Coming up, part two of the trade deadline extravaganza was kind of a dud. Spoiler alert. Next, we're also brought to you by the Ringer podcast network. We launched a couple of YouTube channels that has a lot of content from our podcast. We have a Ringer NBA channel now. We have a ringer NFL channel now, and you can check out YouTube.com slash Bill Simmons if you want clips, full podcasts from this video, some talking talk shorts. I might do one later today. Actually, if you missed part one, Ryan Rosal and I broke down all the trades leading up to about 2 hours before the deadline. And part two we did as the deadline was happening and boy was it not exciting. But we actually spent more time talking about the teams that didn't do anything and why did they not do anything. So that's next. First, our friends from projeb it. We're taping this. It is 11:50 a.m. Pacific time. The trade deadline ends in ten minutes. Ryan Rosillo is here. We did part one a little earlier today. Part two is right now. No big trades yet. Rosillo, we were on call. Little disappointing, but WoJz Narrowski is tweeting that Atlanta is keeping Dejante Murray.

It makes no sense for me that they're just not going to do anything. I don't really fully understand that. It doesn't make sense to me that Golden State wouldn't do anything. The Lakers feels like they have to do something, even if it's a little minor. But what would be the most shocking team for you not to do something?

I mean, unless this is done, the thunder not adding a big guy to the rotation because even though, as we talked about in part one, it's hard for me to buy in if I've never really seen anything with that group playoff success, we can be surprised. So it's not an automatic dismissal, but it just felt know this is a really good team that maybe has a chance. Ball breaks their an injury in the playoffs, usually we get two or three significant ones and I just think that they're really good and it would be awesome to have just another big option depending on a matchup in the west and considering all the resources they have, the surplus of things. But it felt like there weren't as many big like for years. We've always felt like, oh, you can just go grab a big man and you know what? Look, it could be a buyout thing. I can't give you the perfect name that solves all their problems. You mentioned Pearl there a little bit, but I just felt know why not just be in control of it? Unless they already know something on the buyout market.

Well, the bucks just traded Robin Lopez to the kings, who is waiving him to save some luxury tax money for the Bucks. That might be who you're looking at. It's like the Robin Lopez type of guys, which to me is not what I was expecting in OKC. Was there anything that made you want to run down you're in Vegas, anything that made you want to run down to the sportsbook and put down bets? Nothing yet, right? Any. Do you want to sprinkle a little on the Knicks? Nothing. You get any urges?

I just had a hard time sleeping last night. I was like, I'm so excited. Like, what tax move will happen? Which guy will be traded for two future seconds that don't convey in 2027? That'll save somebody tax money. I thought we might get just a barrage of ten deals where they pop up and you're like, what is that? And then you have to kind of dig through and be like, okay, they're underneath the tax thing. And as we see the more punitive steps moving forward with the new structure of how teams are penalized for going over the tax aprons, I thought there might be some maneuvering for that. This is a dud. This is as big of a dud as I can remember you.

Yeah, well, you even think like the warriors, if they're not going to try to make the team better, try to get off the tax because you're going to have like a 400 million dollar roster this year, your two games under 500. So at least try to do some deal to save you some money and they're just not doing anything. Yeah, I thought for sure we'd have a couple of wild card trades, like, for instance, there's a little buzz and I didn't see it reported, but I do think teams were trying to pry Marcus Smart away from the Grizzlies, especially as they really go down the road of possibly being like a top six, top eight lottery team. And that was what I thought the Lakers non Murray move would be, that there might be a Marcus smart out of nowhere, and that's how they would use that 2029 first and whether it's like d low for smarts and plan. But even that didn't happen. So if you're the Grizzlies, I guess you hang on to smart and you think, we'll come back next year with that lottery pick. But I do wonder if somebody could have pride them away.

The big trade that we had so far was the Mavericks getting PJ Washington.

The thing is, you said the big trade we have, and I have no idea what you were going to say.

Well, this is a big trade for us because Grant Williams lasted a solid 50 games with Luka Doncic and Dallas, and he gets moved to Charlote with our guy, Seth Curry, who is married to beloved Ringer podcast host Callie Curry, who has to move again. I might have to have her back on the podcast. Yet another move. They were super happy in Texas, but Seth's from Charlote. They also got a 2027 1st rounder. Here's what's interesting, Rosillo. They had to do a 2030 pick swap with San Antonio to get Grant Williams in the first place. So now they have traded Seth Curry, who was their kind of mid level, lower mid level exception guy signing from last year, from last summer, Grant, who is their big kind of move for some money that they did the pick swap with, and a 27 1st rounder for PJ Washington. So the question for me is, is PJ Washington worth all of your summer cap space, a 2031st round pick swap and an unprotected 2027 1st? Because I think that picks unprotected. That seems like a lot for somebody who's never played an important game in his life.

Yeah, I like PJ Washington, but when you look at the profile of him, it's been getting worse and it's been about a three or four year decline. The three point shooting has gone down four straight seasons. The Metrics have gone down three straight seasons. Like where he was from, kind of his peak of three years ago. If you just want to look at the advanced stuff, you can make an argument. He's like half as productive as that, but I've just always kind of liked him. Charlote has been a mess. The 27 picks top two protected. So that's a real pick. Who knows? These teams that don't want to protect these picks further out, the receiving team basically looks at it like, hey, this is a chance of, we at least know on paper, we have a chance of maybe getting this absurd pick. Say, like a scenario where Luca in 26 goes, I've had it, I want to go somewhere else.

Or a scenario like what happened with the Grizzlies this year where it seemed like they were going to at least be a playoff team, and now all of a sudden the team's a disaster. So top two means, hey, you're one disaster away from you. Might have a top five pick.

Yeah. That's why you have, like, brooklyn, you go, well, what are you supposed to do? And they go, even though we'd love to try to figure this thing out on the fly, we're not in control of our own. Can't, we can't rebuild the way another team would do. The same way you look at those Clippers picks as they move those out, I'm sure Presti and that group were hoping that Kawhi wasn't going to resign or that they don't add harden or they wonder what's going to happen with this Paul George player option. Although it still feels like that's a deal that's more likely to get done because clippers are like, we might as well just pay all of these guys because we don't own any of these picks moving forward.

Yeah, they don't have, they don't have 26.

They have a swap and 20 swap in there. Right?

OKC was feeling great about that, but we're running out of time.

Yeah, there's a lot of roulette to all this, but the simple answer on the PJ thing is his money isn't bad for what he is, and you'd imagine he's a little bit more engaged. His life is going to be a lot easier with Luca. Although I think there's a Luca topic that we could spend an hour on, which I'm not even sure what the answer is. He's 15 and a half million, then he's 14,000,026. Grant's a fully guaranteed 41 million remaining. And here's the deal. I don't know that Grant vibed with everybody down there, which I know is shocking to you.

I don't think it went awesome.

I do not think it did either.

And unfortunately for him, I think he lost his confidence a little bit. And if Grant's playing without confidence, you're in trouble because confidence was two thirds of the package. A little like Jordan Poole in Washington. A no, confidence is not the Jordan pool you want. I still feel like Grant could be a valuable playoff guy on the right team. I just don't know how many of the right teams there are and who the match is for that. But man, I can't believe he'd be.

This bad for the rest. I just think it didn't work out. It was a long stretch of not working out. But if he's not hitting those threes, like when he was hitting those threes with Boston, you were like, wow, this is great. And then you felt like he kind of played a couple different roles defensively, but I don't know if that diminished a mean.

This offense went sideways last year in the playoffs. So I just feel like Dallas gave up a lot and I don't think there's a scenario where they're a top five team in the mean. Do you feel like they're a borderline playing team and they've spent a lot of capital to try to improve the team? Right now they're eigth, they're 28 and 23. They have a chance maybe to get to the fifth or 6th seed. I don't know if I see it. And then there's the hammer of Luca might decide one day, want to go to LA? I want to go to Miami. I want to go to New York. Like, who knows? And then they're pretty strapped with those picks. I'll say this, those late 2020s Dallas picks are picks. I would want, like if you were going to say, oh, Denver, Milwaukee, Boston, all the teams that have kind of traded picks way down the road, Dallas would be the most intriguing situation to me because I think it's going to be really hard to put good team around him. Kairese had a normal season, right?

This is real quiet.

No drama from him at all in their 28 and 23. But I don't mind some of this Charlote has new owners. I don't mind some of the stuff they did today, dare I say, like a fairly competent Charlote run we're having because Brandon Miller versus scoop, we were both team scoop, but Brandon Miller, you're doing that over again. We were wrong. Brandon Miller was the right pick. He's really good. And the trades they made today, they end up with Trey Mann, they end up with Curry, who is at least like a fun guy to have on the team. He's a good chemistry guy. Maybe you can flip him in the next five minutes. They end up with Grant, they get some picks. So at least it's starting to make sense what they're doing. I think long term the question is what is Lamello ball? Is this a stable franchise guy? Is this somebody on and off the court that can be the face of a franchise? I think they have to figure that piece out and I don't know the answers to that.

Yeah, and they'll have a Miles Bridges decision where he could veto the trade. With the way the contract worked, you knew that his trade market was going to be diminished just based on, I'd imagine there's a good chunk of teams that would go, hey, he's been a really good player, but we're not taking this dude on. It's a cross, which is totally understandable, but it's not like he's not going to play in the league again. So I don't know what happens there because he's been really productive.

He had 45 points, what, last night or two nights ago? I know everybody can score in the league. The league we have now, especially with some of the defense stuff that you and I. Most of our texting now is about terrible defensive calls and terrible refereeing situations and people lurching into somebody and somehow drawing fouls just seems to be like 80% of our correspondences. I don't know.

It sounds like you want to go on a rant here. The floor is yours.

Well, I put something at the top of my trade value thing that week because we ran the list on the ringer and I wrote like a few paragraphs at the top and I just value defensive guys more than ever before when I'm making that list. I really care about the ability to be able to defend and be a two way person versus scoring. I think it's super easy to find scoring now. Like Miles Bridges getting 45 points in a game ten years ago be like, shit, miles Bridges. But now it's like, all right, I feel like 50 guys in the league could have 45 points in the league. I don't even know how to put it in a context anymore, especially with the rule stuff. So I just care way more about guys that can defend than I think I ever have because I don't know.

How you're supposed to defend anymore. And I know that a lot of people have done the deep dive on the free throw rate, and the free throw rate tells you that your eyes are lying to you. And I would suggest that the free throw rate may not be the thing to look at because it reminds me a bit of the block shot paper that came out at Sloan over a decade ago. And I don't know if you remember that when they had the Sloan conference and somebody came up with a paper that was basically like, block shots are the most overrated thing. Because if you look at block shots and the numbers and how many times the possession changes hands, it doesn't really change hands enough. So basically they keep the possession and all you did was block. And my first instinct was, yeah, but it's not about the number of block shots, it's possession. It's about the offensive player thinking about somebody who's blocking this many shots.

Like Wembanyama right now, right? Yeah.

You just see players attack some of these shot blockers where they just give up on the attack. And so that's a defensive win because now you've basically discouraged the player from taking a high percentage shot because he knows I can't even get a clean look at it. And I think there's some, this is just me talking, some correlation between, it's not the free throw rate spike, it's that you have a ton of terrible fouls called where the offensive player initiates all of the contact and we can get in debates about legal guarding position. And I know a lot of people that were just true to the rules of putting yourself in a compromising position on the Pat Bev Steph Curry play that I tweeted out and I was like, look, you've got me on Steph's positioning, but clearly the intent was Pat Bev to go into him and not really care about any kind of shot. So I don't want to debate that call all over again. But if you're asking the defensive player to avoid those, then you may not see it in a spike in free throws. You may just see it in guys turning into matadors out there going like, I just maybe have to hope to stay on his side, get out of his way as he lunges at me, get out of the way of his arms and maybe get some sort of contest on the release.

We have a league now where I don't know what happened with creating all this extra space the last few years on the three point shot, where there's this gathering extra step that's legal. You have a league where you can't really contest three straight on anymore because if the other player lands forward on purpose, by the way, then you're reviewed for flagrant when you didn't even do anything wrong, but the offensive player can rig it enough to make it look like that. You have the Damien Lillard play, which more and more players are doing, where you come around the screen at the top and as the defensive player is working his way around the screen and trailing you, you can just stop on the ball movement and then he slams into you only because he's trying to catch up, he's not even trying to foul you. And then all the other stuff where you have these, I think, parallel drives of the paint, they're not even at the rim, where if you're with him on his side and they veer into you and then get the shot up, it's always going to be free. Throws. So I don't know how much of this will carry over into the playoffs.

I think, unfortunately, it's a different game in the playoffs, but it just happens so much that you're right to your point on the scoring numbers. There's nights where it's like all sorts of guys can get their buckets because everything is favoring the offense in a way that I don't know that we've ever seen collectively. On all those things we talked about.

I compared it to a mosh pit. It's the mosh pit era of offense where you can just, like, if you watch people in a mosh pit, they'll just jump into somebody. They'll just jump sideways, like, when you least expect it. And that is now being rewarded with offensive play and basketball. I can drive. You could be next to me, defending me and doing all the right things, and then I can mosh pit right into you and it's a foul on you, and it's just not basketball. You wouldn't be able to do this if we're playing in a playground, in a high school gym, you wouldn't be able to do this at the elementary school level. Anything that's just not basketball they got to figure out how to get rid of. But anyway, that's our rough. Yeah, that's it. We did. Oh, all right. So we have some trade stuff. The Mavericks. Oh, my God. So the Mavericks, they pulled off the Rashawn Holmes Daniel Gafford trade. They got Daniel Gafford, who's better than.

I like that for them. Yeah, I've always liked Gafford.

They have agreed, according to Mark Stein, to swap their own 2028 1st round pick with Oklahoma City's own 2028 1st round pick in order to obtain a 2024 1st round pick from the Thunder. So basically, I guess they're sending that 2024 pick to the Thunder. From the Thunder to Washington. So now the Mavs have swaps in 28 and 30, and they don't have their picks in 27 and 29, so they are almost gutted. And they did it all for Daniel Gafford and PJ Washington. I don't know if I love it. I don't know if that's winning you the title.

They may have had competition for PJ Washington, though, because he was name that was on the radar for other teams. You know, the fact that you could only get that to be a top two protection. And as you mentioned, like Charlote, hey, some nice things here. You still feel like with ownership, specifically that owner, they're probably going to clean house again and, and just, hey, let's do all of this over. Oh, the Celtics got somebody.

Jaden Springer, right? Is that who you're talking about? Whoa.

Does that mean the Sixers young wing tanking?

I think they wanted one more young wing that potentially they could see what's going on. But Tillman was the guy that they wanted. Let's take a break because we got to talk about the Lakers not doing anything. So we're going to do that next. So Rosello Fanduel and Rob Gronkowski are back with kick of destiny two as Rob looks to redeem himself after missing last year. He'll be kicking live right before kickoff. Fans will be able to pick whether he will make or miss in the Fanduel sportsbook app for their chance at a share of 10 million in bonus bets. Before we make our picks, what is your single favorite Rob Gronkowski playing moment? What's the one that jumps to your head?

I think it was a Super bowl where somehow he got lined up on the outside against a linebacker one on one. And he and Brady already started celebrating for the snap.

I loved. He had, I thought, the best throw of Brady's career in the Denver game, which ended up losing 28. The pop off, they didn't get the safety. No, Bray. It was like fourth and 17 and it was like, we only have one play here, it's got to be gronk straight down the middle. And it was like the old video game play and Brady just chucked it. It was perfect. Gronk had two guys on him, got popped, still made the catch, kept the drive alive. They end up scoring, but they don't get the two point. But I love that he got the touchdown or he set up the touchdown drive for that last Rams game, too. Anyway, he's, I think, my second favorite patriot of all time.

Who's first? Grogu.

Brady. Brady Gronk. I know Brady's not a cool pick. It's like my favorite band's the Beatles, but Brady won six Super Bowls like he was the first good quarterback we ever had. Bled's always good, I guess, but I'm.

Not going to get a new case for picking Brady one. I mean, if you're. Brady one. Yeah.

Gronk second. Anyway, I am going to pick that. He makes this one. I think he's been practicing. I think he missed last year, so it's a make for me. What do you got?

He told me he's staying in all week. Really?

To get ready?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah. Because of this kick. He told all of his brothers, all 17 of them, he's like, don't come to Vegas. It's about the kick. It's not about us. We've had our run. And he said he worked on a lot, of course, this year because he felt like his plant foot was off. So he's told me he's staying. He's, he's getting to bed early. A lot of leafy greens. I think he makes it.

Inside info from Marcillo head to the Fanduel sportsbook app to make your pick now. Watch the kick before kickoff live on Super Bowl Sunday. All right, so now it is like ten after twelve. The warriors, no trades for them, nothing.

So you sound surprised by this. What would you have done? And I know I'm putting you on the spot here a little bit, but to say, hey, they should have done something. The follow up is always okay. What would you have kicked the tires on? Because I'm not telling you. I have a perfect answer. I just think they have a very challenging set of assets.

I don't have a perfect answer either, but I think if you're not going to do anything and you're also not going to shed money for the tax, well, I guess they shed a little bit with the Corey Joseph trade, but that seems strange to me because there's under 500 at the 50 game mark and they have the Chris expiring and the clay expiring. You would have thought that might have been some way to improve with those two expiring contracts or one of them, and they didn't do anything. So basically what they're telling us is we kind of like where we are. Chris Paul's coming back, Gary Payton's coming back, Kaminga's made a big jump over the know, four or five weeks, and we actually don't have to do anything. We're good. But I'm still a little surprised. I would have thought they would have done something. Maybe there was no trade. Maybe they tried.

When I started thinking about it a couple of weeks ago, there was a rumor about Wiggins potentially to Dallas, but that meant Grant might be coming back. So then you go, all right, well, is there any way to get Josh Green in a deal? Okay. But it's like, well, not for Wiggins contract. So the Wiggins market was going to be limited because I just think more of the teams would go, hey, even though Wiggins had that really nice run in 22, that's just not who he's been. He was disappointed in Minnesota. He's been a disappointment since then. He completely looks out of it this season last year.

So he came back the last couple of games, he had some good games, and I wonder if that maybe convinced them.

I don't think it convinces them. I think the salary makes it really hard for him. Look at the Chris Paul thing. Okay. All right. It's this massive number, right? It's a $30 million trade chip. But if you're trading Chris Paul, if another team is trading for him, that's likely a good team that goes, we want Chris Paul in our rotation, probably not our starting point guard, but what a great option to have. We could even close with him in a big playoff moment if he's back and healthy. Right? Totally fair. But which team is then giving you something that, you know, if they're already good, they're not going to move another piece that they like for Chris Paul?

Or are you just trying to cut Chris Paul for money? Like, if they had traded Orlando and gotten Fultz's contract back and one more contract, so they're shipping out 30 and they're getting back 24 and they save 6 million, which leads to, like, they say, 50 million in lux tax, but they didn't want to do stuff like that, which makes me think they might be good. The trade that I thought they might do. You asked me like, all right, what should they have done if it had just been Wiggins straight up for Bruce Brown? And Bruce Brown isn't expiring with a team option. Toronto kept Bruce Brown today. And if I'm Toronto, would I have rolled the dice on Wiggins, changed the scenery, put him in Canada? I got a Linux. I've got a little canadian thing going. Maybe I pick up Corey Joseph on waivers from the pacers if they waive him. But if you're Toronto and you had the chance to turn Bruce Brown into Wiggins, would you have done.

Like, look, the finals run was a know that season he made an. He was, he was really good. And you thought, hey, this makes know he's decent enough to size guy to give you some options in the perimeter defensively, his life is going to be a lot easier with Steph and Clay and Draymond having the ball all the time. And it looked like that was maybe the turning point of his career. It's clearly the best he's been, but I know not everyone loves per, but he was still a 15 that year, he's a 10.9 this year. So you're like, okay, now he's going to figure it out. With all this remaining money. So I just can't imagine. There were many teams that were going to talk themselves into him making 27, 28, and 30.1 million the next three years, and that last one being a player option when he's, what, 31, 32 years old. So there's just not like, if we're sitting here talking about it, you would have had to have taken back something if you were Golden State, that probably, maybe you stay within the 25% to lessen the tax bill a little bit.

But it does feel like they're going, hey, get Chris Paul back. Last run with Clay, even though that's been bad, Kaminga has been better. Draymond's back. Although it's funny seeing Draymond when Pajamski got thrown to the ground by Claxton, Draymond was the first player. He was like, of those two players in the altercation, the third player on the scene was Draymond. And all Draymond did was kind of put his arm on Claxton, then go over to check on Pojemski, and I went, wow. All right, that's interesting. Anger management classes two months ago. You think he goes at Claxton a little bit. Know, they keep talking about being a prideful group and all this stuff. It can seem stale, and, hey, this team isn't good. Like, what are you doing? I just felt like so many traits for them are really complicated, and that was before Kaminga turned into this, this last month, where that's the asset.

But maybe that was what changed it. I think if I was Toronto, I think I would have done something with Wiggins and Bruce Brown, maybe tried to get moody out of it or a protected pick or something, but I would have gambled on Wiggins, because at least with Wiggins, we've seen him do it. Now he hasn't done it. I don't know what happened to him last year. He sucked for most of this year, but it's not like he's 35. And if you're a team like Toronto, I feel like you have to take swings like that. Otherwise you're paying Bruce Brown $25 million next year, which I'm not nuts about. And then the difference after that is one extra year with Wiggins. So I would have thought about it, but, yeah. So Golden State does nothing.

They may look at the Bruce Brown thing as like a one year. The Bruce Brown thing for the Pacers, looking back on it was like, look, with the team option in the second year, they just say, let's use our cap space. And ends up becoming an asset the Pacers are really smart about. You know, maybe that's just the way Toronto looks at it for that one year and they feel like he doesn't need the ball.

He becomes an yeah.

Yeah.

I like Bruce Brown. I thought he was going to be a fun trade deadline guy. Lakers did nothing. Chris Mannix tweeted. They rebuffed all efforts to pry loose Austin Reeves and D'Angelo. Russell's recent revival had them reconsidering the value gained by packaging Russell in a 29 number one. I totally agree with that, by the way. So they do nothing and I actually think that's the right move. I'll be interested to see what LeBron thinks about it. But they made the western finals last year. They've had some injuries to at least some of their role players, but the way Davis has played this year, I don't think you need to go nuts, know, do some hail Mary trade. But on the other hand, Davis has been so know, maybe bet on some of the guys you drafted and you got him free agency. Gabe Benson will come back. I'm not against, definitely.

I like them not doing anything because I don't think anything was presented where you go, wait a minute. Why would you turn that down? I think it was about flipping Austin Reeves for, say, levine if Levine were healthy. But I think that's a LeBron motivated thing. I think wanting Dejante Murray would have been a LeBron motivated thing, even though I think Murray is better and Murray's owed a lot of money. But it's not like a gross contract, especially with the new landscape of the cap continuing to go.

So do you like what you've seen from Murray?

This know I like like I know he's not know. I can understand the warts, but it's not an ideal situation because Trey's so talented, he's going to have a ton of possessions. You can just like I finally dawned on me, as much as they've tried to stagger those two of the minutes and stuff, and it feels like they're playing more together now this year, especially like in the fourth quarter, they just don't really play with each other. It feels like, hey, if it's a gigante possession, then Trey's kind of over here, and then when it's a little.

Like the Mitchell Garland thing that we had issues with, I'm with you. I agree. They don't mesh very well. It is what it is.

So the market for Murray, I don't know if it was the money. I don't know if it's what people seen in Atlanta, but it felt like it wasn't really that competitive. And clearly Atlanta not moving him tells you, hey, we just come back this summer and that circles it back around to the Lakers here, is that it didn't really make a ton of sense until they figure out what kind of draft capital they have, which is when New Orleans has to make a decision on whether they want the 24 or the 25 pick. And then once that decision is made, then the Lakers have more assets to then kind of look at it this summer, even though it's not on LeBron's timeline. LeBron's got that juice when he's 25 and he's 30 when he's 35, and you're freaked out as a front office and ownership, as a guy who's 39 next year and with the player option where he'll turn 40, I don't know that you're as beholden to go, well, we've got to do whatever this guy wants, which in this case, I think moving another pick in 29, moving a cheap player who's their third best player in Reeves despite what Russell's done this last month.

Plus, I think it's the right move to stand Pat unless there was an option that you or I don't know about, which is totally reasonable, that there could have been something else. But clearly they didn't want to do anything until they figure out because they're going to have more picks come this June to go, wait a minute.

We.

Might have that other piece that we've been looking for here this summer. Somebody demands, they demand to come here and then the other team can be like, okay, well, now you have access to more picks as opposed to the 129 that they have now.

I'd love to know from the Lakers side how fed up they were with LeBron, and we'll never know because they're really good about not leaking stuff out. It's basically get a bad some point gun. That's it. But I don't understand his week, Bill.

I just don't understand it. You.

No, I'd said something about on Sunday's pod. I talked a lot about it on Tuesday. They've done so much for the dude over the last six years, and they've traded so much stuff away. They've traded so many players, acquired so many players back and forth, and he's not the same guy anymore. He's 39 years old and I don't think he's one of the eight to ten best guys in the league. I don't think he can do it regularly like he used to. And unfortunately, I think this is what happens when players get, when the greatest players get older in the NBA, this is usually when they start getting grumpy. It even happened to Bird. Like, go read Jack McCallum's book, unfinished business. It's about Bird's second to last year with Boston. He was super grumpy in his third to last year, second to last year, and was battling people and was mad all the time. And it's really tough for these guys when they go from, I used to be able to dominate and I was the best player in the league and I walked on the moon basically as a basketball player. And now I'm getting older and it's not coming as easily and maybe when I snap my fingers, they're not getting me whatever I want.

And it does feel like there's some of. For, if I'm the Lakers, the best thing he did for us was, I'm saying us like, I'm with the Lakers. But Davis resigned and Davis has been awesome this year. They got Reeves to get in on a pretty cheap contract, right? And they still have some flexibility, they have some picks down the road. And if LeBron doesn't want to stay, I'm not going nuts. If I'm the Lakers, I'm like, you know what, we're okay. We still have Davis. He's one of the best twelve players in the league and we have some pieces. We're still in a big city and we'll be fine. What do you think as far as.

His decision on the player option? I mean, it's a massive, massive number. I don't know if he would just decide, you know what, I'm going to go chase it somewhere else for like a completely reduced salary for one year in an option or two years.

A lot of teams have cap space. Where's it, the right teams?

Yeah, right. So when you go through the teams that have the cap space, Philadelphia is the only one that you would say, and Moore even said it recently in an interview. He's like, there's not going to be any teams that are as good as we are this summer with their projected 50 plus million in cap space depending on where the cap lands at like 100 and 4142 million. But I just didn't really look, with LeBron, it's very simple and we're all this way. You do what you can get away with. And for his entire career, he has delivered on the promise of, when you have me you are in contention, okay? Probably better than any basketball player since. Know that's a very short list of guys. It's like as soon as I'm on your team, you have a chance. And he's extended that window beyond anything was even imaginable. So anytime I'm critical of him, I almost feel guilty because I feel like it has to be talked about like in two lanes. One is what he is doing at his age and that it's so absurd there's nothing even left to say because you can't believe it.

But as far as who he is as a player now and what his demands are and how it was always met in the past, because you were always on this LeBron clock of him having all this power and these shorter deals that he used to do before he got to Los Angeles where you're constantly worried about is he happy? And he wants you to move every single pick for him and for that season, even if he's probably like a long term bad partner because he's not worried about any of that other stuff. He's completely about him and his own quest, which is fine, he was that kind of player, but it's 39 years old heading into 40, it's like, okay, what kind of player are we likely going to have? And by the way, normally he misses like 20 plus games and he's not missing any time this year. So that's another part of this. When you look at the Lakers, you go, wait, LeBron's putting up these numbers and he hasn't missed any time Ad's played all season. He's been great. DeAngelo Russell's hitting every single shot now. Reeves, after the slump wasn't very good, but what's wrong with him?

I felt know the Knicks cowl thing was stupid.

The emoji.

Yeah, right. And he had a quote where it was like, hey, do you think after they'd beaten Charlote, I think somebody asked him, does this know with this little uptick lately that this team has a paraphrasing, right, has a chance? Does this win streak kind of prove that classic like end of game question? And LeBron was like basically, hey, this is who we have, so whatever. And instead you think somebody would go, who's a little more polished, would just go, a lot of the guys from last year that made a run that nobody thought we could make are all here. We know what it takes. Just let us get in. Because of what we did last year.

We won the season tournament. We have a good team, right?

Western conference finals. And instead of doing that, which most every guy would do who's been around long enough, he basically was, you know, we're not that good, so unless these guys do know. I thought if I were a teammate and you started yelling that your son is good enough to start for the team right now, I'd be like, are you serious, dude? Are you serious? And I know he's hyping up his son, which is cool, and it's a proud dad, so a part of it. But if I'm another player, to my original point, when he's 25, 35, you're.

Freaked out this whole week, 2014, LeBron, it's different.

But right now, you're kind of like, hey, I know you wanted us to do something, but what was on the table didn't make a lot of sense for us. And now we have more options this summer.

The thing that really kills him is the Westbrook trade, 27 first. That was kind of his get out of jail free card with, we got to do this. And it worked out so badly. I don't know if they have to listen the same way. I'm not even sure I know they got to the western finals last year, but in retrospect, do you think a western final sweep was worth giving up the 27 first and just getting Vanderbilt and dealo? Basically?

No.

Yeah, it's tough in retrospect now. When they were making a run last year, it seemed better, but then you go back, you look at that run they're playing Memphis. They catch Memphis banged up at the perfect time, but you get Golden State.

I did after that series for a team that got swept, too. And it was.

I, like, I felt like they were close.

You said you thought they were the third best team in the NBA.

Yeah. So was that worth the 27 pick that they could finish last season as the third best team in the NBA? Basically.

Well, it's an unfair.

I think you could argue. Yes.

Well, I don't know. Say, hey, if you make this move, you get Westbrook out of here because it became untenable both ways because it is weird, like reading some of this Westbrook stuff where he's happy with the Clippers and everything and you're, you know, he's embraced it and there's a lot of anti Laker stuff that'll happen with the coverage of that. It's like, you know what? Westbrook at that point needed to probably go through that to then understand he needed a nut, was it was too early for him to. It may not even be a Clippers Lakers thing. Maybe it's LeBron, who knows? But that first wake up call usually isn't smooth for anybody. And he may have needed to actually go through that to be happy and understand everything he needs here. But if you had said, hey, if you move this 27 1st round pick and you're going to have a chance in the Western Conference finals, you go, okay, wait, what's the point? Let's do it. But then looking back and saying and phrasing it as, oh, they got swept and they had no chance against Denver. And now that pick is still due.

I think you can make an argument actually for an answer on both of them, but to me it doesn't feel worth it because you're just moving off of somebody and you're bringing in a role. Guy in Vando who I do like in D'Angelo where. Yeah, but I know what the numbers are for Russell. But you also know that that other stretch is coming.

Yeah, it's true. He's the craps table. It's like the craps table's hot. I'm going to keep winning all day. I think the Westbrook thing is hilarious that he's actually become one of my favorite bench guys.

Yeah, you were mad at me the other day for not including him. My Clippers breakdown. You love Westbrook now.

Yeah, I know. Well, no, I like him. I think it's nice to have a guy on your team that can change the energy of a game. Which he can do. He can come in if the team's kind of dead. They're down twelve. He comes in, he's flying around, he's getting rebounds and he can shift the energy, which I think is a skill that he was not able to do on the Lakers for whatever reason. What other teams didn't make a move? So we had the Lakers, the Warriors. Is there anybody else that we thought might do know? They're kind of handcuffed, though, because they had those weird picks with the different protected pick stuff. I also feels like they're betting on their young guys and maybe getting a guy because everyone wants to play with.

Yeah, they, they brought in some guys and I felt like with Mike Malone I was like, how much are these young guys going to play? But you've seen some of them get opportunities. I don't know if they're playoff rotation guys. It would seem like Watson is the one that gets more of a chance than the other guys, but they didn't necessarily need to do anything. You just asked who mean Phoenix is the same thing. They're pretty stuck, although they added O'Neill, actually, so let me make sure I cover that part of it. Royce O'Neill.

Yeah, we're going to hit that for.

That team because you know exactly what he's supposed to look like. Play defense, take a couple of these shots. It gives us another rotation guy as opposed to some of the guys they play, which they probably don't want to play in the playoffs.

I'm going to say this nicely, because I don't like really criticizing players because they're all way better at basketball than I am. I'm just not a Royce O'Neill fan. I don't get it.

That's the player that makes you realize you're not good at basketball.

No, look, he's a zero offensively, right? It's like, oh, he's 38% from three. All the threes are wide open. He averages like eight points a game. And then it's like, oh, the defense. Are we sure he's even that good at defense? Because I remember when he was in the Jazz, they played the Clippers that one year, and Paul George just destroyed the Jazz for that whole series. And then I remember the Nets traded for him after. Remember the Nets gave up a first round pick, like, oh, intangible glue guy defense, wing. And I'm like, I just watched him get torched by Paul George. Like, how good of a wing defender is just, I just feel like you can find those guys all around the league. I'm not sure. You have to trade second round picks and pay them 9 million a year. That's my take.

It's funny you bring up his offense because if you look at the box score stuff for his career, he's a net negative offensively, but he's always been a positive on the defensive side. I liked him when he was in Utah, and I think this next collection of guys, it's just been kind of a rudderless group where it's a bunch of interchangeable dudes other than, you know, Cam's obviously gone off on some of these games. And then there was a Claxton decision because he's an actual unrestricted free agent with the way his contract worked.

They had too many wings and it was stupid, and they should have traded some of them in the last deadline, and they didn't, and they could have gotten the two first for Finney Smith. And I just don't know what kind of team they're trying to put together. I don't understand these gms. Sometimes it's like it's too late to make it. They made the Durant deal, and it's like, it's too late to do anything else.

Yeah, but they made the Royce deal thinking that they were going to have a real team last year.

No, but I'm saying, after they traded Durant, when they traded had. They had Royce, they'd Finnny Smith, they had bridges, they had Cam Johnson. Like, what the fuck are you going to do? Only two of those guys can play at the same time. Maybe three. I don't know. I didn't get it. Let's take a break. And then I'm going to throw the one team that I was really disappointed, didn't do anything. So I said how there was a team I was super disappointed in that just had no gonads at the trade deadline, that just decided to have apparel Spritzer instead of just having. Just throwing a shot down and having a cocktail and fucking going for it. The Orlando magic. What are you doing, sir? Rudy, what are you doing? What's happening here? I don't understand.

What did people expect? This team, they don't get another good.

Player and try to win a playoff series. You have Paolo.

He's great.

I would have liked broggin, I'll tell you that. But I wasn't going to give up a ton for him. I would have liked Tyas Jones. Wasn't going to give up a ton for him. Somebody had told me they'd offered, like, a million second round picks for him, so I guess that didn't get it.

Don't.

I'd rather just get to the season and then reassess there. Yes. You have Fultz's contract. Wendell Carter Jr. Was kind of, like, floated out there for a while because Goga played well, but I didn't think it made any sense to trade Wendell Carter Jr. When his stock was probably at the lowest it's been in years. Yeah, sure. If you can get, like, a Darius Garland. We talked about this on text. I'd do that in a heartbeat. I'd give up a lot of assets to get him, but clearly that wasn't on the table for so.

Well, you had fultzes expiring. How about this? Could you have topped the budy healed deal and gotten one more shoe? That one? Pretty sure you could have.

You probably could have. But I don't know. Maybe buddy was just like, hey, I'd rather go to like, because I think he's an expiring contract. He's got. This is the last year of his deal.

Yeah, I don't know.

So maybe Orlando didn't want to give anything up for him.

Does he?

You guys are going to laugh at me, but I'm in team play. Anthony Blackmore minutes. We're not winning anything this year. I said before the season, getting into the playing is a win. If they can get to the 60s, that'd be great.

But this is everyone on our third place team, our 10th grade basketball team, our JV team just won third place. Okay, we got to all chip in and get everybody trophies.

Let me ask you this, okay? Everyone was all excited when the Cavs traded for Donovan Mitchell, right? Oh, man. They're pushing all the chips in. This is great. And I think there's an argument to be made that that sort of started the growth of a guy like Mobley in his offensive game, because now all they asked him to do is be a good defender. He's not a three point shooter at this point in his career, and we're talking about now, has his stock gone down? Should they try to trade him? If the magic trade for somebody like that right now, you still have Franz and to. I don't want to take any development away from those guys, and I don't care if we win a playoff series this year. Next year I probably will. So, yeah. Would I have liked to see something on the margins of Brogdon? Yeah, I would like to see buddy heal Tyas Jones.

Sure.

But if there's not a trade out there, I'm disappointed. I'm just not mad about it.

Marcella.

I'm with Steve on thing. Fultz is, like, one of the most misunderstood players ever. They kind of need Fultz still. So even though he's an. Hey, just let Suggs and black, like, I've liked some of the Anthony Black minutes. I've also seen some games where he doesn't look like he's totally comfortable being out there, like, making decisions, or he gets the ball and it's like, all right, somebody else take this away from me here. And Paolo initiates so much of the offense and that you don't want, like, a ball dominant guy to turn Franz and Paolo into spectators. And now they have this closing lineup with Isaac, which is just absurd when you watch that Minnesota game.

Oh, look how happy Cerudi Isaac. That was Isaac Renaissance.

That's the happiest moment of 2024 for me. I mean, I know we're only a month in, but my God, that was awesome.

It's always two things. Okay? You wish they had done something. Okay. What did you want them to do specifically, like, who was that player get Malcolm Bragden.

How about Malcolm Bragden? Or how about buddy healed? How about one more good guy?

You know what? I wouldn't have hated, actually, and this would actually work for both teams, because I do think you talk about Foltz, though. He's kind of the OD man out. They paid Cole. Suggs is obviously there.

Black Cole's been better now, too. This year, I went from not liking him to going, I like him. You know what? He's been just smarter about decisions and everything. So go ahead.

No, so I was going to say is, I wouldn't have hated the situation where maybe you send him to San Antonio, where you actually get a point guard for Wemby, and then we take Doug McDermott back and get shooting. But I don't know that they were willing to trade. Like, I still think you're right. Foltz does have a decent role for the team, maybe not long term, and we'll see what happens this summer, but there probably just wasn't anything there. I'm okay with just seeing how the rest of the season pans out with this young team.

It's been 15 years since the finals, and the Magic fans are just completely beaten down.

No, the good news is I just.

Want to be in the play in.

We've got a guy who's untouchable in your trade rankings. Like, I'm cool, man. We are very happy with where we're at right now.

He was. Paolo was number eight. Rosillo.

They've got to spend that money, though, this summer before the extensions kick in for those guys and I don't.

That's another thing.

But you could make a trade this summer. Can't you just make a trade this summer? You still have your picks. You don't have to just sign somebody in free agency. You could take on salary that way.

I'll tell you what I was rooting for was the warriors tax dump with Chris Paul, where they traded Chris to Orlando, and then you guys were aligned. It was like the mega powers when it would have been macho man and Hulk got together in the late eighty s and was like, this is great. These guys are now in the same team. Brasillo gets to chase a title with Chris Paul in Orlando. You get Chris Paul, would have been great.

I would have moved to the season, I would have done my podcast, and then a magic Chris Paul hybrid special ringer edition.

That would have been amazing.

Prestige NBA pod.

Just break it down. High screens.

Can I leave you with this I don't think.

Stay with us with this.

This is a huge if.

Huge if, I don't know. You can count on one hand and maybe like a couple of fingers, how many guys are more talented defensively than Jonathan Isaac? It's like Yanis and that might be it. That dude.

For taller guys or just anybody.

Just anybody in the league. Like, guys are shooting 27% when he's guarding them. What he did against Minnesota, and again, he's going to get hurt probably next week and this is going to matter. But holy crap, he is insane. Like, think about him in a playoff series where you just go, hey, guard Jason Tatum for seven. Like, that's going to be a nightmare for any team that they have to play.

Well, he's playing Wemby tonight. Yep. Which that'll be fun if he gets thrown on Wemby because, you know, Wemby will try to test them, but they don't play the. Do you? That might not be till April that, you know. No, you already played them already. Yeah. All those games are over. Yeah. So I did think about that because he is the type of guy that Tatum would not know what to do against, and it would just be a slew of terrible step back threes as my dad is texting me like every five minutes right now. They're the 8th seed. It does look like there could be Miami Orlando. Seven, eight play in is in. Cause they don't. Even if you win your division, you stay in the same seed. We learned that last year. But Miami Orlando would be fun. Throwing Isaac on Jimmy Butler.

Their game and a half back is not. There's nothing to be ruled out here. They can still get out of the I.

Well, you know how every year after the trade deadline, one young guy makes a jump? I do wonder if it's Palo this year where Palo just goes like 30 and ten for five straight weeks. I could see it. I've been impressed. All right, thanks, Rudy. Yeah, thanks, guys. We have the world's number one Orlando magic expert here. We got to bring them in every once in a while. The Bucks traded for Patrick Beverly. They got rid of campaign. Can't believe campaign didn't work out on the Bucks. I really had my fingers crossed.

Hey, by the way, the second statement has to be the motivation behind that because I was watching Windhorse on the special and he goes, if you're the bucks and you're going, wait, we're kind of around each other and you're willing to give us Pat Bev? What does that mean? I think it's getting rid of campaign. I'm not a huge fan necessarily of either of them. I have a really hard time with campaign possessions.

Me too. Well, I think part of that was doc and pat bev had that Clippers history. He loves bev.

Yeah.

So he wanted to bring one.

But does that happen though, where it's like, oh, you want one of those guys now? Who knows? It could be. We don't want to know. With the way you have batum and uber making shots. Maybe Maury and nurse are looking at it being like, hey, pat bev's minutes are going to get swallowed up here with healed. So that way we get off of pat bev and then I don't would. I'd rather have pat bev than campaign, that's for sure.

Pacers got Doug McDermott for Marcus Morris in a second. Be fun to see him basically in the buddy healed spot, launching threes. Pacers are kind of operating around the fringes in the trade deadline, but I didn't mind that one. And then forgot to mention with the Mavs trade how seth Curry ended up on charlote. He's an intriguing buyout guy to me. I still feel like on the right team, especially a team that had a center, like if he was on Denver playing with. Cause we we've seen like the best seth Curry ever looked was playing off of embiid that he's, I think with the Celtics, too, it would be another team playing off porzingis. But I still feel like as a buyout guy, he'd be pretty intriguing. I don't think he's washed up by any means. I just think it's like situational with him. You like him at all?

I've always liked him, and me too. The philly part of it is a great call because you look at seth and you think, okay, well, where are his limitations? And it's like, you know what? Even with brooklyn at times he can actually put it on the floor a little bit and kind of reset himself and get a little bit of space. But it's clear the NBA doesn't like him as much as we do, man. He's a $4 million non guaranteed for next year. So when he signed with Dallas, you were like, that's all he know. With this just obsession with finding as much shooting as you can, or there's so much shooting now with everything that we talked about earlier that he doesn't stand out as much? Or is it just because you feel like, hey, in a playoff series, can you really survive with him defensively and some of this stuff, I think there's more to him than just the catch and shoot stuff. But it seems like the NBA, again, is cooler on him than you and I have been the last couple of years.

I'm still high. I'll buy everyone else's stock. Okay. How'd you feel about Monty Morris going to the t wolf?

I really liked it because they need another option with Con and, you know, I kind of like in some reserve stuff, but I like Monty back when he was in Denver. You're not going to get a ton of offense, but the guy makes shots. And you could do worse than him being one of your three kind of rotational backup point guards.

And I wonder, shake Milton's another possible buyout guy with Detroit where some teams that would, I think, kick the tires on him, too. Killian Hayes got released.

That's going to be an agent thing.

That seemed like a fuck you.

Yeah, but that's, hey, what's done. It didn't work out. It's over. I think there was a divide on Killian on the front office anyway, so that usually is somebody where it's like, let him go get minutes somewhere else and see what kind of contract you can get this summer because it's not going to work here anymore in Detroit. So I think that's probably a favor.

Can we go through the 2020 NBA draft just for fun? The weirdest draft of all time. Because it was Covid and nobody could work out anybody. Interviews are on zoom. Edwards goes one to Minnesota. Somehow they nail it. Wiseman two to Golden State. Lamella goes three to Charlotte. Then we have the Patrick Williams, Isaac Akoro four five to Chicago. Cleveland. A congu goes six to Atlanta. Killian seven to Detroit. Obi Toppin eight to the Knicks. Nine is Abdia to Washington. Phoenix takes Jalen Smith 10th, and within two years, he's off the team. Devin Vassal goes 11th to San Antonio.

And by the way, Jalen, they don't pick up his first option and get rid of him after spending the 10th pick on him. And he's still good enough to be on a team. It'd be one thing. You were like, hey, and playing Patrick Bradley like, we just screwed it up. It's not going to work. Let's move on from this thing. And instead so bad, we just completely gave up on the asset.

I don't know. Devin Bassel goes 11th and then Halliburton goes twelveth to Sacramento, which we were outraged by at the time. It seemed too high. Neesmith goes 14 to Boston. Cole Anthony goes 15 to Orlando. Tyrese Maxey goes 21st to Philadelphia quickly goes 25th to OKC. Jaden McDaniels goes 20 eigth to the Lakers that gets traded, and then Desmond Bain went 30th, eventually to Memphis. That is one of the weirdest drafts we've ever. We haven't done a redraft of that one yet. We did a bunch of redrafts during the COVID year, but it might be time to do a 2020 redraft. Maybe we could plan that because we're going to start doing Sunday nights again in a couple of weeks. But that is, I think, the single weirdest draft of the last ten years.

Yeah. And for whatever reason, I struggle with Patrick O'Brien remembering his name.

What'd you call him?

I called him Patrick Bradley. He's not. He went to Bradley and he was nine.

When you said Patrick Bradley, I thought, wow, I don't even remember Patrick Bradley. He really had a short career.

No. Patrick O'Brien with, like, the new structure of the first round was. He was the 9th pick, and he was like, two years.

I remember.

See ya.

Yeah, tough one. Anything else? That's it. Anything else you want to cover? Pretty weak trade deadline.

Brutal. Here's what I would cover. I know that it's a lot like signing day. I've used this analogy in the past that no matter what decision you land on, you can find people who complain about it. In college football, signing day, no matter what the day is, a reporter can have five coaches saying, hey, this is the dumbest day ever. And for all these reasons, they all could be valid reasons, and then you could change it, and then you get five different coaches to tell you why that day is now the dumbest day to have it. So it's kind of this unsolvable problem. I feel like the NBA trade deadline is a tad more solvable. The Thursday shouldn't be before the. It's.

Well, I mean, God damn it. When would you put it? Would you have done it next Wednesday?

Well, they don't want it to interfere with all star stuff, which is totally understandable. So whatever day I would theoretically pick here, I know you could find problems with it. This can't be the way you would want to do it. If you're the NBA and you want to maximize the attention, you can't have it a couple days before, like, we're watching some of the stuff on tv, and you're going like, look, it's Super bowl week. It's Thursday. A lot of the tv stuff as soon as this deadline special is over, that's going to be it. And this one was such a dud, you're never going to hear about it the rest of the week anyway. But you could either just wait until March 1, which with the play in tournament now keeping teams alive maybe further into the season and the teams at that point, with a few more weeks, go, hey, who are we kidding here? We've got no chance. This should be about activity. I'm not using 24 as it does because we kind of knew this coming in the last week of conversations. You're like, man, this one might suck, but either move it in front of all of this stuff or put it the week, the first by week of the Super bowl, put it a week ago on Thursday or put it later because of the play in of all the problem scenarios that you could come up with, stuff I'm not even thinking about, I still would imagine that makes more sense for just the attention part of this on the sports calendar for the entire year than the Thursday before the biggest game in the country.

Especially after how they figured out that June 30 July 1 free hd stuff and really turned that into this massive two day event. To me, it should either be they got fucked because the Super bowl moved a week because they added a week to the season.

Right, right.

And so now it was like head to head with when the trade deadline usually is, but they should just make the trade deadline whenever that dead week is.

So you're saying a week ago?

Yeah, it should have been last Thursday. I don't want to mess with the Super bowl at all from the NBA. And the people listening to this are like, well, when do I care when the trade deadline is? Well, I woke up early today and I made coffee and I was watching get up for like 80 minutes waiting for them to bring on anyone that they had in the NBA standpoint. And they did Super bowl for 80 straight minutes. And Greenberg is out there. He's like starting arguments with himself. He's doing the for the people who say they're tired of watching Patrick Mahomes, who are these people? How could you be tired? How are these guys the villains? And he's having these straw man arguments. I'm like, oh my God, can you guys just tell me if Dejante Murray is going to get traded? Can anyone? Come on, guys. Now is Brock Purdy, what's at stake for him? And they're doing all that stuff. I'm like, jesus Christ. Any trades going to happen?

Well, with this trade, but that's problem.

With Super bowl week.

Yeah, I don't blame them necessarily for going hardcore Super bowl with the names that were flying around for this deadline, but you would just avoid it. You would just avoid any of that happening. And look, the deadline, football is way.

More popular than basketball. I get it. You're going to talk football on a show over the freaking whether Deshaun T. Murray is going to get traded. But I was starving for information today. I wanted it.

I bet they change it because I don't know what the argument is to keep it today. No, we like this. We like having three days before the biggest thing. Anybody like the thing that there's no even close second to what people are paying attention to in the sports world?

Well, your idea of moving it to after all star break is kind of interesting, too, because the play in tournament does keep teams hanging around in a different way. And we arbitrarily decided the trade deadline should be around the 50 game mark. Right. That was just something they decided 35 years ago. For whatever reason. Now it's 2024. Maybe it should be later. Maybe the buyout guys should be like March 10 and you do it that way. They should definitely reconsider a lot of this. At least they've been willing to rethink this stuff. Right now, our title favorites, Celtics, Nuggets, drops off a little. Clippers, Bucks, Suns, Knicks, Oklahoma City 20 to one. Cavs 22 to one, Minnesota 24 to one, and Philly is now 30 to one. And then everybody else are long shots. New Orleans at 46 to one. Now there's a team where I would have said, oh, they got to do something, and I literally can't tell you what they should do. I don't think they have guys at every position. I didn't know what the trade is. There were rumors they were trying to go after Mikhail Bridges and got shut down.

I don't know if that's true, but there's certain teams where I don't even know what the move was.

Yeah, I always like the best version of, you know, when it looks really good, it looks really good. It just doesn't look like that long enough for you to feel like you can get a real sense of like, they never feel like they get into that rhythm for a really long stretch. You go back to last year when I was looking at the Nuggets record before, like when this week got started and I did a pot, I was like, hey, they were 35 and 16 last year. They're 35 and 16 now. But it feels different because last year the west was just a very weird conference. And now this year it's like, man, that's four really good teams. And then you've got Phoenix lurking there as well. It feels deeper at the top. And yet Denver's got the exact same record. Almost all the stats line up to be pretty identical to where they were last year, but they're sitting there in the fourth seed and you're kind of know they deserve the benefit of the doubt. If somebody said they're winning the west again, I'm not going to tell anybody that they're wrong. And if the Clippers aren't healthy, I'm probably picking Denver anyway.

But I look at New Orleans and go, last year when Denver was 35 and 16, Memphis, to your point, part one was three games behind at what, 32 and 19? That was like an OD. And then the Pelicans. The Pelicans were the two seed all the way until December 31.

Yeah.

And we're watching them going, look how deep they are. And every night you can kind of attack a different way offensively. And I see certain matchups where it feels like New Orleans is so much bigger than the opponent or Sacramento that's ahead of them in standings. And I go, how's Sacramento going to defend these guys? Get four out of seven from them.

With the way the Clippers felt that way last night? A little bit. Yeah, bigger.

There's certain nights with them where I'm like, man, that could be a real problem. I've enjoyed watching them play against Minnesota and Oklahoma City, too. So if you're talking about value on just the gambling part of it, I'm with you there. The only thing I could think of is they said, okay, we have all of these pieces. Do we really think like Dyson, Daniel ceiling is maybe, and I still really like him, but you go, if he's really going to be special, maybe he's just stuck with the log jam of shot opportunities everywhere else and CJ run things. Maybe there's something there and I'm sure somebody else would like know. Do we say, hey, instead of having Herb Jones and this Murphy thing, like, let's consolidate what we have for one move. But teams seem to reluctant. It's almost like, hey, we'll only trade this guy if we're completely over it. And I doubt they're over any of those guys because I like them. Have a lot of hope for some of the guys that I still like coming out of the draft.

Yeah, there was a nets trade where it's like Daniels, a couple of New Orleans picks that they got in the different trades. Like that Lakers pick they have that could be either be 24 or 25. And they just for first, Daniels. One more piece and we're overpaying from Mikhail Bridges. We're giving you like 130 cents in the dollar for him. But now we at least have a better idea of who our five is. I look at the west and I don't remember the top seed being this up for grabs. Like, you have four teams that have the same amount of losses that are one through four right now. OKC, Minnesota, Denver, the Clippers. They'll have 16 losses and the team that falls fourth has to play Phoenix in round one, which we'll see if Nurkage is still healthy at that point. But you're still going against these two incredible scorers for two weeks. That's not a fun round one. And then the prize probably for the three seed is to play that New Orleans team. We're talking you. If you're, I don't know, Oklahoma City, you're like, oh, we got the three seed. And it's like, oh, shit, we play New Orleans.

They're bigger at us at literally every position. Not awesome.

I do wonder if people will be kind of seed hunting and looking for Sacramento. Like, okay, it comes down, you know, it feels a little insulting the way Sacramento has played the last couple of, you know, defensively. I just think they're going to have a really hard time with the other good teams in the west. And I just wonder if there'll be a team that goes, hey, we don't have the tiebreaker and we lose tonight. We lock in Sacramento instead of Phoenix or New Orleans.

Sacramento is my west coast. Milwaukee. I know they're 29 and 21. I just don't trust it. I don't think they have it this year. I've seen them just get waxed a couple of times in ways that just I thought were alarming. Dallas is the most. Dallas is the eight seed right now. I'm going to watch them over the next couple of weeks with PJ and with Gafford and just kind of see what's going on with them because Luca's played really well, obviously about as well as he can play, and they've gotten the normal year. So what is this going to look like four weeks from now? Probably the same, probably.

I'm with you because I look at Luca as somebody in one series.

Yeah, you don't want to stuff he.

Did and you, you know, I know we're favored, but if that guy goes.

Crazy, that's the thing. If you're saying what eight seed could be to one seed this year, and I gave you, like, Miami, Orlando, Indiana, Chicago, the Lakers, Utah, Golden State, Dallas. You'd be like, dallas? That's the one. Yeah, because Luca could just win four games. You'd be like, whoa, holy shit, we just lost. What happened? All right, I'm going to.

And also Philly on the pat Bev thing real quick, too. That could just strictly be like, hey, we know we're getting Lowry in the buyout, so, yeah, now that solves. You get Pat Bev. We don't have to worry about it. We've opened up the Lowry minutes, too, as well as yields.

I don't know if I'd want this version of Kyle Lowry. I don't know if I'd be doing high five in the office about it. He wasn't very five week stretch in Miami as anybody had this year. He was terrible.

You know how many times, like, I guess Gordon Hayward going to be good to close the season? There's a lot of guys that I write off because I'm only seeing them play poorly for extended stretches, and they're older. I go, okay, look, the eye test, the numbers ever tells you it's kind of over, and then there'll be so many of these players that have this last lap resurgence that doesn't make any sense other than you realized, oh, this guy didn't care. Like, Boris Diao's entire career. You're like, wow, you were that. Like, you're such a non competitor that you didn't care until you were in a place where were like, okay, I guess I'll play now.

So Milwaukee is the three seed, and Philly's the five seed, and Indiana is now three games behind Philly, and B is not coming back a while. I'm still holding out hope for the Milwaukee Philly first round. A lot of subplots on that one. Plus, Philly obviously isn't too afraid of Milwaukee. If they traded pep everly at him, I thought that was weird, too. Yeah, take him. Here you go. All right, Roselle, are you doing a Super bowl pick on your podcast tomorrow?

Yeah, Super bowl pick. We got Troy Aikman, and we'll throw in a life advice for you. So we got it covered.

Who do I want the pats to get at number three?

Jane Daniels is incredible this year, and I didn't think he had it in him. And two years ago, I was kind of over him. But it's also, there's some similarities there with Burrow. Where? Burrow was like, hey, he's all right. And then it was like, oh, wow, he's had the greatest season of all time, and Burrow's a stud and he's wired. He's got all that stuff with him.

So I want Jaden Daniels. That's where I've landed mentally already. I had a cup of coffee with thinking, like, maybe we just take Marvin Harrison. Maybe he'll be one of the best receivers.

You got to take a quarterback.

Marvin Harrison's ceiling is high enough to justify that, even though it's a very high ceiling.

Well, I think it's pretty. It's.

No, but I'm saying, like, you would have to think he has to be Calvin Johnson basically to justify that.

I still don't even think I take a receiver over because then you have to go, okay, so then what? Who's throwing at Tim next year? Say the turnover ratio works in your favor and then you've won seven or nine games, and then now you're picking and you still don't have a quarterback. I think you keep taking quarterbacks until you get it right. You just keep drafting them, and there's no real plan that works any better than you just got to keep doing it.

I think it'd be really fun to have a Jaden Daniels type Patriots fan experience for the first time in my life. We've always had, like, quarterbacks that couldn't really move around. Fun, Brasella. Listen to his podcast tomorrow. Good to see you. At some point at the end of this month, we're picking up Sundays again and we'll be off the rest of the way. Good to see you. Thanks for the time.

Thanks, man.

Million dollar pick, Super bowl edition. Normally we blow this out on the Thursday before the Super bowl, but the trade deadline took it over. And plus, I did a lot with Sal on Sunday. You kind of know where I'm leaning on this game. I don't know why the Chiefs are underdogs. I don't really understand it, especially when you look at what the Niners looked like defensively, really, since Hafango went out, even the last three weeks against Detroit and Green Bay. And then that Baltimore game near the end of the year, Detroit put huge yards on them. They gave up 28 1st downs, 21st downs to Green Bay, 23 to Baltimore, and then the 28 to Detroit. Everybody ran on them. I thought they easily could have lost the Green Bay game and probably should have. They obviously should have lost the Detroit game. We'll look back at the interception bouncing off the guy's helmet and then Gibbs fumbling that stretch was just absolutely bizarre and weird. And look, they made it. It's great. Congratulations. But I think the Chiefs are better. I think the Chiefs figured out what their identity was after that weird Christmas game and they just have long drives.

They know what they can do and they can't do. They're going to try to come out of the gate, grab the lead. That's why one of the bets I like is Chiefs first half Chiefs game. But we're going to go into million dollar picks right now. Million dollar picks, Super bowl edition. I am up 2.293 million for the season. Last week didn't do well. Lost $845,000. I didn't feel great about it heading into the week, but now I look back and it's like I thought San Francisco was going to beat Detroit. They did. They didn't cover Baltimore. Should they have beaten Kansas City? Kansas City only scored 17 points. Baltimore scored ten and could not have played a worse game and shot themselves in the foot over and over again and had the worst strategy and still was kind of in the game. Joe House has a theory that the AFC is just much better than the NFC was this year and I kind of like it. Like Casey beating Baltimore and Buffalo I think is meaningful because maybe Baltimore and Buffalo were better than anyone in the NFC. I love this game to at least the Chiefs keeping it close, which is why we're going to bet $500,000 on the Chiefs plus two and a half.

And we're also going to bet another $500,000 on the Chiefs plus eight and a half. Teased with the under up to 53 and a half. So that means 54 points would beat the under and I don't see that happening because I think we're going to have long drives, some field goals. I think we'll have a missed field goal from Moody, which we can bet on. I just think this is like a Chiefs 24 to 20, Chiefs 23 to 20. Something there. Chiefs 24 to 17. I don't see a crapload of points, so those are my two big bets. Also putting 50k in the following props Brock Purdy over three and a half rushing attempts, plus 124. We've seen him, especially against good teams, use his legs for first downs. It'll happen three times. Also, a nice little tiny hedge in case the Niners actually win the game. He'll have a kneel. Kelsey, most receptions is plus 170. Grabbing that and 50k as well on Casey to have the first interception at -110 for $25,000 bets. This is a 13 one parlay that I've mentioned a couple of times. Casey wins first half in the game.

Mahomes under 262.5 yards gray two plus catches. I love Gray and Pacheco to rush for 70 plus yards. That is plus 1321 right now in fanduel. I also like Noah Gray for the first TD, which is 43 to one. Or at least it was when we did this on Sunday. Just could see that two, three tight ends and it seems like it's going to go to Kelsey. Oh my God, they faked us. That's Noah Gray. Valdez scantling longest reception. I love it. What a story for this guy. Chiefs fans hated him. He blew a couple games with some drops earlier in the year, redeemed himself a little in the playoffs. There's some good stats that we covered on Sunday's podcast about. There's not really like a reliable long ball threat in this game. So there's guys that have had big, long catch games, but for the most part, there's no like, oh my God, that guy's definitely going to have a 50 yarder in this game. So why not grab Valdez gantling at plus 800? We're putting 25k in that. We're going to bet on no successful fourth down conversion. Three to one odds because weirdly, the Chiefs and the Niners are very conservative.

And then last but not least, we'll take a flyer on Kelsey to win MVP. So that was 17 to one when I did this on Sunday and now it is 14 to one. I'm still taking it. Kelsey, 14 to one. He hugs and kisses Taylor Swift midfield and then all of the weirdos on the Internet say the Super bowl was scripted because the Chiefs won and Travis Kelsey was the MVP and he's hugging Taylor Swift and it's just going to make people mad. Seems logical. I think that's how it plays out. Chiefs to win. Those are my million dollar picks, Super bowl edition. Peter Schreger, by the way, also thinks the Chiefs are going to win as well. So that made me feel good. Anyway, million dollar picks in the books. Enjoy the Super bowl. Thanks to Kyle Creighton and Steve Saruti for producing and thanks to Ryan Rosillo. I will see you in this podcast after the Super bowl with the cuz on Sunday night. Don't forget about our Fanduel show with the wise guys on Sunday, Super bowl edition. And don't forget to go on YouTube.com slash Bill Simmons. And we launched a ringer NFL YouTube channel and a ringer NBA YouTube channel, so check those out as well.

Have a great weekend. See you Sunday.

See them on the way. So never.

I don't have.

With him.

On the wayside on the first.

Must.

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