The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by PayPal. We're also brought to you by the Ringer podcast network where on the rewatchables, it is from Hell Month. We've done single-way female. We just put up the hand that rocks the cradle and then we have domestic disturbance and the good sun coming. Later this month, domestic disturbance, junctrival to Vince Vaughan. That's going to be Monday's movie. That is one of the funnier unintentional comedy movies of the 2000s. Netflix has all these movies. If you miss them, including Pacific Heights, which they just added in mid-June, which we are definitely doing over the next few episodes, love that movie. So check all that out. Don't forget about the beautiful pod with Adam Friedland. That's on his Adam Friedland feed, little special World Cup analysis and all kinds of stuff. Chris Ryan, the original CR has been joining him as well. We had a bunch of Ringer basketball podcasts. If you didn't get nearly enough about the next winning, we're all over the place with the Ringer NBA show, the mismatch, Max and Rich on Game Over, Ringer gambling show. It just keeps going and going. We have the draft coming up. I'm going to try to hit, I think I might do three podcasts this week. We might be going Monday, Wednesday, Friday this week and at least one of those will have a bunch of draft stuff. But today, I wanted to have Joe House on. This has been the guy I've argued about with, about historical basketball stuff the most over the past almost 40 years of my life. But we got to talk about Jalen Brunson, big picture. I have great mail back questions. I'm trying to figure out what the hell happened over these last two and a half months and how the NBA shifted and House is going to be my mail back slash pyramid sound board. Because we got to figure out where Jalen Brunson goes in the pyramid. So I'm excited. It's all next. Can't wait. We're going to bring in Pearl Jam right after we take this break. Pearl Jam. This episode of the Bill Simmons podcast is presented by PayPal. You know, a clutch move and you see one, a Nola pass, a buzzer beater, a big steal. Well, imagine if your wallet could pull off moves like that. My friends is PayPal. Right now you can find offers from hundreds of brands like Sony, all birds and viator and save offers before you check out earn unlimited rewards. Plus you can add those rewards on top of credit card points. Now that is clutch download the PayPal app today. Save those offers. Start scoring rewards terms and exclusions apply. See PayPal.com/rewardsterms, credit card points subject to issuers, terms and conditions. We're going to talk a lot of historical NBA pyramid stuff, which is the real reason you're here. We're going to talk US Open near the end because you have a lot of thoughts and picks. We are coming off an awesome sports weekend. To Nick's and probably win the NBA title in five games and Spurne, a bunch of narrative Spurne. Spurne. Spurne. No pun intended. Spurne, a bunch of a bunch of big narratives. That happened. There's been a lot of draft buzz. There's been a bunch of yana stuff now. It feels like this yana thing is in full gear. We had Darren Peterson basically saying he would only work out with your Washington Wizards and that's it. We're going to talk about that. We had the Stanley Cup finals, Carolina one, El Chico, El Chico carrying the cup. We had this UFC White House event that everybody was pretty bummed out about. And yet it had two of the most kind of shocking fights in a row that I can ever remember in UFC where we had Pereira and Toporia both lost two of the best three fighters in the world. Pereira is asked kicked and then Toporia looked like he was in a car accident. By the end of the fight, it was, that was great. And then we had a bunch of World Cup. Are you betting World Cup? Are we in danger zone here post NBA finals where you're just sprinkling stuff everywhere? I mean, obviously, yes, the biggest lesson with the World Cup is any team that starts with the tee, not betting them. We're, we're really relying on Tony tokens every morning of this World Cup. We wake up. We hit up our guy, the bundle, Tony tokens. What are we doing today? What the World Cup? What are the biggest losers have been Turkey and Tunisia due to other, that's my back account in the wrong direction. So I'm not betting any more countries that begin with the letter T. The T is, is stands for take it in the, in the, take my mud hammer, take my money. We, we were talking about these, these top four NBA draft odds too, which has been fun like in the prediction market where, and Fando has some stuff too, but that it's all over the place. It keeps moving around and then Peterson happened today where he basically said, I only want to work out for Washington, but we're both convinced that Washington is going to take AJ to ban so with the first pick. And this, this to me is a situation now worth watching because if Utah takes boozer second, I could honestly see Peterson being like, I'm not playing for Memphis. You guys are going to have to figure this out. It's not happening. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. We have seen that a long time. We have not. Texas is famous in, in mind, it's 1999 or 2000 somewhere in there, yeah. And then, maybe he tried to go to the bulls, I don't know, but I'm prepared for just about anything there. Then you have a cuff who seems like the most popular pick, but the quippers have the fifth pick right after the top four. And they don't need a point guard, but everybody's in love with a cuff. So that pick feels like it's for sale. There was a trade room going around the internet today about if there's going to be a third team for this Janus Boston trade, which I've been talking about on this podcast for a week. And there, I think, would have to be a third team if Jalen's in it because what is, what's more, I can do with Jalen, could the clips, I'd heard this too during the weekend, could the clips with the fifth pick move in there and be the third team. And then the second piece of this, would they then send Kawaii to Miami as a consolation prize and you're basically replacing Kawaii with Jalen, use the fifth pick. The real story here is I'm not sure the quippers have anyone they love with the fifth pick. So we have basically a little over a week here with a bunch of crazy storylines in play. What's your team doing? What's Utah doing at two? Where is Peterson actually going and does he want to go there? What happens from fifth pick on my favorite storyline? Can the warriors get somebody good at 11 because it's basically a nine square draft with Marin and even as like the wild cards that could go higher and push people down is okay. So you're going to try to trade a center. This is about as fun as we've had for the eight days. So what's your favorite storyline? AJ DeBonza to the Washington Wizards. Of course, the number one overall pick is the only thing that I care about. It will be fascinating to see what happens behind. I do really put some faith in the idea of boozer to Utah. It just makes too much sense. And when some smart folks on the internet have started doing some, here's how the chemistry would work. And for sure, the relationship between the boozer family and the organization, that all, we're all familiar with that narrative aspect of it. But the fit who Hardy is like the first time, this is the first time we're going to see Will Hardy, you know, be actually coach for wins, yeah, to wins, right? I think boozer is a great fit there. So that creates this jump ball situation and the thread this morning was moving. Our little thread, our draft expertise. I love the notion of Peterson to Chicago. It makes a ton of sense. Me too. And for sure, Memphis, I think Wilson fits what Memphis wants. He kind of immediately fills the triple J roll doesn't he like, there's a whole bunch of reasons why that makes sense, but we don't have great precedent for teams swapping draft position without there being some kind of compensation. But the fit for both Chicago and Memphis, you know, those respective players make sense if they swap position. So couldn't they do something where it's like, I wondered, what if Chicago offers Memphis a year's worth of Giordano's deep dish? What are like, you know, something because it's like, I think it would have to be three years or maybe they open up a Giordano satellite deep dish place and downtown Memphis. Okay. Fine. I have an easier trade for you. What if they just give them the 15th pick? Okay. Four and 15 for three. Fine. We'll solve your Darren Peterson issue. And Memphis can get four and 15 and just take Caleb Wilson, who might end up being a better part anyway. I like that for both sides. So do I. The most fun NBA scenario is you guys take AJ Utah takes Booser Peterson ends up in Chicago. Memphis gets four and 15 takes Caleb Wilson. And then Utah calls San Antonio. And they say, heard you have a Darren Fox problem.
We have a matching salary in lower marketing, but you're going to have to wet our beak. How about you tossing Carter, Carter Bryant? Wow. Maybe one of your future protected picks and let's call it a day. You get the marketing post, the files ended and you were immediately in the trade machine. What time Saturday night were you in the trade machine? Be honest, it was after you, the game finished at what time at West Coast nine. Oh, you and Zach had to do the pod. No, we finished the pod and then FOX trade started pouring out of me, like, like the plus for open source. All right. That's what I mean. I'm ready with that direction. I, I, I thought it was other bodily fluids, but it all makes sense. Would Lori market and have solved some of the new, some of the San Antonio's problems of that 2026 finals? It, it, it, here's the problem that we're going to have for a little while. It is overreaction of the moment, all of the recency bias. I think quite a bit of the, the, the FOX as the, in the crosshairs kind of, of concept is, is really emblematic of who this spurs team is and the fact that they arrive a year early. They just weren't ready. They weren't ready from top to bottom. They weren't ready conceptually. They weren't ready schematically. They weren't ready for in terms of the coaching. They weren't ready in terms of the personnel. They happened to run into the one team in the entire NBA where they're youthful, the speed, Wembe's force, the, their, their defensive intensity. They only ran, there was only one team in the NBA that, that could match them because New York to their credit. They showed up healthy. This was the single biggest underrated storyline because they swept the two previous teams that they faced in the east. They had so much time to get the very best version of themselves ready for the, for these playoffs. Remember, FOX was missing games in these playoffs. It's not fair to me to be, you know, pinpointing FOX and search, now for sure we can look at the moments where he was not up to the task and, and you say, this, he's supposed to be on this team. He's supposed to be the calming influence. He's supposed to be the guy that makes the intelligent, high IQ basketball play at the end of these games. And every one of these games that are so close, it's crunch time and he's a previous crunch time winner. He's a guy who's with a demonstrated track record of success. But I think when we sort of start, start taking some steps back, there is yet still a version of this Spurs team where we say we're a little more gracious about it. Like, can we be generous and say that Mitch Johnson and Deere and FOX, we'll get on the same page with the benefit of what they learned from that series and, and all of the assets that the Spurs possess coming into the next season, there's a version of this Spurs team. Like, what do you think they're over under will open up at in terms of regular season wins? Well, they're the same. In the 60s. Yeah, they'll be in the 60s. You know, I, I didn't really realize this until Sunday as I was going through all the clips and stuff and watching the post game interviews. It does feel like the fundamental issue with the Spurs. And by the way, all the stuff you said about the Spurs about, Hey, if they just lie, I said down Saturday, if they just lost Game 7 and OK, see, we don't have any of this stuff and we're fine with the Spurs and it's a successful season. I do want to point out you were very mean about the New England Patriots who made the Super Bowl and it was the same scenario and, and I don't remember you making that defense for my Patriots. Well, I don't understand. It's a radically different sport and I was on the correct side of that. That got to the Super Bowl and maybe it would have been better off losing in the AFC title game, which I said, but you didn't want to hear it. You're just, you, you bought it because it sells Drake May jokes. All I did was win money. I like betting against the Patriots. I like winning money. But watching all the stuff the next day and then thinking about the series more, looking at the minutes, I do think the fundamental issue with the Spurs, they had two issues. One is, when B is a 30 minute game guy who cannot play 40, I think we've learned that in the playoffs. He's going to have to figure that out. That's who he is right now. He's going to have to figure that out over the next five years. Right. Right. How can I handle being on the court more than 29 to 30 minutes a game? That's one issue. The other is the Harper issue and you saw it in game five, who got the card keys near the end of game five. It was Harper. It was the first time you saw them do that all the series where he got the, he brought it up. He stepped through him and I just think they were afraid to do that. The whole series, Fox played more minutes than him. Fox played 36 minutes, 12 points a game. All his stats were terrible and then had a couple of big brainfights. I think he was afraid to shoot by the end of the series. Like he couldn't hit threes. Harper wasn't much better on threes, but at least wasn't afraid to take them and I think fundamentally that was almost a bigger issue than the Wembee thing, is that they had this issue. But did you hear of a cell said about it? He talked about Harper who's like, this is a tough year for him. He had to go down the G league at one point, you know, he was, he did, he was not happy about his minutes. It was the first time he was kind of like, yeah, Harper wanted to play more and was ready to be this guy. Harper's attitude during that finals was, I'm here, I'm ready, I'm ready for all of this. And Mitch Johnson just was afraid to kind of tell Fox to go sit in the passenger seat and that was a big issue for them. That's sure. And you know what? Everything you just said, that's fine. That's great. All of that is part of the maturation process, the growing up process. Like, you know, the minutes thing, you know, Zach Lowe and Sean Fantasy and extraordinary podcast at Sunday night that I enjoyed listening to very much, right now on the Ringer podcast network, you know, made the point about the, the, a capacity of the nicks to play all 48 minutes and that that was an advantage that they possessed over the spurs. Well, the spurs losing steam in the second half and especially in the fourth quarter, running out of energy, that's a skill. That's not about like the conditioning of the spurs versus the conditioning of the nicks. It's a skill. You have to learn it. To learn through these kinds of playoff reps, how to allocate that, that energy, where to save energy. And I thought, you know, we saw an experiment happening in real time in quite a bit of the strategizing that the spurs undertook that Mitch Johnson undertook. We saw it in Game 5. He took Wembee out with five minutes left in the basketball game for Christ's sakes. How is that pot? What are we doing? Like, we know what the cornette minutes produce. But look, this was to me, a giant success for the spurs, like, you know, like they have nothing to really resent or regret other than like, we're just quite not ready and there's really only one team in the NBA that could, could, you know, really take advantage of it. I never think it's a giant success if you could actually win the title and you didn't. Well, the Patriots were had no chance to win the Super Bowl against the Seahawks, right? And that put me in that mode of, ah, man, I just wish we'd lost in Denver. San Antonio, they led for, I think, what was it? 72% of the series, they led by double digits and off five games. So what? They led in the last two minutes of every game. Hang a banner with all those deaths on it. Doesn't matter. I have good mail back questions about this, but one of them I'm going to read now. This is from Timothy. My closest friend was supremely confident in every juncture of the NBA finals about the spurs losing. He said in the first quarter of game five, the spurs are like drunk teenagers who eventually black out a lot of early stamina. And it's totally true. Are you one of the younger buster shots? Yeah. Let's go. And then by 11 o'clock, people are throwing up in the bushes. That was the way that wasn't Timothy Shalamay. That was not said in the show. Okay. Just check it. I think he ended the spilling with a Y. Okay. Good. So I think you're right in the sense of, hey, let's not overreact. But I do think this Harper thing. I think he has to start next year. And I think he needs to drive the car. And if I'm them, I'm looking at getting out of this fox thing if I can. Because the other trade and people were sending a bunch of different trades. And you could do like, Oh, we'll get Randall for a year in different chains. They'll like, there's all kinds of whatever's Porter from the nets as an expiring for fox. Was one that got sent to me a few times. And that one made me go, huh, because you have the nets who, you know, I don't think they want to be rebuilding for the rest of the 2020s. They just had the entire city got officially taken away from them. They're irrelevant. And, you know, could you, could you do that trade and then trade this six pick for a star and just try to be like, we're here. We have good players now. My only pushback on that is that the Porter expiring should be more valuable than the next five years of a fox at 55 to say you say you're buying low of fox. A guy who two years ago is averaging 25 points a game. And are you? And maybe it was just on the wrong team. I don't know. That is in his late 20s. You could say he was entering the playoffs. Less this confidence. We're buying low. But I thought that was interesting. The idea of him being on the wrong team would suggest that he's not a winning player. It would say he's on, he should be on exactly the right team. It should be the spur should be the right team. They have this opportunity this summer to like, let
lessons learned and take that right into the next. - You and I have been following basketball our whole life. - It's true. - This Fox Harper thing is not gonna end well. I'm sorry, it's just won't. - I'd be shocked if it's like hey, we figured it out. Three-guard rotation like Detroit in the late 80s and look at all these good numbers when Fox and Harper played together. I just, I don't see it. I think Harper is that special. - What we saw from him in the playoffs was about as high of a level from a 20-year-old guard as we've seen, with magic being a 10 out of 10 and Kobe, you know, in the 2000, was Kobe, forget how old he was in the 2000s finals. I think it was somewhere around 20. But if that's the top of the pyramid, some of the stuff Harper was doing wasn't there, but it was at least sniffing in the vicinity of it. And I thought in game five, I thought that had a chance to be his masterpiece where it's like, we've seen the lay only flip the series. - You went all the way to the hole, lay up in the last two minutes that he missed. I mean, he was there, he did the thing. He got all the way there. - I loved how it played. - He just worked me too. - He wasn't afraid at all. I love the defense. He was playing on Brunson. Brunson was making big shots on him. So yeah, we, I'm interested to see what happens with Fox. And then you have The Honest Piece, which people have been reporting now for. Today's like, the reason this stuff gets out, if it's just Boston and Milwaukee and they're talking about stuff, very unlikely stuff gets out. But if, and I, for the aggregators, I am saying if, if Jaylen Brown was the piece being dangled for Janus, and Milwaukee is like, well, we don't need Jaylen Brown, what could we get for him? That's how stuff gets out. That's where you get in trouble. That's when you start calling these different teams, including the Clippers. I do wonder though if there's a, the Clippers thing feels a little real to me, because I don't know who they know who, I don't think they have any idea who they should take it five. I think that's a real issue because they just invested in Garland in the next three guys at five are all point guards. So you can't take a point guard there. You have to do something at five. I like the idea of the Clippers taking a big swing. They want to stay in the mix. For sure, Balmer and the front office there, they've shown the willingness to go ahead, like look at what they did preceding this trade deadline. Those are big swings. James Harden and Zubatch, those, that's a front office that's like, we know we got to do something. There's a reset. So Kauai is an element of the next step of the reset, certainly makes sense to me, but they are retooling, not rebuilding. And how can they play a role? It feels like Milwaukee wants a full rebuild, right? They want to come up with some combination of draft picks and or very young players, players brand new to the league. And is the Clippers the right conduit to that? I mean, it feels like there needs to be a fourth team almost. Let me ask you, do you think if you're the Clippers and you have Kauai and you have Garland and you have a little more of a veteran team, you're probably on a little bit of a shell fight with Kauai, not just contractually, but just with him as an impact guy, it's 34. If you were able to turn that fifth pick into Jaylin or somebody like Jaylin, is the fifth pick worth more or less than that? 'Cause I think you could make a case Jaylin, being one of the top 12 players in the league, second team OMBA last year coming off a career year, is probably worth more than the fifth pick by himself. But if I'm the Clippers, I can, and that's an, it's an impossible contract. That's the thing that, how could the Clippers possibly do? That's three years, like 60 million a year, basically. But the Clippers are under the cap now. They, Garland's at like 3637, Kauai is close to a max, but they have a bunch of other veterans, don't they? Or just let him go. Or he's in the trade, you know, interesting. I still like Mathurin. And if you're the box and you, like could I sell that to my fans that I traded you on us, but I got the fifth pick back, and I said the 10th pick. And now I have five and 10 in an awesome draft. Is that enough? Well, you and I both love Bacuff probably the most. - Oh, boy. If you look at me, by the way, there's a lot of buzz on him just killing these workouts and teams being like, holy shit. - We need one or two more assets for Milwaukee. - I agree. I feel like. - Well, we'll see what happens. I'm really excited to see how all of this plays out. - This is great. What a Monday after the finals. Let's go. - We're going to take a break. We're going to come back and we're going to talk about Jalen Brunson and the Pyramid right after this. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. This summer soccer is here. The watch parties will be spectacular. And they'll be going every day back to back to back. Don't worry, Uber Eats has your game day essentials covered. With 30% off offers from Aldi Kroger Dollar General. Oh, yeah. All the snacks and groceries to keep your crowd happy delivered straight to your door, like chipstips, wings, walk, fresh ingredients for the perfect game day spread. Order in so you can stay locked in on the game, all the hosting, none of the hassle. Order now for 30% off your game day snacks and grocery order only on Uber Eats for a limited time. Offer eligible for 30% off entire order, taxes, fees in terms of apply, offer valid through July 5th. Product availability varies by region. Exclusions may apply. All right, so I wrote my basketball book in 2009, spent three years on it. Joe Hauss was one of my conciliaries and one of the gimmicks, which was an idea initially from my buddy Gus's dad, Wally Ramsey, still kicking it in his mid 90s, shout out to Wally. Who always thought the Hall of Fame should be a Pyramid. I wrote a column about this or another column about this, eventually built the basketball around it. Five levels, and as the levels go higher and higher, we then get the true flavor of who mattered the most with the top level being the Pantheon. The biggest thing as we talked about all this stuff, trying to figure out why guys matter, why people should have been underrated, overrated, just trying to measure impact. Could you win a title with this guy? We always gravitated to the actual titles. Did this guy carry a team to a title? Did this guy do everything it took? Would you rather have 15 years of somebody who was really, really good and made a bunch of NBA teams and brought it to the precipice, but you couldn't win a title if he was your best guy, or would you rather have a shorter window with somebody who, his peak, you could win the title with them. And we always gravitated to that as we talked about it. And that's why somebody like Bill Walton, who really had the 77 Blazers run and then win the title. He's the MVP of the next year, even though he gets here near the end. He's hurt for the rest of his career and then is the six man on the 86 Celtics. So has basically three moments. And I still had him in the top 35 in my book. I can't remember where he landed exactly, but it was like, I know for that one year, Bill Walton, I can win a title with him. Sonay of Jalen Brunson, who's never been our first team on NBA guy, who had no MVP votes this year at all. And yet he just dragged the team to the NBA title house. He did something that a bunch of great guards were never able to do. He did something that James Harden, as a starter on his own team, never even made the finals and fell short over and over again. Steve Nash, who was an unbelievable player two-time MVP. Through no fault of his own, could never quite get the team there. Chris Paul finally did it in the 2021 finals late in his career, but they lost. Jason Kidd, two straight finals, but he lost and then finally gets one later as a role player starter on Dallas. What Brunson did was up there with Dwayne Wade in 2006. It was up there with Walt and then 77. You can go on through, but we're just dragging a team to the finals. And he is somebody that I never in a million years would have thought would make the pyramid that I sent you a piece of as I keep always work on the rankings. I'm going to start here. I think he has to be one of the top 50 players of all time though. And I agree. It's debatable. So you're initial thoughts on that. Yeah, so I want to gently push back. You said twice that he dragged the team to the, no, I'm not that that we have to recognize the greatness of Carl at any town's the contribution of the secret. Yeah, no one of the best secret teams we've had no long time. I can see all that, but you know what really helped right anytime. They were down in the end of games down nine down 10 down 14. Jalen Brunson would just figure out how to get offense for them and not just figure out it, but by design, like this is part of the brilliance of the front office of Leon Rose and World Wide West in assembling a team. And ultimately arriving on a Jalen Brunson centric end of game of phenomena. And it's truly a phenomena. I didn't, I couldn't get in touch with the Ring of Research staff to go back to the point where we measure, okay, all the guys are together. How many times did this group in this combination come back from double digit deficits in a second half in win games in the regular season and in the playoffs? but we do know that it. in these playoffs, they went six and two, the greatest accomplishment in a playoff run in terms of being down double digits and coming back in running games in the play-by-play era. - One of the great, one of the great lab bet teams in the history of any sport. - Exactly right. He was the leading scorer on a team that had the best point differential in playoff history. The leading scorer was Jalen Brunson and the Knicks are on top of that mountain. - Well, oh, go ahead. - No, no, it's good. - I was gonna say that a big part of my book, which was basically the premise of it was Isaiah saying the secret of basketball is it's not about basketball. It's about all the other stuff. It's about selflessness. It's about putting ego aside. It's about how you connect with your teammates, the chemistry you have, your ability to galvanize everybody around you. Brunson had all of this. And in one of the best possible ways as a guard, I truly don't think he had ego and what was, I think he just wanted to win and he wanted to prove everyone wrong and he didn't care how they did it, but over and over again, he was their best option. 'Cause he was the guy over and over again who could create the best offense for them. And he got better when it mattered. He never got tired. He played 39 minutes of game in the finals. As a small guy, the stuff that he did was inconceivable. And what he did in game five, I'm just gonna say it, like the more I look at it and stare it, I think is one of the great finals games. Like, Jordan, game six, 98 is the greatest game I've ever seen any way when you consider Pippin's hurt, Rodman's a mess. Like you basically, he had to control the pace in every moment of that game and then what he did in the last minute. You know, basket still, basket to end it. But the Brunson thing was pretty close. Like, Towns being in foul trouble, they're covering OG on the corner threes and there were multiple moments where the game was gonna get away from them and he just wouldn't let it happen. And especially in the second half, he was just like, "All right, I'm just gonna keep scoring and let us hang around and the spurs are gonna fold." So, I value that more than anything. Like, and maybe I overrated with the Pyramid, but you seem to agree with me. - Of course, I mean, this is the funny thing. The league invented an award, a clutch player of the year for as a regular season award. It's only been around for four years. He won it. I mean, he's one of the four guys that won it. Not the air in Fox did win it also. So I don't know. - Yeah. - But it's regular season. It is regular season. But this is one of the themes of, when we've gotten together, you know, we've talked about, this is the DNA of this particular next team, the particular run that they are on. They just never concede anything in any kind of deficit, second half, it doesn't matter. And that's a regular season and postseason trait for this team. And the tip of the spear is Brunson. We really haven't seen a guy that fits his, his to your point, his stature, but also, I mean, he's in that class of who do you trust to go get a bucket right now or to make the best basketball play right now. His 30-foot shot over Wembee at the end of game four was the right basketball play. Him getting that shot up immediately, created an advantage for the Knicks that they, he recognized it as the team, double team came over as Fox came over to double, that created an advantage. Like even a misshot is the right basketball play. And that's the thing that we're looking for a historic, how do we put him in a place in the history of the league amongst the all-time greats and where you have him feels right to me. He's probably the toughest guy in the league. Is that fair? Sure. The tougher guy in the league right now. I mean, he did withstand some injury, scare at the very beginning of the series. And Wembee, Wembee getting in his landing space in game five. It's just like, I think that guy could have had, you know, a high ankle sprain, whatever. And he just would have been like, I'll deal with it later. He's the mentally toughest guy in the league, which, you know, I think Curry's up there. There's been some great players over the years. But for right now, the mantle of, I just trusted the most that doesn't matter where he's playing on top of taking the responsibility of 53 years, which is like, you know, when this happened for the Red Sox, it was really Ortiz, right? And it was a bunch of guys and there were a million heroes in that from Derek Lowe to even Curtis Lascana coming in and getting three outs at the perfect time. But it was ultimately Ortiz and the entire Red Sox fan base going, this makes no sense. We lose all the time. We haven't won in 86 years. Something bad's gonna happen. The other shoe is gonna drop. We're gonna get kicked in the teeth and just kind of looking over at Ortiz and being like, but he doesn't seem scared. And we have this guy. And the Anky fan seems scared of him. And that's what Brunson did for this next team. Like as great as OG was, and we'll talk about him in the mailbag. Towns, bridges, like, they're bench guys. Everybody chipped in, which was a great thing about this team. But ultimately to flip history, you have to have a guy who's just completely different. And so when I think of him historically, even though he's never been on the top five ball and be a guy, I think he has to be in the top 50 now. And what gets interesting is when you start comparing him. So I got an email from Perry who said, did he just, did Jalen just set the record for biggest historical leapfrog in NBA history? What was the biggest jump in one post season? But really, you have to say by an older player. Brunson's been in the league eight years. So I think one guy I was thinking was Kauai in 2019. I'm told, of course, of course you and I immediately. That's the first guy that comes to my mouth is Kauai in 20, amazing. 'Cause I wouldn't had, I wouldn't had, I don't think Kauai and the Pyramid. We'd have been in the honorable mention with a chance. Sure. But then that 2019 playoffs ended and it's like, well, he's down to top 40. I got to figure out the rankings now 'cause this is what he just did was nuts. Yeah. Finals MVP for two different teams. They dragged, he dragged Toronto. Oh yeah. Well, Dirk's the best example for a late late career guy. His dirt was in the 1997 draft. He won that finals in 2011. So he's year 14. I had him 39th in my book, which was Dirk which came out before the 2011 title, right? So then he wins the title. It's like, well, now you're moving up buddy. Here, I have a little, I have a little sweet right underneath the penthouse for you. So he's, you know, I think I have him in the 21-22 range now. And then you have the younger guys, I guess GA, that they win the title, they jump up. But that's a little more common. The Brunson thing, I wouldn't, I don't wouldn't even have had him on the honorable mention until these playoffs like I understand. Yeah, he just, I mean, he didn't have the credentials yet. Right. And he's only halfway through his career. I mean, he's only 29. He should play another seven or eight years. There should be a chance to bump it. Yeah. So just enhancing the overall career resume. So if you go in the top 50, where just so people know, like there's, you know, Clyde Drexler I have in the mid 50s, Gary Payton. These are guys that were the best player in finals teams who had a bunch of all MBAs and really good careers. But we just had a lot of players. Since I did the book, we've had, you know, almost two decades worth of more seasons and more great players. In level three, so goes level one, level two, level three, which was no doubt about it Hall of Famers who ranked them on the best for a few years with every requisite resume statistic to match. No MVP winner can drop below level three unless there's a fantastic reason. Unfortunately, that's Derek Rose. But had Iverson at 52, who I think you and I ride for maybe a little more than others historically, but it's really just a 2001 playoffs and really no success postseason wise other than that. But you go down and there's this whole bunch of guards that Brunson is in the middle of now, historically. Luca Donchic, George Gervin, James Hardin, Sam Jones. So I'm going to ride forth to the death because he was the best big game guard of the first basically 40 years of the league other than Jerry West. Jason Kid, Steve Nash, and Well Frazier. I have all those guys in the 40s and you could argue about the order, but they're all there. They all have the NBA's. Frazier has the 70 and 73 finals. Frazier was top five first, top five first team on the NBA four times. Nash had the two MVP's. Kid was an MVP runner up a drag those two net teams to the finals, which matter than he won a title and was Jason Kid was just awesome. Like, oh, yeah, the stats aren't going to be kind to him because of the three point shooting and the field goal percentage, but we were there. Well, he made three. So it'll be a three point shooting percentage thing to knock him, but it made three. So it's the top five in the history of the league. But for years, he was 29%, 30%. And he was the best defensive player of all these guys other than Frazier. Same Jones was 10 championships. He had, he had three, he had, I think a couple on these. Oh, there it is, three top 10s. But was the key guy in those wrestle teams in the 60s because they needed somebody to basically do the Brunson at the end of the games. Harden gets, hard on his MVP, three time runner up MVP, six top five, three, 30 Montbiers. He was runner up for MVP three times.
And at which 36 again, when his statistical resume is just overwhelming and it's basically the car on my own situation. I don't know what to do with Hardin. - Yeah, well, I mean, here's the thing. And I spent some time with, what do they call basketball reference now? Is it basketball stat heads? That head basketball? - That head has one, yeah, it's part of basketball reference. - Yeah. - If you side by side, James Hardin and Charles Barkley, you would be surprised. - Yeah, I think we've had now 25 or 30 years of Charles in our lives and the cultural force. He's an icon, he's an NBA icon. - I have Barkley much higher than these guys. - You do? - Yeah, he was in the 20s for me when I did the book. - Right. It's gonna be tough. I think as we try and process the NBA from this era and going forward, what do we do with the player like James Hardin and how do you contextualize his inability? He's only been to one finals. He was coming off the bench for Oklahoma City. - Yeah, he never made the finals as a starter. He was one in four on conference finals in general. He's 17 and 17 in playoff series. And one of the conference finals he made, they benched him against the Clippers in game six and came back with the bench guys when the game was over. Like he was about to get bounced in that. But you know, this is one of those cases where sadly we were there. - Right. - Statistical resume was there. But ultimately, the number one value we have with all this stuff is how did you perform when it truly mattered? Did you understand the secret? Could you elevate your team around you and he just could never do it? Really at any point in his career, right? Barkley is a good example because the 93 sons, they come as closest you're gonna get to winning the title and they lose to the best part of all time who's that as absolute fucking apex, right? That's the only reason he didn't win the title. And I don't know how much I can hold that against him 'cause I don't feel like he did everything possible in that finals and we know what happened. Kevin Johnson stunk in those first two games. That's why they lost the finals. - The bulls team has kind of ready to beat. - The question with Harden, and obviously you and I share the same kind of perspective on him, we've watched it. Like he was there present for us and in all of our NBA hoops fandom. - Yeah. - You know, he's been in our lives for so long. - Will history be more gracious towards him? - Like it's happening with Karamolo and right now, basketball as not a person out of the first one. - Yeah, yeah. - Well, but right, because the era in which Harden, Harden in the West against the teams that he went up against, not being able to topple Golden State, you know, catching the end of the Spurs run. You know, is it, can we legitimately pin responsibility on him for his inability to take a tee? - I think we can in 18 and 19. - Okay. - Because 18 was sitting there for them and they didn't win. And basically because he didn't do the, have the Jalen Brunson game. 19 derands out, and they have six at home against Curry. And Curry has what two points in the first half or one point I can't remember and Golden State's ready to be taken down and they just couldn't do it. The fundamental question here, 'cause George Kervin's another one, I have him and Harden right next to each other. Very similar careers and Kervin's big moment was the 1979 Eastern Conference Finals against your beloved Washington Bullets, up three one in the series and can't close them. And if he gets to that, if he gets to that finals and they're probably favored to beat Seattle at that point and they win the, like it's a complete whatever. But fundamentally this comes down to this. You're a Washington fan. I'm giving you the ability. You can have Harden or Brunson for their entire careers. From what you've just witnessed, which guy would you rather have? And we don't know how it's gonna end with Brunson. He's only been in the league eight years. But your whole goal is, I just wanna win the title. Are you taking James Harden and you're taking Jalen Brunson? - I mean, it's a no-brainer. It's easy, flags fly forever. The only thing that matters is the chip. That's why the pyramid is tilted the way it's tilted. You have to have the rings and it's not just Brunson delivering. It would be a really curious how we would regard Iverson. Iverson took a team that really, when you look back at that Sixers team, it was like, wow, look at the surrounding cast here. - Built around all his strengths and weaknesses. - Right. - If they had somehow pulled something out, but Brunson's a different cat, a different animal all together. He is such an important element of that cohesive team that the Knicks have built. And yet, when there's six minutes left in the game, and the Knicks could be down a dozen points, you never, never, never think for a second that they don't have a chance to win, as long as that dude has the ball in his hands, and he's more healthy than that. - You know what, got lost in the Brunson celebration over these last two weeks. He was the one that got the ball in game two, and Wembee threw it off castles back, and got Wembee to foul him. - Yes. - Like that, the thing, one of the things with Brunson that I've ever appreciated. - And remember, he missed one of the free throws, but go ahead. - Yeah, he did. But one of the things that I appreciate about him is it's like, oh, you got to pick on Brunson, pick on Brunson. Much like Jason Cade and some of these other dudes. It's actually like sometimes an asset defensively. Like he's fucking annoying to play against. He's taking charges all the time. He's getting steals. He's in the right spots. But you look at his four years in the playoffs now. It's 29 a game. This is four years across the board, like a lot of playoff games, 29 a game, 26 finals. He was 33, 4 and 5, but 39.2 minutes a game. It's just better than anything James Harden ever did, and it was a higher level than anything James Harden ever did. And I'm sorry. And I just, if I could have either career for the same reason out, or when I did my book, I would rather have Bill Walton just so I could get those peaks versus David Robinson's entire career. I just would. 'Cause at least my only thing I want is a title. And I just know that if I have that guy have a better chance tonight, that's not rings culture to me. It's more like, that's why I'm not discounting Barkley, because I don't feel like Barkley did everything he could have done and they probably should have won the 93 finals, and he went against a fucking comment that we've never seen in our lives. That's the only reason he win. Carl Malone went against that same older version of the comment, and really fucked up in both finals, and not to mention some of the other stuff that happened. It's hard to separate that from his history. So I do value that stuff because the only goal is to win the title. Don't care about your career. Like I care about your career in the context of did it produce championships, and chances to win championships. So with Brunson, I don't know that. So I have them at 40, which I sent to you. Yeah, my only quibble, because it was in the vicinity of the Bill Walton range, and I think that's fair to put him near him. You had him one spot ahead of Frazier. I did. I think they should at least be tied until we get a little more. I'm happy to flip him. This is why I wanted to have you on. So you'd put so that this opens the different conversation because greatest nick of all time should probably have the higher pyramid ranking, right? Sure, and let's all hear. I'll listen to everybody. All the smart folks that will be doing this greatest nicks of all time. It is appropriate for that conversation to be had. Now, you saw Rick Brunson do the, well, Patrick Ewing's the greatest nick. When that was, you know, that was nice. That's a, you know, I understand the gesture. He's not that they're making that. Yeah, so the thing with Frazier, two titles, not one, played one of the great game sevens ever in 1970. So he matches Brunson there, 35 and 19. I think he had six deals, like demolished Jerry West. And then, you know, was probably the best defensive guard of the first 35 years of the league. Not to mention all the other stuff. His career was shorter because everyone's career was shorter back then. Like, I'd love to see the guys now. Do you think LeBron would have played 20, how many years do you have to 23? So playing 23 years in converse with noverse acquire and flying coach. Guess what, he's not. So you got to factor that in too. All right, I'm fine with Frazier over Brunson. But Brunson has a chance to pass him with a couple more great seasons. He's sitting right there. He's only halfway through his career. Let's let him get there. And they're all clean now. Yeah, go ahead. I have him above Nash, kid, Sam Jones, Harden, Garvin and Luca. What's wrong with that? I'm just for the audience. Okay. And for Luca, the regular season resume is tremendous. Yes. He did make a finals. He did. He is the second highest career playoff average of all time. 30.9 points a game.
Um, he's six first team mom is already and has a chance to, if he can put it together for one year, um, move into the top 20, 25 branch. And it will be a combination of him and, and the right circumstances. I mean, you know, it shouldn't be lost that, that, that the Brunson, um, place in the, the pyramid is a testament to the, the, the, the front office of the Knicks, taking the swing that they took, he, he wouldn't be in this place without the context. And just have people think this is reactionary or whatever, like this is how I did the book, like I had Dwayne Wade thinking the top 40, maybe even top 35, just because of what he did in the 2006 finals, like, sure, that's it, like you get a major bump. If you pull that off on the biggest stage and you helped drag your team to the title. So there's some centers ahead of, uh, ahead of Frazier and Brunson, just because I think the center position was more important for a longer period of time with the league, Cowans, Willis Reed, David Robinson, Walton, Barry. So I do have by the pyramid rankings, Willis Reed has the best neck ever. But I, I don't know if I'm right. I just know from he was the MVP of the league, Frazier and Brunson were never MVP's of the league. He went against all of these great centers during a time when you basically couldn't win the title or compete for one unless you had an awesome center. He's going against Kareem and Will and all these dudes, like, he kind of had to have that. So I have the Cowans Reed, Robinson, Bill Walton, all in a row. And then the two guards I have ahead of all of these guys, and I got to look at John Stockton again because I'm trying to set if I overrated him a little in my book, but I had, right now I've stocked in 34 and Chris Paul 33 because of how long and ridiculous their careers are. And they were in finals and really guys, I, you know, I thought I had some, some bigger moments and James Hardin, but that gets, that's where it gets tough. James Hardin versus Stockton versus Chris Paul with Chris Paul. Really that 21 finals changed Chris Paul's legacy by about 1012 spots. And appropriately, so I do think when you sit down and do the side by side of Hardin and Stockton, it's really close. It's a very, like they're, whatever the comparability score is, like they're, they're really close those two. When I did, when I did the book, I wrote about, I wrote about Stockton, why he couldn't get to level four, why he was in level three. And I think you're mentioned in this because it was like, here's the thing. He probably shouldn't be this high. Where did I have him? I had him. Jesus. So there he is. I had him 25 in the book. And I made all the cases for why maybe he shouldn't be there. But then it was the experience of watching him and how great he was and how he would always like just pick us, run the team, get everyone else involved for three and a half quarters. And then pick a spot. And it was a fucking assassin, it was like assassin. I just don't feel like the stats can properly reflect that the way he kind of carried the team. And you just kind of always knew he was lurking. And you always thought he was going to come through when it mattered, right? Yeah. I wonder if going back, miss, are we miss remembering how effective he was in the clutch versus Carl Malone? Hmm. It's possible. But this is what the tough, the further we get away from this stuff, we always felt like Stockton was the good guy in that team. And Carl Malone was the one you could get the 44 minutes out of and you didn't trust the last four. We're probably too hard on Carl Malone. I mean, I created the whole 42 club. So he would be discounted. Anyway, when they missed the 42 club, it worked again. Are you surprised? No. Neither. Brunson, uh, Brunson didn't get there, but really hard for guards to get there because then the events. All right. So Jalen Brunson, 41 in the pyramid. Unbelievable. Great. Welcome aboard. Or the Fandalads have been on that before the, uh, before the playoffs. They wouldn't have given us odds, you know, 150,000 to one. All right. I'm going to take one more break and then we're doing a mail back. Imagine setting your makeup, then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new groupie setting mist from Maybelline, New York. Gel to mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours, with flexible all-day comfy grip. No tightness. No stickiness. No residue. Just plum. Dewey hydrated skin that still feels like your skin. Try new groupie setting mist from Maybelline, New York. Maybe it's Maybelline. All right. Mail back. These are actual questions from actual listeners, BS podcast
[email protected]. If you want to send one in, uh, thanks to everybody who sent stuff in. Oh, it's really fun, uh, stuff to go through. Matt from New York wants to know. Jalen Brunson now has the number one Jalen spot on lock. Number four Jalen's on all MBA teams. I'm requesting you to stop calling Jalen Brun just Jalen during podcast because it's too confusing. So he's basically making the argument. We have all these Jalen's. The only Jalen now should be Jalen Brunson and then everybody else, we should say they're last names. But Jalen Williams is J Dub. Jalen Brun becomes J B. Yeah. Jalen Johnson now becomes Jalen Johnson or double J. Jalen Deren's just Jalen Deren and Jalen greens Jalen green. I'm fine with this. I think Jalen Brunson has assumed control of the name Jalen along with the buddy Jalen Rose. Well, the original Jalen, I mean, there's always there's only one OG. That's the original Jalen Jalen Rose. Sure. Fine. I can, I can subscribe with this. I feel like, uh, Jalen Brown's been J B for a little while now anyway. It's been convenient to call him J B, but alpha Jalen is, is Jalen Brunson? It's undeniable. My wife calls him Brunson Burner. Brunson Burner. Okay. Because we, we, when she would ever watch the finals and they would be down like nine and she's like, did the Brunson Burner heat up yet? That's great. That's great. Really good. Joel. Oh, like, I didn't send you any of these. So you're reacting to these in the moment. Joel wants to know the answer is most likely still no, but now it's more interesting. The Brunson winning championship finals MVP is Dallas letting him walk now a worse decision than trading Luca. No. What's your case? It is a, a, a diabolical mismanagement to, to not get anything back to have not. But nobody in the entire league forecasted this version of, of Brunson. And think about all of the pieces that had to be put into place for us to achieve and realize this, this version of, of Brunson, we thought it was ridiculous in the moment that they weren't paying Brunson. We did. It was four years for 55 million. They should have done it without blinking, but the fuck are they doing? That's right. Mismanagement. Yes. It was a colossal blunder. The Luca trade led to Cooper flag. What did the Brunson trade lead to or Brunson leaving? Uh, Luca. No, Brunson, Brunson led to eventually trading a first pick for Kyrie. They made the finals after he left because that's because Brunson left they went and traded for Kyrie. So that would be the case. I still think Luca's worse. Luca's worse. Because here's the thing. They didn't, as we discussed a hundred times, they didn't shop the Luca trade is what made it horrible. Oh, I mean, they didn't shop it because if it came out, their fans would have rioted. That should be alone. That's worse. Their fans did riot too. Their fans weren't rioting after Jalen Brunson left, but they were upset that it was mismanaged. They were upset. Yes. The Luca trade led to actual Dallas almost showing down as a city. The league had to give, give them the number one overall pick. The league gave them Cooper. The Cuban's fault, though. Don't look at him. He was in charge of not giving Brunson the four for 55. He hired Nico Harrison. He did that. He then traded Luca Donchich with the new owners that Mark Cuban sold the team to. But none of its his fault. I don't know how this happened. I believe he's done an unbelievable spin job. Reed wants to know. He said they're in the playoffs this year that Brunson isn't a top five player, but the next build a perfect roster around him, complimenting his offense while compensating for his defensive limitations. Are there any other players on your, you can't win if that guy is your best player list that you'd reconsidered in that Brunson led a title team? So I will, I will say this, I didn't have a Brunson as a top 10 as a top five player. But I do now. I handed in Ranger 100 and I had him fourth. Sure. I didn't put him ahead of Wembee and Joker and SGA, but you could make a case that he should have been. But I thought four seemed fair. It also was fair over the course of the regular season. I went back and looked at just the season rankings a handful of times where we're sharing lists and comparing notes and stuff. You had him 10 at different points during the regular season. You had him 12 at a moment or two eight to 12 range. That was all fine. And he, you know, would he end up making the second team all NBA or did he make third second team? Yeah. Yeah. Because that's a couple of injuries. But yeah, that's that's all fair. So you can't win if that guy is your best player. The only names I wrote down were Devon Booker and Jalen Brown. Oh, wow. I went through the ring at 100 and I was trying to figure out because the natural inclination of this is like, could you win a title now with Tray Young? It's like, I don't think so.
I think this is, this is at the moment, this right now, right now at the moment, we're not talking about two years ago or talking about right now, I mean, I was going to include Joel and bead, but that's obviously ludicrous now. I think you, I think that's okay. I think you could include that because that would seem improbable now, but also conceivable, right? Jalen as the guy, because ultimately what we're talking about here is I have a good team built around this one central force, who will be able to get me baskets when I need them the most. This is the reason this person isn't, they couldn't get baskets when they needed them the most. Ultimately, that's why they lost. Booker I think is a really good one because I think his stock has slipped a little bit and I'm sure Phoenix is now looking at what just happened with the next being like we could do this here with Booker. We could build the same type of team over the next two, three years of chemistry, the secret, we just learned the secret from Kevin Durant and Bradley Beall, what not to do. And let's build a team round booker and he can be our Brunson. The only other one I was mildly intrigued by it, but feel free to talk me out of this in two seconds. Shenguin. I don't think he's good enough. Yeah, that's why I landed, but I thought about it in my head. I think I think that's the best kind of asset guy right now who I feel like somebody could get. Like if I was Milwaukee, I would be looking at him. I thought he was in the worst possible state. He didn't know fucking point card last year on a team that had no three point shooting and had Kevin Durant with the Burner scandal and it will always go down as one of the most curious set of decisions by the Houston Rockets for a team that was that seemed so prepared coming into the season. And as soon as FVV got hurt over the over the summer, it's like they went into some kind of mode. I don't understand it. Like you had a catastrophic thing happen. You were completely loading up. You had the head coach in place with e-mail, you brought Durant in, this is the thing. They had Durant in. So why are you tossing away the air? Right. Just nothing. We're just going to tread water and see if we can pull something out of our butts. Shengoon tears to me. He turns 24 in July. Last season he was 29 and six assists a game. Shout 52%. I don't, without a point card. I don't know. Shengoon plus two picks to Milwaukee. Now you're talking like he reminder to if I'm Milwaukee, I would rather have Shengoon and other stuff for Janice than that weird Miami offer. There's like, here's a bunch of our guys from our 41 win team. It's a non lottery, some non top 10 picks. There's literally nothing coming out of Miami that's of any interest whatsoever. Like I love bam, bam's good, but it's a bad, it's an average basketball. Milwaukee called you and said, Shengoon for Jabari, but you got to say yes right now. And you have to take back who's in the deal. Would you do it? Wait, wait, wait. Shengoon for who? For Jabari Smith and Shengoon for Janice. And Houston would also have to take Calcuzma's expiring as part of the deal. So Kuzma and Janice for Shengoon and Jabari Smith. Could you rather that than the Miami offer? A thousand percent. Not even close to me. I would too. Jason from Ohio wants to know, after seeing the love and affection New York cities had for Brunson as the star that finally brought them the championship. Which player do you think has the most regret for not going to the next and ending the drought when they had a chance? Is it LeBron, KD or someone else? So this was the case. I remember writing a piece about this in 2010 that 2010. Think about that. Yep. 2010 saying this was the all time move for any NBA player. They had 16 more years of sadness after that. But we were saying like, this is the move for LeBron and Wade. You win a title in New York. That's the greatest thing you can do in the league. Right. Band it up. Not going there. There's a lot of reasons for that. Including the Nixima kind of a mess. Donnie Walsh and the wheelchair. They made some weird sopranos video all that stuff. And KD and Kyrie in the summer of 2019, KD's coming off the Achilles. Kyrie wants to get out of Boston. KD wants to be in New York with rich climate and their whole business. I was doing pod saying, because I knew they were going to be in New York. I was like, he's going to the next. They're going to be in New York, not realizing that they were picking Brooklyn and not New York. Which one is worse to you, LeBron and Wade not going there, KD and Kyrie? I'm going to say KD and Kyrie, just because the East is so, was so gettable, like you could fast forward right into a bunch of finals, like a string of finals appearances with the, you know, the talent that they could have had in place there in New York. I mean, you know, the big what if is the injury situation or surrounding Kyrie, would he have gotten hurt with that same kind of frequency? I mean, you remember Durant was, you know, the only guy out of Thore Harden, Kyrie, the only one that was healthy. They were a 17 win team, heading into that for agency, led by Tim Hardaway, Jr. Kevin Knox, Dennis Smith, Emanuel Moodie, Dennis Canter, it was a great tank job. No, they were tanking. They tanked. Frank Nylinka. They were going for the Zion. Mitchell Robinson was there. The court that was there, but they went to the nets and made them kind of clear the house and do the whole thing. Hey, it's a really interesting KD, what if I don't know if they win the title with them, but think about how he is considered right now versus if they had gone him and Kyrie together to the next rejuvenated MSG. Maybe Leon comes with West the next year anyway. Oh, right. The right team right on them. Wow. And maybe this all happens for those two guys. It is a pretty good one if that's a great one because think of that right that the magnetism of those two guys coming and what that does in terms of the incentive for other people in the league. Everybody loves the bright lights of MSG. Everybody wants to be the king of New York. Those guys miscalculation was that Brooklyn was going to be a thing. Brooklyn is never going to be a thing. It's not a thing now. It wasn't a thing back then and it's never going to be a thing. Think about the next four East title winners after that, after they went to Brooklyn. 2020 Miami, unbelievable, COVID season, 2021 Milwaukee. Which was a good team. I mean, the middle team, that was the best year he's had throughout a year on us. They had their role players. Conantin was good that year, 2022, a very young Celtics team that probably wasn't ready. Not ready. 2023, the heat again, like Katie, Kyrie and a couple of other people could happen. Now Kyrie did get a little little Kuku there for a couple of years and I think he settled in to a much better place. I actually like everything that Kyrie is saying and doing the last couple of years. But we're going to have a new round of Kyrie sweepstakes this upcoming season. It's going to be one of the fun storylines, maybe the Katie staying there and Brunson moving in there. Who knows? But it is a pretty imagine. James, who says, love the pot. Thanks, James. With Brunson winning a title in NYC, my friends and I, New York natives have been debating who is the top dog of the city. The debate falls largely and Geter versus Brunson, while Frazier etched in stone. I introduced the backroom theory. Essentially, Geter and Brunson walk into a restaurant at the same time. Who does the owner give the backroom to? This is a great way of framing Brunson versus Geter. And I'm going to throw Aaron Judge in there too. Let's give him a number one. But Aaron Judge is there too. And all of them, there's one backroom for 10 seats who gets it. I think Brunson gets it now. You don't think the owner says, guys, can we share? Would you guys be willing to share the room? Each of them have nine people with them. Well, some of them, like, you know, I would be, it would be like you and I don't know who your equivalent is going in there. And then, and then, like, if I, I would get kicked out, like, some of the on-per-osh has to go sit out. No, they would see you and be like, oh, Joe House is here. That's going to run the bill up by $2,000. Fair enough. Fair enough. Fair enough. I think it's Brunson. I think Jeter lost his spot. He had it from the late '90s to now. I think it's over. I think it's fun. There's a generation. I, we should ask Jack O. I feel like there might be a generation now that might not remember the greatness of their cheater. Is that possible? It's a long time. Yeah. His last World Series, they went in 2000 and then they had the Tainted 2009 title. Here's the great one. Scott Cameron. By the way, Judge wins the World Series and now him versus Brunson is an argument, but he has. Scott Cameron writes, "Brunson just became only the third under six foot three guard, along with Isaiah and Gus Williams to be the best player in a title team. Where does that put him in the small guard pantheon?" I, I bring this question up and I'll answer in a second. I left out Gus Williams last weekend and I feel really bad.
about that. He also wasn't in the pyramid of my book. And I feel bad about that too. And I think it's one of my big misses because I went back and made a playoff MVP list at one point. I think he was the 79 playoff MVP. He was the best guy in the 79 champs. He averaged 26.7 points of game during that playoffs. He has a first team on the second and two thirds. He was fifth in MVP voting in 82. He made finals, finals, Eastern Conference finals, three straight years, held out 8881. He's the best point guard in the league from 78 to 82. For five years, he's the best point guard in the league and the magic takes it. And then ends up on your beloved wizard's team. But I I feel like I've done a bad job keeping the Gus legacy alive. I know you loved him too. Yeah, for sure. And when you do the resume, it's just that that was such a quiet moment for the league, right? I know what I think I penalized them for that. Yeah. And it was like Walton was in there. It's like, you can't do it. So if you're going to praise Brunson, you can't just discount Gus Williams. You know, so I feel like I did a bad job. Anyway, the small guard pantheon, it's Brunson Isaiah Gus Williams and Tony Parker with titles. And then Iverson and Dame and Chris Paul. Wait, where's Tiny Archibald in this? Tiny can be there too. I'm just saying those are the four guys with titles. So I think if you're doing a pantheon, small guard pantheon, you do the titles and non titles. So maybe the non titles is Iverson, Dame, Chris Paul, Tiny Archibald. Okay. Okay. Although Tiny Archibald did win a title in 1981. So maybe he should be on there too. It's to me, it's Brunson and Isaiah. But I think Gus Williams, I think that's, you got to start with those three. And I again, apologies to Gus. Ethan wants to know where I play and I'm putting OG and an OB in my ringer top 100 that there's a case that he should be top 25 or higher. Best non-centered offender in the league. Really good offense. If you secured your number one awesome superstar, isn't he the perfect number two, perfect compliment all time winning basketball. We're coming off a great playoffs. I handed my ringer 100. I had OG 17th. Oh my God. Yeah. What? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. You know what I like house winning. Is he is he ahead of cat in what you just handed in? You know where I cat 11th. Oh, okay. All right. All right. I mean, all right. Okay. Fine. Yeah. I only probably next in the top 20. And I think that's the right call. Yeah. Again, when I was looking at over the course of the regular season, OG was always in the like the 40 range. Now, he was consistently ahead of Darren Fox, which I felt I was glad that that, you know, look at the rankings and see that. But the only thing ever with OG is availability. Like, you know, he, it's just the injury stuff. Now, congrats. Of course. Of course. That's right. Congrats to the next congrats to OG that he, we got all the way through. He was able to get himself completely healthy for the finals run. It was a thrill to see him at his, at his peak, his basketball IQ. This is the thing that that we should also laud this, this next teams for what the reason that they had the highest point differential is because they had the highest level of decision makers. Yes, cat with a dumb foul trouble would always be something that you can point to. I would also say that he was getting picked on. I mean, the two fouls at the beginning of, of game four were to me ludicrous. But look, that's setting all that aside. OG, um, how about the OG 5th foul in game game 5? They didn't even replay that. I don't think no, I know. I know. But is I, yeah, fit the at all time big brain. OG. So great. Congrats. Great job. Matt from LA wrote, um, that I said OG is the best 3 and D guy of the era. And he's like, what about early spurs, Kauai Leonard? Fine. Best defensive point in the league. Sat in the corner, shot threes, crashed a glass. So I was looking at the three, with 3 and D only really goes back to 2009. Trevor Arisa was the first like impactful. And it was really only in the finals, but had a really good 3 and D finals. It was the first time Posey was in there. There's a couple like, sure, 3 and D adjacent, but not like what we have now. I was, look, I went through all the title teams trying to figure out the best. Um, like there's 2,023 KCP. There's a couple Danny Greens. But they're all like 11 points of game in that range and didn't take a lot of field goals. It is 14, Kauai and 26 OG. These are the play offsets. Right. OG was 20 points a game, 20.1 points a game. His percentages were 56 field goal, 49, 3, 85, free throw. You know, it took 11.6 field goal attempts a game in average, 20.1 points. 2014, Kauai, 14 points a game, 10.4 field goal attempts, only one less shot a game, 51, 42, 74 percentages. So they're around the same. It's just he took less 3s than OG did, but it's a good one. Now Kauai was guarding LeBron. OG, I guess was was guarding the guards on the spur. He didn't have a LeBron type assignment, but that they're 1a and 1b. I'm not, Kauai won the finals MVP. OG had the most famous play in basketball in the last 10 years. Yeah. Let's just have them side by side. I think it's side by side. I don't want to pick between that. Okay. I'm glad you agree. A couple more Brunson's. This is from D Bob in New York, KD. Brunson and the next are now the 19 out of 80 champs. Not to have a top five player. 26 next 14 spurs, 04 pistons, 88 and 89 pistons, 79 sonics, 78 bullets, 73 nicks. And he threw the 48 bullets in there for us. Thank you, D Bob. Basically, he's saying going by MVP votes or first team. He suggests can we have a can we get rid of the can't win a title that a top five player role if nine of 80 champions didn't have a top five player. That's like 14%. Yeah. My counter is that I would argue Brunson now is a top five player. And maybe he doesn't count for this one. 14 spurs was really the last one where we're like, I don't even know who do they have a top 10 player. But I think Brunson, it's Joker, SGA Brunson, Wembee and Luca, probably in that order. Or Wembee over Brunson, however you want to do it. But those are the five best players in the league right now. True. Yes. But do you do you think are you ready to dump that rule, though? Because that didn't make me think. No, because it's 86% right the other way. I was thinking about doing a playoff man. It was going to do a playoff manifesto for basketball next year. And I think that would be one of like their suggestions. They're not set in stone. But I think that is a good one to look at because that is once a decade. Yeah, right. There you go. Yeah. Once a decade. So once a decade, something weird happens. This is basically the line. Look at it. Jonathan New Jersey wants to know, wants us to know. Guess who has the most playoff wins for a player since 2021. It's no longer Brown or Tader Marani Celtic. It's Jalen Brunson at 51. Wow. Greatest playoff performer of the decades so far. That helps the the Pyramid case. All right. We're going to take one more break and then I have a lot of spurs fan spurs e-mails that you're going to enjoy. Oh boy. David wants to know. Game five did the rich New York asshole fans just in decent proposal the entire city of San Antonio. Wait a minute. What's the walk me through it? Remember this proposal. Redford Woody Harrelson and Demi Moore need money. Right. They're in Vegas gambling and Robert Redford becomes a fatty with Demi Moore and he's like, I'll pay you a million dollars for a night with your wife and then they argue about it and decide to do it and she does it. That's basically all the spurs fans with their game five tickets. There's 45% Nick fans there. Now you're able to pay for your season tickets by doing it, but it is I do like the in decent proposal game is a pretty fun way to do game five. Really good. Mike G wants to know, um, 2026 next best example of the secret since the 14 spurs. How many other teams would you say fully embodied the secret as well? Um, I thought the 16 calves kind of got there. Sure. Sure. I mean, I really respect the the lie. I know they were dream on suspension, but winning that game seven in gold and state and yeah, Richard Jefferson and Kevin Love like playing date like I thought that I don't think they got there the whole playoffs, but I think they got there in those last three games. But every team embraces it to some degree. The 14 spurs is the most famous one, I think, in the last 12. So that's fine. Um, and the other maps I would put up there too. We're really splitting fine hairs to me, because every one of like the every three nuggets. Yeah, 23 nuggets is a good one. Yeah, that's pretty good. Like, you know, they've really understood, uh, and Joker is the facilitator of, of the secret, right? You know, who do you want touching the ball, um, to administer the secret? 17 hours at it. Joker. The thing is every, every champion has the secret. Of course. Yeah. There's two teams that feel like they won because of the secret in the last 13.
years. The next, uh, that's fine. Spurs where it was like one of the top two reasons they won. Fine. Um, I think 11 maps are up there. I would put the 04 pistons there. Good. Um, agree. That's probably it. That's fine. Um, Travis from San Antonio said salty spurs fan here. Watching Fox in the finals was as painful as it can get. It had me wondering what are the worst finals performances from the highest paid guy in a team? And not sentenced to you. I did the research. So Fox was 13, three and six. He shot 34% 25% from three. Got torched by Brunson on the other end and then had the game for brain fart. I'm not ready to put 2016 curry in there. I do think some people would 23 game. He was 40 and 40, 40, 89 shooting splits. He played a bad game seven. I don't think he was bad for the series. These five I think are in the combo. Um, I'll go backwards from furthest away. 1993 Kevin Johnson mentioned earlier, 17 points of game. Um, just absolutely murdered them in the first two games. It's got to the point where Frank Johnson seemed like a better option for him in the series. I remember this. Yes. My mind went there immediately. Stats backed it up. Nick Anderson with the four free throws that he missed. For the series, 12 points of game, 36% shooting, three for 10 free throws. And just got wiped out. So he has to be mentioned. There's a great. This one got lost to history, but Kevin Martin, uh, I'm sorry, Kenyan Martin in the 2003 finals against Duncan when Duncan ran a mock and one of the great start to finish season's anyone's had. He destroyed Kenyan Martin, the first couple games of this series. Kenyan Martin for the series was 14 and 10, 34% field goals. And we made a lot of jokes as it was happening. I don't think it was really his fault, though. He got destroyed by that. He took a lot of shit that series. I'm just saying. I know, but he was going against Tim Duncan, the same part of all time. Colby Bryant, 2004 finals against the distance. Wow. That's funny. Of course, you had to do that. You're not the premise here, though, was like the highest paid. It's not just naming famous guys. finals, performance from highest paid guys. So that Kenyan Martin was the highest paid guy in that next thing. Yeah. For sure. Okay. I get that. But Colby in 2004. Okay. All right. All right. Can I give you the stats? Go ahead. They lost in five. 46 minutes a game. 23 points a game. Three assists a game. 38% shooting. 17% from three. It was three for 23 from three. And kind of got his ass kicked by the pistons. Now, the Laker fans, I've heard this spin from the Laker fans on this. Shack was out of shape. Yes. Colby had to take a lot of shots near the end of shot clock possessions. I'm just saying. He has to be mentioned. But the worst one ever is LeBron in 2011. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. Okay. All right. He dipped down. He was like a 27, 28 points a game guy. He dipped down to 18 a game. 18, 7 and 7. 32% from three. 12 for 20 from the free throw line. And famously, the eight point game in game four who's being guarded by JJ Berea and really felt like he melted down in a bunch of different ways. To a point that we started a wonder, is this going to happen? Do we put too much pressure on him? Then he bounces back the next year and goes on his run. But I think I think that that's probably the worst one other than Nick Anderson. What would you say? Well, I was Nick Anderson at that point. That's the other one was he he was paid at the top of of that Orlando team. Nick Anderson was not and he shouldn't be in the conversation. But I just wanted to talk about how terrible of a finalist he had. Kevin because Kevin Johnson versus Barclay is probably even. Yeah. I mean, did Kevin Johnson made more than Marley at that point, right? Yeah. So he's in the top two. But yeah, if you're talking highest, highest paid, it's Kmart Kobe and LeBron. But I wanted to mention Kevin Johnson. And Deer and Fox by default is the highest paid spur. He's the highest paid spur. I am going to again mount a gentle defense for Fox. I remember he was missing a trade for him. No, no, I definitely do not want that. But he missed a whole bunch of playoff games. He was missing games because he had a leg injury, had an ankle injury. Yeah. And it is not that uncommon for a guy to come off of an ankle injury and to not shoot the ball well. Now, the the challenge is the moment called for the highest level all of the shots that became available. That's a mission. That's a problem. That's right. I agree. It's more of a miss Johnson problem than Deer and Fox blame circle. To me, if I'm handing out slices of blame pie, the what the way the next played second half defense, especially is and fourth quarter defense, what was open was a mid range jumper for whoever had the ball. And that mid range jumper, the bug, the guy with the ball at the end of games was Deer and Fox. And he missed nearly every effing one of them. I mean, and that's the why you have salty spurs fans writing it. Next year would be Laurie market and banging them down. That is a really good trade. It's really good. You're going to love this next email. And I almost sent it to you, but I wanted your natural reaction live on the podcast. It's from Todd Womack. He writes, he's French, he's cheesy and he melted down. Wendy's nickname should be fondue. Put it out there, Bill. I love it. He's told me to. And this is probably the low point of his career. But the big fondue is pretty funny. Somebody, you know, part of the rich experience of these finals was after each game trying to imagine what the New York Post might run as their cover thing. And one of the after game four, my two favorites, they didn't go with either one of them was just the tip for OG come flying in. That was magnificent. I heard that from many quarters including my boy, my boy Peter Friedman gave me that one. And then Sakre blew it. That was somebody on the internet who had had I'm in your, I'm in your head, when, beyond the floor, yelling at Mitchell Robertson doing that thing. And then the headline was Sakre blew it. Like, wow. Oh, man. God damn magnificent. I don't remember who put that on the big fondue. That's where we're going. Let's keep going. The big, that's great. There's no reason. I like the big fondue better because I get all these jokes going because he's going to wreak havoc on the league and the anger he gets the more fun. The next seven seasons of it. This is what makes next season. There's upcoming season. So God damn magnificent. How many times did Nick go right the fuck at him? He's like, oh, gee, I'm a duck on this bit. Did you see the Johnson clip in the second half? There was a slow mo version of it was one of his baskets in the fourth quarter. Wembee gets switched on him. And Brunson does like he does the Brunson thing where he seems like he's going to go left crosses over. Yeah. Gets Wembee on his side. And Wembee's like sprawling around. It looks like a deer on Ace. Then cuts in like he's going to try to get a foul on Wembee. So Wembee kind of stops and he does this thing again. And then Brunson cuts the other way. Wembee flails the other way to go get him. And then Brunson comes back and does the left left. It's like, yeah, I know. It's emotion. It's like one of the great clips I've ever seen in basketball. And it's like everything you need to know about how great Jaylen Brunson is. Just fucking working a seven foot six guy. He was cooking up the fondue. It's amazing. Fun new show. We it's good. Before we moved to LA, my wife and I went to Montreal. Yes. And we went to a wonderful city. We went to a fondue restaurant. Yes. And we just ate fondue. And it was like one of the great most memorable dinners I've had. It was like just fondue. Just there was a chain of the nuts on fondue. There used to be a chain. It was like called the hot pot. I can't remember now. It was like have we had fondue together? I don't think we've ever had fondue together. That's amazing. How have we not had fondue? What if Chang has fondue thoughts? Let's do this. Let's I'm gonna talk fondue with Chang. You're going to live here. Manifest it. Cam from North Carolina. I got a bunch of different versions of this question. We'll go with Cam. Is Wendy the quickest here at a villain arc in sports history? I think you can make the case. The finals alone changed how people looked at him entirely. Like even SGA that happened over the course of the season and in the playoffs. Then Chris from DC. He added on Chris. He added Wembee walked into June as the consensus future face of the league and walked out of it as the most unlikeable man in the sport. I went in rooting for this guy hard. I came out wondering if he's the most punchable player since peak Dremond. Kevin said has anyone in history pulled off the difficult feat of going from emerging face to the league to man. This guy's a fucking jack off in less than two weeks. Nathan Stewart wants to know is Wembee a fake tough guy? He comes across like the villain in a teen movie. He was smiling and acting like the perfect kid when the adults are watching but playing dirty and trying to bully people and no one's looking.
Um, it just keeps going and going phenomenal, um, this is the sentiment right now. This is why I said to Zach Glow on Saturday night when I was talking about face of the league, future of the league, when he's here and it was like this was kind of a catastrophe for all those angles. I think it was. It wasn't a catastrophe for his career. He's 22. He's got his whole career. I'm not overreacting to that. This is part of the process. It was just interesting to watch the perception of him shift that fast, right? Well, here's the thing and, uh, I want to sit take a couple of steps back and see as we approach the next season, whether this still holds true. I think there is, there's never been a more pronounced kind of experience of NBA basketball than this moment. I think he's absolutely beloved by kids around my age by teenage kids, uh, and, and, and, and younger, they will all universally tell you that they love Wembee and they, they are not like my son. My kid is the same thing. Right. And he's 18. He's a little older than your boy. How many games did he sit down and watch from the beginning to the end of these NBA finals? I mean, I could tell you for my kid, none zero. My kid doesn't sit down and watch, you know, games all the way through. He comes in. I make him come in and watch first quarters for me, but nothing about what went down in these finals changes his perspective when it comes to, to, to Wembee and, and, you know, the reverence. He, I can't tell you how many times this big dummy kept coming to me. Dad, how far away is Wembee from the goat? I'm like, you got to get though. You got to leave the room right now because I do not want to be responsible for child abuse, but I will hit a man if you keep talking to me that way, even if it's a young man. But I mean, that's, that's, there is we out the, the, the, the basketball commentary it, everybody in our echo chamber, writ large, all of New York, he, all of New York hates Wembee now. I mean, it's wonderful to have him as a villain. But I think there is still yet amongst this generation that's coming up as NBA fans consuming the NBA, not by watching games, but by consuming it on the internet that will still hold Wembee in the highest regard. Honestly, similar to us with Jordan, we were in college together. We love Jordan. We love them. But when they play the, when they play the Lakers in 91, I was like, he's going to lose. He's not ready for this yet. He's magic. The old guys, they're going to teach, teach that Michael Jordan a lesson and this is part of the process. You got to get your teeth kicked in early. You got to climb the ladder rungs and then you got to get to where you're going to get. I will read these two emails though. Melting pot. That was the name of the fondue place. I didn't look it up. I knew I could get it. The melting pot. Keep going. Sorry. Michael from Chicago. Can't help but think Wembee is pulling a 98 car on Malone. Oh. Clutch free throws aren't going in tentative to shoot didn't seem like he totally wanted the ball. It's not to say he'll never have it, but he just doesn't have it yet. Might be mean or unfair, but here we are. He's 22. This criticism, I agree with. This is from KJ after watching the playoffs. I knew two things about Wembee, he's either seven foot five, seven foot six or seven foot seven. Agreed. I think he's seven seven, but they're claiming seven five, but he's probably really seven six. That's the first thing. Second one. He's gasped at the end of these games. Has there ever been a 22 year old superstar who was always gasped at the end of big games? Magic certainly wasn't. Jordan Bird, Will Russell, Kobe Duncan, you get the picture. Wrong. This is it. This is dead wrong. Who do you have? Go ahead. Shaq. No, no, I'm not. I'm not. Go ahead. I will finish the point. That's it. Then this entire time together, this wonderful time on this Monday post NBA finals, talking about some of the ways that the Knicks took advantage of the Spurs. I think it is a learned skill. Part of what is involved with this version of the Spurs, none of those guys ever played this level of basketball under these circumstances. 10 minutes to that. The highest leveraged moments of their entire lives on the basketball court. Now, Wembee did get the Olympics. You know what the difference between the Olympics and the NBA is? The Olympics. It's the game for 40 minutes. They're not 48 minutes. Two and a half weeks. Right. Big, big breaks in between games. This version, and that's why I said earlier, it's a learned skill. It's a skill you have to and you have to. Not just the individual players understanding when to expend energy and when not to. You don't win the game in the first quarter or the second quarter, like all of those kinds of lessons. You don't celebrate the Western conference finals like you won the title. That was fine. I mean, this was unexpected and their target all along was Oklahoma City. We know this from the way that they went at Oklahoma City. That was my biggest regret. My biggest regret was I discounted how they reacted after the BDO KC because your own handicapping. My own handicaps. I thought they had a better team than New York. I thought they had the perfect team to go against Brunson, and I was right for three and half games. But what I discounted was they had kind of already climbed the mountain, whereas the next were like, I see fucking older veterans who were like the next series is the one. And that spurs. I don't think I ever realized that until it was too late. How else are they going to, they can't learn it. That this is the reason why, you know, it's a very, very unique thing that we experienced this year, where we kept saying, is this the moment where we see the spurs in experience catch up to them? It wasn't until they made it to the finals and went against the Knicks. I don't think there's any other team in the entire NBA except for maybe a fully healthy Oklahoma City. If Oklahoma City hadn't undergone the injury experience with Mitchell and J.D. Exactly. Right. Then where would that have ended up? But they kind of had, they kind of had OK C's number. I think what was interesting about this, like Castle lost confidence as the finals went along. Now, you could have said it was the moment it was the, how many minutes they played in the playoffs. But those last two games, he, he went sideways, you know, he did not shoot the ball well. He didn't shoot. But I mean, again, foul trouble on game four. And then game five was kind of afraid to do stuff. But this is all part of the learning experience. All right. This next question from Ethan is good one, though. 80 years NBA history tells us that if you make the finals this young and lose, you probably won't make it back with the same iteration of that team. He lists 86 rockets to came in Samson didn't get back there until 94. Shaq and Penny in 95 never happened again. LeBron in 07, never won including KD until 16, but came back and it was, he was the only same guy in the team and had to leave for four years fair, fair, fair, made to rig three lottery's form. Did I say that a lot? KD Russ Harden, that was the joke, KD, KD Russ Harden and Abaka in 2011 traded hard and never got it back. Interesting. Once a decade, 86, 95, 07 and 11 and now the spurs would be the next example in 26. There's two outliers for this, the 22 Celtics, they lose the finals, everyone's ready to trade JB for whoever and they make it in two years later and they win with the same nucleus. They have Derek White, they have Pritchard, they have Coreford still, and they had the Jays. They get, they add porzinga and they add Drew Holiday, but they had a lot of the same nucleus, so that's an outlier. And then the 79 Sonics, they make the 78 finals, they lose game seven, Dennis Johnson goes I think over 11 in game seven, but then they win the next year against your team. So interesting theory though, didn't make me go, huh? What can the spurs do? Because I think this is the version of the spurs that we're going to see for the next couple of years, there aren't like, they just ain't no harbor to become the guy we think he is. I don't think they're that far away, but the build the right thing that would support the idea that it may not come next year, that it might not even be two years from now, is how good the West is. We still have these. And injuries. Yeah. Well, sure. Yes. Always injuries, especially with Wembee. Coach Steve has the spurs over action trade. All right. The Warriors received the air fox, pick number 20 and Mitch Johnson. The spurs received Jimmy but there's expiring and Steve Kerr. Wow. Wow. I got to say, I kind of thought about this for a couple of minutes and I landed in a really good place with it. This sounds very petty. Coach Steve must be from San Antonio, that is a very petty trade. So Steve Kerr, you're you're buying low and Mitch Johnson. That younger guy moving in, maybe you know, maybe he learns, got some scars in the finals. You get pick 20. We know like for a lot of others expiring and Steve Kerr gets to go back to San Antonio. I like. Well, not only that, he loves stuff, but what coach would say no to the opportunity to coach up Wembee? And Castle. Can somebody aggregate that? Like, that's a real trade. I want to say everybody go nuts. That's the point. Yeah. What else says as someone who loves all sports, you know as well as I do, sports are a copycat league. If you're an NBA exec in any stage of your franchise, what did you learn from how the nicks were built? How would you copycat it? I have five things for you to tell me.
I missed anything. - Okay. - Executives with connections that run a little deeper than just, oh yeah, I met that guy a couple of times, like West recruited towns when he was 15 years old. - Yes. - OGN and OVCAA, Brunson, Rick Brunson, that whole thing. Like these are like real relationships and bridges Villanova. Like, how do you replicate that with somebody, right? So we've seen our entailment to Detroit and that didn't work. We saw Bob Myers go to Golden State, that did work. We saw Nico go to Dallas. Too early to tell if that worked. But you're talking about connection personality, guys. There are a few of those left. There's some pretty high-powered agents left. There's somebody like even the ringer's rich Paul could run a team. Like there's guys who have a lot of relationships who could do it. So that'd be one. This one's interesting. Targeting proven starters, hitting the 25 to 28 age range, a little bit older, like the Rashid Detroit, OG, Bridges, even when they got Brunson, like getting guys at that second five years part of their career, but not too late, right? That's like somebody like Yannis and your 14. Or Kevin Durant and your 15. You gotta find out. But you know what I mean? That makes sense, right? Like that second five years of somebody's career. Can we get somebody in that range? Leveraging the player-to-player friendship histories. Chemistry work at the gritty guys I think is one. And then that, I think it's less of them is don't be afraid to take a couple of swings. Like firing tips was a swing. Doing the OG trade and guaranteeing them this contract when we weren't positive he could always stay healthy was a swing. Jalen for four for 106 was not a hugely popular contract. Five picks for Michael Bridges. Like this team fucking went for it a few times. And I think anything else would you add? No, and I don't know how replicable any of that is. I mean, the challenge, the thing that the next pulled off was like literally decades in the making, right? It's Leon Rosen, World Wide West, in the situations that they've been in. Literally defibrillations. Right, yes, yes. And having perspectives on players that were undervalued or underappreciated in their situations and understanding the force multiplier of bringing those guys together. Like, you know, we know we can unlock something. We know something about Bridges that he doesn't need to be an alpha that he can be even a what is he? A Theta, whatever alpha beta, whatever the third wheel is. He doesn't even need to be a second. He could be fourth because you have a key of cat also. And they got the best version of cat because they got a combination of cat maturing also like, you know, 'cause think about how many times the next, you know, theoretically we're trading cat, right? Over these last two years. Oh, we got to trade cat, like even this fans, we're not reaching our potential. You know, we only won 50 games two years ago and 53 games this year and cats holding us back and tibs and cat can't get on the same page. Like, well, that means tibs has to go 'cause we're not going to trade cat. Like, just think about that and how they were rewarded for just, let's just settle down. Let's just hold on. And the two, the best player in the first two games of the NBA finals was cat. Do you want to be one of the judges of my ringer game show that I'm going to start this summer where we take Nick's fans, we give them true serum. What's the thing where you have to eat the drug where you have to tell the truth? I don't know the truth. Where they traded towns and OG and Obey for Yannis and Calcuzma a year ago. And so I don't have any Nick's fans would have 100% locked in for that if they wanted to see. Now he'll lie, fantasy, fantasy lies all the time. (laughs) Fantasy the liar. Travis wrote a tibs thing actually about, did I hate watching tibs run a rigid seven man rotation into the hardwood until the wheels fell off against Indiana? Absolutely. Did it drive me crazy? It completely froze out assistance. Managed huddles, blah, blah, blah. But I cannot deny the results of that boot camp. Tib's pressure cooked the core. He conditioned these guys to play heavy minutes without buckling. Tought them elite habits, blah, blah, blah. If he hadn't done all that, this roster doesn't want to title. So why is he still single without an NBA team? I was running a lottery team like Charlotte washed in Portland, Chicago, Dallas. I would take a flyer on him immediately. What are your thoughts on that? This is a brilliant email. And I hope it didn't come from Tib's agent because it came from Travis Thompson. Well, Travis Thompson, I don't, Travis, this is brilliant. I could not agree more. I think what tibs, this is literally the thing that I've been sort of re-enling against in terms of the criticism of San Antonio. They're not being ready. Then this next team was ready. And part of the getting ready was what tibs did to them. That's absolutely on the money. And I do think I have been wondering aloud. Why isn't tibs at least like a defensive assistant somewhere? You know where tibs would make sense? And I don't know San Antonio defensive coordinator? I mean, it could work. Well, Sean Sweeney is about to leave. He's the new head coach of Orlando. I wouldn't hate to see tibs in Washington, DC. I would not hate it. As your head coach? I don't know what role. Can you get rid of the guy? I gave up 83 points to be able to buy off. I'm not Brian Keith has done a magnificent job. And I don't have anything bad to say about him. Get out of here. You're here in Washington. You're crazy. But I don't hate the idea. A tibs deserves another shot. Well, just I'll leave it at the I agree. Gerald sent a long email about the 2026 spurs being the reincarnation of 2012 Thunder that I thought was interesting. How they ended up in 2012 finals going against like a boys against men type situation. Also a five game series that I felt like OKC was in those first four games. Good. Good. And the refs. I like it. I can't say I love the refereeing of the first four games in that series. And then by game five, they kind of wilted and but they were toe to toe with them. That whole series. All right. A couple more. Tim Gibson said, I'm sorry, I have to bring this up. The closest sporting event to what happened in MSG with game four of the finals has to be game six to the 86 world series. Not just because of the insane comeback and the choking aspect, but because it was the win before the clincher. Thanks for all you and everyone else that the ringer does from Tim. It's pretty good. Pretty good. It really is. The win before the win. Kind of the miracle that got the next fans to drop their guards finally after Trump game three, game four down 27. And you need some sort of karma shift. You have the Brunson front rim bouncing right to OG crazy tips sequence. That's basically the equivalent of the Red Sox having the 14 straight strikes that in the game and not being able to. And then the Darren Fox slash Bill Buckner. You keep going, but I thought that was pretty good and that and I still think game six to the 86 world series is the worst sports loss of all time on bias because I'm a Boston fan. But to come all those pitches away from winning the world series and then not doing it, but then having to play game seven. The only. I love this and it marries up perfectly because it was the game before the clincher. The only one that rivals it. And you mentioned it. Right. Immediately in the moment. No, no, no. No. The Atlanta Falcons giving up a 28-28 in the Super Bowl. But that wasn't, you know, that's the Super Bowl, which is not a game before a game. clincher. Kind of the situation. Yep. Dustin says, I have great news for Dallas fans. It's been a tough month for Dallas fans. Is he talking about the Dallas Mavericks? He has great news for Mavericks fans. He thinks the Cowboys have replaced the nicks as the sports team with the most fans who have had the longest drought. And we'll go the most nuts if they actually win the title. And he was like, sure, it's cool that they won the Super Bowl when I was seven, but the last 30 plus years have been brutal. So they won the Super Bowl in 95. So that's 31 years. So if you're 36 years older under, you have no recollection of the Cowboys winning the Super Bowl. I turned the podcast over to you, Joe House, because where are the ex-Redskin commander fans in this whole thing? And I would argue Washington has almost not as many fans as Dallas, but they have a fucking lot of fans. Yeah. Super Bowl drought was Mark Ripon, 91, 91 and to further this, we had a demon in charge of the franchise. I mean, a person that came in and ruined every single tradition that Washington had in place and a whole, I mean, part of the point of pride for Washington fans growing up in the 70s and 80s was that there was a culture. There was a way. Jack Kent Cook, you know, notwithstanding his checkered history with the Lakers and the rest of it as an owner of the Washington Redskins was a magnificent owner and did entrust, you know, the people that he put in charge to make good decisions and a culture developed in Washington. And that was part of the pride that we all felt that we, you know, it felt like Washington was built up the right way. All right. Okay. The hogs here in the city. Yes. is by far the biggest team in this city, and then to have the new owner come in.
and basically for two decades take a shit on every single thing that he took a shit on the fans. He took a shit on the on the city. He took a shit on winning. He was all to his own narcissistic ends and he was a huge dick and it took a near act of God for the league to kick him out, you know, to finally try and realize the potential of what this Washington franchise. Dallas is not in that class because. Yeah. Dallas has been relevant the whole time and has an owner that actually spent money and was interesting to build a new stadium. All of it. Yeah. You had more of the knicks arc of just being disemboweled for two straight decades. Right. And then on top of it, the RG3 piece of thinking you finally had the savior and then the guy gets hurt in a year was another yeah, the ramp sent out in a in a game after RG3 was no longer on on Washington. All of the draft picks, they sent out to the center of the field when they were doing the coin flip before a regular season rams Redskins game. Just a fucking yes. Yeah. Sean Macbase or I don't remember that head coach was just sent out all the guys that they got in that trade. Terrible. We'll end there. That's a good one to end on. I'm glad you were able to make the case for Washington. I do think there's only a couple, you know, like Buffalo is obviously. Yes. Buffalo deserves. Buffalo doesn't have a million fans. You know, Minnesota is another one. They have one of titles since 91. They've never won a title with the Timberwolves, the Lakers left and went won all these titles without them. But they don't have a million fans. I think when you get to the Cowboys and Redskins, which is what we grew up with, those franchises and then also had success and then that success was taken away. I think that I think those are the right two answers. There's nobody in the NBA like that. And then the Maple Leafs and the Maple Leafs and Hockey, I think, would be the other one. Ironically, the Giants have been bad for a long time. I mean, I know, but that was 2011. I'm okay. All right. Fine. Anyone who wants to shed tears for the Giants can honestly go fuck themselves. Obviously, I agree. Right in the face. Yes. Wholeheartedly agree with that. Before we go, what's your US Open Pick? I know you'd be covering this unfair way, Rowan and the ringer gambler show all week, but what do you got? Yeah. So I get, I reserve the right to change my mind over a couple of times. Scotty Sheffler at +550 is the best odds of any major. This is his first attempt. First attempt. Fandall right now. Yeah. His first attempt to clinch the Grand Slam. It's his first attempt because he just won the British Open last summer. So this US Open that he hasn't won. He's got the Masters. He's got the PGA Championship. He could clinch the US Open at those odds. Hey, how about this? I like the prohibitive favorite, but it is a good setup for him and the thing that has been holding like the narrative. I do like the narrative. It is the lead narrative. Scotty is fine and going down the card a little bit. Matt Fitzpatrick has been on an absolute heater. Now we've had two European winners win the first two majors of this season. We had Aaron Rye from the UK win the PGA Championship. It obviously Rory won the Masters, but Matt Fitzpatrick very easily could have four wins this season. He finished second this most recent week at the Canadian Open. He's just on a all-time heater and so I want a guy like that of the incredible ball striking and no problem at all with the distance the Shinnecock is going to post. Can I give you two? I'm listening. Fleetwood, twenty to one. Love Tommy Fleetwood. Everybody will remember that in 2018 he shot a sixty three that came this close to being a sixty two lost by one stroke to Brooks Keppga. Great. I was just wondering is it in the air from this next title? The improbable feeling a little more probable. We just had UFC where Pereira and Toporia just lost like weird is like the World Cup. God only knows what's going to happen. The team the team USA look at you looked incredible on Friday night. It's just going to be a weird month of sports and if that's the case Fleetwood. I had that also like to offer you Zander Shafley at twenty to one. Zander's wonderful. He has an extraordinary track record at US Opens in particular, but nobody in golf other than Rory and Scotty has as many high finishes in majors over the last ten years. He's our number one. You're due to actually win a major guy right now. Well, he has two majors. He won two in one season, but he won the PGA championship about Hala and then he won the British Open at Trune. So he's due to win, you know, the US Open, the Grand Valley of Mall. I met the real majors. The master's in the US Open. There's two tournaments that actually matter and he has one of those. Both of those are great picks worth worth getting some of some money down on both of them. Before we go, I just I went to the I went to the World Cup. Oh yeah, the opener. It's so fine. Look at you. I saw the best American soccer game we've ever played in the World Cup. I was I was in the Fandall box, shout out to Christian. And we had great seats. I had a great time. It's I got to say I was I was blown away by the by the team and DeBundo was calling this before the tournament. He was telling us like, look, I get it. I get the skepticism. Just know this is the healthiest we've been in like four years. This is the first time we've had all of our guys. Okay. They demolished Paraguay in the first half. It was unbelievable to watch. We had guys. Policic was just just dominating their back right guy. We over and over again. Guys just beating people 1v1 and then creating plays and I couldn't believe it. I was just I was just dumb founded. And then I don't know if that's the peak. We'll see. Australia beat Turkey. They did them upset. That was now we have the two Friday game with this Friday game that I think is really great. It's Friday afternoon, three o'clock Eastern time. This is everybody has to leave work a lunchtime. That's didn't do not put in a full day. Go to a fucking bar. It's a national holiday. There's no work. There's no work. It's Juneteenth. It's Juneteenth. You're not familiar with Juneteenth. I forgot it was Juneteenth. It's a holiday. This is unbelievable. I didn't realize that was the same day. I don't look at the three o'clock every day. I never know what the holidays are. I understand. Unlike this is going to be a really special day. And it's really a country that I like. Yeah. In general, but not on Friday. I hope I hope we get to see. Is it at so far? Where's the game? Seattle. Oh, I wanted to be in a warm climate because the photos that are coming from the warm climate games. Like I had a buddy who went up to Philadelphia yesterday to see Ecuador play the Ivory Coast. It's a loud card. And he was it was hot in Philly yesterday. Why? He says, first of all, I mean, I wonder if this marries up with your experience. This is my boy, Mickey. He says that it's like a rock concert. It's like it's not like a sporting event that you've ever kind of gone to. It's like a constant, constant high energy of the crowd, the entire time. But yes, I would not going to have that kind of complete experience in LA. Like where you're really getting it, you know, Scotland was in the Boston game playing in Foxboro. And my daughter went out with my daughter went out with her boyfriend Saturday night. They went to this place called Kugans, which was filled with Scottish people watching the World Cup and losing their minds as game five of the NBA finals was on. And she said it was the best sports bar experience in real life. They had like the greatest time ever. And she was like, these Scottish people are fucking nuts. She's like, we love them. But we never see anything like that. They were just maniacs. And I was like, you realize your mom's half Scottish, right? And she's like, now it all makes sense. She just she's 21 years old. She just realized you were like 25% Scottish and 25% Italian. But but she said she said it was one of the most fun nights because now she's 21 too. But she said they had like the greatest time. And so I think in some of these other cities, it's a little bit of a different experience than going to sofa in LA. But it was still great. I mean, it was everybody had the jerseys, people going nuts. The strikers third goal for us. Yes, it was had to be the greatest American goal I've ever seen. Not just in Perth, he say his name. Balgan. Balgan. But we're both gonna fuck that one up. It was like our country doesn't score goals like this. Thoroughly, you know, great run muscles to do it off. And then just like blast like and he's already turning around as the ball's gone in the corner. I was like, holy shit. He could have played for two other countries and he chose us. I like the guys that choose us. The guys that have options, but choose us. Yeah, there's I don't want to point out there's two weak spot guys that I didn't love during that game. Don't want to talk about. I don't want to talk about weakness. I want to talk about strength. Be positive. We're awesome. Richard's a fucking maniac in that game. But I really got excited. Like I couldn't be more excited to for the Friday game and everything else. So, World Cup. I can't wait to lose more money on it. Thanks to Tony Tokens. You'll be on I'm Ringer and Gamelix, show off fairway.
rolling. Thanks to get how and Eduardo as well for producing the pod today. I'm going to be back. I think I'm going to have two more pods this week. So stay tuned for that and then hand that rocks the cradles up on rewatchables right now. Joe House. Um, I didn't tell you this yet, but you're going to be one of the people live with me at the bread after the NBA draft on Tuesday night. So don't go. Let's go. Don't go anywhere. I mean, yeah, your team will take. I fly out to LA for that then. If I'm going to be live, I might as well be live. Why don't I have a meal? Like you're you're I'm holding out meals with Dave Chang over my head. Why don't I just kind of I'm sending you pictures tonight for the Dave Chang meal. We're going to a good one. Um, go get some fun, dude. All right. Thanks, House. Thanks to the big fun, dude. Thanks to everybody else. Thanks for all the meal bag emails out there. And I'll see you a little bit later in the week. Must be 21 plus and president select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas star casino or 18 plus and president DC Kentucky or Wyoming. Game problem caught 100 gamble or 1 800 by reset. Call 888 797777 or visit ccpg.org/chat Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghupline ma.org or call 800 327 50 50 for 24 seven sport Massachusetts or call 877 8 hope and why or text hope and why in New York for Louisiana call 877 777 0 786 7
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