RIP Bill Walton. Plus, Minnesota Avoids a Sweep, a Towns Semi-Redemption, and Best Backcourts With J. Kyle Mann.
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All right, taping this 815 on Tuesday night. Dallas had a chance to sweep Minnesota. They did not. The Timberwolves. It was a classic Timberwolves game. J. Kyle Mann is here. We got the full-fledged Timberwolves experience. We had some knucklehead fouls. We had some dumb turnovers. We had an awful challenge. We had some really stilted shot selection late. And yet none of it mattered. They played good defense. They made a couple stops. They made a couple shots.

They win the game. Now it is 3-1 heading back to Minnesota. Kyle, considering they could have won all four of these games and they're down 3-1, like this feels like a closer 3-1 than I think the usual 3-1, right? Yeah, I feel a little, a little queasy about it because I'm like, you

you know, you didn't really get great games from ant and cat in the first three. And we kept just kind of waiting around like Rob and I were talking, texting about, I was like, you, the ant game is surely coming. Like we're going to get some semblance of a good game. You know, tonight he was 11 for 25, two for five from three. Um,

picked his spots pretty 10 rebounds and nine assists. I mean, he had a lot of, uh, the past before the past kind of plays. He didn't necessarily make, you know, the pass, uh, like the home run pass, basically the way Luca frequently does. But, um, yeah, overall I thought, uh, I mean, we'll talk about cat. Um, it's, it seemed like their athleticism was a little bit more impactful in some key spots. There's some other stuff at Dallas, but you know, it, yeah, I mean, it was,

It seemed like they were spinning plates throughout this game to keep the offense going. You never really felt like, well, that's just something they're going to over and over again every single time. But they managed to get a big enough game out of Cat to kind of not as much Nas' game, but a big enough game out of Cat to seal the deal. Yeah, some timely town shots. Yeah, I was trying to figure out what they were doing because they were playing a little freer and a little looser.

They spread the floor better for Ant. They're doing a little three, one action with them. And, uh, he took, he had a 25 shots, eight free throws. And just in general felt more involved. They have some of the same trouble the Celtics do when, when the Celtics go into fun, although in the Indiana series, they didn't do this. Um,

when it's late, they just go slow. They like the ball goes over mid court. There's 17 seconds on the shot clock. They're dribbling 40 feet for the basket. There's like eight seconds left. You're like, go faster, faster, move, move, move. But it worked out for them a couple of times. The big sequence was they're down one and it felt like Dallas was going to do the Marion Rivera closer on them again. And, uh,

Towns had two threes. The first one was like a no, no, yes three. The second one, Edwards found him in the corner. And that one, you felt like that one was going in. But they were up five. And once they got that little cushion, that was it. We got to talk about Towns. Because this was...

When we send the towns, whatever hall of fame he ends up going to, that's probably maybe, maybe it's the basketball hall of fame, but it's some other hall of fame too. It's like the frustrating hall of fame. The, the, uh, my God, what a rollercoaster ride hall of fame, whatever it is, you would send this game tape. He gets six fouls. All six were terrible fouls.

There wasn't one like, oh, well, he can't blame him on that one. These were fouls. There was fouls at midcourt. There was... He's fouling Luka on threes from 28 feet. Each time, he didn't think it was a foul. There was an over the back. There was... Right, there was an over the back. He played the hits. It really was... Like I was saying, it really was...

arguably his magnum opus in terms of dumb fouls. And then he caps it off with a foul and a closeout game. Like really like, just what are you doing? And then the way he was pleading about it and arguing about it, you were like, what are you doing? Like, you know, you found him. Like, I don't even know what he was arguing about. Like it was a clear foul and Luca baited him right into it, man. And he took the bait. Yeah. Towns is the Michael Jordan of complaining. Yeah.

in disbelief on a foul that then they show the replay and it's like, oh yeah, that's clearly a foul. He gets his sixth foul. Luka does the little baits him into the double pump and then leans into him on the three at the top of the key and Towns crashes into him. Then he's just in disbelief, they called it. But I got to say he had some big rebounds in the second half in traffic. There was a point where I felt like maybe Finch just leaves him in

And just has him foul out naturally to get him out of the game versus like having to bench him. It's like, Oh, well, you know, you got six fouls. You can't play anymore. But, um, you know, there was a moment during the second quarter, I was making up town straights.

Cause I knew I was going to ask you about this. I was like, does the Nas like ascendance affect the way we feel about this? You know? Cause it was just like, it did seem like there was a little correlation between, um, between when, when Nas would get out there, when they would play with that, that quote unquote, heavy quote unquote, smaller lineup. Uh, but I was wondering that too. I was going to ask you about that. Talons. It feels like should have more advantages in this series than he does. Right. He's,

He's basically bigger than everyone on the Timberwolves who's not a center. He can't really post up with his back to the basket. When he tries to post up, somebody like P.J. Washington doesn't really work out well. So it's a lot of like on the perimeter stuff and they know that's coming and they're just kind of sticking with him. It feels like there should be more advantages for him in this series than there is. But I think this speaks to why Towns is such a strange player. Like he's somebody that, you know, averaged 25 and 10

during his career. And yet a lot of it is like this perimeter based or put back shots, but doesn't, he never really developed that. Let me at least get on the right block and I can spin into the lane and do my little jump hook. Like he just doesn't seem to have that arsenal in games like this, which is weird. He's 28 years old. Early in his career, he had a little bit of that, like either shoulder kind of, you know, jump hook thing going on. Yeah. Like a Duncan-ish thing, right? Like just a little bit, but it's, it's gone. Yeah.

It was pretty simple. You know, you'd see him get a little of that, like back to the basket sort of fade thing. But I mean, playing with Gobert, I think makes some of that a little bit tougher because you're always going to have somebody kind of, you know, sagging into the gap to bother those types of shots. And then the big thing I think for him is just that since he hadn't been shooting the ball super well, you know, he'd been sort of attacking from so far. Dallas had done such a good job of making him start further from the basket and he

Cat is like a one or two dribble repertoire type guy. He's not like a put together two or three, four dribble type things. When you get him in, I mean, he had some amazing plays against Denver too down the stretch where he was attacking off of like two dribbles and getting to, and he's so big and he does

finished with some, you know, angularity fairly well. But I think when you push him out there and you make him dance a little bit, he just becomes a little more clumsy and indecisive and picks up stupid fouls. But when he started shooting the ball, well, you saw PJ go like, shit, I'm going to close on this guy. And then that's when he kind of has a little more leverage and is a little bit more effective. I can't say I've been knocked out by Minnesota strategizing.

general kind of the mental stuff that goes into playoff games and like kind of shooting yourself in the foot, some of the coaching stuff, some of the lineups they've had, even the stuff they figured out in this game.

I'm not sure why they didn't figure out that stuff like after game one. Some of the stuff they tried to do with Luka. Putting Ant on Luka. Yeah, a little less Jaden on Ant was like there was just like a real stinky vibe of frustration when Jaden was on Luka because Luka just had his number like he could. He negated all of his strengths and with Ant. Ant had a couple gambles at times like that are tough with Luka. But overall, you just didn't see as much of that. I thought Luka was like in

insanely aggressive in that first quarter, like offensively, like with his dribble pull-up game. But yeah, yeah. The Ant thing was working a little bit better, but yeah, they went to that maybe a little too late, honestly. Luka was 7 for 21. He still ended up with a 28, 15, and 10. And I didn't even feel like he played that well. He made a crazy, what seemed to be a four-point play when they're down 103-97 with like less than 20 seconds left.

and gets fouled on a three, which somehow goes in, and then missed the free, missed the free throw. I knew he was going to miss that. I don't know why. I just had a feeling. You could just sense it, that it was going to happen. I don't know. Yeah. And then Kyrie sucked tonight, too. He was 6-for-18.

Four turnovers. And, you know, this is pretty easy to reduce this series to the Kyrie and Luka points versus the Towns and points. But this was the first time they won the battle and that coincidentally, they won the game. Can we talk a little Luka here? Absolutely. Did anything that happened in the last four weeks changed how you felt about him as a star and what his ceiling was? Or do you feel like this is stuff he's just been doing all along? It's just finally on a bigger stage.

Well, I had him number four in the young player rankings, and I just wanted to get that. That's a joke. What were those young player rankings? I was getting texts. I'm like, I didn't even know what that was. Yeah, that was just to stay off the internet day. Anyway, I don't know. I don't really feel like I need to defend my stance on Luka. I've been pretty... Go watch my first Luka video on my old channel if anybody wants to litigate my feelings on him. I'm...

Sometimes too far on Luca. Like, I think he's incredible. Wait, what about Luca specifically? I mean, like, oh, did my feelings change? Like the last four weeks, did anything change about what you had already thought?

um i mean i thought he was like in the top three in the world for sure uh and you know he's kind of hovered in that top three to five range but like you know the movement of some of these guys not being able to you know out of sight out of mind with steph a little bit lebron's aged out durant has kind of moved out of that and you've seen yokich and daunch it's kind of moved forward i still had yokich as the best player in the world um but i mean luka's

right there. So honestly, no, not really. I mean, he's, uh, I've had a lot of respect for his game and that hasn't really changed much at all in the past four weeks. He's just, I mean, what, what more do we need to see from him? I mean, he's already, he's already done it in big playoff stages to this point. So, you know, the finals would be nice, but no, I haven't had a huge shift. He's going to be an unbelievable, assuming it's going to be Mavs Celtics, unless we have the biggest comeback in the history of basketball.

He's going to be an unbelievable villain. I was on some text threads with some Celtic fan friends and we're, we're just all ready. We're just ready to be annoyed by this guy for two weeks. Even today. He's, I would say the Mavs actually got a more favorable whistle than, than Dallas in this game. Everybody in Minnesota felt like they were in foul trouble at one point. And Luca is still, every time they go to a timeout, he's going under the rat and it

pleading with a meter made not to, not to put the ticket on the car. It's just his demeanor. I think it's going to go over great in Boston. He is, he is, uh, Oh no, it's going to go terribly. He's going to get razzed, yelled, heckled. People are going to hate him. How many, how many shut the fuck ups per game? Do you think you're going to get in that Boston accent for Lucas? Shut up. Shut the hell up. Luca does the Luca does the ultimate

he does the ultimate masterful thing where when he gets calls, he complains and pouts. He does the thing like, he's just like, Oh, like finally it's like really man. Come on. And I think a funny thing about this series is just the, the sort of hand fighting that has been allowed to go on that has been to Minnesota's advantage to this point, like that colliding with the way that Luca plays, I think has just created so many more of these moments. And it, yeah, I agree with you. It,

It has at times felt like Minnesota's gotten a tough whistle, but that's just the Luca drags you into the mud. And like, that's the way he plays. And he knows that when guys get out of position, he knows how to create the contact, how to make it look a certain way. He finishes through contact. He just doesn't let you off the hook ever basically with that stuff. Yeah. And everything is so purposeful. Whereas you're watching Edwards at age 22 and it's such a work in progress. Like today he's like, I have to get to the rim or my team's going to lose. Yeah.

And he's like, I'm going to try to get to the room. Oh, they blocked me. I'm going to dribble back out. I'm going to wait five seconds. I'm going to try to get to the room again. That's not there either. I'm going to spin back. I'm going to try to get to the room again. And it was like watching the super early Jordan tapes from like 87, 88 or like watching Kobe in the first few years where they they knew what they had to do, but they didn't have the whole toolbox yet.

to do what they needed to do. So it was just like, I am going to use my athletic ability and I'm going to get to the rim and good things will happen. And then occasionally, I think one of the things that makes him special is he'll just randomly pull out like just the gorgeous Tim Duncan 15 foot bank shot, you know, and he'll just soar above. And it's just, so you can see like two, three years from now,

When he can combine like the pace with the acceleration and then he'll have the turnaround jumper in two years, that'll be in his bag. He'll have that bank shot. He'll probably have some sort of on the corner thing that that he'll be able to do. He'll be able to shoot threes off picks better. And it'll just be like five little small things. And he'll be at 30 points a game. Like he'll be at 30 points a game.

guy within two years, right? Yeah, I think that, I mean, you could, you could kind of quibble about like how efficient he'll be doing that. But I think that he's done a lot better job. Um, I think he's done a lot better job picking his spots. I mean, that was the main thing that really, really worried me coming into the league and in his first season in the league. But you kind of see, I was talking with Kevin about this on the, on the draft show that like, um,

You see scores like Ant come into the league and they have almost like I always, the comparison I make is they have like four by three aspect ratio with the way they see the court. They're like, I'm either going to score or I'm going to make this simple kind of pass to my guy. And you kind of see them as they get older, expand out to 16-9 where it's like they can see the sort of width of the floor a lot better. And you're seeing Ant do that stuff. But I do think it's interesting to kind of like compare them developmentally where it's like,

I've been reflecting. You were talking about how has it shifted with Luka. Do we fully appreciate him? I was just thinking back about when he came into the league. It is kind of absurd, especially looking at the lack of talent in this class and you look at the international guys. It is kind of absurd how much some people disrespected Luka.

the quality of the EuroLeague when you consider an 18-year-old winning the MVP, how insane that is. And just watching their processing speed, Ant's athleticism gives him such a huge advantage to even get into the conversation. But it's like Luka, it just kind of shows you how far ahead Luka is. Granted, he's a little older, but like...

he was doing that stuff at, he was doing a lot of those really, really advanced reads at this age that Ann is at now. And, uh, I just think he's, I think he's the best pick and roll player in the world. I think he's, I was telling you, I think he's arguably the best ever. You could kind of quibble about Nash, but, um, I, I just think he's a phenomenal, phenomenal talent. Yeah. Yeah. It's tough. Cause in the seventies and eighties, they weren't thinking about setting screens that far away from the basket. Right. A lot of it,

the big thing was like either the two man game or setting somebody to pick at like the foul line. Cause everything was so compacted, you know, and the three point shots spread it out. So sometimes I think, you know, there's so many guys from that era who would have been so interesting with the way basketball is played now. Um, but he's, uh,

He seems like the most unstoppable version of set me a pick 30 feet from the basket and the other team doesn't really know what to do. They were talking today a lot on the telecast about Gobert kept like sagging off and Reggie and Stan Van Gundy didn't understand why he kept sagging off. But I think it was because they just decided they didn't want to give up

that uh that little like lob for the little eight foot or the roll or the dunk or whatever and they were just basically like let's just try to play good defense on luca and stay near him and hope he misses some shots i like the shots he took today a lot of them just weren't going in i'm not sure that strategy is going to work again in game five it's almost like in football where each series you gotta switch the defense that you're throwing at them so in game five they're gonna have to

you know, they can't run back the exact same thing. Cause these two get, he'll figure it out. Um, the one thing I felt like from a Dallas standpoint, they got like, they got this crazy Jaden Harden Hardy stretch. I think they were about to lose by like double figures. And then Jaden Hardy had this really crazy, awesome stretch that kind of pulled them, kept them kind of lingering around in the game. Cause they weren't playing that well, uh, on the road, you're not getting those, uh,

You're not getting the Jaden Hardy taking over the game for four minutes, I don't think. Yeah, yeah. The young guy gets beer muscles and feels a little bit bigger. But Hardy's a guy who's just like historically always had crazy, crazy confidence. He did a good job, I will say. On court, he did a good job of not overdoing it. I felt like he maybe had one spot, maybe another where he did that. But I will say...

I know you're confident, but like, I don't know about barking at Anthony Edwards. Like, I don't know if that's the move. Um, I would maybe just kind of stay in my lane a little bit. Like, don't, even if you think you're better than him, just like, don't tempt faith there. That was, that was a questionable move to me. I was like, I know he speaks how confident he is that he would go and do that, but I don't know that I would have.

Yeah. They probably told him after the game, listen, if you're going to talk shit, just talk shit to Rudy Gobert. That's what we're all doing. Just say stuff to him. Nobody likes Rudy Gobert. It'll be, it'll be all fine. He's the pin cushion where we put all. What actually let's take a break. And I want to talk about Rudy.

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This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. From tip-off to hoisting the trophy, celebrate every moment of the WNBA Finals with a Michelob Ultra in hand. The WNBA is so hot, we just launched a Ringer WNBA show podcast. Yeah, that's happening. You know what goes well with it? Michelob Ultra.

The taste, super smooth. Low calories and carbs. Why not save on calories if you're drinking a good beer? I like to keep it nice and cold. It's just really good. And you got the WNBA finals, like all kinds of crazy matchups. Might have the two best teams in the league playing in round two.

It's going to be amazing. We'll see how far Kate and Clark goes. You're not going to want to miss a moment. Stock up on Michelob Ultra for the WNBA finals. Michelob Ultra, Superior Light Beer. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2024, Anheuser-Busch. Michelob Ultra, registered light beer, St. Louis, Missouri. So when you watch Rudy in a series like this, and they're almost definitely going to lose because again, the only way for them to win this series is to do something nobody's done in 150 plus series.

Is Rudy somebody that you can win four straight playoff series with just in general with all the different styles of teams you have to play over the course of four rounds? Is it just conceivable that he's a guy who could be on a title team? Cause I've changed my mind 20 times on this.

Yeah, I don't I don't know that I would blame him for this in particular because, you know, they have other problems like you were talking about. I honestly feel like you made a really good comparison, I think, with the Boston and Minnesota thing offensively, because when the core of your team is our guys that are sort of guys with scoring tilt who are learning to play make.

you kind of run into these, these guys like Tatum and Brown, both are like, they've been learning on the job since they've been playing together to sort of learn to play that way. And it doesn't always come instinctively. Whereas you watch, uh, I was like prodding you the other night with the Halliburton text about, is he the best in the series that you've been to? I laughed at that, but, uh, no, I mean like, like a Halliburton or somebody, when you have a guy like that at the core of your team, you're not going to run into those problems as much. So, but so just to speak to Rudy though, like,

I think that it can happen. It's just maybe he's just somebody that you have to be smart about when he's on and off the floor because Minnesota has kind of done that in spots. And you've seen that tonight his impact defensively was there. I think the fact that they didn't have Lively there as a lob threat when Gafford wasn't in there. Kyrie, you could see

Kyrie was affected by Rudy, I think, in some pretty key moments. And this is, you know, this is whether or not it's this round or it's the finals or the first round. This is a high, high level matchup. And he affected the game in a positive way, I thought. In the short roll, he actually...

You know, he actually had some pretty good moments. I thought he wasn't required to like do anything like heavy improv, but he finished pretty well, I thought. And yeah, it played within himself in that sense offensively, I thought. Well, he had been dirt had been poured on his entire career over the last two days. I was thinking about like the take seesaw on certain guys.

Where if the seesaw, normally you want a seesaw that's a little balanced and it goes a little up, a little down. And with Rudy, it's like one side of the seesaw is always on the ground. And then if it flips to the other side, it's back on the ground. Like he's either the defensive player of the year or he's the biggest liability in the league. And there's just no, no balance in the boat. I actually thought some of the stuff Towns did with him today. Towns had a couple of nice little dishes to him on drives and, uh, you

you know, felt like they complimented each other. But, um, there's other times to me, it's on Minnesota. Like when he's 35 feet from the basket, trying to guard Luca, it's just not going to go well. And you, you know, if you see the reverse, like Dallas is really smart. Anytime they had somebody in a position that far away from the basket, they weren't happy with, they would just send a second guy out and then try to recover fast. And, uh, it felt like Minnesota really wasn't doing that that much until today. So, uh,

Who knows? They might, it feels like they're getting a little better. And then you think on the other side, Dallas seemed like they were getting a little worse. And some of the stuff that was working for them in the other games wasn't working as well. The big catch is that they didn't have Lively. And I never thought we would be saying, like last fall, I never, ever thought that we would be having this conversation in a conference finals. Like I liked Lively, but like,

I'm shocked by this. Well, he was really polarizing. We were doing the draft pods and you know, I, I didn't follow college hoops. So I'm, I'm leaning on you guys and studying YouTube clips, but lively was the most polarizing guy in that top top 12, because especially when he went to Dallas, I remember it was a you or was it KOC where somebody was like, Oh, that's actually like,

That's a team that plays to his strengths. That's a pretty good fit for him. But I mean, to think that he would be playing and somebody that could pass out of like those little lobs and just the creativity that he's had at that position for his age, I think has been

So somehow they get rewarded for throwing away the season last year, which I still can't figure out. Yeah. When he was in high school, he got rated, I think, like people were projecting what he could be. Actually, like the shooting was something that was a piece of the puzzle for him that people thought he would shoot it eventually. And I'm not ruling that out, but I mean, it seems fairly unlikely, but like he...

He just kind of defensively looked lost at times, but the more that you leaned in and watched it, the kind of conclusion I came to was just that he was thinking so much that his reaction time was getting kind of negated. And you saw him sort of like learn. And if you listen to the guy talk, he's a bright kid. Like, and I think that he just sort of had to learn to play high level coverages and stuff. And is it possible though, that some guys are just better with better teammates? Cause I've always felt that way with basketball, that,

we always forget that part that maybe like he was, that Duke team was a mess a year ago, right? Yeah, they didn't, they didn't really, Duke has had a few teams like this where they didn't have a ton of great creators, like in terms of like,

guys who could score and get off the ball they had like a guy named jeremy roach who was like a scorer didn't get off the ball and then they had a guy named tyrese proctor who could pass but he couldn't really score so you just had these weird spacing issues on those teams uh that did penalize you know somebody like him where he's not a table setter he he's uh he's somebody he's a patron he dines and luca obviously is the ultimate you know three michelin star chef and he's

It couldn't have been... I'm sure I probably did say it on draft night, but a lot of people did. He's a guy who can catch lobs. He's very fast. He has really great hip mobility for a guy his size. I wrote about this in the rookie guide over and over again that you just absolutely could not have picked a better partner for him coming into the league. But I think in this game...

They did miss his short roll decision making in a way that I think like, you know, Minnesota was like, OK, we will give you a little bit of drop coverage here because we're not as worried about these lobs and we're not as worried about maybe Derek Jones Jr. shooting threes or PJ shooting threes. And I think that affected them because you had to respect lively in the middle of the floor. And I think that kind of took away from some of their easy buckets, honestly.

So our friend Chris Lewinsky, who has done incredible stuff with concussions really since the late 2000s and every once in a while I mention him. He had a tweet a couple of hours ago about Lively and this next brain thing in the game three, because I watched and I was like, it was clear it was concussion.

He was groggy after and looked like, like his brains had been scrambled at all the makings. Like if it happened in football, we were just like, that's concussion. And they said, next brain. And Chris Nowinski tweeted,

This is two hours ago. I don't believe the Derek Lively neck sprain story. In the NFL, that's a concussion. He couldn't stand for minutes. He's showing the clip that he has under the tweet. You can see he can't balance and would fall walking without help. NBA, please don't undo years of concussion education meant to protect kids. I thought from the evidence, it was really hard for me to believe that was a sprained neck. And, you know, I think...

I think maybe they were assuming that the series would be over, but usually like a concussion, like Jalen Brown had one for the Celtics and he, he wasn't right for over a week. So we'll see, like people seem to think he's come back game five. I don't know why they wouldn't tell us exactly what happened, but.

I think you and I both had the same reaction. That's pretty clearly seemed like, I don't know how that wasn't a concussion. That was hard to watch, man. I can't, I can't imagine like getting hit. I mean, that's one of you, I just don't, I don't know how he got up from that at all. Like I thought for sure concussion, maybe they just, they said it's also a neck sprain. Maybe he really does have a neck sprain, but he also has, I just, well, he was on the bench today with, and it's bright in those arenas and he didn't have sunglasses on. It was fine. So,

Who knows? I don't really know the answer, but I thought that was a weird one. They're going to need him for game five. Minnesota, who has no home court advantage at all, and you would think like, well, if anybody's going to come back from 3-0, it's a team that has five and seven at home because you send it back, you win five. Then if you can somehow win six or...

put the other team in position to be on their heels in a game six at home, knowing they'd have to go back to your place in a game seven. That's that, that, that would be the sequence you'd want. And yet Minnesota sucks at home and everybody sucks at home. We talked about this on the Mahoney, Chris Ryan pod that we did on Thursday. Do you have a theory on why home court has gone out the window? No, honestly, I don't, I don't, I don't understand what it's, what it's about. It's,

maybe, maybe it's just that like a lot of these arenas sound the same or that like, I, I honestly don't have any kind of idea that, that maybe it's not as unique, uh, the way, I mean, you're a historian on this. Is there anything that's changed about the way they set up the seats or, you know, I,

And I feel like there aren't as many like unique kind of quirks. Like I feel like that stuff's all like audited really well. Like the weird Milwaukee Bucks court, like in the late 70s, like you don't see anything like that really anymore. People would always complain about like the Omni. Didn't people used to say that the Omni was like kind of drafty in there that like, I just feel like, I feel like everything is kind of,

that's true in a lot of different ways. I just think things have just kind of become homogenized maybe. And that's why it just doesn't feel as, uh, I don't know. I'm grasping for straws for why, why it's happening. I think that's a, that's a decent reason. Like they say about the old Boston garden, like there was dead spots on the park. Hey, you know, people would smoke at halftime. The whole place is filled with smoke. You had cheaper seats. So you had, the crowd was pretty close to the court and, you know, people that were really into the games, uh,

the locker rooms were terrible. The Celtics would shut off the air conditioning or the heat, depending on what time of season to fuck with the other team. And like all that stuff's out the window. I think the,

what you said about everything being homogenous. Like I do, you feel that when you're watching four games at once on a Wednesday night, you have no idea which arena is which. They all seem the same. The seats seem the same. That's why what the Clippers are trying to do with this new arena is so interesting to me because they're going to have this wall of fans and they're going to have, you know, they built it like the Indiana arena where everybody's really close to the court. And if that doesn't make a difference,

then maybe, maybe the ship has sailed on home court. It's, it happened in hockey. Like we watched it happen over the last 20 years where all of a sudden it just didn't matter where you played in hockey. You could win anywhere. So, you know, so anyway, Minnesota is going back home and I don't know if it makes a difference. Yeah. I, I don't know. I think it kind of feels like, doesn't it really kind of feel like Dallas really needs to win this next game? Because I feel like based on the way that last series went, I just,

especially if you're not going to have lively and i was also thinking about the fact that lively kind of plays like in scrum all the time he's always flying around he's always in traffic he also has he also is like a wide receiver running over the middle with like you know these big bodies kind of looming i'm just kind of like makes me wonder if he'll maybe be thinking about it a little bit if that if that's going to have an effect on him but uh it does just kind of feel like um

The oh shit meter is going to kind of start to go up a little bit if they can't. But I don't think that you're going to get the same, like the shot making thing was just not there tonight, like in the way that it had been in the past three games. And I just don't know per like the variance if you're going to be able to bank on that happening again if you're Minnesota. 14 for 30 on threes tonight. Towns, who averaged 22 and 8 during the season and was almost a 50-45-90 guy. It was 52-47-87.

His seven games before tonight, he was 16 and 10, 37% shooting, 17% from three. And then tonight he was four for five from three, 25 and five, six fouls. It was the town's easiest game possible for better and worse. Just out of curiosity, I did make up a couple of town's trades thinking that they might lose tonight. He's got four years, 221 million after this season, but he's 36 million.

basically through June. So his cap figure is actually pretty tradable for traits. I'm just going to throw these at you, by the way, he's still in the playoffs. I feel bad, but this is good content. I'm just doing it. This is going to be a door segment. Assuming, assuming Minnesota is out, which is good. And, and it's like, ah, wow. Towns didn't play that well. Towns to Washington for Kuzma in the second pick too much or too little.

I wouldn't do that if I'm Minnesota. You wouldn't do that? I don't think so. Because remember, they're going to be like 70 over. They're going to be like second apron the whole thing with the salaries they have now.

Yeah, I guess that's true. I'm just not a big Kuzma guy. And I'm trying to think about if you ever were ever not going to do it in a draft, I feel like it would be this one because, you know, they're not going to be in the SAR business. I wouldn't think with the types of defenders they have. I'm trying to think of who else would even they're not going to get Klingon, maybe Rob Dillingham or somebody really talented. You take a chance on that. I don't know that I'd go. What's the name of the replacement? Yeah.

Dillingham and Conley. I don't know. I'll be curious to get your opinion on that one in a month if we revisit this. But what's the next one? Just Towns and Ingram. Some sort. I don't know who throws in what, but a little flip-a-roo with those two guys. It's a little intriguing. Yeah, true. I mean, yeah, it kind of makes you wonder what they would be doing. Okay. And then you'd have...

Towns with the Pelicans is interesting. It is. Give him a little bit more spacing with some of those creators. Give him Towns with Zion. I mean, there's a big bet that he's even healthy, but Towns with Zion would be pretty interesting. Well, that's what I was thinking for New Orleans. I think you do it in five seconds. Yeah. For Minnesota with Ingram, he's got an extension coming. I think I need more than Ingram, especially like Ingram come off. He was bad in Team USA. I don't think he had a great season. I don't think he's a distressed asset, but.

But I think you'd have to get some picks in that one too. There's Towns for Murray and Capella's expiring. It's expiring next year. But could you turn Towns into DeJounte Murray? Does that make sense for either team? We'd get Towns and Trae Young together. There's something there. And then could he be in a three-teamer or four-teamer position?

With my ring around the Rosie, I, as you know, my, one of my summer missions is to get Mikkel Bridges to the Knicks because I think that's what the Knicks want. But could Towns go to Brooklyn, Randall and a first goes to Minnesota or Randall and a first goes to Atlanta and Trey Young goes somewhere and Bridges goes to the Knicks. Maybe there's some sort of, there's like an asset merry-go-round that Towns could be a part of.

I got to say, I probably, if those were my four trades, I think I'm keeping Towns for another year. I think so too. Yeah. Because I think all that stuff either sends me backwards or sideways. And I already know what I have. I have a team that made the conference finals and Towns, the really two bad years of his deal doesn't kick in for two more years. So I think...

Not to do the thing where I started an argument with myself and then talked myself out of it. But I think those are the type of trades on the table. I don't think they're doing better than that kind of neighborhood. Yeah. I'm trying to think of offensively who could use him like towns and trade together. Uh, God, I just think that that would be a reality TV show waiting to happen. Um, you, you think about towns in Brooklyn and you're just like, well, Brooklyn's just kind of void of form in general. So it's like, sure, why not? We'll take downs. Um, yeah, uh,

Yeah, I don't know. Murray with the Wolves, I think you ideally would want to get somebody with some like connective kind of playmaking in there. Is that where do the Wolves, let's say hypothetically, they lose the series and don't come back? Where do you look for maybe an upgrade?

Conley has been such a steadying force, but you know, long-term, do you want to bet on him? Right. Like, do you want to bet on, uh, cause I mean, he looked done a couple of years ago when Brunson lit his ass up in the, in the, in the playoffs. I'm just trying to think of like, how can they upgrade that? Because they don't really get as much of that playmaking out of Anderson all the time. I'm just like, that's, that's where I see them needing an upgrade. Uh, so turning towns into some sort of guard. I think I agree because Conley to me, it's so funny. Cause he played with Horford forever.

He's very similar to Horford, right? As a stopgap, big minutes guy, great. But ultimately, I'm not sure that's his destiny on a team that needs to win four straight rounds because he's old. Yeah. Right. So you would want him in that Horford role where he could play big minutes, but ultimately, maybe you're better off if it's 20 to 25 minutes a game, picking spots. When guys are resting, maybe he plays a big thing. Yeah, I don't know what the ideal town straight is. All right, one more break and then we get into best backcourts.

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So visit your local branch or explore the Chase mobile app to get started. JP Morgan Wealth Management offers investment products and services through JP Morgan Securities LLC, member FINRA, SIPC. All right, best backcourts. So this was floated around a lot this week. People were just like, Luca and Kyrie are the best backcourt of all time.

And it's like, well, they played together two months last year and went backwards and missed the playoffs. On purpose. On purpose. This year they were a five. Well, they were still below 500 the last two games. This year they were a five seed and then won a couple of rounds. I just as a protector of NBA history, I would just like to mention a couple of people for you.

Steph Curry and Klay Thompson. Not sure you've heard of those guys. I've heard of them, you know, here and there. Yeah. Yeah. Four titles, six finals together. Curry made four first team All-NBAs, four seconds, two thirds, won two MVPs. Klay made a third team All-NBA. They're the greatest shooting backcourt of all time by any calculation. They were on teams that won 67 and 73 games in back-to-back years.

I would say the bar is pretty high with those two guys. I'm not ready to just be like, hey, new guys, best backcourt ever. Like, let's be responsible, everybody out there. I think Curry and Clay have the belt, unless you want to come back with the 1950s. I'm not sure you do with the plumbers, the J.J. Reddick plumber era. Who do you got? Bob Cousy and Bill Sharman. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. They won four titles and five finals, four titles for Sharman retired.

Kuzi made 10 straight first team all-NBAs, not shabby, two second teams, played 12 years, 10 straight first team all-NBAs. Sharman made four first teams and three second teams. They made the first team together in 56, 57, 58, 59, where they won three titles. So they were the first team guards. Out of all the guards in the league, they were the two first team guards.

I'm going to say that's a pretty big bar to climb. And Sharma was like the first great two guard in NBA history. Koozie was the best point guard

basically the first 15, 20 years of the league until Oscar Robertson started doing his thing. I don't know if you've done a lot of Koozie Sherman homework on your YouTubes. They're pretty good. Not a ton. I do have respect for them, but I also have respect for the context of where they played. I mean, there are some asterisks there. I was curious. I mean, you hear people bring the one that some of these are just like,

You know, Goodrich and Jerry West is one that gets brought up over and over and over again. That's one that I don't have as much. And your book dive, did you get to, did you get to dive on that one as much? Is that, is that in your mind? So they were one title, two finals. They had the 33 game winning streak in 72. The 72 team went 77, 15. They averaged together 51.7 points a game. Pretty good.

West was 10 first team on base, two seconds. He's a top 10 greatest player of all time. Probably 11th now that some people bumped in there. Goodrich was first team on bay in 73, 74. He probably should have made at least second team in 72, but I think they didn't want to have three Lakers. But if you're talking about one season, which is basically all we have for Luke and Kyrie right now, they're at least in that ballpark. Sam Jones and Casey Jones were really good together. Two hall of famers. They won eight straight titles together.

Isaiah and Dumars I think have to be mentioned yeah I was gonna ask you about that I think do they get bonus points you think because that team is like one of the only like point guard like do you think the backcourt sort of lean of that whole team do they get bonus points for that considering their run that they had there at the end of the 80s like I know maybe they don't have as many titles when you compare them to like the Celtics area guys right the league was so different but

I just kind of wonder if they get a little extra boost because of that, because of the way the team was built. Yeah, two titles, three finals in a row. Also probably should have made the 87 finals. They couldn't have come any closer. Celtics sold them off. They were the two best guys in the team. They were guys that I think gave up some stats because that team was pretty deep. Isaiah especially. Isaiah gave up a bunch of numbers in the second half of his career because he was trying to get everybody involved. But they were a team that stemmed from the two guards. Dumars was...

the single best guy to guard Michael Jordan. And, you know, I, like, I think that I think they're on whatever mountain this is. I think Parker and, you know, we have to be mentioned four titles together, five finals, first title, you know, they were both like babes, but, uh, by the time it gets into the Oh seven range, those guys are really great together. And then the only other one I had was Monroe and Frazier where they had a one title, two finals together, both made first team OMS at different times, but, uh,

Um, that was a situation where they were the two best guys in the team. They were both guards. So my point is there's been some great backcourts. There's been backcourts. Everybody we mentioned is a double hall of fame situation. Like all those guys are in basically except for Curry and Clay. And, uh, I can't remember if Parker and Genova are in yet, but they probably will be.

But for me, if I had to rank them in the finals, it would be Curry and Clay and Kuzi and Sharman. And I know the 50s are different and it was a short league, but just like the fact that those guys were the all-NBA first-team guards for four years in a row says something. But I would have Curry and Clay won. The point is, if Luka and Kyrie win the title... Mm-hmm.

Now they're in the conversation. I'm not ready to have it yet though. Let's see them close out Minnesota and let's see them win a title. And then we can talk about it. I think the interesting thing to me about the conversation in general is that Kyrie was a distressed asset a year ago, right? And to the point where they gave up a first round pick and it's like, whoa, that's really risky. You know, they gave up one pick that like, when you look back, that trade seems like it was 30 cents on the dollar, but I, I thought it was a huge risk. What did you think when they did that trade?

I mean, I've never wavered in my, like...

you know, appreciation for his talent. And like, you know, I, I thought that I've always thought that I think he's the best below the rim finisher we've ever had. I think he's the best ball handler we've ever had. Like he's just an insane talent, but you're right. I mean, at that point, it's just so amazing how the mouthwash of like the last couple months has just made us completely forget how bad it was. Like nobody wanted to go near him, but I think this is sort of the, the ultimate sort of, um,

the ultimate sort of like test of your philosophy. If you're going to be this team that like brings in these distressed assets and you bank on them, which is something Dallas did over and over and over again, you know, they brought in Christian Wood. They, you know, they brought in at the time, KP was a little distressed because of the injury stuff. But like, um, this would be the ultimate version of that at the time. Yeah. I mean, I was, I was,

I was a little curious about it, but they are just a really interesting pairing because I just think that they're like two sort of off-speed pitches against each other because, you know, and Kyrie has really dug in and accepted this role where, you know, Luka's like, all right, I'm the lead singer of this band and you're going to pick your solo. You know, you can solo at a couple spots during the game and you can get in there and sort of

do your virtuosic thing. Like it's, I almost feel like Kyrie does this thing playing against Luca where it's so tiring to guard Luca. Like we talked about at the top of the show, mentally tiring that like, I feel like Kyrie almost does the Ali Foreman thing where like you get to the end of the game and you think, okay, well the fight's going a certain way. And Kyrie leans in and asks you if you're tired. And then he's like, all right, now it's time to dance.

Like he didn't quite do that tonight, but I just feel like he's done that so well. It's been really nice to see. I've been it's just nice to see some just kind of quiet. I don't know that he personally has changed at all, like in terms of what he thinks or whatever it is. But he's he's or if it's strategic, you know, in terms of like his PR life. But it does seem like he just has more quiet in his life. And it's been nice to just kind of watch him play basketball.

Yeah. There's a serenity to him this year that I'm not sure he had in other years. He always seemed to like chaos. And when it got quiet, then there would be more chaos. But, you know, we did, it's easy to forget this now, but in 21, before him and Harden got hurt, like this was similar, like it was a happy basketball situation. They were playing well. So, you know, he kind of goes up and down, but.

Lately, it's been up. We'll see. There's going to be adversity in the next series because the Celtics have just the perfect team to throw at him and at least make him work. They have two big guards. They have forwards with size they can put on. If Porzingis is back, they're going to have a rim protector. It's going to be a different situation. The Celtics match up really well with

Dallas is two best guys, but Dallas has guys to throw at Boston too. So that's why if that ends up being the finals, that's going to be a good little chess match. They're also really well coached, Dallas. I'm not positive. I would say the same thing about post-Patella injury, Chris Finch. No, no.

I want to give Chris Finch a shout out because this hit close to home because my wife ruptured her patella recently. That is an MF-er of an injury. She couldn't move. You basically can't clench your quad at all or you're just in excruciating pain. So I can't believe he was up there at all. That was really impressive. But I was going to say to you that I was thinking about who they've gone through. Like,

OKC, they have Dort, they have the big physical stop-the-run ball stopper defender. They've got Cason Walls, who's sort of a switchy, kind of can fill in different spots. They've got Jalen Williams, the big long-rangey wing, who can kind of bother bigger forwards and switch some. They almost feel like the version... Boston feels like a more evolved version of...

of, of OKC, uh, like defensively in terms of the tools that they have. Well, I would say that Boston has way better rim protection.

That's the difference. Cause Boston not only has Porzingis and Horford, but they have Tatum and then freaking Derek White, who had like 14 blocks in his last five playoff games, but both him and Drew for guards can also protect the rim. And you have, they'll have these sequences where they'll just block like four shots out of seven plays. You know, I don't, okay. See, it was really just chat, right. And like a tiny bit of J-dub.

And that was it. It's not like anybody else was protecting the rim. Well, OKC led the league in blocks and steals this past year. They were pretty disruptive, but they, well, they were tied, but I only know that off the top of my head because of the video I just made. But yeah, I mean, I just think they're- But did you feel like in the Dallas series, do you feel like they were protecting the rim? Because I did not.

Uh, they need some more science. I mean, I think like you get into a half court game in the playoff, like they just do. And, and I think something that like Boston deserves more credit for you talked about them being rim protector. And I think sometimes people think about rim protection where it's like, they think literally like the act of blocking the shot, like it's all this organic organism thing that's connected, like rim deterrence and rim like protection, or you need the guy back there to like put the punctuation on the sentence, but like

you know, Boston doesn't really got, they have guys who can turn guys like, you know, why? And Drew Holiday, like a lot of rim protection is like,

guiding guys the way that you want them to go strategically. And Boston has both pieces of that. I think OKC has some upgrades to make in that department, though. But I just kind of thought in terms of the challenges they went through, I wasn't trying to argue that Dallas has seen it and they're ready for it. I just think that Boston's going to be a newer, more realized version of that if they get there. Sorry, Minnesota fans, but just hypothetically, yeah. Yeah, the Porzingis piece is a huge piece of that, too.

Well, you know, which people kept forgetting about that with the Indiana series, the amount of miles they put on Al Horford in that series was nuts, you know, and he was, he had no legs in game four, but, um,

you know, what you put Porzingis in, not only does it help with the rim protection, but also anytime your offense gets like in these little stagnant stretches, you can just go through him or they could run like white KP stuff together. Um, they could run a little Jalen KP stuff. And just to have that room, the average 23 points a game, you know, people are acting like, oh, well they, well they have Horford. He can just step in. It's like, I don't know. KP was like a borderline all-star.

You know, so I think they've been super careful with him. But, you know, Indiana didn't have Halliburton the last couple of games. Although the way Nembhard was playing, Jesus Christ, was that did he remind you of 22 Brunson at all? I tweeted that yesterday. A little like you're watching. I go, man, this guy could maybe have his own team or he's just hitting the craziest slew of shots of his life. I don't know which one is true.

The Nimhard Hive, the guys that did believe in him were very, very vocal and outspoken. It's nice to see them get a win on that. But I was going to ask you about Porzingis. I was talking with one of my buddies who's a sports science guy.

physician and I was asking him about I was like do you think I was like let's say before the game tonight obviously the Wolves kept it alive here but I was like I was like do you think hypothetically the way that like Luca and Kyrie sort of do the you know accelerate break thing uphill I was like do you think that's going to be like a little bit of a challenge maybe potentially on for Zingas his specific injury I was like I almost wonder if like

that could be something that Dallas just goes right at. You know, if you think about if you're sort of like pushing off of your calves and trying to keep up with them, I just kind of wonder if that's going to be a sort of a pain point for them with the way that, with the way that Dallas likes to play. I mean, it's the same thing's true of ant. I just kind of wonder, uh, how that's going to play out or if that could end up being a factor because Horford is actually pretty, pretty good at staying down for his, like as much as he's lost the step in terms of like running and flying and jumping and kind of stuff. Um,

He's pretty good at measured movement. I feel like he'll do a decent job on Luka, but I was curious about that with KP. I'm curious to see what's going to happen with that. Yeah, I don't have an answer because they've been pretty tight-lipped. No, he might be 100%, and they just might have put him in bubble wrap because they knew they were going to meet Indiana. And I don't think it benefits them at all to tell us what's actually going on. Apparently, he was wearing flip-flops in practice yesterday, which...

Tells me if you're super worried about your calf, maybe you're not wearing flip-flops and kind of walking around on those. Not getting the arch support. I don't know. Maybe that's what that says. Well, you know, one thing with Horford, my dad pointed this out. My dad has a good point every once in a while. The way the final schedule staggers out, it's unbelievable for Horford. He's the biggest winner of the whole thing. It's Thursday, Sunday, Wednesday are the first three games.

So you get two days rest between each game, which is great for him. The back, the every other night is when it gets tough with the old guys. Then game four is two days after game three in Dallas. And then it goes to three, three, three again.

So, you know, if they want to be super easy with KP and put Miles on Horford, they can actually do it. It was that last round they were really worried about because if that was a long series and you're just playing Al Horford 40 minutes every other night, you know, that's not sustainable. But I think, I've said this before, but the durability and athleticism of their two best guys is fucking crazy. Like Tatum and Brown, Brown has been getting better at the end of these games. You know, he's like,

he's like going up a level now and he's so competitive. I was so happy for him when he got that trophy. Cause he's, he's been the middle brother of the Celtics for this entire time. Right. He's the Jan Brady. He's name a middle brother from any TV show you've ever watched. And even when he got the trophy, you could see, he was like, so he wasn't even a curve to him. He was going to win it. And he was like genuinely shocked and delighted. It was like, Oh my God, I want something. People like me like, uh, but he's been awesome this whole season. And I think for,

Somebody got a $300 million contract and took a bunch of shit for it too.

Um, and then started out the season, not awesome. And it was like, oh man, this might be a real problem. And then basically a month into the season, you can't ask for anything more. This is clearly a top 20 guy. He's a great, great, great two way forward for what the two way forward options are. You know, I think he's one of the best 20 guys in the league and it was nice to see him get a little shine. But I think a lot of the people watch that series and they're just like, oh, Indiana is not good. They haven't played anybody.

Most of the time people don't play like that. Who did the LeBron Cavs play from 2011 to 2018? Can you remember like great teams they played? Oh, he had such a good stranglehold. This is how it goes. These conferences suck forever.

You play who's there. That's what happens. You know, I feel like people remember it more in the NBA, like in college, people just completely forget who you play. There's like whatever title and the NBA, it gets a little, it gets litigated a little more closely, but yeah. What was, what was Jalen's quote? I've never won shit in that way. His exact quote words. Right. Yeah. He looks surprised. Yeah. Yeah. He, I thought he did a really, really good job in that series. And I personally would have given it to Drew.

Cause, uh, I just thought he was awesome, but I thought three of the guys could have won. Cause you could make a case for Tatum too. Tatum was like 30, 10 and six, you know, statistically he was there, even if he's a little up and down. But I thought Drew, Drew is just such a delight. It's so much fun. I was saying to somebody, um,

the drew and Derek White and Horford are like the kind of mid two thousands Belichick Patriots type guys that we had just these like awesome overqualified role players. All they want to do is win. They have no idea what their stats are. They just make big plays. They just come through and to have three of those guys is, is pretty great. Did you think drew, did you think he was headed toward being washed up? Where'd you stand on him when he was being offered around last year?

You and Ryan hit on it, I think, pretty well and effectively, I thought, when you were just talking about it. I think the sort of stink that kind of entered the air with him when people would start and you hear Milwaukee fans be like, oh, playoff Drew. Well, it's like if your idea of playoff Drew is that he is like your primary handler and you're living and dying with whether or not he's hitting dribble pull-ups or making a good decision getting downhill, I mean, yeah, you're going to develop an idea of playoff Drew.

playoff tree but when you like put him in is like your third creator or your catch and shoot guy who's a cutter or and then you add his plus plus defense like he doesn't really care what he's doing offensively that's a great spot for him you know so like

Yeah, when I was thinking about teams that could use him, I remember I think we talked about the Kings would have been a great spot for him. Just somewhere he could fall in where he doesn't necessarily have to be the number one. And he can give you some of the pluses. Yeah, that situation's ideal. But if you're going to make him be like...

your primary guy the way Milwaukee had to do yeah you're going to come away I think a little bit disappointed at times I know they want well they want a title but I think this is a good situation for him because it kind of takes pressure off of him that is good I think well and they smartly extended him because I think especially now Philly's throwing around their cap space like

Some divorce guy at a hotel bar. Hey, who wants a drink? And if Drew had been a free agent, he would be in these Paul George stories and whoever the hell else is available that people seem to think Philly can, can get, but the Celtics locked him up. They'll lock up white this summer and this is going to be their, uh, their nucleus going forward. We'll see, you know, the Porzingis thing is always going to be year to year, month to month.

Every month he's healthy, you just exhale. And that's how it goes. That's how the finals are going to be. We knew this whole season, this was going to come down partly to what version of KPR we're getting when it really matters. And it didn't have to matter in those first three series because all the injuries, but it's going to matter in the next round. Minnesota is probably a worse basketball on paper matchup and Dallas is a much scarier

you know, you don't have the best player in the series. You have two incredible shot makers. You have a team that is very well coached and knows exactly what it is and plays really hard and doesn't seem to care if they're on at home or on the road. So somebody asked me today, who would I rather play? And I would still probably rather play Minnesota, which is a complete flip to where I was two weeks ago, where I was like, Minnesota is a bad matchup for us. The two wings to throw a Tatum and Brown, um,

I just don't want to see those guys. But now after watching this, it's like I not having the best guy in a series. When does that work out in the finals? It just doesn't. I don't know if there's evidence of it working out ever.

Yeah. Sometimes it just comes down to that kind of basic chess. Like, do you, do you, does your hub work and how many of them do you have? Like, I know like that I got to see that OKC Dallas series up close and that was just, sometimes you can just boil it down to that, that lowest common denominator. I think it's just like, OKC had Shea. They're waiting for Jalen Williams to turn the corner and kind of become that guy. Couldn't quite do it. And then, and I just think it gives you a little more, it makes you a little more dynamic in situations where it's like, they can't totally shut your water off. I think that's,

what playoff series are all about. It's like, you know, maybe you start to cover one guy pretty well, you can switch to another. And I think that, you know, Minnesota, we'll see. We'll see what happens. You know, the series isn't over. But, I mean, I do think that, like...

I do think Boston's backcourt guys would be a pretty interesting challenge for, for, for ant. Like I think the maturity of, of their guys, uh, and I, you know, the, the cumulative just kind of defensive IQ of Boston, I think would be an enormous challenge for it. I'd be pretty curious to see him take it on. Who do you have as a number one draft pick? Oh man. Um,

I'm leaning at this point. Let me just... So I can have the names in front of my face. Coming up is 9.5 points a game in the NBL. We were talking about this today. I'm a little...

I just think you kind of go fit because I don't know that there's a... Sar is the most like he resembles an upside play. He's the guy who maybe his offense could come around and he could become like, I don't know, like your third best guy if you're a playoff team? Or is he going to be like a Jonathan Isaac type? Is he going to be as good as Jonathan Isaac? I think that that's sort of a good sort of measuring stick. So you're on the mode of this draft is basically like if you cut the top seven out of a normal draft and started at pick eight, that's what this draft is.

Yeah, there's some guys that have like talent that is like up higher. Like I think that like Topich, I think could help some teams like I think I think Stefan Castle, the six six wing from UConn. I don't know if you got to see him. He's a guy who's really competitive. Good saying he's a point guard switchy.

I don't know so much about that. Donovan Klingin is a guy who I think could be at least a rotation level player on a playoff defense. It kind of depends on what you're after. Klingin, I think, is going to be a defensive anchor. I think a credible one in the league. But yes, Saar makes me nervous. I'm just kind of like,

The Isaac thing, I can't quite get away from because I'm like, do you think he's ever going to be like a dribble creator in any sense? Do you think that he's going to be... If you were in this series, we're like, well, okay, let's gamble on Alexander Saar making threes or I would...

I would be playing off of him. Like, I don't know that I trust it, especially in the speed of the NBA. Um, but there's some guys that I mentioned Dillingham, like has high level talent like that, that like has the, has the talent of, of like a guy who could change a franchise. Um, I don't know, man, it's what a sad draft. Even hearing you talk about it made me sad.

Yeah, I feel like, I don't know. Whenever you're thinking about this draft, it kind of feels like when you're a kid and somebody winds you up on a swing and gets you really dizzy and you're like, well, where's the ground? I don't know. The typical thing that we expect, which is just an offensive number one, I don't know for sure that there is one in this draft. Defensive anchor, I mean, Klingon seems that way. It's tough. It seems like you have to default to one elite skill.

So if it's like Reed Shepard shooting, okay. He can, he can dribble and shoot. Cool. There's something clinging. It's like, Hey, you can protect the rim. Okay. Castle. Hey, he can guard wings. Okay.

And that's basically, so going back to your drafted for need analogy, that's basically where we are. Like, as you know, I'm completely invested in the Spurs and them not wasting year two of Wembley. And I just want them to find fun shooters. But there's some other teams like, if you're like Detroit at five, do you want another young player? You have a fucking million young players. If you're Washington, you don't want

You don't want another like Kulibaly kind of five-year project. You want somebody that at least brings something to the table, I think. I don't know. I think there's picks going to be available for trade. We'll see if those picks are even worth anything. Kyle, man, we can hear you on the NBA Draft Show. We can watch you on the Ringer NBA YouTube. And I'm sure I'll talk to you during the finals. Good to see you. Good to see you too.

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It's spelled O-R-I-J-E-N, petfoods.com to learn more. So I spent three years writing my basketball book, which got published in October of 2009. And for the epilogue, I wanted to drive down to San Diego and talk to Bill Walton because a big part of the book

was about the secret of basketball, how it wasn't about basketball, how it was about being selfless, being a good teammate, about understanding your place in the hierarchy of a team, about great players who could make other players better. Bill Walton embodied so much of it that I felt like I had to go see him. And there was this extra piece that of all the great players ever, he was the one guy who had that gift and wasn't really able to use it because he kept getting hurt. So I drove to San Diego

And I'm just going to read you the first two paragraphs of the epilogue. William Theodore Walton III lives in a sprawling house filled with hundreds of books, pictures, mementos, artifacts, and everything else that should definitely be in Bill Walton's house. Turn left and you might see a Vietnam book next to a Hunter S. Thompson book. Turn right and you might see a photo of Bill and Bob Dylan hanging next to a picture of Bill and John Wooden. A lifelong resident of the most beautiful city in America, Walton owns a Spanish-style home that makes you think, I am definitely undoubtedly in San Diego right now.

The house features a basketball half court and a pool, as well as his lovely wife, Lori, two pooches named Annie and Shasta, and a black cat named Charcoal. That's right, a black cat. This blows me away. Bill Walton seems like the last guy who should tempt fate with a black cat. Instead of being mentioned in the same breath with Russell and Wilton Kareem, he's remembered for bad luck and what could have been.

His body continues to pay for an injury riddled career that ended 22 years ago. Only recently could he start moving around after major back surgery left him bedridden for months. His feet betrayed him so egregiously that within 10 minutes of sitting down with him, I glanced at his swollen, scarred, almost unrecognizable right foot, become distracted and lose my train of thought. Walton was blessed with a gift and cursed with a body that couldn't handle that gift. The curse trumped the gift.

One of the few players who understood the secret completely and totally, poor Walton never had an extended chance to harvest it. When I think back to that day, it's 15 years ago, almost, almost to the month. I keep thinking about his foot because you looked at it and it just, it was like watching it. It was like looking at a suitcase that had, you know, stickers from where everybody went and it just had all these scarves that just,

kind of captured how awful his journey was just trying to stay in the court. I think he had probably 40 foot surgeries and back surgeries and his body just couldn't hold up. But he was at peace with it by the time I saw him play. And I have a lot more on that. I want to go backwards though, because everyone talked about what an amazing human being he was and what an ambassador he was for basketball. But there are some basic

Basic basketball stuff, I just wanted to rip through really quick about Walton because I feel like he was that important. He's one of the greatest college basketball players ever by any calculation. That's the first thing. Three Player of the Year awards, two titles. They had an 88-game winning streak at UCLA. In the 72 Final Four, 57 points, 41 rebounds in the two games. In 73 in the championship game against Memphis, best game ever, 21 for 22 field goal. Jesus. 44 points, 13 rebounds.

And if you're going to talk about who are the greatest college basketball players of all time, Lou Alcindor, Bill Walton, Maravich, Oscar, like whatever list you want to make, Alcindor and Walton have to be the first two on it. And that's that. So he comes into the league. He's the first pick in the draft for Portland and can't really stay healthy there for a couple of years. And then all of a sudden it happens. March 1977 through February 78th.

The Blazers go 70 and 15, including the 1977 playoffs. And Walton's just crushing it in the playoffs. He's like 18 and 16 and six assists, three plus blocks a game. He beats Artis Gilmore, David Thompson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Dr. J in the finals. And then this is the third thing in the finals. He has one of the 10 greatest closing games in the history of the finals.

Pettit's game six and 57. Russell's game seven and 62. Jordan's game six and 98. Frazier's game seven and 70. Magic's game six and 80. Bird's game six and 86. Duncan's game six and 03. LeBron's game seven and 16. Giannis' 50 pointer in 21. And then Bill Walton, 20 points, 23 rebounds, eight assists, seven blocks,

They win the game in the final play. He rips off his jersey, celebrates shirtless with the delirious Portland fans. Maybe it's the greatest of all the closing games. I got to say, when you throw in the crowd coming in and just mobbing him, it's pretty great. Another thing with him, he's the greatest passing center ever until Jokic shows up. So if you're going to do Mount Passmore, it's Bill Russell, Sabonis, Jokic, and Bill Walton. If you're going to do most fun teammates of all time,

I don't know how long you want your list to be, but Bird and Magic and Bill Wallen and Jokic have to be probably the first four people mentioned. So there's that. The fifth thing

As he's doing all of this, he's one of the great off the court characters in the history of the league. He's got the long hair with the ponytail. He's got the beard. He's doing seventies protest stuff in a league that for the most part wanted no part of this stuff. He's not just protesting Vietnam. He's sticking up for black players. He's sticking up for civil rights. Like he is a true seventies radical.

Uh, there wasn't only no other NBA player like this in the seventies. There were barely any athletes like this in the seventies. Uh, cause he, you know, Ali Brown, Kareem, all of those guys who in the sixties made such an impact by the seventies. It's starting to fade a little bit and Walton's keeping it going. He's also, uh, you know, pot smoker. He's a vegan.

rides his bike everywhere. Brent Musburger, Nick's nicknames of the mountain man. Uh, he had this stuttering problem back then that somehow not only did he over overcome, he became an eventual broadcaster, but he was just a presence. You know, he's seven foot two, like legitimate. I know he's listed at six 11, but he was a legitimate seven foot two long, crazy hair, uh, played unlike anyone else in the league was the only person who made Kareem seem smaller. Uh,

So on top of that, he had this unabashed love for John Wooden and for good basketball. He had this crazy spiritual connection with the Grateful Dead, which lasted all the way through when he played then afterwards. And I think he was still showing up for shows even in the last year.

In the 90s, he ends up doing broadcasting and becomes a character that way. This was the era where the color guy really was never that interesting in basketball. And then Walton comes in. He's like killing Carl Malone. He's killing coaches. He's doing stuff like almost from a fan's perspective, but he had, you know, the gravitas to do it because he was Bill Walton. And he would have these fun podcast interviews and all these different things. You saw a lot of that in 30 for 30, but he was a true, true, true off the court character.

on top of being such a great player. The sixth thing, he's the best guy in one of the four best teams I ever saw in person. So I saw them in December '77. They played in Boston.

I just turned eight years old. And for me to remember a random Celtics game from December 77 means that it had to have left an impact on me because the Celtics sucked that year. The Salvaceks last year, they were not a playoff team. Portland shows up, kicks the crap out of us. They reach a level that I'd never seen in person before where they're just

We would miss while I'm get the rebound, everybody would take off. And that's just how it went. They felt unbeatable. We missed, they scored, we missed, they scored. They felt like watching machine. We left the garden. I remember my dad and I just like, oh my God, we would never have a chance against that team. And as I got older, I thought the score was like 160 to 70. Uh, the score was actually 117 to 86, but I wrote this when I wrote my book.

And I still feel this way. The 86 Celtics, the 96 Bulls, and that 77 Blazers are the three best teams I've ever seen in person. And since I wrote the book, I would add the 2017 Warriors. So it'd be those four teams. I never got to see the 2013 Heat during the streak because I was doing TV that year, but I wish I had seen them because I feel like they would have been in there. But those are my four, 86 Celts, 96 Bulls, 77 Blazers, 2017 Warriors, just for me seeing them in person.

The seventh thing about Walton, his injuries and his loss of relevance from 1978 to 1985 was one of the most damaging things that ever happened in the NBA. Just it's that simple. It starts with he gets hurt in February.

They misdiagnose it. He has a stress fracture, which they don't really realize. He ends up coming back for the playoffs. They think he has a sore foot. They shoot his foot up. He makes it way worse. We end up in a malpractice situation where he sues the team. He misses the whole next season, ends up signing with the Clippers, and that's a disaster. He misses three full seasons from the moment that injury happens. He plays 47 games in five years at one point, 47 games total.

Uh, for the Clippers, he played less than I think 175 games and just gets removed from the league for seven years, basically, because even when he was playing on the Clippers and he had a couple of years, he played like 55 games, 65 games. But even on the Clippers, like it's not like anybody was watching them. They weren't a playoff team. So not only do we lose Walton. So think about like, if we just lost Jokic four years ago, he's just gone. What's the league like?

Uh, we lose a whole blazers Lakers and Walton Kareem robbery just never happens. We have in the 77 playoffs, he beats Kareem and then it just never happens again. We lose Walton versus Moses. We lose Walton playing against the bird Celtics. We lose Walton from a stretch of the NBA. That was really dangerous. The 78 playoffs, 79 playoffs, that whole season, the cocaine era setting it in, uh, the best players in the league are Dr. J and Kareem. They're not on TV that much.

They really kind of need Walton. He's one of the most famous guys in the league and his team is the most fun team to watch and it's just gone. And right around then they start tape delaying games. They're not showing games at all. They don't know which stars to push because they had David Thompson. They had ice. They had Gervin. Like they had good players, but for whatever reason, Walton,

because of that 77 finals, it felt like he was becoming the face of the league and then he's just gone. And they weren't really able to replace it until Bird of Magic showed up. Basketball dies in San Diego is another thing that happened. And then I wrote,

At the time, you can't overstate how damaging those last Walton years were for anyone who truly cared about basketball. From a comedy standpoint, it would be like Eddie Murphy releasing 48 Hours and Trading Places, disappearing for the next eight years, coming back, releasing Beverly Hills Cop, and then disappearing for good. That's what it was like. I mean, you're talking, we should have had 1,100 games from him plus...

150 playoff games and we end up with less than 500 regular season games and, you know, less than 50 playoff games. So, um, so there's that number eight, he was the focal point of the best sports book of all time by David Halberstam. It's called breaks of the game. It is a 362 page snapshot of the NBA red as it's shifting from this downtrodden era was having to

a pretty lucrative era. It covers the 79-80 season, but it goes backwards. It's through Portland, through the prism of this team that really meant something, that had a chance to be truly great. And then within two years, Walton's gone.

Injuries, money has ruined the team, people are getting traded, and it's about a loss of loyalty, it's about bigger business stakes, it's about the rise of the personal brand, smarter media coverage, trusting your doctors. It's just an amazing book and an amazing character study. I wrote about it for Page Two 20 years ago. I read that book so many times, I felt like the guys in the book were my friends, including Bill Walton. But one of my favorite parts of the book was Bobby Knight calls Stu Inman, the guy who built the team.

This was right after Walton bolted for San Diego and Knight was so crushed because he loved the Blazers. He felt like Walton's Blazers teams were like exactly the kind of basketball he wanted in life. And he asked Stu Inman, is there any way to keep a perfect team together? Can it be done anymore? And that's been the crucial question of following basketball for the last 50 years, starting with the 77 Blazers. Can you build a perfect team? Can you keep the team together?

The answer is probably no. I mean, even like we had the 2017 Warriors were, which were about as perfect of an offensive team as you can ever build. And within two years, Katie's leaving, you know, we had Jordan and the Bulls and Jordan after three titles goes to play baseball, comes back through my titles that falls apart. Um, injuries, money, jealousy, it's just too freaking hard. And it really starts with that 77 Blazers team. The night thing,

He becomes the most overqualified sixth mate of all time. He goes to the Celtics. They trade Cedric Maxwell for him. I think they traded a pick too. Goes to the 1986 Celtics, Bird's Apex. They go 82 and 18. They go 15 and one at home. And miraculously, Bill Walton plays 80 games and 16 playoff games. He plays 96 games. This is a guy who did not play

500 regular season games his career. His previous career, I was 67. He played 19 minutes a game. He was 8-7-2 and brought just something to that team that I can't even describe. He clicked with Bird in a way that was almost like hard to believe as you were watching it. They were just immediately on the same Wi-Fi link and they would start messing around with each other during games. They had the same play over and over again where Bird would throw it to Walton

And then he would kind of run toward Walton, almost like using Walton as a pick and either pretend to dart out for three or he would just cut to the basket and Walton would wait and just whip it over his head and find him. But watching those guys experiment together was about as happy as I've ever been as a basketball fan. The team had so much size. The team really loved each other and pulled for each other. There was no jealousy at all. And for Walton, this guy who had seemed like, you know, was this

huge what if in so many different ways. And then basketball makes him happy again. He fits in that team and plays for what seems to be the greatest team ever at the time. And he loved Larry Bird the most. There's this great moment. You can find it on YouTube. Game four, Eastern Conference Finals, 86. They're playing in Milwaukee and they're getting revenge against Milwaukee because Milwaukee swept them three years earlier. And

Bird, ball gets swung around. It's literally the last couple seconds of the game. And Bird says, screw it, and just shoots a three at the buzzer. And it's an FU3, exclamation point, goes in. And you see Walton on the court. He raises his arms. He's so pumped. Just like, just can't believe Bird took the shot and made it. And CBS follows them into the locker room and they're getting the celebration. People are like, yeah, we did it. And then Walton comes in last. He's like, Larry Bird.

Bird, Larry Bird. It's just saying Larry Bird over and over and over again. He was so delighted by Bird. But he was such a big part of that team. And I can't think of another six man quite like him that could come in swing games where you weren't even sure

maybe he should just be in crunch time in every game. He was that good. Um, and he would come in huge, huge, huge body, uh, always had the ball over his head. Fundamentally, he was so good. He would get these rebounds, just keep the ball over his head. Nobody does this anymore. Or if they do it, you notice it. Uh, he was always, always ready to make a play at all times, which I think, uh,

It's a weird thing to praise somebody for, but there's so many guys that will get the ball. What am I going to do? What am I going to do? Walton always knew what he was going to do. I feel like his tape should be shown to high school centers for the rest of eternity. Last thing. I think Walton was one of 15 or 16 players who guaranteed you a title if he was healthy. And here's what I mean by that. Because when I was figuring out the pyramid for my book, the question for me trying to do the rankings is,

you know, I'll do respect to David Robinson, but would you rather have 14 years of David Robinson or like three years of Bill Walton? Because if I have three years of Bill Walton and I could put the right team around him, a good rebounder next to him and a couple shooters and some quick guards, am I winning the title? Like I probably am. And if, if I want a great player, I want them because I want to win a title. It's not, I just don't want to be good for a decade and a half. I want to win the title. Not that many players guaranteed you a title.

Like when I did this list in my book, it was Jordan, Bird, Magic, Russell, Hakeem, Kareem, Duncan, Shaq, Moses, Wilt, and Mikan in the 50s. And that was the whole list. Since then, Kobe, LeBron, Jokic, Curry. Maybe Giannis. Depends how you feel about 2021 and all the stuff that happened this year. It was a pretty weird year. I'm not positive Giannis guarantees you a title, but he couldn't be closer. And then Luka would be the last one. Maybe that's on that list.

But that's how good Walton was. That's why, even though he didn't play that that long, we were talking about him for years and decades after. And then, you know, the really special piece was he brought as much joy and appreciation and wisdom to his post-playing career as I think any great player ever.

So when I drove to San Diego to see him and I'm thinking of the premise, the secret of basketball is that it's not about basketball and I lay it out for him. I have the whole Isaiah story about how Isaiah realized what the secret was that I have in my book. I have a few other examples. I give him my case basically for the secret. And he listened to me and this is what he said. It's not a secret as much as a choice.

Look at the forces fighting against that choice. Look at the forces pushing you to make the other choice, the wrong choice. It's all about you. It's all about material acquisitions, physical gratification, stats, and highlights. Everywhere you go, you're bombarded with the opposite message of what really matters. And you wouldn't even know otherwise unless you played with the right player or right coach, the Woodens, the Arbacks, the Ramses, the Russells, the Byrds. How many people get that lucky? Kobe was blessed to have Phil and eventually realized that.

With a truly great coach, it's not about a diagram. It's not about a play. It's not about a practice. It's the course of time over history. It's the impact a coach has on the lives around him. That's what Phil has done for Kobe. The history of life is that most people figure it out. Most of the time, it's too late. That's the real frustrating part, the squandered opportunities that you can't get back. Kobe figured it out. It took a while, but he figured it out.

Now he says all this, this was right after the 2009 finals. And one of the things I was grappling with my book was Kobe just won the finals and

I wouldn't say Kobe is on the first sentence of people I would say was a big secret guy. He was a new generation of player where it was like, he's going to get his and you had to fit everyone around him, but you could still win a title that way. And it took me a while to figure out the type of basketball that I cared about versus the type of basketball that Kobe was good at. I couldn't reconcile the two. I was like, whatever Kobe is doing on this Lakers team,

It feels opposite to the stuff I'm basically touting in this book. So what does that mean for the book? And that was what I went to Walton with. And this is what Walton said back. Kobe only wants to win.

It doesn't matter what your motivation is or that your game or your style is different or that it's not perceived to be right or acceptable. We have seen an entire spectrum of things for him this decade. And right now he's really, really good. Look, you want him to be perfect for you. This comes back to your choice, who your heroes are. You chose to value a certain type of player over anyone else. He has the right to make his choice too. So that's what Bill Walton said. And he was exactly right.

Kobe was choosing to play a certain way and it worked. Got to hand it to him. But that wasn't the best thing I took away from my time with Walton because we were talking about not just the secret of basketball, but when it becomes truly special. We talk about Larry Bird and this is what he said. It all starts with the flow. Throw in the performance aspect and that's when you really have something.

Larry played with passion, persistence, and purpose. There was meaning to his performances. Same for Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Jerry Garcia, Jordan, Magic. It was important to them, which made it important to us.

The personality of the lead player brings with it all kinds of responsibilities, not just the job. It's a way of life. With Larry, people would buy tickets where they couldn't even see the game, obstructed seats just to be there. People just wanted to be in the arena and feel that golden glow. He was incomparable. He could do things that nobody else could even think of doing, and he would do them in the biggest moments on the grandest stages. That's control of the flow.

Flow plus meaning equals performance. So that's what Bill Walton said. I thought it was one of the coolest things I'd ever heard anybody say, at least to me. And I think he's right. Flow plus meaning equals performance. And the crazy thing about it was nobody understood that as a player more than Bill Walton. Because if you saw him at his peak in 77, there was flow and there was meaning and there was performance and there was a connection with his teammates that was unlike anything else that was happening.

And it got taken away from him. And a lot of times that can break somebody and it didn't break him. He was able to rise above it and he led a great life and affected a lot of people. And to the end, he had flow and he had meaning and he had performance. So RIP Bill Walton. He died this week at 71 years old. We're going to miss him. The sport of basketball is going to miss him.

All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to J. Kyle Mann. Thanks to Kyle Creighton and Steve Cerruti for producing as well. I will see you again on Thursday. I'm doing podcast Thursday and Sunday this week. Don't forget about the rewatchables. You can listen to it, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, or you can subscribe to our Rhythm Movies YouTube channel. I'll see you on Thursday. I'm gonna see them on a way so safe You hear the twit say I'm a prince of love

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