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We just launched a new podcast tonight, actually on the Ring or Dish podcast, which has Tea Time and Jam Session, and me and Jacoby breaking down the challenge every Wednesday night. Well, twice a week for the next five weeks, nor Princi and Nathan Hubbard.

Have launched a podcast, it's season one of a new podcast that the ringer called every single album in their season. One is going to be about Taylor Swift. They did her first album. They're going to break down every Taylor Swift album chronologically, what it meant to her career, her legacy and a whole bunch of great stuff. Nathan, longtime music industry guy, former musician Norah Pinciotti, one of the biggest Taylor Swift fans. They've clicked over Taylor.

And this is a really cool podcast. It's not just a podcast about an artist, but about business, industry, creativity, all kinds of things. So you can check that out. First one is up tonight. Next one is coming Thursday. It's on the Ringer Dish podcast. Speaking of things coming on the Ringer Dish, the Ringer podcast network, Newberry Watchbox. Come in tomorrow night. New Jack City, 30th anniversary, it's kind of an amazing movie, I got to say, I hadn't watched it from start to finish in a while and could not have enjoyed it more.

So that is coming tomorrow if you want to watch it before then. It's, I think, on HBO, Max. So there you go. Coming up, Priscilla and I are going to break down the all star game and a lot more. First, our friends from JAM.

All right, we're taping this, it is 8:00 of 5:00 Pacific Time on Sunday night, Brian Rosillo is here. We just watched the all star game. I basically made Rosillo just do stuff for this podcast that was like, you have to watch the all star game. You have to watch a TV show that we're going to mention a little bit. I didn't watch TV like the all star game that much. I have gone in waves back and forth with the all star game and I'm actually in and I like the all star game mode of my life.

And I think it's because there's so many players that I just like watching that I just like seeing them on the court. I don't care that they're not playing that hard. I don't care that it's become basically fourth quarter, three point contest. They've added all these things. I just like seeing all the guys on one court shoot me.

I'm sorry. Yeah, I don't I don't have a problem. It's kind of like extra ball games, the thing that people get really upset about, extra college football bowl games and you just don't watch them. Who cares? It's on a Tuesday. It's early December. Like, that's for those two fan bases. That's for whatever the Bowl Coalition is, you know, like that's that's on them. You don't have to watch an NBA All-Star weekend when it's normal.

It's for kids and it's a celebration of league. And that's great. So anybody that enjoys it, like I'm I'm all for it. I guess the only thing they're not going to sit here and do two hours of negative All-Star stuff because, hey, we got Rosillo. Great. I just would like to see guys play together, like in some version that somewhat resembles a real game just to see how guys would play off of each other, because I think that's at least what we saw, even though guys it wasn't like guys were killing it in the 80s and 90s anyway.

But you could see moments where it felt like, oh, that's kind of cool, like Yokich and and Steph together, like what would that be like in a normal season? And you don't see any of that now.

And at some point they stop trying until like the last five minutes of the game. And it happened sometime in their early nineties. And I never really agreed with that or understood it. I I've always said the game ebbs and flows depending on how many playmakers you have in there. And so I did. And we're here to talk about tonight's game, but I was looking at the two thousand four box score, OK, compared to today and I may have even done this on a podcast before, I don't remember.

But you think like the playmakers we had on the floor and we did not have Durant, but one team had LeBron, Luca Curry, Chris Paul, Damian Yokich tonight. So six guys who can create a shot for themselves or somebody else. The other team had Kyrie and Harden and should have had Durant. Those are nine guys that are really fun to see in an all star game. Right. And that's even before you get into Giannis and some of the shooters that we had out there tonight.

You get a twelve for this was the worst team in 2004. You're going to love this starters. Kobe, CGY, Tim Duncan Yao and Steve Francis City.

That was. But what would be fun about watching those five guys play basketball together. Oh you know Kobe and TD three three all timers but those five together I don't want to watch off the bench. Ray Allen, Shaq, Sam Cosell, Patia, Dirk, Andre Miller and oh, I'm sorry, Brad Miller, not Andre Miller and Andre Korolenko. Andre Miller would have added some exciting jojoba, would have at least been able to set other people up.

So you have a team where basically Sam Cassell, who is a point guard, but like more of, you know, a shooter could run a team but wasn't like a Steve Nash Jason Kidd type. So that team basically had no awesome. I'm here to serve everybody else, create shots kind of guy. Here's the East team. Jermaine O'Neal, Allen Iverson, Ben Wallace. Tracy McGrady, Vince Carter. Again, good basketball players, but who is the straw that stirs to drink off the bench?

Kenny Martin, Jamal McClure, Ron Artest, Baron Davis, Michael Redd, Paul Pierce and then Jason Kidd? And I think this either this year or next year, I made the joke that Jason Kidd should just be like the automatic quarterback in the Thanksgiving touch football game. It's like he's just the point guard for both teams. But my point is we have so many more playmakers now. This is why I like watching the All-Star Game again. You have basically half the guys out there can can do stuff that isn't just either for themselves or follow some sort of, you know, job description.

True. But that's within structure. And there's no structure. There's nothing to it whatsoever. Like, all I'm looking for is the MVP storyline. Like who wants to pretend they don't want it, but who really wants it? He just flat out wants it. Giannis you know look I'd rather Lillard had gotten it you know with the way closer at the end I thought Steph had a chance. He had to make a couple more threes. He missed a couple in the fourth quarter.

I think he missed like three possessions in a row but he wasn't like hunting and then Lillard clearly was hunting at the end like all right I want this but Giannis in a timeout reminds everybody Hey I'm open and you're like dude he had twenty two points before anybody even noticed because no one cared and he's tall and was around the basket so shockingly like his stat line and never missing. I know people are going be like what are you talking about. It didn't feel like an interview.

I mean I don't know. I'm like Oh cool I guess Giannis gets it because of the stat line but it wasn't, it wasn't exciting. There was nothing even score towards the end because guys actually we're going to contest up there. So I thought for moments I guess maybe I'm surprised that there isn't a little bit more with the Eagles in the league which you get where there isn't somebody really pushing the limits of selfishness, knowing, OK, if I have a great closing six minutes here, this thing's mind, there's a real balance.

But you don't think that was dame? I felt like it was definitely near the end. Oh, yeah, he was, but it wasn't. It wasn't necessarily egregious and by the way, they all went in, except for one to 20 shots at 20 minutes total towards yet because Steph was doing stuff for Steph was trying to like, get it going. And then he hit the one for game or he took the one from deep for game at one sixty seven.

But he was still playing a little bit within. It's like I'll take one and if I come back down I'll get somebody else going. But you're right. Game towards the end. There was like OK, let me see if I can steal this thing at the end. And he almost did. I'd rather you got Epinions. Yianna said thirty five. He was sixteen for sixteen. The biggest thing that happened in this game was no Embiid. If you had said who, who is the most important player on their team.

Just for this particular game, it actually was was Embiid because he was, I think one of the reasons Durant picked this team was he was like Embiid will be this huge mismatch on both ends. I think Embiid would have probably had like thirty five points in a blues by twenty but you know it just opened up everything for the onside couple. A couple of fun storylines that I noticed in here. OK, and this is the fun thing about the old you came right.

I did. I take a look at this. I going to know, want to see my notes. I took a whole pad for. I wrote one sentence and I was like, What are you doing? You're the guest of. There was some stuff, damn stuff. A staff came out and it looked like he might have 15 threes and they showed them a couple of times the sideline politely plotting and then Dave came in is like, I'm now I'm going to shoot some threes.

They played like 20. They were, you know, high five in each other at the end of the first half. A lot of that stuff. But it's still a rivalry. I'm sorry. Like those guys are on each other's corner. There's no question it could be like you at ESPN. There's some host on one of the shows and you could be as friendly as you are. But that guy's on your corner and you're going to want to beat him.

And I did feel like that never happened. That never. Yeah, that's true. You're a bad example, Steph and Dave, though. You know, it's a great point now that they have a little territorial.

There was not only do we have that game this week, right. The second the last game for Golden State where Steph is lighting it up. Games had a terrible game and then Steph had a mystery and then he had a missed layup. And then Dame hits those two step backs and then he gets the charge against Draymond and even though Lillard the overall line wasn't very good, it's another moment where Dame has had this run of closing. He has, he has I think since twelve thirteen twenty nine game winning or tying shots with no time left or something ridiculous.

So clutch.

That's this year. This year they're not crazy like 60 something percent.

So he's, he's that guy. But you're. Your first point was great because I did notice it and it is, it's not like it's new, but you know how tough it must be for somebody as good as Damian Lillard to watch for six minutes and not be a starter and I understand is the all star game. But like for him to go all right I got to like in what world would I ever not be in the main group. And today's the example of because he's not going to get the votes.

So yeah I think there was definitely that's a great pick up on by you because it played out throughout the entire game. It's how close to with Dame kind of being like, hey, I'm taking over here. You had your chance, you pulled the for now I'm going to hit it. And Steph has a great trump card with all of this because he plays with he was doing the joyful step thing tonight. Ultimately, he's got the three rings.

So at some point he's like, did you take the second half? You keep taking those shots. It's it's good to see you do your thing. You know, it's just that little twinge of I do think there's a rivalry between those guys. And I don't think it's like, oh, fuck you. It's not I'm not any of that stuff. It's just like they're on their own, each other's corner. Their stats are similar. They mean as much to each of their teams.

They play in the same conference and, you know, games from Oakland, like there's a lot of stuff going on there. OK, do you think do you think it's it's going to be way worse for a dame like dame? Yeah, I don't know how much of it is social media or what, but, you know, I'm sure there's not a moment. Dame Lillard thinks that Steph Curry is better than him. I've never once thought Lillard was better than Steph Curry and you can talk about super teams and all that different stuff.

But when Durant was out and they played in the Western Conference finals, you know, I mean, Golden State wasn't even trying to sweep that series and they smoked them. So that's that's a tough one, I think, for the little crew to get past. But at least this year and in those clutch moments, it's tough to top Lillard and it's just kind of funny that he did in the All-Star Game, which they're up 20.

But you mentioned the I can't believe I'm not starting factor, which I think is a real thing in these games. Right game is one.

I think Harden was the other on the other team. I'm sure he was OK with it.

No, but just like. You know, he those guys know they're two of the best 10 guys in the league, even though we have 11 guys and then they're so. Other like little tiny storylines are there, there was some Chris Paul James Harden stuff, were you watching carefully? Yeah, James Harden had a rebound and took off. And Chris Paul, nobody's nobody's running more than I would say. Fifty two percent speed in the first three quarters of this game.

Chris Paul chases him down from behind like he's DKA. Matt Kev, on that interception, Ed and James is like doing his thing. He thinks he's going to do like some Eurostep and Chris comes from behind and takes the ball and then James kind of give him a shove. And there was a little like those guys. I'm not sure they're good, right? No, there's a little something. Yeah. I don't think there's anything good there at all.

I liked it. So I enjoyed that at Paul also. And Paul had a drive where it looked like he did get fouled and he immediately went in to get it on the refs ass in the baseline. And then he looked at the bench and put his hands up like, all right, all right. I'm not I'm not going to go for Chris Paul in the All-Star Game, too. I think they were, what, nine free throws combined, which was just lovely.

Yeah, but there is so another tiny Starline beginning in the fourth quarter. They need twenty four points to win and Chris Paul does the. All right now I'm slowing it down and doing my fourth quarter pace. Yeah. With no clock. Yeah. It's like he's, he's on the side. It's like what are you doing. You're not running the Phoenix extensor. I enjoyed that. He had to get a little aggro because he's Chris Paul. That's what he does.

I know, but it's a great but there was no clock bill and they were going Webers like he's going to slow the game down. You're like, no, you guys still have to get to one seventy. It doesn't matter. Yeah. The Lukáš thing was interesting. Loukia put many minutes. Loukia played in this game. You watched the seventeen thirty two. Oh really. God he was, he didn't. He had that one stretch read a couple of threes.

He's, he was three four seven. I don't know if he saw the skills contest. My son loved everything today. My son is right in the way. He's thirteen, he's right in the wheelhouse of shout out to the foreigners loves loves, kills. That's all that. So yeah. So Loukia mailed in the skills contest and it kind of mailed in the game. He was just kind of jogging up and down. He wasn't really a guy.

I didn't realize he played thirty two minutes. It's unbelievable. Nothing. Oh he had eight assists but I mean assists in this game or a joke. Just throw it to the guy ahead of everybody and they just get to play well.

And Jokic was really involved there and it made me wonder if like all the established dudes were like yeah fuck you.

Well I mean you, it's carved them out, you're burying the lead. We're talking about established guys. Maleness went in because once LeBron looked like he would all on that dunk attempt, I mean you know. Yeah he played thirteen minutes, missed five shots. All of his threes was like, I see you guys later. Kyrie was was great. I was on a couple different text threads where people were joking about that he was playing harder than he did during the Bucs playoff series.

I said that at multiple, multiple text. And he was really good at that game, though, that Jaylen Brown. That subplot I really enjoyed tonight, Jaylen Brown, because sometimes with these games, when you actually watch them, you're like, that guy doesn't totally belong out there, you know, I mean, like year after year, you're like, oh, nice story. That guy made the all star team and then you watch him in the game and you're like, yeah, it's kind of it's kind of a notch below.

You can just kind of see it around the corner, really. It's the All-Star Game. But I do feel that way with some of the stuff Jaylen looked like he belonged like to me, he looked the same as any other swing dude. And I was psyched because he's on my favorite team. Yeah, actually, I would think that the local media, because really everything we just saw here, like no one's different. Nothing is different now. OK, Janice doesn't like if you're doing a show tomorrow saying, does this mean Yoni's truly is the best player in the world?

No, we've already tried that game and work out. Right. Does this mean LeBron is getting old? No. Does it mean Lillard you would want him on your team to take the last shot. Even Steph. Well more stats and just today would say that yes that's been the case this past year. But if you are going to do a Celtics breakdown and go now, you know Jalen belongs, Jalen belongs and you're like why. Because nobody's playing any defense in Jalen was just a touch more aggressive.

I'd actually put Jalen in one of the top three guys that were like more aggressive than you'd expect expected, the all star level, which I have no issue with whatsoever. But I don't know I don't know that there's ever been anything from this game. You know, we always have to try to have something mean. Something in this game for two plus hours doesn't change anything. To be viewpoint. I didn't appreciate it. Yeah, but I mean, come on.

Really. So do you feel better about Jalen today? I do. Here's the thing. I want him to go out there and act like a guy who belonged as one of the best, you know, 15 guys in the game. And I thought he carried himself that way. I was excited about it because the worst case scenario and this has happened, we've seen it, is the guy goes out there and they're terrible. And you're like, oh.

Now that now that now that all the best guys are out there, you kind of don't look like one of the best guys I know. It's like a weird eye testing. It is. It is because I honestly think of it this way. The game we just watch would be the easiest for any regular person to score a bucket in. So then we're going to say that because a guy who's in the NBA looked better. I don't know. I just don't buy it.

Sorry. How did you think? As Anthony was disappointed, my son was really bummed out. He was just furious because my sentence is basically like what you took for him. And so every Aliu, he just thinks the guy's going to make that like at least three of them. How about the Altuve stuff and into Paul? How about Kairys to hinder and traffic? Do you see that one? Yeah, I mean, he's he's there's never a moment where I watch Cairene.

I'm not impressed the entire time, you know, so then I have a green. It's very. Coming up, I'm going to explain to you how this game helped LeBron James, his legacy. This episode of the Bill Simmons podcast is presented by Uber, it's select from a range of your favorite neighborhood restaurants with Uber eats.

Tonight, I'll be eating local, specifically Italian, because I'm half Italian. You know, it travels great on Uber. It's chicken parmesan, one of my favorite entrees. It's something I get all the time because again, I'm half Italian.

Eat local with Uber eats tonight. So I was trying to think of one of my favorite jokes lately is the LeBron media mafia, and I was trying to think how they could spin LeBron, who basically bailed in the game. And he should because obviously, why would he put by any miles himself in this game? He did exactly what he should do, but how they would spin this after. And I realized what it was going to be, LeBron, is that Forno is a captain.

Nice. So maybe like I don't think it's first segment on the jump tomorrow, but maybe third segment. Somebody theorizing like. Is it an accident, LeBron, for now, as as the all star captain, I mean, that's how smart this guy is. Even when he's picking his All-Star team, he's just at a higher level than anybody else like you think. Could Michael Jordan in that 90s, would he be Forno is the all star captain?

I don't know. I like a good one somewhere. I like it a lot because I'm back, I lost you by Jaylen Brown stuff. But now when you're back, I, I'm always I'm like, I'm like you with the LeBron Mafia where I'm so excited now to look forward to what it'll be.

I look, you know, people don't realize how much time you me and has spent texting about the LeBron media mafia and how much we enjoy it. We because it's so Bernstine of it. But we're always on it. We're always on it. And we'll say like, oh, yeah, I got to see that point somewhere. Shabazz Napier sit and being like, I told you motherfuckers you knew what he was doing.

Could LeBron go seven. And I was the all star captain. Will anyone ever beat this. Does that, will there be LeBron stands that go for is all star game. But then will MJ stand's be going off tonight being like Jordan never played this poorly in an all star game. Jordan never, never built in thirty minutes. How about this one flip flip. Same argument. OK, does LeBron Forno is all star captain prove that he's going to be an incredible NBA owner?

Yes, yeah, I think somebody but the thing is, we're joking, someone will say this, someone will be like, look, he did a great job putting together all star rosters. You know, the big thing with LeBron, too, is I think the first time they did this, he picked Giannis and he did it because he wanted Giannis to know how special he was in case when Giannis is a free agent he would come play with them when he did it And by the way that's that's confirmed.

So when he did it this time I was like huh. Does he think he's going to be like. Ask Audie to sign an extension. Now, that part is just me talking, but I just I know the first time through that this there is a free agent recruitment element to how guys were drafting teams when it first came along.

Right. I actually think this this draft. I thought it was interesting, the difference between LeBron and KD, how they picked their teams. Katie went almost all like kind of one on one specialist kind of playmakers where LeBron kind of gravitated to either really fun players or guys who were versatile, offensive guys. And you see the two teams that it's kind of like what their mindset is like, who they're more comfortable with. LeBron drafted a whole bunch of guys that he never really gets to play with in real life, but just kind of wanted to be around.

Durant was just like Harden Kyrie you know going down, down the line. These dudes that just like All right you throw him the ball, we'll stay in here and then we'll crash the boards. Did did Durant say I need some size and he took Sabonis over Gobert Well he Embiid I think that was way all right because I'm trying to remember how that played out. It might have been the other way around I don't know but Gobert was dunking tonight like he was dunking in traffic at a playoff game.

Like did you see how excited he would get. You start flexing and like doing stuff and guys are looking and being like you know he's within five feet of you, doesn't have a center.

What do you do. I think he probably had a little spur pizzazz because of, you know, the whole those guys are going to last again. Yeah, yeah. I hate to do this, but I'm going to do it. The twenty four point rule in the fourth quarter. I'm just kind of talking it out of my head how that would actually work in the regular season, I'm not against it. Versus I guess my question is. Let's I'll give you the choice we can either keep basketball the way it is or I can give you the twenty four point rule in the fourth quarter.

But no more replay reviews, we just get to twenty four points, nothing's reviewed, which would you rather have? Or if you tell me no reviews than I'd like to just keep it the way it is. I mean, the reason this ending is appealing because there's a stoppage, but there's going to be no stoppage in this one. So I'm not a.. I the the ending here. But you're not a.. Twenty four point room. I'm not I'm not like I'm really open to trying to find ways to get that drama back.

But the easiest fix would be take the reviews out. You know, the final minute of the Iowa college game today took 20 real minutes, the final minute to stop it. Who is this for who I don't know who's on the side of this is great. Keep it going, guys. Every every business is about growing, right? That's all these guys are doing. That's why the NFL is going to put games on one day. It's going to be on every news media on seven nights a week.

All right. And every single sports league is trying to figure out a way to grow the audience, whether it's international or having baseball games in Japan or having games in Mexico City for the NFL and all these different things that we're trying to do or we're seeing leagues try to do. Imagine trying to explain to somebody to be like, what do you do? Like what we sit around in the game still. How long the games take? I like to two and a half hours.

OK, that seems kind of long. Is it fun? Yeah, it is. But sometimes will be a review like OK, so like the final minute. Yes, sometimes the final minute takes like seven to ten minutes and guys stand around and look at the monitor. Then they talk and they go back and look at the monitor and the announcers complain and then everybody just stands there like man that's when is that. Can I watch that tonight? I mean the person would be like, that sounds insane.

I wish I'd love to go in a time machine and tell myself a lot about 20, 21. But this would be one of the things I would definitely nineteen ninety five me would have been completely confused by. Wait what. So that's just the game stops. What happens if the other team has momentum. There's no break, momentum doesn't exist, and then you'd say, like, well, they must that must be good because everybody's happy because they get the call.

Right, right.

Like, no actually, they don't have time to time. We wonder if they got it right. So the reviewer to get it right, will they review it to try to get it right. But they'll see something that made it wrong, but they'll confirm that it was right, even though they know it's wrong because they can't make the right call because there's different rules about what's right and wrong.

Well, and then. And then. No, no. Then it's like we'll spend seven minutes trying to discern if it's a black or charge. But one day later, somebody can block the bar off the backboard and the ref can make the call and we're not going to review it. Yeah. So there's no referees. So that could be and then we just move on like nothing. It's. A slam dunk contest tonight. It was a tough one.

You know, here's the thing. This goes to my theory podcast here, you can have the greatest idea for the for podcast. And if the hosts think the podcast isn't going to work, you could have a terrible idea for a podcast and if the hosts are really good, the podcast might work. You can have a slam dunk contest with the best players in the league, and I don't even care if the dunks are that good, I'm going to enjoy it.

But you could put I. I follow the league at a really high level. I didn't know who the guy in Indiana was. I never seen that person before.

I don't know who it was. I thought I thought he had zero dark season. I thought they were filming a movie. I was like, is this an actor? Is this a, you know, a new Ron Shelton movie? They're they're filming. This is it. Oh, no. This is actually the guy. Two things. One is I think the scoring should go from one to one hundred. I don't understand why they've stuck to the one in 10.

That was an idea in 1984. When they're throwing this together, just make it one hundred, give it way more flexibility with the numbers. And then I do think YouTube might have killed the dunk contest. Like my son has watched every dunk contest on YouTube. There's no dunk we can see now. That would be impressive, Tim. So unless I in it or whoever, he's just going to be disappointed, so I don't really know the fix.

I don't know why it just became so uncool, like we had a G league or when in one year, hell, it might have been the D league when the guy won it and then you have cashes in it, who again is zero dunks and you've got to be really locked in to either college hoops or the Pacers to know who he is and. You know, I don't I don't think that that's necessarily fair, like, if you think it's skateboarding, people say like, well, what is there left to do that people are always evolving.

They're trying to figure things out. I think we've seen Dunk's, whether it's Aaron Gordon throwing some stuff down, we're like, OK, that's incredible. I mean, we even thought the dunk contest was kind of dead 20 years ago. And then Vince came along, you know, so we've been having this the dunk contest is dead thing. Was it Magic Johnson one year just started going nuts screaming. The dunk contest is back. The dunk contest is back.

I completely agree with that. You sound like him. Yeah, like the dunk contest is where you dunk it. I like I like the idea of changing the scoring because you could tell on the first Castries dunk that was a really good dunk, but he just wasn't going to get fifty. Like you're not getting fifty because everybody just got started here. And so, you know, I'm not going to get on the judges or anything. I think you could change it that way.

But it's just I don't know that anyone's ever going to care. Like, if you if you if you sold somebody on the dunk contest, I'd be like, oh, is that the best players that are good at dunking? And you're like, no, it's anyone that doesn't think it's uncool for them and it's borderline rotation players that do it. So, you know, I don't I don't know what the fix is. I don't know how all of a sudden you can make something cool, because let's face it, NBA players like they're not going to touch anything that they don't think is cool.

And to be in the dunk contest is cool. It's risky. It's just not cool to be a part of some of these guys are going to do it. Like the whole vibe of the dunk contest has been gone now. So even the dunk part of it, the physical part of it, there's probably like I would never make the assumption that we can't ever see anything again. But you can't have guys in there that, like, people don't know who they are.

It's pretty weird. I did like Simon's kiss, don't know that I really did enjoy that. I think he came as close as you can come to kiss in the ring without actually risking the ball hitting your face or something. The skills challenge was equally horrible. I thought they made a big mistake that Evan Lamela and the skills challenge just to have them there if he's your biggest star rookie this year. Right. And Obbie top and they had in the slam dunk, but I just would have had them out there.

I really enjoyed the three point contest and I'm not going to apologize either. Guess what? It's fun to watch Steph Curry shoot threes against other guys. I'll watch that in any scenario. And I think he means as much to the three point contest as as Larry meant to it in the mid 80s, where if he's in it, I'm just watching it.

I'm in. Well, not only was it that I mean, it went down to the last ball, it was great. It was that that part was fun because you actually, by the way, you're going to see some of the best shooters in the league go, OK, I'm going to go ahead and do this so that the three point shot at least I mean, imagine if it were. You know, John Lur. You know, sentiments that I'd actually watch me to that would be interesting, maybe you do that highest minute total guys to take the least amount of threes and then have them do the maybe squeals.

Competition should have been stuff like entry passes to Kwame Brown if we're doing this, you know, but the skills challenge they had with Sabonis against Vosovic in the finals, I don't know what happened. This used to be like a speed point guard, like Darren Fox type of contest. I don't know what the hell's going on. I was really, really confused. Another confusing thing has pointed this out. They say the Canadian anthem, even though we have no NBA teams playing in Canada this season, I would describe that saying the Tampa national anthem, I don't know.

Then you get it up in BuzzFeed the next day why you hate Canada.

You know, just the times.

Times are times are unpredictable right now. So I think they just want to avoid an international incident. Fair and then I mean, I said Lowry wasn't a hall of Famer, I got death threats for two weeks, so, you know. Brit breaking my wife, who watched some of tonight's events with me and my son, has announced that Jason Tatum, in her opinion, is the best looking NBA star this year. That's her word. Yeah, she thinks Jason datums the best looking basketball player.

I don't have any. No, congrats to him. Yeah, is that true? What's going on? This facial hair? I don't know, because he was growing some of that straggly stuff. I never quite understand with the younger guys, but help, you know. You know, guys my age used to rock goatees and soul patches. So, you know, I don't want to hate. All right. We did 30 minutes on the All-Star Game with what's audible.

You were texting about this today because that now it's that we're heading into the second half of the season, we're going to playoffs soon, it's really the title starting to feel real. And you're texting about most insufferable. That team just won the championship right afterwards. Narrative's going team by team. What would be the most annoying to just kind of be bombarded with for three days? So you have the flair.

Let's start with Brooklyn. Right. Just understand that we're likely going to end up with an ending where it's one of these teams. So Brooklyn, if they were to win, then Kyrie was right to take time off. You know, he didn't tell anybody was doing. And some people think he took time off to take his trade value, that Harden was right to force his way out of Houston, which again, I'm not even anti that he forced his way out as much as just watching how he went about it, where you're like you're just you're throwing passes it almost out of bounds on purpose just to be I mean, that pass to John Wall, I hope, is in the highlight video when he's inducted in the Hall of Fame.

So it'll be a good for Harden. He was right, Kyrie was right and Kyrie was right.

To get out of Boston would be the other piece. Well I mean you know, he might have been right to get out of Boston, you know what I mean? So I don't I don't even care. The Kyrie left Boston because that last season watching it was so tough to watch anyway, although the Zarghun that if the nets were to win would be all the people that trash Nash, specifically one guy saying, I hope they lose every game this year because he was hired, then that would be sort of like, oh well, hey, Nash might have been the right guy, so get ready for that.

One, two. Brooklyn wins. The Philly one is is a layup. It's like, oh, all you guys that thought and beat and Simmons can play together and they still can't play together offensively. I'm never going to. But whatever version it is of Simmons that's so incredible defensively the way he works through the offense. But I still don't know, I'm still a little worried about, you know, those closing time minutes. You know, that Utah jazz game.

He took one putback shop with eight minutes left in regulation and into overtime. That's one shot attempts. So when I watch him, I still see a stagnant combination between the two. But hasn't Mattrick As and BS probably MVP, but it'll be that if they win, it'll be because those two play so well together offensively when I'm not sure that's quite the case. And then there'll be a lot of Sam Hinkie retroactive credit, you know. So that's where I was going.

I would go ahead, vote the out. Vote that first. I think if they won the title, it's a lot of the process was right. Victor, Sam Hinkie was a genius all along, going to be all that stuff. There's going to be a ton of that. Like, Look, Pablo Lottery is the number one wave flagger for Henchy. And look, Pablo had great access to him. I don't know if there's there's another connection there, but like, every time they have a nice sort of run, it's like trust the process and I'll think so.

What are we talking like eight years since he was hired and they haven't been out of the second round like that is some just unbelievable trust like he does. He does even have. So that'll be the other one. And then I think if the Lakers were to win it again. Which is certainly a real possibility here, LeBron being at five, M.J. being at six, but LeBron has already started his campaigning when he started saying the summer I won the two toughest championships ever, which I think he arguably did against Golden State.

I would disagree with him with the bubble championship. But he is positioning himself in a way to to compare favorably, even if he's behind the total number of Jordan, by saying that, like, when I hear him say that, that's me thinking, OK, the guys got together and came up with this and now they're going to start hammering this home as some way to say, like even if he ends up at five, he's better than Jordan.

But these are just all things that I say are going to happen. There's a twist to that. It'll be the bronze five was harder than MJ six. He didn't he didn't have to take a year and a half off to rest his body. He stayed in the whole time. Absolutely, Jordan left the game, LeBron never quit. It'll be it'll go further that if Phoenix wins. You didn't mention this in your text. Maybe Robert Sarver was a great owner.

Did we underestimate Sahba? I don't think anybody's going to do that. I'm sure if Utah wins, it'll be they were the best team all along. But small market, the media didn't ever want to acknowledge how good they were. They did this despite despite the mainstream media who really wanted a big market and a big star to win the title. Well, here we are. I just don't think that one's mainstream enough, though, because for all the anti Hadan stuff, which I think some is very justifiable, I think some of the criticisms are completely justifiable.

I think the pushback on some of the LeBron stuff, while still acknowledging how especially is in that he's he's right there with Jordan right now for me, you know, he is you know, I don't think that's a that group might be two guys, man. It really might be two guys. And it's and it's those two, you know, I haven't spent as much time thinking about and going through it all again, but. Those are so mainstream, those are those are constantly updated daily things and like where are you at with hard worry about we're yet with Ben and Joel or were you at with what LeBron legacy is going to be?

The Utah one's a good one, but it's just not against the national media point you just made. I just don't know that it's repetitive enough for it to end up on that. Well, don't worry, the league will fix it. So they're not in the finals anyway?

No, man, they're so good Bill here. Are you willing to admit that they could come out of the West now? See, I am I don't know why you'd be so dismissive of that. I'm just not there yet. No, listen, I. I get that it's the twenty fourteen Spurs Zango. I get it. I just think. I don't want to overreact to this first half of the season, because I think so much of it had to do with luck and who didn't get covid and who did and who didn't have one injury.

And you know, that I think they they were they probably had the luckiest first half of the season just from all the. Dumb stuff that could submarine a team for a week, two weeks, whatever, they didn't have any of it. So like Dallas had the most arguably or I don't know, its top three most Celtics had a lot of it like that. Right. Tatum gets covid right. Is there taking. I think a lot of teams got hit with it.

I think Philly had a lot of weird shit Toronto and a lot of weird shit. Miami had a shitload of stuff. Miami, I mean the Wizards actually had a stretch there. I don't think they played for over a week the last five games. All right. So we could talk about Utah having it. LeBron said this in his press conference today. He was saying they asked him why he played thirty six thirty seven games. He's like like what is the reason?

He's, like, lucky. I just got lucky. I didn't have any of this stuff happen to me. So Utah was lucky the first half, which is games played and who stayed healthy. Yeah but they smashed the point differential didn't even without Conley they still ran through teams and even in Boston.

It's so interesting to me because you were the you kind of planted your flag on regular season basketball. Playoff basketball are two completely different. They are last season. They are. I just think now you're swimming it back. No, no, no, no. I'm keeping my flag. They're also allowing me to watch the first half of the season. Look, I picked Utah to win the West last year. All right? Now, yes, I'm trying to be a little different.

They do? Yeah, I did. Oh, did that did that win anything in the SAG Awards or. No, no. I was definitely trying to every now and then when I just feel like everybody's doing anything different, you know, or doing the same thing, I was like, you know, let me let me see what happens here, because I still wasn't you know, I was still in that mode of we always felt like one of the super teams that have that great third guy.

And then we realized, like last couple of years, like, actually you don't because there isn't enough that there isn't a Golden State with Durant, there isn't a Miami with the three dudes. Now we have it again in Brooklyn right now when Harden goes over there. So we could be back to that. But the Lakers actually didn't need that third guy, really the third guy for them last year in the playoffs as Rondo. But when I watch Utah, I think there's stuff there that translates there defensively solid.

They shoot the hell out of the ball. This is two years in a row. Defensively they slipped. I think the Gobert thing is is resolved. And you know, even though Mitchell and this is a this is a really cool like thing that I noticed with him. He's had stretches where he blew us away because it was so unexpected. He goes where he goes, you you're like, man, this thing is real. Are you paying attention to what Donovan Mitchell is doing here?

And he's got an attitude like ballsiness to his game when he went and Ebeid when he went at him to try to dunk on him, he got the end one because, like, I was like, I don't know how many other guys would even try in today's game because they wouldn't want to be embarrassed and even give a shit. But he also kind of reverted back to the guy that didn't have a lot of help in Utah and a couple of those leaner years, or they're basically just over 500 team where I was like, oh, no, is he going to turn into one of these dudes that so talented but now is making horrible basketball decisions by forcing the issue so much?

And he's not that. But he was doing it, I think, because he was trying to go at Simmons and Simmons get the better of them defensively. So that was just one of those moments. But overall, I think there's a lot there that I really like that I'm surprised you're kind of doing. It's new and they're dismissive, even though, yeah, my original point is true, there's never been a bigger separation between regular season playoff basketball than what we've seen the last few years.

I can't get past it in the last five minutes of a big playoff game. The other team is going to have somebody better than whoever Utah's best guy is. And I can't get past that point. So it didn't matter at the 2014 Spurs. But if you think back to that Spurs team, they hit some nineteen seventy Knicks type thing that they had going on with the ball movement. The three point shooter ball movement was like was the start of the Golden State thing, you know, people moving around.

But they also had, you know, Parker was a really good option, you know, if a game ever got close. So as you know, you could always throw out the dunk and stuff like that. The Philly, Utah game. I thought it was one game. Mitchell wasn't great, but there was something telling about it that it basically became Mitchell against Embiid and I just liked having my money and Embiid in that game. So that's the thing I can't get past with Utah yet.

If they win it has to be the totality thing. The twenty fourteen Spurs thing. But you also need the opponent to kind of be on the other end of it. Like Miami was twenty fourteen. I don't think that fourteen Spurs team you know would have beaten how many title teams out of the 2010s. Yeah. And not many because we're talking about two of the greatest rosters we've seen.

So I thought that fourteen heat team was pretty weak. If you look back at the way it was kind of washed away, it was like half, half a wade at that point. Their roll guys were terrible. Remember, Chalmers is playing a lot.

And by the way, LeBron was already that LeBron was doing like the classic body language, like I'm distancing myself from these guys. Yeah, we're getting smoked. Like when the rematch. You're talking the rematch, right? I'm talking rematch when they were doing the rematch. He is he is not afraid to let everyone in the audience see that. He's like, man, can you believe these fucking guys?

You could feel last, most insufferable posted on there to the Clippers. The Clippers will never win the title, so we don't have to worry about that.

Coming up, Blake Griffin, go to the Nets. I have some thoughts. That's next. This episode of the Bill Simmons podcast is presented by Uber, it's select from a range of your favorite neighborhood restaurants with Uber eats.

Tonight, I'll be eating local, specifically Italian, because I'm half Italian. You know, it travels great on Uber. It's chicken parmesan, one of my favorite entrees. It's something I get all the time because again, I'm half Italian.

Eat local with Uber eats tonight. So Blake Griffin got bought out by the Pistons, they saved 13 million dollars on like sixty six million dollars worth of his salary, and I still don't understand why teams do that. I would just much rather have the guys in expiring and play a game of chicken with them. If I'm an NBA team, I'm supposed to be competing in a 30 team league. It's always I know it's good. It wins goodwill with the agents, the agent.

Yeah, that's what everybody thought that I'd be like, you know, would win goodwill. Maybe he should have done more for the hundred eighty million dollars I was paying him. Anyway, that would go over well, if you were a GM today.

If you think so, yeah, I'm going to work on that.

But another tweet like a Daryl Morey tweet, but instead it's like this fucking guy mailed it in 66 million to go shoot me.

America's Daryl is you know, he's really good at social media and he's incredibly supportive of everybody. I mean, he's dropping like shit left and right. But it would just be it would be hilarious if there was like an A.I. that GM we just went, can this guy hit a fucking shot? I swear to God, I've never seen Jerebko ever hit a shot in the fourth quarter. Who signed this guy. You know, whatever.

I have a two part question for you. Sure, Fostoria, Marie-Anne, Cameo. Second question, how much do you think Darro is charging? Well, I don't think he can charge he can't charge a ton because it'd be a bad look like that would be weird. I think Ravell charges a ton. So I'm going to guess like 50 bucks for for Derrell.

Nine hundred ninety nine dollars what? Yeah, that seems like a lot of money for Daryl. Emmitt Smith isn't even that much, he's doing it for the ACLU. OK. All right. All right. Great job. Darryl Derevko is charging fifty dollars. Oh, really? I think he dropped that maybe was a demand thing. That still seems like forty eight dollars to high. I don't get it. I just don't get Kaavya. With that said, I've sent my daughter multiple cameos from Siesta Key stars and it completely made her day.

She had these huge stars being like, hey, Zoe, good luck with your soccer season. And she was like, delighted. And it was like thirty nine bucks. Sarah and Carissa did it for my birthday and they did all Bravo Housewives and they made me out to be like this real estate mogul. And one of the housewives was like, oh, it's too bad I'm taken. You sound like a real catch. And I was like, Oh, this is so I follow up here because, you know, I always get divorced.

This reads like I'm here for you, you should have maybe followed up. It's a tough day. It's been a tough day for me. Well, you know, the big tomato thing's a tough one for you. I couldn't watch it. I taped it. I'll get it. Is going to be. Have you ever told that story in a podcast? Yeah.

Like twice in the last couple of weeks ago, we would talk about Blake Griffin. So he signed with the Nets. This is one of those things where if. If you were in a coma in 2014 and you woke up, you're like, hey, what happened to you? Tell me who are on the different NBA teams? I was like, well, the Nets have Kyrie Durant Harden and Blake Griffin. You'd been like, what? How many teams are in the league?

Like five. Right. You would have had like a heart attack, but this is an earthquake, whatever.

This is not the same Blake Griffin. And here's my question for you. Get ready. Are we sure he's better than Jeff Green? He's not even been this year, he has been this year and look at it better than Jeff Green. You know what was really funny about this? And this is this is always this thing. And look for the people who listen to this pod, how locked you are into the NBA or just you like Bill, but.

There's always this reminder at times how obsessed we are with something, when you'll see the reaction be like, oh, it's a fucking wrap up late like we was. Now, it might be a wrap before he showed up. OK, yeah. But to think that somehow the Blak we've seen this year in Detroit is now this missing piece this big that they're going to add, you know, but who knows?

I mean, the thing is, as we've seen. But we do know. Well, we know that it's going to be a different opportunity for him with Brooklyn because whoever the fourth and fifth guys are are just wide open all the time. All the time we know. OK, what do we know? He's doesn't have his athletic ability anymore. No, he doesn't. He doesn't. It's it's I mean, that that thing that went around about how he had inducted since twenty nineteen, it went way deeper than that.

And look, I'm not saying this to be critical. I really enjoyed watching Blake Griffin play for years and years and years. I think he had a great career. I think he's going to the Hall of Fame. I thought he was the third best player in the league by the end of the 2015 season when the Warriors when their first time I really did. I thought he was the third best player in that in that playoffs. He's had eight surgeries and he can't move anymore, and I don't think switching teams is going to change that.

And, you know, you can look at any metric and this is something I've talked about before on this podcast. There's no metric better than just looking at somebody's basketball reference page year by year by year. And when you see somebody who is like twenty two points and 12 rebounds and seven, eight free throw attempts a game, and it starts going down and all of a sudden they're 12 and five, they're three free throw attempts a game to shoot.

Thirty seven percent like there's no coming back. So if the question for me is like can he be as good as like Larry Johnson, then the 12 Knicks right now. So I don't even think it's. Oh, wait, I was thinking of, like, early, Larry.

I'm saying I'm saying Larry Johnson near the end on those Knicks teams when he was like athletically compromised, had a bad Heat series stuff. Yeah. Or the ninety nine finals or the Raptors series next year. Could he be somebody that hits a couple threes, knows where to go, what to do, isn't afraid because he's been in a bunch of big games, kind of knows what his physical limitations are, knows how to play basketball, doesn't need the ball like maybe but I would still rather have Jeff Green.

I'm sorry, Andy, if you're telling me he's going to get the minutes over Jeff Green, I think that's a mistake. Unless there's some athletic renaissance coming for Blake that we are. You know, you watch league pass. I actually pass. I didn't see it in those Pistons games. I saw a guy who couldn't move anymore. No, but I also thought it was a weird spot because he still kind of felt like it was his team.

And Jeremy Grant's like, no, those that said it's over. Right. You almost I felt like Blake almost gave up on his aggressiveness to like, OK, that this sucks. You know, this just isn't working out.

So not to get hurt. No, I just I think he was bummed out. I think is I think it was basketball bummed out on top of everything else. And the reason the Nets thing was almost immediate is he and Kyrie are apparently really cool.

And the biggest reason why I went to Brooklyn because Kyrie well he's, he's, you know, by draft class theory when these guys read the same draft class and they knew each other since that a tournament in Vegas when they were all fifteen or whatever, he's just known all these guys forever. And you know, this is kind of why you don't want your players to be your GM. You know, because these guys obviously we've got to send Blake Blake's bail, but we've got to get him, they're not watching Detroit on league pass.

They they're not what it is that nine nine surgeries. Well, I just think for Brooklyn, though, because they're so limited after the trade and then they're limited because they they've been doing all these shorter deals to avoid certain tax parts of it. I mean, obviously going to paying at a tax. But if you've been looking at what they've been doing and I remember some former GM, I forget who was was writing about, hey, this is what they're going to end up doing because this is going to be the cheaper way to get through this.

And so than to add Blak, I think it's just another body to throw in the mix. So I don't know if this automatically means he gets sell Jeff Green's minutes. I also think because of those guys now, they're are going to be a couple of games where he has some opportunities and probably puts up some decent numbers. But your original point is the best one. When you go to basketball reference and you see a massive decline in rebounds, free throw attempts, steals is usually a good one because he was going.

Yeah. And you're like, OK, so you just don't move around that much. You're not getting the free throw line as much. You're not fight for rebounds the way you used to. You're not jumping in the passing lanes, you know. You know, there's an effort thing there because your body just isn't responding the same way. And you don't you're right. You don't see like a guy in those three year declines and then have come out the other side of the curve.

We're like, oh, Cooley's back to twenty two and ten again. Like, no it's over. So I think you just want there to be happy. He's tight with Kyrie and I think he'll have some moments. But the overriding like bigger picture reaction to it was like oh Brooklyn like as if this is unfair you're going OK well you guys have in Washington, Detroit at all. His as a three point shooter is thirty three percent for his career.

He really only had one season that you'd be even a little bit fired up about his twenty eighteen piston season was really good. He was he took seven threes a game that year, shot thirty six percent from three, got to the free throw line seven point three times. Those two years turned himself in. Do you remember back when you were your years when you had him at peak athleticism. The biggest hang up in his game is you could see he was thinking about a shot like he would get it and it should have been up and then he wasn't comfortable.

That's a hard thing to develop and he deserves a lot of credit for that, where he got to the point where it's like, OK, what I'm supposed to when I get this look, I have I can't even think about it. And he actually turned himself into a shooter.

So but I just I think if he's out there, the other team's not guarding him. They're delighted, that is thing is, there's always like one net you're not guarding because these other three guys are so insane. Like look at Brown in these cuts. They look at Joe Harris's numbers right now.

You know, even Jeff Green's had some moments. So I think the scary thing for the rest of the league is, is just you're always going to be leaving one of those other guys.

So that's where I think we'll probably have a couple of moments. But I don't know that means the difference.

So that that's my next point, Katie. And hard. And let's give them thirty seven minutes a game. Let's give Kyrie thirty five. So I'm already at 70 form at one hundred and nine minutes, only two, you can only play to 40. I'm going to give Joe Harris 30. I'm going to get Bruce Brown 30, because he's the best player in the league. So now I'm at one hundred and sixty nine minutes, I have I now have seventy one more minutes to play with, let's give D.J. twenty five percent in a playoff series.

Let's give you I mean, he's twenty three now, so. Right. Let's give Shawmut at 18. How many you want to give Shimamoto and it. Chairman, 18, them at 43. Now I have how many, how many? Less than 20. I'm Jeff Greene of 15 in Clarkston. Let's say Nick Claxton gets the other six. I just don't know who Blake's taken minutes from. And if you're telling me it makes more sense to play him than Jeff Green.

I don't see it because with all the jokes he made about Jeff Green over the years, you could still switch of them on the he could still make an open three, could still run the floor. So to me, this is like I actually think it would have been better for Blake to go to a team where he could that actually could have needed him, you know, that actually like maybe needed real minutes for him. And I don't in my opinion, it was not the Nets, OK?

I would put in local hero in there, too, because he's been all right, you know, and I think he's got a little toughness to him. Little a little bit more edge than maybe if you haven't watched him. The Claxton thing is kind of interesting because, Claxon, when you watch him out of Georgia, the most frustrating thing was like this guy not realize how enormous he is, like what's what's going on? Like, he played offense, like a perimeter guy, like way too much perimeter.

But it was still really flashy when it was right and it was exciting, but it still wasn't smooth enough, like some of these other six, ten freaks that we have that actually are like legit perimeter players. But if you watched and I know you have, because you had a ton of knick knacks and stock. I did.

You know, all of these guys that are big and they play in that Dunker role and Harden's a master at it and Kyrie's just as good. And Durant can can do whatever he wants to. There's this resurgence of players that put up these like big productive minutes, and I'm not saying it's like 20 points, but they're putting up these awesome, like numbers and limited time because they're so efficient, because they're wide open. Everybody just collapses and leaves them.

And so, Nick Claxton, if somebody just said to him, hey, dude, whatever your long term goals are yourself as a basketball player, that's great. I'm going to put those on the shelf because you're going to be dunking everything every time you're in. You're going to be like, watch Cappello video and see what he did with Harden and you're going to do the exact same thing like hell. You might have 20 points in a playoff game because of the way a team defends you.

Blake starts this year 12 and five, thirty seven percent shooting thirty two percent from three three point one free throw attempts. We'll say to me this is if you're getting the plate that we watch first half of the season, this is somebody that will be the Mitch in the Richmond ceremonial role, not really playing. If they feel like athletically they can bring him back in some way in that there's and he's telling those guys, I'm not where I need to be yet, but maybe I will be in a couple of months, you know, give me give me give a chance.

He's got Jay on that team, too. Obviously, they were very close. There is a fun path like. Look, I'm not saying it's one hundred percent chance that he's done, I would say it's 90, but let's say he actually became he worked his way back a little athletically. He found some, I don't know, started doing Pilates or whatever and became a fun role player for him and for getting to play Doc in if they played Philly didn't go through Doc and then in the in the finals, he could play the Clippers.

Right. Or Phoenix. Chris Paul would be fun. There's some fun like storylines with him, but I just don't think he's good enough for it to matter anymore. It has been great. I think they were on the same page. I have nothing else to add, by the way. Does that does that mean. Yeah, everybody likes Blake, I think. Does that mean. That you think Phoenix and the Clippers have a better chance of coming out of the West than Utah?

No, OK, I don't know what to think. I think this is a weird year. I think we have to be prepared for a 20, 20 heat scenario with about nine teams. I really do. I think with the shortened season covid all this, all the shit like the the baggage from last year's playoffs and then this season starting right away, I'm just not crossing people off like I would in normal year. Remember, there were some years like twenty eighteen or be like three teams come in the title.

That's it. I have no other teams. I have these three teams.

How many teams right now do you OK with.

Like nine or ten like ok. So nine or ten. That seems like a lot. I don't know.

Do it, let's go through it. OK, this wasn't even plan you'd need prep on this. Am I allowed to put the Celtics on this. Well, let's get let's wait to see how long it takes before we get there, and then we'll address that topic, I think Philly could wind up Brooklyn. Milwaukee. OK, Miami Heat. Utah, Phoenix, both L.A. teams. And I cannot. Rule out Denver yet, so that's nine. I'm just not really in Denver because I think they have a trade that they could make that would change their destiny.

So I got nine, so that's nine with Denver, not including Boston. Not including yeah, so how about this eight, not including Denver and Boston, who I think could change their destinies with trait's, Boston's the most obvious. We could change our destiny trade team just because they had that crazy exception. OK, what do you do you think are we going to do to trade stuff on tonight's spot? Yeah, I have a coming up next.

I have Charlotte as my eleventh game as a wild card to win the whole title. Well, Mark, if he keeps going like this, right. I just don't think you threw him out. Yeah, I have some trade stuff. Yeah, let's do that now. So. I wrote down all the trade targets. Look at this, I really did a lot of homework. You did a lot of homework.

This is the least amount of prep I've ever done for one of these beliefs that I realize what sometimes you just got to. I felt like I could take the podcast. I feel like I could have nice on a stretcher. I'm going back. I'm on my iPad a little too much. What I do, I like to self evaluate. Sometimes I wasn't taking notes enough. Sometimes I like to sit with a nice piece of pen. Nice, nice white sheet of open paper.

So you did some real homework though on the pot. So you don't tell me about any of this. I would have.

I usually always prep along with you this one because it was all stuff I don't usually I prep on the iPad, but what I find is when I prep with the notes, my brain works better. And I yeah, just kind of remember what I stopped doing a few weeks ago as I put my phone away during games. I don't want to text. I don't want to text anybody because I was just because the season has been so weird and the now we know what this is, we need to keep repeating it over and over again.

But I felt like I'm like, are you watching these games? Are you really watching these games? And you need to you need to kick your ass here a little bit, because I went through like a week or so where I go. I know what's happening. I know what's going on. But I wasn't watching.

That's like, oh, yeah, the people who watch Twitter instead of the game that they watched the game. But so then I was like, look, it wasn't even Twitter for me. It was it was texting. And I was getting text and I went, you know what I'm going to give myself? I need to restart this and I can't get lazy. And I also started doing a little bit more player stuff where I'm just watching players now for longer stretches, because that's always a nice reminder of like where you're at with a guy.

So anyway, enough about me. So. I'm just going to throw some trade questions at you. OK? If your Sacramento. This is question number one. For Sacramento, do you trade or Barnes? Barnes'. But I mean, Barnes's deal is still a decent deal. It's what got a couple of years on it, but I think it goes to twenty to twenty. Eighteen.

Yeah. Burns is twenty two point two. Goes down as one. Yeah. It goes backwards. It's a much more favorable deal. Hield is twenty four point two and it keeps going for another couple of years. And so I've been, I've been watching Barnes a lot the last couple of weeks because I do think he's a real Celtics possibility and I've said this on other parts. I just think he's been really good this year. I've been consistently surprised by how impressed I am by him game to game.

And he's somebody I was never a big fan of. I think he's been up and down. He had a couple of weird Dallas years. He's also been in a lot of big games. He's one of those guys you think he's like thirty three threes, only twenty eight. And I think he's a guy who could make a good book.

He can make threes, he shoot them really well this year, but he can also you can throw him the ball with like seven seconds left on the shot clock and he can actually create a shot. And what the Celtics really need is a wing who can spell Tatum or Brown and play with them together. It's the it's the it's their glaring hole. Barnes is seventeen and six shoot. Forty nine percent. Thirty nine percent from three. It's getting to the free throw line almost five times a game.

And I and a great guy by all accounts, if I'm Sacramento, I'd rather keep him in trade buddy and play Halbert more. And I think Buddy would have real value. But I don't know if he would have more or less value than Barnes. But I just think teams prioritize shooters so much. I would rather keep Barnes and trade buddy. So that's where I stand. That's a tough one, and maybe other people look at it is is easy.

I'll tell you this, when I've asked teams about who's available, just in general, like, hey, what are you hearing about whatever at Sacramento? The front office was told we're not sellers. You know, there's this group of stagnant franchises that want to taste the playoffs and they don't want to make it seem like they're rebuilding when they just were rebuilding over and over again. So I wouldn't say that that's fact. The way they've been playing and things going in the wrong direction.

I'm sure there's a time where you reevaluate it and say, all right, what's the market for the guys? I think the Barnes market would be less competitive. So I think Barnes would bring or I think he will bring you back more. But maybe you're right. Maybe, you know, Barnes, I think, takes a ton of shit because he was so bad in that sixteen finals. You have to be there could be big moments where the most eyeballs are on you and then you can't really shake that one for the most part.

Like, look, he's not a superstar, but he's a pretty good offensive player. You know, he's had a nice career. He's young, the contract gets cheaper. So it's not like he's a rental here. So I would have to think for a decent first, you could probably get it done. But I'm sure Sacramento, if they're if they're saying no, it'll start with, hey, we need a young player to pick two on top everything else.

But Barnes might actually be a better fit to get Hield out of the the Fox Halliburton rotation. To say to stay in Sacramento. That's how I feel. And so Buddy Hield, he's having a weird year. He's he's taken 14 shots a game, ten point three of them are threes. He's and he's a 38 percent, three point shooters have him, he's basically just the three all he wants to shoot threes, which is fine. I actually think there would be more valuable teams for him to be on for what his specific skill set is.

Right. It's just real expensive. Right. So but if he's 15 million a year, you're excited about it. If he's in there, Joe Harris, Berton's range, but now you're paying the extra thing. So you start looking at like, you know, Atlanta could put. A Snel Rondeau package, together with a young guy for four healt, the like, Charlotte could get Zellar and Biyombo whatever, not that they need. Buddy, buddy wasn't that bad.

It was four ninety four. So he's at twenty point to an eighteen point three and then he's unrestricted again here in two years but is. Yeah so I thought he had two years left. Now he has a declining one too. I mean it's the same thing with Vukovich. Booch goes from like twenty eight to twenty six, twenty four to twenty two million. But let me turn you straight.

Are you all right. Green, Danny Green and the Mike, Scott and Maxi. OK, I was wondering, are you going to put a player in there that I want and if and let's say a future conditional first for Buddy and you put him on that Sixers team. And now I can space the floor with Steph Curry buddy. Now, Simmons is my only non shooter out there with Embiid and Harris, and that's a really tough team to guard.

I like it. I actually do, because you put the shooter out there and I look Danny Green, it's it's going in the direction that you'd expect me. Daddy Green's been in a long, legal, long time. He's done some great things. But the counter, if you're the kings, are like, why do I want Max and Halliburton and Fox? No, thanks. I would just rather have. The rookie contract, I don't care about the other pieces of it, but, you know, again, some of these owners go, I thought we were just rebuilding and now we're doing it again.

Even if it's a better basketball decision, they just have a hard time with it. So when I heard that thing, by the time I hear it, it can be outdated or was like Sacramento, supposedly not. They're telling four of us, we're not trading, we're not trading, we're not trading. I'm not predicting that. I mean, the trade deadline is the twenty fifth. I mean, we're still talking about two weeks in Sacramento. Would be it would actually be malpractice if they didn't make some trades.

Exactly. Dallas is another one in Dallas has that weird thing with the poor Zink's picks that makes it hard for them to trade picks. But they have the James Johnson Boban expiring that basically add up to twenty million. You could put in Josh Green, their first rounder that they took last year, and basically say, cool, we'll take Buddy Hield off your hands. I do think it makes more sense for them to trade him selfishly. I hope they trade Harrison Barnes because I think he would really help the South.

So. All right, that's our first one second one. Do you think Al Horford is a piece? Actually, let's take a break and we'll come back and we'll talk about our horse. This episode of the Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by Zip recruiter, the best team start with great talent, but finding the right people can be a challenge. Just look at when we put together the ringer in twenty, fifteen, twenty sixteen. You're starting from scratch.

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Got to love those ads to try zip recruiter for free. My listeners can go to zip code dot com slash B.S. once again, Zipcar dot com slash B.S.. Zipcar the smartest way to hire Al Horford so. If you're Chicago, Charlotte or the Knicks. You have a legitimate chance to be like a six seed, you might even be able to skip the play in teams and just go right to the playoffs where you're locked in. If you're the Bulls, you know, you have an all star who can go mano a mano with people.

At the end of games, you have the Otto Porter expiring. You have bunch of young players. Al Horford has been playing pretty well in OKC this year. Billy Donovan history obviously could teach Wendell Carter a few tricks. That's that's a possibility. Or the next. It gets a little tough for Charlotte because I think they would have trouble adding up to thing.

But like if the Bulls got Al Horford and let's say they gave up Otto Porter and conditional first round pick where it's like top ten protected this year, whatever, would that be worth it? If you're the Bulls, would it be worth it to actually like try to be a good team this year? There are another one of those teams, although I wouldn't say there, still see a team like Sacramento, but they're fun. There are a lot of fun to watch.

I've been more of a Zac fan this year than ever before, and it's pretty obvious why. And Kobe White spent a lot of fun for them, too. And, you know, this is about marketing and there's still some Wendell Carter moments there, which is funny because I think he projected to be kind of like an Al Horford type, even though I like Horford better than Carter coming out of the draft. But he just did some of these really smart things at Duke in a limited amount of time there that you're like, oh wow, this guy really sees the game.

He's smart player at such a young age and you know, it hasn't really happened the way you would hope if you were Bulls fan. The problem with Al is that it's still twenty seven million next year and then it's partially right, but you're still going to be on the hook for 14 and a half million when he turns, what, thirty seven? I think so could that's a lot. You know, it'd be one thing if it's a rental and expiring or something like that, but that's, that's a lot.

And that's a lot of money for him, even in a slightly better version of him than a ridiculously miscast role with the Sixers.

What if I didn't even have to give up a first season like we just want to get out of his contract? Give us Porter in a second when we're good, we'll call it in. You never know with Presti. I mean, look, he pulls that deal off or they take on Paul as if they're taking back the damaged asset and then he's able to flip Paul for assets because Paul, on it being a better player than Westbrook was. So he might say, hey, why do I want to trade Horford now if I have him next year, it's the one year plus the partial guarantee which is still again for two and a half million.

We were talking about somebody. How quickly. It's a nice reminder Bill, how often we're like this is the worst contract. This is one of the three worst contracts, the most untradeable contract and then the guy gets traded. He might get traded again here. Some teams might be looking at Horford watch him going. Was doing a pretty good job with that young group like he could come out here and help us so I don't think you're totally off.

I think the bulls part of it makes sense. I just don't think he moves gray any more though and I'm probably as big a Horford defender nationally as anybody. I mean, have you watched enough of the Thunder where. I don't know, is he worth twenty seven million next year to the roster. To case for him is he's a rotation guy. Great clubhouse guy, sure, somebody who can play at the end of games, you know what he is, what he could do for Donovan.

That's a great guy to have in your team. And if you feel like we actually have a good team with a lot of young talent, it would be nice to have a guy like this on our team. We don't really have anyone like this. You know, that that would be the case. Speaking of old overpaid guys older, does Kevin Love have trade value for you?

Unbelievable question forever, the market on love. People would call Cleveland. Cleveland would expect an asset and the team was like, no, we're doing you the favor because you guys signed him to a stupid extension. And that was the disconnect. And that's why I was never moved. And I think why Cleveland kind of liked having a guy that was connected to that championship run with all these other young players. And you have to pay somebody. I don't even think about him as a player anymore.

And I'm not saying that like it's an insult, but it's just been so you know what I mean? Like, I don't even think about it anymore. And the thing is, is there's no way there's not some healthy version of him that's not still helpful to a good team. Right. So let's say San Antonio, cause Cleveland and says we have our jerseys expiring is kind of luggage at this point. Would you trade trade me, you get out the next two years of Kevin Love's contract, give us Kevin Love, we're throwing in nothing else.

I think they're going to want a piece. I seriously, really. That's what it was on him forever, and it's I mean, who I don't know, anybody be in a hurry to take on 60 million the next two years from him, but that's what teams would say about it, you know, when there was three plus years left on the deal.

Going, hey, you know, what's what's the Kevin Love thing? And they'd be like, well, I make us an offer, we want a piece. I mean, I understand it's part of the negotiation, but. I don't even think of him as a part of that group moving forward, I keep thinking about the guards and can I read and I read you his games played the last couple of years. Twenty eighteen, fifty nine. Twenty, nineteen, twenty one.

Twenty twenty played fifty six, I guess it was a shortened season this year, played to. I can't imagine they think they're getting an asset for a guy with that kind of salary. To me, if I'm Cleveland, like, why wouldn't I want to get out of that contract, great. Give me a get out of jail free card. I want to build around Jair down and my guards anyway. And Acquaro and one more good pick. I think Kevin Love doesn't help me in any way, shape or form.

Look, I would I would think so, but think about him on the Spurs, put him in the Aldridge spot on the Spurs. If he's got something left in the tank on that Spurs team, how they would use him gets pretty interesting. What, thirty to be thirty three. Yeah, I guess everybody that's thirty to thirty two would be thirty three at some point.

My next question for you. Should Toronto trade Calgary. So the word on that one is that Lowry's been telling everybody for over a month that he is getting treated. Which is interesting that he's already like, yeah, I'm I'm out of here, so I don't know if that's him saying it. I don't know if that's some understanding that he has with the front office. I don't know that part of it. But whenever you ask about Lowry, like, well, he thinks he's leaving.

Can I give you a date? Yeah, I think they should trade him, by the way. I mean, there was one rumor that I saw about it that was that was kind of ridiculous. I mean, I don't know. There was a Philly one that didn't make any sense. I mean, there was actually a fake Philly one, somebody trying to say that it was a done deal, that it would happen. It would make sense, you know, the NOVA thing.

But I mean, how much would you really give up for Lowry? Would you want to give up Maxcy for Lowry if you were going to bounce a year? Let me give you this straight. All right, look out. Gary Harris this year, next year. Argenton. Bulbul, there's too much. And a second. Where are you, Gary Harris? Change, I mean, change of scenery, land with Gary, the guarantees that you keep, you think?

I think Gary, I think he's it's like Jeremy Lamb in OKC is the memorial. Jeremy Lamb. I just need a fresh start. Can I get a fresh start anywhere else? So you could argue they should have to throw in a first because they're taking your to Gary Harris's contract. I think Denver needs to do something. And this is why I didn't want to cross them off of my title contender list, because they do have a package to get one more good guy.

And if I like Larry's like, fucking perfect for them. They each draw somebody up in thin air, that's exactly what they need, like that third guy who's going back. Hey, Jamal, can you fucking show up tonight trying to win the title here? I want to win a title on two teams. Let's go. You know, I think he'd play well with Yokich. I just. What do you have Harris's contract?

Because I have him. I have one more next year. Yeah, this year. Next year. OK, all right. Yeah. I mean, he that kid made some money. He's made 84 million over this run. I was arguing with somebody about him like, look, it's just too much to pay for defensive specialist. I mean, Gary Harris did not turn to the person that they expected him to be when they gave me four million dollars.

It happens. But he's so removed offensively and he missed time again this year. So I don't know if he's ever going to be something you'd want there. Other thing I love about Lowry is the look what he's done with VanVleet. Look how he's fit it. And for all the Lowry stuff that drives me crazy and I'm justified because there's a part of it like hey if everybody played like Lowry it'd be like if everybody wanted to go one hundred miles an hour there'd be some problems.

And if everybody wanted to play the game like Lowry it would get really annoying. But the positive part of Lowry is that he is is good with the ball is he is off the ball and he's perfect at understanding like moment stuff that point guards used to always have like a point guard. We go, OK, I need to get mine. We've screwed up the last three times down or I need to get this big guy involved because he's lagging a bit defensively.

Let me make him feel better about himself. OK, this guy hasn't hit a shot. He missed the last. I'm going right back to him. Lowry gets that stuff like a traditional point guard, better than a lot of guys in the league. And because he's so good off the ball, I think he could help out anybody. And even though he's had those awful, awful playoff stretches, which were legitimate concerns about him. It just feels like he's at a point in his career and age where, you know, I don't know that all of a sudden now, like he would revert back to this guy that we saw there for a bunch of years.

Were you like, this guy can't hit a shot, so.

Well, then, dear piece you left out, was he such a competitive playoff guy? And there's so many fucking annoying things going against him. And I.

I didn't leave. I know. I mean, I had like PTSD after playing against him for two weeks, all the fucking shit he does. And I think if you put him on a real team like Denver, Miami or whatever, like he you always talk about like, oh, could this guy swing it? Like it's like Buddy Hield and it's Harrison Barnes, things like that. Larry, can completely change the character of your team. Like if he goes to Denver, he may literally change with their team's destiny is by the shit he does game to game.

I really think they need somebody like that. So yeah. And if you're going to be a guard, you can't be a ball dominant guard and screw up the Yokich part of it now because that's, you know, Yokich, this year is so much fun. And his understanding, his brilliance is also selfish in a way where he'll go, oh, OK, so this is what we're doing. It was like the Candar game they had a few weeks ago.

He's a canter is going to have to defend me. They don't have anybody else. He had twenty eight shot attempts at a couple of minutes to go in the third quarter because you had cancer on him. Whereas there's another game where we'll take like nine shots because you guys are going to get somebody else going here. So, you know, look, Denver needs to defend better for anything for this to happen. Denver needs to defend better. And then we've we've added to that the truth.

Yep. But I also think, unfortunately, the truth about Denver feeling like he took a step back is a team gets to the Western Conference finals, you start acting like they're supposed to be that elite group and you're you're flirting with having Denver there. But the Jamal Murray thing feels more and more like a mirage that we saw in the playoffs. Like, you know, I think the guy who was before that and the guy he's been since that that was just this unbelievable run.

And it was great. The timing of it was great. But just as expected, he's going to do that again in the playoffs and play like one of the five best players in the world. I mean, that's what he was doing for long stretches there. And I don't know that that's going to be something he's going to repeat because it hasn't happened this year during the regular season. There's Joan Collins castrated. Well, we know he turned down the 90 million dollar extension, we know going into the year that Lloyd and Travis both apparently were in the hot seat before the season started.

And that's why when Nate McMillan decided to come on, they were like, all right, well, that's to replace Lloyd. I mean, this is not secret stuff that was going on. If you're Travis, if you're going to trade Colins, you've got to make the playoffs to save your job. So that means that if you're doing a Colins deal. You know that the the word is that they're really looking for a contributor to come back and look, they're going to get Diondre Hunter healthy.

And then I think Atlanta sells more of their problems than anything that comes back into Collins Street. But I don't know. What do you think? Accounts. I don't think there's a trade for them with a. Because you just can't like assets and future stuff and there's not an actual guy. If you look, they have Snel and Rondeau add up to 20 million, right, so if you put Collins in that trade now, you can get a guy in the 20s.

I just don't know who the guy is because they have a weird team, right? They have if you look at their team, they have guys that every position, it's not like we need other oddly deep. Yeah, they're deep. But with guys, you know that I'm not sure I like in a lot of the cases. So I actually think they're better off keeping Collins and hoping, you know, either that nobody goes max restriction on him.

They could still match whatever contract with him. I'd rather keep him. I think he's really good. I think he's really talented. That's right, that's a better way to say. You're right. I'm very talented. I have I look, I for whatever reason, I end up on them a lot.

I also enjoy watching them. I don't know that I'd say I enjoy it all the time either way, I, I have the under on their win total for this year, so I enjoy it when they lose.

But, you know, like, she was having that terrible game against Miami and you're like, all right, what's this guy going to look like? Is it going to be different with Nate? Is Nate going to have to rein him in a little bit? And then the guy comes in and takes three, three four zero hits, all three of them, and wins in the game, like Trae Young won that heat game in three possessions. It was nuts and they were deep, deep chucks it back with it.

If Bagley was a tiny bit better or maybe even a lot better, there's enough on Collins Bagley trade. But I look, I'll give it back.

It's just not good enough. I did about a two week like I'm going to pay attention to Bagley deal. Yeah. Because there was another stretcher. I was paying attention to him where it felt like the perimeter guys had just given up on him and he's like you'd be cutting and showing his hands and then he'd be like, I'm not going to get it again. Fuck. And I would go to play. That kid works like he I'm not talking about off the court.

I don't I don't know what his deal is. I heard he's a good kid, but it's not working out clearly. But he he there's a there's a he's not giving up out there. I'll give I agree. Like there's a there's a positive Baguley spin that if you bring him in somewhere, like it looks like he cares and he's trying to fix this thing before it totally goes off the rails. Now, I wouldn't bet on him all of a sudden being like this really is an underrated guy that's actually like really, really good or anything like that because there haven't been enough positives.

But one of the positives that I do like his attitude, and I think he's trying his ass off to try to figure out a way to make this work, plus doesn't fit with what's going on. Yeah. Doesn't Julius Randle success with the Knicks this year? Make you think differently of guys like bad boys like Julius? Look, I know, but I'm smart and I was wrong and I don't know that I'm right again, but, you know, whatever.

But he was somebody who is never in the right situation and had a lot of bad luck and six years went by. He was OK in that Lakers run, I thought was his dribble drive for a guy. His size baggy doesn't have anything like that. And now that Randall's passing on top of everything else and he's hitting threes, but back to your Collins thing, he puts up really good numbers and he has some moments. You're like, oh, my God, look at this guy.

But I think Hawks fans would agree there's a handful of moments where you go, what's he doing right now? Is do you ever notice any of that stuff? Or I think it's it's like is he is playing on a team that's just completely built around Trea. Which has to suck, I think that I think it sucks to be John Collins, honestly, because he's he's got he's got to be like, imagine if I had a real placard, I would be having so much fun right now, like a real point guard who, like, actually cared about him and watered the plant and was like, I've got to make John Collins awesome tonight.

He doesn't have that. Now that you're saying is not a real punch card, I mean a point guard in the sense like the true point guards, right. Which there are many things. Right. But rainwaters. Yeah, we already covered this on the Lowri thing, but. Yeah. Yeah. Anybody's ever played any level of anything anywhere. No. And I don't want to do a big trade thing about this because he's, he's been now we've covered it but we've covered this.

Look, John Collins himself, it got out that he complained to Tray about the way he played. All right. And I'm not even sure whose side I wanted to take in that. By the way, despite some of my criticisms of TRÉ, which clearly were true. And, you know, we're down we're on coach number two and we'll see if it ends up looking any different. But there's something even as talented as he is, there's something to be like, hey, I want to reward you guys a little bit more.

But then people just say, oh, look at the assist numbers. You're like, OK, we're talking about somebody has the ball in his hands as much as any three players in the league. Chris Paul is a good example. That's right. Best example he. Despite some obvious limitations with our friend DeAndre. That's another thing I'm monitoring, Chris is bound and determined to turn him into the kind of big man that he wants to play with. Aiden's not there, no, but Chris is really trying to make it happen, and he's put sincere thought into it each game, this is a subplot that he's monitoring that he really cares about.

And if it's ever going to happen for DeAndre and it's Chris is going to help make this happen. I know you have a lot of thoughts on this. I'm just saying John Collins is not playing with somebody who's going to the stadium that night, going to put some real thought into John Collins today. Really, I'm really going to now unleash John, he hasn't played with that guy yet. No, but that's why I am interested to see what his next two, three years ago.

Right, but there's there's also the part with Treh, because his whole life he's had to tell people like you. Are you going to you know, I understand I understand Trey's approach to everything and I get it. And as I've watched him grow in certain areas. You know, so I don't I don't blame him for being like, fuck this and taking over because everybody's doubted me forever. And now look at me. I make the all star team last year and all that stuff.

But, yeah, I think they're just moments where the other guys on the team I mean, I said this, it's better than it was. I mean, dude, during his rookie year, it was bad. Like I could see it towards the end of the year. Like if it was a miss and there was a few possessions, the other guy would bring the ball up the court, not get it back to Trey.

By the way, this leads me to our next our next question. Speaking of tray, is Rondeau and this team in four weeks. You know, Rondo doesn't like the nickname, but God, there's nothing more fitting than him. Think of who that dude was with the Lakers, a spot up shooter who is nailing threes. And now I think Rondo just wants the ball in his hands. He just loves yelling. I can't believe he's signed with this team.

And I can't believe everybody thought it was a great wanted somebody to talk to track like a voice. Crying in the wilderness is like Rondo. Veteran leader Brown has been on like seven teams. So good, I mean, do you remember how good he was, the Lakers, how ridiculous that run he was playing with LeBron James? You can't fuck around with LeBron James over and over again. We've seen these dudes go on LeBron team and, you know, he's been able to fight you.

He made Dwight Howard happen again. Dwight Howard still getting paid. So it's been good for the Sixers, by the way.

Yeah, he has he kind of changed his career, Baguley get traded, yes or no? I say now that they got a roll of the dice one more year, I haven't heard anything marketed. Don't know, I mean, just because he'd already to be on my team, I would have Monken Market and just random pick and rolls on my team out. Now, the GM had to get both of those guys.

How did you have your office to be the Eminem's? And you'd be like, all right, now we're going to watch some video of Oklahoma State, because if you guys are my central offensive weapons, we're not winning many games. And I want you guys to meet your teammate next year. I haven't told you my Kate Cunningham. That's. I can't wait to hear him. I'm a little flaccid. How many games have you watched, a couple. So he's like exactly what you always why he's a big moment guy.

He's a big moment guy, and you're not feeling it. I need to watch more. I definitely need to watch more, so I'm not comfortable talking about anybody right now, they're talking about him like he's like the surest of sure things. And when I watch the games, I see somebody who's pretty rough. I'll watch some more of the. All right, who's not who does he remind you, I'm not ready, I'm not ready to do any of this?

You're not even ready for the who does he remind you of? I hate doing it when I'm Rebecca. I just need to see more I'm a little more flaccid. You sure that's not a medical thing? Can Miami and Boston get one more guy? We don't need to talk about that. This is my favorite one, actually. We'll take Kyle, do we need to take one more break or we get on breaks? We're good. I mean, it's dry, so we could do whatever.

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Plus, live sports, breaking news and a mountain of entertainment go to Paramount. Plus dotcom slash B.S. to try it free. Would New Orleans trade Brandon Ingram this month? This month, no, yeah. You don't think so? No, I don't. If you're trading Brandon Ingram, why would you want a lot? Like what? Boy, would you want like a two for one, or would you want, like a star back? There's no one for ones anymore in this league, OK?

Whoever is trading the really good player just loses. So if Ingrams there and he's as talented as he is, are you? This is all because you want him to get out of Zion's way, right? Yeah. Yeah. To say aggregators. This is just me just set up in the negative to go to another table leaves Ianello just so Stan doesn't have to run every out of time out for him.

I think Stan's afraid of Ingram. That's the only acceptable answer. There appears to be a lot of it still Ingrams team moments where yes, I'm with you on this.

He's a career loser. Well, I wouldn't go that far. I think Ingram is a really good player. All right. But there seems to be a hierarchy plaited. OK, fine. But I mean, it's not like he's a ten year loser. Like, I need you to really be a loser before I'm ready to run that.

I'm not saying he's a loser. Like, I'm calling this person I met at the coffee shop a loser. I'm just saying as an NBA career, he has lost. News teams every single year, correct? So why why is there a hierarchy that Brandon Ingram is at the top of when Tzion shooting? Sixty one percent, Zion's played like 50 games in his career. Just get out of his way. And I don't think Ingram is good with it.

I really don't. I watch a lot of New Orleans. I don't I don't think I think Ingram thinks like Zions. Like his Robin. I don't get it. All right. That's true. I definitely think that's true. And I think Stan plays into it and I'm with you because every time zone has the ball and he's bringing it up, I don't know. Nobody nobody has proven that they can stop that at all. And it's so much fun to watch.

It's actually, I'd say right now, the single most fun thing to watch in the NBA. We're all change the channel when he's subbed out and when he's back in, there's a TV that's always going to be on the pelicans when it's the desired point guard thing because it's hilarious. And then when teams try to make a Giannis wall with it, sometimes it's too late and then he's making some passes that are incredible but I don't know what the numbers are on it.

I'm just doing it. Test here. It feels like in these some of these moments and then they bring Tzion out for the fourth and then I think sometimes they bring them back too late for the fourth, which is kind of like a weird sub pattern that they have there. But it feels like it's understood that it's Ingram's team when it looks like Tzion in this bulldozing one on one thing where he gets his handle is so tight in his center, gravity so low to the ground, that looks like the best offensive option all the time.

And it seems like they're not in any hurry to let that transition happen.

My best my number one pick for an offensive option is the guy who's shooting sixty percent who also gets fouled all the time. I call me nuts, I did the man, when he gets fouled, he doesn't even look like he gets foul like he clearly got that. Yeah, I did the math that usually is more effective than should be the 60 percent shooter who also gets fouled. Are you talking down Ingram though, just to make your tzion point stronger?

Because I don't really I think. Yeah. All right, good. Because I'm not ready to like start. I just don't understand how anybody could watch these Xieng games and go yet. Still Ingrams team. I'll tell you right now I don't understand a lot of the stuff the Pelicans are doing. I think they're searching for rotation and I think it's too easy to criticize me say they still have to figure out the rotation. Well, we're not good. And you have all these different players.

I don't mind when teams don't have a rotation of eight and they're trying to figure it out, but they've had some closing moments with Bledsoe when I'm like, I think he should be out there. More hearts on my heart. Bruce Rauner on my all time by twenty, twenty to twenty one league past favorites right now. The MVP hard all the way up there though. Then they'll do a thing where they take Adams out and then go with Melley to try to finish small and then the next game.

Yeah. And then Alexander Walker will be the guy for a little bit. Now they're on the Kaira Lewis thing where Kyra is showing you what he showed in college and he can get by guys, but he's totally lost defensively. I mean, Miami had this back cut stretch where they were just opening out five out and they would have like somebody set a screen like the break point and then somebody would just run behind that and it was just layup lines.

But guys, no one would ever help or switch. Kyra got caught in a couple to be expected. I mean, he's halfway through his rookie year, but they're trying a bunch of different things there. And I don't I don't know, get it. But maybe that's what happens when they were number one in offense and number one on defense in February. You know that. Excuse me. Let me rephrase that, because that would have meant they were good.

There were no one on offense and number thirty on defense in February. Sorry. Makes sense. Well, leads me to my question. Brandon Ingram, good player. What position is he in, what position is the final step? See, for. I think he's good enough to handle it, so could he be different, but Durin could defend I don't think he is a defender at all.

The whole team stinks on defense. I'm throwing this straight at you. This would be my last trade interview. I don't think this trade will happen. I just think it's a good trade. I really like it. Ingram to Sacramento for Halliburton and Barnes and Barnes. Who says no? You don't have to queue up the video player for that one. Probably the pelicans. Probably the pelicans. Yeah, but not definitely the pelicans, probably. Yeah. I mean, Ingram Ceiling and who he is.

I mean, Halliburton's been a hell of a nice player, but it feels like it's a Halliburton for Ingram Trade. And I know you love Halliburton and he's so much fun because he's just so smart and he does those plants too. I like rejuvenated Barnes. Yeah, I'm not doing that often. The pelicans I got to do, but I'm probably not either. I want to Pictet. I'm asking for the Kinks first round pick as well.

Then that becomes March. What do you mean, like an unprotected twenty one, yeah, like a top seven, protected twenty one. Oh well then that's that's different.

OK. That's all I have for you. Let's talk about Jenny in Georgia. I made you watch the pilot. Yeah, and I didn't watch it. You didn't watch it? No, you did. I know I didn't mean to be a dick about it. I actually told you I was like, all right, fine, I'll watch it. And then I did. I got to breakfast time.

And I thought that case where you'd be doing every other Sunday. And I thought it would be a good assignment to give you pop culture assignments of things people are watching. The Simmons has to get Uncle Ryan's reaction. But you just blew the segment now. I was going to do it this morning. Could have been our parent corner. I know Cowherd brought me to breakfast this morning.

So he's living in a hotel now. It's going on because he sold his house, but he has moved into the new house yet. Yeah, yeah. That or you got kicked out. I don't know. It's what on the other is other house isn't ready yet. He sold his house and he's moving somewhere else, so I'm losing it. Man had Beachbody and so my whole day got thrown off. And, you know, the other thing is too is I bought a new car so I was at the dealership for like four hours just battling, like, I'll fuckin leave right now, you know?

So my favorite thing is buying a car, like, favorite random thing. You like it? Oh, I love it. I like to ask as people in my life, I get mad when they buy a car and they don't tell me they were buying a car because I love being involved. No, I have all the theories about buying a car. Yeah. OK, so let's do a car corner. Nice pivot. All right. This is great.

Hey, don't put down money there. Just try to get you to put down the money. Don't put down the money. Don't I never put down I never put down any money. Don't put one dime down. Don't listen to them. All they want to do is like take more money. We don't put anything away, put everything, make it, roll it over. That's one to make it clear that you're going to leave unless there's a deal.

All they want to do is get the cars off the lot. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to ruin it for the car dealerships out there. They have a bunch of cars. They want to get those cars off the lot so they can bring more cars and they have a set price for each car for how much they want to make on that car. And their goal is to let's say they know they can make a thousand dollars in the car. That's like their drop dead point.

They want Ryan Russo to come in. They want to make four thousand dollars for Ryan. So instead of the one thousand, but ultimately they want to get to like near the one thousand just to get the car off the lot to bring the next one in. And that's it, they don't want you to leave the money down thing I've never understood. Now there's going to be people saying, hey, I live in a budget and I have, but it's still your money.

So if you're buying a 30 thousand dollar car and you put ten thousand dollars down because you want your payment to be lower, will you just be drawing your payment from a higher payment number from whatever your savings were in the first place? So you just keep your savings? Yes. Yeah. So like the whole oh, like my payment can only be this. I'd be looking at it entirely different. I always do. I go. I don't want to give you a dollar out of pocket, the balance, the payment, but I want to keep my money that I'll take the payments from the entire time.

You definitely can't say Hey, I'm here to get a deal done today and I'm not leaving without a car. You might as well just, you know, checkbook over. No, tell them at the beginning that, hey, I'm spending the whole day going to different dealerships. I like this car. It's on my list. Can buy and get them to tell you about it, make them let you drive it around, but make it very clear you might not stay.

I went to I was going to get a truck. This has been a while, I was a truck guy for a while, which I got the Yellowstone F1 50, come on, probably the Yellowstone actually probably two fifty. Look, if I didn't have to worry about parking, I get it. I get it. I've it. I'd have like a hitch on the back. I'm not talking like a Bogdanich. I'm talking, you know, they'd be like where you were you out of Bozeman, like Manhattan Beach.

So because it was funny because the guy was like, did you have a ranched? And I read something about you having a ranch. And I was like, no, dude, I don't I don't have a ring. That's Kornhauser. Yeah, right. And by the way, is another thing. I just like an asshole because you don't want to dress up, you know, don't don't wear some fancy watch. You know, you're not there to impress them.

But I went to I don't know, should I do this? I said I went to GMC or does it matter. I don't know. Does it matter? Because I sat down, I was like, all right, you know, I want to check out maybe the Denali truck. I've always liked it, always like the look of it. And we kind of tied Chester over it, took a number down and he was like, OK, so the bad news is like the good news, we have the truck.

I was like, oh, really? No shit. I just drove. It is like the bad news is we're at over market right now with market demand. So our market pricing is this. So the price of the car, the MSR is this. But we're going to be about eleven thousand over because of demand. I'm like, wait, so you want me to start from a position of paying eleven grand over with? The sticker is like, yeah, this is, this is quick.

He's like, what. He goes, I'm going to sell that car today. I was like, Oh congrats Mike, I'm out of here. I was like, no version of anything. Would I ever sit down here and argue over like the starting point? I'm eleven grand over the sticker. You'd be kidding me. He's like, yeah man, we're moving these things. I was like, all right, I'm out. So I didn't get that one.

But the other one like this sounds like what Sacramento is going to try to do. Harrison Barnes, the Celtics come back. Hey man, I know is worth. But, you know, everybody wants him the first round pick.

You see Bitcoin. Danny Ainge is going like Austin.

He's talking about Bitcoin. What is Bitcoin? So that's so. So the guy had a big time, yeah, yeah, I left, I left and I ended up doing something else.

So so the whole I'll be selling that car today either way. Yeah. Because I'll be selling this car either way, man. I was like, I guess you will. I was. Congratulations to you. I was like, that's an incredible deal for you. And he just kind of looked at me and, you know, I don't whatever was going on was what was going on. And I just don't understand the process. Yes. Sucks. You're going to be there for a long time, but you have to it's almost like any real estate deal that you have to be able to walk away from everything.

You just have to be able to walk away from it. And if you can't walk away from it, then you're going to lose. And look, there's probably times where you and I bought a car and we still left in.

The guy was like, I got him, you know what I mean? But. Never. You always win, not even not even when I barely had any money. And maybe maybe there's one time there's yeah, there was one guy, there wasn't one time, you know, because I had somebody very early in my life told me, don't put money down. Be prepared to walk out. If you remember those two things, you're going to be in good shape because they don't want you to leave, especially like most of these car dealerships like is like in L.A., Dennise, there's this row of of dealerships, right.

And it's like, you know, basically they're all competing with each other. They don't want you to just be like, all right, I'll go to the next one. They want to keep you in there until they have the cars sold to you. That's their goal. So I'm not going to say whatever profit they're making, as long as it's a little bit of a profit. They're happy they move that car out with the next car. Yeah.

And I didn't there wasn't some, like, scene I'm kidding about, like, yelling, hell, I'll fucking leave. But I got some paperwork on some numbers and I was like, all right, we're close. I go, I'll be there tomorrow. Let's do this. You know, like this was going to be the third time I was showing up to this one place because I went through a bunch of different places to try to figure out what I want to do because I still really wanted the truck, but I just wasn't finding the right thing.

And I was like, what? It was a two inch lift kit. Like, what is this entry level like? If I'm doing a lift kit, how come you guys don't do like the real ones? Like, how are you going to do that custom? I was like, all right, I don't I don't have a lift kit guy out here. My guys in Vermont, that doesn't make a ton of sense. And so we went back in.

I was like, wait, the paperwork you sent me is even on the right model. I was like, no, under this payment's so much better. I was like, you guys are wasting my time. I'm like, it's not even the right model. Why would you guys do this? I got I drove all the way back to this. This is the third time I've been here this month. I go, that's it, I'm out of here.

And they were like, OK, what do you want to do? I was like, I want this car, this. No. And we'll see. So, you know, I think I did. All right.

Kyle, did you find any of this interesting? I think that it's so funny that you bounced on me while I was on the test drive and you have all this stuff like he knew I wanted the car and then when I got back, like to do all the paperwork and stuff like that, he was gone.

You talk about me, yeah, you have to talk about me, I had to go, yeah, I didn't know that, though. I was like I was like all hyped up. As I get bills here, he knows what's going on. And then I get back from the test drive and you're like, good luck, man. I can't wait to see your new car.

First of all, I told you all this. All right. Maybe I maybe I was too excited about the car. I just don't I don't remember all the in-depth stuff. I was like, think I was like, man, I wish you were sitting next to me. Well, next time I will be, yeah. I have to say, I told Julie I bought a car once, that I actually got mad that she didn't invite me to come along, I just sort of pretended like like I was her brother, whoever.

And just just just for the fun of negotiating with the guy, I really would have enjoyed it. Maybe this can be a side business for you, if things ever slow down, you could separate yourself out. If any of my friends were like, I'm go to buy a car that they want to cover. Yeah, it sounds great. What time to do it? I'll be there. I love the song, by the way, not by at least a car, I think.

Do you buy cars or lease? Elise, I'm Elise person when we say Barakat's Elise and Lisa, but I think it's there's also I mean, look, if we're being entirely honest, too, there's another version of Elise that's depending on what you're doing and what your preferences with cars, if you like to turn them over every three years, then I wouldn't lease. All right. If I if I were you know, when I was younger, I was buying used cars, I would try to find low mileage, previous model.

And that's how I would get anything close to a car that I want. But it wasn't like I had any any flexibility really in it. But you know what I don't miss about living on the East Coast is the summer tires snow tire thing. I just never did it. I know that's the thing when you're in your 20s and you have the snow tires the summer or the summer, I had a buddy who used to come down to the vineyard for the summer and he just was like, somebody stole my my my seasonals.

And so every time we'd roll up to some place, it just sounded like an army marching down the street. And it was this big, nasty van and it was God. It was so funny because it just sounded I was like, what are you doing? He goes, This is the only tires I have. He's like, the other tires got stolen. So we're not rock and winter tires all year. What car are you the most jealous of that you have never had?

Could be any price, I've only had one sedan ever, ever. So I've always been an SUV truck guy. But God damn, a Ferrari doesn't look awesome, Ferrari. Yeah, but I don't I think I'd be over it. I don't go to the ground in L.A. I'm the most jealous of all those Jeep Wranglers that are, like, wide open. The people driving in California would like the old school Jeep Wrangler. I just we did we did a very watchable about New Jack City that's going up tomorrow.

And the guys in the beginning are driving this 1990 Jeep Wrangler. And I've just I've never had that car.

I've never known anyone with that car. We never knew anybody.

We ever had one person in my life who had that car. That was a summer issue on the vineyard, you know, and you have Bob Marley.

You had him, Bob Marley legend, a couple of acrostics across the back, hung up. And then maybe if you really kicked ass a winch on the front, a fire extinguisher to one of the roll bars, I never had by the time I could afford a jeep, then I didn't want it because one of my friends had it. It was the first thing he bought when he graduated as soon as he got his money. Not that he was making a ton.

My buddy Sully, which I know was shocking for you to hear that name. But the first thing he did was he went to a lot, bought a jeep, and then he and I drove the Jeep from Atlanta to Boston. So it's the first year after he was out of school. I was obviously still in school because I had some catching up to do and it was the worst ride ever. And I went, you know what? I go, this is a fun little tooling around deal.

But if you actually have to go on the highway for four, 10 hours, this kind of sucks. Yeah, it's not. It's it's rickety. That's been my experience of renting it on whatever. Yeah. It's it's so much more fun to see somebody else driving than when you're actually driving it. This podcast went about 20 minutes longer than we expected. It got weird. These are your favorite kind of podcast, so I don't know if you were going to keep any of this shit, to be honest.

So I just really kept going. I don't know, Kyle. It's really up to Kyle. All right. We're going to wrap it up. Rosillo is take it tomorrow off. You're back on your podcast on Tuesday and Thursday. Right. So let's just make sure everybody understands that I'll tweet out something about it when I'm on with you. Sunday, then it's Tuesday. Thursday when I'm off that Sunday. It's Monday. Wednesday, Friday. Correct.

And we're yeah. We're going to do every other Sunday until we get to the playoffs, which the playoffs are still for a while. It's what is it like mid-May? Something like that. Somewhere we well left, yeah, we have, and we'll do a giant trade deadline, something if you think if we think there's some sort of trade deadline thing, we might screw up the Sunday schedule. We're so good to see you, as always.

Thanks, Bill. Thanks for listening on the podcast, don't forget about the new every single album podcast on Ringroad Dish with Nathan and Norah breaking down Taylor Swift albums one by one. And don't forget, Rewash was coming Monday night, New Jack City, which is on HBO. Max, right now, if you want to watch it before we do the podcast. I'll see you. And this feed on Tuesday have a lot of fun fungus this week, so stay tuned.

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