Wondery plus subscribers can listen to six trophies ad free right now. Join wondery plus in the wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Wondering.

Jason.

Yes.

I participated this morning in a, in a career day thing. Right? Like at a school here in San Antonio. So you go to the school, they put you in a classroom, you're in there for, like, 20 minutes. You talk to a group of kids, they ask you questions about being a writer or whatever, and then they get them out of there. And then a new group comes in. This is like 20 minutes installments with the students that you're doing. And it went great. I always enjoy being back in the classroom. It always makes me feel good. I miss being a teacher. It reminded me, though, of my all time favorite version of this when I went and did it. This happened in 2018 or something? 2019. We had just gotten to San Antonio, and this school reached out, this middle school, and they asked me to come talk to the 8th graders. Nearing the end of the school year, they had the 8th graders, they're going to do, like, a big 8th grade assembly, sending them off to high school. They wanted to have not quite a motivational speaker, but somebody to be like, look, he went to school in this.

Area, and, like, a demotivational speaker.

So I go to the school, I'm up on a stage. I didn't realize how many kids was going to be, ended up being like, 308th graders or something. All in this assembly hall. They're sitting. It's like a theater seat.

300.

Yeah, that was a lot. I'm on the stage. There's a teacher from the school on stage. She's asking me questions. And for the last, like, 15 minutes or so, they were like, all right, we're going to do a Q and a. Anybody have any questions? And the kids, every time I do one of these, they always ask the same questions, no matter what school I go to. Or they always ask, who's the most famous person you ever met? Or, what's the coolest thing you've gotten to do from being a writer? That kind of thing. Right?

What are you driving right now? What's your car?

And so I'm answering the questions, and a kid raised his hand, and he asked me that exact question. He's like, over on the left side of the auditorium, and he's like, what kind of car do you drive?

Yeah.

And really what he was asking me was like, are you rich? Because if so, then I'm going to pay attention. And if you're not, then I'm not going to pay. That's what he was really asking me. And so I was like, oh, I drive a 2008 Jeep Wrangler. And then from the other side of the auditorium, from the other side of the auditorium and I just hear boo.

What? No respect for the dedication to keep a Jeep Wrangler running for ten years. You kids understand how hard that is.

I got booed at an 8th grade. At an 8th grade assembly. And it made me so happy. I was so happy. When that kid started booing, I couldn't stop laughing. I thought it was great. But I learned an important lesson that day. I learned a very important lesson. That lesson is this. Just lie. Like, just lie.

Always lie to kids.

Never stop. You tell the truth about important stuff, but little stuff lie. It's better for everybody.

You're absolutely right.

Yeah. If you ask me right now, who's the most famous person you ever met? I'm like, oh, I was hanging out one time at this bar. It was me. It was LeBron, Beyonce, Taylor Swift and the rock. We were hanging out. If you ask me what kind of car I drive, I don't even have a car. A. There's a helicopter on the roof of your school right now. I got flown here. I'm going to fly away when this is done. Like, just lie to kids.

That's exactly right.

To kids.

And let me say one thing to all the parents out there who's. How dare, how dare you say that? Blah, blah, blah, blah. Go tell your kid that Santa Claus doesn't exist. Do it right sudden. We got to tell the truth.

Yes. I think we should reevaluate what a noble lie is. We need to expand the parameters before we start the show. You had a thing you wanted to say, jason.

I did. I wanted to say this to all the Michael Jordan fans out there. I'm a fan of Michael Jordan as well. My argument has been a little misconstrued. I'm making one assertion that I think is fairly uncontroversial, which is that the teams that LeBron played were stronger in the finals at least than the teams Michael Jordan played. Doesn't mean that Michael Jordan's not great. Certainly, if you want to say that he's the greatest of all time, I'm not going to argue that I have my own reasons for going the way I did. But Michael Jordan was obviously the most dominant culturally, was probably the most important athlete we've seen in the last 30 years, certainly since Ali. I guess right now he's absolutely great. Dominant. He dominated his era like no other. But the one thing I just wanted to say again, and I have full respect for Michael Jordan, is, and this is just like coming clean about where I'm coming from, my analytical process, and the way I look at sports and culture and all kinds of things is I'm a fucking hater. I'm a hater in the rest of my life.

I'm an optimist. I'm a positive person in my interpersonal relationships. I believe in positivity, bringing out the best things in life with regards to sports and the NBA in particular. I'm a fucking hater. I'm a hater. Stone cold toxic.

There it is. There it is.

So I just wanted to put that out there.

Yeah. Great job. Way to go. You want to start the show?

Yeah. Let's do it.

From wondering. I'm Shay Serrano.

And I'm Jason Concepcion.

And this is six. That one got me.

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Hello, I'm Jason canceled. And welcome to six trovies, a podcast series hosted by myself and Chase Rano, in which we comb through all the NBA news from the past week and then hand out six pop culture themed trophies for six basketball related activities. In this episode, Luca goes loco. Adrian gets axed. Bandwagons are circling. All that and more. Let's hand out some trophies.

We do two sets of trophies. The big trophies and the little trophies. The big trophies are first. These ones are the same every week. First up, Denzel Washington and training day trophy given out to whoever it is who had the best overall performance of the week. Oh, my God. This week's winner. Luca. Luca. Luca.

Oh, my God. 73 points. Come on.

73 points. In a Friday night win against the Atlanta Hawks. 148 to 143. He shoots 25 for 33 from the field, 15 for 16 from the free throw line. Ten rebounds, seven assists, one foul. What a game. What a game for Luca the maniac Loka Doncic.

Just unreal stuff. What can you even say about it? And what a way to bounce back from the mini kerfuffle in which Luca apparently had in the previous game had a Suns fan ejected from the Mavs game for questioning his conditioning. What do you think about my conditioning now?

That's a lot.

73 points.

73 is gross. It's a gross number.

And you know what? Dejante Murray, who has made a name for himself as a two way guy in this league. The fuck are you doing, man? What? What happened? You just got the Jalen Rose special where you're going to have to live with this for the next few decades. You had 73 points dropped on your head.

He got rolling. There's not a lot you can do when Luca gets rolling.

There's not a lot.

There's not like nothing. There's nothing. What can you do? This is only the 15th time in NBA history somebody scored 70 or more points. It ties Wilt and David Thompson for fourth highest ever with 73. Joel and B just put up 70 and then doesn't even get to hold on to that for a week. He gets eclipsed already. Luca had 41 at halftime, 23 points in the second quarter, 18 in the first, like he was going nuts. Somebody's going to hit 80, 80 this season.

It feels like it might happen. Now, let me ask you this. A lot of conversation in the wake of this, a lot of scoring fear mongering in the wake of this and questions about defense. Are we playing defense? Is there not enough defense? What's happening? This is the one stat that somebody called out to me. I looked it up. Maybe it's troubling if you are a fan of defense, which I'm not a huge fan of defense, but there's people, there's weirdos out there that love when guys don't score. They love it.

I like defense. I like defense.

I like it, too. My team is the best defensive team in the league since the OG and an obtrade. Let's move on. The top six offensive seasons by offensive rating ever in the history of the league are right now. The Pacers, the Celtics, the Milwaukee Bucks, the Clippers, the OKC, Thunder, Philly. Those are by offensive rating. The six best offensive teams in league history are six teams that are playing right now. And then the rest of the top ten are all other teams from this season. The Knicks, the Nuggets, the Mavericks, and a couple of smattering of teams from last season. So we are in an era in which offense is just flowing, flowing well.

You got to figure this is the most offensively talented basketball players have ever been in history. Right.

So like the 90s, they weren't as offensively talented. That's interesting. That's interesting. Let me just table that detail for a second. Yeah. The rules changes. You can't touch guys on the perimeter in the same way they used to. The rise of the three pointer. The fact that we have these skilled bigs now that just can do everything from the inside in the danger position, it's created this reaction of just flowing offense, and I think it's just defenses need time to figure out, like, okay, what are we doing against some of this stuff? I think that's part of it as well.

Yeah, it ebbs and flows. The NBA will institute, they'll send out a memo, they'll change a thing or two. We've seen it happen before. The reverse version of this was in the early 2000s when they were like, we got to get scoring up and then they just moved the three point line. Yeah, three or four rules. Zone defense is okay again, or whatever. That's going to happen again here. But I think. I don't hate it. It's kind of fun.

I don't hate it.

Kind of fun to watch.

I don't hate it.

I don't hate it.

I get the argument that it kind of devalues it if guys are doing it all the time. At the same time, I personally do like it, and I just think we're seeing players that have, at their size, have a skill level that we've not seen yet in the NBA, and that is unique. It's a special thing. And it takes time for defenses to figure out what they're doing. Size is back on the menu in a lot of ways, and it's going to take time for defenses to react to that and for defensive thinkers to figure out schemes to get around this. But, man, scoring is crazy right now.

Yeah. So Devin Booker had 70 in 2017, right? That was the last time before this time. And then we get Damien Lillard had 71 last year, Donovan Mitchell 71. Embiid has it this season. Luca has it this season. Still, my favorite ever 70 point performance is always going to be David Robinson doing it, which I just love. It was the last game of the season. Him and shaq were competing for the scoring title.

Shaq's still mad about it, by the way.

He was so mad. Shaq had a great game, too. I think he's like 30 or 40 points and David hung 71 on him. Just so many mid range jumpers and two hand dunks, just over and over and over and over and over. I love it. I miss David Robinson. What a great guy. Next trophy, the Lauryn Hill. You might win some, but you just lost one trophy. Give it out to whoever it is who had the worst performance of the week. This week's winner. People who are not on the Knicks and Cavs bandwagons get on two hottest.

Teams in the NBA. We just talked about how defense is at a premium. Where's the defense? I'll tell you where the defense is.

I'll tell you where it is.

It's in New York, okay? Where the New York Knicks are absolutely crushing teams, including the reigning NBA champs, including the middling and in the middle of a tailspin. Toughest, nastiest, most unselfish, meadest. Best condition, seven game losing streak team, the Miami Heat, including a game last night where they didn't have OG, didn't have Julius Randall because of the injury he suffered at the hands of the Heat and, and still won. And then the Cleveland Cavaliers, who lost to the New York Knicks in physical fashion in last postseason and have responded by saying, okay, well, we're going to mold ourselves in the direction of the team that beat us. We're going to get it on the offensive glass. We're going to shoot a ton of threes. And they're nine and one in their last 1016 and eight at home. 28 and 16, fifth in the East. Donovan Mitchell going crazy. Two teams that are just crushing it right now. The middle of the east is like a knife fight in a phone booth. It is crazy.

I really like what Cleveland is doing. They're like nine and one in their last ten games or something like that. They look tough. They look great. Since December, when Sam Merrill started receiving regular minutes, the Cavs have ranked first and three point attempt rate second percentage points generated from threes. He is attempting the same number of threes per game as Corver did in 2015. Nearly half the minutes. He's sneaking up in there. He's sneaking up in there. I really like them.

I like them, too. Against my better judgment, I really like them. Now some questions, right? Because you mentioned it, they've been doing it with a deluge of threes. Like almost too many three. Like Zach Lowe talked about this on his pod where they've been taking like 40% of their shots from three. Is that too much? Now, Evan Mobley, who's been out, has recently returned, and he couldn't shoot a ball into a swimming pool from standing over the swimming pool. And Darius Garland has also been out. So there's a little bit of, like, addition by subtraction questions. What happens when those guys come back to this kind of scheme? They figured out, but very impressive, super impressive team. And then the Knicks, what can you say with OG in the mix? They have a rotation that now includes Taj Gibson on his second ten day contract back with Thibs. Again, they have a rotation when all their guys are healthy. That is just big everywhere. In your face, defensively and physical. And I have to know, for the Knicks, I questioned whether it was smart to have like a team where all the players went to college together.

The agent for some of the players is like the son of the GM. The GM is the former agent of the coach. Like all these kind of familial mafia connections. The star's dad is on the coaching staff. And you know what? This is a team that struggled with culture for a long time, and it was like a culture in a box. Like, you get a bunch of guys that all know each other and want to play for each other because they've known each other a long time and it has worked, man. This is the best stretch of Knicks basketball, literally, in 20 years. It's been fantastic to watch what happens.

When Randall is going to. He's out for several weeks at least.

Yeah.

What do the Knicks look like without Julius Randall?

Well, their depth has been a question post OG. Right. So Josh Hart filled in mightily last game as the kind of Julius Randall player. He's, you know, a great rebounding guard, plays really hard, plays defense, but they're going to need to cobble some stuff together. But on the upside, we don't have the MRI news. It seems like the injury is not going to be that serious. One and two, it's to his right shoulder. He's a lefty, so that makes you feel better. At least it's not his shooting arm. So hopefully he can come back soon. But depth is a question. Listen, when you're breaking the glass on Taj Gibson for the second time this season, for another ten day contract, that lets you know, depth is a little bit of an issue right now.

Our next trophy, the Dominic Toretto. I live my life a quarter mile at a time trophy given out to whoever it is who made a short term decision when no regard for future consequence. This week's winner, that bat in San Antonio just shows up. The bat's back. That motherfucker. He's shown up to multiple games. This is like his third or fourth game. He just comes flying down onto the court, terrifying everybody. It was Wimby's first time seeing it.

He'D never seen the bat before. Manu in the house to see the bat, famed bat serial killer Genobli.

Now, this has happened a number of times. It has happened enough times that the mascot, the coyote, has a Batman version of his costume that he puts on when the bat's there. And not just that. This is the craziest shit, I think, in the NBA, that nobody talks about when the bat shows up in San Antonio to fly around, flying around.

I love that you make it seem like it's the same bat.

It's the same bat. It's fucking Eric. His name is Eric the bat. Eric. Every time Eric shows up, the coyote runs back, puts on his Batman costume, and then he comes out with a big, like a cartoon style net on a stick. And then he has to catch it. Like, his job is literally, he's responsible for catching the bat. The mascot dressed as Batman has to catch the bat.

It makes sense, though, because bats are vectors for rabies and other serious diseases, and the coyote is fully dressed, covered head to toe in PPE quality mascot gear. So it does make sense from that perspective, because remember, Manu had to get like, rabies shots after he killed the bat some years ago.

Slapped it out of the air is what Manu did. Just slapped it out of the air and then picked it up and was like, here you go. Get rid of this. We got to get back to the.

Now, let me ask you this. They were playing the Timberwolves at that time, who they beat. Big win. Big win from the said Edwards.

My guy, Anthony Edwards.

We're on the way.

Two games in a row. We had a two game winning streak, Jason. We had a two game winning streak. Start planning the parade, baby.

But the Timberwolves broadcast team, who are wonderful, I really like them. They kind of suggested that it was a setup. They were like, how does the coyote get into the bat costume that quick? They're playing the Batman music. How do they know? Are we sure the fix isn't in? Let me ask you to rebut these allegations that this is some kind of a fix.

No, this is a thing that happens again. It happens enough that everybody knows the drill. People in the stands are not even afraid anymore. They know the coyote is going to catch Eric every single time. It's going to take a couple of minutes. He's going to get him. He's going to get out of there. I was watching last night, the end of the OKC Timberwolves game again. Great game. We've talked about the Timberwolves a ton of times. We love the Timberwolves. We love the thunder. I wanted to see. I'm watching the end of it. And there's a play to put the Timberwolves up four, where Anthony Edwards broke into the lane and then dunked it. Defensive player is. It might have been SGA, maybe somebody else, but somebody touched him on the forearm. Like, not like a full on swipe, but he was going up and he didn't go as high as Edwards, and he touched him on the forearm. And the Minnesota Timberwolves broadcast team reacted like he'd been shot. They were so mad. They were talking about petitioning the NBA. This can't keep happening. I love a good homer broadcasting team. Like, give it to me every single time.

It's so much fun to listen to. It's way better than being impartial. I love a guy to be like, this fucking rules. And that other team sucks, and we're going to beat them. But watching the replay, the dunk happens, and then they lose their mind, and you're like, what did he do? He smacked him in the face. What's going on? And he touched his form. He barely touched his forearm. And they lost their minds. And it was awesome. Shout out those guys.

Can I tell you one thing? I'm back on Wemby train.

Please.

Rookie of the year. I believe that it's now migrated back to Wemby. I think that what he's doing. Thank you. Thank you, Zuri. I think what he's doing on a bad team is incredibly. In limited minutes is incredibly impressive. And I think that if he was playing next to an MVP candidate in SGA, it would be unreal. And so I believe that it's now kind of gone back to Wemby, who is really the first option for that team in those limited minutes. So Wemby, rookie of the year.

Wemby, Chet, Jaime. That's the three, right? Those are the three. That's the podium right now?

Yeah, that's the three.

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Next trophy the Daniel Plainview I've abandoned my child. I've abandoned my boy trophy, which is giving out to whoever it is we're temporarily giving up on for the week. I've abandoned my child. I've abandoned my boy. This week's winner. It's still funny. It is somehow still funny. This week's winner, Adrian Griffin. The Bucks give it up on Adrian Griffin. I can't believe it. I cannot believe it.

I mean, I could believe it. I can believe it. There were warning signs clearly, like the whole time, right? Terry Stottz resigning during the preseason after apparently Adrian Griffin yelled at him in front of everybody for trying to coach the players on offense, which was going to be his role at that know Giannis checking himself back into a game after Adrian had pulled him out on Thanksgiving. All the times that you've seen various Bucks players like take the whiteboard and start scribbling stuff. Bobby Portis apparently yelling at Adrian Griffin that he has to be a better coach after the lot of stuff.

It's still so crazy though. They were the number two seed. They're still the number two seed, but they were the number two seed at the time. You lost your job and you were the number two seed in your division. They really did not like, like, they just didn't like him is what it was. That's all that it was.

There was a clip of the players first game post Adrian before the game, just like dancing in a circle on the court. Everybody looked absolutely thrilled. Adrian must have done a bad job, and it sucks to lose your job. It's obviously best wishes to Adrian Griffith, but clearly the players did not enjoy his coaching style at all.

And then they bring in Doc, who had been working as a consultant, and you are like, they knew this was happening for a while. Let's get doc in here. Let's have him be around. Oh, surprise. We're going to now hire. That's. I felt like when that happened, it was like, if you have a friend and you get in a fight, like, if you and I were talking, I was like, man, me and Levy got into it the other night. We had, like, a big argument, a big blow up. Like, just been feeling terrible. And then you sent her a text like, hey, heard what happened. Just wanted to check on that. Doc Rivers did the basketball version of that. Just, like, slid in there. It just slid in there.

I don't disagree with you. At the same time, this is what is the hyman Roth quote from Godfather two. This is the life that we've chosen. I never questioned who was the consultant. That's the life. This is the life. You know, when they hired Terry Stottz, which is probably why Adrian blew up at Terry Stottz. Right. He felt threatened by having this very experienced coach, who was formerly the coach of your now new star, Lillard, on your staff. You feel like he's coming for your neck. Certainly. If the team is like, hey, we want to just have you jump on the phone with Doc Rivers for ten minutes. Is that cool? Certainly, when that happens, you're like, oh, but that's the life. This team sees itself as a championship contender. They want to win again. Janice called out the entire franchise over the summer. They've got a limited window. They got to win. They got to win. And this is it. This is what it is. This is the life you signed up for. It's not fun, and we can certainly question Doc's motivations, but this is what it is. This is what it is.

By the way, Doc just blew a double digit lead. It is bucks versus the Denver Nuggets, and, alas, against the Denver Nuggets. So he's back. He's back, and he's ready.

Doc trying to soften things by saying, I've never done this. I wouldn't wish this on anyone. I could tell you that from, like, he's being sent to war is what happened. I've never done this.

I've never signed a contract for tens of millions in the middle of it. It's terrible. I hope no one has to go through this. Ever. Make sure it's direct deposit. Okay, there it goes. You know what I think he's talking about, as people who know Doc understand that he's a golf fanatic. There's no golf in Milwaukee right now. Certainly not this time.

That's what it is.

So I think that's part of it. Yeah.

We talked in the earliest episodes of this show about what expectations we're going to put at Milwaukee's feet. Like, what do they have to do for the season to be considered a success? And my argument was that they have to win a championship this year or it's a bust. And you were like, they probably don't have to do that. Maybe get to the conference finals is fine. Now that they have Doc Rivers, though, are you. Now they want to win a championship this year and if they don't, they're going to be mad about it.

I think now they have to make the conference finals bare minimum. And if they lose, they cannot lose in seven or below seven. The way they lose matters. And listen, the doc narrative. What is it he's lost? I don't even know the number. Is it ten? Is it seven? It's something like that. He's lost like more game sevens than anybody else. He's lost ten games, including ten. Game seven.

I think his four at home.

Four at home, including his last five. The last one, Philly versus Boston, they had, they were leading in the series, up three two and lost in a fashion that it was confusing to watch, I think, for everybody and certainly looked confusing to play in. Those questions are going to be there and I think now the way they go forward will matter even more because that game seven is going to be like a monster. It's going to look like a monster. It's going to be.

Hope we get it. I really hope we get it.

But Doc is now, I mean, the two other teams that are right there in this scrum for the top of the east with the Bucks are teams coached formerly by Doc. So there's a lot of drama here.

So he's lost three series where he was up three, one. He's lost four series where he was up three, two and one series where he was up 20, which is a lot. That's a lot of time. That's a lot of time. I can't wait for the playoffs. I think he's going to be good in to. But I don't think it's going to be enough to win a championship. I've never gotten a situation where I was like, we need Doc Rivers to draw up a play right here to feel good about. Not since the Celtics, not since that run that he had. You know, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm wrong. Next trophy. The chief keef. That's that shit. I don't like trophy. We're just given to a player team who does something, and we just don't like it. We don't like it. We don't like it. This week's winner, players missing games. I don't like it. I don't like it.

I don't like it either. Now, we are bringing this to everyone's attention because, quite infamously, Joel Embiid did not play in Denver against Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets over the weekend. A marquee matchup, the capstone matchup to NBA rivals week. No rivals would be playing in that game, and it caused a lot of consternation. And it's part of a larger conversation just now bubling up because, of course, Adam Silver in the NBA instituted new rules by which players have to play a certain number of games in order to be eligible for postseason awards. And there's just a ton of players, including Joel Embiid, who are right up against that line of not being able to be named to all NBA MVP, et cetera, because of missing games. And this comes with the added detail that Joel Embiid has not played in Denver since 2019. Pre pandemic. What do you make of Joel not playing?

I think that that's too many times to not be a thing. If it happens once or twice. Okay, sure. But that's too many times.

I will say this. He was limping around a little bit in his previous game, so I think he legitimately had a knee issue and a knee has been bothering him. But the thing is that he was listed as active until like 20 minutes before the game. They then changed his status. Now, you could spin it and say, here's the good version. Joel really wanted to play, wanted to push through, wanted to face off against Nikoli Yokich in the reigning champ's house. But then the medical staff was, no, no, you can't do it. And pulled him off at the same time. It just looks weird. It does look weird to be listed as active until like minutes before the game and then all of a sudden change. And additionally, with betting being such a huge thing, I'm sure people were, oh, man, angry from a betting standpoint that that happened.

It reminded me of there was a small period where this was happening with Shaq and Yoming and Phil Jackson came out and just said, shaq has a case of yeomingitis or something like that. Like, he's just afraid of him a little bit. And then Shaq was fucking pissed after, like, maybe we need somebody to do need. Maybe we need coach of the Sixers or the coach of the Nuggets. But Mike Malone will do it. Let Mike Malone did it.

He basically suggested, like, the NBA should look into it.

Yeah. So you need at least 65 games to be eligible for the awards. Already some players who are ineligible. Kyrie Irving can't make any of those accolades. Bradley Bill Lamello, ball on the cusp of not being able to make it. This is if we average it out over the course of the season. But Jimmy Butler, Tyrese Halliburton, Christaps, bam. Devin Donovan, Kevin Durant. Wow. I don't know how feel about if Joel Embiid doesn't win MVP and he played 64 games. I think I would be pretty mad if I was Joel Embiid.

Like, are you kidding? I would hope that Joel would be mad as a competitor at the same, like, I do kind of feel like playing more games should it matters. The margins are, I think it's overall a good rule. But, yeah, I would expect that Joel would be angry about it. And clearly, the way he's been playing over the last three weeks, month, basically all season, honestly, putting on the greatest scoring performance by certain metrics that anybody's ever seen, I think he's been gunning for that MVP. He's been gunning for it.

Clearly, there was that great clip going around of the Nuggets fans doing the five. Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap. Where's clap, clap? Which, first of all, that's my favorite cadence for a chant is the clap, clap, clap, clap, clap. But I greatly enjoy champion the defending champs who know they're the champions and who are confident that they believe they're going to win it again this year. They believe nobody can stand across from them. And I say, lean into it. Go for it. Talk all of the shit you want to talk. Do it. Do it.

Okay, so if you had a time machine, how far in time would you need to go back to be a dominant basketball player of that era?

I need to go to when Bob Koozie was playing the plumber days, 27 year old Shay would give Bob Koozie the business. He's not guarding me.

Hi, I'm Jason Guccion.

And I'm Shay Serrano. And we are back. We have a new podcast from wondering. It's called six trophies and it's the best.

Each week, Shay and I are combing through all of the NBA storylines, finding the best, most interesting, most compelling ones, and then handing out six pop culture themed trophies for six basketball related activities.

Trophies like the Dominic Toretto I live my life a quarter mile at a time trophy, which is given to someone who made a short term decision with no regard for future consequence.

Or the Christopher Nolan Tenet Trophy, which is given to someone who did something that we didn't understand.

Catalina wine mixer trophy.

Ooh, the Lauryn Hill. You might win some, but you just lost one trophy. Follow six trophies on the wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to six trophies ad free right now by joining wondery.

Plus next trophy, the step brothers Catalina Wine mixture trophy. Give it out to the thing we're the most excited about for the upcoming week. This week's winner, all Star reserve. Announcements baby, we're getting them. We're getting them.

Go. Your all star starters voted in by the fans all around the world are Eastern Conference Yanis Joel Embiid, Jason Tatum, Tyrese Halliburton and Damian Lillard. Boo. But okay, Western Conference LeBron, KD, Jokic, Doncic and SGA. And of course, the coaches will select the reserves and we await those with bated breath. Your thoughts on these lineups.

Shay I like the that I wish Wemby would have got in there. Of course, that's the San Antonio in me. I wish Eric the bat would have. Maybe he'll make a reserve, but the names that I need to hear during the reserves, I need to hear Anthony Edwards. He's got to be in hear. I need to hear to. I want to hear Jalen. I want Jalen Brunson in there. I thought he was going to get a starting spot. This is Dame's first time as a starter, which is crazy in my head. He started so many of these games, but this is first one.

It's kind of tough when your career runs concurrent with Steph Curry and James Harden, so I understand why that happened, but I get why. If it was just performance, I think Jalen should have started. But it's a popular vote and as we know, the people are dumb and they go by name recognition only. And Dame has deserved this honor also. But all star voting is a joke. It's run crazily. It's like if you vote through the app on Wednesdays between two and four, your vote counts for triple. What is that? What are we saying? About democracy. If you vote through the app and you count it three times, what kind of chicanery is this? But I do expect to see Jalen there when the coaches make their selections. And I'm excited. I love the all star game.

I love the all star game, too. I really need Wimby in the all star game. That's just what I feel. That's just what I feel.

Okay, everybody else.

Everybody else is second tier. I don't know why he wouldn't make it. I mean, I know why he wouldn't make it. Because he didn't.

Because he's a rookie.

Yeah. And he's a rookie. And most times rookies don't make it. But still, I just love him. I love him so much, and I really want to see him out there. If you had to guess right now, just completely blind, who wins the all star game? Mvp. Make a pick.

Right, LeBron.

Ooh, I'm going Tatum. I think Tatum, try and go get it. Tatum or Sga. Those are my top two. That's who I'm picking. I like it.

I like it.

You want to do the little trophies?

Let's do the little trophies. Yes.

I love the little trophies. These ones change each week in a situation specific. They're for the smaller storylines that we want to mention but don't need to get all the way into. My first little trophy, the Cameron oh, boy trophy. Just blades.

Oh, baby killer.

Or the girl, cedar. Look at his kick. Look at his car. All I say is, that's the Cameron for fighting with Ben Simmons. They apparently do not like each other. And let me tell you something. If you're going to get into, like, a public verbal altercation with someone, Cameron is not the guy you want to do it with. He's just too funny. He's too good of a writer. He's too charismatic. You put a camera on him, you put a microphone in front of him, and you're fucking shredded to bits. There's nothing you could do. There's nothing you could say. Remember you were doing a Game of Thrones live show or.

Yeah, yeah.

After the thrones, Jason Manzukas was there and Jason came out and I talked to him for, like, a couple of minutes just backstage, and I was like, holy shit. This is the funniest person ever. Like, this is a professional, funny person who. Everything he says and everything he does is funny. He has trained for it. Like a samurai warrior. Correct. That's Cameron. In this situation, Cameron is trained to talk shit about you like a samurai warrior. Your toes don't do it. Don't do it against Cameron. You can't do it against Cameron. It's a bad idea.

My first little trophy is the. What about Bob? I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful. Trophy.

Feel good, feel great. I feel wonderful, I feel good. Dirty.

I feel great.

I feel wonderful.

To Bob Myers for saying on the inside the NBA preview show on ABC that quote, I'll take Embiid. Wait, actually, can you play this? Can you play zuri? Can you play the quote?

If it was a game seven NBA Finals right now and we each got to pick a center, I'm taking Embiid first. As crazy as this, I love Jokic. I love Jokic. But why? Embiid is the most physically dominant player in the NBA right now.

He then would go on to say, you cannot stop him. And then like an hour and a half later, MB sat out. So great timing, Bob. Good timing on that one. And also, here's another wrinkle. Clues. People have been killing Bob about this. But let me also just say, this is how you know Bob Myers is in the position that he's in because he's not just a smart guy, he's a smart political operator. He just took a job with the Washington commanders, owned in part by Josh Harris, owner of the Philadelphia 76 ers. You think he's going to say, I'm not going to take my boss's guy. He's going to say, I'm taking my boss's guy. Smart, Bob.

My next little trophy, the Jesse Pinkman. He can't keep getting away with this trophy. He can't keep getting away with it. I'll give you that to LeBron, who it seems like every time he steps across the court from the warriors, he just goes fucking nuts. In a game, he gives you a 30 and 15 or 34 and 18 kind of game. And he did it again. He's 100 years old and he's still hanging crazy triple doubles and double doubles on you. And he just keeps on getting away with this. I think every time he has a big game about that very funny tweet of, thank God LeBron is already 30. Like, we don't have to deal with this bullshit much longer. And he's still going. He's still going.

My next little trophy is the simple plan. Worst day ever trophy. And I feel like I'm living the worst day over and over again. To Doc Rivers for the following quote on taking the buckshot. Quote, I've never done this. I wouldn't wish this on anyone. It's going to be a challenge. It's an awful position to be put in, to have to get a paycheck in the range of $40 million to do something that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. It's awful. It's terrible. It's maybe the worst position that anyone in the history of the world has ever found themselves in. And I hope that everybody here can take a moment to pray for Doc and hope that he's okay. And certainly, if you had just hired Doc, you got to feel bad knowing that you just made this high octane, high stress, big stakes decision, and the guy that you bet on is now saying, this is terrible. I don't know if I can do it. You've got to really feel empathy for Doc if you're his employer at that point. Prayers up for Doc. Thinking about you guys.

Good luck. Good luck, doc. My last little trophy, the godzilla let them fight trophy. The arrogance of man is thinking nature is in our control and not the other way around. Let them fight to Steph and Sabrina. They're going to have a three point battle at all star weekend.

I love it.

And the last time we saw Sabrina in the all star game shootout, she hit like 23 out of 25. Historic or 25 out of 27. Something goofy like that, like an absolutely ridiculous performance. And everybody was like, you were like, this is the greatest shooting performance I've ever seen. And it just slowly became, we should have Steph versus Sabrina because he's the greatest shooter the NBA has ever seen. And now we're going to have them against each other. And I can't wait. A very quick little story. When Sabrina was attending University of Oregon, I scheduled a speaking engagement with their journalism department the day before a game because I wanted to go to University of Oregon and I wanted to go to a game, but I don't want to pay for it. I wanted them to give me some money. So they reached out and I said, yeah, let's plan it. Let's go. I want to go see Sabrina. And before the game, the day of the game, they were giving me a tour of the arena, and the players come running out of the tunnel and they're out there shooting around. And I was talking to the coach, Kelly Graves, and he was like, oh, shay, if you want to go out there and shoot with the team, you can.

And then right when he said that, I looked and I watched, and Sabrina hit, like 15 threes in a row. Wow. And I was like, nah, I'm good. I don't want any part of going out there. I can't wait for this.

Well, I'm really looking forward to this as well. It'll be nice for Steph to have something to play for this year. My final little trophy. I told you, I'm a hater. I'm so sorry. My final little trophy is the Rocky four training montage.

Oh, yes. No pain, no pain.

No paid to Julius Randall. Get back soon, big guy. Get back soon. Injured after Jaime Hakez Jr. Of the Miami Heat, currently on a seven game losing streak, applied the hardest working, best condition, most professional and selfish stuff as being his nastiest undercut on him. But get back soon. Can't wait to see you back.

I did a rewatch of all the rocky movies, like a couple of months ago, and if you watch them concurrently, they come out years apart from each other. But if you watch them all back to back to back to back to back, it's really funny to see in the very first one they do a montage, a training montage. He's just sort of jogging around. And the most strenuous thing he does during that montage is as he's jogging, somebody tosses an apple to him that he has to catch. Yeah, that's as hard as it gets. That's it. And then by Rocky four, he's fucking lifting a horse carriage full of people up over his head. This is crazy. We did it again, Jason. Another perfect episode. Oh, my God. I can't believe it's 17 in a row. 17 for 17 for the field. We close every episode just by saying the names of underappreciated old basketball players with no context at all. While the theme music carries us out. Zuri, will you play the theme music, please? I'm Shay Serrano. That's Jason Katepsion, producer. Zuri in the shadows and making the noises. See y'all next week.

Rodney Buford. Ooh.

Jake Sakalitis.

Matt Geiger.

Wow. Jerome Moiso.

Eric Snow.

Oh, man. Eric Snow. Trajan Langdon.

Pepe Sanchez.

Matt Bullard.

Theo Ratliffe.

Jeff Trapani. If you like six trophies, you can listen to every episode ad free right now by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at slash survey.

Six trophies is hosted and executive produced by Shay Serrano and Jason Concepcion. Our senior producer is Zuri Urban. Our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for wondery. Our managing producer is Olivia Fonte, senior producers are Peter Arkuni and Andrew Goldstein, and our executive producers are Dave Easton and Marshall Luth.

It's been eight years since Sabine laid eyes on her college sweetheart, Wyatt. Back then, he was the most sensitive boyfriend. But her family persuaded her to end things, and she's moved on.

Kinda.

They're about to cross paths at an a list wedding in the picturesque french countryside, and she's suffering from major butterflies. But that won't stop a social climber like Sabine from getting what she wants. Influence Meet Cute's newest podcast, available exclusively on Wondery, is the modern day interpretation of Jane Austen's persuasion, about an influencer at a star studded wedding who won't stop until she has it all. The wedding's guest list is a who's who of insiders. Sabine's social media following is in the millions. Wyatt's at the top of his game, too, having become the most in demand photographer in LA. Then there's Hollywood's it girl, Henrietta Louise Musgrove, who immediately hits it off with Sabine. But there's a catch. Henrietta has eyes for sweet, sweet Wyatt, and she needs Sabine's help to capture his heart. This is a story about the power of persuasion, rekindled love and sliding into dms. Listen to influence exclusively on the Wonderay app or wherever you get your podcasts.