Coming up, I'm going to talk to Ryan Rosillo and Jared Dudley, who just won an NBA championship about life in the bubble and being teammates with LeBron and a whole bunch of awesome stuff. This is really good. And then, Roselyn, I'm going to talk about free agency and a lot of NBA step this along podcast. Get ready. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Dotcom and the Ringer podcast network New Responsibles went up on Monday, the Martian Bee Van Layth and Sean Fennessy and Chris Ryan.

That is about one of the earliest since it happened. Movies that we've done. I think we've only done like four or five movies from 2015. But yeah, The Martian, really good movie. We tackled that one coming up.

Jared Dudley for the first hour with me and Russell and then Russell and I just keep going and going and going until nephew Kyle finally said, Hey, guys, stop, please stop doing the podcast. So we stop. It's all coming up. First, our friends project.

All right, taping this on a Tuesday, Ryan Rosillo is here, chair deadliest here, NBA champ, just back from the bubble. What's it like? What's it like to be out of the bubble? May I let you guys see that picture? It's me, Kuzma Braun. And we get off the plane, we walk down, gives you the movie Shawshank Redemption when gets out of prison in his eyes it's like, you know to get out the air felt different.

We just like we're sitting there for like a minute just soaking it in just being outside man I've never been to prison. I'm not saying it was like prison but it felt like you were isolated from the world deal to get out, man. It was. And it had to be a champion and had a trophy. No better feeling I've had with. What is the point? You were there three and a half months. Three and a half months.

Ninety five days. So what what day do you start looking around going, oh my God, we have two months left. It got off to a rocky start because they weren't prepared, the hotel wasn't prepared for that many people when it came from the food, like the food was awful early on for Disney, the type of food they had, our chefs. Every team had a chef. They weren't allowed in the first couple of weeks and the room service was only available from 5:00 p.m. on.

So if you didn't like a meal, you literally had nothing to eat. So guys were eating protein bars, brought in peanut butter and jelly, like, yo, I can't do this. And then the food got better food. I got better. Chefs got back in there, Disney picked it up. They opened up a restaurant that everyone loves. And then by like week seven or eight is like, man, how many more weeks we had?

And it was really a mess. That's why people say the hardship to it was a mental grind that, like, made much wine. We drink as a team to try to get through all this. It was a funny time, like a really a college experience. I told Brian this was his college experience right here. Oh, that's interesting.

Yeah. Because he never went. Was he the only non college guy? J.R. Smith College guy, Dwight Howard, not college guy. So true. Like they did a few tournaments, but this is a dorm and it was your freshman dorm. Guys were on one and the girls were on another. But this was this all guys all around house a little bit different this time.

Rossella, you want to just alternate questions so we don't step on each other. You go and then I'll take the next one. You brought up so many things immediately that I really want to follow up on. Yeah. Were you guys drinking a lot of wine when you had the restart and you couldn't shoot like what was going on that first week when the regular season game started?

When it first started for me, my birthday was July 10th. So we had wine the first day just for just for celebrating my birthday. We're quarantine and a glass of wine outside my door, you know, and we're talking through the doors. And so I first started.

But to be honest, was what you were talking through the doors because you guys kind of interact.

This is what you could get a quarantine 48 hours to. So my birthday was daybook, so I couldn't, you know, so the wine outside the door, boom, boom, trying to get our drinks in a happy birthday just turned thirty five. And so that's when it first started. But, you know, when you when he came on the road, when it was pre pandemic, you go all you have a drink with your guys. So Bron, is this, you know, like a sewer.

So we would have it mostly after wins after game because the next year we'd have practice. And so I took a picture in his room of all the different wines we had different he had a wine cellar in there. So that was the big thing that we had. It was kind of our our dessert where after wins we'd all get together if it was cigar outside, hanging out, drinking some wine. And that was one thing about us. The chemistry was was crazy with this team.

Well, you know, it's funny because when I met you, we met at Sundance and we went out to dinner with Nash. Nash had gotten you into the no sugar diet and you were asking Nash what to order. And I was like, wow, Nash really is a leader that is asking you what to order. But you were this no sugar thing. Now you're with LeBron. Now he's turned you into a wine holic.

You know what? He definitely upped my wine intake. I would definitely say that he he he put me on other stuff when it comes to his chamber that he helped recover.

And tell us about that. I want more about the chamber. I would say this, you know, he would do it on off days where he's for recovery, where he get in and take his naps. It might be an hour, hour and a half that, you know, Brawn is real methodical of his recovery process. There's a reason why he's gonna go down as either the greatest or the second or third, depending on your opinion of him, is because his recovery process of him stretching every day before and after practice, when it comes to him recovering in this chamber where, man, it felt like if you ever seen Demolition Man want to get out, you know, did they freeze up the ice to try to save you?

How do you bring you back twenty years in the future, like he's in this chamber, zips them all up, he recovers and he comes out. I mean, I think Gilbert Arenas have one and it's just recovery. I mean, it's just very impressive how he recovers his body, man. OK, so when you get down there and, you know, we've been through the timeline of it all, and I was I was obviously like watching the restart and it was it was hard because it was so it was bad.

You guys just played below what any of us would expect from you. Was it that you were still trying to figure things out, like did you know, hey, no problem, will flip the switch? Or was there ever any moment of concern that, you know, it wasn't the way you would finish? Because when you finished Bill and I during the normal part of the regular season, we're like, man, I don't know if anybody wants to pick against these guys.

And then it was this two week stretch run. Like, what is wrong with them? Well, for us, it was calculated in the sense obviously not trying to play bad, but we were putting guys on minute restriction. We had after we beat basically the Clippers game run, we knew mathematically we were going to be number one seed. So we didn't want people for injuries that you saw. Injuries could be a part of it. So, hey, LeBron.

Twenty five and twenty eight. Ten thirty two. So we're not basically taking it like a playoff game we can play. LeBron made thirty seven forty minutes then Rondo we lose Rondo game would not even game one. He didn't play the Clippers game so we lose him that you lose another playmaker ball handler. We don't have. We're the only team that didn't have a starter didn't come. I think us in Portland with our starting shooting guard didn't even come our best on ball defender.

So the two guards and then now we adding we're trying to play down waiters, we're trying to play J.R. Smith. Markieff wasn't there in the beginning of our bubble. So it was basically, hey, we're not taking these games all the way serious enough to try to win them from a coaching standpoint. Playing our main guys, let's not get hurt, let's work on chemistry and then we know when the playoffs come, you still got to beat us four times.

Do you feel like chemistry was almost more important than talent in the bubble?

Because it seems like the four teams that made it to the end, including Denver and Boston, were teams that were all tight. And there has to be something to do that. Right, because you guys are with each other and they have no distractions. You have your family there for the first half of the whole thing. And if a team's either not getting along, doesn't have a great leader, has some under the surface shit going on, all that stuff's going to bubble up in the bubble, right?

No pun intended for sure. That was our whole thing at the beginning. Weren't even doing the regular season during the before the pandemic. Our chemistry, LeBron throwing the Halloween party, him throwing the birthday party, us on the road, us having, you know, the ugly sweater, Christmas. Everyone showed up. It wasn't seven, eight guys. It was fifteen guys. We hung out on the after games. Win or lose, we we had a four game losing streak.

You didn't hear any tweets about LeBron, him doing something passive aggressive? We had no choice because he he could tell you someone because we had this conversation Mirando LeBron in the locker room. And it was before I got really, really tight. LeBron and it was Rondo coming out of games. And I said, no, you don't pass the ball, LeBron. We don't take you out. I'm seeing it right in front of him in front of Ron.

Looks like I'm someone this is get it all out for each other's faces. This is how this team is going to be. These are our roles. And if you can't conform to the role, then you're going to be consequences of not playing. And so it took Rondo a little second to adjust that which he started doing. And Dwight Howard took him an adjustment of, hey, listen, this is what we need you. And as you saw, chemistry was number one.

But what it is, is we have LeBron in 80 and we want to go small ball. We have eight is the best small ball five. And the balls of that small ball force, you're not going to have a small ball, this team, unless you have KDDI Steps and Klay and Draymond, we're not facing that team. And so over the course of the time, this is going to be hard for you to beat us four to seven times.

What's the best way for all of us will never understand what it's like to be around Rondo. We can hear the stories, we can watch him. But as you just said, you almost had to remind him of his role, which I'm sure he's not super inviting, being questioned because of his personality. But like, what's the best way to explain the Rondo experience now that you've gone through it? And basically he turned into a completely different player again, was a huge part, I think, of the success.

I felt vindicated, too, because I've never I never saw my Rondo stock ever at any point.

I had it from twenty seven a you know how it is with Rondo Rondo. I'ma give you the good and the bad because I love Rondo. When I say bad, use the word stubborn stubborn his ways in a sense of he's been so elite for so long being the point guard, stuff like that. And you know the older you get you lose some of that. His IQ is the best I've ever played with and I put in that him and Bron on the same level when we broke down.

Still so much after game five, I call him, we're breaking down film. We're breaking down film for Houston series. We're going to LeBron Jerome. We are.

Can you give me an example of, like the Houston series, something Rondo points out in film that you're like, oh, wow.

All right. Like a specific way.

Oh, for sure. It's like we are is how we're playing hard. And if somehow we're not aggressive enough and he'll lead his man and make up his own stuff and that's the bad sometimes because what he's really, really good at it. He'll get a deflection. He'll do the. He did, and he does the Boston series, We Get Out steals and he basically help us win the series, but we're telling Rondo is, well, let us know your freestyle.

What do you like to do so that we can cover for you? So when you freestyle out, we don't know what he's pointing out of James Hardie's moves. We hit when he goes back and forth. It's usually the third dribble you want to do, step back so he can say he's he's critiquing it on that type of level. Hate when he goes to his Eurostep, it's sixty five percent going this way to that way like he is. But when it comes to knowing people's tendencies and he's putting it up and that's why you saw the Jimmy Butler said it was him like, yo, what.

Pick it up, Jimmy Butler. I'm tired of this man. Feel uncomfortable, Bron. You got to pick him up. So you saw that Rondo Rondo's picking up Rondo and that's what he did to James Harden to get the steal the background.

So he knew that this meant there was even a time like Danny Green in the last game. I was like, what do they do when they cross matched here? It was like, no, we're just whoever's near him is picking them up right now.

And that's one that was Rondo's idea. I'm tired and him saying that I'm tired of this man being comfortable. We're picking him up. We're going to be the only he's only playmaker. And he was saying that this the only guy who can play for anybody else. They don't have gone not healthy. He's the only one who can make plays. So we're going to wear him all the way down. That's forty seven minutes is going to be a lot different this time.

And I salute him for coming up with that game plan and being so confident that instill confidence in all of us. Like you're right, Rondo.

You know, on the flip side, teams didn't do that to you, especially with LeBron.

And if I had a critique of all the teams you played, there's this difference with LeBron because of who he is that, you know, if he's going to bring the ball up, I'm pressuring him full court. I'm trying to exact every single mile I can get out of that dude. If he's driving the basket hard, foul him every time. Let him complain, let him get flagrant, whatever. But it seems like there's so much respect for that guy.

Butler was the first guy you played in four rounds who just carried himself like, all right, let's go toe to toe. And I wonder, why don't you think more teams do that? Is he just so elevated above everybody? People are afraid to challenge him.

Let's be honest. Usually those players that do that are role guys. Like if you if you remember the first two games that was doing that, they put them on them. He was picking up full court. And so our counter was to have either D Avery Bradley, what's right there, not as comfortable with it is his star players don't want to do that. Let's be honest. LeBron did want to pick up Jimmy Butler full court. No, you're trying in a playoff to conserve as much energy as possible.

So we did Denver. Jerami Grant would do it, but those aren't defensive guys. So when you're talking about you need the inward down of the world, the Jalen Browns that are in conditions that don't need to score twenty, twenty five points for the team to win to be able to do that. And so teams that have that personnel, I think that's the first thing I think that the Clippers would have done that. And that's why we were playing Deon Waiters first, the Clippers in game one.

We had eighteen points because we need another boy that we had no Rondo and maybe we were the starter Rondo like we did Caruso, we might have had to adjust. So our coaching versatility of to be able to not play this guy, Dwight Howard, you start Crucell, you start. It's very rare for Curry during the finals. One time to play Iguodala. OK, I give you that but for us is crucial to start all year. His first start is in the NBA Finals Game six.

It's a lot of balls to do that and I've got to salute Fogel and us doing that.

What was the reaction? What were you guys saying to each other when you saw the Clippers blow that three one lead? You were laughing, we're laughing, we were laughing. This like I can't believe like I picked them to win Game seven. There's no way I thought they were going to lose. Our whole mind was we're going to beat the Clippers. We want the Clippers. They wanted us. It was the trash talking that happened. Pat, Dev, check ball during the pandemic playoff pee talking about he the best game in Kawhi Kawhi with the commercials, the crowd.

We're seeing all these billboards up here. And so when we go to practice every day, there's a billboard. We see this billboard every single day. Yes, right there. Right there. It's right there. So now this is what the world wants it. The world's picking the Clippers. We have it at the Clippers. We're happy. Avery Bradley didn't show up to the bubble because he was picking what Bill was saying about Pat. Did Avery Bradley.

We stuck on Pat that report on the home game. The one home game, the one game. We beat them this year. We set a tone from like this. How are we going to guard you? And so we were looking forward to that matchup. But you know what? Like, it was just crazy to see the exposure to the side of the backboard. Kawhi not having that. But those boys didn't want to be in the bubble.

They didn't want to be there. And I don't blame them for certain times. But the world needs to see the Clippers and Lakers. And it was unfortunate we did get to see that.

Did you cross paths with those guys even before they got knocked out, like where you're with the same hotel?

So how they worked was the top four teams on each conference were in the same hotel. So US Clippers, I thought we saw Boston every day. We saw Miami. I remember Denver. We beat Denver when eighty hits a shot. Both teams are walking into the hotel. Both buses came at the same time. And then when we loose on Miami, that one I was I'll make sure those buses don't show up the same time. I don't want to see those guys walking in.

And when Miami wins games there, their whole staff is partying in the lobby. We hear them doing karaoke like it was a weird vibe. And it really was. I mean, you didn't had that by man. So it was definitely it was definitely different.

Interesting. OK, Jimmy, in this series, I think elevated his his standing, whatever it was before, you don't get out of the second round. We know how the rules work with guys.

But because he was taking on this, he kind of took on this character in a way that's like I'm the best. I'm not afraid of anybody. And I don't know if LeBron started it with him saying they're in trouble. But after they get that first game and he starts screaming, they're in trouble. What was the mindset like? What were you guys talking about with each other once? It's definitely got a little like he was getting really testy about who they were in the finals.

We knew they didn't have enough. Let's be honest. We knew that, but we knew that we could let our guard down. Their whole thing is you're playing, you know, Hero and Roberson are coming off a thousand. They're very similar to the Warriors in a sense of the damage. They're Draymond and they got these two shooters who are as good, but still they come off these different pin down. They do a split action. When they drive, they look for the shooters.

And so Jimmy, we knew Jimmy had to basically get Roberson. He said he's gonna win this one game six seven threes. And so for us was, hey, this is lock into what we can control. Don't let Robinson hit these threes that are we? Let your guard down heroes. A rookie. We know the percentages are going to evened out. He was making every floater, every tough shot. We know that he's come back to Earth.

And Jimmy was we actually gave Jimmy a little too much respect. We we wanted to force him left in the post. We didn't well, we let him just go to the basket. So he was getting easy to do. And it really took us to game six. We're like, listen, we're going to trap you in the post if you get a small guy and we're going to pick you up full court. And that's because we respected their shooters.

We don't want to give them open looks. But we were so ticked off by game six, we didn't care anymore the Dragic piece of it.

Are you saying you knew they didn't have enough post Dragic or even before the series.

Even before that. Before even before the series. Could have been interesting. Yeah. Even if they didn't have enough.

You know you guys have been covering basketball longer than I've been alive in the sense of like oh yeah, come on, we're not one hundred talent with the talent.

We've got to top five guys like in the days when it comes down to it. You got to stop LeBron. You have to double every time down. Or you can be like the Warriors and stay home, be one on one LeBron and then you better outscores. That's not their game plan. So for us this year, we will miss it. I think one thing we missed twenty three open three pointers like that's what you've got to live with as a coach.

You got to be scared and then on the offensive rebound that. And so we just listen defensively to your role and no one's going to be you for seven.

Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean that is that was the case for betting on the Lakers in game six. If you looked at the three pointers and you're like, man, all those shots were open and they're not shooting that well in them and they were missing because Miami is just like, all right, that's what it's going to be. I still think Dragic would have hurt you guys if you Salvatore would have and I think he would unleash Bam a little bit because it was not just losing him, but you know, now Bam's not getting the screen and roll stuff with that.

It would have been a harder series. I thought Miami had a really good chance to win even despite you having the best two players. But I have a. About LeBron, so. If you had to do a pie chart for motivation for him. OK, the last dance for five weeks in a row and this whole Michael Jordan orgasm for a month and a half, basically by everybody, and then the Kawhi Leonard is now the best player in the league narrative.

And then I'll give other maybe there's is there anything else on that that can ever slow? It seems like those were the two biggest motivator, part of it, which is, I think, all connected to kind of what you're saying. I mean, I just don't know. Now I'm being told all these people that were writing you guys off and I really felt like it was a Clippers or Lakers. Either you were a. I don't know that.

I think it was Clippers, but us at the top three for sure. And I just think that I thought people thought it was such a bigger gap. People had the Clippers in such a bigger gap than us. And I hadn't really understood that. I know they were deeper when a sense of overall talent wise, I just thought that people didn't didn't really realize how good Casey is. I know he might struggle earlier the year, but he had Tirelli big shot.

He was good. Markieff Morris. He didn't get enough credit. His brother.

Good, good enough. I think it was a fair amount. But with the LeBron thing though do you do you think. Yeah. Yeah. Go back to that. Yeah. Because was he was he was definitely after the game there was definitely he's playing the respect card and I'm trying to think like who is that targeted to. Is it the Michael Jordan month and a half long lap dancers? Is the Kawhi thing? Is it both? Is there something else?

Like what was your interpretation of? I think that's a great one because it's a little nugget I watched the last dance with Brian was a huge Jordan got the respect. We all grew up. We grew up watching him the documentary. And we watch that every Thursday, Saturday, every Thursday, Sunday. We was watching that. And so the respect level LeBron has for Jordan is unmatched. That's what I think when it comes to his respect level of thinking.

These guys are on the same level. The pie chart, Kawhi included even Kevin Durant. Kevin Durant is phenomenal, champ. You know that like there is a gap. And I get it. I understand because LeBron in the, you know, playoff LeBron and regular season, he picks and chooses his spots like, listen, I don't want to we've kind of lost. It's OK. It's good for us. That's how it is. That's what we lost.

Four in a row. No panic of December, I thought for sure. All right. Here goes the reports. We're going to start seeing different stuff, maybe a tweak pass. No, because he was so cool with everyone. We could we can we could talk it up. So I didn't I don't I don't think it was a Jordan thing, because Bron knows that there's certain people that are just Jordan guys and he could win two more Jordan with six.

And they're going to go with that. They're going to go with that. Even though bronchus going to win, the long term going to play till he's 40. He's going to be number one scoring title. It was all said and done. He's going to have thirteen finals appearances and he might win five or six rings. People go six. And so his whole thing was, listen, I'm in my ear, I'm going to have that. Yes.

Steph Curry might won a couple of two, but when it comes to Kawhi, these other guys put some respect on my name. There's a gap, there's always been a gap. Let me just solidify it with this, which is basically the bubble championship.

All right. Let's stay on this bill, because I'm already I have like a million follow ups here because I do think the part that I've struggled with in the past with LeBron is that there's the regular season where it's still ridiculous, but we're judging him against his peak. And like when Steph had some of those, like flawless regular seasons, you'd go away to Steph playing better than him. And to be fair, I think there are times you go like LeBron behind a few guys and then at the end of the year, you're like, OK, that was stupid and we should have done it.

And that's where he wins. But you're watching the last dance with him.

Yeah. Does he watch it and go? I don't know how to phrase this. Does he watch and go? Well, I'm still better than this guy or did he see an episode where he's like, damn, he's like, maybe maybe this dude was better than me? I mean, I know it's an athlete, so he's probably never going to say it. But was there any part of that where it was almost a conflict for him?

No. Know what? And no, I will say and since I'm like I never heard him say a comment like that, it was just so like Mike was a bad boy or the Rodman series. He loved the Rodman series. We all did like Rodman, like man, like imagine the social media, him going to Vegas for three days. Like, we we thought that like we saw that like we just trip that with a man like that, with James Harden.

Do that. Like who who's our Robin in this area, which was like the last. But I just think that like some of the stuff that if Jordan was really social media, he would've got kicked for maybe LeBron has to go through. So imagine I was thinking about this.

Imagine imagine TV shows if LeBron was like, hey, I'm just I'm not going to play for you a year and a half with this. I'm going to play tennis, golf and go up into the finals. Right. How about how about that one?

Or you're leaving with your dad to go to go gamble like all the different stuff, like like the blog is cool for a lot of different stuff like that. You know, you have UFC fighters, if they win a game games about politics and all this stuff more than about like it's the stuff this man has to go through it. I'm there. And it's just crazy to see how he handles it. Derek Jeter esque of trying to do everything the right way, trying to be the role model and in the day is the man he's competing with.

His ego is a man that he grew up loving and idolizing. And so you it's a it's a healthy respect. And this whole thing is that in the day he's going to have all his awards and can be for us to decide. And and either way, this he just wants to be he's wants to be seen eye to eye.

OK, but but I think the thing to win, though, is the he can win the career thing. And then I think the peak thing will be up to the person. But like times like when you're talking before about him sleeping in the fucking chamber and him having a chef and all the different things that he has, that enables him to recover and keep playing until he's 40 and they just didn't have that twenty years ago. Even the stuff when you were with Nash was that late 2010, my brain was like the first guy who was even thinking this way about like, oh, shit, I'll cut out sugar.

I sleep better. I'm going to take naps that nobody had even thought of that stuff before him and Kobe. So I think it's like impossible to compare from a longevity point anything before 2008. But we all know and George, like I could you have to be that playful. That's my guy. But Jordan, Jordan, Jordan had a harder lifestyle, we would say, more politically correct, to be honest, you know, so like LeBron takes care of his biolab better LeBron.

I mean, maybe you're right. The science. I agree with that. There's someone there to stretch Bron at night when he wakes up in the morning doing his different lunges, him doing a different side to him in the way, you know, Jordan was a huge weight room guy and I'm with you on that, the different signs and stuff like that. But even today, even with tape players have the stuff that he does is is way better than anybody, including Nash.

And I mean, Steve, talk about this all the time and the stuff that he does like like Kevin Durant. Kyrie had they have these guys has his own trainer, all strength coach. He has all there on the staff.

So what he does even now is ahead of players we have now and I've been on superstar teams with Shaq and etc. He just things on a different level man knowing that you're a Jordan guy, I think everybody even reluctantly is like a Jordan era guy, especially for Berloni is older. Is it weird that that he and LeBron don't have much of a relationship even though he's chasing him, or is that the reason why the relationship probably isn't as good as maybe people think on the outside?

That's a great question. And that's something that I think that brought from me looking at from the outside in is I think the relationship will grow once he's done playing rock brought could potentially be an owner and then it could be on that side of the ball and talking and blogging that I know we we went golfing one time during the day. We went to go watch golfing. And that's what he thinks about getting into. So maybe he can be golfing with Jordan and a Barack Obama.

It's those type of relationships. But right now he's so in the moment and Jordan knows in the moment is kind of more like, you know, it's it's a healthy it's a healthy race to try to go get it. So he's always respected and he's always liked them. And it's tough something even with Kobe, like when when when Braun and they were going at it, they weren't like super. I mean, they were close, but not not nearly what he retired like Bron.

One thing he said about Kobe when he was like, man, I've never seen this many more happier, more happier. This is before he passed more happy, were coming to the games, smiling with his daughter, like he just seemed like he was at peace of his life. And I think that you'll see that with Jordan in LeBron once he's done playing. You've been what year was your first year? 07, 08. 07. So you've been in the league basically the entire time with LeBron.

You missed basically his college years in Cleveland years.

Yep. There's there's and I and I say this as a compliment, there's a meanness to him now that he did not have those first 10 years that I feel like. Grew in a good way for where even where you look where he was in Miami, that first Dallas series, some of the stuff Dallas did to him, and I really noticed it in 16 and then especially twenty eighteen his last Cleveland year when there was just this aggro side that came out and you could see it again in these playoffs where he could just bully Ball has his way to the rim, basically whenever he wanted something he could do 10 years ago.

When you see stuff like that, when he's overpowering like that. First of all, was it in there the whole time, did the Internet make it come out? Did they just getting beaten up in 2010 and 11? The competitiveness like how do you develop that midway through your career? Where does it come from?

If you're asking me and I think LeBron would agree with this. No, I think mind you brought that out of him. I think him going there, that culture, which is because they want to live like a military body fat every Monday has little Alonzo Mourning. You heard the stories of Pat Riley walking in, everyone lining up like you're a drill sergeant embracing this knee pads during shootaround, during shootaround. It's a mantra like, listen, we're going out tough.

Do even when they lost, you toughened up. You know how Pat Riley had to get that from there? Like that was his college experience. He said, like, hey, I had to go away. I had to learn stuff d Wade teaching him some things. Hey, I'm learning from, you know, just just different players and having guys like Jalen. How are you? You know, like the Browns always had teammates on the end of the bench to help him to that one.

How James jumped. I was that guy this year. I'm in the room breaking down film. You talk about that bully bowl. And I'm saying during the during the games down hill, do not settle for one. These refs, they didn't even give you two calls. They're going to make it up. You know how these refs already missed a couple of calls. We're trying to even wait.

LeBron did get calls of the playoffs. I said, hey, you meet me in the finals. You saw the way different refs do not want to call those calls. They don't want to fight both ways. They're sometimes we have our guys and they didn't get you could see they don't want to they don't want those James Harden euro flops. They're not given to those in the playoffs. And Luca Luca will learn in that second third round to go down.

Unless you're Jimmy Butler initiating contact, jumping into you. They're not giving you those type of calls. It for LeBron is LeBron flops in different ways. He flops to act like he's hurt different times. You by lay down, but he's not a European flopper. If that's a more political way, he's doing that. He's more strength and he doesn't get some of them that I thought he should. But it sets the tone. You're going to feel this freight train every time.

Well, you know what? He doesn't get them. It's like the Shaq thing. He's so strong. The ref, you know, somebody is fouling him and he's not budging because he's a freight train. And then the refs like, oh, I don't think he got out of that. Meanwhile, I got hacked for sure.

And so for me, it's he learned it through Miami and now he conserves it because he knows from an injury standpoint you can't read every game. If he played that same way he did, he would be left out. So, listen, I'm a total about eighty eighty. I need you. I need your take over. I need you to be leading score some games. I need to have, you know what they need. Instill confidence. Let me give you let me pass this ball here.

You know what? Let me take you honest. I'm gonna take him for this game to let him know in the playoffs. When it comes down to it, this is what you're going to have. But in between time, you guys might beat us. We might be two. But you're going to have Danny Green Garden. But when the chips are on the table, Kawhi them I'm guarding and that's what people at the regular season different the playoffs on the play.

Those times you go on those little ten, the two runs when I'm at the game. You're not getting that, Bron said in game six match five minutes with Jimmy Butler. That's done like on it's winning time. You're now going to have to beat me the same amount of time unless you have those Warriors type team is going to be tough.

I have some stuff I want to get to, but I have to I have to share with both of you my favorite officiating moment of the season and one of the all time favorites which I was at the Houston Denver series. Remarque Davis yelled at the other official after LeBron had yelled at him and he changed the call and Davis said, hey, you can't just change the call because like you said, it was Houston that was hysterical that we actually got to hear an official yelling at another official saying, stop giving into.

Did you guys catch them? Obviously, you told me Houston's here. That was hilarious.

If you don't look at it, LeBron doesn't touch them. The guy calls a foul. Is that debating the foul? I don't know. But that's what happened. Doesn't look. Yeah, you're right. I'm TripIt. And he blows the whistle and it's like, you can't do that. He comes over and the ball is like and then Murphy said, Go, I know he's wrong, but he made the call. And so you're right. You don't you don't usually see that.

You don't hear. That's why I wanted to. Mike, for the rest. I want you're going to do this, obviously. Let's let them hear how players talk. They we're already doing this out of love that that you can't have fans. Let's get the entertainment ratings being low. What you'll hear Westbrook say one hundred cuss words, but you'll hear how we talk to play in a lie like referee yelling back at us this time to be closer to the bubble.

I saw a different side of the refs in a good way. Like Stop complaining, listen to me, Mark Davis and these guys. I thought the one mistake the NBA makes if not having a ref microphone to be able to have for the people, they'll never do it. They would never do that.

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Before we get to Davis, can I ask one question about the quality of play? Because they just want to make sure we don't forget this. A couple of friends that were there for some of the games, including the last two rounds, they were talking about how fucking intense it was and how locked in the players were. And I was talking with one of them about just like reasons for this. And we were like, you know, less distractions.

Like you said, it's basically like being in a really nice outdoor prison. But you're so focused, you get nothing else really to think about. And then the same continuity of the shooting background. You're not traveling all that stuff. But one of my friends was basically saying. You've no idea how good the basketball was, like that Friday night game, which was just one of the best played finals games that they could have seen. Could you feel that being in the building?

Did it feel different, like from a quality of play? But yes, the intensity and from the bench is being so locked in and now you know each other's plays, you're calling it out. And now you know, when you're on the road and you brought back sides and you can't really hear it. So now everyone's attention to detail is up to a high standard. You have the coaches with the video for instant replay. So clearly, if a play works, they can get that.

They can show you on the video within one minute because of of the of the streaming of the game going right to their iPad like, oh, that's a good bet. I didn't even think of that, that we had that. So when to challenge, when not to challenge, it was a lot of stuff to for to be able to have man from tech. So you felt like you felt like those guys could you actually could have a voice during these games because you weren't being drowned out by the fans or the music.

Oh, a huge I mean, listen, we we helped on sating 3s of players really react because they could hear us even across the court. You can hear it. It's like it's an open gym. I mean, even the fans that were here didn't like they weren't even allowed to talk. They were you could boo and make noise so you could hear literally everything.

So I know what you guys are watching that crowd noise. We don't hear that in silence. So you can hear a lot people complaining. And I just thought that the level of play was high. I thought that people were engaged. And you're right, all you had to focus was basketball. People had family. Some didn't know the stretch, didn't know females. People were going to clubs. No drink at all. You are. And so that's where I think that the shooting might have improved from us free throws with no fans.

But I tell you, the biggest thing for us is just playing every other day and not having to travel and to be able just to lock in. I thought it was good for us. I thought the more days we had off, the worse we looked.

Anthony Davis is one of my favorite players from day one of defending him all the time, I think the Pelicans failures had almost nothing to do with him. And then he comes to you guys, and I feel like he was almost not reluctant. But sometimes I think he doesn't realize how special he is and whether it was him being assigned a Jimmy Butler after game three, where you could see, even though Butler had a good stat line for game four, it was a completely different approach.

He wasn't attacking the way he had been right. The previous games. And then what I think we've all wanted is why don't they just close? They close with you, close with him at the five. I know it doesn't like to play the five big guys get weird about stuff in positioning, but then you come into game six. It's like, hey, by the way, we're going to go small. Caruso's in Davis at the five. No, Dwight getting hunted the whole time.

Give me the the best way to explain the kind of evolution of Anthony Davis. And it's not that he didn't think he was special, but you being around for this long and seeing his growth in a year, I think of the first thing by Anthony Davis that before I even knew him, when he came in, I he wanted to be defensive player of the year. He didn't want to be MVP. He said, I'm going to challenge LeBron.

And the first practice we had him calling about no, I called this deep into coverage and he even he's not big vocal guy. So for him to set the tone, OK, he knows this is his role in this team when it comes to defensively of how to make it impact. You want to be defensive player of the year. He's calling LeBron out early on. Different stuff. He made LeBron pick up his intensity for the duration of the regular season.

We all know Bryant's picks and chooses spots, which you couldn't do. That would add one to be defensive player of the year, one to be the top defensive team, and now is making sure we have Avery Bradley guarding the ball. And now LeBron, if you if you mess up we side, we're on top of you. And so that was the first thing I know for him. Now, the basketball wise, he can handle it, he can shoot it, he can post up.

So they're trying to put guards on him. And my whole thing was like eighty in the fourth quarter. I don't want you in a corner. I could be in the corner. That's our job. It's a real player. We want you this. I don't care if LeBron shoots it. Going to pick and roll switch. Give me some Dunkin's for us to want to be able to do. And as you saw that Game six Iguodala ducking it don't get no like when he becomes aggressive and that mindset and that was the best thing.

Plainwell bronchospasm blocked it out of them a lot of times. Yo it's time to go. You can see like the way Bron talked to him was way different than anybody else that it should be. And so I see his evolution is you saw that was kind of my job with him. I hate when they're posting up. When you're posting up and they're dumping you, they're taking care of the game. You're Anthony Dep't. They can't take you up just by post because you have a mid-range game.

Do a pick and roll Rondo that big helps you have the elbow. He shot fifty percent from mid range jump shots is unheard of from a big Tim Duncan because it's all these guys that had it. And so for me it's once I saw him to be able to battle through the injuries that he did because that was the knock on him. Right. He's in New Orleans, gets hurt finish this season. Your talking rate in that week will keep going.

And I just saw him. LeBron pushing him, getting him in that weight room, doing it. It's is ideal. And the torch is getting stronger in the past. It's always fully there. And that's what I want. He wants to say to your show and eventually I'm a be second guy to you and so is their relationship was special. And I'm glad I got to be a part of it.

It's the best power forward you've seen. Yes, he is.

When it comes to that, I think Duncan was more of a set standard in a sense of you knew exactly going to get from Duncan, you could go inside out. I think he's way more talented, better defensively. You can guard especially this morning or just switch on ball screens, I think, and has another level. I think we all agree on it. And the question is, is his mindset going to be like, hey, listen, I'm going to be even more aggressive and just know my question is, does it mean injury?

It just means that my tech level is going to be that he'll have to be Kobe, but he can take that up another level. And I expect that to be next year as a champion and as his role even increases even more. Because I remember I wrote a column. When did he have his breakout after Boogie went down? Where that was two years ago, right. Twenty eighteen. Yeah. We went down to Davis, went on that tear and I wrote a column basically about.

He's to point out, but the difference is he has the ability, I don't know, eight, nine times a year to just completely eviscerate somebody's right to put up like forty seven and eighteen and I think was steadier. He was an incredible a great playoff guy. But Davis has this little extra evisceration factor to his game. And, you know, when you see it right, you know, within like six minutes is a I think it was Denver that he started the game with nine for nine games.

You're right. Forty seven versus Memphis is just that. And think about him. As for how good of a mid range shooter, this happened to me early in my career. It takes you about a four year year and a half to become a good three point shooter just because that two, three feet, that's his next development, went to the three ball like he's get open looks at low 30s that once you get to like thirty six, thirty seven, he's going to go for twenty five point four to twenty eight just off that twenty, twenty and a half.

And then that's going to open up the perfect jump into, you know, how that works like this. The sky's the limit. And so for him it's like taking care of your body, not getting hurt and then being more aggressive. Like, listen, we he knows how good he is. You can be even better and you should be in this league one day.

The LeBron pairings of work, I mean, when he was in Miami, it worked. But he was the same age as those guys. Kyrie's younger. But Kyrie is difficult and it's still worked. And then it didn't and then it was over. Last year's a wash because LeBron for the first time gets her. How important do you think not just aid probably looking up to LeBron the player because he's been in the league so much longer. But that age difference where you have to look at worst two of the four best players in the league, that's worst it would be, but that they're not the same age kind of fighting over that same stuff that happens in this league where if guys are the same age and they're on the same team, it's like, cool, I kind of want to win, but I definitely want my love and all the extra stuff, too, maybe more so than winning where this doesn't seem to be the case at all.

The important things are the right things.

He looked up to them. He went to his camp in high school. LeBron James, you don't say like that. So eventually he was a big man, that one to be able to dribble, want to do a shooting. So it was more of like a male. That's a big brother. So you're right, he's not fighting over it. And LeBron is like, listen, there's one thing, the Bronston label, he's kind of one of the most unselfish superstars ever him.

And that's right. So the ball, he wants to give him the ball or in the year we were force feeding, like, listen, we want you to have the ball there. So I just think the respect level of him being a big brother, LeBron telling him how great he is and how you get even tapped into it. And then I think that coming to L.A., we can do it here in L.A.. Simmons, I mean, this franchise, we know the Celtics, it's the Lakers.

And if the Knicks ever get figure it out, they could have never won so that they could have this is it. And so now that he's figured it out and now he's what we want in the first year and we put together a roster, what we're going to settle down.

They don't start talking about five years in a row. Come on, you ruin my week.

The hell, this is tough enough of a podcast for me. And I got to talk about a whole decade.

A, you know, my future GMA head is like, so you see how the writing's on the wall for these guys. Magic is going to be a better Laker team come next year. OK, I agree.

That can be an MVP next year. Yeah, yeah. Let's talk about Theta. No, I mean, honestly, the guy if if we're going to be honest, Luca Luca is the shadow. He's coming. I don't know if it's next year, but he's Luca is there. I listen, I'm impressed by Luca. I Kubra speaks highly of his IQ, the passing ability that he has once his three ball Pristina's gets up there too low for how big of a shooter is his not being athletic was still his Eurostep getting guys thout in his Kuching.

He's that big bucket strong. He is.

And he has to pick up defensively. He can't just be a liability like Harden before. That's what his last little development and that's the team to look out for Giannis down that.

I totally agree. Here's what here's what LeBron should do. He's probably already playing in this with Luca. Take it, take him under his wing, teach him how to take care of his body. But as he's doing it he's just planning all this like stuff in there and, and really like trying to mess with them a little bit mentally while making it seem like he's helping him. But you're not going to be happy in Dallas. What's going on there?

You got to get out of there and do like little LeBron Steph as they're drinking wine. I could see him. He's a chess master.

Potentially know Europeans think different than Americans. You know, that that was different. And plus, someone might look at, you know, how it works in this when you're restrictive Fresen, you're nearly seven years. You take that four year extension, you're going to get the three player option. After four, you're going to do that stuff like that. So he solidified for that seven. But look there, look at top five. And next year, hopefully it could be healthy if they had someone like Giannis who.

And that's, that's between them and Miami. Right. Maybe, maybe with the Warriors those three.

So one more year. Wait that's it. Those are your three. What about my Celltex. Know for sure. I'm talking about Janet for Janet Tatum, love Tatum, love that young core, what they're going to do, what they can do, a Gordon Hayward, that's the big factor that they need to, like, have an exorcism form or something.

I've never seen anybody with the worst luck for three years.

I mean, it's tough, you know, obviously Kemba was he right? I mean, listen now the Brad Stevens coaching job and what he does with those breaks, the seal which we copy, do we try to get Dwight in jail to get they get Tatum and Kemba and Brown eight to 10 points off pick and roll the big six back and seal. We call it the Boston the Boston Roll. Oh yeah. The way so they need it. But in this league you got to have that.

They need one big. I like, I like ties. Cancer is cancer but like the one plate.

What did you just call cancer is cancer. You don't sound like I said. I mean like when it comes to that, you know, you've got to have defense, you know, in the playoffs we're going to pick on you. They don't pick on Kemba, you see how it is. And so Marcus Smart you can't guard everybody for he tries to guard against our moment, they're going to pinpoint it and that's where my unexploited priscila.

Do you want to ask the Dwight Howard question. Why don't you take this. I don't trust myself in the very beginning when they were talking about life in the bubble and Dwight ended up at the only party by himself, I thought that's the most Dwight Howard thing ever. And I didn't know if it was good or if it was bad. Did, but it was at the pool. Yeah. And then there was like the and people couldn't figure out if it was actually going on or just Dwight went by himself.

Give me your best white story. It's probably the safest way to ask this. Yeah.

Good, good way to ask. OK, I got to I mean, I got to weird, funny Dwight Howard type stories for one, we were in Atlanta. He invited me to come over his crib. You said no. Yeah. Because you were in Atlanta. It was temporarily he's like, yeah, we'll show you my state collection. But yeah, he had a tattoo. Thinks I like how many year I have twenty four snakes. Why the hell do you have twenty four snakes.

He said, yeah. This is what you think. I want to I really don't take out because it takes me like three, four hours to get the snake back in his cage. I said three, four hours. How big is a snake like out of like thirty eight feet at some point. You know, it's not the zoo, this is not the zoo. And so, you know, in Atlanta, if you live far out, big cribs.

So that was one thing about Dwight. When it comes to snakes, this was different. Second story I have, we're in San Antonio. Hey, you want to go to Six Flags? You know what it was?

Six Flags we got we play the Spurs tomorrow. Yeah, I want to jump. I want to jump off this cliff that goes down. We do. I'll come and I'll watch you. That was his whole thing. He he always wanted the thrill of jumping out doing a roller coaster. He jumps thirty feet in the air. He just he's around it. He's a little bit different. We love him. We couldn't have won the Denver series without them.

He's crucial. We need to bring them back. But Dwight, I mean, listen for him to sacrifice that and I say sacrificed a lot of teams. And one, Dwight Howard, I don't know what team, but it took a lot of teams, every team.

Right. And teams didn't want to. But his. How would he come back. He came back ready. Already destroyed that workout. He came in. And Dwight Howard is a huge reason why we won the championship.

Well, it's funny because you talked about how great the chemistry was on the team. You need at least one oddball guy, right? If that if the team is really close, you also need somebody that everybody is going to, like, talk about and putting in on the joke. But so. That's right. Yeah. So who are the guys.

Rondo we call we run stirs the pot, someone who stirs the pot, who questions everything, who you know has always something to say to Rondo for sure. Dwight Dwight's always asking one hundred different questions about in this way. Just do your job so we do your jobs. But Rondo his IQ so high is like all right and you too far for your own good. This is one of those. So Rondo's are stirring the pot and everyone else may well come on.

J.R. is a little off the reservation at the end game at the end with our best behavior. He just have, you know, he golf and it out. We we play for four and out of jail with big on the social justice of us. Talking about us was doing better with him and his daughters, the WNBA helping out these owners. He was big for that one behind the scenes that people we didn't know about, but he didn't stir the pot.

Now, maybe if you did a whole year, he he didn't get to have that in was like the Corke, like free spirited hip, you know, like he was a funny guy. But I mean, he was a perfect mix. And if it's Frank Vogel wasn't the coach, I don't know if it would have worked. I don't think he gets enough credit because no ego. You're dealing with all these star players like stars. And sometimes he he sits back in the six conversations and he'll wait.

The conversation is over, guys. Done. All right. Now, moving on, a lot of coaches have such an ego. Hey, listen up now. You can't fight with this team. This team wasn't like that. It starts out the Rob Blinco seventh on executive. Come on now. I know we got to trade him. I get too much. But the Dwight Howard, no one wanted Avery Bradley four. That's the different pieces. Markieff Morris at the deadline I think that he can get is just.

Those are two things they'll say.

I want to follow up more on on Vogul before we finish here. Just because I think coaches get all this crap because like oh they lost, this guy doesn't know anything, they lose a playoff game. Hey and I'm just always push back and be like how quickly we assume a guy's out coached by. The other one is if the other one couldn't figure out what the other one was doing and the players don't do it. And what's different about Vogul in comparison to other coaches and not necessarily saying better or worse, but something that's different, like the scouting report on the preparation we had was phenomenal.

The best I've had and I've been the great coach, Doc Rivers, when we first got down, we're breaking down Houston to Denver, to Miami on each player of going up there. Everyone knows, OK, they tried this many times. Right, right. When you go through the legs, how many dribbles it takes to go to the step back, going through their plays, the attention to detail defensively because he's a defensive guy of how he wants to be played in the see it now transpired.

A lot of times people want to practice. We didn't practice a lot. So the film sessions and the critique of the scouting department came. You got think about it. I mean, he did pick a lot of his staff. So you got to think of the field. Haney's for him to be able to ingrain himself with them. Hey, Phil, take over a little defense here and take some offense at it. Listen to them. Beal to critique it and to go in.

I just thought the preparation was top tier to the point is there was a couple of film stuff I think was after the either the Portland, it was a Portland series of Dame and CJ how we're going to play the Sky Report. I remember Bron clapping it up. That's a hell of a scout. It's a hell of a job. And we. Too often, how thoroughly worked and so, you know, the Brad Stevens of the world, of Carlile's you, the part of the extolls, you don't think of of Fogo like that.

You think of him more of a defensive guy because he had that Indiana. A lot of it is what you get is the pieces you have. You know, we don't have the Tatums in the Jaylen Browns and the Kyrie's and Kimber's. We were a team that had two superstars and role players that were limited to stuff that we could do.

I don't want to rehash all the bubble boycott's stuff because it's been talked about a million times. But you're somebody who's like us, right? You're in your hotel room, you're reading all this stuff. You're probably on Twitter, you're reading the different articles as you're reading this stuff, get covered. The boycott the day after, everybody in the ballroom, the the voting potentially the Clippers potentially not want to want to play. Maybe the Lakers don't want to play all this stuff.

How aware are you of all the coverage?

How aware is the team and how do you drown that stuff out when you're trying to both accomplish all the social justice stuff you care about, but also like you have this title that you still have to worry about?

I mean, it was difficult because, I mean, listen, every player is on their phone 24/7. I don't care what anyone tells you. We read everything Eddie Braun knows. If you say something so crazy because maybe their friend tells them Skip Bayless team and they always we set a sharp, sharp we read everything. And some people use it as motivation. But the social injustice, one of all is going on and in Milwaukee, not playing and we're going through that process right now.

What would happen if people being fired up? But we still have a championship. We want to win people back home. Your communities say this is bigger than basketball, but yet the NBA players in the past sacrificed so much for us to make so much money, we can't throw it down the drain for the future NBA players in our communities that we could get back to. And I just think that. Once we took a date, I think it was even two days of sleeping on going to the pros and cons, and I think Obama's phone call to Chris Paul Iguodala in LeBron to seal the deal off of how the how how he would handle it, getting a leadership group together, how are we going to attack the owners?

And then once we put that to bed, it was time once we after talking to Brian, after he talked to Obama saying, all right, Obama said it, what other better advice can we get? And then that leader of the president of highly respected. I said no. I said there's nothing else to talk about. We play that so we don't talk about it. Once we went in that room and we all decide to play that, we put the switch so fast.

Hey, listen, this is our time to win this. Go get it.

How close was it? Because I think on the outside and as you just said, like, you're in it and you're like men, are we are we really not going to play? Because if the counter is always is bigger than basketball, which it is, it's hard to argue against that. But I'm sure in that moment you're going, you know, we have a really good chance at winning. Was there a moment? Was there an hour? Was there night you went to bed being like, hey, we're probably not playing after the first night.

I thought it was 70, 30 of us not playing. I and I was even there. It was just like it was so much tension. It was bigger than basketball at that time. Clippers ourselves of certain people being conflicted. And let's just be honest, like like LeBron Kawhi, they have a different role than just their voice is different than our voices. We know that. And so if their mindset into their heart and that's why you need a day or two and then the next day, 60 40, and after that it flipped the third day of how it is just talking to your parents.

You know how it is when you have a tough day at work. You talk to your wife. That's how we do the same thing. We talk to our wife. We don't talk to people. We respect your agents. Everyone has an opinion. Obama came into it and then eventually she our listener. This is bigger than just us. And this is something that we have to do. And we can we can help change in this one and still take care of our our communities owners can get involved.

And I think that the bubble was perfect for it. But let's never do it again, please.

Well, in the bubble probably had something to do with in the first place. Right, because everybody's kind of on edge to begin with. And then I agree with that. I grew in Wisconsin happens. And, you know, you have this reckoning of like, wait a second, why the fuck are we here? None of this is working. Let's just go. I'm one hundred percent with you. I'm one hundred percent with you. And and to be honest with you, man, like was like at that time, you look back on it, George Hill, he was even he was not going to play.

And you look at I'm glad that we I'm glad they decided not to play just because of what happened. But in retrospect, they could have easily played without them. Play that one game, you would have heard nothing. Now, I'm glad it happened. It transpired. But people thought that all the time. It's just different days that people don't feel like play and that's just how it is. But it's time for us to change it. I'm glad we had that guy.

We had the bump on the experience and stuff like that. But we need fans. We need this is not the same as doing in Staples. It's not the same not playing at the garden is. That's what that's what is made for. You know what? Those are different pressure situations. You get your legacy by that is that game winning shot in Denver at Staples?

Oh, I got to tell you, watching you guys celebrate and I love Jay are going for the trophy before anybody else gets away with that.

I'm trying to hold that, too. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm going this is even as you know, Bill and I as Boston guys, I'm like, I felt bad for you guys. And again, to feel bad for you. You know how it goes. Oh, you feel bad for these guys millionaires. They just want a championship. I feel bad for you. I feel bad for Lakers fans. It could be people in the building.

And even if, you know, parade to parade, afraid of that kind of stuff.

So I'm wondering, with your contract being up, do you have LeBron ranked ahead, Jordan? And then you'll revisit this argument if you get another one year deal out of the Lakers?

I have them. I have a neck and neck. And for when I'm coming back, OK, I'll go around playing his front door, knock on the door. I'm coming back for that. They need me on the back side of the bench in practices. But no, I got the neck and neck. I have a neck and neck if you want to give slight edge to to Jordan right now, because it's how it is. You have to get the pass to slide it because LeBron is not done.

LeBron is fully not done. But like I said, I think will play three, four more years minimum. And so just a longevity. I think he's going to pass them on the debate. Whose peak is the highest? Like, OK, that's a different that's subjective. That becomes art almost. Yeah. It's like arguing about best actor ever something. Exactly.

Because the two roles they do in different movies. But like I mean like I get it Jordan wants to know is different. Here's Kevin Durant going to to the Warriors to win. They have to deal with that. Now John had other stuff like that. The top start. It's hard to win two, three in a row. You saw the Warriors and how they have to give up and that was Brooklyn like. So I just it was all said and done.

This man gets five, six rings in the thirteen finals, OK? He lost six of them to get the thirteen finals. Now the West, if he does in the West, if he gets three in the West.

Oh come on man. He's going to have all the accolades, Bill Simmons on the podcast of him winning another one at Staples. We're going to be a memory of just the last.

Sounds terrible. Yeah, that sounds like my nightmare. Wait, before before we go, yeah. We got to talk about Boston College grad Jared Dudley winning an NBA championship. How many Boston College basketball players have won an NBA championship? Because I was thinking about this earlier and I literally couldn't come up with any, I'm sure there is one. Is there one? I don't know there.

But there has to be one from like the 60s or 70s. Looking it up now, Bill loves asking these questions like I'm on it, but it's not it's not a long list of Boston College NBA success stories, which you I mean, when my mom my mom went there in the late 60s and, you know, like Kareem Kareem, I think almost went there.

I think it was in play he was learning to play. And then it same thing for Patrick Ewing. It was like Georgetown or B.C. but B.C. was legit for a long time.

And now, you know, I don't know what happened, but my plan is to Lokey, do my NBA first, GMAR head coach, do that and then eventually go back to B.C., turn that around. So I'm in I'm in on that. I'll support that. Yeah.

That's eventually what I'm coming. I need the donors. I need a whole new facilities to change it all up. This in here. All right.

But before I before you go, because I the reason I brought up the Champi thing. Yep. You've two moments in your career that are those classic fork in the road. What if moments first in 2010.

Oh, gosh. You you double team Kobe into the airball. It's actually the worst possible scenario because if it hits the rim, you get the rebound doesn't hit the rim. Artest comes out of nowhere with a jetpack on his back, gets it, lays it in, you guys. And I'm not making the finals. I really like that 2010 Suns team. I thought that team was really good.

I lamented that I was going to say 12, 14. Clips, OKC up at Casey and Chris Paul falls apart in the last 30 seconds, like the probably the best pure point guard of all time and just kind of self-destruction that one game, then you blow game five. But which one was worse? And you think about either of them after you actually won the title?

Yes, the Kobe one was worse because we felt we had all the parts that the two superstars marry and that we had the role players, Goran Barbosa, everyone, and the young young Jason Richardson, Grant Hill past his prime with good enough.

They couldn't stop us. We couldn't stop them. And that was the one game you got to steal one road game. Kobe airballs and that's how you lose. I can lose a lot of different ways. But that one, I think the two thousand the Clippers won, it was just like we were on the road. And just to see that meltdown on that plane ride going home, I knew you knew how everyone was. It was over the foul Westbrook the fake try to three the turnover.

It was just like I've never seen anything like it, I've never seen anything like it in that team and the organization never recovered from that because then a year later they blow the game to Houston. But because you know how it works though, you win that series and you go watch, you win those series when you're up three one, it is how it is. You know how to win. You're not led when you when you go through adversity.

Don't let you down and be able to. That's that's that's the Clippers look. And it's unfortunate you thought Kawhi might change it, but you and I both know it's a Lakers town. Yeah, that was never that was never a debate for me. I think Obama was the only one who seemed to think he had a chance to turn this into a Lakers fan of his absurd. We would resolve now and talk about you go to a Dodger game and they would show anything.

Clippers on the scoreboard, everybody would boo. But they're not considered a local team. It's nope. They're considered the I don't know how you fight that. If you're the Clippers, you got to leave.

You got to leave it. Just like the Chargers where I'm standing. You can go to L.A. or to Anaheim now.

You got to have your own place, stag bill. They get a really good look out of it to make this work. Good luck.

Yeah, I don't think so, Rossella. I think this is a Lakers town for life. Yeah. What was up? Totally not now.

Do you still feel that you're still searching for that bus caused by nobody. Yeah, I can't find it. It's not Chris Herren. It's not it's. It's not John Williams. No Sean Williams. My man. Craig Smith. Who I love. No Ernie Cobb. No, I mean Kurylenko Adams never happened. Jared Jared and I've mentioned this once, but we were neighbors when he was a BC. We didn't hang. We did.

Did Sean Murphy ever land on a team like this? He never had one either.

And he honestly wasn't in the league as long as I remember when we thought the Celtics drafted him and it was the trade with Memphis, the Perkins report, which I believe is talk about, oh, Troy Murphy, FBC, Notre Dame. That's actually racist.

Bill, you just assumed Troy Murphy went to BC. He didn't go to see Notre Dame to Notre Dame. Felt like he should have gone to be seated. That was that was his safety. Do you before we go, do you have any idea when the next season is going to happen? Because it doesn't seem like anyone has any idea whatsoever.

But if anyone had would be LeBron and the two dates I've heard I've heard that Martin Luther King Day, I've heard like January 18th I'm hoping for and I've heard rumblings of early, early February. But to be honest, he's going to be about the testing and and how we get fans back in. So I've even heard March. So plan on that mid mid January to mid-February and those four weeks, I would bet on March.

I hope so.

We need the fans. We need the fans. We need the revenue. We got to get this back rolling in. The more time, the better for us.

All right. I got nothing else we can let go of it unless you have anything else. I'm good, man. This is unbelievable. I mean, I knew you'd be great, but it's even better than I thought it would be.

Jerry, how does the ringer get in on the Dudley sweepstakes? What do we have to do to have the battle palanca? Can we share you? You know, I will be there soon enough, I mean, Joy, let me get another one, just I need the staples right now. All right. Wait, wait, wait, wait. We're here for you. Sweating. Dude, that was so good. All right. It was good seeing you here to give you guys a couple of hits.

Congratulations. Thank you, sir. All right, that was fine, I don't know how we can top that the. I don't want to try because it was that was he was great. So not surprised. Let's talk about. What do you want to do, you want to do odds for next year, do you want to talk about some of the media coverage this week? Let's do the media coverage now, because I think we can do all the odd stuff later, although I did see Miami Ninth in a power rankings today where you go.

I can't imagine how bad this has to be. Torture for you, though, right? Like, how are we how are we doing, Bill? How's my friend Bill doing? I mean, obviously, I don't like I don't love the Lakers, I thought LeBron was amazing, though. I really like I was really blown away by how good he was at the bubble. You know, it does make you think like, God, am I a moron that I thought Kawhi was now the best playoff guy in the league.

Like, why do we discount the LeBron piece of it? But I do think, like, it goes back to something I remember writing about a couple of years ago. I know we've talked about in this podcast like the fucking carrot's, when you wave the carrots in front of that dude and he just has the ability to feel slighted and turn it into fuel for whatever his quest is. And they had a couple of huge carrots this time. I really do think the last dance, like I know deadly, there's been diplomatic, but this whole Jordan coordination thing that had to have been fuel for him and then the Kawhi piece of it, and then the Clippers just getting knocked out, not even showing up for this prize fight where it's like Ali Frazier.

Let's go Madison Square Garden in nineteen seventy April, whatever that fight was. And they're ready and they're lacing up the Clippers again. We're not going to make it. We'll see you guys next season. I just think he could smell it from the moment that happened. And he was awesome in the finals. I mean, do you see his stats? He almost shot like sixty percent. Look, I after game six, I mean, he was at the hoop at will, first of all, any momentum whatsoever, there just was no wing.

There was no size. I mean, Iguodala has moments if you wait for him. But to think that, like, Jimmy Butler can handle him physically, I mean, none of this stuff is breaking news. Hey, LeBron is awesome. But the thing that I kept getting back to and you could see, especially when they obliterated that zone, you go, you have two of the most skilled guys ever like the best skill size combination we've probably ever seen in LeBron, like who's been his size that has those skills.

No one well done. They made the key point. Right. He was like, we have if you're going small by had the best small ball, five in the league, the best small ball, four in the league. So good luck that. Yeah, that's true.

And so even as I'll try to go when LeBron was good, but there were moments where I'm like, oh my God, with this guy. And when you looked at his at the rim numbers, he wasn't missing, he wasn't missing any shots. And I know people that are anti LeBron to turn that into like, oh, why did he pass Danny Green? It was like, well, first of all, just shut the fuck up. Now, that was going to play.

It was the way he took off in his body angle. There was no layup there other than I guess I could just do something that's definitely going to miss. And Danny Green, Mr. Wide Open three. None of that stuff even matters anymore. But there was another I don't know if it's a reminder, Bill. I don't know what the right way is of phrasing it all, but there were moments where it feels stupid after seventeen years to be surprised by LeBron.

And maybe surprise isn't the right word, but just another moment where you're just I'm sitting at home by myself just saying stuff out loud on my couch, shaking my head and amazed at him once again. For the playoffs, he is basically 30, 12, eight and half assists. Fifty nine percent field goal and forty two percent, three point as statistically the best he's been, but I test it felt like over and over again when he really wanted to, he could he could create whatever shot he wants.

And the overpowering thing I was thinking about. You know how we remember this Laker team, because I really do think this was because of those two guys, like a pretty memorable team ultimately, even if maybe Miami shouldn't have taken them the six whatever, both of those guys, when they really wanted to be, were overpowering. And you think about like. We talk about great teams and the phrase overpowering and like the eighty six Celtics was my favorite team.

Yeah, that team on their team and my favorites ultimately when they wanted to be overpowering and they were just around the rim and it was like you almost it was like an onslaught. You couldn't keep them away from the rim. And Lakers had that combo of when they were really going up that fast break. Any time you fucked up, they were gone. And when things slowed down, they could go to Kareem and it was just like, shit, what do we do?

But really, you know, you think about actual overpowering and it's like Shaq in those oh oh oh one or two that that the Shaq run that he had where you kind of would watch those playoff games, you'd be like, I don't know how stop this unless they allow the other team to foul. Heidi, how do you keep this guy from getting three feet from the rim, turning around and dunking? And they reminded me a little of that.

Like there is a helplessness sometimes. And some of these games are like, how do you stop this? And part of it was because LeBron and Davis, as you pointed out, that Dudly podcast, they totally figured out that whatever alpha dog issue might happen, it just didn't exist. There was there was a comfort with those two that was really rare for first season. But just physically, I was just thinking ahead of because KFC and Vernon talked about this a little bit, if you're putting together a team for next year and you know, you have to deal with these guys again.

Like, let's say you're the Celtics. You know, you can actually win the title with the team you had this year because you're not going to be big enough in a series with the Lakers, you're not going to outsmart them. You need size. So weirdly like size could be more important. And we've seen this cycle in the NBA before where teams go, oh, shit, that's what it's winning. We got to rally. And sometimes that works badly.

I don't know if anybody can beat this team without at least having the size option. Right. Is that an overreaction? No, it isn't. Because isn't it crazy is we're just talking this out. The league felt like it's got small overnight. It felt like it got small where you're watching all these regular season games, you go all these teams are closing small now, like, this is kind of crazy. And then I think as quickly as it gets small, I think it got big again even quicker.

Yeah. But it was a different kind of big where it's not the traditional big where you're running any post stuff. I mean, nobody even throws it into the post anymore. I mean the numbers that we had an Embiid posting were like ten post touches a game that led the league and that's, that's less than half of what Al Jefferson was doing ten years ago. So that's nuts. And then you factor in that Miami and again I think Miami did Boston a favor because I don't think Boston, even if they had more wings supposedly to throw it.

LeBron, it doesn't matter because you're never matching his size strength combination. And it would have been nice chasing around Anthony Davis and he couldn't do anything like they had a hard time with Bam. So then we factor in that that Miami I mean, we we argued about Meyers, Leonard there for a little while. They tried it. They didn't they didn't do that very long because you still even with forget healthy bam, you don't have a fully healthy bam.

And when you know you can go to that. And I even thought there were times too many times probably in game five where I'm like, why are you not sealing more with A.D? Why are you not doing some of these things that we saw earlier on in these series where I think that's kind of why they lost Game five and a bunch of different reasons, but I don't know who's going to match up. With their like you, you don't get you they're going to play they can play small with you, they're just going to be bigger, you know.

Well, so it's OK, let's look at the West. Your Dallas. Huge, by the way, when the right, right, so hopefully poison gas is out there, I saw a picture of him on crutches recently that scared me a little. But, you know, they have Hadaway as an expiring. Dwight Powell, I think, will be back. They have Kleber, but if I'm just thinking like, all right, we we have to if we actually can compete for a title with Luca because he's that good, what's our line up when when the Lakers go to this LeBron Davis lineup?

How are we in? We could play poison gas, but we still need like that for who can handle LeBron, who's got the kind of size. So they have that the Clippers cannot beat the Lakers with the team they have. I think they're at a come to Jesus moment with Harrell right there. This guy Harrell is going to need fifteen million a year, but you can't play him against Denver, the Lakers to the teams you need to beat.

Then if you're Denver, you're getting rid of the Millsap contract, but you got to figure out like, all right, who is with who is the joker? We're actually going toe to toe against these dudes. I just think all of these teams have to think about what is our crunch time five against this team when they do this because the Lakers are deadly, said it. The Lakers going to be a little bit better. They're going to be able to get a couple more guys who are going to be ring hunting.

Right. Like they might end up with Serge Ibaka next year, you know, just something that ain't right. But but it could be somebody like that who's just like, yeah, fuck it, I'll try to. I didn't like the contracts I was being offered. I'll go one year, five million and try to win a ring. Great. So I think they're going to be better as long as they're healthy.

Cap space is bad this year. It's Atlanta, it's the Knicks, it's Detroit, Miami at north of twenty million cap space.

You know, things could change and the cap might be going backwards. It could, but I think you'd agree with me here. Instead of the projection of one fifty one sixteen, it'll probably stay at one nine so that they don't have to cut back and they can kind of figure that all out with score anyway. I don't I'm right. Annoying and boring about this, which is probably too late, but I think the reason they want to keep it flat is they don't want to drop it down and then have it spike back up again, which is everything that I've heard.

But you never know. They could change all these things around. I could see a team like Atlanta probably throwing money at Serge and just going, hey, we're gonna have to spend it on somebody. Let's bring in a veteran. No, now, while we figure out which young guys we actually won. I like Serge.

Can it be the Celtics? Serge was I'm it's funny because I went from, like, liking Serge to going this guy's comically overrated to don't even talk to me about Serge to the last two years, loving Serge again. It's just been too real to me.

Thanking my lucky stars. They weren't playing a more in that Toronto Boston series. I'm going to give you some free agents. Can we just stay with Dallas, though, I just as you were going through everything as as I just there's a couple of things I need to follow up on there. The if person this is healthy thing and I've stuck up for him his entire career, I can't assume the guy's ever going to be healthy. I'm totally scared of him.

I'm afraid of him, although I do like when he is healthy. What Dallas would do against the Lakers and make Davis guard Bazinga. So what you should be thinking is which big can you take Davis out of his comfort zone defensively? Not do we match up and can we shut down Anthony Davis? Davis is getting thirty points and if he wants to get thirty points, I think what you have to do is have a big that makes Davis respect him away from the hoop, which is a big ass.

That guy doesn't exist right now on the Clippers. It's not Montrezl, it's certainly not Zubrzycki.

Well, we like him, but I would push back a little bit. If we have a normal as disappointing as this Clippers thing was and is a disaster, I still don't believe it's the disaster that like it's I don't think it's an irreparable disaster where maybe a year, again, together with everybody, a tweak here, a tweak there where they're still winning a lot of games. And maybe a year later we're going, hey, maybe that's a team that could beat the Lakers here.

Like, I'm not I I don't want to just play the results, the recency. So much so that now we're starting to treat the Clippers like a force that has no chance of ever beating this Lakers team. Was that your audition for Clippers head coach? I listed the Clippers have two fundamental problems. Carol and Lou Williams, I think they have to cut bait with both of those guys because I don't think you could play those guys in a big playoff series against the teams they need to beat.

Either of those guys is getting played off the court. So if you're going to spend a lose out in a contract, but I would Shopin and I am not spending 15 million a year in hair, I'm just not I'm not spending money either. I'm not talking myself into the look. The bubble is weird. He was going through some stuff we got. By the way, who's offering him this? Like, is Detroit spending 15 to 20 on Montrezl Harrell?

No, he's Miami.

He's a really good energy guy. He can't make once you're paying him fifteen million a year, you're you're paying basically a character actor to lead your movie. You can't do it. He's character actor. But, you know, the big thing for me is he can't play against Denver, the Lakers. We know this I'm going to throw a name out there to you. Do you think Utah would ever get weird with go and see what was out there?

One hundred percent. If you if you gave me a list of what names wouldn't surprise you, who you get traitor next to you. He is one hundred thousand percent. One of my five. I'm just wondering if another team would go. Let's get real weird here and bring him in.

Not as a solution but an option, because there's going to be nights where the problem is is 20 is like twenty seven million a year. So it's tough to be like this is unconditional. Twenty seven million dollar a year guy. Yeah, yeah. It might maybe he would have to be two years of Clipper's exits that that bother you.

But then again, I have a couple of names for you. OK, all right. You're going to be really excited. Andre Drummond. He's there, hasn't he already said he's picking up his 30 what is it? Twenty nine minutes. All right. Well, all right. So Hassan Whiteside, I thought you said I was going to get excited. Well, I'm just saying this is this is who's out there for team four contenders that are like, we need more size.

Hassan Whiteside, aging Marc Gasol. Abarca, Derrick Favors, Bismack Biyombo. I want Bismack Biyombo just for America to get another contract you'd be like only in this country could Bismack Biyombo get it back one hundred thirty million over the course of his career. Tristan Thompson. Yes, I guess how old Tristan Thompson is, by the way. All right, so because you've said that I know he's younger, I'll say twenty eight. Twenty nine. I would have said like thirty five, but yeah, it makes sense.

He was it like the two. That is twenty three. So Tristant. All right. So that's to me that's a great guy. Right. Tristan Thompson. Great for, for the purposes of this discussion because that's somebody that I actually feel like I could play. In the last five minutes of a playoff game against the Lakers, if I had somebody else with them. Because he can rebound, he knows where to go. He's tough, he's been in big games.

I think we have this contract against him. He's making 80, 90 million a year. But that did played a lot of big games and was effective sometimes and effective and non like unplayable, though he's he's there's so many of these guys that I always talk about where I can't guarantee a guy is completely unplayable in a series because we'll see moments were like, wow, Justin Thompson is tough to deal with right now. Here's an awesome tidbit on Tristan Thompson.

I wish that was the guy that Celltex wanted at the deadline, but then he didn't get by that. Yeah, I think they wanted to try to figure out a way to keep him in Cleveland, but I mean, ridiculous, ridiculous. I honestly think that was just information that makes it sound like the client is open to any option when they're trying to get paid again. So. Meyers, Leonard. Why would I want him when his own coach wouldn't trust him, when they had no big guys to go against this huge team?

I'm just giving you the names, I'm mad at you just because we spent Enis Kantaras on it, Robin Lopez. Gevalt Maggie. My point is. Everybody could be like like we just said, you got to have more size to beat the Lakers, you're not getting in in free agency because I just read you all the names. The only guy that I kind of like is Tristan Thompson. And the reason I bring up Gobber is because he's on the books one more year for twenty five plus, and then you have to have a really tough conversation where you go, who do you want to be?

If we're Eutaw, do do we want to figure out how to add another wing? Do we have to do something dramatic to keep Donovan Mitchell happy. And this isn't based. This is just common sense of of looking at it with another team, say. But I almost feel like some of these teams would have to struggle one more year against the Lakers before then they'd start changing this whole thing around. And I know people think, hey, Anthony Davis is a free agent, too, for the hundredth time.

I don't think he's going to bail on the Lakers yet.

I will say, though, after watching that those last two rounds, if I'm Utah, I'm a lot less excited to trade gobal. Because that's I still have to go through the Lakers ultimately if I'm trying to win the title. So it's like, why am I trading a guy that would actually help me in a series when the other team has overpowering dudes? Dallas is the team to watch out for because out of anyone in the conference, they have the guy who can actually go toe to toe with LeBron in a real way, completely unafraid, can match and play for play and if they can put the right pieces around him.

Which honestly wouldn't be that hard to be two moves, you know, on top of a healthy poison gas. And then there are the two moves, one more big guy, and I think they need a better wing and I'm not sure how they get that, but they need they need to somehow flip Hardaway into a real three and D guy, even if they have to use the expiring in a pick or something like that, because Hardaway's an option, right, at like 19 million.

I think it's a player option. Yeah. Which he's going to opt in. Right, unless and this is this is always one of the things we've been surprised by this, you can hear things and then you go, wait, that guy opted out and it's like, well, you know what? Even though the poor he's still pretty young for that, but he's only twenty eight. But I wonder, with the bad free agent class, the worst one we've had in three years, if there wouldn't be another team that goes a you know, these spaces, the floor, you know, all these things.

I mean, maybe he'd look more as he was a Lukáš, but would he get some kind of longer term deal out there that makes sense to take advantage of a weak free agent class? And could he still be at 19 per would he would he look at a 15 over where it would be for? I don't know. It's just one of those things, you know, because there have been times where guys have opted out and you've been like, what the hell is he doing?

Nobody thought that was going to happen.

So it's just at least worth reminding ourselves or Dallas could do the thing where they tear up his last year, but give him fifty million for four years, something like that.

And he gets the security, the longer deal, not knowing where the cap is going next couple of years, or you could waive your trade exception and then be in a movie.

I've excited the free agent classes, Gastly. So that I'm on track, just looking at their list and the top free agent, just for in terms of who made the most money last year, Hayward and people think Hayward will opt in for a whole bunch of reasons. But do you think he's going to opt out?

I wouldn't have been completely stunned if it happened before he got hurt again. Yeah, I still was. What is it? Thirty two million dollars player option. Yeah, but if it's a weak free agent class and you have teams trying to spend money and somebody talks themselves into it's thirty four million.

Yeah, but I think I think it's a moot point. But. All right, let's talk media coverage.

Want to talk about the media coverage there? I don't know if this is a product of just the times around, but there's a lot of like why are you insult my intelligence sports coverage out there? And one of the things I noticed this week. Was this narrative people were pushing? About how this Lakers, this Lakers ownership, it had its act together, after all. And you know, a lot of Prezi, Jeanie Buss for her steady hand and things like that, you did that piece for The Ringer, the sports history piece about the last seven years of of the Lakers, just how dysfunctional it was.

I don't know why everybody is so afraid to just say what this was, the Lakers were an absolute dumpster fire the way they run really since the moment they did the Steve Nash Dwight Howard trades. And LeBron wanted to live in Los Angeles and they were able to sign him, which led to them being able to overpay Anthony for Anthony Davis. There was really nothing other than that, it was those two things I felt. I feel like my fucking son could have own the Lakers and pulled off at least one of those moves because LeBron was playing in L.A. He was moving here.

It was going to be Lakers or Clippers. And the Lakers said the Cavs space. But what like why do we do this? Why do we try to pretend the last eight years didn't happen? They were a dumpster fire. We could go through all their moves. It's like there's literally I have this document right here. These are like all the terrible moves they did the last four years go through because I just did a video on the entire thing.

Oh, we don't have them. We have to go through all of it. I just like so the question is why? Because they won and nobody ever wants to write something after somebody wins and goes, well, actually, but I agree with you. I mean, it was really simple. And even as I did the video, I go, my point was all these terrible things happened and they were accurately terrible and people deserve to criticize them.

But I just feel like in life there's all these things that we think matter. And it didn't really matter because LeBron wanted to come to the Lakers at some point. And even though when he came to the Lakers, there was an immediate negative reaction to who else they brought in because we couldn't believe it. Like, wait a minute, it's LeBron and what Rondo, Lance Stephenson, Michael Beasley, like, what the hell's going on? And then Palenque and Magic are saying, like, we need guys who could win in a fight in the parking lot with the Warriors.

You're like, yeah, but you wanted to make any shots. So even then it didn't make any sense until Clutch got with Anthony Davis. It all worked out. I don't I agree.

I don't know what's wrong with saying, hey, this actually is it about ownership vision? This isn't about Lincoln being the greatest executive ever. This isn't about all these things you guys want to pretend that it is.

LeBron picked you and it fucking worked. So congrats. And I know people are going to say, oh, you just too. But I don't give a shit. I don't give a shit. I care about the truth. And the truth is this front office was now, I think Jesse Boston that's getting partment never get any credit. I don't know why that is. They never even get talked about. And if you look at their draft track record, they're actually pretty good.

And the assets, they're able to move around and stuff. So they never good. But as far as like the top things, I also think the media I just think there's a lot of people in the media that really love Jeanie Buss. I think they like going out to dinner with her. I think they're very, very friendly with her and that they're in a rush to give her a ton of credit. When I get I don't think it mattered who she is.

I can't remember an ownership in a front office. Doing less to help a team win a title, you could argue that they won the title despite the ownership of the front office the last eight years. I mean, they had with that the second, second and second pick in three different drafts. They had Julius Randle. They took seventh even when they got LeBron. They whiffed on the Paul George thing, we'll never know what happened with that, but they thought they're getting LeBron and Paul George, they're clearing all that cap space for the match.

Think about this. Like, were they better off not getting them off? Maybe. Maybe they were. Maybe he would hurt them. But, you know, remember the that summer after they got LeBron, they renounced Julius Randle's rights for reasons that I actually Googled this to try to figure out if there is a story that really wasn't a story, like he wanted a two year deal, but he was a restricted free agent. All they had to do is basically.

You know, keep them instead, they wanted to use that money to get Stephen, said Beasley McGee, they let Brook Lopez leave, which seems incredible. They had Brook Lopez the end up signing with the bucks for like three and a half million a year. And you think, like he was kind of the perfect center for what they're trying to do. They had no idea. They everybody like the NBA world told us, though, when he only gets a three and a half million dollar deal at that time of the bucks before you get the new bigger deal, the NBA seem to be off of Brook Lopez and Randle.

Did that make sense to you? It never made sense to me. I was like them. He was killing the on the nets. He was killing the Celtics draft pick that one year because he was like single handedly winning games. I don't know, it's something got skewed off there. But he's definitely going to recharge sort of reinvention in Milwaukee, though, too. So I just think remember that McGee, they drafted Lonzo over Jason Tatum. They traded Russell after two years after picking him second with the Boskoff contract that they never signed the first place for Lopez and the twenty seventh pick.

You, you talked in the video that twenty sixteen they signed Dang in Moscow for one hundred thirty six million for four years. But when you think backwards, like 16 couldn't even get a meeting with Kevin Durant. He's doing this FreeAgent tour, would it meet with them 12 15 LaMarcus Aldridge wanted to come here. I know for a fact I had the meeting. The meeting was so bad he ended up choosing between San Antonio and Phoenix. They lost weight in twenty.

Thirteen free agents wouldn't come there for years and years. They absolutely were born on third base with this whole thing because LeBron wanted to play here. And I don't know why we can't just say that. Why is that so hard to say that this team really, since Dr. Buss got sick, who is the greatest owner in the history of the league? In my opinion, best honor we've ever had. Since he got sick there, a train wreck until LeBron showed up and then even after LeBron showed up, they tried to screw that up and then it finally worked out.

But why can't we just say that? What's wrong? Because we just we just play the results. I mean, this isn't new, but it seems to be cranked up to a different level because it's almost like calling somebody an asshole that died. You know, I think after, like, a few hours of some sports figure dies and maybe he doesn't have the greatest rep. Nobody wants to tweet like condolences to the family, but this guy was a dick.

You give it a couple. I don't even know that you know what he was doing. OK? Well, now that it's been three days, this guy was an asshole. And here's my tweet. You know, you don't even really feel like doing that. And in a less serious version of this, when somebody wins, we want to turn everything into a positive narrative of why it isn't just a result. Like one of the things I said on the podcast is that not every every result is not necessarily a timeline defining moment.

Sometimes it's just the result. And the result is the Lakers ended up beating everybody and LeBron was incredible again. But it's LeBron deciding to go there. It's not the wisdom passed down from generation to generation. It just isn't because where is that wisdom from 2013, the Kobe contract, forty eight point five million or two year extension to thirty five years old off an Achilles injury, which leads to Melo saying no, which led to Bash saying no, LeBron saying no, because people are like, wait, LeBron is going to go help Kobe get more rings when these guys are kind of dueling that out.

I was six years ago. It shouldn't be that hard to forget or that we shouldn't be so easy to forget. Kyle Lowry even said no. Pau Gasol signed with Chicago. And as you mentioned, LaMarcus comes in and Kobe talked for three minutes. It was like, you're going to work off of me like Pau Gasol did. And and we make movies out here. You'll be in movies like LaMarcus Aldridge. What fucking movie is he going to be in?

So, you know, he was turned off. And by the way, what I loved about my LaMarcus research going back to that fifteen free agent time, I love reading old free agent pursuits creative. They're unbelievable. We should actually try to put together like the top ten funniest free agency pursuit stuff of the last decade because it's out of control. There was one guy that tweeted just spoke with source LaMarcus Aldridge, absolutely floored by the Houston Rockets presentation.

It was so strong and aggressive in like that, he went to San Antonio, so all these things are happening and we're not like the Jim stuff. I if you're telling me a GM was going to say no to Dwight, Powell, Nash and Kobe, and I know it didn't work, but every other GM, given the opportunity, would have gone and done it. So I don't defend them all the way. I defend them on that. But then the other stuff we're pulling magic come in and nobody really knows what to make of it.

And they don't have any relationship. We thought they did. And then I found that clip or magic. They were like, hey, what kind of relationship did you have? He's like, none. I didn't know him. And then magic telling people, apparently, day one, we can replace all of you. And then he decides, like in 2019, the end of the regular season, going, I can't do this shit anymore. I'm out.

Did you tell anybody? No, because I don't want to do it because he wanted to fire Luke Walton and then they wouldn't let him fire Luke Walton. Then they fired Luke Walton and they've been on five coaches since 2013. My point was this was a disaster for seven years and they still won. So there's no hurdle that is too great in sports, it feels like to get over.

But what if nobody ever wants it? You're right, though. Nobody ever wants to write that story. But if you're hanging that on GenY, it's unfair to hang all the Jimmy Buss stuff on her because she was. I'm not. But she wasn't. No, no. I'm saying for me, because I'm saying the last eight years were a dumpster fire. I mean, it's your sibling, you know, like to imagine how tough that must have been.

But she did take over. And, you know, you look at some of the stuff they did, which really starts with February 2017, they put magic in charge. And thought Magic who? Look, I don't know whether he's the guy like from a Hoopes IQ standpoint, I think he could do it. But when you consider that he's also a CEO and running a company and as a Dodger stuff does all these speaking engagements and you're asking this guy to battle, you know, all the jobs and people, people like Presti.

And he's going to do this kind of half time and you go back and read the quotes when he took over and he's making it seem like, no, no, I told them this is my thing. And then when he was on his way out the door is like I told Jeanie, this wasn't going to be a full time thing for me. Well, that's not how you sold it to your fans. You put him with Palanca, who never had the job before.

Then we come to find out they have no relationship and magic feels like pointless backstabbing him. And you go back and you just read the stuff from last year, the bizarre press conference of magic leaves and then goes on first take and takes a fucking blowtorch to Palanca. Tim Harris talks about backstabbers and they're saying, I didn't work hard. It's like, yeah, because you weren't working hard. We could see what you were doing. You were you know, there was one somewhere where he was away for like six weeks and on his European vacation, whenever he goes, it's like all the other teams are working.

I don't know what you're doing. So anyway, that happened on his watch. And I, I think it's fine to say, look, that was a rocky eight years. I'm sure GenY learned some lessons, but this isn't like a fucking triumph. This is like LeBron James wanting to play for the Lakers. And you guys were bad for so many years row. You had all these picks to trade for Anthony Davis because you had Brandon Ingram and Lonzo Ball because you had the second pick two years in a row.

Plus you gave up three more picks. But I don't know. It's it's not like any of this was intentional. They were spending a shitload of money in 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, like there was a couple of years where they had like the fourth highest payroll and the worst record shit like that. It was just incompetence. And I don't know why everyone's so afraid to just say that. I mean, do you have any theories?

No, I just think I don't get it, I don't know what happened to to to just kind of calling it like it is. I think it going be right. OK, let's let's be totally real about this. Do you have moments where if it's a game you like your softer. No, I think to my detriment, I mean, I had a good relationship with Jimmy Butler, he'd done my podcast twice, and when he did all that Minnesota stuff, like I thought like I had to rip him on the podcast and I knew I probably wouldn't come on again after that, but.

And he hasn't. You guys will talk. No, I haven't had him on since, but that's fine. Whatever. I still feel like when you have something as orchestrated as that Minnesota thing was. And, you know, we all know what was happening. It's hard for me to defend that I don't like that stuff because I know I know there's guys that I like, but I don't think I've ever gone and defended something terrible, like a Bob Myers all of a sudden traded Steph Curry for Dion Waiters.

I wouldn't then come on a podcast and go, well, you know, I really like Bob Meyers so I can see what you know, we need time to move on from Steph, challenge an internal struggle in that kind of stuff. But I think that's what happens with Jeanie. I think a lot of people like Jeanie and you can tell the way certain stories are written, that she's the source on it. She's she's a she's great. Yeah.

She's like really her. So I wonder, you know, if that's part of it, like, I don't really ever talk to anybody. I actually I'll just say it like I don't talk to anybody with the Lakers. I don't.

One of the articles I read was about. There is this big, big dinner with LeBron and Rich, Paul and Jeanie and somebody else, and May 2013, they're all like, let's do this. It's going to take a lot of work. It's like, all right. Well, you try to trade for Davis at the trade deadline. Everybody knew you were getting him from the moment he signed with clutch. Just came down to how much you were going to give up and then you got him.

And then there was another thing I read about praising Palanca about his agent skills, learned him to always have a backup plan. And it's like if we don't get Kawhi, I have to have a backup plan. So here's going to be our plan B was like, oh, his savageness is as from using his agent skills, knowing he'd have to have a plan B, who the fuck doesn't have a plan B? It's free. I mean, you can you have like three moves.

You can make it. It's like, oh, we get Kawhi Rob. What's your plan B? What plan B, what do you mean?

Literally every team outlines plans a thing, whatever.

Like Jay they have, they have like ten ways, every sort of draft, anything could go like nobody's blindsided by anything. So yeah. You didn't get Kawhi in your plan B was Danny Green. You signed him. Congratulations. You're an NBA team. That's how it works. I don't know, but I think the point here is, though, is that when it was going bad, that's what happens. It's the piling on. I mean, the palanca part that I thought some of the things I thought were unfair about criticisms of him were, well, he couldn't pull the trigger on the Anthony Davis deal.

That had more to do with the Pelicans. And Gale Benson deciding to pull everything off the table and becoming a little bit more difficult to work with is that Pelicans thing was falling apart. So it wasn't really entirely.

Weren't they bad about the leaks, though? I thought they were still at least a piece of it. They were mad about all of it. They were mad about all of it. And the Gale Benson was very upset throughout the entire stretch of that season with the end of the Davis thing, which I totally understand.

Would you have traded him if you're in New Orleans? Because I feel like at least half of me would have been like, fuck you, you're playing out your contract here. No way, because I got to get assets. And if there's a good version of this trade, I mean, Brandon Ingram, we did the free agent thing. I don't know that trade with the trade was unbelievable.

They played it perfectly. I don't know whether I don't know how much of it was intentional versus some kill ego in spite. And that should get in the way of a transaction that allows assets to come your way.

So you can't trade is amazing. I mean, I was looking at I forgot how much they got. Ingram Lonzo, Josh Hart fourth pick in twenty nineteen which whatever was. The blue chip, or like it would be in some years, but they were able to turn that a Jackson Hayes and some more stuff top a protected pick, twenty twenty one, which is unprotected in twenty twenty two if it becomes protected. So basically an unprotected twenty, twenty two unprotected swap in twenty three and then their choice of unprotected in twenty four, twenty five, which is the really juicy one because at that point who knows.

Sure. No doubt but. Let's be fair that when the trade went down, you thought it was a ton to give up. I thought it was too much. I look at Anthony Davis is, you know, the prices on these guys has actually gone up even when it's a difficult situation. I mean, if you're going to get that much stuff for Paul George, then you should get that much for Anthony Davis. But if I'm on the other side of that call with the Lakers, I'm going, Lonzo stinks, OK, which he doesn't.

But I'm saying it over and over again. Nagging. Nagging. Right, right. And then I'm going Brandon Ingram's. What do we like. What are we talking about here medically. Like we talking about a blood problem here. Like what's, what's the deal. So I'm hammering those things and I think that's part of the negotiation. And you know, even though you feel like you're only negotiating with one team, it is a nice haul. But there's also a version of that trade where you could have looked at a couple of years later and gone, man, none of this stuff ever worked out.

And I'm going to try not to hold Lonzo Bubble Lonzo up to the standard because regular season Lonzo looked like a good player. Different but good and I just don't know he was really bidding against was my question with that. I think there was a real desperation on the Lakers side, because if they don't get him, what do you tell LeBron at that point? Because LeBron is basically like, I'll come to the Lakers. Then he gets hurt, he doesn't like the coach.

Some of the young guys were too deferential to him, I think. I don't think he realized how weird and Brady had this problem to the Patriots as his career got older. When you're playing with these guys who idolized you, I think he realized that guy this is weird. And I posted just fell. But but if they don't get Davis, they really didn't have a killer Plan B, so they had to get Davis and Griffin knew it and he played it perfectly.

This is also one of those deals there where, you know, the voice outside of that transaction, like there are other games going on. I can't believe one team did this or these guys were stupid, all these different things. But you weren't in that chair like you weren't palanca going. I have to get this Anthony Davis deal done. And if it means a twenty five unprotected, like at the end of the day, I'm not going to I guess I'm going to get fired anyway if it doesn't work.

That's why I kind of love Preston away on that. Paul George. Be like, what did you sit down with? Did you start asking Bilic for ten picks. Yeah. What was it. Right. I understand the negotiation. As you know, you can get four, but what would you have actually done? There'd be a great like if you could just do something 20 years removed where we got all these GMs to follow up different transactions to say, OK, this is what you got.

What were you willing to do it for? Just to get two guys in a room that have a good relationship and 20 years later, like get Grif and to get Palanca 20 years later, be like, what would you have done, Grif? What would you have done, Palanca? But if you're in that chair and you're Palanca and you're going, OK, this is more than I want to give up, and yes, this could go bad and whatever.

But I'm going to get to introduce Anthony Davis in a Lakers uniform here in a week, like, all right, you know what? Like, I'm going to get this done over what could be a pick in the 20s or the seventh pick six years from now. Like, that's a tough thing to say no to. OK, so we can pretend it's a ton of stuff to give up to. But I can't imagine I wouldn't call it anxiety, but the juice of being on that phone call and going, if you can say yes to this right now, you get Anthony Davis.

We all the people that think they know what they would do in that moment, good luck. Because most everybody, I think would say whatever you've done, deal, Griff, send them send him this way and be like, oh, I forgot. He's already here. When do you think Bulmer had his moment with the trade? Where it was like kids waking up in Vegas on a Sunday morning. And you just have no pants on and you're well, it's gone and you're like, what happened?

Do you think did? At what point did he have that ball? But with all the stuff they gave up, though, what happened? Do you think it was after they got bounced, do you think? Yeah, it was like yeah, it was like Orlando. Where can I see what how many picks we gave up? But he's reading the list.

He's like, oh, my God, I. I was a lot a lot of picks. Yeah, I think it happened, though. I definitely think it happened at some point, but it was probably after blowing a three one lead look. All right. So praising the Lakers. To be fair on their moves. They really bought in on the Rondeau thing because they had the experience over the last year and they easily could have cut the cord. But to their credit, they went back to it and ran it back because he's not the easiest dude, but he was humungous for them in the playoffs and there were just certain games where he it was like a big three type situation with how good he was playing.

So that was big. They deserve a ton of credit for the Dwight Howard thing. Granted, as much as we made fun of them, like they really did need that one more body for some of these regular season games. As Dudley pointed out, he was important in Denver and that in that Denver series and Dwight was sitting there for everybody like, I know the Celtics kick the tires on him and then did the internal poll. And everybody was like, we can't can't do it too risky.

So you get credit for that. Caldwell Pope? I think they overpaid both of those years. I don't know where else he was getting that money, but he did come through in the playoffs. And then it was part of the LeBron transaction, too, I think it was.

We'll take care of your guy. Don't get us. I mean, look, you probably could have still not paid Pope that much, especially in that first year. And LeBron at some point without a favor to clutch. That was my interpretation of that. Yeah, that's what I'm telling you.

But, you know, do you and then say Caruso, you know, Caruso was a valuable playoff guy and somebody that I would have loved to have of the Celtics, you know, and they found that dude last year at some point. And we made jokes about his hairline. And I remember when he we did a ringer video and LeBron broke thirty thousand points or whatever, and he hugged Caruso. And we did a thing about, hi, I'm Alex Caruso, introducing himself to LeBron and Caruso starts game six of the finals.

And it was like a key adjustment. So you get credit for that. And then I think, you know, I don't think clutch is the easiest thing to navigate. If you're a front office in an organization where you're dealing with an agency that represents the two best guys in your team and three or four other guys and was probably trying to put in the coach that they wanted and all that stuff, and they navigated that. So I'm not I'm not saying he doesn't deserve some credit and blinco, but you just can't gloss over what a train wreck they were and what a train wreck I think they would have continued to be if LeBron had decided not to come.

That's probably the best way of putting it, because, you know, back to the plane could get beat up on all the time. And then remember the report about he didn't know the rules and the trade rules, which turned out to be unfair, and none of them on this part.

And it's not true. And it wasn't then it was like, oh, wait. But that also meant it felt like it sounded like somebody with the Lakers may have. I don't know if it was somebody. Yeah, I don't know what the backstory to that was. Was it somebody else? Because that had to be sourced, somebody had to have thrown that out there for them to people to have people go, hey, this is what people are saying about Blanca with the date of the transaction of the Davis trade and how it's going to screw up the cap thing.

And then it was like, actually, no, he knew the rule, but the Rondeau point of it. I mean, he shot forty percent from three. He took fifty threes in the playoffs and made 40 percent of them, and this was a guy that was you didn't guard, you didn't guard, and they still didn't really ever guard him because you're going to he's not going to keep making all of these you know, this is like thirty or thirty one.

He's thirty three. But it seems so young, it still seems young for somebody whose body is going to age great. And I always thought, like this year when he came back, I go, you know, he's moving around really well. He's just not playing very well. So when you say Big Three, I know you're kind of kidding, but he was that steady for them and provided shooting that kind of came out of nowhere for a team that wasn't really shooting.

Wasn't exactly the first thing you thought of when you thought of the Lakers. You thought a defense in stars that could close better than other stars. He was unbelievable for what, because you remember when. I think we even did a podcast, and I remember Zach was saying on his podcast to the I just thought people were totally underrated in the Rondo Bradley not being there in the regular season piece. I thought it was really hard for me to assess what their ceiling was without those two guys, because I thought they really I thought Rondo really brought something different that they needed.

There's a creativity to him that took a lot of pressure off LeBron in a lot of different ways when LeBron wasn't in the game. And then also went, you know, when LeBron was in the game, the way he interacted with Davis. But it's a bummer because it would have been nice to have on the Celtics instead of Wannamaker. You know, you think like he was kind of sitting there for anybody. I think he could have helped a bunch of playoff teams.

This version of Rondo and and the Lakers were smart enough to not give up on him. But do you think he plays this hard with LeBron? No. And I do think. You know, when you're factoring in all the important things LeBron brings to the table, this was very similar to Jordan, right? The ability to elevate certain people because. It's so cool to play with somebody who's that great and you just want to give them your best and you see, you know, like day in, day out the stuff he's doing in the bubble.

How do you not get caught up in that? If you're one of his teammates, somebody is working a hundred times harder than you are and you're going to eventually get swept up in that. And I think to me, that's that's the biggest thing with. Talk about, like, his ceiling. What it's going to look like, all that stuff, it's it's like, is he going to have that crazy LeBron Jordan work on my body thing? Because that's that's the last piece of, you know, those two guys.

I think even Bird, toward the end of his prime really embraced it, but probably too late. He was already pretty banged up at that point, but there were like two bird years there at the end of his prime when he was like, yeah, he's working out. He's doing Nautilus. His vertical leap has improved and it's it's go back and read it. Now, it's actually an article that said his vertical leap. Oh, yeah, his last.

I'm not doubting you, but that's no. That his last good year is the eighty seven. Eighty eight year. And he came in, in the preseason and he was, he could see it, he was jumping higher, he looked awesome. But he had this like follow up dunk and it was like a big deal in Boston. It's like Bird is a follow up jam. Dunk contest is legit. But yeah it was so long ago. Now you have LeBron sleeping in a hyperbaric chamber in an Orlando bubble.

How do they get the chamber in? I'm sure LeBron can figure it out. The problem is, of course, in Orlando. Well, listen, this is our last of our basketball season podcasts. I remember March twenty nineteen. You me recall Jeff Chao. We all went to dinner and we all looked at each other and we said. We know we got to do there's a lot of work here to be done. We know what needs to happen, and I think we delivered I think we had some good parts.

I don't remember that dinner that must have been you remember that you were pretty drunk.

But but we still might pop on each other's pod at least one or two times. We have there'll be some sort of drafting we'll do and then we'll be afraid to see what December 1st. So I think right after Thanksgiving, allegedly TBD, why why are you dismissive? Just because I know how much it's changed, so I mean, if we're locked into this, OK, but we don't even know when the start of the season is, I mean, it doesn't mean that you can't do free.

I think they're locked in draft and free agency. I think those are going to be the dates. And the free agency thing will be fun because I think it's like Thanksgiving.

And then what day is December 1st? December 1st is. Tuesday after Thanksgiving, so that be a really fun weekend, because I'm sure stuff will start get leaked out, right? They had been going and, you know, I was going to check myself, because you look at the free agent class, you look at the cap room, look all this stuff. Look, man, this is going to suck. We're going inside. There's going to be always something that happens in this league, this league.

There'd be something that none of us are even thinking about. Right. Oladipo Indiana the nets or do something. I have to do something, the Pacers, everybody seems to be trying to circle what's going on there. There's there's a big Yoni's. It has to be mentioned. Clippers will the highest. Tyce, what does he get the max or the super max, we've got to figure that out, who knows? And then my favorite subplot, which is not a huge subplot, but I'm fascinated by it because I really like him as Buddy Hield.

Because you're determined that you're determined to get them out of there. All right, so I'm running the south. And I call them and I say, I'll give you Hayward, I'll give you Romeo. And I'll give you our middle first round pick, twenty six, you got Hayward for a year. Yet Romeo, who really has a lot of potential, we really like him. It's hard for us to let him go, but we'll do it.

And a middle first rounder will take buddy. No. OK. All right, how about the 15th pick, Romeo and Gordon? Hey, you know, why do I want Romeo? Why do I want to get rid of a guy that I know? Smart Time Lords on the table. I love Time Lords passing time lord now. But I do think somebody is going to try to do that with the Kings where they'll be like, we'll take that contract off your hands because you don't want to pay twenty four million a year for a six man.

And we'll throw in this young asset that could be it could be the nets for the Bogdanovich thing, too, is worth factoring into all of that because he's well there. It seems like they're keeping him. Yeah, but, you know, maybe that's. That's how you go about this. I do wonder if we'll start to see restrictions on spending in ways that haven't happened before, because even if a team was cheap, you're paying 90 percent of the salary cap and whatever.

And then you look at how many teams are in the tax. I think I saw 10 teams already over the tax line for next year because it's not really about the cap. No, it's about the tax. No. And. It'd be it'd be kind of weird, like, you know, normally we just go, hey, this guy's a free agent.

He's going to get I mean, even guys that aren't great or get 15 million a year, will you have an owner that goes, I just don't even want to go over the 90 percent to the cap. You know, forget the tax. Don't even come to me if you're a front office to talk about paying a tax of all of this stuff, I.

Well, I think we're seeing it with coaches, too, because I think there's been a certain price for coaches. Philly had to do what they had to do. They needed some sort of good news to happen before they went to next season and Doc was available. And Doc, if anybody's going to figure out the Embiid Simmons thing, it's got to be a respected coach with some weight. But I think in general, like these, somebody like Fertitta isn't going to be totally psyched about paying a coach like seven million a year, you know, and I can't remember this many coaching vacancies after the finals.

Can you believe this has been so weird though, the jobs open? This has been this is unlike any other time I can remember, not just sheer numbers, but the oddity of Lou getting the Philly job. D'Antoni getting the Philly job. Oh, wait. Bombers actually firing doc with twenty two million left in the deal. But then, doc, what you want to go is you want to go to TV. What's going on with Van Gundy?

Is Van Gundy done with TV? Does he want to go to the Clippers. But does Jerry West want it to be Ty Lue like Ty Lue. We should learn from Tilo turning down three years, 18 million with the Lakers, because it wasn't enough years, it was enough money than we should know. OK, well, his price is beyond that. And if you're the pelicans, are you Pantelis, like, seven, eight million dollars a year.

By the way, that that was one of the worst moves of last year, because what happened is like I get sticking up for yourself and wanting to go, hey, I'm not working for below this like I want a title. This is what I should make. But when you start going a couple of years without making the money that you've turned down now, you've missed out potentially on six to 12 million that you would have made that, you know, again, the coaching thing can be a little different.

But you're right like that. That looks like the bad move because you rather made six and want a title. Also, like the I want a title thing and I think is a good coach, but you had one of the two best players of all time in your team. You know, it's not like you were a. Norman Dale and Hoosiers figuring out South Bend High. It's still more to go with LeBron James with trying to bring a title to Cleveland.

I thought he made a huge mistake because especially when, you know, Davis is coming, it's like your odds of LeBron and Davis potentially winning a title. You're one of the four teams that has a chance. And he should've known a better situation. He was represented by clutch at the time, too. So it's not like you didn't he didn't know what was going on.

The weirdest thing to me, we saw in the house and I did the odds. Next Sunday, Sunday's spot for NBA ads and the Nets had better odds than the Celtics, there were 13 when the Colts were 14. One, I was surprised. Now I know their job is to create odds that they are trying to get action on. And if they feel like there's done that's money out there, they're going to lower the thing. But I would just be really surprised if the nets were good, like good and like making the finals potentially winning the title kind of way.

I think that's going to be a very strange team. And I'm not saying it can't happen. But you have a brand new coach. You have a guy coming up, Achille's you have another guy who really didn't play at all last year and has been pretty injury prone and has had some surgeries and all kinds of things. Kyrie and and just kind of you got Dinwiddie there. Who. He's the one of the classic I got. This guy's going to have to overpay.

Joe Harris feels like they have a trade to make. I don't know what to do with LaVert but I was surprised that like they had better odds in Dallas. To me, it's like Lukas. Luca is going to be probably one of the three or four best players in the league next year, and he's going to win a title at some point, I'd rather roll the dice on that happening two years too early. The betting on that weird Nets team.

Am I crazy?

I don't know what to do with the nets. I could see it go in any direction because I could see Durant come back and be like, hey, remember, we didn't mention him at all in this LeBron Giannis Kawhi thing over and over again and that's what happens. You get her you know we start to move on from you but I could see him come back and you go Oh wait. Remember when he was like the best player in the world and but with a different thing though.

But he's, it could be two years for him. He got hurt. It was in the April. Twenty nineteen. No, it had to be a little bit later than that was. No, I mean, that was second round. Secondly, back, and I thought he came back and played, he played for ten minutes. That's right. I'm saying like he the awesome Durant we remember we haven't seen now. For 18 months plus, the season might not start till March, that's the part that's a giant layoff.

Don't her.

He got hurt and I don't know, I just look, he's seven one and can shoot like no one we've ever seen.

So I kind of expect him to say he's out for two years. That's not good. Let's let's double check this, so he was it was like third game, second round. So, yeah, I just. All right, so I just want to make sure it was made because it was May, it was May. He gets hurt game five. So the beginning of May. Yeah. Was it was May. Is May. Yes. So it's not good.

But look, I don't I'm not worried about the ring. I mean, I'm worried that Derek could get hurt again because I'm a little worried about him. That's fine. But I don't like that. I don't like lay offs like that. I think that's I think we need to hear that from anything is dangerous. Maybe you're stretching it, though, maybe drinking it is going to be two years, this season's not going to come back till March and drink for two years and you try to go out with your buddies.

If you haven't drank for two years, that's worse than coming back from an Achilles injury. Well, that's that's that one guy who runs the bachelor party, the guy the guy with four kids, has been out a while or had trouble. We had a buddy that a couple of kids flew cross-country for this huge weekend where we all get together in Denver. And he called from the airport and was like, can somebody come get me? And we're like to get a cab.

The Denver airport, as everybody knows, is actually in South Dakota. Yeah. And you have to drive to Denver from there. And I all of us were already getting after it.

We were at a buddies apartment downtown. I mean, there's a long time ago, but he was kind of the first to be the grown up out of the group. And he was an unbelievably awesome guy, still an awesome guy to this day. But he gets so drunk on the flight, like right out of Manhattan Friday, undoes the tie. A few Manhattans is the rabbit. He just had the rabbit in the race. We had to send him a car because he couldn't figure out how to get a taxi.

He clearly didn't get his luggage. He was that much of a mess. We get him to the apartment and he's like, where's the bed? And just goes and passes out. And then that's how he that's when we were like, hey, what are we got now? He did rally. I'll give him that. But there's there's the guy that has has been off the game for a while. Maybe that's your current theory. Maybe he's he's domesticated.

Kevin Durant. I'm worried about it. I love watching Durant. And the bottom line is it's going to be almost two years before we see him play in a basketball game.

Before we go, let's talk about the benefits book really quickly, just the after earth part and then we'll leave. So you read this book. You were so excited about it. I bought it on Amazon. It's called The Big Picture, and I read two thirds of it last night. My wife was getting annoyed because I was just ignoring her, just diving into this. And it's about the movie industry and how much it changed. And it's basically this guy went through the Sony hack emails and crafted this narrative about how how Sony kind of botching their movie business over the last 12 years or so, kind of shows how the movie business changed.

And as part of this, it was they were really into Will Smith and Adam Sandler as these two stars that they just over and over again hit home runs for them, started to lose their box office, draw a little bit leading to after Earth. And I'll let you take it from there.

Yeah, right. So the movie's basically all about the fight for the future movies. The big picture is the book. Ben Fritz, I'm so excited. I almost called you middle of the night. People in the afterword stuff happened. And the best way to explain the timeline of it is that we all kind of grew up thinking, you know, movies are built around stars and Sony was at the forefront of that. And then, as you said, like once these Marvel and Disney, it ends up looking like Disney just knew what to do and cleaned up with all these Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise up franchises, tent poles, all these and how it's like the traditional drama and that actually stars are not automatic anymore.

So and then the irony is Sony has Spider-Man and Marvel's like for extra fifty million, you could have everybody in the Marvel universe. So like, why would we want that? Fuck that. And they don't grab it, which is one of the most brutal mistakes anyone's made the last 20 years in Hollywood. Right. Right. So the fact that we have the emails from the hack is huge. But my favorite part and the part that I like was was freaking out wanting to talk about was that I'm always I'm not ever envious.

I'm impressed by the delusion of super, super successful people. Like I think sometimes the people that are incredibly like the top of the world success, they almost have to be delusional about themselves to even get to that point, because most people be like, I don't know if I can pull that off. And Will Smith's like, I'm going to be the biggest movie star in the world. And for a time he arguably was. And Sony had the Sammamish stuff that Will Smith stuff.

But Smith starts to flop sandals, starts to have some flops, which kind of changed his course and leads the Netflix thing it gets later in the book. But my favorite part of the book so far is that it wasn't just after Earth, it was that he got together, Will Smith with his production company, and they created this whole after earth world where it wasn't just going to be a movie, it was going to be a string of movies that then branched out because essentially they basically sat in a room.

They wrote a 300 page Bible about this world with they created a world. Yeah, they did a world with fact stories. Yes. So instead of, hey, we're going to just have a movie. No, no, no. We're going to have a world that that branches out. We're like Star Wars and Star Trek. It becomes a part of people's lives. And we're also going to have toys. We're going to have a television spinoff, and then there's going to be characters within the movie that are going to spin off.

And meanwhile, they're like, OK, but who's in the movie will like, are you in the movie? Like, I have my kids going to be in the movie, like, well, we need you to be in the movie. And we're like, all right, Spaceship Crash, you'll be in the movie. Then your kids running around in a jumpsuit the whole time. And they're like and with the way social media works, which is my favorite thing about the industry, and talk with people's people, just use words and say stuff and they'll go.

We could control a daily social network based on the movie in this franchise, will people will spend their days checking in on the after earth forums.

They were like they said, is the new Facebook. Yeah. Because they were like, who knows what will happen with Facebook in five years? Well, you know, it probably won't happen is that after Earth won't then become the thing you check every morning and then they're all like, and we're going to have toys and cologne. Cologne is the best. That was one that was we've pushed over the top. They called it like eighty one thousand, which is universe.

And they they had a back story with the Bible and creating like all these narratives for a lady to this whole how is going to play out. But they were so confident. So here's what will happen. All right, sequel's books, movies, TV shows, book Colosio. We're going to replace Facebook.

And Clone is hey, how could you get me the eighty one thousand clode for Chris? Hey, do you want to go out tonight? No, I'm going to check I'm going to check a one thousand questions posted on there later. Something about the universe like how do we connect? Oh eight one thousand. Look me up double our double our lasers.

And then the other part was how he wasn't he didn't want to be in the movie because he wanted to make his son a star. So he's in the movie, but he's like basically like Marlon Brando and Superman, like just on satellite talking to a son. But then they they realized the advertising, the marketing campaign, they have to make people think Will Smith's in the movie because it's that they don't want to sell it as a Jaden Smith movie so that all the ads, they're like, hey, don't don't let people know he's paralyzed because he's paralyzed in a spaceship.

Right. Was that the plot? Yeah. Yeah, he stuck in it. You stuck in it? Almost. There's so many moments in this where you you find yourself siding with the studio, which I don't think anybody that's into writing or creating ever wants to admit. But when they go, hey, Will, is it OK if you're in the movie? Right. We thank all of our notes. I don't have a problem with this line here as much as you're not in any of it.

We're good with the cologne, but could you be in the movie? And it was it was just a bunch it sounds like Will Smith and some guys got together and just said, let's just shoot for the stars on this one. Like what? What do you want to do? No, no. I remember bigger. I wrote about him the first year Grantland about I was so fascinated by the choices he made in his career because and he's talked about it in magazine pieces where him and his guy, Lasseter, they studied the list of like the top twenty biggest movies of all time.

And I think like half of them or some sort of alien outer space science fiction, something. So they would like it was almost like he was advanced metrics, seeing the movie industry. And it was like we have to do these kind of movies. And if you look at all the choices he made, it was all. Outer space stuff, science fiction stuff, stuff that had a chance to have a sequel. He's really smart, like he kind of saw where Hollywood is going before almost anybody.

So this is what people want because, you know, he turned down Django and the Jamie Fox part, which I think really would have been an important part for him. But he just didn't do stuff like that. He didn't want to take chances as an actor. He just wanted to be in these giant franchises. So it all culminates in after Earth where they're now created this fucking alternate universe set in the future with his son battling. I don't even know who.

I never saw the movie. Do you ever see it? I want to see it now. You should check it out. But it's not good. It's not good. But there's a Will Smith article that he did after it where it's the most I've ever like Will Smith, where he was talking about the failures. And by the way, every one of these guys, like if we treated movie stars the way we treat some of these NBA players, we'd be talking about all of them sucking because everyone can have not just finals losses, they have sweeps in the first round.

I mean, it's just the way the business works. And I remember enough that I've been on really many panels that I think it might have been one or two panels I've ever been on. It was the Greenwich Film Festival. It was run by somebody who was kind of a lifelong friend. And she asked me to come down and because I'd hosted a couple of things there and they were like, hey, will you do it? Because I'm going back to Connecticut.

And the book emphasizes this. And it's something that I think I noticed is that people can sit there and get mad about, oh, it's all just superhero movies or it's just sequels or it's just these franchises or why are there reboots? But a lot of times the art that we get is because that's really what we want. And I say this about politicians all the time. The reason politicians talk to us this way is because this is the way we apparently want to be talked to, because if they talk to us with real tone, then we'd be more thrown off by it.

And so this is just how it's been conditioned. It's the same thing with what we watch. And I don't mean you or I, but I'm just talking about hundreds of millions of people in the country, like they actually don't want to learn anything new. For the most part, they want to establish characters. That's why stars work for such a long time. And that's why Sandler cleaned up and he cleaned up internationally and why these stars had these massive runs and so on.

This panel, they were like, hey, why do you think this happens? And I think I told you the story before, but I was like, you know, I don't get some of these Sandler movies now. I'm like pixels, you know? But Sandler's a lot like my kids. He's going to make money. And I'm like, I don't get it either. And then the girl was like, Hey, great job. She's like, but is it Jack, you're a poodle.

I don't know how to pronounce Sandler's buddy's last name. They're like Sandler's co guys in the audience. And he saw you say that. And she's like, he's going to be at the after party. And I was like, fucking cool. And so I went up and I was like, Hey, man, what's going on? He's like, hey, you know, as I hope you understand, he's a guy. And he was like, he's looking at me.

And he was kind of like, yeah.

And then I go and he's like, you see your you're in L.A.. I was like, Yeah, I try to be a writer. Zica All right, cool. Good luck.

And then was like, let's say was such a like you're not going to actually try to think like we have a connection now. And I was like, no, no, no, I'm reading this perfectly. Like you're kind of telling me to go fuck myself, which I deserved. But I still think that it's not really anyone's fault that this is what people want. But I don't think it's wrong to point out, like, you know, some of these movies that people keep rebooting over and over again, they're safer bets for the studio.

And that's why we had far more of those movies made and why the book will tell you the the path that it's going on and. Well, and also Sony, they prioritize those. They caught him like mid budget, you know, movies for dramas. Right. Like, I don't know if they made Gone Girl or not, but movies like that Gone Girl Social Network, those are like the social networks are perfect ultimate kind of movies that Amy Pascal, the lady who ran Sony, wanted to make.

And, you know, the reality is over the last 15 years, a lot of those ideas went to TV and became more fun to do on TV if you were the creator. And also, like I had no idea how much they made from Breaking Bad, they been like almost half a billion dollars from Big Breaking Bad with the DVDs and everything else and the rights and selling the different rights to the different streamers and things like that. And the book made the point like, it's actually a better business to be in TV.

And yet all the studios always kind of prioritized the movie side and that gets the bigger budgets and more attention and stuff like that. Meanwhile, the TV side is just banking, you know, and I think now people have kind of figured out that side, too. But the biggest thing is just Netflix. And we're seeing this now. This day I was talking to this was I think I was talking to Sean about this. That movie was kind of.

Fantasy as movie theaters go by the wayside. The Disney model. Where Disney is fine, they'll just release stuff on Disney Plus and they'll do what Netflix is doing and maybe they won't need movie theaters at all, are these subscription services now have the ability go right to us and we're cool with it because most people have wi fi. Most people have at least a decent TV. And now you don't have to go to the movie theater. So if you go to a movie theater, you want like a real experience, you know, and I don't know who would go to a movie theater now, but when it comes back.

Yeah, look, my limited experience in this and a couple of things that I've written and get great feedback and then the guys like, do you have any is there any part of you that wants to write like a heist or a big action thing? And I was like, not really that.

I never I think they go, yeah, well, the stuff you write, like, nobody's going to like this. Nobody makes this stuff. I'm like, nobody seems excessive. Like, why don't you do it? Why don't you do a superhero movie about about a superior court massol. And he's just walking around and you look at it, they discuss it just like all the jokes we ever made about like the guy at one 30 in the morning at the Beacon Hill Pub.

He's just a superhero.

You should work on this workshop.

It somebody like do with great power comes great responsibility. And he says he's like, fuck that, dude. I'm robbing a bank. Like, dude who wants bleacher tickets, just fly in. Yeah, I don't know. That doesn't really seem to be my speed. But the crazy part, too, about Ben's book is looking at the business model of the studios. They go, OK, this movie is going to cost one hundred and twenty million to make.

And I'm like, all right, well we only made forty five million. That's it. All right. It's not worth it. Like, let's see, that is book publishing is like that too, where they know going in almost that they break even. It's a win. Like very rarely do you get like The Da Vinci Code type books. But for the most part, when they're doing somebody's book and it sells thirty thousand copies or whatever and it's like cool broke even on this one.

That's how much is an author how many books do you have to sell for an author to make money? I have no idea about depends on what the advances, because they do the advanced, it's like one third, one third, one third yet one third. When you get one third, we deliver the manuscript to get one third when the book's done and then once the book makes back. Whatever the advance was, then you get the royalties from that point on, so when you do the book of basketball, I mean, clearly people know that it's going to sell.

So you're not just the regular guy throwing a manuscript or even an idea. Do they do they change their projections to somebody like you were or did you blow the projections out of the water with the basketball book? They they kind of blew it on the projections a little, which I never I still does make sense to me. They didn't print enough in the first they printed like one hundred thousand. But that's how many people all over the place. More than that, but it was I'm not talking I'm not going to ask you exactly how much you made, but when I got when it got to number one on New York Times, they didn't print enough.

So and I was so upset because going through airports and you have like the top 15 of the books and it's like and the number one spot, I was in one airport and there is no book. And the number one spot because they didn't have any copies of my book. And I was like, you gotta be fucking kidding me.

I was so mad because that was one of like, clearly, if I was going to the book was going to do OK, like we could have. But their their attitude is they they never wanted to be stuck with the books. Right. Which I get. So their worst case scenario is they say, I will print two hundred thousand bucks and then you sell forty five thousand, and that's how you end up with the bargain basement books on Amazon and places like that because they're trying to dump them.

I don't. But this is all like 10, 11 years ago. I don't know what it's like now because so much of it's online. I'm sure it's like a completely different parameters now. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure online has got to be like two thirds of the purchases that. Yeah, I imagine the digital part of it, too, like I said, I'm sure you do. Now, this is turning into your parents talking, but yeah, what's going on?

We'll wrap it up anyway. We're just about to come up with you. One more part for you this week. Well, we'll do at least we'll do a draft week pot and we'll do a fridge to pod down the road. And then I might play on million dollar pics every once in a while.

And I need help. I'm on fire, so let's do it. All right. Good seeing you. One more podcast coming up on Thursday, including at least one celebrity guests, that's going to happen. Plus, million dollar pics, what a year for million dollar pics. I'm all over the slate and somehow I'm just barely below even. I've had some of the worst beats of my life, and I'm still. You're not going to break me NFL.

I'm still coming back. I'm not scared of you. I have a good feel for this season. Some bad luck, though, man. So we're covering all that.

And you and I will see you then.