gave up pretty much your last assets to get him Desmond is a very good player who absolutely fits not just a need but you know just in general um good player um you know I like I like that despite the risk I like them kind of going for it on that trade last year I like it a little less a year later but that's that's life yeah like that's the they are a team that is supposed to do their best work while these while these players are under the contracts that they have now have even Wendell Carter has a team option in 2028 you know like I'm interested to see what's going to happen with Anthony Black um the decision that is going to be made there um does he get paid do they play the restricted free agency game with him um you know I can I can argue for either they don't have a lot of ways to improve what they have right now unless they break the team up they change the coach so they made it clear that this is going to be on these players and it's not it's going to be on the players now more than the coach like you have like bullets you can you buttons you can push right you can push the change the coach button they've done that then if this doesn't work in the next year then someone among those core players has to be removed somehow especially since you traded so much to get Desmond um I'm intrigued to see how it works I don't need to be overly optimistic about it um you picked them forth I actually will insult the magic fans even more I picked them fifth and I'll tell you who I picked ahead of them in a second and again it's no insult we all just drafted them number one in the who's most likely to win a playoff series this year it would seem incongruous to now knock them down to four in your case five in mine for the next five years rankings especially since their two best players are 25 and 24 years old respectively no one in the rotation is over 28 years old unless Javon Carter really cracks the rotation or Vucevic does or somebody like that um it would be a little bit more of a challenge would seem incongruous right and if they are not like totally out of picks because of the Bain trade they can treat their pick obligations stop in 2030 they have their own picks in like the intervening years although some of them are swapped so they're going to be the worst of whatever it's not great it's not great but starting in 2032 I can trade picks I can trade that pick moving forward um I just like we both picked them to win a playoff series it's hard for them to win a playoff series and that's why I have them fifth and I could be dead wrong about that because defensively they're going to be rock solid they're going to be well coached I just don't know I guess I would have to see the Wagner-Banchero pairing amount to a little bit more than it has it is to for them to amplify each other a little more than they have and I understand that if you look at their numbers with Jalen Suggs is he the skeleton key that unlocks the whole group the whole lineup and I don't know I don't know if I'm going to be able to see him in the playoffs maybe he is he just doesn't he just doesn't play that much and so I the the out they have though is if they conclude it doesn't look they're going to have to make a trade at some point they can't pay Black, Bain, Wagner, Banchero and Suggs they just can't it's too much money and the out they have is if we do get through this year and we're a 44 win team and we're just another we're a mess offensively still we're 18th 19th 17th whatever at best we can trade Wagner Wagner or Banchero for a pretty good amount of stuff I think because even again like the new lottery rules teams are going to look at those players like they're young they're floor raisers they might be flawed but they can really help us and then I get a team that may still be a decent team to a good team with my picks replenished but you know that's a hard road to hoe so I had them fifth and I had the Portland Trailblazers fourth um I flip-flopped Portland and Orlando a bunch of times and what made me really swayed me is for three straight years 28 29 and 30 the Blazers essentially have the rights if the thing if if it breaks that way to Milwaukee's pick they're shorting the Bucks three straight years and right now that looks like a really good place to be um they've also got some other you know swaps and things like that uh I don't know what's going to become scoot I don't know if this Morant thing is going to work I'm kind of pessimistic I'm really intrigued by Klingon. I love Kamara. I love Abdi who's still only 25. years old same as banquero don't love the market don't love what i you know i don't really care that i have cap room in the summer of 2028 when abdias deal expires but it's it's such a low deal that his cap hold is really low and then clinging comes in on top of that but i just like like three bites at the bucks apple i just i i feel like it like maybe i get my version of what we're talking about with debansa and caleb wilson and i kind of would just again i'd happily run both these teams with the magic i get i get to enjoy my team now because we're going to be a good team i get to enjoy winning i get to walk around town be like yeah the magic are 50 and 32 we're gunning for the 60 whatever it is that's cool i just i i also like the blazers jerseys and their stuff like that that'd be fun to wear around um i just like i like the sort of like lottery ball upside i get with with some with some good talent already in the door so i took portland uh took portland at four yeah i i can't i can't get there with portland um like that ownership situation upsets me greatly it just it's like look it's upsetting it should you know who should really be upset is mike conori who's like already coaching for his job in the season at training camp hasn't even started yet that thing that contract is an embarrassment and the blazers should be embarrassed and they probably aren't but some people there are and and and that's the thing that we're talking about here over the long term how much will that impact that team and the people whose job it is to be the stewards of the organization and that means joe cronin had to make statements because his two-way contract players didn't travel in the playoffs that is a unnecessary distraction um in a league that you know distractions are excuses but whatever like you don't need it and all of a sudden that's what you do when you're back in the playoffs for the first imagine imagine checking into a hotel in some random western conference city you get there early your flight lands early no traffic let's get to the hotel it's noon let's see if my room's ready you know i might have to hang out in the lobby for a bit and you just see a bunch of tall dudes hanging out in the lobby waiting for a bus that's not going to leave for four hours to go to the game you're like what what's going on here is this an nba team sitting in the lobby instead of getting late checkout so you can be in their room it's like when the denver broncos were on homer simpson's front yard when he got gifted the denver broncos by hank scorpio like what is this team doing here that's what we're dealing with you could be a random person oh the trailblazers are here they're just killing time man we got the simpsons and mascots is the most on-brand zach pod and dylan cardwell don't forget dylan cardwell dylan cardwell too uh who might come up again who knows so you're just you're like is it is it what else besides the owner which i agree is shameful and it's going to constrain me and it's going to be super annoying and he's going to yell at me a lot about whatever what is it what is it what is it what is it what about the talent um yeah what's your take on the sort of state of the team who's going to be here long term what questions do you have etc they have a lot to figure out man i mean the dude who's got the biggest long-term number on that team is shayden sharp sharp's injured i don't think he's happy and i don't think he's in a position to really do a whole lot um like even when he comes back like what's going on here i don't think he's in a position to really do a whole lot what does that team look like you got denny i mean that renegotiation is going to be fascinating um you have just a lot to sort out uh scoot is a guy you drafted high and again um i don't think he's getting extended he's i i don't think he's happy like you have a lot of those things going on the culture of your team is at stake in a lot of ways in this next year like dame is back but dame is also you know this next year will inform what dame wants to do you know he can he can be a free agent in 2027 i forgot that before i started looking at their contracts again that he has a player option for 27 28 and he's 36 years old man he has a no trade clause because that's right they were yeah man like i there's just there's there's a lot of variables and there's not a lot of things that make you feel good that's just that's the that's my thing and the variables are on the court as well i mentioned that they played really good basketball especially in the last quarter of the season they earned their playoff spot they very much earned it they knocked the clippers into a spot they took over the sun spot they even found a way to win a playoff game in in san antonio like how much can you victor fell on his head but sure yeah i mean they also had double digit leads in game three and four before you know going on to get gentlemen swept so how much does that carry over how much how do you assess these roles and again i don't know if the coach is going to be there long term and the front you might be the coach law you might be the coach of the blazers next year man are you ready i'd want to work with poo jetter i will say that poo jetter is awesome but you know they lost they lost my guy mike schmitz you know we worked with mike schmitz for a good while you know we worked with mike schmitz for a good while and we worked with mike schmitz for a good while you know that's what you're talking about we're talking about long term and everything that has to do with what makes you feel good about a team in terms of you know the stability parts of things uh i need to see any reason to think that anything blazers related will be stable head coach front office uh star player and the supporting players the market itself i don't feel great about it and yet we found two teams at least we did to rank below them so so my part of my blazers optimism like i get all the questions about the roster we've done it to death the jaw fit and all that i'm not even i'm not even factoring john moran in to my long-term prognosis about the blazers great if it works out i'm not i i can't sit here and expect it to i'm not even like i'm not even factoring scoot in i have hope for scoot i think scoot's pretty good he's just been so snakebitten by injuries and like he just can't nail down the starting spot then there's a million guards there's something there but i do think we have enough information even as as a scoot optimist i don't think there's something there is ever going to be commensurate with where you took him in the draft um and at number three he's like he he might end up being a really good bench player like and i bet by that i mean like a 25 minute a game core bench player or a fourth or fifth starter on on the optimistic end i think star is getting a little distant uh i'm a believer in clinging i think clinging is legit good and the increased range and sort of dexterity on offense he showed last year was super intriguing uh kamara is good obviously obvi is good and then i just like the picks i'll tell you this though like when you start projecting things long term young hansen's 7.5 million dollar team option in 28 29 is going to be an interesting little piece of business if he doesn't show some development in the intervening period but anyway so we have two teams left uh you get the sixth pick and you get to pick between the pelicans and the kings as the team you would most like to run for the next five years yeah uh that's a tough one um is it a tough one yeah i know you don't think it is but new orleans is the team i'm going to go with and so we have the same we might as well just draft them both right now because i had new yeah yeah um like long term and i'm not going to get into the team business part of things that's above my yeah um that's i'm out of my depth there to be honest with you i'm just going to look at the basketball team um obviously what happened in the drafts in 2025 um was not encouraging um and in terms of your trust in the joe dumars troy weaver front office but you know what i'm not going to get into the team business part of things that's above my yeah um that's i'm what man like i think you got two people there who are going to let their coach work um i think they know that they are probably at the end of life stage as far as zion williamson's tenure there it's either going to work really well this year or it's you know probably like it's it's wild to think that he's going to be in his eighth season there and uh he's got one year left on his deal after this one i think that it's you know this is i'm intrigued to see what happens this year and then long term i don't think they have a lot of messy contracts i think that that kind of helps uh they have a meat they have a messy contract but not a messy contract yeah sorry i'm sorry i'm a dad they do have that they have jordan pool um and jordan is not in my rotation right now um but the good thing with jordan is that he's an expiring so i think that's a good thing to see that going a number of different ways the point being it doesn't really impact you long term i think there are avenues for this team to clean things up long term um they need to maybe not be so uh reckless with their with their you know pick situations but i think they might have learned a lesson in 2025 so um that's the that's the kind of hope for new orleans they're not committed to a whole heck of a lot like the guys that they are are worth it Like herb tray Like Mm-hmm those guys have value both for the team that you're playing for, as well as if you ever want to decide to move on, like everyone in the league would want a player like those guys, especially for the numbers that they're making on their team. So, um, yeah, they're, they're, they're very strong. Like, uh, I mean, like the Trey Murphy thing that's, that's been talked about a lot. Uh, does he want to be there? Does he not want to be there? Where would he be? How wide would his market be? Very wide. Same with Herb Jones. I like fears and queen. I like fears a lot. I think fears had a kind of an underrated rookie season inefficient, like most young guards are, but he's got something to his game. He's got a vision. He's got, he does things just a little bit differently in terms of his rhythm and his cadence. And I just love his fearlessness. I think queen is going to be a really good offensive player. That's like, even if you sell off both Murphy and Herb Jones, and I'm not sure they will or should do that. I've still got those two guys. I get the best, I get the best of this one draft, this, this coming draft. I get the best of my pick or the bucks pick just in case that flips Atlanta gets the other one, the bucks get neither somehow. Um, now the Zion question is also tied to the DeJounte Murray question. DeJounte Murray has a player option, 31 million for 27, 28. That's the same year Zion's contract expires. You know, on the one hand you cannot let those two guys walk without getting any assets. It's in return. I'm not sure what assets you could get for either of them, especially given Zion's health record should note. He was as durable, more durable than he's ever been last year, played a ton of games and a ton of consecutive games. Um, I don't, but I still don't know how much trade value either has, but I can't let them walk for nothing. But if I bring them back at big money, my risk is I'm now paying them into parts of their career at salary amounts that maybe I didn't want to. And I'm, I, my cap flexibility kind of goes out the window. If both of those guys are on one and not the other, I can get to decent amounts of room and, and major room. If I make some other moves, both, I can't, but I do, I do like fears and queen is sort of like cornerstones probably a little strong, but, um, interesting guys to have around. I just don't know. I don't even know what you do with Zion. And at this point, like I, I just, I don't, I didn't know how to project him at all. I don't know what they're planning. They have kind of stiff armed any trade discussion, but I'm not sure. I think teams probably need another year of him playing to be like, Oh yeah, we'll give you a lot of real stuff for Zion, but maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. Yeah. Um, I, I want, I want Zion to have the kind of season where, you know, like we talked about Luca and his fitness Zion made a commitment to fitness last year that actually mattered. It actually stuck. I mean, he got, I think one hamstring injury or whatever, but other than that, like you said, like he stayed on the floor, that team. And I know we're not talking about just, you know, this is, this is another discussion, but I think that's so many mouths to feed, you know, like who will they start a center? They were starting herb Jones at center last year. Um, you know, like if you start queen, if you start Zion, did John say is your point guard Trey actually is way better when he doesn't have to dribble, you know, like, well, that's your point. Yeah. I mean, there, there were, there was a small stretch toward the end of the season where they were like, let's try Zion at the three with Misi and queen together because we need some rim protection. It's like, that doesn't seem sustainable. Um, Yeah. Like that's, that's there. There's a lot there to, to just suggest what will happen with Zion if he plays on another team, because there's the expectations for new Orleans is capped somewhere. I think Derek queen was picked. Honestly, if we're just, if we're just going to be blunt about it, those two are duplicative in ways that suggest that you see what you can get for Zion and move forward with, with, with, with queen and figure out how to form, how to, how to get guys who can defend because you know, queen is not anchoring a defense. So all, all of these moves you're, we're talking about Zion selling one of Trey or herb Jones off for the, to the highest bidder on the trade market, uh, to John this future, underneath that is the reality that tanking is not a fail safe for me anymore, the way it used to be. So where am I going in that sense? What is my market and my ownership going to tolerate? Is it, where's it going to go the other way? Are they suddenly beginning to become buyers somehow to sort of stay afloat? I don't know, but I know that like this team going 15 and 67 in two years, because they've traded or whatever it is, they're not going to be that bad because Queens and fear queen and fears, Queens and fear queen and fears are, are, are very good rising on players, but you get what I'm saying. Yes. And the same applies to the Sacramento Kings who came in last in our rankings only have one extra first round pick, um, coming into them in the next six or seven years. And it's a, it's a good pick. It's a Minnesota unprotected 2031 pick, and they have all their own picks and swaps and stuff like that. But they also, you know, again, this is the world of the, the relegation zone. And you know, I like Maxine right now a lot. I had him first team all rookie is he a long-term starter? I don't know. Neat Clifford is a clever, clever player, just herky jerky, a rhythmic staccato, kind of game. I like his feel. I like his roundedness. Is he a starter? Or is he a seventh guy? I don't know. A cuff, obviously is going to be handed the keys. He's going to put up numbers. I like him. I don't, I don't know if I love him. Um, I just don't, it's, it's a tough, they have as much cap room as they want for whatever that's worth. It's historically not much. It's historically meant overpaying, um, guys who, you know, didn't have as deep of a market as they wanted. Uh, I just, it's, it's been since 2004 that they've won a playoff series and it's, it's a long, long road ahead. Yeah. And, and with that, um, I think a guy likes a bonus is just as interesting to me as, as, as Zion is in New Orleans. Um, that, that contract, is prohibitive. I think if you're a good team, like a really good, we're going to do something in the playoffs type of team. I think your concern is what kind of player is the bonus in that setting? Do you give up assets to have that player take up the space on your cap? Um, even for a year or two, and that I feel like is limiting on, you know, he's, he's a very good player. He's going to reestablish himself this year, but what does that mean? And what is the value of that? Um, the one trade idea I had was what if you swap Sabonis and Zion? Oh, that's interesting. That, that, that's the one I've got. I'm not the biggest, you know, we, when we were at ESPN, we, we did these, we did these things, uh, me being an editor, remind you. So very, very behind the scenes, but the whole trades you'd like to see. And I'm like, I don't want to see, I don't want to see these trades, but I don't want to see me. Kevin Pelton would Kevin Pelton would come out with like this 14 month stress. You'd be like, man, that is like, it's a piece of art. I could, I didn't know. I didn't be roped in this team cuz they have cap room and you're giving them a second. I'm like, God damn KP. And, and that's why KP is doing what he's doing now. Shout out. And we're sitting here. Shout out to our guy, Kevin Pelton. Um, that's that, that's what I'm, that's the one that I kicked around. Right. Cuz they're very similar. In some ways they're bigs they're left-handed you have to adjust to them over the course of the game. They didn't like to play bully ball off the Zion's brand. The bully ball is, is a whole lot more considering he's 285 pounds with that kind of handle. But Sabonis is a big skilled player, right? Um, who is not as much of a liability outside the paint. He's a reluctant shooter, not necessarily a poor one. Like would those two teams be interested? Did in flipping things, we know Sacramento who has not just maxing Marine odd, but Dylan Cardwell, they do not have a dearth of center options. Right. So, you know, you put Zion there and let things figure themselves out. I think Keegan Murray could be a three. Um, he he's a three or a four right now. He's a four him and DeAndre are pretty much interchangeable for the Pelicans. Yeah. Pelicans would just have, you know, they already know, like I said, what does it look like between Zion and Derek playing together? They can be duplicative. You'd have similar issues, but at least they're different. It's a different kind of fit. Um, and so that's my own trick. I'm not the best at trade ideas, Zach. I think that's your wheelhouse more than mine. Well, I'm pretty good. I'm not great, but I'm pretty good. I have 10 teams as my Sabonis fake trade list, and they're all incredibly unlikely. And I think, first of all, you said one thing that's important a year ago right now, part of the issue with trading Sabonis was if I'm the Kings, I need somebody to play center. So I need to get a center back in this trade and that limited the market right away. I'm not such a believer in Maxine right now that like that question's been answered for me, but I'm also like a little bit less concerned about it than I used to be. But look, 45 million this year, 49 million next year is going to want an extension or to get paid as soon as he's on a new team. Doesn't, you know, you mentioned, in New Orleans. They weren't really on my list because the Queen Sabonis thing is like kind of funky and interesting as a double center look for a team that in a previous universe had demarcus cousins and anthony davis but if i'm gonna have two centers and no rim protection i just don't want two centers then if like if my double center look offers no defensive upside and and like limited perimeter shooting i don't like it so here are my teams that i listed are you ready ready phoenix i don't i don't think so right now they've got the mid-size contracts they can cobble together their center position is like mark williams malo watch a godoro um i think they're kind of want to see what malo watch is and they just re-signed mark williams i don't see it right now chicago we talked about them as a place that has sort of a whole long term at center that's too soon too much too soon for the bulls particularly like again another shaky perimeter shooter with giddy and buzellas who's gonna be a good shooter i think and and caleb wilson who was an amazing shooter out of nowhere in summer league we'll see if that's real i don't i don't see it charlotte we know they talked right and i don't think the price was ever close to what charlotte would be willing to pay um diabate plus kalkbrenner plus a little bit of steinbach and nas reed is that all a long-term answer at center obviously musa diabate guest on this podcast last year was a revelation um doesn't seem likely orlando orlando's on here is like if this season doesn't go well for orlando is the major shake-up swap one of their core players i'm not even going to say who i don't know for sabonis and wendell carter jr goes to sacramento is just like hey we got to shake things up portland was my favorite sabonis team a year to 18 months ago um i've heard he feels good about that market i know he had fans in that front office um i just think clinging got good enough soon enough that that's out atlanta has to be considered a wild card for pretty much anything i think they're sitting by it and they're not going to be able to win the game they're going to be able to win the game their time with assets with a good team hoping the rest of the eastern conference in their frenzy to make the finals spends all their assets and they're the last team standing a year from now or something like that and i don't love the sabonis um jalen johnson fit dallas yeah they you know they've got some center options they need to sort out first golden state kind of fits the curry handoff moving motion read and react i just don't know like december salary is so high am i trading jimmy butler am i trading like jaymon plus borzingas and am i using any of my picks that i'm hoarding i don't know and then lastly law dear hometown la clippers do they want to just win more games and niederhauser's injured and brooke lopez is hanging around and what do they have they have isaiah jackson like i i don't know how many picks they're gonna have if any once all this comes comes once the kawaii deal is finished and the penalty becomes enforced i don't think that's i i just don't know contractually it's hard to get there but you know you can do ingram ingram for sabonis i mean is there anything there that's the biggest thing he makes so much and it's so much money for that kind of a player so it's like you know you have to match salaries to make these trades work and ingram is ingram is the same length but about seven six million dollars cheaper this year seven million next year it's an interesting idea yeah it's interesting but assuming brandon ingram ends up a member of the la clippers yeah there's that part too like i just there's just not enough there and you know um previously i could say things like yeah i don't think the modest bonus is that kind of player for the team but i mean the people who are running the team and having opinions on certain players are currently not in position to do anything right now so um yeah there that has to be a factor too like the clippers loved playing against the bonus for years you know that's typically not the kind of player that you try and bring into your team um you know the kind of player that you took advantage of for years like the clippers yeah visit zubat's love plan against the minus the bonus like i don't yeah i don't see them trading everything they got to get the end of that contract i don't think it would be everything they've got and that's the reality that the kings are going to work with here is like i just don't think there's going to be a deal that knocks their socks off and i think they need to realize that they probably do i think sabonis and his people need to realize that because it's going to make it harder for him to get out of sacramento uh long murray are you still doing your epitome games have you been doing that and i've missed it it's one of my favorite little things that you did yeah that is done um that is i gotta go back and watch them yeah i did the whole 2026 series across august um i'm i'm repopulating because there's 30 days in september and i'm starting to put my rotation charts out every day today's the 10th day of september so i don't know this is why i have you on because you don't just cover the clippers like you literally do a youtube video on here is the most representative game from how this team played last year plus i'm going to project them this year it's like all 30 teams are up here rattling around your brain yeah so um that that's a part of the season where it's like i know that there's dead space there's 1230 games in the regular season okay it it it's exciting for like a week or two and then things can kind of get a little blurry in there but when we have a team that's like a team that's like a team that's like a team that's going to have no games this is when i look back and it's like okay i want to take a picture of what this used to look like because it's going to change when we get pre-season games early regular season games we're going to get a new season um so i'm glad that you noticed that and yeah it's a nice little passion project for me in the dead of the offseason there you go law murray we all need passion projects like drafting the seven teams who haven't won a playoff series in the 2020s uh read all his coverage in the athletic especially since he's covering the team that's at the center of the league and he's going to be a big part of that and he's going to be a of uh shit storm right now in the nba that doesn't seem to end anytime soon law murray thank you so much for your time and now we're going to bring in luke eplin special guest he just wrote a great book about moses and the doctor about the 80s the aba the 76ers we can talk to luke law murray you're the best thank you bud thank you this is the way hi i'm john favreau we are launching the all-new star wars the amanda learne and grogu official podcast i'm sorry i can't focus at the moment we're going behind the scenes with the cast and crew sharing stories from the creative insights and a few surprises from across the galaxy i think he's earned a little snack watch and listen to star wars the mandalorian and grogu official podcast now streaming on disney plus or wherever you get your podcasts and catch star wars the mandalorian and grogu now streaming on disney plus terms apply every game day you show up for your team now it's your time we go ask your prescriber about we go v some maglutide injection 2.4 milligrams a glp1 call 1-833-4-we-go-v or visit we go v.com to view the medication guide and to learn more about we go v why wait every game day you show up for your team now it's your time we go ask your prescriber about we go v some maglutide injection 2.4 milligrams a glp1 call 1-833-4-we-go-v or visit we go v.com to view the medication guide and to learn more about we go v why wait all right let's bring on a special guest another in the series of zach read some books this summer over vacation all right let's bring on a special guest another in the series of zach read some books this summer luke eplin who has written a book about baseball he's had essays all over the place and prestigious outlets that you know the new yorker the atlantic wrote this book right here on the 76ers of the 1980s moses and the doctor two men one championship and the birth of modern basketball about the 1983 faux faux faux philadelphia 76ers but more broadly about i think a team that often gets overlooked sandwiched between the lakers championships and the celtics championships and pre-jordan championships in the 80s and two players with very unusual journeys uniting on that team and i just the book is really good it's if you don't know a lot about moses malone or dr j or the sixers or the aba it's like all a great history book full of fun anecdotes all in one what made you what made you choose this subject matter uh for a book which by the way you must have been delighted that lebron james and jalen brown are now on the 76ers the year you published this book because it's been 43 years since this championship and boy is this city starving for something it's a real great coincidence i i only wish my book would have come out like in november now because it's it's it's even more relevant than ever i think the lebron signing is very equivalent to moses malone signing thanks for having me on zach uh as as terms of how i come came to this subject my first book was called our team it was about the second black player to come into major league baseball that is of course larry dobey he joins the cleveland indians and what i loved about was this idea of two leagues that were sort of running parallel to each other and they were developing different styles of play this would have been the major leagues and the negro leagues and different ways of sort of approaching the game different ideologies all that sort of stuff my favorite sport basketball. And I wanted to see if there was any sort of equivalent. Of course, there's no real equivalent to the Negro Leagues. But what I hit upon was the NBA and the American Basketball Association, the ABA, and how they developed about 10 years in parallel to each other. They had different styles of play, different ways of approaching things. And what I really was interested in was what happens when the streams cross? How does it change the league? How does it change basketball? How does it change the way people look at it? I approach things through character-based instead of plot-based. And so I needed somebody to front the story. And I mean, who better to front it than Julius Erving? He, in his very look and the way he played, he was the ABA. And so that's where I started with him. Did you talk to him? Did he sit down with you for the book or no? He did. Yeah, he was pretty nice about it. He's, I mean, one of the main sort of points of the book is that he is sort of the foremost ambassador of basketball at that time. He's really sort of booing a league that is mired in drug and image problems. And he's going out of his way to talk to as many people as possible. And it still seems like that holds for him. He was not that difficult to get ahold of. Moses Malone obviously passed away before. Did you have, did you get to interview him just like separately when he was younger, or is it all posthumous? No. And I was nervous of taking Moses Malone on as, let's say, the sort of co-protagonist of the story, because the only thing that I really knew about Moses, he was, he was a little bit before my time when I started watching, was that he never said anything. And that he didn't talk very much. And I was like, how is he going to come to the forefront? But what I learned about Moses is that when he did talk, he made it count. He didn't waste a lot of words with platitudes that authors generally talk about. He was to the point, he said things of substance, and he was really funny. I hope that this book gets across his humor because he could be, he could sort of say a sly line in there that would just have me cracking up while I was reading the newspaper. And yeah, he's obviously known as perhaps the greatest rebounder and certainly the greatest offensive rebounder in the history of the NBA. And Daryl Dawkins has a quote about him where he says it's like trying to box out an octopus. I really liked that one. They talk in the book about how he shoots balls on the way up, which people do still now, like on the way up in their jumps to try to fool shot blockers. But he did it not only to fool shot blockers, but because he knew his best chance of scoring was just going for a rebound, jumping for real before his defender could jump. Rebound. Yeah. He's, he's one of the great, like when he passed away, there was so much sort of remembrance of, Hey, like this guy is one of the great forgotten soup, not forgotten, but overlooked like three-time MVP, iconic figure, both the ABA briefly and NBA and multiple cities like played for nine teams. Charles Barkley speaks so lovingly about him as a mentor during his years in Philadelphia. And I think it's just great to put a kind of a shine on what he meant to the league. But what was cool about this is like the framing of the book. And I didn't really think of it. I hadn't conceived of the 83 Sixers in this way. It's sort of like validation for Dr. J who has multiple ABA titles, but comes to Philly and they right away lose the 1977 finals to the Blazers, which is viewed kind of, and you're telling as a referendum on the NBA versus the ABA. And also in a dialogue that has some pretty blatant racial overtones too, in people celebrating. Speaker 2 : Sixers losing that series. Then they lose the 80 finals in the 82 finals to the Lakers. They blow a three, one lead in 81 to the Celtics in the Eastern conference finals. So it's validation for Dr. J for the Sixers. But I thought this was a really cool conceit kind of validation for the ABA as a whole, like not that the league really needed it. Certainly not now given the Pacers, the Spurs, all the books that have been written, but then like a central ABA draft pick right out of high school in Moses, Malone, a seminal moment. And the ABA is like franchise player, Dr. J win in the NBA in the year of the Lakers and the Celtics. I'd never really thought of the Sixers as like an ABA redemption project, but they are. Speaker 3 : It's really interesting. So when the leagues merge, Julius Irving holds out for more money. He doesn't get it from the nets. They have to immediately send him to the Sixers who are fronted by a guy named George McGinnis, who had been an MVP in the ABA. He'd been a champion in the ABA. Speaker 3 : And because of that sort of pairing together and the way that like it was almost like a mercenary play on Julius Irving's part, the Sixers gained this reputation of being a sort of renegade team full of rebels and things like that. And eventually if you sort of read the coverage carefully, it is very much the way that NBA chauvinists thought of the ABA, that this was a league that was a little bit outside of the bounds of fundamentalists basketball. Speaker 3 : And whenever Irving plays Bill Walton's blazers, it's almost like a morality play between these sort of ABA playground inspired style of basketball versus this sort of top-down coach oriented, everybody's sharing the ball style that Dr. Jack fundamentally sound Bill Walton. Speaker 3 : Yeah. And so Irving himself never quite shakes off that odor of the ABA as he's going through the next seven years. Speaker 3 : The Sixers at that time, when more games from 1976 to 1983 than any other franchise, both in the regular season and in the playoffs, they are the elite team, but they just can't get over that hump. And it's becomes almost a point where it's not only about Irving's legacy. It is about the ABA that Irving stands for. And he never goes without being on a team without at least two other ABA superstars. Whenever McGinnis leaves, you have Bobby Jones coming on. You have Caldwell Jones there. And then of course, Caldwell Jones leaves and Moses Malone comes on. And so really through that whole period, he is the stand in for the ABA. And I think it's fitting that when he plays the Lakers in 1983, there is nobody on that Lakers roster who played even a minute in the ABA. And so it really is the last stand in 1983 of the ABA versus the NBA. And it's a, it's a narrative that we kind of lose track of because now we just think of it as the Irving Malone team. But if you look at it back then, the way people are talking about it, the Sixers really are standing in for that league. Well, it's I had even forgotten like Bobby Jones becomes a defensive stopper for the Sixers, a glue guy, six man a year, though a year they win the title. I had forgotten that he and Dr. J played against each other when Bobby Jones was a nugget in the last ABA finals. I thought that was like a cool, a cool little nugget. And speaking of the Lakers, Lakers Sixers, they play each other in the finals. What three times? Speaker 2 : In this, in the span of this book and boy, is it fun to go back and reread how much Kareem absolutely hated playing against Moses Malone, who I believe in the 83 finals has more offensive rebounds by himself than the entire Lakers team has in the series or some crazy stat like that. And everyone knows the story. This is why books like this are so great because your brain can't hold all this information. It can only absorb so much. So like everyone knows the story about Paul Westhead and the Lakers and magic. Speaker 1 : Being unhappy with the way they were running their offense through Kareem and playing slow. You have an anecdote in this book that either I had never heard or I had forgotten that players on the Lakers had match books on which I guess they wrote trade Kareem and they would pass them around the locker room. Maybe ingest, maybe half ingest, maybe seriously. In some cases, I had never heard that before is that in newspaper articles or did someone tell you that? I can't remember how you got that. Speaker 3 : It wasn't a newspaper articles. It was, it was told to me by Steve Springer and, uh, confirmed by Scott Osler. They were both, uh, writers in Los Angeles at that time. And I think that it was meant in Jess, but it was also kind of almost like a, like a club that younger Lakers players would form like magic Johnson and Michael Cooper. And while they were like at airports, they would flash these things at each other and it would say trade Kareem on them as, as in like, yeah, this is, this is our ideology that we're going to try to, to implement here. Speaker 1 : Um, it's funny. You mentioned George McGinnis, who's an ABA legend, uh, Indiana Pacers, ABA legend, among other things. He comes to Philadelphia, plays with Dr. J and they do not mesh at all. It's two ball dominant guys with shaky jumpers. And just like it would be today, like the offense gets a little bogged down. There's an ego struggle, but the quotes in the book are just a reminder that man, it used to just be a free for all in the media. Like players would just say whatever the hell they wanted. And it was unbelievable. So I'm just going to read some of my favorite ones from the books. Dr. George McGinnis said of Dr. J. Speaker 1 : I'm going to read some of my favorite ones from the books. Dr. J. When their teammates in Philly, I always felt I never got my due in the ABA. I was always Julius's league. So does this become Julius's team? Imagine if Dwayne Wade had said that about LeBron or something, when LeBron came to the Sixers, then there's all this stuff about how everyone on the Sixers teams in the late seventies is so unhappy that the team actually has to find people for publicly demanding trades in the newspaper. Speaker 1 : And Dr. J's wife gets involved and says to what the New York times, I think no one here respects Jean shoe, the Sixers coach. How many guys want to win one for shoe, not one. And sometimes not even for themselves. Imagine if a player's spouse came out and said that today, there's more. And I'm sure Speaker 3 : Can I interrupt? Yeah. Turquoise Irving, who is Irving's wife. Not all. She didn't say that. She wrote that. That is a ghost written article that she published in the New York times. And it was ghost written, I believe by the writer that Julius Irving, as a child with, Samantha Stevenson. And so it's just the, The sort of level of dysfunction on that Sixers team is off the charts. By the way, I had forgotten that Alexander Stevenson, the tennis player's mom, was also a sports reporter. Like, that's like, we don't need to get too into it, but that's like Rossini Vrabel 1.0 is chronicled in your book. And you don't shy away, by the way, from the various marital issues and foibles of both Moses Malone and Dr. J. In fact, Wilt's 20,000 women thing is wildly famous. You have a line in the book that Irving openly talked about. I don't know exactly where, that for a brief, some period of his career on the Nets in New York, he experimented, that's the word you use, with sleeping with a different woman every night. Where did that come from? That comes from Dr. J himself. He admitted that as much in the biography. Okay. I'm going to read some. They would never say this now kind of stuff. 19, I think it's the 19, it's the 1977 Eastern Conference Finals when the Rockets were in the Eastern Conference in the NBA between the 76ers and the Rockets. So they actually face each other. Moses Malone's on the Rockets after being shoved, like tossed around the league as if he were no good. Several different, he's on five teams in a two-year span. And Steve Mix, who's a Philadelphia forward, says this of Moses Malone. Malone doesn't play anybody. He only concentrates on rebounds. We've gone at him a lot and we've been successful. He's such a bad defensive player. We were moving everything through him. He's terrible. Now you get versions of that. Like people have talked about certain NBA players is like we're targeting him on defense. And then Moses Malone responds after a good game. Steve Mix, he don't know what he's talking about. Mix probably had something to drink when he said that. How does he know defense? He'd be on the bench. What these guys would say way back when was, Can I mention that I, of course, talked to Steve Mix for this book and I read him that quote. And I said, what were you thinking whenever you said that? And he says exactly what I meant. Moses wasn't that good of a defensive player. So I think he'd say it again if given the chance. And you have in the 81 finals when the Celtics are playing Moses Malone's Rockets, 80-81 Rockets is one of the only, maybe the only sub-500 team ever to make the NBA finals. They were 40 and 42. He says he could beat the Celtics. The mighty Boston Celtics with Larry Bird. Me and four guys off the street in Petersburg, Virginia, where he's from, could beat the Celtics. Then the Celtics get incensed when they read the quote in the paper. It's in the paper and beat the Rockets. And he says after the game, they're still chumps. Like Moses was an all-time quote guy. Oh, yeah, he was. And I mean, that's the thing. Everybody says, oh, he's the silent guy. But I think that one of the sort of things that I show in that book is that even though Irving probably talked more than any superstar, at that time, just because of all the interviews he gave, Moses is better known for things he said than Irving is. Like, if you look at the faux, faux, faux quote, or the I could beat the Celtics on my own with four guys from my hometown, Moses actually had better quotes than Irving did. It was easy to find quotes from Irving talking. It was harder to find quotes from Irving actually saying anything. Well, and go into, I either, again, had forgotten this or never knew, the origin of his nickname. The doctor is kind of from that. Can you tell readers? I don't want to spoil that part of the book, but it's at the beginning about how he got his nickname. Well, he knew somebody that a friend in high school that he used to play basketball with, and they were best buddies. And Irving was just such a diplomatic, you know, kind of even-spoken person that he would call him the doctor, not necessarily in a positive way, but in a way that it was like he was cerebral or intellectual or something like that. And Irving was just such a diplomatic, you know, kind of even-spoken person that he would call him the doctor, and nicknamed that guy the professor. And so, yeah, it wasn't that he was like operating on the court. It was more about his demeanor. Is there anyone you didn't, anyone alive who you tried to get for this book that you were not able to get to? You're like, damn, I wish I, I'm sure there's several, like Larry Bird is really hard to get. Like, is there anyone like that? Beyond the obvious. Beyond the obvious, you know, bird magic. There are people just laugh at you whenever you try to talk to them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's say Maurice Cheeks. I tried so many different ways to get Maurice Cheeks to talk. I went through the Chicago Bulls where he was working. I went through the mail. I went through the phone. I went through email. I tried everything. And every time he was very nice about it, I even talked to him. He just said, I don't do this. And of course, Zach, as you know, Andrew Toney has not given an interview since he retired, at least not one on the record. And so, you know, he wasn't about to start with this book. Well, his body, I'm glad you mentioned him because you tell his story in this book, how much he changed the Sixers. I believe he's a rookie in 81 and then made the conference finals right away against Boston. Obviously, people know the nickname, the Boston Strangler, one of the great nicknames in NBA history. His body falls apart pretty fast. There's some arguments as to why and how and how severe it actually was. And he kind of peters out. But to hear the opposing players, Robert Parrish in particular, talk about Andrew Toney. It's like they're talking about Michael Jordan. Like he wasn't that good. There's only one Michael Jordan. But Robert Parrish has a quote. I'm paraphrasing it. You probably know it by heart. Where it's like, you know, there are some guys you can guard. And then there's like Andrew Toney, whatever we game plan for. It's out the window immediately. Like, did we just have no answer for this guy? Yeah. Yeah. He, you know, it's interesting. I came to realize two things when I was doing this book, because I did talk to a lot of teammates and opposing players. And I would ask them two different questions. One, give me your best. Andrew Toney story. And everybody had one. And generally, it wasn't about his personality, because I think that he was pretty serious and quiet behind the scenes. It was about him on the court, just like saddling up to Michael Cooper, the greatest defensive player of his generation. And just being like, say, aren't you supposed to be the best offensive player? And like, just absolutely refusing to back down to anyone. And then I would say, give me your best Daryl Dawkins story. And that was something that happened off the court. And most of those could not be printed. And so, yeah, those two were sort of the characters of the book. I will say that getting to Tony, like, it's tough. I think a lot of people have maybe, because of the potential that went unfulfilled, have maybe exaggerated what he was actually like. So it was a little bit tough to get to the heart of him. I'd say the best interview I did with him was his college coach, who I don't think a lot of people know. I don't think a lot of people talk to. His name is Bobby Paschal. And it was just, he didn't have a lot to say beyond just the fact that Andrew Tony was at the gym at 6 in the morning and left at 11 o'clock at night. It was just, he shot, shot, shot, shot, shot. The guy, you couldn't get him out of the gym. That's just what he was doing. Speaking of Daryl Dawkins, I mean, I just, you know, love him, hate him, lament his lost potential or unfulfilled potential. He is one of the all-time great characters in the history. He was a professional basketball. And I've just, to give people a taste, if people don't know, they know about his broken backboards and all that stuff. They might not remember Planet Lovetron, which is a planet that he claimed to be from. I had forgotten about his van. Do you want to talk about what was the name of his van written on it, I believe? Was it Love? I can't remember now. I think it was like Get, Gettin' It or something like that. Yeah, that's right. That's right. The Gettin' It van. Yeah. Then he moved planets to Florida. From Lovetron to Chocolate Paradise. And he was the chocolate thunder with a queen called Juicy Lucy. This is a whole universe that Daryl Dawkins made up that didn't exist. And then he named his dunks. In Your Face Disgrace. Turbo Saxophone Delight. And then one of his backboard breaking ones is over a guy named Bill Robazine, I think. The Chocolate Thunder Flyin'. Robazine Cryin'. Teeth Shakin'. Glass Breakin'. Rump Roasting. Bun Toasting. Wham Bam. Glass Breaker. I Am Jam. This was written in a newspaper by a columnist that like Daryl Dawkins kind of ghost wrote columns with Fran Blindberry back. Like this is a thing that happened. And there's a version of it now with like the Players Tribune or the like the diaries that Mark Spears does. They're nothing like this. They're so like everything is so anodyne and watered down now. This is like unfiltered Daryl Dawkins in the mainstream newspaper. So to give some context to this, there used to be there used to be a Philadelphia, a weekly that decided that they wanted each of the major sports, hockey, basketball, baseball, football. They wanted a superstar to write a weekly column for for them. And they chose like, you know, Mike Schmidt and Bobby Clark and all these other big names. Julia Serving turned it down. And so they chose Daryl Dawkins. And if you read the other columnist from like Mike Schmidt or something like that, they're very anodyne. Like we played the Cardinals today. It was tough. Boy, this is Ozzie Smith. Amazing. If you read Daryl Dawkins, he sat down with a ghostwriter named Fran Blindberry, and they would huddle together in the practice court. And Dawkins would just go off onto some science fiction, like tangent about being from the planet named Love Tron and having these sort of women by his side and like ruling this universe and coming down to Earth to play basketball. It's just wild stuff. And it is unlike anything that that you could imagine a player doing. Today, and Dawkins is just kind of wonderful at creating a persona for himself that is you know attracts enough attention that he can get a Wheaties advertisement it all kind of comes to an end whenever a guy named Harold Katz buys the 76ers and recognizes that Dawkins has never been an all-star never been in the top 10 in rebounding and is actually better known for his off-court antics than his on-court you know feats and it really is necessary to offload him for the to take that final step well you can at the start you can you you have it sort of in your head a general idea that Moses to the Sixers in the some off season of 1982 going at 82 83 might end up being similar to LeBron to the Sixers 43 years later I kind of get what you mean now that I've read the book and kind of refresh my memory but spell that out for people so basically um the Sixers are at this point where they've they've gone through let's say call it a process where they they they start off with the team with a bunch of superstars and a bunch of sort of parts that don't go together it doesn't work they shed all those parts they bring in new people like Tony Bobby Jones and Maurice Cheeks and they're trying to win with that sort of thing it doesn't work either and it looks like you're at the end of the line Julius Irving one of the one of the I would say the best uh scene that that I came across in the book and it's only really a small paragraph in the archives is that after the 1982 NBA finals when the Sixers lose the Lakers Julius Irving breaks down and cries in the locker room and he is so cool and collected that it shocked the Sixers so much that they closed down the locker room they didn't want anybody to see it they didn't want any sort of uh photographs going on about that and Irving kind of recognized that that was it that was the end this whole sort of process that they've been going through it's going to end in it isn't until this very unexpected signing of Moses Malone teaming together the last two MVPs on this team that Irving gets a second life and if you look at the Sixers now they've gone through this long process with Joel Embiid they had Ben Simmons they get sort of heartbroken by the Toronto Raptors they you know add some new people like Tyrese Maxey and Vijay Edgecombe it still doesn't look like it's going to be enough and then wham this offseason they get Jalen Brown and if they are to pull this off I guess you'd have to put um you know uh Embiid in the same uh chair as Julius Irving but it could be this unexpected resurgence of the of the Sixers just when it seems like they're dead and I think that's one of the reasons why Moses Malone is just again there's like a very it's it's less than 10 guys who have won three MVPs uh and in a finals MVP as well in 83 he is the finals MVP um I I think one of the reasons why he's just not remembering in that group as much as he should be is a his game was kind of workmanlike like it wasn't glamorous it wasn't pretty he would have told you that right away and he one of the great things about him in this book is he just he comes off he says over and over again I'm just here to work I work and I work and I work and people who want to come see me play they should know that I'm going to play super hard every single night but also in in less than two years he goes from the dispersal draft because another team the Hawks uh are or the Atlanta team stupidly trades their dispersal draft no he goes to I'm sorry he goes to the St. Louis Spirits then he goes with the ABA folds he goes to Portland because Atlanta stupidly trades their draft pick to Portland Portland Dr. Jack Ramsey just doesn't like him trades him almost immediately to the Buffalo Braves aka the future Clippers Buffalo after barely even letting him see the floor trades him to the Rockets and it's like boom boom boom boom boom he's on five teams in less than a year and a half it's crazy that one of the all-time great players was like passed around like damaged goods or something in the early part of it not even in his prime like the early part of his prime then he goes on and wins what two MVPs with the Rockets takes him to the finals and then he's then the Rockets decide they don't want to resign him either yeah it's it's almost confusing and uh he's just um there's this sort of idea of Moses Malone on the Rockets that he's a little bit limited and what he can do he's an amazing rebounder but maybe he he doesn't run very well maybe he doesn't make his teammates better um it's very mistaken I think that he's just kind of like surrounded by by players that uh that he almost has to drag into the playoffs year after year after year and even though whenever he gets traded to the Sixers he's only 27 he feels like he's a lot older than that and I think it is just the travel and the the sort of like you know bouncing around that he's had to do and then dragging a sub 500 Rockets team to the finals he sort of recognizes that if his career continues on that way it's he's going to get worn out by the time he's he's 30 and of course he goes to the Sixers and gets a new life but even then he bounces around at the end of his career too it's almost like he doesn't really have a home even though if you really sort of think about who Moses Malone is he's a very sort of homebody person who is very comfortable around a very limited number of people and so you would think that he would just want to root himself in one place and stay there but instead out of all the people that have won three MVPs he's the one that gets shuffled around the most does he have does he have a statue anywhere I know that the Sixers in their at their practice facility have like a line of statues like smaller statues leading up I don't know if he's one of them I don't know if he's in the smaller one he's certainly not in the bigger one and he I don't you know the book I don't want to give away the end of the book but I guess I will he you know the Sixers come to him right before he passes and asked if he if he wants to have his his number retired and Philadelphia and he says no and they say why and he says well if you're going to retire my number then everybody should be up there and so he won't let them go through with it until they've stitched the names of every single person he played with in Philadelphia on to oh not just the 83 team yeah every single every single person 84 85 86 uh and so it's all up there on the rafters and that kind of you know I thought that personified really what he he was as a teammate all right yeah I don't want to give away the rest of the book people just buy NBA fans you need to have this book it's it's it's awesome it's fun to read it's full of anecdotes just to whet your appetite here are three things that just pop into my head it's like stuff in the book uh a what if with Dr. J and Pistol Pete Maravich potentially on the same team I had also forgotten like the last ABA all-time champion I had also forgotten like the all-star game is famous for the dunk contest between Dr. J and David Thompson which you get into I had forgotten that they tried the gimmick of defending ABA champions versus all-stars from the rest of the teams in the ABA Denver against or was it team with the best record I can't remember what the best record with the best record the NBA all-star game happened to be in Denver it's the only time an all-star game was also a home game I a gimmick that like is the NBA is trying every single possible gimmick to save the all-star game and they may have landed on one that works now with the world stuff that that's a fun one and just if you're familiar at all with 1970s any prep to pro kind of book you're gonna know that there's wild Moses Malone college recruitment stories there's even more wild Moses Malone college recruitment stories than I had even remembered or read about before in this book which is Phil how many people do you interview for this thing oh I don't I mean 100 or so I don't know and actually a lot of them did pass away Lefty Williams passes away Moses is agent Lee Fentress uh is has Alzheimer's Harold Katz passes away Pat Williams passes away it was it was the right time to write this book uh it's just chock full of good stuff um uh Luke Eplin it's been all it's awesome talking to you I really enjoyed the book and I I can't recommend it highly enough it's a it's a great it's a team there are certain teams that I've been yearning for like a deeper book that looks at them this is one of them I can talk about like late 70s early 80s Spurs I think they need a book the Hawks of like the mid 70s they need a book this is an essential uh book for any sports library Luke Eplin thank you sir hey thanks Zach all right that's it for today's episode thank you to law Murray thank you to Luke Eplin by his book thanks as always to Mike Billy and Jonathan on production thanks to you all for listening to and or watching the Zach 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