Hello and welcome into the Ring, a verse from the ringer. My name is Mallory Reuben and I'm then let them out before we get started because they won't want to know what the ring vs. the Ring of Ours is. One podcast feed with multiple shows and all things superheroes, nerd culture and fandom entertainment.

It's the reactions to the releases theory breakdowns one takes on the latest news and more. Whether you're a casual fan or an obsessive like us, our shows are worthy while your fandom meets. So head to the reverse and follow the show.

Now on Spotify, just like State Farm has a surprisingly great raids, March always brings some of the biggest surprises in college basketball. Whether college basketball surprises go your way or not, you can count on getting the personalized service of a local state farm agent for a surprisingly great rate like a good neighbor. State Farm is there this NBA season. Mountain Dew is all about the threes, the shot that can change any game as the beverage that pushes boundaries. Mountain Dew is amplifying the most epic shot in the game and taking Hoopes culture to a new level brought to you by Mountain Dew, the official soft drink of the NBA do the dew.

We're also brought to you by the Ringer Dotcom, where you can find Kevin O'Connor's early edition of the twenty twenty one NBA draft guide. He did the top fifteen prospects, many of whom are playing this weekend in the NCAA tournament. Check that out. Also, check out the Ringer podcast network where we launched the Ringer versus podcast last week. It's awesome. We are going to be going three times a week on that feed reacting to nerd culture, superheroes, marvel, all that stuff.

Mathey, Ruben, Van Layth and a host of others are on that podcast coming up. Ryan Roselyn I taping past midnight ET. Oh yeah. Yeah. We wanted to wait till every college basketball game was done. First our friends from project.

All right, Reinoso is here taping this late. It is nine twenty two p.m. Pacific Time. We decided to wait until after the Oklahoma State game, which was the last March Madness game of this Friday, Saturday, Sunday, stretch one to see Kate Cunningham end up losing it to Oregon State, who I can't even say they played that well the second half.

The funny thing about this game, I think it started at 40.

It was almost a three hour game.

We thought it would be great, bang it out. And I forgot there's just 10 million timeouts. And now by the time we finish, it's going to be 11 o'clock. Give me give me your top three takeaways from March Madness this weekend. A lot of theories out there, a lot of the upsets were mistakes, like literal beating Illinois, they just run great stuff. And Illinois had a hard time staying with them and they seem to get clean looks all the time in Illinois was one of my favorite teams.

I love them. I thought they had size. And Io's is just kind of do everything guy that's going to be a first round pick, but we'll beat them. Oral Roberts beating Ohio State and then beating Florida again today like that wasn't a mistake. There's a lot of these. Every seed, one through 15 is one a game in the first weekend. The only city that has won a game is the 16 seed. So we can talk about the uniqueness of the season.

And Big Ten fans are like, hey, look, we were there a week ahead of time. But, you know, if the Big Ten had had a good opening weekend, they would have said, hey, they were acclimated. They were used to. Indeed, it was a huge advantage. So, you know, you could talk about also no home court with the podding system and fans and all that. I don't know, last year.

Here's a theory I have. I'm not even sure it's right, Bill. Last year, we had unprecedented like turnover. Were ranked teams losing to unranked teams all season. And I don't know if it's a continuation of some of these teams where, you know, the top just isn't that good. Or you can get Zygon, Baylor and these other teams that aren't power fives are just ready to go. So a lot of these upsets didn't feel like weird mistakes.

Do you think it's a little bit like the NBA bubble where it just almost didn't seem like home court advantage mattered for those two and a half months? Because the fans, the atmosphere is a little strange and in a weird way levels that out, because I personally think a 15 seed beating a two and a seven in a span of 48 hours is pretty weird. I'm not sure that happens in a normal tournament, but I think this has been a pretty abnormal season.

A lot of people are predicting that a ton of upsets hold on to your seats. God only knows what's going to happen. You look at where we are now, and it was about as weird as it gets.

It might be. You know, I'm willing to I'm open to anything on this one. It's just whenever we were talking about the bubble, you know, on the east side, you're like, hey, look at Miami. You know, is that is that because of the bubble or is it because Milwaukee's really easy to defend? So if it's because of the bubble, then people should get off Bud's case, which I don't think is going to happen, even though Milwaukee's figured it out.

And I know we're going to get to all the NBA stuff here a little bit later. And then on the west side, you know, talk at conferences here. If it were just bubble related, then we should have somebody beat the Lakers. So.

Well, I'm just saying the Clippers is pretty weird. Yeah, but they were still up three one, you know, so I again, I could be I'm just saying, I don't know. I'm saying basically for anybody, this is definitively OK. It is the bubble. It's because they're in Indy. It's because of all these different things. I just saw some teams that looked better. I mean, the the nine seed for Loyola against Illinois, I guess, Ken POM's overall ranking had loyal and nice and they were nine seed.

So and when you watch him play and again, you know, if you have the guy who does rankings perfectly, I'll be over here waiting in the corner. But that seems absurd. But then when you watch him play, you go, how the hell is that team? A nine seed. I knew Illinois was done when Sal picked them to win the tournament.

That was the kiss of death.

Let's talk about Cade Cunningham, because you and I have been texting about him a lot and I've now watched multiple games from him. Amy, how many games is that, too? Like three and a half. OK, but then but then pieces of other games, but really, like, sat down and watched. And he reminds me a lot of Shaun Livingston, which I'm not the first person to say that because he's got the same kind of six, eight lanky.

He's a little thicker than Shaun was, but same head's always up, but also his movement, he's always pushed. And I think Sean might have been a slightly better passer before he got hurt. But kids are way, way, way better shooter. But he's got that same little pull up, six foot eight shoots over the smaller guy thing at the foul line that Livingston always had. He used to like sidearm, but kid's a fantastic shooter. I think when I see, like, people talking about how he's a guaranteed franchise offensive player, my fear watching him is he's always in kind of third, somewhere between third and fourth gear, but doesn't have that one super explosive thing that I really feel like you need in the NBA.

But now you would say, all right, looka looka plays at his pace. We've talked about that a lot, right. Where Lukas does he's he doesn't want need to blow by it. He's always going to get to where he wants to go. And that would be the argument for Kate. Two, three years from now. He's going to be a guy who just gets to his spots. But the guy I'm watching in these games and the guy I watched tonight still can't totally get to wherever he wants to go.

And I think if you're a slam dunk you can't miss you are a franchise offensive player to me. It's like, can I get to whatever spot I want? I'm not sure I 100 percent see that with him. What I do see is somebody who I think is going to be an unbelievable shooter and maybe that will be his calling card. But what do you see? We've never really talked about on the pot. No, I still know most of my draft stuff, I do, you know, the two months leading up just the way the schedule works.

So I always feel a little limited. Talked about any of the guys before. I've done all that work, but I've watched probably six games now. He's more he's a better shooter than Sean. You're right. Sean was a better athlete. I mean, athlete wise Cade is it's not the first thing you see with him. I'm not saying he's a bad actor, but Sean was pretty special for that kind of size. The biggest thing with him is just the moment he seems to be completely in control.

For somebody that's young and if you watch him in the Baylor game in that second half, he just is kind of taken over. And you saw glimpses of him going, all right, here we go. And you can see they came out, he hit some big shots, but they were playing zone and some of those possessions. And then if he had the ball on the screen, action they kept to with him. And he's actually not going to Anthony Edwards.

He's just going to go, OK, this is how you're doing it on the swing it over to you. And then he had a couple of guards missed every three there at the end of the game anyway.

So you got frozen out by by that point guard, the other guard on his back. I was just like, I got this. I had a front office this week because I was doing some of my part that I haven't done yet. I was like, just give me your top five in order to see how much variation there is. And so far, no team is has had anybody ahead of Cade. There's only one team that was like, look, I kind of like Suggs a little bit more, but I had another team that was very specific about that said, look, I think it's keyed in his own team and then it's the next guys.

And then after five, it's all over the place. And the guy said this week to me, it was a great line. He goes, you don't even worry about it in the first half. He goes, when we're talking about him in the room, it is always what this guy is doing in the second half. So if you're telling me like you feel like he's coasting a bit in the first half, I tell you, the NBA team agrees with you that he's coaching that, but he's still one player of the year.

And and what I saw from him with the way they were defending him, he's going to defer at times and it's going to look like he's passive because he's like, look, I'm not just going to force it against these two guys because we're a good team this year and made it the big twelve final. And I'm going to trust some of the other guys. And it didn't quite happen for him. But the shooting and his vision in his passing and his comfort and his poise and all those things, there's just so much more positive.

I even had a text from a coach in a tournament, saw my tweet about him saying he's the best player I've gone up against in five years.

Wow. Yeah, the thing I do like about him is he, you know, we're in this NBA now 20, 21, where every every team has at least one guy who's like, it's time for me to assert myself. It's my time. Clear out. Here we go. He just seems like somebody who he like. He really didn't care when that other guy was free to think about as their whole season was on the line. He was just like, all right.

There was they they cut him in the huddle. He's pulling everyone together, like to keep it going. He wasn't, like making a stink eye on him doing the branding or tzion like, you know, clear out of the way. This is my team now. None of that stuff which I like. There's an unselfish stance to him. I guess my question is, if I'm building an offense around his skills and I don't have a lot of other good players in that team, which is always the case when you get draft by these crappy teams.

Right. Is this a guy when you think about these other offenses that we have these top 10 offenses where they have these you know, there's Daim and Loukia and Yokich and people like that, is that a guy who can get to that level? Because the stuff I'm reading, it's like they're making it seem like he's going to get to that level. And I'm not saying can't. I just don't 100 percent see it. I want to see a more.

Yeah, but whenever we're talking about somebody at the top or the last year, it's usually, you know, I always kind of look at it like when a guy gets drafted, it'll go forth. Like this guy can make a multiple all star team. If he's going to make multiple, he probably should have gone one. Right. We we we tend to overrate everybody in the draft in a way.

So they were saying would have been number one last year if he had been coming out of high school. So, I mean, there's some real pedigree with him. And I guess that's my point. I see eighty five percent of it. There we go with the percentages.

But I'm 15 percent not totally there yet because I don't see that that kick ass, you know, and John Grant and JASMUHEEN way up and down this year. But John and Damon, in these people that can just blow by people and get to their spots. That's the one thing I don't totally see with him yet in the NBA, with his vision and his handle and being able to pass over the top. I mean, that was the that was the positive with Melo going, you know, if he figures it out, it's six, eight and the handle.

And the thing that I underestimated with Melo, too, is that when he decides he's going, if you're not ready, it's over. It's over his his just speed. I'm not saying he's the fastest guy in the league, but his zero to whatever his acceleration is ridiculous. And then that size and like he's just a special kind of generational passer that we're seeing. So I'm not saying Kate necessarily has those passing chops or the spacing and the shooting is going to be surrounded and considering basically every team runs like I don't know if it's seventy five percent, that's low for some teams.

High pick and roll, just high pick and roll. Bring it out. He's going to beat you if you switch it and then he's going to be kicking it out to guys all the time. So I mean, look, Luke is so special because his hips and his shoulders and he's still somehow compact with his dribble, you know, like big guys that can dribble through traffic like that are pretty rare and, you know, even have access to.

Yeah, right. And even some of the knocks on Harden out of Arizona State, you're like, OK, I kind of see it, but man, he's a little slow. And then you realize like, wait, he's a six eleven wingspan and he's just way smarter and he sees the game better than anybody else. So I can understand some reservations when it looks like he's deferring, but he's doing little things in there. Like there was a there was two plays tonight and I'll wrap this part up.

He saw the double was coming to get double like crazy off the off the screen and they'd stay with him. And he was like, all right, enough of this. And then he turned down the screen before it even really been set up and then cut and get to the elbow and missed the jumper. And then he had another play where he got to the left side, the second half, and he had a player that was too close to the screeners as he saw it was about to happen.

And he just waved him not off where he wanted ISO. He wanted him to get further away from him so that when he passed it to him, he'd have a better angle set up further from the help. And I was like, oh my gosh. Like he saw that as a freshman going, no, no, catch this further from me and you're going to have a better angle. And I think that's just really special stuff you don't see in college.

Yeah, you know, you mentioned lamella, that thing that's been shocking to me and he got hurt. We're going to talk about that later. It looks like he might be out for the year was how easily he was getting by people and getting to the rim. That was the thing I don't know is just hard to tell from a year of New Zealand YouTube clips that he would have this ability to beat people off the dribble and, you know, take Myles Turner and do some sort of one handed twisting layup and just get whatever shot he wants.

That thing with it, as I was trying to think like, all right, what's the best case scenario here? And the vision stuff and how fun it is to play with that was one piece, but it was the shooting that I kept coming back to where it's like this, guys, six, eight. Most of the time, he's going to be guarded by somebody smarter than him, and it looks like he has a chance to be like a forty five percent, three point shooter in the.

He's 40 now. Yeah. With his stroke and just how easy it is. And it's like if he's open, you feel like it's going in. And I think maybe that's maybe that's the thing that I need to wrap my head around is this like could this guy be like a dame type of three point shooter, you know, but but six. Eight. Yeah, I would I would watch the second half of the Baylor game, I'd watch I watch the game.

You told me to watch that when I watched it. OK, but are you are you noticing them the moment for this guy? Like, there's something there there isn't it? Factor with him. We're looking into that. Yeah. Or the Liberty game. I mean, look, if if you've only watched the tournament, you you're like, wait a minute, what? In Jimmy Suggs from Gonzaga, who I think when he's great, it seems more aggressive.

And we like guys that are aggressive like that. Mitrokhin with Baylor, you know, I've been watching him going and he he's got some shit to his game. You know, when I watch Mobily at USC, the seven footer who could go to in this draft and you realize why he would go to. But there are some passiveness there, you know, so I wouldn't ever want to be in a habit of. But you just can't help but notice, like, who's who's fucking pissed off out there.

And you're not seeing that from Cade. And I understand. I just think the rest of the stuff is I don't need you to be mad. I think there's also you have a little at face theory with him, too. Is that fair or is that like 20 percent shamefaced? I think what you have is more aware Michael Beasley face.

No, you know what I like? You know what I like about he's one of those guys. When they tell the anecdotes, the announcers or the magazine feature, everyone talks about like his presence and what it's like. And just that there's something how locked in he is and how competitive he is. And you read enough of those little tidbits. And usually those are accurate and they don't happen. Often people don't go out of their way to be like, hey, this guy's different.

Here's a story. And it does seem like he has that. Can we play a little game called What Team would be the most team, most fun team for Kate coming in together? With his specific skill set. Yeah, OK, not candidates. That to us, none of these are realistic. I know. So I'll give you the bottom four in each. In each conference. Cavs. That wouldn't be that fun. Wizards'. Now I feel bad for him.

Yeah, I feel bad from that one, Orlando. That could be good. Imagine Orlando staff, if you like, we got a tall guy that can shoot, we've we've done this three times. This guy could actually make this. And look, I'm not Booch could shoot, but Vujacic Center, I love talking perimeter guys. Yet these perimeter guys that are tall as hell.

Well, then the other ones, Detroit, who has nobody. So Orlando would be the most fun out of the out of the and the Bulls as a wild card would be probably the highest upside fun, but that that they would have to get really lucky. Other side. Oklahoma City, Sacramento, Sacramento. I mean, I don't know what they would do if they'd obviously have to take him, maybe start shopping. Somebody, Houston, I think would be the worst case scenario because they don't really have anybody.

And then I would think in Minnesota. With how Edwards has looked the last couple of weeks and towns, and it's like, you know, they'd have to basically figure out what to do with Russell, but Minnesota, I think, would be the most fun west in. It would and I I feel great for Minnesota fans that Edwards, at least through this stretch, you go, OK, we have something here. He can't shoot it. Kids, it's they go in sometimes.

And we knew out of Georgia his shot selection. You're like, whoa, OK, you're pulling it from there. And I think you step back down to like 30, which is crazy because he was he was actually below 30 percent of Georgia on like eight or nine attempts a game. I mean, he didn't care. But once he gets to the hoop like he's big and quick enough. So there's something there. But he he's going for it.

You know, he had forty the other night against Phoenix, but I think he took thirty shots like he's he is lighting it up, which I kind of can't wait to see what happens. D'Angelo Russell comes back because Russell is going to be. So then when you throw Kate into that. I don't know man, I don't because I just like Edwards is a ball initiating player. Russell, is that in the worst version of it? You know, D'Angelo stuff is is is pretty telling.

I would almost like what would you do, tell those guys, hey, you're playing off of him? You'd have to, but then I don't know. Like Edwards May is a cutter. It would be sick, but I don't think Edwards is in a hurry to start going to like fourteen, fifteen shots a game, even though again this month is a positive because at least, you know, there's some stuff there that's really special with him. I guess the dream scenario would be New Orleans.

Yeah, but then we didn't get to see Point Zion anymore. Yeah, but that I think he's a little Halliburton where he doesn't necessarily need to have the ball all the time, you know, he's not one of those. I have to I have to dribble the ball 16 seconds per possession. Yes, yeah, no, that's that's fair. You know, the Edwards thing. You're right, he's going for it, and now that lamella is out, he's going to be really going for it because the rookie of the year is not, like, inconceivable that he can't steal this.

Now, it would be really hard for them to win playing only for it against the thing with Edwards athletically. He does some stuff where it's like if you're just raiding guys one to 10, just like pure athleticism, he's got to be at least like a nine point two, nine point three. Right. There's just some stuff he could do physically that is elite, elite, elite, like super elite, ridiculous elite. And that's why even when he was terrible in the beginning of the year, there would be these plays and you would get forwarded in this clip of like watch him just go flying by this guy and ducking over two guys.

The baseline, he was like, all right, there's this guy is not a bust. This is not Anthony Bennett. There's something here. And now it seems like he's finally putting it together, which is nice. I'll tell you, I don't know if you've noticed this when they be like I figured they lose the Phoenix in the rematch. I have this theory about the team that loses this first game, the split coming back, although the Pacers got both against Miami's watching that one today, but they beat Phoenix.

They straight up beat them earlier this week. And that's when when Edwards went nuts. And we used to talk about towns as easily, all first team miserable. And he doesn't look he looks like he's at least I'm not telling you Minnesota's figured it all out and they're awesome because they're still pretty bad defensively and they've been bad again this month. But just seeing towns not miserable, the whole game is is great because, you know, look, Towns has its limitations, too.

But he's still a terrific player and he's still really young. And I think you always worry about that if you're a Timberwolves fan with it. But he just looks a little bit happier. But I'm really worried about what the D'Angelo Russell return will look like for Edwards and all those guys he's of. Russell just thinks he's going to go ISO the whole time, which is basically what he's been. Then it it just sucks to play with, you know, remember when we like that Russell trade for the Warriors and people gave a shit.

That we like because they were now we look, they salvaged the asset, that was it. I just like the pick, and if Wiggins could end up being close to a wash with Russell, that was the bonus. And now a year later, especially if they got the Kate Cunningham pick. And Russell would have to be somebody they now have to shop or turn into a sex man, that would be unbelievable. You're losing a pick and you have a guy who you kind of don't even know if he fits your future and all that stuff would be ridiculous.

Do you think I go real quick? They'll think I'll quit that. That's a great example of also the Chris Paul Westbrook trade where the market said you had to include a pick that's that's only top three protected this year to move Wiggins to get Russell. And now, if you just went around and said, who would you rather have Wiggins or Russell, I think you'd rather have Wiggins like he's he's revived himself here and say he's not he's not going to be a superstar.

He's not going to be what you'd hope, you know, early on. But he's definitely better. I think he's played better basketball and more engaged basketball during that stretch. So that's an example of of not even I don't know, a year later, you're going look at how much the market is changing, that Chris Paul Westbrook one's perfect. You get to throw in all this stuff to take on Chris Paul. And then a year later, the only guy you could trade was before was John Wall.

Yeah, but look at both of those trades. You have terrible front office owners making trades for wrong reasons. Right? Houston's making that Westbrook trade because for starters, Marcus Hart decided we need to start.

And this is what and once that's not a good reason for trade, you should never listen to a player in a major move where you give me a picks. Minnesota, it was, Hey, Towns and Rustler Buddies. We got to keep towns happy. So you just sign towns. If that's four for four years, you have to sacrifice picks now. You don't make them a happy winning. But we were wondering if towns would set the record for the longest time left on his contract to ask for an edge.

Because I can't wait for somebody to have three plus go out to him. Stephen Jackson kind of already has that award. Yeah, could be him. Where? Take a break.

Come right back. This episode of the Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by zipper creator, the best team start with great talent, but finding the right people can be really tough.

I was lucky with the ringer when I started it back in twenty fifteen. I started it with four people that I worked with that Graylin, you know, because I knew they were good. I knew how hard it was to find the right person. I knew that hiring could feel like finding a needle in a haystack.

Sure, you can post your job to some job board but then I can do is hope the right person comes along, which is why you should try Zipp recruiter for free at Zipcar Dotcom B.S. and you post a job on Zipcar, gets sent out to over one hundred top job boards with one click four out of five employers who post on Zipcar to get a quality candidate within the first day of those ads. So while other companies overwhelm you with too many options, Zipcar defines what you're looking for.

Again, the needle in the haystack. Zipcar, the smartest way to hire right now. You could try Zipcar for free at Zipcar dot com slash B.S. once again, Zipcar, the dotcom slash B.S.. So I was in Vegas for twenty four hours this weekend party Bill. Oh, no, it was the complete opposite. I was with my daughter. She's a soccer game. And we went to the strip because we were there and we were in Henderson.

And I was like, we go to the strip. Let's just go, go, go get dinner. She'd never been go. She's never been she never been in the strip. What was the reaction driving down the streets? I was it's so funny explaining the casinos where you don't realize you like. So that casino, they're trying to pretend they're Paris. So if you go in, it's like being in Paris, in that casino, the Venetian, it's like being in Italy.

And then this one over there at the the Luxor, they think they're an Egyptian pyramid. And you realize like it's just kind of hadopi. The whole concept of the strip is where each casino has to have their theme. But what was really crazy was it was like seven o'clock on a Saturday. And the strip, there's like barely any cars on it. And there are people like you could see people. There were more people than I thought. Most of them had masks on.

But you think like March Madness weekend, the the all time craziest weekend to go to Vegas other than maybe the Super Bowl. I March Madness is crazier. And and you could drive up and down the strip if you wanted. So it was a little it wasn't exactly the first impression of of Vegas I would have wanted for my daughter, but she could still see how crazy we walked the strip. We actually walked to Paris. You'll be happy to know people are still smoking cigars in the casino.

That's a good play. And playing slot machines. So the same degenerative factors is still there. But yeah, it was a little bittersweet. Vegas, March Madness, but not really. This might not be popular, but sometimes I have this odd respect for people still smoke and publicly wear at ESPN, the guys that would be just outside huddled in the winter, the for the snow, they'd be like a little smoking section between one building and then the entrance to radio.

Yeah. And you're just be a guy out there just shivering fire and one away. And I would just kind of nod my head being like, you know, Denbury and then the deported or the deport to his guys, because we all realize if you're international, smoking's not bad for you. Yeah. Those guys would just be out there far and away talking about stuff. And I was always like, this is amazing.

The greatest was when it would be and the East Coast, when it's like nine degrees outside and the person taking the three minutes to put their jacket on so they could take the elevator downstairs, that's another two minutes to get outside to fire up a stick. And then girls, girls in dresses and they're not dressed properly. Anyway, you're out Beacon Hill and then they're like, dude, you should be like, all right, let's get a couple of parliaments and.

Yeah, go to the amendment. Unbelievable. Yeah. Anyway, the smoking is is back in Vegas, but it was it was weird to be there. Let's talk about we're done with March Madness. Right. I mean, they're playing more games tomorrow. It's going to be. Yeah, it's I'm good. Just a crap shoot. I didn't even enter a pool this year. It's like, what's the point? Zero. You didn't do one bracket as I'm not going to win anything.

I'm just stunned. I was like, OK, then we're going to spend the time filling it out. Let's let's talk about LeBron. LeBron had a really bad sprained ankle, and even though he's a superhuman maniac, even he, I don't think is immune to a high sprained ankle. We have not seen people come back from this injury in, what, two and a half weeks? Three weeks. It's pretty hard. It's bad, too. It looks bad like you can see where it turns high.

And he's always one when he's hurt, he's going to let you know he's dinged up. But this was excessive. And then he even then he hit a three or something afterwards, too. And then it was like, all right, I'm out of here. You know, they're not playing for seeding. The Davis thing is still the timeline. And that felt like it was just going on forever. And the crazy thing, I found a number.

I don't know what it was this week, but it was most shots attempted four seconds or left of the shot clock. And LeBron had the most and he actually still had like a really good shooting percentage from both instances where I was like that.

Was that a website? Yeah, I've got a program to sort through this stuff. Oh, man. Because I always felt like I don't think it's that hard. That one would be an NBA. And then the advanced stuff, that one I might be able to just send you a link to. I don't think that's a subscription one. I always felt like that should be factored into people's percentages and stuff, so you figure if you take 100 shots, you're somebody like LeBron, at least nine of the hundred are terrible shots with two seconds left in the shot clock because you're the only guy on your team who can have the ball.

Right.

And there is a stretch for the Lakers. I think he was taking nine of those a game. And I mean, it was just unbelievable that he handed off to when he still was hitting them. So go back to your original point. Well, you know, because and look, we're guilty of this, too, on this podcast. We love to talk about the MVP. It's always fun. LeBron gets hurt and. Almost the narrative immediately switches to Yokich, the MVP, and everybody has a conversation which, by the way, we're going to have in about five minutes, but I defaulted in my head to like could they thought it was 60.

And if they fell to a six seed, what could that mean? So right now, Utah's 13 11, Phoenix twenty 13, Lakers 20, 15 clips. Twenty seven and 16. And then Portland, Denver, both twenty five and seventeen. So it's really like if it's a three week tailspin and they don't do well, they could fail to succeed. And you know, I think the deck was stacked against them anyway. With the with this season being so close to the bubble playoffs last year and how hard that was and everything, but if they don't have home court in any of these rounds.

During a blast, when I think we're going to have fans in LeBron, you know, you pretty famously said how he won the two toughest titles ever. I would argue if you're going to not have homecourt in any round when we actually have fans, that would be just as tough, if not tougher than the two that he said were the toughest ever. And it also feels like with Phoenix being better and Utah despite their, you know, odd stretch here again, and you can't tell like you don't know if every really good team other than those Warriors teams, you know, them losing three in a row is unheard of.

But, you know, Utah having a bad 10 game stretch is not that weird. The Lakers, almost none of it matters. When I watched because I was just I find they can't shoot now. They don't have Anthony Davis. These guys are coasting. It's still a better team on paper. The roles are more defined. Kuzma's clearly more comfortable. You know, the craziest thing about Rondo and watching him not be that great with Atlanta is like, I can't believe this guy was arguably like the third best offensive player for this Lakers team last year.

I mean, he's hitting a spot up, you know, like swing the ball weakside. He open threes. He's just Rondo was unbelievable in that RONDO. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. So I'm with you that I mean, I guess there's some level that I have to find concern for, but I'm just I'm just not going to I mean, even if they're the sixth seed, I don't know if I'll be picking against them because it's terrible. But if Davis is in one hundred percent sure, fine.

OK, but I'm just I'm going by if those guys are ready and it looks pretty good the last couple of weeks and they roll in, they can be a sixty. And I'm probably still going to pick them unless Utah gets back to what I what I thought they were. But I'm not going to get down on them because of some of the stuff that's been a little loose for them lately. At some point, we're going to have to have a Phoenix conversation, because I think tonight's a good example.

They're playing the Lakers tonight. It's a game a good team should win. It's a game. The Celtics absolutely were the last Big Easy one. No LeBron, no. Davis, we got this. Wait, why are we down twelve in the second quarter? And you just you turn on the game in Phoenix is up fifteen. And it's like, yeah, that this is a team that knows what it's doing. It feels like they're getting better.

I really wonder if they're if they even need to make a trade deadline move. My guess is they'll probably roll with what they have. But when you look at the six, I think Dallas is coming finally. You could see it tonight like they demolished Portland tonight. But they've they've had their best five now for a couple of weeks. I don't know what they'll do. They have the James Johnson contract. They'll definitely do something, but they have their five.

And Luca looks like he's the Luca from, you know, six, eight months ago. He's in shape, I guess would be the best way to say it. But so I think you have seven good teams in the West, and I think everybody's probably relieved if you're in the playoffs that New Orleans just cannot get their shit together because Kazan's incredible. Nobody wants to see that did in a playoff series, but they're probably not going to have to worry about it.

Yeah, the other thing to look at goes from thirty three, thirty two to now thirty six percent from three, which you can clearly tell with him, it's just he just is more comfortable, it's more of a weapon for him. And you know, it's just the great ones find ways to adjust the way they're being defended. And you knew he was always like this. Some guys will say, oh, you know, he'll figure to figure it out.

I think we see way too many players who can't shoot. Like, it's just sometimes just never quite figure it out. But the special ones seem to find a way. And you're right, Dallas is getting on six. Yeah. Getting with six and a half, six to half contenders in the West. They're the half, but they'll be there. So you wait. You're strong enough on Dallas. You would see them coming out of the West.

No, I'm saying we have six and half contenders. I think we have six. And then I think they're the half because I think in any series I could see them just getting hot and winning four games. Somehow a game makes me hesitate, but they're just so bad on defense when they need to be better. Yeah. That, you know, they just are never healthy either, you know. So I did some LeBron research this morning as I sat in a hotel room with Mr.

and Daughter. LeBron. Had the groin injury in 2019. He had the ankle sprain and in in this weekend, and then he had that weird thing, his first Cleveland season when he came back and 14, 15 when he took the two weeks off, but he wasn't really injured. It was like a fatigue injury, whatever was going on there.

But was that supposedly his back, though? It wasn't as bad as like a little back, but it was almost like he needed a vacation, the numbers. So I didn't realize this. He was 61 minutes away from fifty thousand regular season minutes. He's at forty nine, nine thirty nine. And he played ten thousand eight hundred eleven playoff minutes. Which puts him in the 60 minute club, which is him and Kareem and Karl Malone, and that's it.

He's played 17 years. He's only missed 10 percent of a season twice in 12, 15 and 20. They did every other season. He played 90 percent of the games. Thirteen hundred six regular season games. Twenty first, two hundred and sixty playoff games. First there's only six fifty K regular season minute guys ever. He's one of he's going to be one of the the seventh when it happens. When he gets the extra sixty one minutes there's only been eight seventy five hundred playoff minutes guys.

He's the only one who's gotten the ten thousand where it really gets crazy if you start comparing him to his peers. So he's at. He's said just about 50 Carmella's played forty one thousand minutes regular season. Iguodala has played thirty eight, Dwight Howard played thirty eight, CP threes played thirty seven and LaMarcus Aldridge has played thirty five. So he's played. Basically, 20 percent more regular season of minutes than anyone who's currently in the league, and then if you compare him to like, you know, the playoffs and it's KD played fifty five ninety eight playoff minutes.

So he's played almost five thousand more than that. Iguodala has played five thousand one hundred thirty four playoff minutes. He's played double that, basically. Those are the only people in his class, they're the durability, I think is the thing one hundred years from now that people are going to be drawn to when they look at his basketball reference page over everything else, over the titles, over the MVP, stuff like that. And it's got to the point that when he gets hurt, it's legitimately shocking in that play.

Yesterday, we how many times do we see that play in basketball where the guy's jumping for the loose ball and as he's doing, you're going to oh, god, no, don't blow out his ACL like it feels like it could happen 100 times with LeBron. He has just always been able to dodge plays like this. This was the one time he didn't. But it got me thinking like, God damn, it shouldn't be like shocking when somebody springs their ankle.

He's he's like the most shocking injury guy I've ever I've ever followed in sports, where just seems indestructible. Anyway, we've made these points before, but. I just wonder if this is some sort of moment we'll look back at where. Is 17 years in now, he's logged a shitload of minutes now he's got a bad will. And is this something where the building starts to tilt a little bit, you know, where it's like the infrastructure gets finally a little bit shaken?

It's going to be really hard for him the next couple of years, is my point. He's got he's already has an insane amount of miles on it. Yeah, but wouldn't you have it?

Look, all of this this isn't a counterpoint to any of it, but don't you feel like with him you just give up like you give up trying to give up making this? Yeah. Because it doesn't make any sense that from that draft class, this guy like has anyone ever been drafted where or are we talking 18 years since he was drafted. Twenty one, 03. Three years. That's right. He's. Like who's ever arguing anybody's better than him right now, has any player ever we'd have to go back and look it up, but I can't fathom there's any player that's ever been drafted.

And then 18 years later, if you were to say somebody else is better than him, you'd be wrong. And we've done it. Curry's had better seasons. I think even the strongest Curry fan has to realize their stuff. LeBron can do that that Curry just can't do in a playoff game. All right, Kawhi, I know I flirted with, like, look at Pete Kawhi here, man. It's unbelievable. And you're like, all right.

Durant unfortunately gets overlooked a little too quickly because it was like a short peak where he thought maybe he was going to get the thrown and then he didn't. I think Giannis has had moments where we're like, hey, it's just Shaq but he's more mobile but with the playoff exits nobody's going to do that anymore. So here we are in twenty one where I don't think there's a great argument for anyone being better than he is and the fact when he's had subpar regular seasons and behind other individual players and then it comes playoff time, you're like, yep, he's still the best.

I don't know that we're ever going to see anyone. I don't know that we've seen anyone will ever see anyone 18 years later be the undisputed king of his league. Imagine if I came on, did you have a show in 2003 and that we in the The Zone at that point? Yeah. You came on the zone. No, but if I came on the zone after that draft as OK, here's a prediction. 18 years from now, LeBron will have played 50 thousand minutes and 11000 playoff minutes and he'll still be in the MVP conversation.

Mark my words, you've been like what?

What would be like what would be more unbelievable than that of somebody being drafted, number one, I mean, if you had said, hey, Tiger is going to challenge Jack Majors, that's more believable as he became a professional golfer. No, no one would have believed you. And it's absurd to even think of it now. And that's why they're just moments where I try to remind myself that, you know, we're just going to be when he actually looks like he sucks.

Right. That's going to be when you're like, oh, man, he's not who is lost already happened. It was supposed to already happen. And it's the times where there are little warnings were Felic his game was morphing in ways like, oh, there's a decline there or look free throw attempts or, you know, some of this stuff always outside. Now, he was just dictating the terms of the way he wanted to win games. That was it.

And even this sprain was just an accident. It wasn't anything. You know, I don't think it was related any minutes or anything. What you see physically, I was like, turn's you're like, oh, that's that high one. He's he's going that's going to hurt for a while.

But the out of those 60000 minutes, you think you should have like seven or eight of those complete scarer flukey scare things. Right. Just some place where you're landing on a dunk and somebody's foot's underneath. Do you think the fact that he's been able to avoid those, the other guy who is always able to avoid those, those Karl Malone who didn't really get hurt to that final Laker season. And then the third one was Kareem, who's in that minutes club.

But Kareem never had that one year where it's like he broke his hand punching Cam Benson. That's the only time he missed a significant amount of time. And you think like, all right, what are those three guys have in common other than their physical freaks?

They, you know, spent an insane amount of time taking care of their bodies. Kareem was doing all that yoga shit, and he was people thought he was like a crazy person. You know, he was doing stuff in the early eighties. People are like, what is this guy doing? Well, martial arts in the 70s. Yeah, he looked at yoga. He'd nuts. And then Karl Malone was like really the first weight training guy who kind of resembles with the minor guys are like.

So my guess is like, you must when you turn your body on a machine like that, you can almost absorb injuries like you're like a Marvel superhero. So I'll be right. I can't wait to see how long it takes him to come back from this, because this is a four of four or five week injury. Right. How long was John Marino out? Shahmaran at the same injuries? Like five weeks.

Yeah, he was out for a while and he really hasn't been the same since he came back, even though even those back to back where games like his final twenty on Saturday, I'm not going to make a prediction. I'm never going to doubt the guy. And, you know, there might be a matchup come playoff time where I go. All right, maybe I like somebody a little bit better. But, you know, after what that guy did last year and how good he looked and the fact that he's played this many minutes, again, you know, remember when we were doing the over unders, I was like, oh, they'll coast.

They won it, they'll coast. And this guy is not coasting. He's not. He's not. I think he wants the MVP. I think he wants one more. I think he's pissed because in the past it was like, oh, I don't play eighty two games. That's why I can't win the MVP when we've gone over the individual seasons. And, you know, it's I don't think he has the argument. He thinks he does or at least Kuzma thinks he does.

But I felt like that's kind of what this year was, was gearing up for. And it also goes back to your MVP thing because now with this injury in the beat injury, Joker's in it, but Harden's going to be back in it, which seemed impossible when you start thinking about voter storyline stuff like all right after these playoffs, like nobody's going to want to vote for this guy again if you the leading scorer the league.

But then it's a new scene and Brooklyn's Rolen and Harden's crushing it, which is still weird. Without Durant, it feels like they're just doing a Houston thing. For the most part. They're just they're just running. But everybody seems to like it more now in Brooklyn. If I'm a Rockets fan, I'm like, wait, you guys shit on us for years now you like it? Like, what are you talking about?

But that's true.

Yeah, but I mean, it's actually, you know, shout out to the Rockets fans that love me so much, but I'd be kind of annoyed that you're like, wait, you guys are embracing this now, like what are you guys talking about. But Lillard has to be brought up. Lillard has to be brought up especially where the odds were I saw recently because he's that team doesn't play defense in his jab. Step back three Bill I think is the most lethal individual like shot move in the league.

It's quick, it's compact, the ball is out. It's not some massive jumping backwards travel like other, it's just a quick jab at you and then he just gets just enough space and it's up and over and you, and he's pissed off at everybody. And I think whatever this conversation means, hey, how come we're not talking about this guy, which can be annoying because you're like, all right, fine. I talked about your guy who was going to lose the MVP.

I think there's a real chance for somebody to steal this now. And I'm going to tell you who that person is right after this break. This time last year, meeting up with friends for a beer was almost complicated. We used to have to worry about where we'd go, what where we'd invite. Remember that a lot of things have changed over the past year, but is now getting together for a beer feels more like it shared. No more worrying about the complicated stuff.

Just you being yourself with your real friends in a classic Miller Lite, well, as the original Libia Miller Lite has always been about bringing you and your friends together for Miller time. I enjoyed my time about four weeks ago, Zoome, with my college friends, used to drink beer in college, still bring it out all these years later because that's what happens with Miller. Like great taste, although in ninety six calories, three point two carbs.

However, you and your friends are enjoying more time, you can have the original beer delivered by going to Lite that come forward Saabs and find the delivery options near you. Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Ninety six calories. Three point two carbs per 12 ounces. IMDB, TV and Uninterrupted have teamed up on Top Class, a new docu series that follows the life and times of the Sierra Canyon High School basketball team. The series follows the most hyped high school basketball team in America and their quest for a third straight state championship back to back state champs.

The Sierra Canyon Trailblazers exploded on to basketball's national stage with some of the nation's highest ranking players. Amauri Bailey. B.J., Boston Bronte. James Sharam. Zair Wade. Zair Williams, well, executive produced by LeBron James and Maverick Carter Top Class, provides exclusive access to the team as the balance, the pressures of competing on a global stage while finding success at one of the most academically elite high schools in the country. Viewers will experience firsthand how the most Instagram high school basketball team in America navigates everything from daily life to playing in sold out arenas.

IMDB TV's original series Top Class, now available to stream for free and fire TV, Roku or anywhere prime video is available. IMDB TV, a streaming service offering premium movies and TV series for free. No subscriptions or sign ups required.

IMDB TV. Always entertaining, always free. All right, we're calling this a watch. I think part of the problem with this season is we've already anointed foreign VPs and there's like 40 percent of the season. The, you know, the MVP is right now nobody. It's OK. We don't have to we don't have to do the thing like, you know, if it ended right now, gun to your head, you'd say LeBron. But now he's going to miss three weeks.

Then he'd say, all right, maybe Yokich is can bit, but it's OK that we don't have a favorite yet. But I was thinking there have been a couple of years in history where kind of we just didn't have an MVP and then they had to vote for somebody. Right. That's how Bill Walton won that year when he broke his foot, where I think he played fifty eight games, something like that. And the other two did in this off top of my head, the other two guys, I think we're Girvan and David Thompson and they just want and that was the most important team.

They were like fifty and ten when when he played in Everett is like, fuck it. Even though he missed a third of the season or for the season, we're still voting for him. They voted for him. Iverson was the only other one since then who has missed at least 10 percent of the season and won the MVP. So and he missed eleven games. So LeBron now he's missed. Today was the second game he missed. So he's basically missed two and a half shortened schedule.

I think you probably have to play, at least I don't know. Fifty, fifty nine sixty games to be considered. And that's when when you made that point before games just been steady, right. That teams had been decimated by injuries. The McCollom thing, if anyone at the Celtics lost Jaylen Brown for a month and a half, they can't imagine how bad it was.

Oh, my God, it doesn't look good now. Yeah, it dame's just been steady.

So you're right. He should be in there. I have. That's Yokich. Move to plus one ten. There are twenty five and 16 he has missed a game this year is averaging twenty seven, eleven and nine. I mean, he's having an awesome season and beating LeBron and plus five fifty Yonath. This is on Fandor Janis's plus seven fifty game and hardener eleven and one and Loukas lurking at eighteen to one so. The funny thing is, if this season was just happening in a vacuum, we would say Yoni's is the MVP right now, if LeBron is going to be out for a couple of weeks.

But if you didn't know he won the last two, nobody wanted to vote for him again. He is having the same year he had the other two years and he's playing on one of the six best teams and he hasn't missed a game. He's a better defensive player than right. Yeah. And he's Drus back and everyone else there. What are their third, their third or fourth in defense this month? Yeah, I know Yoni's is saying everybody is overlooking us.

It's OK. I mean, that's what happens is like it was new is exciting and you guys didn't deliver and now people are already sick of you before. Really, they've only been around a couple of years as far as like a legitimate playoff threat and people have already turned the page on it. So that's that's what you're right this year. If this were Janice's first year like this and they were a five hundred team before this and he, you know, he's around twenty one points a game and then was having this kind of year and this was his breakout year, he'd win it.

He's not going to he's not going.

And Yokich, I would have thought. All right, Yokich, the door has been open, destroyed New Orleans today. Do you think he had a good game? He was like twenty, nine, ten and ten, but they lost to New Orleans. He was awesome, though. He was like, nobody can grab this MVP that LeBron has now dangled. So meanwhile, LeBron, he's going to be sleeping in his hyperbaric chamber. He's going to be doing cryotherapy.

He'll be he'll be doing everything he can. And he'll probably back in like four days and we'll be like, wow, that was dumb. And LeBron, you know, I felt like he was going to win before this happened, but it's been that kind of year. Sometimes that happens. I remember in 2011 when Rose won, we kind of didn't have an MVP that year. Like neither the Miami guys were going to win. Nobody was voting for LeBron and Wade in the OKC.

Guys weren't ready. And Dirk and and just see and as we got to vote for somebody and then everybody talked themselves into Derrick Rose, including myself, saltworks. Yeah, and it was going to happen last year with LeBron and then the season got shut down. I really think that even though there was a couple of metrics or Yoni's was was far ahead of LeBron. How about the ZAGG, though? How about some of the super supportive LeBron voters going this Lakers team?

Look how bad the record is without him. I'm voting for him. I do not diminish do not diminish the reach. All this is done is proving that this Lakers team wasn't as good as we thought. Yeah, you know who's keeping it together? LeBron. Yeah, you know, in a year where there's not a real true number one, I'm going to give it to LeBron. It's a career achievement award, by the way. This isn't I bet he gets a couple of number one votes.

If he comes back in 10 days, he's I still think he's probably the favorite, actually. The odds dropped too low because high ankle sprain people just assume that's five weeks. But they. They forget who we're dealing with here. He will whatever if there's some sort of scientific thing for him to do, that involves freezing the ankle and, you know, pouring oranges and haemoglobin of young children or whatever he needs to do, he's going to fix that ankle and he'll be back in the court.

I'll tell you right now, if Mario Chalmers ends up dead, missing ligaments in his leg, right?

I'm not I'm just going to say so. Yeah, it's like I've woken up in a hotel room with my stem cells are gone. Yeah, that's that's a nicer way to say it.

Just just that way. Go ahead. How many people over the past five days have said to you, hey, Priscilla, why haven't you talked about LeBron owning the Red Sox? Anybody, anybody want a lot? I mean, the guys in Boston don't know what it means, they're like, what does this mean now? And I was like, probably nothing. Yeah. It's like, hey, do you know who the 18th highest state owner on the Celtics is?

Because that's what we're talking about here. We're talking about, like, I don't know, is it zero point five percent of the Red Sox? Something he doesn't own, the Red Sox. Settle down. Yeah, that was definitely people were in a hurry to be like, OK, this is he owns a Major League Baseball franchise and you're like, well, and this is part of an investment group that has a small stake that doesn't actually decide what happens with the team.

Now, I don't know what the final numbers were, though, because it's the Fenway Sports Group where it's multiple things. So, you know, I don't I don't know what it means. It's great. It's great that we can have a younger generation, more diversity in ownership. You know, I think that is really, really important.

And I think people it was like the Jay-Z thing when people want to get their hands on, that's yeah. It was too good of a headline. And people like he just bought the Red Sox.

And you're like, OK, well, Diddy, can we get Mookie back then? Listen, I was I was completely jealous. It sounds great, it sounds like a great thing to be like, yeah, and a stake in the Red Sox. What a cool thing to tell people. But, you know, he's I never thought of that. It's soccer. It's it's the racing. It's all of. Yeah. You know, so I mean, I know you already know that.

Yeah. Just think do you think you'll ever I mean I imagine at this point you probably get approached by know minority stake. You'd be an awful minority owner.

I mean, I'd be I think everybody be calling showing up in a sweat.

If I own a piece of the Celtics right now, I'd be so mad.

We have made a trade like, what are we doing? Oh, but say like the Timberwolves Smith the Great Williams played fifty five minutes today. They scored two points. What are we doing. That cause would be great. Yeah. Baseline sees the Timberwolves games right. And as soon as the game is over the local reporters interviewing you and you're just like I don't know what the hell we're running, but these coaches, you know, I'm not like Holy Cross.

He's a great WilliamsI.

When House and I would set screens, we always did this in our pickup game. And this is bullshit. We're just like caught like this is what has things to do. Thirty years, you just hold that hope that just watch this they and then you'd be calling teams that you have contacts with being like, hey Jarrett Culver, could I get a top fourteen protected. And then they would just guys be like, hey, how big was this check.

Get them out of here and be like Bill Simmons is on the phone again. Let's talk about Malik Monk. Just want to see if he made it public today. Marketed, but he called about marketing today. Zach Lowe would be on TV before the trade deadline and be like, well, I can tell you what Minnesota is doing.

I actually would not leak. I'm a.. Leaking. I'm not a leaker. I don't think you would. I don't think you would you would leak, actually. Yeah, I agree with that part. But, you know, I'd be I'd be brutal like this Celtics situation out. I would be losing my mind. There'd be a lot of emails that send a lot of long emails with bullet points. And then I would sign my name in all caps at the bottom of the you would change the font size four points that you really want to make specific some thoughts about how this swingman situation can't continue.

That that that now would be great. You could say like this fourth quarter. It kind of reminds me when Wahlberg shows up to the house in fear at the end and you know that your defense is good enough to resist. But is it is your defense system good enough to win the game?

Well, it did make me think, what if LeBron really got into this Red Sox thing and, like, got into baseball and was sending notes about, I don't know, Alex Verdugo. They have so many why haven't we tried him in centers to his defense of war is really good, talking to Maverick about it today, Haywood's Crisil coming back, I think I was thinking about how we should use about knitting's maybe some five inning start started out for like, hey, you know what?

If Klutch starts repping baseball players, this could be amazing. Oh, my God. Although I play the NBA track record for the Celtics and clutch, it doesn't seem to be a destination for that organization. So I don't know how that would be for baseball does not.

Let's talk about labeller. Lamella fractured his wrist. It seems he said he's getting a second opinion, I'm not sure what that means. I don't know when he shot the free throw and immediately hurt. It's it's jacked up, devastating.

That was my favorite. I mean, they were something a little bit, but that was still I really like that team. That was my favorite mediocre team. And now, you know, they could fill his minutes. It might mean more time for my Gaumont, but I just hate losing young guys when they feel like they're becoming, you know, such a formative time where he was just having a really special rookie season. Certainly way better than than I expected.

I don't know. I don't feel like it's enough for a rookie of the year. So it does seem like. Edwards can possibly grab this, maybe Halliburton, if Halliburton had a strong last 20 games, but more importantly, from a trade deadline standpoint, Charlotte was one of the teams that was really watching because I felt like that was a team. They have a clear problem at the five with the seller Biyombo or Washington playing bass, got a position as a five, but it was like there.

That's a team that could actually go out and get somebody that could fix that problem and maybe they'd be interested in a playoff series. But now without him, I don't see it. Do you see it? Well, there's a weird thing with lamella, though, that I don't know that the Hornets fans will know this, but you have to be a hardcore lamella guy to figure this out. And I like you watched him because I want to see some of the stuff that I didn't see when I watched in Australia.

They take them out in the key moments of the game, right? He's great and yeah, I've gone back and tracked it. And there are significant times like, you know, I don't have I've gone back and looked at it and it was like two weeks of games where he'd be in Star and then he'd come out at the minute, Mark, and then maybe he'd come in for the last minute. So there's a couple of times where he came in for like a possession offensively that he'd be subaccount.

But I'm telling you, there were large chunks of when the game was in the balance where he wasn't on the floor because every defensive screw up starts with him. Is there a sense that this is a unique thing? No, I'm just I'm just telling you, I don't know that anybody else has mentioned this. And, of course, it turns into like, oh, well, you didn't like that much of it. No, I didn't like what I saw.

No, we love the NBA. All right, love.

The weird thing is I said this is my part. It's like he had such little respect for his Australian teammates that it factored in that I didn't realize he should have the NBA. He's like, I know these guys are good. Yeah, I'm actually going to be I'm going to be a teammate with these guys as opposed to this dude who just comes in and fires away. Horrible shots in Australia. But he didn't play great defense before. I don't care about defensive stuff, but the fact that they're competitive and they were even competitive last year with what I thought was probably one of the worst fives you would throw out there.

I mean, when you really look at all those close games that they had and so they they also they close really well. So it's not a constant he would bring lamella back in in some spots, but there are large chunks there in the fourth. But I don't think that would ever impact his rookie of the year. And as you say. All right. Well, now they're probably done. I don't know. I mean, are they are they going to be done?

Because now Graham, who needs the ball to be what he was before and Rozier has been pretty good. I mean, they can kind of run that, hey, we can kind of initiate your offense there, too. So I'll be curious to see what happens here. The stats are good. He's been terrific. He shot it way better than he ever has, whether it was Lithuania, Australia or high school. He shot better at the NBA level, which is crazy because you still take some shots.

You're like, whoa. But I don't know if it's a defensive thing where what if they what if they stay at the same record and close the same way? You know, I don't know what the answer will be there, but it's it's definitely a real thing that I think Hornets fans like. Yeah, that's right. They take them out. I looked at it this way. I thought the strength of that team and the reason I enjoyed them was they always had good guards out, no matter what point in the game.

It was right where you look at like the Celtics and the flip side, where it's like, yeah, it looks great when Brown and Tatum are together. But what happens when one of those guys leaves the lineup? Then it's that you're falling off a cliff with Charlotte. It's just like whoever was out there. Plus the Heyward. Thirty two minutes and then Miles Bridges went in every once in a while and he would get going. And it just seemed they had a lot of guys doing stuff.

And I thought the totality of that was what made them interesting. So they just remove one of those guys. Yeah, they could get by without him. But I like the totality piece. And I, I also think I'm not saying they're going to be better. I'm just pointing out some it is very specific in the fourth quarter, just pointing out what I liked about them.

So, yeah, you're right. Was he was it like, you know, Memphis's, you know, but I thought their backcourt was just really different. Think they would have Devante Graham would come in off the bench and in fourth quarters and, you know, could win a game. They had all these different guys who could actually, like, carry them across time, even Monck. So I don't like losing that. The other thing with the East you look at like and Atlanta made a run.

There's a lot of reasons for that. Atlanta is not an eight game winning streak. But you realize that, you know, with Nate, right? I know. I know, Nate. The Lakers saying, look, you know, you hit Nate now. So Atlanta is in the fourth spot and then it goes Miami, Boston, the Knicks, who just every game lose by a point in an agonizing way where they don't get a call. Charlotte, Indiana, Chicago and Toronto is still in the 11th spot in Toronto.

Seventeen and twenty five. There's three games behind everybody right now for the ten ten seed. And we had trade deadline coming Thursday. And I think that I personally think that's the team that should be a seller. We'll see if they're not going to trade just to trade, but. I kind of like that group of basically from Atlanta through Toronto. You could tell me any of those teams could go on an eight no streak, I wouldn't be shocked.

Like I'm not shocked that Atlanta won their last state, are you? A little. But you realize in March they have the second best defense in the NBA behind Philadelphia. Philadelphia is like off the charts ahead of everybody else defensively. And that's why even without a beat, they still have this this really good record, even though Brooklyn is only a game behind and Milwaukee's only two behind Atlanta winning Ainaro, and it happening because of their defense is surprising.

But you know who's lighting it up? Somebody who has looked unplayable at times, but they were going to play him because they spent money on was Danylo. I mean, he's he's shooting the hell out of the ball, you know.

And there were times where I'd watch him going, what does he do? Like what does he do? He just stands out there. He doesn't do much off the dribble. And then you look at the numbers, do you go, all right? Well, now he's now he's hit shots all the time. And it all started against Miami. It started with that Miami win with Trey, had an awful game, came in, saw what was going on.

He took like three thirty footers in a row, hit them all and it was game. And Trey won that game in like a two minute span. And when I looked at the defensive numbers from March on the splits and saw them at number two behind Philadelphia, I couldn't believe it. They got Collins going a little bit lately, too, and Congress has been thrown around in these trade rumors, which I don't understand at all. The last thing I can update on that more PEX update me.

He's been available forever. And he's I feel like he's I always caution myself on doing this because then it all gets aggravated because there's stuff that you'll hear and you're like, whatever. But it just it seems like they've warmed the idea of let's see what happens with this guy. OK, yeah, they're seeing right now, even though he turned down the 90 million, the qualifying off for him is really low, which also makes him attractive as a trade chip.

But you know what? You've been losing for a long time down in Atlanta. He may not be perfect. He's going to make some plays. You're like, right? You know, he's going to want the ball a little bit more maybe with all that offensive weapons. I mean, if you look at the roster when it's healthy, you're like, look, a lot of guys can make shots on this team. It feels like with the ownership mandate, which Lloyd Pierce is a casualty of, and the first off is probably a little worried about it, that get the sense around the league on Collins feels like, you know, what he was he's been more available than he is now, if that makes sense.

Not saying it's impossible for me to trade it, but you could kind of make sense of the whole thing of like, you know what? Maybe we just run these guys. We still have we could still figure out and sign them in the off season, even if we don't love him as a player.

But here's what they have coming up. At Clippers, at Sacramento Ackles, stayed at Denver, at Phoenix, at San Antonio, at New Orleans. Yeah, we'll see then. Yeah, let's do it. So don't print your Hock's Eastern Conference champion banner. But look, I think the East I think the playing game on the East, that's seven, 10, eight, nine. All that stuff is going to be really good because all these teams are fun to watch all of them, like even Indiana.

And at that LaVert back and that team's kind of fallen into place to that. Teams are also going to be you know a nutty trade deadline team.

I'm prepared for anything with them. And then the bulls, you know, they can hang with anybody next. Same thing. The Celtics ironically are probably the most depressing of that whole group. Right. They had another team meeting over the weekend. They beat Orlando today just because they made a whole bunch of threes and they make a bunch of threes in a game and it's got Celltex. They fixed it. It's not really it's a team that they don't get to the free throw line.

They don't really have a bench. And if the threes don't go in, there's not really a plan B and the Kemba not being able to play back to backs. Really, really hard stuff because they just don't have enough good players, so. I enjoy the east, I think this is bad. The East has always been kind of the black sheep of the two conferences year after year after year. And this is the first time where I feel like from an entertainment standpoint.

They're they're right there, busted, you know, Brooklyn is the best title that's right now. Yeah, it makes sense because of the Davis injury. Now on Q&A. Yeah. And it's it's just nuts that they're rolling like this and it's it's still oh, by the way, they get to RIMPAC. Let me do a quick run through on this because I'm with you on the East. The Wizards are better. They had they had a brutal start.

They had a brutal stretch. But Westbrook has been I mean, some of Westbrook's shooting numbers. When you break it down monthly, the key was at one point I think last month Westbrook was fifty percent from three. He's forty two percent from three. So yeah I have it here Westbrook three point shooting month of month last three months. January forty one percent February 15 percent March.

Forty two percent of the overall numbers. Fourteen percent. How is that possible. You want to look at even conceivable. Well if anybody can do it it's Westbrook.

I'm looking at the splits. Yeah. Wow. Jesus, yeah, and I mean, he was still fifteen point four percent. He was taken less than a month, which was what turned his his season around last year when he stopped taking threes and the lane was wide open. So as bad as the Wizards have been at times defensively and not really understand the rotation, they actually fought with the nets today. And look, Westbrook is going to get up for those games.

You saw how much you got up for the Nets game is going to get up for Harden and that kind of stuff. I thought one of the highlights today was Nick Claxton pushing the idea and like pushing him out of the way. And Danny was even in the play. And I was just like Nick Clarkson's absolutely feeling himself right now because he's like, this is easy. League's easy, man. I just get all these free dunks all the time.

This is awesome for the Wizards at least feel like on certain nights, a bit of a tough crowd despite the fact the overall record and you know, when you lose that many games to cover it in the middle of it and you have new pieces. Again, everybody knows I'm not a team. Exactly. Team Westbrook over here and defensively still going to do a ton of shit that never makes any sense. Cleveland beat Toronto. Toronto's lost eight in a row.

Toronto's defense is so bad and actually we'll get to the Celtics cause I have a Celtics question for you. Their defense is the worst in March is one hundred and twenty points allowed per 100 possessions. They got everybody back for the Cleveland game and they still lost that one. But Giacaman only played three games this month. VanVleet three games, OG only two games. So I don't know what to do with them. I don't know what's going to happen to Lowry.

It seems like a lot of teams would love to figure it out, but he's thirty five years old. He's thirty five this week. Chicago, I'm with you. They're fun. The Pacers Levert thing actually scares me a little bit because there was something that happened with the Russell Dinwiddie Levert thing where they all they all carried the same nets Jean where as talented as they are as offensive players there, they have no problem ignoring everybody else. So I think the LaVert fit.

They've won three in a row but I mean shoot. It felt like a couple of weeks ago the Pacers the four seed. So let me ask you this about the Celtics.

So you don't like the LaVert TJ Warren playing on the court together fit. I like Adam guys that can score, but I just want you at some point to realize, you know, there are other guys that can score and so is Brogdon going to shoot less now? Is is going to shoot less. And they ran you know, they got the heat, they blew a lead. They got him in overtime today, but they ran like they were trying to attack here all the time.

And his numbers are in decline.

If you looked at his shooting numbers lately, he was I think it was four for 16. Today he's there. He's averaged 17 a game. But it's he's their third leading scorer, but he's not that great at seventeen a game. Yeah. Not hitting threes the way you see him as a shooter. All right. So that all leads me the whole reason I did that. If you're still wondering why, Bill. I don't like saying this about teams, especially when I don't know, right?

I'm not none of his travel teams. We don't know. But there's like a void with this Celtics team that I can't figure out their soft. I don't want to say it, but that's the word I keep thinking of, I guess you can call it team softer than we're not calling them like a bunch of pussies. They just play soft. They don't get to the free throw line teams, push them around. You see a guy like Rashon, Holmes comes in and just like feasts on them and they have nobody that can fight back.

Smart was their tough guy, but smarts, you know, Benicio himself, since he got hurt today was the first game, the Orlando game, the first game. He started to look like Marcus. But Marcus is like the badass on the team. The team is it's just like a passive team of guys that don't really talk. Yeah, I'm wondering when they're going to be mad, like when are you guys going to be mad about it and then they never seem to be mad.

There's a play. That I'm going to bring up when they were in that Nets game and whatever, they got up early, it doesn't matter in the business, especially now. Jesus, I mean, 15 points. It's like nothing. Harden drives gets twice right in the midsection. I don't know if you got him in the gut or the man region, but he knocked the shit out of them, right. None of those Harden plays were really good, disguising how hard he hits the defensive player to get them off of them and nobody ever can figure it out.

The rest will see some crumpled up body in the hard and dirty turn or after a layup and you're like, Oh, I wonder what happened.

Tice's curled up on the baseline after Harden makes the layup and everybody's getting ready to get back to the Boston possession. Tice's like hurting. All right Harden got a really good enticed looks up at the ref and the refs look at him like check ball like get up. And Texas hoping he can give them a second and the ref didn't even have respect enough for Tyce to, like, stop anything, so Tyce gets up in a heap and I'm going, you know, if I'm Tyce Fourcade, like, I'm going to get you once.

Now you just you just did that to me. And now I'm going to get which I can't believe doesn't happen with some of these guys that are so vicious in how much contact they initiate as offensive players that nobody comes back. Maybe they're just worried about everything. Well, it is all going to get reviewed anyway. So Norvo and Tice just took it. Tushka crumpled. The ref didn't care. They didn't stop the game. He's going to get back in, hunched over, trying to get back and set up for the offensive possession.

And nobody does anything. And then Kyrie dribbles to the entire team and they are in a parade to go hug it out with Kyrie after the game and I'm not focusing on the Kyrie Boston all that shit because you've been overall. But I'm like this guy just worked you and you can't wait to dap them up and you have all these moments and this is somebody like you who watches them all the time because I like talking Celtics my dad but they, I always, I watch you be like, what are you guys going to get pissed off about how disappointing this season is?

Because they shouldn't be this bad. You know, everybody has their ups and downs. The Kemba part's a big part of it. They get him back when he shoots. Well, they look like a really good team, but they don't seem to ever have this life. There's a void with this team and I just I think it's real and I think it's a problem. Yeah, I don't know if softs the right word or passive or what, they're young, too.

I don't think that helps either. You know, you look back at the 17 team, right? Crowder's on that team. Marcus Smart Rozier Jerebko who is like kind of secretly a bad ass was always like getting in a shit up was another one. This is breaking news to Rybka.

Was he would he would get kind of feisty with people and Isaiah was a tough guy to beat that team. That was like a lunch pail team, you know. And I think that's the 18 team that kept fighting and fighting that had the Marcus Morris was the big addition. That era was another guy. He's frustrated guy to root for. But that guy was tough, like he didn't put up with any shit. There's a toughness that's lacking with this team and.

You know, you see it over and over again, the Brooklyn thing bothered me, too, but it bothered me that they were like, Hey, Carrie, it's great to see you. Thanks for completely destroying us. Let's have a covered hook. I think that's more than anything. Why? I think they're going to be making trades this week. I do not think this will be the roster on Friday, because there's some sort of they need older guys on the team.

I think the team's too young. I think the leaders of the team who I love, Tatum and Brown, I want to root for them their whole careers. But those are young guys. They're not you know, they're not young guys can't be mad. I see Joe. I see John Morente like with fire all the time. Not saying it works all the time, but I don't I don't see what I think every team that's the personality of Tatum and Jaylen, though.

I don't think those are those kind of guys. That's what the Times piece is so important, though.

Yeah, no, you're right. Like, my frustrations was smart, but when he was out, it's like, oh OK. They don't have smart maybe. And then he's back and it's not really any different. But I also think it's hard to be like the fourth best player because I also think he frustrates those guys.

Clearly, we've already heard about it. I mean, we heard about the one that was public where it was like those guys got into it a little bit with Jaylen and Smart and maybe it's just guys get mad at each other after the game, but there's there's this void with them where you keep waiting for them to get like, hey, you guys are better than some of these teams like this past week. And I know they go to Orlando today because they made a million threes.

But I don't know, you get worse.

Legalising Sacramento is like they just played harder. And Rashard Holmes was the best part of the four for some reason just dominated them. And you watched it on. What the hell? All right. We're going to take a break.

The substance of the Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by Land Rover, don't follow the crowd. Blaze your own trail in the twenty twenty one Range Rover sport.

From the moment you lay your eyes on Land Rovers performance SUV, the presence is formidable. Its iconic muscular design with the dynamic beltline and aggressive stance looks like it's in motion even when standing still. I've never had a Land Rover. I've always been super jealous of them. I appreciate its finer details, such as the wraparound early delights and stylish real options. How about when you start the engine, you get a range of six available powertrains, including a high performance, five hundred and eighteen horsepower V8 engine that takes you from zero to 60 in five seconds.

Nice Range Rover sport turns even an ordinary morning commute into an exhilarating driving experience. God, I love cars and to deliver optimal control of all that power terrain response to with dynamic program tunes, the suspension for greater stability and is ready for whatever road conditions come your way.

Well, to experience the Range Rover sport for yourself, contact your local Land Rover retailer today to schedule a test drive Land Rover above and beyond.

This episode is brought to you by Cub Cadet. Cub Cadet is constantly pushing the limits of what's possible to bring you game changing products and help you unlock your best lorgnette from lawnmowers that give you a best in class cut to snow blowers with reliable power.

Expect high performance for your lawn and cross seasons as a leader in Outdoor Power Equipment Club Cadet Unlock next generation power for twenty twenty one with a fully electric lineup powered by long lasting lithium ion technology that cuts up to two acres on a single charge. Wow.

This lineup is proven to deliver the uncompromising design, comfort and performance of gas models without all the maintenance. Plus the 60 vote max battery system is designed to conveniently power a suite of electric machines. The series includes a walk behind push mower, a hand-held string trimmer, hedge trimmer, chainsaw and leaf blower visit KUB Cadet Dotcom to learn more. So we're still on air. We're going to do a trade deadline show on Thursday and we'll start it like probably a half hour before the deadline and then go all the way through and then try to post it as fast as we possibly can on Thursday afternoon.

So I don't want to do too much trade stuff today, but. I was looking at I was trying to figure out what the Knicks could do, because they're they have 15 million in cap room, which I think is really a fun wrinkle with them. And they have some expiring. To and I kind of like their team, you think like. R.J., R.J. has basically been at twenty point a game guy since, I don't know, the last ten games where it's starting to look like it's coming together for him.

Randall's been good all year. And I'm just trying to figure out, like Drummond can't be bought out, he's too good to be bought out. As frustrating of a player as he is, you can't shoot free throws, good stats, bad team guy. He's too good to be bought out. This is not Blake Griffin. Like somebody needs to trade for him their teams that could use somebody like him. And it just seems like their natural Drummond team.

And the question is like. If you put your helmet on that team and we've never really seen him on a good team other than that one year with Blake when Blake was really good two years ago, and even that team wasn't that good. But if you put him on this team. Plan for a new contract with all the other stuff they have going, is that something you'd want to see? A German just doesn't get me that excited. Yeah, I think that's a bad agrees with you.

Yeah. Doesn't doesn't do much. I was talking to a team this week that was like, hey, when did this go home? And then we ruined our own trade value for you because everybody thinks you're going to be bought out thing become accepted. It was pretty interesting. This is like LaMarcus Aldridge doesn't suck, but now because he lost the job to Purtle. And by the way, when Draymond made his rant about how like this was a double standard, the players are fine, not playing.

OK, so if the players were in the coverture, right, if players were super mad about being sat down, then I think we'd probably hear from a few of them. But I agree that Drummond seems to be somebody good enough. But the number is so big on him in the trade. And that's probably why you're seeing a Knicks, right?

Yeah, because they could absorb the number. And I mean, you averaged fifteen rebounds a game. That's not nothing, you know. No, you're right. You're right. It's just high number. That's not somebody that the fucking Lakers should be able to get for free in March. I just hope somebody steps up and makes a move, whether it's Charlotte or, you know, whoever.

Charlotte would probably love them because, you know, the rotation they have right there. But I don't I mean, we're talking about, what, twenty five five this year? I threw this trade at house marketing for top and straight up. Oh, my God, he's 20. Yeah, it's twenty eight, seven, sorry, twenty eight, seven. Marketing for top and straight up. Like I say, no, if I were the bulls. It said, no, if you're the boss.

Yeah, really. Would he do with marketings contract this summer? You still have no idea if he's good or not, I personally would be trading for it, but. We but what it feels like, hey, I can make it, I got an 80 million dollar offer from the Kings, I think I'm going to take it unless you guys match. I know that any interest the Bogdanovich saying, hey, looks like Atlanta is offering me seventy five if you guys interested.

That's how I feel about the bullet, the Oladipo deal, where it's like Hey we got Oladipo for four years max like awesome like well he's another one. That's a good spin guy. Do you want to do Poca Corner. I feel like I didn't do enough on your drumming corner. I like the idea. I just if I were a team trying to get drum and then I was told I couldn't get them, I'd be able to get through the rest of the day.

I don't have a strong opinion either way on German, it's just that he's not a bad guy. It bothers me he's too productive. Yeah, this is that this is not like P.J. Brown near the end of his career. This is not Blake Griffin, who's probably 99 percent done, but you name it Stottlemyre. Remember how bad everybody wanted him that year? Oh, my God.

What were some other classic ones?

Stephon Marbury is another one. Yeah. Most of the time it ends badly.

No. Yeah, it ends up you know what my favorite one is, is the Warriors were the seventy three one team. We realized what happened, the finals. They come back the next year, they've got Durant and. So that's 17 and the Cavs brought in Bogut, Deron Williams of Bogut. Yeah, those are good Bogut played eight seconds and you got her. Daryl Williams actually played a little bit but it reminds me a little bit of what's happening with the Blake thing with the Nets.

I don't know how much of that you watch today. OK, give me your thoughts. It's my thoughts of that changed. Well, maybe I could actually, you know, texted do I was like, look, I know this game. I know the I can't do anything anymore on the basketball court, so I'm going to keep the ball moving. Sets of screens, cut, make make it seem like I'm doing stuff, but I'm really not doing anything.

So we're talking like the first week of Batman with the Clippers, but again Batum settled in and started making shots and he's he's legit part of the rotation. So I think to say that about people, Blake's not going to be able to guard people like that. He doesn't have the lateral movement anymore. He's not explosive that way. And it seemed like they were thinking about playing him like as a Draymond, kind of a small five, which I don't see it.

I just don't think he's going to play for them.

Ultimately, I'm not going to worry about what he looked like in his first game back and what, five weeks. So the thing with the nets is he's going to end up having and he's going to have a six 17 one night and everybody is going to say that he's back. And what happens with this Nets team? Because Harden so good at getting the other guys open looks and just free ones all the time is is going to have some night where the help is towards Harden.

Imagine when Durant's back. I bet you Blake has a night just by default because no one's guarding him and they're guarding all the other guys. But what happens is, is the headline is Blake Griffin of the Nets and then Lakers fans out here, like, God damn it, like, who are we getting? And you're like, all right. Well, I don't I don't think the balance happened here. You know, we're off. Drummond ends up with somebody in a buyout.

Right. And ends up with a contender. We get, like, really excited on the recency bias of it all. And the reason I bring up Bogut and Deron Williams with that is that I remember a very prominent voice in sports talk after the Cavs added those two pieces is like, well, that's it. Balance of power has shifted. And I went up to him like, I don't normally do this, but are you you really think adding Bogut and Deron Williams at this stage now makes this Cavs team like now they're going to beat the Warriors with the rant?

That sounds stupid, but we're a couple of years is like this. To Boogie was another one when he went to the Warriors. It's like this isn't even fair and I'll I'll give it to you. He had some stretches there where it seemed like he was a lot more locked in than he's ever been anywhere else. But I don't even know if a healthy boogie made them. But you're right. Like every time I'm just prepping everybody for this, when the bio stuff happens and you see the guy Photoshopped in his New Jersey and it just turns into like, oh, whoever just got the last guy then becomes vaulted.

It's like the favorite in the conference and it usually doesn't work out that way.

Baron Davis was another one back in the day. You know, it struck me, Blake, today. The thing that's left with his game is his passing. Oh, great, sir, they were thrown at him and then he can do the one handed thing and he could just zip it around. But I think teams are going to eventually realize, like just play the passing lanes, let him try to actually, like, try to create a shot, just guard them one on one.

Let him just let him try to do something. Because if he's trying to do something that's 100 times better for us than if Harden or Kyrie or Kevin Durant or try to do something like this, they please. That's why, you know, he's going to have a couple of nights here in the regular season where people are going like, is he back? Well, there's a cool element to this, and I think this is why people are rooting for it, just to there's going to be a scenario where Harden, Durant, Kyrie and Blake are all going to be on the team together and it's like, holy shit.

Can you imagine in 2013, if we had told ourselves that these four guys would be on the same team like that, we'd lose our minds. But it's you know, the reality is they're different guys. I mean, the different pieces, such a bigger storyline with them than Blake Griffin coming back where Durant's missed a year and a half of basketball. And since he's came back, he's never we haven't been able to see him play for ten straight games.

It may prove it, I don't know that much. Now he's got this hamstringed thing that seems like it's now a month long injury and we're not supposed to be worried about that. But I just I don't like when guys, you know, who have played a lot of minutes already and a lot of games and now they hit this phase of their career where they just can't stand the court for whatever reason. I don't think that's a good sign. All right.

Poca time. What are you saying? OK, I figured it out, OK, there is no player. With a lower floor. And I'm not going to say higher ceiling, the disparity between the ceiling in the floor is the widest. He has the single greatest variance of any player that gets real minutes in the NBA today. And I will start with all the compliments because that organization is incredible. I cannot believe they won this many games this year.

They've had to cycle through all of these different plays, not like they just have their five and they roll it out there. If you're not ready to play the thunder, you're going to lose. All right. Yeah. And I still would look at their offense and their rotations going, how is this team winning their offense? Like there was a time to when they had a decent record like 11 and 15, I thought was amazing for them. And their point differential was way worse.

And I was like, all right, I'll run its course. And it hasn't. They won again. I mean, they had 20 wins now because that was the overunder for them. I think they're just behind it. I think they're eighteen and twenty, eighteen and twenty four.

I think they're over under is twenty one in the season. So they're going to obviously get that. And their point differential is worse than every team in the West except for two. But look, it's not like it's not like they're great in the standings. All right. So Pokaski, we knew that he could pass for a big guy, even though he looked like he weighed about one twelve. And the footage of where he played the competition was not tense.

OK, he also was the footage showed a guy who is like one hundred and seventy four pounds and seven feet tall. Now he's probably a Chris point eighty eight maybe. And he kind of looks like the guy on the Instagram videos that gets his haircut. And you're like, oh my gosh. Like what did they do to this guy? And you know, another thing I've learned from having Instagram is that international people don't know how to cook eggs properly.

You just burn the shit out of them, abuse them. But that's another whole table that we'll do that on my podcast. So Pokaski in their win against Houston, by the way, where Houston ran ISO John Wall down to game, winning three to win it because the rule is down to two pointers. Don't count. You only can shoot threes now.

But that but that was a secret, weird game because it wasn't a has the top four Houston pick. So Houston actually needed to lose the game, but Houston wanted to win one in Houston and win the game and now it's coming down the stretch. But you can't tell the players to tank and there's just a lot of shit going on. There's also turn on the radio as a jacket. That's weird that you were listening on the radio that's driving back from Vegas.

It's weirder than either of us watch the whole game. But Christian, what I think at twenty seven and he also did something that was awesome where he didn't get the ball last couple of possessions. And when they were coming out of the timeout with John Wall, he just shook his head the whole time he was standing by the bench. So they are getting ready to check in. And Christian, we just shook his head because he wanted everyone to know, fuck this, like, yeah, I'm not getting the ball enough.

I'm the man. And it's why, despite his immense talent, they're like some of the teams that he's left have been like, all right, good luck, OK?

And he's been awesome. Look, he's incredibly talented guy, carried over and duplicated more than duplicated everything he was doing production wise when he was with Troy. So he had a stretch where he dribbled. Right. And just fell down on his own, like just yard sale right at the baseline. Somebody grabs the basketball away from him. He comes down the next time, hits a three like and it was nice. And the best thing about Pokaski this pass is you're like, holy.

He's like, where the hell did this guy learn? Well, he did this thing where he beats the guy off the dribble, but he's always thinking slash and kick. But he's like a ten foot one and half the time you think if you just kept dribbling, that's probably a layup or a dunk. But he's he's always dominant, trying to find shooters like he's LeBron. It's he's one of the strangest players I've ever watched because, you know, even when I was talking to people about him for the job, like in teams that didn't even like or like that, guys throw some passes, though.

But what I always loved about him and I would tell you and I'd send you clips of it, I feel like this guy gets so pissed off when he doesn't get the ball. He's so mad. And I was like, I wonder if he's going to do that. And was like, yeah, yeah, he's doing the same thing. Like, he'll be like thirty feet out on the weak side, flapping being like, how how have you not swung this back over to me.

So he falls down, no one touches him and it looks like how this guy even in the league and then he gets a three and you go OK. And by the way, he's so young that none of this matters and that there's actually some real positives and. All right, so this is mostly positive thing. And then he hits the three and then they come down again. And this is after he lost like two people in transition defense. And it was a disaster.

Like he'd even know who to close out on that helped where he wasn't supposed to help pick the wrong guy transition. After he hit the three, he came down and he was probably like twenty seven feet at the break. And I go, he's wide open. If you pass it to him right now, he's going to be Guinness record out of his hands. I mean he and it was awesome airball.

It was out of his hands so fast and it was like not even that it was you know, I mean if you were American, he would have blown on the hands afterwards to make sure they were right. Right.

He's the all time quick release guy who has no business being an all time quick. This guy, the other thing about him, if you made a rule that. The basically the eight feet of the paint leading toward the basket was just had an electric current hot lava keptin on, it would be air, hot lava. So don't go near that thing or you buy something bad will happen. And then you said, what would it be like if somebody was playing like that?

You'd pick him because he has a fear of being within eight feet of the basket on the other end hole like block shots and stuff. But offensively he just really wants to be twenty five feet away at all times. He wants to be, you know, instead of being on the first floor of the House, he just he likes to view at the top. He likes the view from far away. I get it. I get a kick out of him.

His body is unlike anybody that has ever succeeded at an NBA level. I mean, let's be honest, although Britain sees videos like that guy's jacked.

Right. But I mean, like they think this guy might be like an all NBA guy some day. They're like all in on him. No, there's some people that, like, are going, you know, he's the age where he was playing and that he's doing this now. I mean, look, he'll have games. You go through his game blog and you go, I can't believe you took an eleventh shot. Like, what were you doing that day?

And then he'll be I think he's had two two, four eleven games. I got to check my pocket.

Well, the free throws, he's he shot zero free throws in every single game except to. Two of his last five games, he set free throws in, I would say this is for the whole season when he does go into that that danger zone of the paint, though, that's when he does you're right on the kick. And then he went around the back, I think it was at the G League Showcase where I was like, I don't know, five guys in the NBA would even attempt this pass.

And it was sick. It was believable. It's funny how protective the fan bases get of guys like this when you're having kind of a crap season, because I you know, obviously I've had a few Crap's Celtics. This is my day. But I remember Gerald Green was one of those guys where he'd be like Jeff Green was basically his rookie season. It was similar to Pocho is mostly a train wreck. And then there is a couple of gems and you'd latch onto those gems or that one dunk in traffic or whatever.

You know, he's getting it. So, yeah, I mean, he's got all the tools. It's got all the tools. You remember that late March, early April run Gerald Green had? Yeah, I started to call that like the fool's gold season of the NBA. And I'm afraid in a weird way, we're having a full season of it. But there would be this stretch, the last ten or twelve games where everybody was tanking, you know, two thirds, the league is tanking.

And then you would see these guys have these incredible offensive stretches. And then it was almost like winning your bowl game, winning like the Idaho Bowl. And you'd be coming into next year going, dude, this guy this guy has it figured out. But it's such a great point about the fan part of it, which, you know, you can feel detached because you do this for a living. But my analysis is mine, that my analysis is watching players.

And, you know, I, I like my track record. Sometimes I'm wrong about him. But, you know, what never factored in is my emotional attachment where if this guy's better, I feel better. Right. You know, so if your argument to me is I'm wrong about the player and you're right because it'd be awesome if he was really good for your favorite team, then we're not going to talk about it.

I looked at Joe Green's second season when they were tanking for the D.A. and Latorre. The seventy six game of the year, they lost to Atlanta by eight, this was after they lost their last they had an eight game losing streak. And he was on a stretch where he scored twenty one, twelve thirty three, I'm telling you. That's right, yeah. Twenty two and twenty one. And then that CGG trade, it was like, can we give up Gerald Green?

I mean, can he be in the trades and we're already given about Jefferson, like we have to throw in green, but that my point is you get irrationally attached to these young guys with potential. And Pocho is the greatest example of that. Like, I guarantee there's OK people right now. This is like, hey, man, they are fucking poker, man. He's only 19. That's Kevin O'Connor. Kevin O'Connor gets mad at you for making fun of funny, because here's the deal, the bad rumor about it at least, right?

Put the bad pocho clips are hilarious. They're just they're fucking hilarious. And maybe he's going to be really good. He's really young, Prest. He's got a good track record. And that whole organization, they should win some sort of award because I can't believe how competitive they are and there's not really a ton of guys in that roster. They'd be starting a good teams. But yes, the poker thing may work out. But give us this.

You have to admit deep down, when the highlights are bad, it's it's bad. I mean, there's a lot of things about him that if you catch up, we're still talking about. Well, if you catch it for the wrong minute, you're like, this is unbelievable that Sam Presti lose a bet had it. How long before they give this up? And then, you know, I watch the Memphis game. After he lit it up, I went back and watched the second half on the NBA app, and he looked pretty good, like he looked a little Turkish.

And then you're like, oh, my God, what do we miss here? Yeah, he's if you're there, this is the most fun version of a shit season you could possibly have. You have no chance of not being one of the three worst teams in the West, and yet somehow they're not one of the three worst teams shey each. I would say when you consider. Game play today, yeah, no, but I'm saying maché like maybe the Clippers could have gotten Paul George without even throwing them in if they had really stuck to their guns.

I don't know. Presti obviously was going, we're getting shey. But you think like. The pics were the story of that trade with the people who did actually watch Clipper games say, oh my God, look at all those pics and pics, swaptions like and this give up shake. By the way, I should when I said earlier that there's nobody on the team to, like I say, not playing today. Clearly, every team in the league would want Shea.

I mean, he arguably should have been an all star this year. And whatever you thought of him before, where you just whenever I remember the first time I saw him in person, I went, oh, shit. Like there's something now. I didn't love the playoff stretch, but we can just chalk it up to being young his first time through it. But he's taken it to another level and he would be any team would want that guy.

So, yeah, they have at least one. I love George said yeah, shot it. I mean it went from why is he shooting in that Houston game or Houston series where it just felt like everything was a struggle for them offensively. You know, even though it goes seven games, I think just watching that series you just went everything is a struggle for the Thunder. When Houston gets rolling, it just feels easier for him. But, yeah, it's been a big, big play.

We'll say we'll save the rest of our NBA stuff for Thursday when we do the trade deadline. What's your non sports thing? Is Matthew Modine back? A Modiin assets, yeah, so I saw him in wrong turn, which I thought was really good. I genuinely like that. The remake of Wrong Turn. You know, he was in that.

No, I was taught he's in the operation Carcetti Blues, which is really good.

Chris Smith did that. Yes. That is really excellent. He's awesome. And it Modiin awesome in it, I thought. When I heard that was the idea for the movie, I was like, that's not going to work. Reenactments like people have tried this, this never works and it actually worked. He's also the author of The Avenging Dad in a Wrong Turn. And he's really good. And that's who I think we're in a Modiin essence. I think it's happening.

Maybe you lit a fire under when you guys went at each other on Twitter. You trusted me. Yeah. Could have happened. He was legitimately pissed, I think, because I was like, oh, he's still going at me. It's like whatever man I was. So that was your non sports thing, the Madina. Yeah. And I would recommend the Netflix doc on the college scandal. It's a good watch, but don't go into it thinking it's going to win an award or something.

Just you watch Berrytown yet. No amount of peaky blinders run. I finally got to that. Did you ever watch it? No, I didn't watch. Why not just haven't gotten you're missing out. It's worth the same reason you haven't gotten a Berrytown. I haven't had a lot of time, I've been watching basketball, I've watched I mentioned on the podcast before, but just once, you know, I'll get on it this week. But, you know, when you're watching Thunder Rockets Games and Sunday afternoon in L.A. and it's nice out, that means you just locked in.

Pluto has been to have a Johnny Carson channel, and I keep drifting over there to see who the guests are and it's like stepping into an alternate universe, I have to recommend that. You have to give me your highlights right now.

I told a story on the we watchable tomorrow about the best. I don't want to step on that on the watch because I told a story about this one I saw last week, which I thought was amazing. I'll tell you who I saw the other day, though. Joan Rivers, who I think has now been lost in history as being hilarious. She came on and crossed 19 lines. I think the funniest thing about these old shows is we're so hypersensitive to any sort of triggered joke.

And he triggered all these things where you hear somebody making those jokes, oh, they're going to get in trouble. And then The Tonight Show, they're just blowing through the stop signs. And it's just over the course of some night in nineteen seventy five. I watched this one. It was Glen Campbell and Don Rickles sitting in Glen Campbell looked like he was on something Don Rickles. And he keeps interrupting Don Rickles. And it's it's unbelievable. It's like this wasn't that long ago.

It was less than 50 years ago that we interacted in this completely inappropriate, politically correct way. And it's really hilarious. So I've been enjoying that just because I feel like it's like going to a different universe. Who's your favorite guest on those? Like, who's your who's you're like, OK, I'm not doing anything. I'm watching this entire thing. I know there's a lot Rickles, right? Yeah, Rickles. Because, I mean, he recalls, could never really make it on TV.

He had a bunch of he was on CPO Sharky. And, you know, his big things is a variety shows, but it was like Carson was where he made his bones. You go on Carson, he was just kill. But Joan was another one who I think was was really underrated. But that but watching, especially in the 70s, was the command that Carson had of just there's five, four or five people on the on the couch and he's like the dad lording over everything.

And they'll they'll poke fun at him. But you can't let go too far. Yeah. He'll come back with, like, a fucking zinger and, you know, just like shoot it down and then adds over on the corner and he's like joking. And you never know, like, how sauce that was. And it's just it's really something it's it's so unpredictable. That's, you know, I think TV now where you have to be predictable. That's part of how you have to do these shows.

Right. You've got to do it the same way with the same things. And, you know, you've got to cater at certain ways and it's just fucking crazy. But when Kimmel was doing his show, that was initially how we wanted to model the show. It was after, like the old Carson's and the Mike Douglas was just like, put people on the couch. You never know what's going to happen. Nobody would want to risk that now.

So why did you try to do that early on with Kimmel? Oh, yeah, I remember you guys had the bar thing and that was a disaster, right? We had the. Yeah. That got canceled, but we had the guest house guest host every every week. There's a different guest host, so and they would be out for the whole show. And then when the other guests would come on, everybody would stay in and the couch would just kind of fill up.

But what you find out when they do the focus groups of people like, yeah, people don't like the guest house, that was that's what happens. That's just kill. They kill everything. You know, it's tough as anything new, obviously, but there's just such a buy in with Carson that you have to like. I grew up watching the reruns during the day and you just I don't know, like as a kid, I was just like, there's something about this where you just assumed it was great, you know?

And I'm not saying it wasn't. Yeah. You didn't have as many options, obviously. But there's something to be said about, OK, I'm we're so critical and nasty. And maybe it's because of the way we are now or because we have so many options. But imagine turning something on now being like, OK, I'm thrilled about this. I have no idea what's going to happen, but I'm just thrilled and I can't wait to be entertained.

I don't know that any of us watch stuff that way. And that's how I used to watch that show where I just I can't wait to see what they're going to do on this. And even though, you know, it can feel outdated, it all kind of stuff, they just. I can't imagine how much fun that run in Hollywood was like when you were in that group and all these entertainers, I'm sure there's some version of it now, which I thought you were going to introduce me to, but it hasn't happened yet.

But when I whenever I think about Los Angeles and those people like running the town, it must be I mean, there's books and all that kind of stuff, but it just must have been unbelievable. And then to be like, hey, I'm going to do Carson again next week. Oh, all right. Yeah, I'm going to be bi and all that kind of stuff. And just, you know, I know there's probably people who didn't like each other and all kind of stuff, but I don't know.

I'm always very enamored with the whole thing because it seems so foreign to me. Me too. I it's going to send me on a Carson book, right? I think I think I'm going to I have one of the books, but I think I'm going to zip through some of them. I'm going to go through a 60s, 70s, old Hollywood run, I think is going to be my next book, Run. Just kind of dive into it, because after you guys did the Chevy Chase stuff, what did you do?

You did Caddyshack, right, watchable. And then you guys did a big Chevy Chase thing. And so then I read the SNL book. Yeah, the oral history, one that you you recommended to me and the Chevy Chase stuff is so good that I got kind of a wormhole of his interviews, like when he was a king and it was unbelievable. And then it was after the cocaine run. And then I forget who it was asked about cocaine and he just shitting on the guy, interviewing him.

It was the funniest thing ever. And then for whatever reason, Chevy Chase really didn't like Bruce Dern really. And he's being asked about Bruce Dern and he's just like crushing Bruce Dern. But it was it was really like Chevy was annoyed. The guys like you having me on the show, then you're asking me about Coke and Chevy just turned on the guy. But he did it in the way that like when Chevy was at the height of his powers, it was so funny.

Like he just crushed this. And I think it might have been. Trying to think it was because it was one of the main guys that was interviewing him and he just turned on him. Chevy Chase is a good rabbit hole. There's some good Internet rabbit hole is one of them. There's good interviews. There's good features about him over the years. You can you can go a lot of places with that. I went through a normal one because I had a normal one of the better YouTube rabbit holes, right, because I had an Bogosian who I love and we had him on again because the specials out.

And at the end of the interview, I pitched him a couple of jokes, but I went into it knowing, like, this isn't going to work. And I texted him ahead of time to be like, hey, this is my plan. And he was he wasn't into it on text. And I was like, God, it's going to be a disaster. And it didn't work. And I just thought it was funny. So I was researching like comedians that do bad jokes.

And Norm has this whole clip of on the show that he used to have where he'd have guests come by and read the jokes that those guys wrote and they read them back to him. And they're just funny enough that they still work despite like they're still actually funny because it's Naum sense of humor. But I can't imagine anybody else being able to pull it off. And you're right, Norm's a perfect example of it. Just it works in on YouTube.

Norm's terrific. Norm MacDonald for those that may think we're talking about. Cheers. Yeah, just Google. Norm MacDonald. Courtney Smith. OK, so Thursday. You and I, for the trade that I'm going to start taping, we'll get that up, we think it's going to be a good trade deadline, right? There's too many too many teams that are kind of in that. Fuck it, maybe we could be better. Maybe we could get a Forese, maybe get a five seed, maybe we could flip the switch, that I think there's going to be some desperation.

I really do.

I don't think it's going to be a dead tree that there's a counter that, though, with the playing game and some of the teams that have felt stale for such a long time that, hey, we get to make the playoffs now, having the 10th best record in the conference.

But you still think you're going to know you're not going be able to do anything in the playoffs. So I think I think would be the counter. All right. We got to go. We got to put this podcast up. We went 12, 12 minutes past past our due date. I look at you. I will see you on Thursday.

Sounds good. All right, that's it for the podcast, don't forget about a new watchable is going up on Monday night, insidious. An influential horror movie so influential, you probably didn't realize how influential us, but that's coming on Monday that if you love horror of her films, check that out and look back on this feed on Tuesday. See that? Simply safe is incredibly easy to customize for your home. Just go to simply save that piece. You can easily choose the exact sensors you need or get help from one of their experts.

It'll get to your house in about a week, which means by this time next week, you and your whole family can go to bed knowing your home is being guarded. It's easy to assume everyone in your house already feels safe.

Well, they might not, and it's worthwhile to talk about it. Simply save a small, easy step to make sure everyone feels safe at home. Go to sitcom such as today to customize your system and get a free security camera once again, simply set for two hours, simply safe dotcom Saabs.