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We need to start the show off this week with two announcements. Two. That's what's gonna happen right now for the first one. Zuri, can you play the music, please? We did it. We fucking did it, Jason. Last week, the podcast awards were hailed. It's like the Emmys, but for podcasts. And there was a gaggle of competition in the best basketball podcast category. The Titans in the game. The biggest of beasts, monsters, all vying for the title of best basketball podcast. And six trophies stood the tallest amongst them. We won. We fucking won. The perpetual underdogs against the elite in the industry.

And we won.

We run the basketball podcast streets now. We sit atop the throne. Double kings, Jason and I alone, looking out over the land that we rule like Mufasa and Simba. You want the crown? You're going to have to kill us to get it, motherfuckers. You're going to have to kill us to get it.

I've always said there's only one sports centric podcast award out there, and it's.

Sports out the music. Zurich. I can't believe we won.

We actually won either. Shouts to everybody who voted for us and for riding hard for us. Thank you so much. It's an honor. As I always say, it's an honor just to win.

I thought we were going to finish in last place. I said the only podcast I want to beat. JJ Reddick and Tommy Alter. That's it. I just want to beat them. How many nominees are there? Ten. I want to be 9th. That's what I want. And we won. We won.

We did it.

The second announcement. Also cool. We were also chosen by Apple podcast for their monthly spotlight pick, which is very neat if you're new to the show, listening for the first time because of that awesome welcome in here at the award winning six trophies.

That's right.

We're a once a week show. Yes. Play the applause, Zuri. We're a once a week show that combines basketball and pop culture. It's the best. It's the best. It's voted the best. Did you have anything, Jason, before we get started? Oh, no.

That's it. I think you've covered it. It's comprehensive, as usual.

We did it.

We did it.

Let's get started from wondery. I'm Shay Serrano.

And I'm Jason Concepcion.

And this is six trophies.

What does it mean to be black in America? An NPR's Black Stories Black Truth, a collection of stories as varied, nuanced, and dynamic as black experiences. You'll hear it means everything. Search NPR black stories, black truths wherever you get your podcast. What does it mean to be black in America? And NPR's black stories, black Truth, a collection of stories as varied, nuanced, and dynamic as black experiences. You'll hear it means everything. Search NPR black stories, black truths, wherever you get your podcast.

Hello, I'm Jason Conceptio. Welcome to the award winning six trophies, a podcast series hosted by myself and the award winning Shay Serato, 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. This episode, the Knicks are back. Some of our favorites get snubbed for all star Steve Clifford, not a fan of his own team. All that and more. Let's hand out some trophies.

The regality of the horns. Finally, it finally makes sense as we sit atop the hill, the castle I.

Was looking for all of the other podcasts in our space, and I realized I was looking level and I needed to look down because they're all down there. They're just all down there.

Oh, man. What's that like? What's that like to be in second or worst place? I don't know. I only know first place. All of the other podcasts are all better than ours, by the way. You should go listen to them.

And you are, judging by their YouTube numbers and other things, shouts once again to the three, four or five people who ask us every single week, when's the YouTube video dropping?

We love three to four views.

We do, you guys.

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, the Denzel Washington and training day trophy giving out to whoever it is who had the best overall performance of the week. This week's winner, the New York basketball Knicks. Wow. Wow.

New York Knickerbockers.

Wow. Playing some good basketball.

They're playing some great basketball. And they did just lose to the Lakers. Shouts to Perez on X, formerly known as Twitter, who asked me, how does it feel to have the Knicks lose to the middling Lakers? I'll tell you how it feels. I'll tell you exactly how it feels. And I know there's Cavs fans out there that are going, wait a second. We're the hottest team in basketball. We're like 14 to 15. We just rolled over the Sacramento Kings last night. Yeah, that's true. But I just want to take you back to 2010. The Knicks are in disarray. The only hope that we're clinging to is that maybe LeBron James, who is entering free agency and might make a decision about where he's going to go, could come to New York, to Madison Square Garden, to the mecca. And there were so many signs. LeBron wearing Yankees hats all around town, to various games. LeBron announcing that the decision, the location for the decision is going to be in Connecticut, right in the tri stadia, the Knicks backyard. And then, of course, he goes to the heat. It was devastating. Fast forward to now. You've got LeBron James pulling out all of his taylor swiftian, passive aggressive stops to signal to the Lakers that there needs to be a trade.

The hourglass, all of that stuff. You have him wearing Knicks orange to the game against the Knicks. You have him doing an interview with a Knicks towel that was draped across his shoulders. You have rich Paul having a big meeting with Leon Rose of the Knicks to basically put an end to the feud, the long running feud that's been going on ever since Phil Jackson very irresponsibly referred to LeBron and the people he runs with as a posse. And what does this mean? What does this tell you?

What does it tell me?

LeBron needs us. He needs us. And guess what? We don't need him. We don't need to trade for LeBron James. It would be nice if it happened for the right price, but we don't need it. But clutch and LeBron, they need to drive up leverage with the Lakers to increase pressures. Hopefully, they bring in a good player. Clutch is looking at the landscape and they're saying, you know what? We can't afford to ignore the Knicks anymore because we have players that we might want to place with the New York Knicks who are successful in winning games and the Gardens going crazy. And we have players that might want to go there. We can't afford to ignore them. What a beautiful place it is to be LeBron James and Clutch coming to make peace with the Knicks, not because we outpettied them or anything else, but because we're a successful franchise right now. We are succeeding. We have built upon the foundation of good planning that has been put in place. And now you have LeBron and Clutch saying, okay, we see what you're doing, and I guess we need to come and smooth things out.

And that is why the Knicks are the winner this week.

I thought it was really a really wonderful sight. When Jalen Brunson finds out that he made the all star game, they interview him afterward. They're chanting, MVP in the garden. He's in tears. Prior to this, the best Knicks team, I mean, you could say the 99 Knicks team has to have been the best for sure.

Recent last. Good team.

Yeah, right. And they were a very likable bunch, an underdog bunch that just, they beat the heat in the first round.

And it was a weird year, finals lockout year. So things were weird.

They were super likable. The Knicks before them, though, the most famous version of the Knicks, the 90s Knicks, the Riley Knicks, were not like, if you weren't from New York, you didn't like the Knicks is what it was. You hated the Knicks, you hated the way that they played, right?

They played a brutal style of basketball.

But this version here, it's just all people you root for and want to be happy for and are like cheering. I have two questions for you. Yeah. Knicks related questions. The first one is, because the Knicks have been on this incredible tear, I started doing the like, all right, well, let me make sure I'm tuning into the Knicks games. And then I watched for the first time the home know, normally you watch like the national version or if I'm watching like Knicks and spurs, I watch the spurs side of it, but I watched the Knicks feed like three games ago, and it was the first time I'd done it. And whoever the cameraman was, I don't know if this is, is this like a common thing, but the camera was zoomed all the way in to, like, all you could see was Jalen Brunson dribling the basketball and whoever was guarding him. But you couldn't see anybody else on the court until somebody would come to set a screen and the camera would back up. Is that every day, every game occurrence, what's going on?

Not every game, but yeah, it happens with regularity. MSG has a very particular way of doing things. I think the Lakers kind of do it in a similar way, which is like the stage lighting where the crowd is dark.

That's cool.

And the court is like a stage with the spotlights on it and highlight the players. So, yeah, that is a thing that they do.

Other question I wanted to ask you is when is the last time you went and watched a game in a garden? Have you been there during this run? When they're like, they've been incredible?

Not during the run. I saw them play the bucks ahead of the Christmas day game. So they played the bucks two times in a. Yeah, like two days before Christmas day. And then Christmas day and they lost the game that I saw, which is a run of. I think I've now seen them. I don't think I've seen them win in person since they beat the warriors when Glenn Rice was on the second. Glenn Rice. Glenn Rice. Ago when I lived in New York, it was just know there were some good years. Amari had come, but it's been a bad stretch until now. An up and down stretch, certainly mostly bad. And so it's incredible to be there when they're good. And December was know they were the worst defensive team in the league in December. They've since flipped that where they're the best defensive team in the league in January. So they did lose that game.

I would love to go to a Madison Square Garden Knicks game when it's rocking, when it's rocking, when it's like the game, when Carmelo hit those two threes. Like something like that, right? Like I want to be there. I want to go there. The number one place I want to go is I want to go light the beam. I want to be in Sacramento. I want to see a Sacramento playoff game. I want to watch De'Aaron in person. Those are my two right now that I want to be in person for. Seems like a good place.

One more thing about Jalen Brunson. I mean, part of the reason he got choked up is he grew up in that building. His dad, Rick Brunson was a bench, so there's a million pictures. You can find him online. Then the Knicks did a wonderful tribute video to Jalen when he got named to the team. You know, there's all these pictures of just like him as a kid in Knicks gear at the garden, on the sideline. All over the last week during games, you had Tom Thibodeau waxing poetic about what it's been like. He's known Jalen since he was a kid because he was an assistant coach for the Knicks during those years. And so he's just talking about how he remembered, know, doing impersonations of Oakley and Ewing and all these guys. And now for him to be succeeding for his childhood team, I mean, this is the stuff you dream about when you're a little kid hitting like shots in the driveway. You're like, oh, selected by the Knicks, the number one draft pick. I mean, it's happening for him and that's part of why he got choked up. And it's just like an amazing story.

It's incredible when you do an impression of Charles Oakley, is it somebody's going to go up for a layup and you hit him in the head with a two by four.

Yeah, you hit him. You punch them in the solar plexus, and then as they're falling, you throw them down even harder.

Next trophy, the Lauryn Hill. You might win some, but you just lost one trophy given out to whoever it is who had the worst performance of the week. This week's winner. All star snubs. All star snubs. All right, so here are the starters for the Eastern Conference team. You've got Giannis Embiid, who's not going to be playing now. Jason Tatum, Tyrese Halliburton, Damian Lillard. That's the starters. And then reserves, Jalen Hooray. Donovan Mitchell. Jalen Brunson. Bam. Julius Rando, who's not going to be playing now, Tyrese Maxey and Paolo. For the west, starters, LeBron Durant, the joker, Luca Sga, the reserves, Ant Curry, Kawhi Anthony Davis, Devin Booker, Paul George, Carl Anthony Towns. They left a bunch of our favorites off, a bunch of our favorites that didn't make it. And I was super bummed about. I figured we can go through a few of them. What I would like to do is pluck a couple of names off the team and replace them, because that's the thing that somebody would be like, we got snubbed, but you got to take someone off to put someone on.

You got to do that. This is like when LeBron tweeted the other day for his fellow clutch client, Trey Young. Say, hey, look at what Trey's doing. Winning can't be everything. How could you not put him. Okay, who comes off? Lebron?

Yeah, who comes off? Who are you taking off? You got to take them off. All right.

Okay.

So here are some names that didn't make it on there. You mentioned Trey Young. Trey Young didn't make it. Derek White, Wimby didn't make it. Somehow. Christops Sabonis Harden, Scotty Barnes, Rudy Gobert, De'Aaron, Fox. Like, there are some real legitimate cases to be had. These are some players who could be on there. Let's each kick off one player and put on one more.

We're going to kick off and replace. Okay, well, I think the easy thing to do is take off the guys who are injured right now. So Joel Embiid, who just had what is possibly a season ending procedure on the meniscus tear in his knee, I hope not. Is going to come off regardless, as is Julius Randall, who is going to be reevaluated in two or three weeks regarding the shoulder injury that he recently suffered. So those are two easy ones. Now does that really solve the problem we have? Because to me the biggest snub. You mentioned the Kings. I think the two kings are the biggest snubs for me. Demonte Simonis is leading the league and rebounding. And Darren Fox has been, has been the most devastating clutch player in the league for a season and a half. Now it doesn't solve our problem because the two injured guys are in the east. But I named two guys and now you have to kick off two.

Right. All right, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to kick out Carl Anthony Towns. I love him.

Recent record setting Carl Anthony Towns recent.

Record setting Carl Anthony Towns that I defended vehemently on here because everybody shit on his record setting performance. They just shredded him for it. And I was on the other side. I love Carl Anthony Towns but I would like to see, I want Wimby in there. I'm going to get Wimby in there.

Okay.

There was a stat floating around recently where as 42 games into the season he has more blocks and more steals than Rudy Gobert had for the entire season when he won his defensive player of the year award. You got to have him in there. You got to have him in the game. I'm going to kick him off and I'm going to kick out Kawhi Leonard and I'm going to replace him. I'm going to replace him.

And this, by the way is completely unbiased.

There's unbiased. It doesn't have anything to do with. Nothing to do with anything.

Okay. He's only playing like the best basketball that he's played in like six years or something.

Don't worry about.

Sure. Okay. Okay.

I'm going to kick off Kawhi Leonard but since you got to cheat a little bit with your injured players who you were replacing. I'm going to cheat a little bit. I'm going to grab someone from the east. I want to see Derek White. Derek White deserves to be an all star.

I think he's a bubble all star. I don't disagree that you can make an argument for him to be there.

Yeah, he's a winner. He seems to always make the right plays. This feels like you got to reward a guy who's playing the kind of basketball that Derek White has been playing this season. Ever since he shaved his head he's been a fucking monster. A monster.

A monster. Now let me throw this by you, okay? Having multiple all stars from the same team. To me, that's only a thing reserved for you're good and you're winning. So, like, cat. I get it. But, like cat, and they're. They're one of the best teams in the league. Anthony Davis from LeBron. I get it. For the Lakers, the marquee franchise in the whole association. With all apologies to the Boston Celtics. Do they need mean? I'm just saying, they are the middling Lakers. I understand they're on a two game win streak. And incredible and absolutely hilarious victory against the Boston Celtics. Hilarious victory. That said, I feel like they don't need two.

Okay. Who are you kicking off, then? Ad. Or I guess you flip a coin.

I don't know.

It's got to be ad.

You got to take ad off for.

The all star game. It's gotta be ad.

Yeah.

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 with no regard for future consequence. This week's winner. Oh, my God. Steve Clifford. Play the coach of the Charlote Hornets.

Play the clip.

Can we hear the clip, please? One thing about the NBA player. If you want them to listen to.

You got to tell them the truth.

So I tell them.

They know there's little room for error. I also tell them the facts.

I mean, our problems aren't their effort, their work. They're not how much they want to win. Our problem.

Listen, we're under talented. Hey, guys, listen.

Sit down.

Sit down, guys, good effort, okay? Good effort. Good try. Tonight. We got killed again. But I got a level with you guys. Good effort, good execution. You guys really paid attention to the game plan. We're right there in film. I saw everybody locked in. Here's what's the issue. You guys suck. Talent wise. You guys are not good.

I do not agree with this philosophy, coach.

I don't agree with it. I don't think that.

Lie to me.

Lie to me, please.

We're under talented. Don't tell me we're under talented. Figure something else. Say any other combination of words besides that to me. Please. I'm begging you. Lie to me, Steve.

I know. I don't want to hear that. I'm already thinking, like, am I going to be in the league in two years? And now I'm hearing, no, maybe not. Probably not.

I got to hear that.

Yeah. You guys are g league quality.

From the coach, this goes up there. This is not as wild, but this is in the ballpark of when it was, like, 2008. And little Wayne was the biggest rapper on earth, the best rapper on the planet for a stretch of like two years, three years maybe, just going crazy. And Barack Obama was giving a speech and he told children, he told kids, you're not going to be good enough to be Lil Wayne. Maybe you are the next little Wayne, but probably not. Like, that's what he said to children. The guy who's supposed to inspire the youth looked at them and said, well, you can never be Lil Wayne. That's Steve Clifford here. This sounds like the statement of a guy who is like, I'm probably not going to be coaching this team for that much longer.

Yeah, I think that's the way I read it. I read it as, hey, can you just fire me and pay my contract? I want the fuck out of this shit. Oh, man.

Tough press conference. You respect it, but also lie to me. I would prefer you lie.

Yeah. Don't tell the team that they're actually bad, like, genetically, in terms of the essential level of talent that they have. They don't have it. They can work as hard as they want. They suck.

Don't criticize me for something I can't control. Yeah, come on. You're telling me I'm not tall enough. I don't have enough fingers or whatever. I need 14 fingers. I only have ten fingers. I can't control that. The number of fingers I was given, incredible rit.

I don't even know how these guys made the league, to be honest with you. Other than Lamello, I'm not sure how these and Gordon award is at a Greger, but he's old now. The rest of them, how'd they even get here? I look around, I don't even know. 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 basketball.

The plumber days.

27 year old Shay would give Bob Koozie the business. He's not guarding me.

Hi, I'm Jason Gutepsion.

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.

Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, host of Wondery's podcast, American Scandal. We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in us history. Presidential lies, corruption in sports, corporate fraud. In our newest series, we go to Baltimore, where in the spring of 2017, a police corruption scandal shocked the city. At the heart of it was an elite plainclothes unit called the Gun Trace Task Force. It was supposed to be the Baltimore Police Department's best of the best, a group of highly decorated detectives who excelled at getting drugs and guns off the streets. But they operated with little oversight, creating an environment where criminal cops could flourish by falsifying evidence and robbing suspects. Follow american scandal on the wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge american scandal, police corruption in Baltimore early and ad free right now on wondre plus.

Next trophy the Daniel plain view I've abandoned my child. I've abandoned my boy trophy, which is given out to whoever it is we're temporarily giving up on for the week. I've abandoned my child. I've abandoned my boy. I'm going to drop off the baby at school tomorrow, and as he's getting out, that's what I'm going to scream at the dad. There's like a line of dads who open the doors when the cars are coming through. They're holding their coffee out of. I'm just going to scream that at them just to see what happens. Anyway, this week's winner. This week's winner for the Daniel plane, who have abandoned my child. I've abandoned my boy trophy homecomings homecomings Jason, will you explain why homecomings are the winner this week?

Because we've had a number of players, notably, abandon their home or been traded by their home team, and a lot of them returned home to differing kinds of receptions. Last week, Dame Lillard returned to Portland in a king of to the shouts to the Dock rivers. Milwaukee Bucks, currently one and two, been down double digits in all of their games. You had Ben Simmons return to Philly in a win, with Simmons having nine rebounds, five assists at a turnover, and be announced to a absolutely incredible, deafening chorus of booze. Really funny moment there, where the booze were just like. And Nick Nurse, who was like engrossed in his whiteboard, he was like looking at the scattering port or something, was like, why is everybody booing? And he looked up and he saw that they were booing Ben Simmons. And he's like, oh, okay. And then you had Bradley beal come back and just, I mean, Godzilla stomp the absolutely horrendous terrible, just incredibly terrible and disheartening Washington wizards. Overall, a fun homecoming with multiple welcome back and tribute videos being played. And I watched them all. Even though these games were not really good, I did watch them all because I'm a junkie.

Which reception would you rather get when you're returning back to the stadium where you used to play? Would you rather be cheered and celebrated like Dame was in Portland or do you want to be just booed? Hardcore booed? Wow.

I want to be celebrated. I'm not going to try to be cool about it. I want to feel like my time there was feel. And we forgot to mention KD, who returned to the nets and specifically said, do not make me a trivia video. Don't do it. And then they made him a trivia video anyway, which is one of the funniest.

That's why he doesn't play there anymore.

What about you? What would you want?

I'm with you. I enjoy the guys who are like, I love playing on the road. I love hearing the silence and the boo, like Reggie style, but I don't have that genetic makeup. Like, if you start booing me, I'm going to crumble. I'm going to wither like a flower held next to a furnace. Absolutely.

Yeah. I have such a small amount of self confidence and it's so easily shattered. Like an Oreo when you dunk it in milk and hold it too long, that's what my heart is made of, is Oreo cookie.

Yeah. I saw one time somebody wrote a not nice thing about me on Reddit and it hurt my feelings for like four weeks. I thought about that shit. I thought about it.

I'll tell you a fun story because it's happened so many years ago when Binge Mode first started and it was just coming out and people liked it. Podcast we did about Game of Thrones back at the Ringer. Our producer at that time screenshotted an Apple review that was like, these guys are great. But left in the review right below that review, like, you could read it. That was like, this guy Jason is the most annoying guy. The voices, he does suck so bad. He stinks and I was just like.

It was Steve Clifford. He left that review for.

And this was early in the run, and I was just like, man, does my producer hate me? What the hell?

That's a little Phil Jackson coaching right there. Just a little subtle, like, prodding you.

You're good, but also, you stink.

Next trophy. The chief keef. That's that shit. I don't like trophy. We're just giving out to player, team who does something that we just don't like it. This week's winner, horrible, terrible, rotten Embiid, is out injured. Zach Levine is out injured. Both require surgery. I don't like it. We don't like it. What a devastating series of tweets to read or news bits to read. Just like, this fucking sucks. The probable MVP of the league, one of the most exciting players in the league, Zach Levine. Like, what are we doing? Why is this happening? Why does this have to happen? It's been such a great season so far.

It really, you know, Joel's having the best offensive season that we've like historically that we've seen in terms of scoring per minute and a bunch of other metrics, not to mention the raw average, scoring average that he's putting up. The Sixers are a legitimate finals candidate. Weathered the loss of harden in a fashion I think has surprised everybody. And so for this to occur, it's heartbreaking. And I think back to my youth rooting for the Knicks when it was like, you just hoped that Patrick Ewing's bulky knees could hold up to the pounding of a season, and so often they faltered. And it's terrible to watch. And Zach Levine, I will say this about Zach Levine. There is something. It's notable that, at least for me, that as soon as he was linked, at least in the discussion, know, in the sports conversation realm, with a potential trade to the Pistons, who are, to use the words of Steve Clifford, under talented, he immediately got surgery on his foot. Yeah.

Real fast. Hold on, hold on. Hold.

Yeah, yeah. But this stinks. And I hope that the Levine surgery, it's potentially season ending, but from what I'm reading, the doctors are going to know by what they discover when they open it and look in there what the actual prognosis is going to be. So best wishes to him. And this really stinks. This really stinks.

Yeah. The door isn't closed. That was the phrase that they used for Embiid, so fingers crossed. But at the moment, he's leading the NBA and scoring with over 35 points a game.

Crazy. I mean, that's insane for a center.

For a center on pace to join Will Chamberlain as the only other player to average 35, ten and five in a season. Like, just playing unreal basketball. We talked about him before, about him just enjoying being a big guy. He plays a fun version of basketball. He's just doing every single thing you need on a basketball court he's doing, and now he doesn't get to do it, and it fucking sucks. Hit a 22 game streak of at least 30 points.

He's scoring like one point something points per minute, if you want to look at it that way, which is an incredible amount of value to be adding to a team every minute he's out there. The Sixers are getting a point from him. Just a titanic season to this point, and really sucks.

And if you look at, he's missed 15 games this season so far, and the Sixers have lost eleven of them, they're obviously a completely different team when they don't have one of the two or three best players in the league shooting up for them. I hate it.

They got crushed by the Mavericks last night. It's very tough. Hopefully they can eke out some sort of 50 50 type or better record here on out because at 30 and 19, they're still, by record, a very good team. And you just kind of want them to have that kind of playoff positioning and hopefully hold that door open for Embiid to come back for the postseason.

What if Tyrese Maxey now goes to another level? That's best case scenario is he becomes, I can be the guy guy, not the second guy. I can be the guy guy. I think he can do it. I think he can do it.

Well, the scoring is. I mean, he would have to become. It would be amazing. That would be incredible. And I actually do really hope that happens because this has been a gut punch blow. I hope that happens, but my sense is it's a little early in Maxi's development. The leap that he's taken already has been such a surprise. I feel like that's something you'll see in, like, year six or something.

That's probably more accurate than what I'm saying, but I'm going to hope, I'm going to hope against hope that he could do it. Next trophy, the step brothers Catalina wine mixture trophy giving out to the thing we're most excited about for the upcoming week. It's here, baby. This week's winner, the trade deadline. Oh, yes. Yes. The NBA trade deadline is here. I'm very excited about this. I'm very excited.

I'm very excited as well. And there's a lot of, listen, there's a lot of things that are intersecting with this. Talk about Bobby Marks had a really interesting piece on ESPN.com about the added pressures of the new financial rules with the much more punitive first and second aprons kind of locking teams down on what they can do trade wise. What does that mean? That means that before those rules lock into place, you may see a lot of teams looking to do things that they won't be able to do in a year. Not to mention you've got teams like the Lakers who are under pressure from their star to make moves. You got teams like the Sixers who just lost a superstar who may be looking to buoy their chances. You've got teams like the Thunder who suddenly find themselves leveled up to a degree that I think is surprising to not just everyone watching Lee, but them. How close are they? What kind of things? Do they make a move now to say we're here and we're going to be a contender, or do they wait, see how this shakes out? You've got teams like the Knicks who are injured but also need help with playmaking and ball handling and maybe some big depth.

Very exciting. And then you've got players like Dejante, Murray and others who have been dangled in various deals. Bruce Brown. I'm excited. I'm hoping to see a lot of action.

You just mentioned them. This is the team that I've been thinking about the most is Oklahoma City Thunder.

Yeah.

I'm very curious how you handle a situation like that, because as you mentioned, they've overachieved this year. I say overachieved. They've played better than anybody, probably outside of their locker room, thought they were going to play. They're one of the best teams in the league, right? They have a not completely unrealistic chance at making a deep run in the playoffs. You could say, like, we could do it. And so you look at that and you look how young they are and you wonder, what do you do there? Do you go get another player and risk possibly upsetting this delicate balance of chemistry that you have already? Do you go get somebody or do you. All right, well, we're doing better than we thought this year. We're going to just enjoy this year as like a no loss year, no matter how we do. And then next year we're really going to make a run. It's very interesting to me personally.

I would stand Pat unless something I would, too, really amazing occurs. Thunder, of course, have approximately 5,000,000,001st round picks. They have all the first round picks that are available that are sloshing around in the league in coming years. But they've gotten these incredible performances from not just SGA and Chet, but like, isaiah Joe is playing like, they've gotten all these other kind of performances. So can those players get even better than they've been? And I think the timetable is so friendly to them. Everybody is so young. There's no pressure on them whatsoever. So just like, let's see how they do with playoff intensity, where teams are, like, specifically targeting them, saying, okay, can we rattle Chet physically? What happens if we throw all our best defenders at SGA and see what the other guys do? Let's really lock down on Josh giddy and see what that tells you and then decide then to make a move. I think they're just like in such a enviable position, unlike teams like the Lakers or the warriors, who are like, fuck, we need octane, we need gas, and where are we going to get it from? They're in a position that I think every other team in the league would love to be in.

So I would stand Pat. What would you do?

I would stand Pat, too. I would count on Jalen Williams in the playoffs being like, oh, here we budding guy, right? Yeah, that's. He's really fun to watch. Chet obviously is fun to watch. SGA is obviously fun to watch. I like Jalen Williams a bunch. I would hold steady same as you. But if they make a. Wouldn't it would make sense in my head. Know, next year, who knows? Who knows next year? You're here right now. Why not try right now? But also, why would you try right now? You know what I mean?

I feel that way too. I mean, listen, the league is capricious and cruel as we see with embiid injury. But I kind of think they shouldn't think like that for more veteran teams should think, okay, what do we do today? This team, this age, with this core having come through all the losing now all of a sudden jumping up a level? Let's just see what this. I don't think anybody really knows what the ceiling is. So let's see what it is. Let's get a read on it. What about teams like the Lakers or the Warriors? I mean, Steph Curry recently came out and said, hey, we just have to score 60 points.

And we didn't even mention them until right now.

It's nuts. And then you have Clay Thompson who, listen, I love Clay. I've loved him. His whole career has been so fun. He's been one of the most fun personalities in the game. Can reporters stop asking Clay how he feels after every game? Because I'm getting bummed, man. Like, after every game, it's like, clay, how does it feel to not close out the game? And he's just like, sucks, man.

To go from one of the best.

It'S like every game is like a therapy session on how Clay feels and stop. Everybody needs to just stop. Yeah, I'm getting sad.

Your basketball mortality comes running at you so fast. Comes running so fast. They were. Not that long ago, people were arguing, is this the best basketball team we've ever seen in the history of the world? When they were on their run when 73 and nine, and then now you got step scoring 60 and you can't get a win. You got step scoring 60 and you can't get a win.

I got to say, more and more, that 2022 championship looks like the most horrible thing that's happened recently. You have Andrew Wiggins playing the best basketball of his career currently. You can't even find him on the court at times. You had Bialitza locking guys down. Did I see that? I feel like that now. Bialitza is like fending off knife attacks in Europe. It was an amazing thing, all built around the greatness of Steph Curry and the rest of it was just like, we didn't realize it at the time, but few red Bear, and they did it. And it's just an incredible achievement considering where they are now.

If the Celtics don't manage to win a title in the next four or five years, that's going to be the one that they look back on and go like, fuck, how do we not beat that team? How do we not beat that team?

Honestly, no disrespect, again to the warriors. They deserve that win. But the Celtics were the better team. And you felt like if the Celtics didn't believe they were the better team, maybe they would have won that series.

Yeah, maybe. Who knows the drama they're having to be separated. They've both been shown the red card, the entertainment, the superstar. Welcome to the Planet Premier League podcast. I'm Mark Chapman, and every week, Cess Fabricas, Nader, manua and myself talk all things Premier League. They have this dynamism and this quality that they can play anywhere. They need to prove themselves in scoring more and more and more goals. I think if they don't win the.

Title this year, the season is a failure in the league.

Planet Premier League. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Is that all the trophies? That's all the big trophies. Let's do the little trophies.

Let's do it.

I love the little trophies. These ones change each week and are 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 get in, loser. We're going shopping. Trophy.

I love this. I love this one. Get in, loser. We're going shopping.

Oh, my God. To Steph Curry. We were just talking about him. I didn't think we were going to mention him until right now. He scored 60 points in a loss and then gave his jersey to Lindsay Lohan's son. Lindsay Lohan, of course. The star of the iconic, beloved mean girls. Get in, loser. We're going shopping. What a great. I was so happy when this happened. I was so happy about this. Just like a convergence of all of the things that I like and enjoy. Shout out Lindsay Lohan.

My first Long island legend. Lindsay Lohan. My first little trophy is the super bad people. Don't forget trophy. Can you just get out of here? We'll talk about this later. Fuck, Evan, we're down two points. Fucking calm down, Greg. It's soccer. It's soccer.

Fuck you, man.

Hey, Greg, why don't you go piss your pants again? That was like eight years ago, asshole. People, don't forget to Dr. Rivers, who has recently said of his selection to be all star east coach, that is ridiculously bad. Adrian Griffin and his staff should have got that. And Doc has been harping on this, and I just want to shout out doc, because the Bucks in the doc Rivers era have been down double digits in every single game, although did fight back in one of those to win, but recently lost a not confidence inducing loss to the Jazz. But Doc Rivers, man, any chance he gets to remind you that Adrian Griffin was the previous coach and a lot of this shit is him. Any way that he could do, man. Adrian Griffin, yeah, he should be the all star coach because let's not forget, he coached this team up until four days ago. So all the strategies, all the tactics, all the stuff that I'm trying to unwind, that's all him. So he should really take responsibility. He should be the guy to get the award for the shouts to Doc Rivers. I love the way you remind people that Adrian Griffin was the coach of this.

So it's so good. Shout to Doc.

The guy in the clip that Jonah Hill is talking to. It's an early cameo from Dave Franco. Young Dave Franco.

Early Dave Franco. The wonderful Dave Franco.

He's so funny and so handsome. I wrote an article one time just about how handsome he was. That was the whole article. That was the whole point. He's a great looking guy. My next little trophy, the three days grace. I am not alone because Misery loves my company. Misery loves my company trophy.

I am not alone. Misery loves my company. Misery loves my company.

I picked a rock song for you, Jason. I had no idea. Yeah, I just thought I'd throw that in there. That trophy goes to Chicago Bulls fans. They're leading the league in attendance this year despite the team being not awesome. Leading the league in attendance, and I respect it. Misery loves company. Keep showing up. Keep showing up. Chicago.

It is the largest arena in the league, but also shouts to Chicago fans who the team is letting them down in an incredible fashion. My next little trophy is the master Wong in balls of fury. She is cruel, laughs at you when you are naked. Trophy.

She is cruel, laughs at you when you are naked.

For Michael Porter Jr. For the I just play the clip.

I know these females want to get paid more.

Already a bad start.

And they're very talented, but so is a famous ping pong player. They're just as talented as a.

Come on.

Like the best ping pong player is just as talented as the best basketball player. That doesn't mean they're going to get paid the same because they play ping pong. It's what the people want to watch. You know what I mean? So as much as I understand females wanting the same treatment as men basketball players, it's a different sport. People, they're not packing out the arenas. Obviously their tv deals aren't the same. So as much as I advocate for women and kind of do you, when.

Have you ever.

Go in the other direction?

You can't pay him the same thing.

Shouts to Michael Porter Jr. For an economics master. If you want to understand why he's wrong, you probably already do. But Kelsey Plum, among others, have added various rejoinders to this really not good statement from Michael Porter Jr. Shouts to you, Michael Porter Jr. For one of the most notable own goals that I could remember. Why did you do this?

What a disaster.

Advocate for women. When did that happen?

What are you doing? What are you doing? You're saying all of the wrong things. You sound like you think you're saying the right things, and you're saying all of the wrong things.

Females. When you say females, it's like, tough start, tough start.

Oh, my God. My next little trophy. Oh, my last little trophy. This is the Zac Efron in that one DJ movie where he screams, are we ever going to be better than this trophy. Are we ever going to be better than this? Are we ever going to be better than this? Building toward it. Are we ever going to be better than this? He's emotional right now. He's got tears in his eyes, crowds watching. What's going to happen?

Are we ever going to be better than this?

Did you ever see that movie?

I've never seen it.

Surprisingly emotional. Like, I'm joking and making fun of it right now. But during this scene, I got teary eyed. He's playing a DJ set at the end of the movie. It's like what it builds to. And he's playing audio clip of his friend. That's his friend who he was at a lunch with and he was recording. He was like, recording everyday sounds. And then he turns them into this collage of music at the very end. It sounds like it would be terrible. It really is. Surprisingly good. Surprisingly good. Anyway, that trophy goes to Damien Lillard, who called leaving Portland the hardest transition of my life. And I think that that transition that Zac Efron does there, the DJ transition from his friend's Q into the beat. Super fucking hard. Super, super hard. And I love it.

My last.

Oh, wait, hold on. Before you go, can I shout out the actual hardest dj transition I ever heard in real life was there's a rapper in Houston. His name is Fat Tony, one of my favorites. And he also djs. And there was a clip of him, like, three years ago. I don't know where he was djing at this particular time, but it just, like, popped up. Somebody who didn't even know him was like, this Guy fucking rules. And I looked and it was DJ Tony. It was fat Tony. And he's djing and he's playing neon Moon by Brooks and Dunn. And then he transitions out of that and into blow the whistle by too short. It's on the Internet somewhere. You can find it. That's the hardest transition of my life. Damien Lillard was leaving Milwaukee, but the hardest transition of my life was that transition fat Tony made from Brooks and done to too short. All right, I'm sorry. Go ahead, Jace.

My final little trophy is the Thanos. I am inevitable trophy. I am inevitable.

Whoops.

To 60 points. It seems like 60 would be good anywhere in there between with a six in front of the number. But look at what's happened lately. You mentioned Steph. 60 points with a loss. Cat 62 in a loss after which his teammates and his coach set him on fire. Booker, 62 in a loss. Either score 50 or score 70, but stay away.

Danger zone.

That's the 60 in there. That's the sand trap. You got to either go 50, lay it up, go 50, or go over. Correct and go 70, but avoid 60 for now because people scoring 60, it's not good right now. 60 is killing, guys.

We're selling. We're selling. Scoring 60.

Yes.

That's an incredible take. That's an award winning take right there, Jason. That's an award winning take. We did it again. Another award winning performance. For those of us here at six trophies. Flawless. Flawless from 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 Concepcion, producer. Zuri in the shadows, making the noises. See y'all next Wednesday. Randy Brewer.

Oh. Nick's legend. Alexey Schwed.

Mike Dunleavy.

Oh. Not one, not two. John Lucas II.

Tito Horford.

Shane Larkin.

Brad Lohouse.

Deandre Ligands.

Ricky Pierce.

Celtics legend Phil Pressie. 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@wondery.com.

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.

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