An NBA Summer Movement Review With Ryen Russillo
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Coming up, the last big NBA podcast of the summer with Russillo, next. It's the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's highest rated sports book is the best place to bet it all. We've been doing pretty well on million dollar picks this year. I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking, I

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We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where we are putting up two Rewatchables episodes a week in July and in parts of August as well. On Thursdays, we're running the old Rewatchables 1999 series episodes that we never got to run on the feed. So we ran Austin Powers 2 last week. I think we're running For Love of the Game this week. And then on Monday nights, brand new Rewatchables episodes. We have Twister coming on Monday night. Yeah.

Really good one. One of the first great modern summer movies. Me, Van Lathan, Chris Ryan, we'll be doing that one. And you can watch all of the rewatchable stuff on our Ringer Movies YouTube channel as well. We actually found, I think, like 20 old video episodes that we never actually put up on YouTube. We'll be putting those up over the course of the summer as well. My schedule for this podcast is about to get a little wonky.

I think I'm going to be every other Sunday and that's it for the next few weeks. So I'm just warning you now, probably not coming back for two Sundays and that's going to be the schedule really until the third week of August. I am going to make a dramatic return for Olympic basketball quarterfinals, semifinals and finals for that week. So we'll have a full schedule that week. But for the most part, this is usually when I slow down because, you know, basically from

the tail end of August all the way through the top of July, we're going football and basketball and everything else constantly. So this is when I usually unwind. Also, I have to do a lot of football homework. Got to catch up with some of our great ringer NFL people. Got to catch up with House and Raheem and JJ and Dabundo on our ringer gambling podcast. So in the meantime, you can check out theringer.com. You can check out all of our great

Ringer Podcast Network, pods, sports, culture, reality TV, tech, Hollywood. We have it all. Go check it out and you won't miss me. Plus we'll be in the rewatchable. So you'll get to hear my voice every once in a while. Coming up, Ryan Rosilla for the last time this summer, talking a lot of who dispersed our friends from ProJet. ♪♪

All right, taping this Sunday afternoon. Rusillo is here. It's our last basketball podcast of the season, Rusillo. Are you sad? I know you're sad already that the Bahamas have been knocked out of Olympic qualifying. I know that was tough for you, but this is our last one. I taped it. You ruined it. I didn't know. Yeah. Spoiler alert. I meant to tell you, don't tell me the final score.

Yeah, they lost an OT. So that was it. All right. Lots to hit. We're going to try to zoom through as much of this as we can. DeRozan traded to Sacramento. We'll start there. That was the last big, I think, move of the summer. Perfect timing for us. Happened over the weekend. Time to set up. Kings get DeRozan. Spurs somehow get a 2031 Sacramento first swap to take Harrison Barnes for two years. And the Bulls get Duarte.

and two seconds and basically usher in the we are tanking era what does this do for the ceiling of the kings for you yeah they had such great health luck two years ago um it's a bit like not to say it's the same as oklahoma city but when you saw oklahoma city throughout the season this year like how much different is the ceiling okay and oklahoma city very well could have

Probably come out of the West. A couple breaks here or there. I don't think it's absurd to think that. Would you agree with that? 100%. I think it's like three rebounds, two missed threes, and the play in the corner where somehow they end up Shea fouling P.J. Washington. It's a tough one. Okay, so I think we're on the same page with that one. But one of the questions that we had about them was,

is this their peak? Are they playing at like a peak version of themselves in the regular season and maybe some other teams aren't? Usually it's what the older teams. I think that's probably how we looked at Sacramento two years ago. And I'd still worry about them in the sense of

How are they going to do against other big teams? Like that New Orleans thing was a very real thing. Physically, they were just not big enough to handle them. But I like DeRozan. Years ago when he signed that deal with the Bulls, I think a lot of us had questions. And here we are now where I don't really have any questions and it's three years later. He has the perfect mentality for it. I think him playing off the ball with Kobe White developing. The image of the worst part of DeRozan is that he doesn't shoot threes and he needs to be on the ball and all these different things. I think whoever he is in life is...

It translates into who he is as a basketball player. So adding another piece like that and raising your talent level, even if it doesn't change the hierarchy of the West, is a win for the Kings.

Yeah. And they're probably on the clock with Fox about a year from now. He had like some sort of cryptic quote a couple of weeks ago. So they, it seemed like they were going to do something. I think they kicked the tires of marketing, couldn't get them. I don't remember a situation like DeRozan with basketball in a while where it feels like somebody's second half of their career was better than the first half of their career. Cause usually that's not the case. Um, like for the last three years in the bulls,

Granted, not high stakes, but he was 25.5 a game shooting 50% field goals. There was, there was a moment like when he was on the Spurs where he seemed like this dinosaur to some old basketball era for, you know, the pre-Curry era basically. And he,

Fix that. I was, I think he always plays hard. Anytime they played the Celtics, I was always like, ah, DeRozan's good, man. He's just a good guy to have on your team. He's good at the end of games. Now they have these two guys at the end of the games who are super comfortable trying to get baskets and they're going to be not good defensively. But that was kind of the case anyway, right? Like DeRozan's not going to help them defensively, but they weren't good defensively to begin with. So,

I don't know. They're doubling down on something they're good at. It's almost like a football team. That's like, we got another pass rusher. Well, that was the one thing you're good at. Pass rushing. Yeah. But now we're really good at pass rushing. Yeah. But we can still throw deep on you. So they have holes, but I like their team more. I don't like this pick swap. That's one of those where it's like so far from now. I don't know why they had to give up anything to get to Rosen. That's the part I didn't understand. He didn't really have a market.

So Chicago want to get rid of them anyway. Well, it's the Barnes part of it. So then where's the Barnes landing spot? It's not in Chicago. So that's why you end up paying. Let's talk about that though. Why wasn't it Chicago? Why did the Spurs get a pick swap out of this and not the Bulls? Oh, wait, I have the answer for you. The Bulls are cheap. They don't want to pay the luxury tax. So they end up with Duarte and two second round picks. So they don't have to take the Barnes contract.

And the Spurs are like, we'll take it. And the Spurs get this swap out of it. And it's like, the Bulls being cheap, and I've complained about this a million times, but the Bulls being cheap just makes no sense to me. It's the third biggest market in America. New York is the biggest. LA is the second biggest. Chicago is the third biggest. Like, why are they avoiding the luxury tax in a year? I would love to have that pick swap seven years from now with a Sacramento team that is always either disappointing or kind of in the mix, but not really. I'd love to have their pick.

Okay, give me, you're not wrong about Chicago, by the way, but I think they're probably looking at it as what's the point of even committing this money even for a pick swap seven years from now? Why are we committing this money when the whole thing, I don't know if a mess is too hard of a word for the Bulls because you could say, well, directionless. It's like, well, no, it's a transitional period. It just is. I don't understand the Patrick Williams contract at all. Five for 90 for Patrick Williams? You didn't like that one?

That was one of the ones I went, I know the cap's going up.

But I was thinking that would be a good game show if it was like Patrick Williams, five for nine or five for 90. And you had to guess which contract it was. I would have had to think about it. I would have been like, ah, they probably gave him five for 90. But I would have paused for a second. That was like the Evan Turner deal when Portland signed Evan Turner. And I forget who tweeted it out. It was like, if you had said, what did Evan Turner get in free agency? And the person was like, I would have guessed like five for 30. And then he's like, it would have taken me a year to

To incrementally keep adding numbers until I got to the right number to get up to that Alan Crabb number. So wait, I want to ask you about DeRozan a little bit more. Cause I, I think you hit on something there where did he reinvent himself or

did we just end up liking him so much more because all the big shots that he hit with Chicago, like Chicago for Lonzo got hurt. They had that nice record two years ago. It was this really fun run. I remember sitting at home one night watching them play on a Saturday night in Chicago and place was going nuts. I was like, this team should be awesome. This team should like every team has its ebbs and flows, but when the bulls are awesome, it's fun for the league. And I

I think we all ended up just appreciating DeRozan, even though if it felt like it was pointless in the longterm part of like playing into June. I think, uh,

You know, he worked on some stuff off the court that he's been pretty candid about. And it seemed like it helped him confidence wise because I actually deep dived him because it was somebody I had. I obviously had been in our lives for the last 15 years. I hadn't really put like a shitload of thought into because he hasn't, you know, he had those Toronto teams in the mid 2010s that just every year they would go against LeBron or whoever and just all of a sudden they were gone. And then he's in the Kawhi trade.

And then just kind of float around putting up great stats. Like he's, you know, only 29 guys have 25,000 points right now. The next two guys are going to do it are DeRozan and Curry. Like this is in the 80 year history of the league. The other crazy part about his development too, is that 10 years into the league, he starts to become a playmaker.

where he was just long to isolation guy. And he was really talented. I remember coming out of school when you were looking at him in the draft going at that size and that shot making. I'm surprised he's not thought of as a little bit better of a prospect, but because the shooting wasn't there, the

Then maybe the shooting shift had already turned into guys like this just being overlooked. But he was clearly incredibly talented. You're totally right about the Toronto thing because it just felt like, okay, you guys are stuck. And both he and Lowry had those series. Bad in the playoffs. Oh, yeah. Over and over again. And that became the rap. It's like, this guy's not good when it actually matters. And then somehow in the last four or five years, he's flipped that to where he was one of the finalists for clutch player of the year. This was not the guy from Toronto.

So I think the stuff that you talked about too, with him off the court, that he, he's just someone I would never worry about if I were a front officer or coaching staff now at this point, especially that he's 34 and be like, Hey, we can plug this guy right in. Like Fox is going to get all of his possessions. Monk's going to get his possessions. Keegan's a perfect compliment to all this stuff. So a bit like what we've talked about with the Celtics, but I don't think it started with them. Maybe I pushed back with you on a little bit with the Warriors being interchangeable and guys that can all make decisions with the

ball in their hands. Ironically, that Toronto team in 19 that I referenced all the time, I was like, man, they got a lot of guys who are really good with the ball in their hands. Yeah. If, if the, if these are your options, okay, you're not getting the bigger name free agent. They had the financial constraints because they paid other players.

I don't know this, but my guess would be, okay, if we're adding DeRozan, we are now better. It doesn't solve the problem of what's in front of us in the West. There's other guys higher on the wish list, but this was a real obtainable thing. And all they're really doing is plugging the Harrison Barnes minutes with DeRozan where DeRozan's overall numbers are going to go down just because of the opportunities for shots. But Barnes could play in games where you didn't even notice. I mean, that's just kind of how I'll think of Harrison Barnes, a talented guy who like sometimes like, oh, he's been playing for the last 20 minutes.

Right. And was not a good, it was not a good defensive player either. I think that was the other piece with him is what he was in theory, wasn't what he actually was on the Kings anymore at this point of his career. So it's not like their defense is getting worse because Barnes is leaving. So they're probably maybe the same on that end, but better offensively. And I don't know. And there's still one trade away now. I think they're going to have, man, you look at their

Their crunch time. They're just going to have a lot of trouble against certain teams, right? They don't have really anybody in their roster who I think can defend a wing at a high level that I feel awesome about. I don't really feel awesome about Sabonis against big centers, but they're going to try to outscore people and they're in a slightly better, better spot than they were. And, you know, after the top four, the West is kind of wide open, which we can talk about. We got to talk about the San Antonio piece of this too. Quickly on DeRozan though.

Two second team on base, one third team, six all stars. He's one of the four guys left from that oh nine draft. Curry drew holiday Harden and DeRozan who are all at a really high level, which is unusual because you go one draft later with Paul George and he's the only guy left from that draft is still contributing. You could make a case. He's the fifth best to guard in the league.

Right. Make the case. Wow. I hadn't thought of this. Yeah. Well, it's funny because when you start listing the two guards, you run out of the list fast, right? If let's say Luca is a two guard. Is that fair? No. What, what, what position? I know we always do this. What position is he? He's a point guard. So he's a point guard. All right. Well then he's off the table. Edwards is a two guard. Yes. Booker is a two guard. Well, yeah, he is, but we want to talk about somebody else, but you're right. You're right. Yeah.

Is James Harden a point guard or a two guard? At this point, I mean, I think he's a point guard. Yeah, he's probably a point guard. Is Drew Holiday a point guard or a two guard? See, that one would feel like people would want... That's another tough one, right? But...

like Tatum was the point guard in the playoffs. Right. He was the point forward. So that that's my point is like DeRozan is probably the third best pure shooting guard in the league. And if you want to get a little less technical with the definition of shooting guard, you can squeeze Luca in there and hard and a couple others, but there's just not a lot of these guys is my point. You know, you look around and it's like, man, can CJ is, is DeRozan better than CJ McCollum? Yeah, he is.

You know, could Jordan Hawkins be good someday? Sure. But when you just look at, look around the teams and try to find good two guards, there's not, not a slew of them. Uh, unless you want to say Paul George, but that's, this all becomes part of like, well, Paul George isn't going to be a two guard now, but like Jalen Brown was Mitchell. Yeah. He's a point guard, right? Is he a two? Yeah. He has the ball a lot.

He does. I mean, one of the cool things about DeRozan is he can get his 20, doesn't need the ball that much. We got to switch to San Antonio, though. So they're just...

We shit on teams all the time and we wonder about their strategies all the time. And I still would have loved if they took Dillingham and put him on that team, but not taking Dillingham and trading that and creating cap space and then being able to trade Devante Graham led to them being able to do this deal with the Barnes contract and just grab all these pick swaps in the future. They have 11 firsts and five swap years.

down the road and just a lot of flexibility to build around somebody who's going to be the best player in the league in two years and three years and four years, whenever that happens. We have not seen a team successfully pull this strategy off this well, because we were used to like when it was LeBron and in the mid 2000s, Cleveland was just in this

chess game of trying to find assets to him because they were so scared he was going to leave really from 2005 on. There was just always the fear he was going to abandon them. They were always trying to get win now, win now, win now. Santana is doing the opposite. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, that's why you need your guy to be a partner in it, especially at that stage of their career. And every deal with Cleveland was, can we win today?

even though we're probably putting ourselves in a worse position long-term. So you're right, it is the opposite. But it's also... And I'm thinking, like, Luka was pretty win-nowish. Edwards, who I don't know if we realized that he was going to be in that LeBron-Luka conversation when he was 20, but they were win-nowish with that. It's pretty rare to see somebody... And I think they could do this because they won titles in the past, so they're a little less panic. And Wemby is so bought into that team.

I still would have loved to have Dylan him on this team, but I see the long road on it. I got to give it up to him. They're also going to be pretty good this year, weirdly, right? If Chris Paul and even somebody like Barnes, like Barnes is somebody who could be in a rotation and Castle, I think is going to play right away. And Sohan and, you know, they might be like a 40, 41, 42 win team just because of how good Wemby is. And then they're going to have all these picks and all these possibilities. So it's kind of cool how it played out for them.

Normally, I would just push back on that because like, did you just list those seven guys? Are you serious? In the West, they're going to be 500. But every Wimbanyama thing that you see, you just go, yeah, maybe. Like, I just...

won't be in a position of pushing back on what he could actually be. But you brought up something in that the long view of this was San Antonio, because it was really crazy, even as it was happening in his rookie season. I think you brought it up. I think I know I saw it on TV shows where it's like, well, he's so far ahead of what you would expect. I mean, even with all the hyperbole and the way we talked about him in the draft, I'd still say his first year even blew away the expectations. I agree. And

Then it becomes now you're on a new timeline. Are you as an organization on a timeline of impatience? Because even if you are lucky enough to have one of these picks, then immediately you realize, okay, our franchise is going to be entirely different 10 years from now. What are the deals that you're saying yes to that you would say no to

if that young player took until year three to show. I still think the good deals are the good deals and the bad deals are the bad deals, and that when you become impatient or when you're forced into some kind of timeline,

that's what gets back to that Cleveland run, which I think is really smart of you to bring up because I remember as it was all happening, you're like, okay, so now you're bringing in Ben Wallace because of this or like, was Larry Hughes. There was, there was a, that's before that in signings. And then it became dominoes after that with Ben Wallace and Antoine Jameson, Shaq,

Just kept going. It was expiring contract that was expensive for an okay player for another player that was maybe like just a smidge better, but then their contract situation, which is even worse. Is there a BX? Another one drew good. And there's another one. If you go look at it. So does it mean that like, obviously the Spurs are not going to do it that way. This doesn't seem to be the plan whatsoever. There's probably somebody that could use their cap space on saying, Hey, look, look at this number two or three option. That's a lot better. I love the Chris Paul signing and everything, but,

It always feels like we missed the mark on what is available for a team to do. And really when you're saying, okay, well, you actually have to start making changes a little bit quicker. Well, does that mean you're supposed to do a deal you normally wouldn't want to do? And does that actually help you long-term or does it just seem like you've done something? So you're appeasing this star and it really comes down to women. Yaman is personality for it. Yeah.

Well, they completed phase one for me, which was like, can you put some solid real players around him, please? Including a point guard who can get him the ball and better wings and at least have a competent basketball team and not have him playing with G leaguers. So they fixed that. There's a marketing possibility here that I actually think

You know, and we're, and we're watching league pass. And I actually wonder if people realize how good marketing is because he's been kind of buried on these Utah teams. But I, one of the things that's amazing to me about him is I just really liked him at the end of games. I thought he got good shots. I thought he was super confident. I thought he was good enough that they actually kind of had to make the team weaker because he,

you know, to inadvertently, he was hurting their draft pick because they were so good at the end of the games, mainly because of him and sometimes Clarkson. Um, and I wonder like if San Antonio made a real run at him without giving up a lot of the 2025, 26 stuff, which I think those are the two drafts that you just can't, you can't get out of because of AJ and 26 and flag and 25, but

I do wonder, like, wait, could they have paid 110 cents on the dollar for him and had a real guy at the end of these games and just seen what it looks like? I'm sure they talked about it, and they're probably better off doing what they did. But it's pretty enticing to have a guy like that floating around there, don't you think? Yeah, because he does feel like it makes a lot of sense. And I don't like the everybody has to be 20 to 22 years old if you're a rebuilding team.

He's 27. Yeah. And his jump, I mean, you want to talk about somebody else who's reinvented themselves and sometimes it's just about more opportunity, but the true shooting percentage has gone up. He's got the ball more, but the assist stuff is, is gone up and he's so, I don't, I don't know that people don't realize how good he is. Cause I think last year was the wake up call to everybody like, Whoa,

Think of it. He was part of the Donovan Mitchell trade. Like, hey, we'll take Markkinen too, which I think is a big thing to look at with Ainge's history. I mean, other than the Nets deal that they did a decade ago that led to Gerald Wallace's contract, which the Nets were more than happy to move on from. But he got Colin Sexton in a deal. He got Kessler in a deal.

you know he gets marketing in this deal so some of these other teams that i've seen just reports of like interest in marketing you go okay well is there a young player in one of these other deals that ange would go okay you know give me that guy because like at that point marketing it felt like all right whatever sexton i think the same thing okay not a terrible contract scored a ton of points with cleveland when the team was terrible and he had the ball the entire time so i don't

I don't know if he'll do the same thing again or if he'll feel, meaning Ainge and Zanuck, more pressured into doing something before they get off to a good start again in Utah because marketing has been so good. Yeah, maybe their plan is December, January, February is when you do it. The reason I'm not positive. Is Hardy so good they should fire him? Maybe tell him that he has to pretend he has pneumonia for two months.

Um, the reason I wonder if people know how good he is because my reaction and I think your reaction to, and a couple other people that I know who really give a shit about this stuff are all like, well, why do they want to trade marketing? Why don't just sign them and keep them? The guy's like a legitimate keeper and a pretty unique offensive player. I don't know. Like what kind of timetable is Utah on that? They're like, yeah, we need more picks, more stuff to me.

that's some sort of keeper. But the more I think about it, I think Danny just wants to be in these drafts in the biggest possible way. These next two, I think he's looking at those two drafts as like one, if I can get one of those guys with all the other stuff I have, I'm in the same spot. The Spurs are in with Wemby. I mean, have you watched some of the AJ stuff? No. Have you deep dove him yet? Can you make that a summer project? There's something different about him. How about a fall project?

a fall project. There's something slightly different about him with how fast his reaction time is to stuff that's almost a little creepy. Like he, he has these baseline moves where he, he pretends he's going to go toward kind of the foul line, but then just goes by somebody on the baseline, but does it in a way that you're kind of like, it almost looks like a,

Like CGI'd. You gotta, you'll check them out at some point. Just put it on your calendar for like 90, 90 minutes. But I think him and I think flag next year is really screwing up these teams. So anyway, San Antonio, I get it. Chicago. I don't get it.

Sacramento, you know, this is what happens when you're in the middle. We're going to take a quick break because I want to talk about the real reason Sacramento did this, which it feels like after OKC Denver, Minnesota, Dallas, that fifth spot is wide open. So let's dive into that after the break.

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. This episode is brought to you by Buffalo Wild Wings Go. Takeout and delivery from Buffalo Wild Wings is now Buffalo Wild Wings Go.

And for a limited time, you can get 10 free boneless wings from Buffalo Wild Wings. Go. When you spend $15 and use promo code, go boneless, which by the way, I'm a boneless guy. Sorry. I just love it.

You know, some people are like boneless wings, depending on the situation. Some people are hardcore wings. I'm a boneless guy. Makes it easier for boneless too. When you try any of the B-dub sauces, you can just smear them right in there. They have a crazy amount of sauces and dry rubs, which you should know if you've been to Buffalo Wild Wings. There's like 26 of them. My favorites, Nashville Hot.

I really like the orange chicken and I'm an original Buffalo guy. And if I had to pick one, I would pick the Nashville hot. Cause I like my mouth feeling hot when I'm eating boneless chicken. Let's be honest wings. They are the one true football food. So the fact that you can get 10 of them free while you watch, I don't know, the first Sunday action when they have all those games and the early games, you're just flipping around. Maybe you got a little multi-view action.

Whatever. Eat some wings while you're doing it. It's awesome. Order takeout or delivery from Buffalo Wild Wings Go while you watch the games this football season. Enjoy your 10 free boneless wings and maybe enjoy some Nashville hot sauce while you're at it. At participating locations for a limited time when you order in the Buffalo Wild Wings web or app. All right, Rusillo, I'm going to give you Phoenix, Memphis, New Orleans, Sacramento, Houston, Golden State, and the two LA teams.

and I'm going to give you a wide open number five spot in the West. Out of all of those teams, which one do you like the most? Phoenix, Memphis, New Orleans, Sacramento, Houston, Golden State, Lakers, Clippers. Phoenix was a six seed and it was still a mess. So I would probably take Phoenix. So you would default to, even though everything went wrong last year, they were still in a 50 win range. They're going to be better this year. Coach Bud, I don't know if he's an upgrade over Vogel, but maybe for what they have, he will be.

Yeah, I had them or Memphis as my two. And then I was wondering, am I overrating Memphis? No. Because there's a lot of stock in Ja coming back and being Ja from three years ago. And who knows if that guy's coming back? I'd be shocked if he didn't look like Ja. He's still young enough. That's why I factored it in. But the thing is, we don't know for sure. Memphis was my first. When you initially asked me this question earlier today, I just went through it. I was like, okay, it's going to be Memphis.

And then I went, okay, but think about how much time we spent talking about Phoenix. Now, granted, Durant played 75 games. Booker played 68. Beal played 53. It's not like I'm the biggest Beal guy, but I don't know if Bud is a huge upgrade over Vogel. So I think you're right on that one. But why are you laughing? He was the captain of the I'm not the biggest dot, dot, dot guy.

Beal might be the captain. Or is it Towns? I think Towns is the captain, actually. Beal's the starter. Well, look, I mean, Beal's last playoff game, dude. You're just like, what? What is going on here? But the Memphis thing, I bet more people would say Memphis because before this whole thing fell apart for a million different reasons, they were what, the two-seed?

for a good chunk of two years ago. - Can I give you their team? I wrote down all the teams 'cause I was like, I just wanna make sure I have everybody who's on everyone's team. Maybe I'm missing something. Memphis potentially is starting Jaron Jackson, Clark, Bain, Smart, and Jha as their starting five. They still have Vince Williams and Zaire Williams, Gigi Jackson, they're gonna have Edie, they're gonna have Conchar, they have Laravia, probably Luke-- - They have Laravia. - Laravia, I'm throwing them in.

I don't know. I actually like their team more than Phoenix's team, but Ja is the big X factor. Phoenix brought O'Neal back.

They're bringing Nurkic back, unfortunately. They signed Plumlee, Grayson Allen. We'll see if Dunn can play for them. Roddy's on that team now. And they got Monty Morris, who seems to just bounce around the league now, but I think we all kind of like him. The count of Monty assists turnover? Well, that's the thing. Why does he always bounce around when everybody's like, you know who I really like? You know, smart signing. Considering the constraints they had, I was like, are they going to have a Monty Morris day?

in Arizona. Like I couldn't believe considering like, cause when you started to realize the second apron stuff and how screwed they were and the Royce O'Neal bird trap situation of like the agent could basically name a number and go, you have to resign him because you're not replacing anything like that. I thought the money Morris part of it was huge. So maybe I'm still rounding up a bit on the sons and those three guys. I think it's the right pick. I think it's those two is the next two.

But I will say if Jha is back to being Jha from three years ago, Memphis will be the fifth best team and maybe even better than that. They won 51 and 31 two years ago. Yeah, because even if you look on FanDuel, they have the Western Conference odds. OKC's plus 350, Dallas plus 420, Denver's plus 420. Minnesota's 450. The Lakers are next at 18 to 1, which is ridiculous. We'll get to them. Suns 20 to 1 and Memphis 20 to 1.

And then New Orleans is 20 to one, which is next thing we should talk about. But the Lakers, they're always going to have more money on them because they're a public team. New Orleans still does not have a center and they still have Brandon Ingram. And it's like, well, they'll just trade Brandon Ingram and, and, and go get a center. And, and we do this on the pod sometimes. Look, man, there's 30 teams in the league. Go to the trade machine. Find me the Brandon Ingram trade. Find me the team that wants them.

With one year left in his deal, that's super excited. That has 20 to 22 shots available for him. And that has a center to give for him. And I could not find the team. And I'm the Picasso of the trade machine. I couldn't find one team. And the one I was trying to talk myself into was the Warriors. But that went so bad with Team USA and Kerr and those guys. I just don't think the Warriors are traded for Brandon Ingram. I don't see it. And I can't find another team. Can you? Can you think of another team? I think he's going to be stuck there.

And I think they'll be stuck without a center. Would you trade Jared Allen for Ingram? I would not. I just wouldn't. I know that we, we, in the past, if you're just going to add a center, you can add a center. And then you started looking around. They're out there. Yeah. They're kind of not now. I used to always think that they were,

And I think that's why you saw the Valanciunas deal. It's why you saw the Batazi deal and Mo Wagner deal where it's like, maybe these guys are really valuable later on. And Wiseman got signed by Indiana. Hey, you don't need to tell me. Claxton got a hundred million bucks. Yeah. I think everybody has reached a point where nobody wants to be left without a center. So it turns into your fantasy league where, uh,

People are spending $8 on a tight end because they don't want to have the number two tight end on the bills as their starting tight end. I just feel like with them, their starting five, Zion Ingram, Murphy, McCollum, DeJounte Murray, and then they have Jones and Hawkins and Alvarado and a couple other. They lost Nance, who they were able to play as a small ball five.

I just don't know what the move is. So to me, I think they're clearly below Phoenix and New Orleans. And you could make a case Sacramento should probably be above New Orleans. Now, both of us are scared of if you're going to downgrade New Orleans, you're leaving yourself up to the, hey, Zion's going to come in and just kick everyone's ass for six months. So there's that factor. But I could see that team being more unhappy than happy. A lot of guys who need the ball on that team now.

Murray is not exactly a, I'll stand over here and you guys do stuff guy, you know? And if, if they're stuck with Ingram, now you have Zion and Ingram and Murray, plus you have McCollum. I don't know if I like all those guys together. Do you? No, I can't imagine. Uh, well, I just don't know who the center is. It's Missy right now, the Baylor kid. So that can't,

be the plan. And there's all these dudes over the years that we've all liked in the draft and, or at least I have and Dyson Daniels, I would still hold out a little bit of hope for him, but he's going to be playing off the ball or it'll just be the backup to Trey's minutes all the time. But you'd love to figure out a way for him to be able to close because of his decision-making is smarts, the defensive ability and all that kind of stuff. But he just got lost in the shuffle. There's some health stuff as well.

So I get the Murray deal because it didn't feel like they gave up a ton. And I didn't mind it either. No, and his contract and top everything else. But for somebody that's supposed to be better defensively, he wasn't that last year in Atlanta. Like it wasn't all on Trey.

Yeah. There were times, and I've mentioned it before, but there was this game. It was just brutal. And I stayed to watch Quinn Snyder do the post game. And it was just like our perimeter. Yeah. Right. And he was pointed about it. And he was, he was just calling out the perimeter guys. Like, what are you doing now? When you're having a bad time in general, usually aren't playing defense. Um,

uh to the level that you should be just basketball and i think that's probably part of the dejante part of it as well and the crazy thing that you brought up is like with all these guys that need the ball cj ingram because i do like ingram's passing and then murray on top of it all and i still again i still like the trade but your best weapon your best weapon is still zion on the ball and just just destroying people that's still the best thing that they can do and you hope that

the shooting around him compliments it all. So yeah, it feels like there's another Ingram trade, but Ingram for a center and Ingram probably across the board is two dings now at this point. Well, especially with the one year left in the deal, my guess is it'll be Portland will be the team because Portland's the one team that has too many centers right now and really no direction at all. You think if Rob Williams comes back and he's healthy and they have Aiden and

And then they signed, they drafted Klingon. So on paper, it's like, oh, it'll just be Ingram for, you know, Jeremy Grant and Rob and maybe New Orleans stores. I don't know, something like that. But then I'm like, if I'm Portland, why do I want Brandon Ingram? What am I going to do with him? I need another shooter. I just, I could not find the Ingram team. And if anyone could find the Ingram team, God bless you. Cause I couldn't do it.

And even like Detroit, who I would have said, oh, Detroit's the Ingram team. They spent 52 million on Tobias for two years. They signed Malik Beasley, right? They got one other swing band scoring guy. It just seems like they've moved in a direction where they're not getting them. Washington's not going to want them because Washington wants to be bad. So they don't want Brandon Ingram. So there's seven teams that want to be bad.

So Ingram doesn't help any of those teams because all he's going to do is raise your ceiling and those teams don't want their ceiling raised. So you're just like almost immediately in that, you know, that Atlanta kind of area, but they already traded with Atlanta. Anyway, so that's New Orleans. Sacramento we talked about. No, but I just want to follow up on one thing though, because Aiton is you go, okay, well now what with Aiton? Right. It seems like it would make a ton of sense.

For the Pelicans. Yes. And it still might. I just don't know what the trade is because it's not like Portland's going to be like, oh, cool, we'll take C.J. McCollum back. And I don't know why they would want Ingram. Right. Why would they want him? Right. Unless they could also get off the Jeremy Graham money. Houston is just, and we've talked about them a couple weeks ago, but just the delight on paper. I just love their roster. Are we sure they're not going to be good next year?

Cause I, in my head, they're a year away, but I kept staring at the roster going like, man, what if they're just good this year? You know? Cause I, again, I feel like there's this spot open in that, like there's a spot right next to Phoenix and Memphis and somebody's going to grab it. So maybe it's them golden state. I liked every move they made in the summer. I liked all of them. I don't, I don't know who their second best player is.

I don't think from a ceiling standpoint, they have a lot of like elite players. Really, it's Curry and Draymond and that's it. But they have all these tradable deals now, right? They have all these ways they can go in December once you can start being able to trade the free agents. And I kind of like what they did. You like what they did? Yeah. Considering everything and moving on from whatever the number was going to be to resign Clay, knowing that they were just resetting the deck financially, because I don't care who you are.

If you're an owner and you're like, we don't have any chance of winning a title. So why am I, why am I keeping all this money around again? Like, it's really easy to say it when you feel like you're in contention and probably even a couple of years past your last title, but going into 24, 25, I don't know that there's any owner that's,

going to look at his roster going, I have no chance. Yeah, yeah, let's keep paying everybody and all the tax. So considering they're resetting it financially for themselves, and you can make arguments about who D'Anthony Melton is at this point versus who Clay is. Buddy Heald's a bit hit or miss. I think in that playoff series against the Knicks, there were just too many times you're like, what is up with you? You got to shoot the ball. Then he had that huge game where he erupted. But considering how they had to do so much stuff on the margins,

For them, I liked it all. But to your Houston point, they're 41 and 41 last year. You'd expect all of those players to be a little bit better. I don't know if the non-Shingun thing is real because do you pay some price, some Jalen Green price when Shingun is back, which it looked like. He's clogging the paint. Yeah, we both noticed it.

Yeah. And when all you had to do was like look at the numbers and somebody in Jalen Green, you were like, okay, it's really athletic, but like, what is he really going to be? I look at how I go into this year feeling better and feeling differently about what he could potentially be as opposed to the beginning of his career where it just was like, all right, I know, I know some nights it's sick, but does he really even know what he's doing on top of all these other things that you expect to improve? So it just, it gets really hard one through 10, one through 12 of

of shuffling those teams out. Like the Lakers aren't going to miss the one through 10, the Warriors and Curry, they're going to miss one through 10. I have right now. I had the Lakers and Clippers under all of those teams and people would be like, Oh, you're just saying that like last year, my big fan deal bet was the over for the Lakers wins. I call it like I see it. The Lakers did not get better in any way. They had the exact same team they had last year.

And LeBron is a year older and they have a brand new coach who's never coached before. And then this Bronny James thing is going to be a weird wrinkle of the season. I don't think it's going to be a positive. And it's cool that he's going to be able to play with his son, but it's going to be a major distraction this whole season. It just is. And the odds of this team really looking rocky in December and being a panic trade candidate, I would think they're, they're one of my number ones. I mean, how about this?

So LeBron, who we had to go through the charade of, he was going to take way less to get a free agent. I can't believe people reported on that story with a straight face. Ends up with, he took a little less to get them under the apron. But thank God he did that because the first report was that it was 104 million. It was going to put them above the second apron going into the season. And you're thinking, there's no way. There's no way the optics alone that you wouldn't shave a few million off. Especially when your sons make it 2 million a year. So he didn't do that.

Well, what he did do, and I've never seen this before, and if anyone can explain this, I would love to know what the explanation is. No trade clause, but there's a 15% trade kicker. How does that make sense? They can't trade him, but it's a 15% trade kicker if they do trade him? What? What is that? I don't know. I don't know either. Can he waive the no trade clause?

I just raised my suspicion for a sec. I just thought it was, I've never seen that before. Are you saying, well, it was like, yeah, if we, if a wink wink, yeah, if we have to trade you in January, then you'll get paid, you'll get that money back. And then some, I just don't understand it. And then I was looking at like, all right, what's their panic trade in December? It's like they,

I don't even know what the panic trade is because nobody wants D'Angelo Russell at $18 million a year. Nobody wants Gabe Vincent at $11 million. You'd be like, oh, we'll package our contracts together with a couple of picks. It's like, I don't know if anyone wants that because then they're stuck with the contracts. And the only guy I can look at that it made sense to me was Levine.

Who his stock cratered to the point that Golden State was offered Levine for Chris Paul, who they were going to waive and Wiggins. And they were like, we're good. No, thanks. So Levine basically has anti-trade value now. And I don't, other than him and DeAndre Ayton, who else would the Lakers even get? Levine's contract and his injury history tells you everything you need to know about the market.

So that makes sense that you're attaching something to that for someone to take that on. But with the amount of time left on that deal, it's not even really like the salary dump. It's like now you have to deal with this thing. Three years, 150 left, which makes it impossible to trade. Right. The other thing that you're hinting at here is why is there a trade kicker? I didn't see that part of it.

I saw the no trade part because when it was happening and I thought, are they actually because the initial report suggested that they were going to be just over like the second apron, just over. I was like, there's no way there's no way they can go into it. And then it would be really weird if LeBron becomes passive aggressive about the lack of activity before the trade deadline. It's like, well, dude.

We're stuck. We're stuck on this one. They haven't even started the season and guys have already been in trade rumors with them, right? It was like, we're going to get Clay Thompson. It would have been a sign of trade with D'Angelo Russell. Well, I wonder if LeBron knew about that one. And now the season started. It's like, hey, D'Angelo, good to see you again. How was your summer? It's like, oh yeah, I tried to trade you for the ninth time. The report was, and Clay apparently had dinner down here at the Bottle Inn with the Dallas contenders.

Yeah, I know. Once I read the story, I was like, oh, right down the street, get takeout from there all the time. And the report was that the Lakers were willing to go higher than even what Dallas did. And that Clay was like, look, I can see how I fit in with Dallas immediately, even though I think there's some Dallas questions about your perimeter defense if you're closing with Clay, Kyrie and Luca. What do you think? Yeah.

Yeah, I love, I love. Because Clay can't guard anyone anymore. That was what was so funny about the Lakers scenario. It's like, oh good, another guy who doesn't play defense. He'll fit right in as everybody's going by all these dudes. I don't like what the Lakers have done at all. And really the only. What else were they going to do after the AD and the LeBron extension? I don't think they had a lot of choices. Yeah, I don't think they did either. They're paying a hundred plus million for two guys, but basically they need Vanderbilt to be healthy.

And they need connect to be good, to at least be like a ninth man who can play and shoot. And they kind of need Gabe Vincent to be who he was two years ago. So there's, there's three big, can this happens? They're not inconceivable, but other than that, there, I don't, I don't think they're getting that Davis durability season again. Do you?

It's as durable as, I mean, and we'll talk about Paul George and the Sixers after the break, but are they getting that Paul George durability season again? Not sure. No, I mean, the better bet would be that you're not going to get the same level of durability from him because it was basically unprecedented for him at this stage of his career, considering how much he's been hurt in the past, but it was an awesome season. I think you'll see more Reeves on the ball. I think you'll see him initiating more stuff. I think that's what Redick is

probably looking at is I think in the beginning, Ham didn't quite understand Reeves. Um, benching him would tip me off to that. Well, how about in the playoffs when the first playoffs a year ago, when that was like their best asset against Denver and then Ham just, he just wouldn't get the ball in the fourth quarter. Remember how much trouble Denver had matching up against Reeves that first playoff series. And then you're right. Like that last year he, Ham didn't get him at all. I get the criticisms of Ham cause I didn't think he did a great job last year.

But to your original like conspiracy bill point of the LeBron part of it, it's just not very because I think anything's on the table when you're theorizing what could happen. Could LeBron say, all right, I played with my son on the same floor, but we're not winning it. But who's who's trading enough assets back for a 50 million dollar price tag on a player, even if everybody wanted LeBron? I don't know. So I don't. And then the Clippers.

It's like, no, they're going to be better with Batum and Derek Jones and the Paul George minutes. Now they're going to emphasize defense is like, they're definitely not going to be better guys. I have Clipper fans in my life for like, now it's more of a team. Now it's like, just stop. Paul George was really good last year.

And Kawhi, I have no idea if Kawhi is playing in the Team USA scrimmage tomorrow, much less 80 more games. To me, the Clippers, I have them last out of all those teams. Zubach, Batum, Kawhi, Derek Jones, and Harden. And then Mann, Powell, Chris Dunn, Coffey, Bamba. That feels like a lottery team to me. That's like 120-game Kawhi injury, and you're in the lottery. Yeah, Kawhi. The West is too good.

The fact they got both those guys all NBA level and then Kawhi's just not available for him in the first round. I think anything was possible for that team if they were healthy in the West.

I really do. I mean, that last year, that, yeah, that run was incredible. I still think that win against Boston was the single most impressive game I'd seen from a team all season long. Like I'd put that game up against every other game that I watched this entire year where they kicked their ass and they were all locked in. And I went, this is, this is real, which is also why I could have understood despite some of the cost stuff that we're talking about and how much we've all been just

referencing the second apron here for weeks where if they had just said, oh, we'll just run it back. Like at least this gives us a chance because of what we saw before. Even if the same thing with the Sixers and the Paul George part of it now, like Anthony Davis, as you just mentioned, some teams are just better health bets and the Clippers still would have been a bad health bet.

And you're right. If they don't have Kawhi, I think Harden will put up some huge numbers. By the way, did you get any sense on who they were bidding against on that Harden deal? Or was that just a, Hey, this is kind of your status in the league. And since that felt like a wink from nine months ago. Yeah. Who was going over 30 on him. But we said that last year with Kawhi and Dallas, like sometimes they, they, there were no other, I'm not Kawhi, Kyrie. There were no other Kyrie bidders last summer and Dallas still had to pay it. So I think

It's just the way it goes. The thing for me with the Clippers and the Lakers is I think it's more conceivable to me that both teams missed the playoffs to make it, which is a pretty crazy place to be when you think like six years ago when the Davis trade and Kawhi and Paul George go to the Clippers, like, oh my God, battle LA, here we go. And now I look at it and it's like, maybe that would be a fun fan duel bet. Do you think both LA teams could miss the playoffs this year? Meaning not be one of the, one of the eight playoff teams that

So that would be, I'm just going off of last year's standings. That would be OKC, Denver, Minnesota in, Clippers out, Dallas in, Phoenix in. So that's five. And then you're putting Sacramento. Memphis basically taking somebody's spot. Sacramento stays in the top 10. Memphis takes somebody's spot. And New Orleans. Maybe Houston. I mean, Houston could also be one of those spots.

We actually have too many guys who think they're hot shit. And this has been in kind of a weirdly unhappy season. EMA is mad at everybody. I could see that version of their season too. But I do like EMA. I like EMA in that spot as opposed to a younger dude who's never been a head coach before with a young team where he'll just be like, I don't care about your rookie extension, but here are the eight guys. Yeah. Well, out of all those odds, I think Memphis, uh,

Memphis at 20 to one seems like the best thoughts. All right, we'll take a break and we got to talk about Philly and Paul George. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. It's football season. You can now get almost anything you need for game day delivered with Uber Eats. What do we mean by almost? Well, you can't get a running back delivered, but you can get baby back ribs delivered. A field goal, that's a no, but a honey butter dinner roll. Oh yeah, that's a yes. A six pack of abs, definitely no.

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and more time growing your business. That's pretty smart. Head over to amazonbusiness.com and see what smart business buying is all about. So Philly Science, Paul George, we were expecting it for a while. What I wasn't expecting was them getting Caleb Martin and it's unclear what happened with his agent.

And people on the Miami side, the Miami media machine is mad. Apparently he turned down five for 65 and thought he could get more and not sure what happened. Maybe he didn't want to stay, but it was a tough beat for a heat culture. Anyway, they get Caleb Martin and now you can at least see what the eight man rotation is. Embiid, Paul George, Caleb Martin, Oubre, Maxie, Eric Gordon, McCain, Drummond,

and free agent veteran minimum X as the nine-man rotation, plus picks to trade if they want to get more people this winter. Did this change your feeling on them as a possible Eastern Finals representative? Change? Well, I mean, once it's all said and done, it's a complete home run of free agent run. When you look at an offseason and what everybody hopes your team will do, they actually did it.

And most teams can't pull this off. And just by Paul George not getting that fourth year for the Clippers, it changed everything. It turned Maury into this guy might lose his job and have to deal with Embiid to the best offseason of any front office guy in the league. What do you think was plan B if Paul George, if the Clippers just gave him the fourth year? Or if Golden State, if that trade...

And Draymond was mad that the Clippers didn't take the Golden State package. Why would they take that package? Why do the Clippers have to take $50 million in players back from Paul George? I didn't understand the point of that.

Well, I mean, it was Draymond making the point. I know, but it was just like, you're mad? They got you to write by Paul George. So they have to go to the second apron to do right by him? Yeah, right. Or the Clippers are like, awesome, now we have Wiggins. We have Chris Paul at 30 million bucks. Cool, thanks. Yeah, they're real contenders. They have a chance. If you're going to play the health card against me, I can't win. I can't win in that argument. But that they were able to... Just the...

The fragility of genius and failure. In other fields, maybe it's a little easier to map out and reach that ultimate position of being that admired for your ability to do whatever it is that you do in your line of work. But for Maury, everything comes together just because the Clippers decided to do something that teams don't do historically.

Where they go out, we're not giving you the fourth year to somebody like Paul George, which I totally understand. Like, I can't get mad at the Clippers for keeping Paul George for four years. I can't get mad at them not wanting to go to the fourth year. But that puts everything else in a motion where now all of a sudden.

The rest of these guys like Caleb Barnes, like, OK, now I do want to go there like that makes sense for me to go to some kind of contender. So it's a good point. I don't know what I don't know what could be criticized about the Sixers offseason because so many teams map this stuff out more than a year in advance, knowing they still have a very slim chance of pulling this off. And they did it.

Here's where you could kill the Clippers for the Paul George thing. And by the way, I would have been terrified to give him a four-year, 200-plus million dollar deal when he's already been in the league for 14 years. He's a metal rod in his leg. He's had a bunch of injuries. We've seen that go sideways and there's no going back. I mean, even you think, I was looking back at the, I was looking through DeRozan's playoffs in that first year when the Nets, when Pearson, Garnett, Darren Williams, Joe Johnson,

And they played seven gamer Nets Raptors, right? And the Raptors end up losing by one. Lowry gets blocked at the buzzer. And I was like, man, I just, I don't remember the series at all. And I'm looking at the box scores and KG plays like 20 minutes a game that first year for the Nets. And he's basically done. Remember? And it was like, when they traded for him, it's like, they're getting Paul Pierce and KG. And it's like, KG showed up at Brooklyn. It was a wrap. He was a corpse. He could barely move anymore.

And I just wonder with Paul George, like this is what happens. You have a ton of miles, you have some injuries, and then all of a sudden it goes sideways. So I get it from the Clippers standpoint. And yet they don't have their pick for all four of these years. They have to swap it in 25. It's going to either Philly or OKC in 26. They're swapping in 27 with OKC and their 28 is going to Philly.

So if I don't have my picks for any of those four years, I'm just signing Paul George for the four. And then maybe you can trade them in December or whatever, but I just wouldn't lose the asset. I would not turn him into Jones and Batum for 20 million. I know about the second apron and I get all the things, but I think it's really likely they're in the lottery this year. And that's a disaster. There's going to be no way for them to get better. So it was an amazing stroke of luck for Philly.

No different than when the Celtics did that Tatum Brown picks trade, not realizing that Prokhorov within two years is going to be like, I'm out. I'm not spending money anymore. And now all of a sudden you have their picks. Like Darrow was pretty lucky that all of a sudden Balmer, for whatever reason, just looked at the chessboard and was like, I'm out. I'm not spending money like this anymore. But yet he doesn't have any of his picks. If I'd been in the room with him, I would have been like, yo, Steve,

Let's do the whiteboard. You don't have 25, 26, 20. We don't have picks any of these years. Like how are we going to get good players? But maybe they think they can get free agents a year from now. I don't know. That's what I wonder. That no, that's, that's a great point. Cause it's the first thing that I wondered was like, do they,

Do they have a read on somebody down the line? Because everybody just keeps repeating, oh, well, they're moving into that new building. They can't do that. It's like, well, just because you're moving into a new building, it's like, hey, let's have a title contending roster because it's a new building. It's like, all right, yeah, because I wasn't thinking that before I found out about the new building. So let's start focusing on that now. But when we were just talking about the Clippers not that long ago in the pod, I can't imagine what it's like for Balmer and that new ownership seasoning of Clippers

It looked amazing to be able to add Kawhi and Paul George, but ultimately this is what we're left with. What, three playoff round wins? Like nobody, if you would set the over under on how many total series they're going to win, you're like, hey, by the way, you're only going to win three playoff rounds the entire time these guys are here. So based on what you would have thought, the joy of actually pulling this off, pulling in two top 10, top 15 players at a time, the best version of Kawhi, arguably like one of the best players in the league,

Even when you know the injury history, you're like, okay, this is a no brainer. I mean, it's just crazy that you throw in a Shea Gildress Alexander that becomes an MVP candidate on top of all the picks on everything else. And one of the picks turns into Jalen Williams. Just the best two guys at OKC. It's early. Right. It's early really bad. It's amazing.

knowing like you could argue, well, it's a sunk cost. So don't resign Paul George because of all those picks. I still think other teams would have gone to your point. Well, we already used all these picks on this guy. So let's just, let's just keep them around because let's say, let's say,

There's a health luck situation with Kawhi and Paul George, which I know nobody running a team would want to say like, oh, cool plan. Health luck with two guys with notorious health track records. We're just going to have health luck again at the end of this year. But you know what? It's still probably better. And then in the fourth year, which I think is a really important thing, is, okay, you don't want to pay him in that fourth year?

Then just dump them on somebody else. Dump them on somebody else. Dump them six months into the contract. The more I look at it, I'm just like, I'm signing them and figuring out later. That's where I would have landed. I'm not losing the asset. And I'm looking at their cap now as you're talking. They're not going to have cap until the...

Really, the 27th season anyway. The next two years, they're not going to be able to sign a big free agent. I just think the best way to have people lose interest in your new building is to not have picks and to give up top five picks the next couple of years, potentially. Okay, but we touched on something we didn't really flesh it out because I don't have an answer to it. Do they think that with the new building and everything and clearing the decks earlier means...

that they have the inside track on somebody. But then again, think about all the times we've heard about, oh, this guy's going to want out. This guy's going to want to leave. Like when New York was staffing its team with guys that had these roots to Booker and Carl Anthony Towns and Donovan Mitchell. And it was like, they're going to have all these guys. And when they become free agents, like that was always the big gossipy thing. And then it just doesn't happen. It's a really, like, even if you've got a hint that down the road, if you had more flexibility that, you know,

It's really hard to predict those things. And in the actual times that it happens based on those two plus year rumors that we'll hear about some player, things change so quickly. Like the Donovan Mitchell one's a perfect example. Everybody was just repeating the same stuff over and over again. But then all of a sudden the Knicks can't fit them.

And they don't really need him. The Knicks don't need him and the Nets don't want him. Well, then the Nets are terrible. So then why does Mitchell want to go there? So now the shift of the league turns into, well, you know what? Maybe I'll just do the three-year extension here in Cleveland. I'm getting my money. I'm still young enough. And then at 10 years in, in 2027, I think the projections are a max contract worth like $370 million. So that's not bad news for Donovan Mitchell. Donovan Mitchell would be fine. And...

Under the Russillo rule, he can always just demand a trade in eight months if he doesn't like Cleveland that much. I'll tell you this. The moment Kawhi gets hurt next year, which odds are he will, and now that is the James Harden show with just people standing around watching James Harden, guess who's not going to be in the building for that? Me.

Fantasy draft, though? No, thank you. Little fantasy flyer? Out completely. I actually can't wait. I can't think of anything worse than driving to Englewood and watching James Harden have a 42% usage rate as Derrick Jones is standing here and Nick Batum, like, get me out. I'm not going. I might do it. I might go by myself smuggling my own six-pack. No, just like smuggling a six-pack of Coors Light and just start crying and be like, just see it one more time in its entirety.

Because it's going to be awesome. It could go so sideways. It's crazy. I feel bad for the Clipper fans. Clippers have the ones that they've had for a while. They have good fans and it's just not great. But with the Philly side of things, and I did this last week with Wilds and I wasn't quite hard enough. There's something... Let it out. Let it out. Let's hear it. I was in Acapulco once with my mom.

and my stepdad and Jeff Gow, the best man at my wedding in the late 80s. And we got lost. It was pre-navigation systems. Had the maps and we're just driving around and we get really lost. And we're going down this one road and it's dark. And we're like, well, we should go down there. Maybe that's going to lead to a street. And my mom, all of a sudden she's like, no, we can't go down that road.

Something about the road going that way just freaked her out. She was like, no, turn around. Let's just go back. I don't want to go down that road. She didn't like something. It's kind of how I feel about Paul George in Philly, and I'm still sorting my feelings out. There's something about the fit of the player and the fan base that I just need to work through mentally because it seems like the kind of guy who's going to drive them crazy is

And yet I completely agree. They should have done the, done the deal, signed them. It made a ton of sense. I'm not down on it, but there's something about him in Philly that makes me nervous. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. I think it's praise for pulling it off with also the caution of it. 34 years old. Like if we're doing the health, the Anthony Davis stuff that we've already touched on, uh,

And Philly's a real contender. Like the whole point of this is they actually have a real contending team, the one through nine to put it all together. But yeah, he's not perfect. You called him one of the coin toss brothers last year.

Yeah. I voted for him 13-mile NBA. That's one of many reasons why I think Philly had to do what they did. They had to get him. Well, they had to do it because... I 100% endorse it. We didn't even talk... Like, what are the other options? DeRozan at 20-plus million? And then can you figure out a way to get he and KCP under the same thing? And then you're like, hey, this is what we did. We're much better now. And you're like... I mean, let's talk that out. If I gave you Doré, DeRozan, and KCP, or Dorby, Paul, George...

for what Philly has with Embiid, who's pretty ball dominant when he's healthy, and Maxey, who likes having the ball, would you be better off with the Rosen-KCP combo? It's a good basketball argument. Darrell was always trying to get Paul George. That's who he is. He wants three stars. There was no question. And theoretically, the three of them fit really well together. But that Philly fan base is fucking tough, man.

It just is. They have the toughest fan base. That is the toughest place to play in the NBA. And their fans will both get mad when they hear that, but they know it's true. It's the toughest place to play out of all the teams. They're not going to put up with the Paul George the first time there's a TNT Thursday game against Boston. And he goes one for seven with four points. And they're just not going to let, it's not the right team for that. So I just hope he knows that going in. Well, I don't know that anyone can know until they've actually experienced it.

He can think he knows it, but those moments are going to happen. But during the regular season, it's not going to matter until it's the playoffs. And if those guys are all healthy, they have a really good shot. Now, I still think the most important thing to combat that is to make Embiid have to chase around a stretch five, which is why if they had gotten through and faced the Celtics and Embiid had been healthier,

Well, I can only go based on the version of what we saw in Bede, who was putting up huge numbers, but also just still looked physically impacted by where he was at at that point of the season. He could not protect the boards either. No, watching him, the way he played against the Knicks, if he had had to chase Przingis around, it was going to be a wrap.

He might have gotten his points, but it was going to be brutal for him to chase him around. So the Knicks don't have that with Mitchell Robinson. They're going to have their own depth issue at center, like some of these other teams that we're talking about, but you still can't go like, well, hey, I also want depth at center on top of bringing Bridges to throw with us all those other guys and re-signing OG, the assets he gave up. So it's still a great offseason for them, even if we can get really, really greedy with the way that we grade some of those things. So even though there's part of me that,

if you think of the DeRozan health part of it. But it's funny because I even think about Denver and everybody's trashing them right now. And I go, you know, KCP at 20 plus million at this age and then also he's the fifth option and he could have zero points in a playoff game and you might not even notice. He wasn't good in the playoffs. No. So you're like, should I give that guy 60? But then the two of those guys, I just think it's about the highest end shot making ability.

And Paul George, even with how good DeRozan has been, I think the idea of Paul George is that he's a higher level than even DeRozan is, right? I think I agree with you because you made the key point before. The fact that they got Paul George maybe opens the door for them to then get Caleb Martin and to get somebody at a discount. They have, when you think like the Knicks, who we both loved what they did this summer, I still have some Knicks questions where Randall fits into all this.

I don't know what they're going to do about the center position. Seems like a relevant question. Um, who's going to finish games for them last year. They had such great chemistry and they, they had such a distinct identity when Randall went out and now, you know, they have really good players and all of them are going to want to finish games. And I guess Randall's going to have to play center for them, but they're really going to miss Arnstein. Uh, they know they're going to miss him. And I think he's going to be just about impossible to replicate. And the Celtics, uh,

who are not going to have Porzingis for two and a half months. That's best case scenario. He might be gone half the year. They're just going to be a different team coming off a title. It's always a little weird the year after. I can't believe Horford continues to play at this age. Horford's going to be legitimately 38 coming off a 100-game season. So if I'm Philly and if I'm Orlando, I'm like, hey, man, we could...

If we could stay healthy and get our shit together, like we could be a one or a two seed here because Seltzer, Seltzer not going to be the same team next year for the regular season that they were. And, um, and I don't think the Knicks are at that. I think the Knicks got better, but also have some holes that I want to see play out. And I don't know if they're getting that Brunson season again.

As much as I love Brunson, I have him as the sixth best. Why not? The top hundred. I don't know. He's just small guards. I've just seen small guards. I'd like that one guy. Maybe I'm scarred from the Isaiah Thomas season when he was just incredible. And then that was it. It was, it was kind of, uh, you know, just small guards with that kind of usage rate. I always make me nervous from an injury standpoint. He's 28 August. I, I, I think even if, look, it was an absurd year from him.

But he's like another one of those guys. It's just like hesitant limitation guy. Like I can't, I've already done it too many times with him. There's no way. And maybe it's not the overall, look, the overall stats are probably not going to be the same.

But it's more of a fact, like, does he look like he's as great of a shot maker in those huge moments? I mean, he's kind of answered every possible question you can have about this guy considering all the injury stuff. So I'm just, Ridge is going to get a few more shots. Oh, geez. Probably going to want a few more shots. Mitchell Robinson wanted a lot of shots, but he's not going to get any of them. Just as an aside to the younger listeners right now, or maybe the young, younger content people out there, stop fucking posting pictures of centers going between their legs in an

empty gym, hitting NBA threes doesn't mean anything. It's like me airbrushing myself next to like Christina Hendricks. Like it's not real. It doesn't know because I don't even know how to use Adobe, but I'm just saying like,

Every offseason, we see all these bigs because they never get to shoot these shots in the game. They don't get to dribble long enough. And there's a reason why, because in-game, it's not a real thing. And there's all these other guys around them that are just way better at it. So the basketball, as they've aged, as they've become basketball adults, some other adult who's a coach goes, hey, cool stuff, bro.

You're not doing any of that here because it's actually not a great idea to have Mitchell Robinson isoing with a high ball screen and then showing off this handle that nobody's actually trying to disrupt. You're 7-1. We're not letting you pull up threes. Yeah. Now, if you could make them like Wemby, then it's on, but it's just...

Every off season, I see these videos posted of these huge centers. And it's like, man, so-and-so is in his bag this summer. I can't wait to see this. It's like, no, I'm going to tell you right now what it's going to look like. It's not going to look like any of that. Somebody's never going to have those plays. Everybody knows that. I love those, those social clips of so-and-so was a problem. Like the Jr rider was a problem. I love those. Somebody sent me one of, it was Shaq's jump shot was a problem.

And it was all these clips of Shaq making like 20 footers and threes. And it was like, people don't realize Shaq can shoot from, it was like one of those. It's like Shaq never took those. We all watch Shaq all those times. It was like a miracle if he took one 25 footer in a month. But his, I got to say his shot did look pretty good. Like I did make it. Wasn't there a new one? Go ahead. I'll get to this. Cause I know you're talking about Shaq.

What I was just like time machine shack. If you just took shack from 1992 and just put him now and he was shooting more jumpers, just what would that look like? It did got me thinking a little bit, but he was so unstoppable around the basket. It would have been stupid to have them shoot 20 footers for any reason. But anyway, wasn't there a, did you have a Quincy AC was a problem post recently? I think I did. Yeah. Yeah. I'm looking at this summer. I'm going to be on the lookout for some of them. All right. So if I gave you Boston, Philly, New York,

Milwaukee, Orlando as a five right now in July, July 7th. Shouldn't Cleveland be the six? Shouldn't the Pacers be in there? I don't know. You tell me. Who do you have? Would you have the Celtics as the guaranteed one seed? And if you don't, who would you put in that spot? I don't know how you pick anybody else. But I don't know if there is. Because I'd imagine that with Embiid this year, okay, and knowing how all these playoff series have ended,

And Paul George's history, I wouldn't care about my seat at all if I'm Philly. I'm just not going to, hey, you already won the MVP. They loaded up. This year has to be about everybody being as healthy as they possibly can. Just being ready to April Midget. Right. Yeah, because the Philly case would be, look how good they were when Embiid played last year. Look at their record. Now we've made the team better around him. And if we can get 67 games out of him, could we go...

53 and 14 in those 67 games based on the track record of how good we've been when he played. Is Embiid the best passer? Is Embiid the best passer out of this group? Well, if you're picking holes, the lack of passing and then the rebounding thing is going to be a real issue for them. They were bad as a rebounding team last year. They were 20th

And then their opponents were eighth rebounding against them. Then the playoffs, the Knicks were like four to five above them game by game. And in general, they just, I thought that was a real issue for them. So who that Caleb Barton, Paul George, Maxie, like all these dudes they've added, they don't really have anybody who box out so-and-so. They'll be able to switch on D though. Wait, we have to talk about, it sounds like you're slightly higher on Philly than I am. It would be dismissive to go. They have no chance.

I don't, is anybody saying that or no. Okay. I don't know. I don't know if I'm, I'm higher on him because I don't think anybody should be picking any other team to have the one seat other than Boston, even with the center questions and the non-Pershinga start to the season, because those four guys that one through four, like who's one through four is even close to that right now. Yeah. I'm with you. The defending and title is makes me nervous. Um, can we talk about, you want to go Franz extension or Scotty Barnes extension?

Or both? I think they're both. I think it's a both topic. I did a lot of work on this. Oh, you did? I figured. I did not like either extension at all. And for two reasons. One is I don't think those guys are max players. And two, I don't understand the point of doing it a year early.

When we just saw Philly with Maxie be like, hold on, man, we're giving you the contract. Just wait a year. It gives us more flexibility a year from now. Signings, the whole thing. And also like deep down, if it doesn't go awesome, it's kind of easier as a trade asset. Barnes, I just don't get it all. They're basically saying this is the face of our franchise and we've just not seen them win with them. Franz, we can talk about. But the Franz, I honestly was stunned.

Cause I just don't think he's a max player. So you're more stunned by Franz than Scotty Barnes. I was, I was stunned by Franz. I would have waited a year, seen if he could shoot threes better and just seen, seen what improved in year four. The fact that they did it a year early, I just didn't get it. Most do it a year early when it feels like this is the max guy. Yeah. When it's Tatum or Edwards or yeah. But Franz Wagner averaging 19 and five, that that's where I maybe draw the line.

And people could say that with Maxie, but Maxie took another jump beyond. I mean, of all the things that Maury's done here, Maxie being that as the 21st pick is like, that's such an incredible win to add somebody who's a flirtation all NBA guy, maybe moving forward. I mean, I know the guard position is stacked or whatever, but like I voted him as a starter for the all-star team.

you know i didn't i mean even even the best version of max would be like oh yeah a couple years into this this is the kind of neighborhood that he's going to be in i mean that's incredible so normally

I don't know what the maxi number would have been, but they were smart to hold off on the whole thing. And I agree, like it would seem to just allow you a little bit more flexibility, but it feels like there are certain players that are anointed that you just know that you're giving them the max number. And it's the same thing with the Lonzo Ball deal where he does it, what, a year early for the five years and $204 million or something like that. Yeah, I said Lonzo, my bad.

The other problem with the past, but with Paolo, you do it like, like, it's like, yeah, I get it. The moment you could do it, Tatum, you do it. Edwards, you do it. I just don't think when you get to the Barnes Franz level, I'm going to do it when it's the right year to do it. Why am I doing it a year early? Scotty has a better argument for it than Franz does, but let's go, let's go over a couple of things here. All right.

Yeah, LaMelo was five years, $204 million. That was last year. So this number is five years, $225 million for Barnes. The problem is that the agents want to report it as five years, $270 million. And that's if they were to be all NBA MVP or defensive player of the year, which Barnes actually...

Like there's, there's a case to be made that if he keeps improving, then maybe he ends up in a third team, all NBA, certainly more so than France at this point. So the two 70 numbers, the first number that you see on both of these players, you're going like, what the hell? Like, look at that fifth year. Yeah, right. It's two 25. So if it's Barnes making 10 million this year, cause it's the fourth year of the rookie deal, which is the second club option. Um, there's no options on Scotty's deal.

And the way this works is that we know that the max player is 35% or 30% of the cap. The super max is 35%. Well, on these rookie max extensions, that's 25% of the cap. So if the cap continues to go from 140, where it's at now to what would be the fifth year of Scotty Barnes deal. And I just did like average 10 million a year up in cap probably goes up more than that. It's at 190 million. So you're still only paying like,

just over 25% of your cap number to that player. So as absurd as the numbers may be for Barnes, when the extension kicks in at 38, 42, 45, 48, and then 51 million and 29, 30, okay?

it's, it's not a, we have to remind ourselves, it's not 51 million of the $140 million cap. It's 51 million of $190 million cap. And that's the cap where basically every team's going to be way over the cap in the first place. So if you feel like the player has a chance to be the face of the franchise, which may say more about the rest of the Raptors roster, where I did the numbers on that, like this year with Brown, RJ Barrett, and quickly, it's

It's going to be like 78 million with those players. And then when Brown's off the books and it's RJ quickly and then Barnes, it's like a hundred million or 90 million, 90, I think it's 99 million for those three players. You're going, man, you might be paying the wrong three players. So, Oh, you think? Yes, I do. It's why I brought it up. It's why I brought it up. But this falls into that category of transactions that happen in the league that I know you despise.

and it's the...

Hey, make sure you take care of our guy. Do it a year ahead of time. Let's not bullshit this. Nobody ever seems to want to say, hey, we really like you, Scotty Barnes. You're awesome, but you're not a max guy yet or even better with Franz. So why don't we do like five years, 180 for whatever reason, which I think has more to do with the relationships and the front offices and the long-term playing with all this stuff. And it's kind of sometimes the team's fear of pissing off their guy is

And not going like this is the Celtics with Jalen was a good example of this. The first contract they gave, not the second one. Right. They signed them a year early. They took care of them, but they got kind of a pretty good deal on it. And as the years pass, Jalen knows he has a deal on it. Right. He has whoever his agent was who made the deal. You have the other agents going, you realize that deal is way too low. You realize you made a huge mistake. Right. So now it's in his head. I'm underpaid. This sucks.

And I think that's one of the many reasons why they were like, you know what? We're not going to haggle with Jalen, whether it's 285, 290 or 300. Like let's pay him. The guy deserves it. I think that the case against everything you laid out is what Philly did with Maxie last year, because they're like, yeah, we're going to take care of you. Just keep getting better. Give us a year. Just trust us.

And I don't know why Toronto couldn't have done that with Scottie Burns. Because they weren't going to have the kind of cap space that Philly was projecting. This entire 24 summer for Maury was about preserving this cap space. It's why they didn't do anything at the deadline. I don't think those guys are bad guys. We left that playoff series last year wondering what's up with Franz? If Franz just never learns how to shoot threes, what the hell is he? He's still pretty good.

Yeah, I think he'd be a top three guy on a like a real title team if he can't make threes. I don't know. I just think the maxi thing is you're right, but it was so specific to what their cap situation was going to be that a Philly didn't have the cap room or weren't they weren't planning it out the way they were where they didn't take anything back with Harden's deal that was going to linger like he was clearing the decks hoping that a Paul George would be available and it worked.

Maybe with that part of it where Maxie's representation can understand, hey, we're going to be doing this because we're better. We're going to take care of you. We're going to give you the max deal, but the cap hold is going to be so much smaller. Don't take the extension now. And where Barnes and Franz are like, look, Orlando spent their cap space. They spent their cap space on KCP and resigning their own guys. Toronto has all of these guys that they've traded for that they decided to pay. I feel like we've had this same combo every summer.

And the question is always asked. And my answer is always the same because the question is always, well, what are you going to do? But you got to sign these guys, right? And it's like, well, okay. We asked that with Zach Levine. Now this isn't like Zach Levine level because they, they had a year that could either be this year or next year when they did the extension. But the Zach Levine and Bradley Bill are the two best examples of

What are we going to do? You got to sign him, right? It's like, well, do you think Chicago would do the Zach Levine thing over again? Like it was way too much money for him and now they can't trade him. And I just feel like I'm not 100% sure Franz can live up to this contract. I like him. I think he's a good player. I had him on my top 100 list. I had him as like the 68th best player in the league.

But, you know, I just look at like, like somebody like Austin Reeves, who we felt like took less than he was worth when he did that Lakers deal last year. There's some sort of middle ground between Reeves didn't get enough, but I feel like those Franz Barnes contracts are just too high. I just, I just don't get it.

Well, Reeves is in a tougher spot because of where he was drafted and his contract wasn't structured in the beginning the same way a guy like a lottery pick like Franz is where it's very clear. Like, this is what you're going to make. These are the two club options. You go to fifth year restricted. It just doesn't seem to happen. So there has to be a reason why it doesn't happen. There's a reason why teams don't want to mess with their lottery pick the same way the Timberwolves did with Kevin Love, where they tried to be cute about it.

But we didn't like that. Neither of us liked that when it happened. Because it was like, this guy, he's an all-NBA player. What are you guys doing? Fucking sign him. Yeah, that's a little different. Franz, I'm not sure his area. All right, well, we'll agree to disagree. We're going to take one more break and then I got to figure out from you what's happening with the Miami Heat.

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Feed your dog good food. Visit Origin. It's spelled O-R-I-J-E-N, petfoods.com to learn more. All right, we talked about how the Lakers are exactly the same as they were last year. So are the Miami Heat. Usually they have the big splashy move. The I didn't see that one coming. And it really feels like ever since that Dame trade fell apart, I don't know where this team is now. I don't think they're in the, we mentioned six East teams that we like more than them in the previous segment.

To me, they look like a playing team. There's also some variance. Like if they get another Jimmy Butler only plays 50 to 54 games type of season, maybe they're like a nine seed. And I don't really know what they're up to. What are they up to, Rusillo? Being left out. I mean, it's really funny. If you go on one of the depth chart sites that I look at, it hasn't been updated. They have three starters listed. Seriously? Yeah. I mean, it's stupid. It just made me laugh when I was looking at it.

Uh, nobody wants heroes contract, believe it or not. Tyler hero is not as good as Tyrese Maxey. Um, some people argued last year that Maxey was, was not as good as hero. Uh, somebody is going to want to come there and we've made heat culture jokes for years. I stopped making them after 23. At least I tried to.

But just because you have this great organization, their development track record's incredible. You know, they do really good stuff. Like, think about how many years all these different players, like, on the margins were like, that guy's going to be good? Right. Like, how did that happen? But, like, who, what did they do wrong? Like, I think there's a difference between they did something wrong and there was just literally nothing available to them.

And I don't think anything was available to them. And they were in a tough salary spot. They just weren't going to have the flexibility on top of everything else. Unless somebody demanded, that's where I'm going. And they thought they had that last year with Lillard. And it didn't work. Their starting lineup right now would be Bam, Jovich, Butler, Hero, and Rozier. With Robinson and Jaquez, Ware, Alec Burks. Love. Josh Richardson. That's their bench.

Robinson isn't expiring. He's at like 19 million, so he's a little tradable. But the real problem is what you mentioned with Hero. If he doesn't have kind of trade value, it even seemed like he might have last year. That's a killer. And I wonder, are they a potential Brandon Ingram team with Hero? And is that like a three-teamer where maybe this is the team that rolls the dice on Brandon Ingram and hopes to heat culture him? There's the Butler thing. I don't think anybody knows where that's heading.

But I was trying to think like there's so much talent in the league now and there's so many good to mediocre to decent teams that we're going to get to December and there's going to be three teams who are just super unhappy. They need to make a move. And I wonder if maybe that's Miami's destiny. Is this a December? Oh, Miami's up to stuff. But other than that, I can't see what they're doing because there's no way they're a top 16 in the East right now. I don't see it. No.

No chance. I'll put them behind Indiana, too. The Pacers don't get talked about at all. I mean, Cleveland, Orlando, the Pacers, they still should be talked about here a little bit. Right. I mean, we haven't talked about the Bucs really either. So there's just no scenario where they're in the top seven. And then the Bucs, who ended up getting DeLon Wright, which I like, but other than that, it seems like they're just bringing everybody back and hoping on Dame having a big recovery season. Yeah.

I don't know. The league is super deep. You look at these teams, you're like, wow, that's a nine seed? You look at Miami, and they have Bam and Jimmy Butler, and I don't feel like they're potentially a top-eight playoff team. We'll see what happens with them. What are you... Can we stay on this, though? I want to stay on it, because it was something that you said without me

And you basically were saying this version of the NBA isn't as exciting. And granted, you're going to get a ton of grief because it felt like you were already worried about the tax implications of all the Celtics contracts and that with these new restrictions, if I'm hearing you right.

That now the league has too much parity. And then that turned into the NFL, you think, being more fun than the NBA. So I want to stay on that with you because we haven't even talked about it off the air. Yeah, the thing that I said last week was I don't like that teams that do everything right somehow still get penalized by it. That's the part I don't get. Like if you draft your own stars, if you make smart trades, you still get screwed.

And I, the, the thing, and I guess Zach, cause I was texting with Zach about it. Apparently he wrote a piece in 2018 about how to take care of franchise guys with the luxury tax. And you know, if you have Curry for 15 years, should Curry count full boat on your luxury tax or should he count 70%? I just wish the league rewarded teams for continuity. Yeah.

which they just don't. They don't care. I think this is what they want. I think they love when it's like crazy June, crazy July, crazy February, people hopping around. I think the agents like it. I think the money gets dispersed in a different way and everybody's spending it. And I don't like it as much. Like I think...

What we had, and this is what I said the other day, like what we had when Clay's leaving the Warriors, it was a big deal, partly because he played there for 13 years and him and Curry and Draymond lasted together that long. And that's what we're giving up with this new apron stuff. I don't think it's possible to keep teams. What is OKC going to do four years from now? Like, let's say they have like a really nice run here with Chet and with SGA and with Jalen Williams and some of their young guys. They're not going to be able to keep that together.

So that's just the league we've stumbled into is just these short bursts of having a team that's good for three, four, maybe five years. But if you really stumble into something great, you can't keep it. And I don't think that's right.

Yeah, but you're suggesting that if it's really something great, that it could have staying power for longer than five years. And I don't really know that we've had a ton of examples of anything lasting longer. Maybe the player on the team, like a Magic or a Jordan. It's two sums or three sums. Yeah, it's two people or three. And then the supporting cast changes around them. So Golden State had the three guys that managed to stay together. Boston has Tatum and Brown now heading into year eight and year nine together.

OKC will potentially have their guys hanging together for a while, but you're really talking about a nucleus that's a little smaller. The Celtics, it's really about Tatum and Brown, right? Ultimately, that'll be what makes that special. Everybody else will kind of move in and out of their orbit, but it's those two guys. That'll be what lasts. And I'm worried they're not going to be able to keep that. But the league probably has more parity. We have six straight different champs. The league has more parity than the NFL does right now.

True. Well, the NFL, there's more, what, six quarterbacks? I feel like you're a defense attorney. I think the NFL has more parity than the NBA. You don't think?

Like the NBA, the NFL has the ability to have, I don't think it does. I don't think it does. The NFL has the ability to have like the Packers just jump seven wins in a year. The NBA doesn't have that. Yeah. It's because of turnovers usually more than anything else. Um, I think sometimes I'll, I used to fall for it. Like a new coach could come in and everything. And it's like, okay, well last year there were minus 12 and turnovers. And this year they were plus 10. Then we acted like they were a completely different team.

I mean, that's kind of what that sport is. Is you're sitting there going, how is this team that was up 21 to three

trying to hold off this team that's down eight points at the very end. It's like, oh, because there were a couple turnovers. I don't know that it means the product, there's less possessions and all this sort of stuff. But when I watched what you were talking about, it wasn't that I was like, you're totally wrong. I think we actually have to see how the second apron plays out here a little bit. And we're in a stretch of parity with basketball, which is, I thought, what people didn't like about basketball, where there weren't enough teams. It was just

the same teams over and over again, especially when you go through the teens of LeBron with the Heat and then Cleveland up against the Golden State machine. That was a criticism. Even though more people watched it, the criticism was, what's the point? The season hasn't even started yet. It's going to be Golden State and Cleveland in the NBA Finals. And for the most part, that's what we got.

for a really long stretch. So now that we're not, we're going to have that happen a lot less likely in theory, because I still think some of this stuff plays out and you're like, Hey, wow, that's crazy. The guys that are the five best players in the league are still winning all the titles. How different is it really? It feels like there's more parody. I know, but I think you're missing the point of like what arguments that I cared about. Yeah. Cause you talk about like, yeah, my homes borough,

In the NFL, there's what, six, seven teams that we know are going to be in the mix every year as long as the supporting cast is good. But they're all attached to specific cities and they don't leave the cities in the NFL. Brady was with the Patriots for 20 years. Even Dak Prescott's been in Dallas for 10. Mahomes is going to be in the Chiefs his whole career. Joe Burrow is going to be in the Bengals his whole career. You go on down the line, the infrastructure is really the quarterback and the franchise and maybe the coach too.

In the NBA, I think what's shifting is, are we going to have that quarterback kind of possibilities with the rosters? Whereas like the Celtics, Tatum and Brown together are the quarterback. With the Warriors, it was Curry and Quay forever were kind of the quarterback of that. Milwaukee was Giannis and whatever infrastructure you can put around him. But Giannis is probably going to be the next one who wants to leave. I like when the guys stay in the same cities. To me, that's the most important thing. If you have a best guy that you've rooted for forever,

I don't think you should have to be worried the guy's going to take off. Like that. It should be a situation where that guy and whoever, like his best teammate was or whatever, then that should be what you get to watch for more than four or five years.

And I think the NBA is now risking that in a real way with the second apron stuff. They're just going to make the South. You think that Jalen Brown is going to be on the Celtics in four years? Like, I really don't know, which seems insane. Those guys should retire together. What? 13 years in. Yeah. The likelihood is not going to be on Celtics anymore, but this is depressing. Right. But if it's Tatum and Brown, maybe that's the way, like you just said it. So,

I'm not presenting this to you as if you didn't think of it because yeah, back to your original point, it was why penalize. This is almost more about an Oklahoma city discussion than it is even a Celtics discussion at this point. But that's kind of what it's always been. I know. I just, I was just having fun with you on that, but what about Yoko Jim Murray? That's another one.

Right. But Jokic and Murray will always be able to work out. The problem is they paid Aaron Gordon so much money. They paid Michael Porter Jr. You want to talk about doing a deal like sight unseen, especially with the injury red flags, even though, look, when you get a title, nobody's really going to care about it all that much. It's still probably going to be the two guys. It may just be eliminating the third guy or the assumption you can always add the third guy and the third star things in a dangerous species. I don't think you are. I don't think you are. If you have two really good guys, you're going to still be able to pay. Are they going to stay together?

I hope not. You know what else though with the second apron and the analogy I've used in the past is like there's a reason why there's like when you're younger, it's good for you to have a credit limit even if you could probably afford have it be a little bit higher is that you're just going to end up spending to the credit limit, especially when you're younger, at least for me when you're stupid and you're just, you know, whatever. You're not exactly hosting Spock box. So

The owners do the second apron thing to make sure that happens, even though like what 14 of the last 16 title winners or taxpayers, Howard Beck did a really nice piece on the ringer that I encourage people to check out with all this stuff, because even the players associations, they were talking about the second apron. It's like, wait, isn't this kind of like limiting, uh,

some of the freewheeling spenders that you have here. And the Players Association rep in the piece even said it's basically like two to three teams every year that would even have gone over the second apron. So it's not like it's limiting everything. And then on top of the thing that's always important to remind all of us is that whatever you think the second apron does in limiting spending and costing players money, it doesn't really because it's all part of the 51-49% split and that there actually already is, in theory, a hard cap. The players are making 51% of all basketball-related income. It's just what it is.

Now, I do think that this is a player empowerment pivot on top of everything else, because as this continues to play out and there's going to be the guy that's a great player that's like, I want to go there, figure it out. They'll have a rule book for those teams that are flirting with the second apron that go,

We actually can't do it. We didn't want to do it before, but we had to. Now I don't know that we can actually do it. It just, there's no freedom. The freedom of movement is limited in the way that we've seen in the past. So sure, it saves the owners, the taxpayers, a ton of money compared to what they were doing before because they're just going to be so incentivized to stay under it.

But I think the player movement has a big part of it, which, yeah, would penalize OKC if they had five guys. But I don't know that the Celtics are a really good example. Like, it's so rare that they could have five guys like this all be this good at the same time, all making this much money. Well, that's true. But I think with like, let's look at San Antonio, right?

Let's say Castle's really good. Let's say they nailed that pick. He ends up being the best guy in the draft. And let's say they get some awesome guy in the 2026 draft. Let's say they get, they stumbled into AJ. Now they have Wimpy and Castle and AJ. And then, I don't know, Sohan becomes Scottie Pippen. Now you have the four guys. I don't see how you keep the four guys together. Now, the reason I was thinking about that, defraying the cost of a franchise player is because

you know, that's something the NFL should probably have too. And I've, I've made the case for that too with them. Like if you have my homes and you've had my homes for 10 years, should he count against the salary cap in exactly the same way? You know, this is what happened with Brady with new England forever, where he had to take discounts. Remember the last like what, five, six, seven years where he took less money. So they would allegedly, right. So they kind of fucked about it. But,

I don't know. I just, I like rewarding teams for ingenuity and continuity. And if we can't do that, I just think this is what the league's going to become wherever, every just guys bouncing around and maybe one guy is attached to a team and that's it. In football, it's different because you have, if you have one of the six, seven quarterbacks, they usually don't go anywhere, right? You like Matt Stafford switch teams, right?

cousins switch team. Like now I'm already dropping down the cousins level. But if you have like one of the OG guys, those guys usually don't switch teams. They stay there forever. And that becomes the continuity.

But based on the thing you just laid out with Spurs, like what if they nail it? Okay. So what are they going to have? Like four all-stars, four consistent all-stars all at the same time? It doesn't really even happen. The fourth guy wouldn't even have enough options to even be able to put up the numbers. Go back to the 80s Celtics and Lakers. How would those teams have stayed together? Like everyone romanticizes all those teams. They would have had to get rid of McHale and

Probably Danny Ainge by like 1987. The Lakers, there's no chance they would have been able to keep Worthy and Kareem and Magic and Byron Scott. Like that team doesn't exist. So I just, I hope people understand that that's where we're moving. You might get like for one year or two years, like with the Celtics situation where you have like the five or six guys, but they're not going to have that a year from now.

Like that, this is the last year for this group together. Right. So they have a chance to go back to back, but then after that, they'll have to trade Porzingis or they'll have to trade Drew holiday. And maybe they'll even have to make two trades, not one, just to try to get under this second apron. So you cost them like 450 million, have the team. You think if they repeated with those guys under contract with the holiday extension done. And the thing that scared me about the Porzingis trade wasn't so much who he was and what the number was, it was that they had to do the extension for him to pick up the player option. Um,

because that was all part of it. But that's only this year and next year, right? Yeah, but it still was a three-year commitment. It's a three-year commitment to somebody like Przingis with the injury history. So then you've got the Tatum deal that's going to surpass the Brown deal that was historic and all these things. But if they were to win...

again, or say like losing the NBA finals or something and everybody feels healthy and everybody likes what they're doing. You think they're just going to break it up to avoid being a second apron, second time offender and have their first round draft pick move to the back of the first round? Can you even, like, what are you really doing? It's not just that, it's that repeater tax, right? It would be the lineup, the whole rotation a year from now, I think would cost like 450 bucks of the tax or 450 million bucks of the tax.

I just don't, but I mean, the traffic part of it's irrelevant because if you're that good anyway, all of a sudden it was like, Oh no, we went from 29th to the 30th. Like, well, what do you think they should have done? Like, do you like the second Abram? No, the second Abram. Do you like this new system? If my goal was, I really, when I, when we first talked about it and then we, I admit it, I have to, sometimes it's like the bridges, Nick's Houston, uh,

trades all together and just trying to map out all the draft picks being like, do I have this right yet? Or do I have this wrong? Is it five or is it six? When there's new changes like this at CBA, like I have to go over it a few times before I really realize it. And then I got to read like other people to see if there's stuff that I'm missing. And then I usually sent Bobby Marks a hundred texts. Um,

Of course, the owners have to have something in place to prevent themselves from themselves. Because one of my favorite things ever when that hockey lockout happened in 04, and I was buddies with a bunch of guys that I'd gone to school with that played. And I just was like, what's going on? And like one of them just said, we were just hanging out. He's like, hey, if it's that big of an issue, stop paying us. And it's super simple. This is the NBA 20 years ago, same thing. They couldn't stop themselves.

Yeah, it's a really simple thing. But like if I were a player, I'm going, so what am I supposed to give you back? The hockey guys get destroyed in that thing. They had to give back like 25% of their existing contracts. They lost the season. They had, like, look at the Maple Leafs team spending and then what the first cap was versus what the Maple Leafs were actually...

Versus what they were actually spending in the past. You're like, you're making that team that was spending that much in combined payroll go down to this number to have everybody else be able to catch up with them. And if you're a player, you're going, so you guys can't help yourselves, but it's our fucking fault. So I philosophically just believe in that. I believe in the player side of that.

But the players, or excuse me, the owners can't help themselves. So they have to put all these mechanisms in place. But I just think that the freedom of movement for the Suns, the Suns are going to be this test of scaring the shit out of all these other teams. Well, that was basically, so you look back at Golden State a couple years ago, which is the reason I think we have this second apron to begin with. Because what was that time? They spent like $350 million on their roster and they just kept

adding stuff, taking on contracts, and people are pissed off about it. Over four years, Lakeham and Ballmer spent, and this is Bobby Marks' number, $950 million combined over four seasons. And that's why we have this rule now because of those two tips. People are like, what the fuck, man?

How are we supposed to compete with this? You're just hemorrhaging money and you don't care. - But you want, you like the Warriors though, being able to keep everybody. - Well they did what it took to win the 22 title and it worked. I just feel like, I don't ever want to get to a situation where we're redoing basically with the new rules, what just happened with Klay and Draymond and Curry and Klay's gone in like 2018, right?

And you don't even get 20, even though the last few years of the clay experience wasn't that much fun. But I look at what's going to happen with Boston. Like I, I don't, I just really worry that Tatum and Brown are going to retire as Celtics. Maybe one of them will, but, but with these new rules, it almost seems inconceivable. Both will, which I don't think is good for basketball, you know? And if they can't figure out any sort of wrinkles to take, to have teams take care of guys, they drafted smart things. They did. I don't really understand what we're doing.

But I would say that about football too. But we also had the same thing with OKC when it was Harden, Durant, Westbrook, and Ibaka. Now they made a mistake. They could have wrote it out another year. They didn't really get back enough when they did the Harden trade. Harden also was somebody we didn't realize was going to become

this impactful as a one for a team because his role was diminished and good for him. There was a number that they offered him. No, they cheaped out. They made a mistake. It has happened before. I just feel like maybe you're overreacting to it a little bit in that if you have two special players, you're going to be able to keep the two guys together. And I think the Celtics are a really rare case of roster construction because... Go ahead. No, I worry Denver is the flip side of that, though.

The Denver's Boston two years from now. But if you make any mistake now, like you mentioned the Porter contract, once you have the two guys, if you make any mistake around those two guys, you almost can't recover. You know, now Yoko Jumura, instead of playing with Caldwell Pope, they have to keep their fingers crossed that Peyton Watson can hit a corner three in round two. That's the part I don't like. I had one more question for you. And I really want your honest opinion on this.

Do you think Cerruti's gonna root for Germany or the USA in the World Basketball and the Olympics? Well, he is a soccer guy. Yeah, he is a soccer guy. You never know. I always feel like, see, this isn't fair because I shouldn't say this about all soccer fans because I don't believe this, although I've really enjoyed soccer. But then after watching Uruguay and USA and then watching Spain, Germany, I was like, this feels like two different sports.

I don't know. Maybe that's just my untrained eye. Enjoyed the shootout last night. But the earliest soccer people, when I used to hate soccer and make fun of soccer, and I was a Neanderthal like everybody else that didn't like soccer, I always felt like my guys that were big soccer fans were like borderline communists. And they'd be the kind of guy that would like root for another country in the Olympics. So I've since softened my stance that

Because soccer is just too popular now. There's plenty of guys that I know that are just not likely to become communists that like international soccer. They'll get up from Premier League. Soccer is becoming more mainstream. I agree. Yeah, yeah. It's more mainstream now. So if you'd asked me this 20 years ago, I'd say, yeah, Cerruti's probably rooting for somebody else. No, but I'm talking about the basketball. Yeah, I know. I know. The Wagner brothers playing the Americans. Yeah.

Let's say in the quarterfinals. If Franz hits a game winner against Team USA, he's not going to be upset. Bring him in. He needs the answer. Just give us the answer. Oh, boy. Well, I mean, they won the World Cup last time around. Franz was the best player on the German team. And now everybody thinks Franz sucks. So I guess that's where we are now. Don't do that. Don't be like that. No, I think there's a lot of... Who do you think is like...

Stay with us on this one, Sury. Who took the most damage in the last, like, two months? The perception of them. Is Franz... On the Magic or just in the NBA in general? No, just in the NBA. It's like Franz, all NBA first team perception damage.

I think this is where like the white Euro thing, we're not totally over it. It's like, oh, look at that. You know, it's Franz. I knew he wasn't good because he doesn't look incredible when you watch him play. He's like a savvy guy that gets to the rim and does a lot of nice things. But I think, you know, there's a lot of people who are waiting for big. Actually, he's not that good. And I think the playoffs, although people conveniently forget game four where he was awesome. He had 34 points, was incredible. Conveniently. And he had a terrible game seven. He didn't have a great shooting season. I would argue that I would. It's not an argument. I would tell you that.

Basically, every other part of his game got better last year. Just three point shooting was down. So, you know, shot mid 30s for most of his career. Michigan, Germany, first two years in Orlando and junior had three point shooting year last year. Junior, even junior high grade shooter, you know. So I don't know. I'm comfortable with my Franz take. Are you comfortable with the Franz Maxx?

So what's the let's play this out. So he gets to so they don't give it to him this summer. Yeah, he plays it out next year. Yeah. And you have to pay him the exact same contract. And if he gets to restricted free agency and somebody actually makes him an offer, they're not going to max him out either. Like, I just think teams are going to get desperate to add a guy like that. He's really good. And he's 22 years old. So it could blow up in their face. But this is the first time in 12 years that the magic have had like something tangible to be like, these are our guys.

and why you would mess with that now. If Franz is like, hey, man, I want the max, and I want it this summer or next summer, why not keep the good vibes going? And I see what you're saying. It's the same exact thing next summer. Why not just wait? But if he has a terrible season this year, then you're, I don't know, you're almost like, then what happens? Then you have to talk about making a move. I don't know. I think let the guy, he's your guy. Back him, and then hopefully he takes another leap next year. Well, but that doesn't answer the question of

Who are you going to root for if Germany plays the U.S.? I'm not one of those guys. I'm not one of those guys. I mean, it's like the New Jersey Italians that root for Italy in the World Cup over America. I'm not one of those guys. Come on. I root for the U.S. first. I know I will be rooting for France. And I do root for Italy whenever they don't play the U.S. in soccer. But come on now. Red, white, and blue. Let's go. All right. That's good to hear. Especially after what happened with the soccer team.

I think we need to avenge some piece of the basketball. I was looking at the Canada. Is he out? No, no, no, no. Well, there's supposed to be a decision this week. Who knows? Um, Edie's not playing for Canada, which I was kind of bummed out about. Cause I thought that would have been a fun wrinkle, but Canada, I looked at all the rosters.

It'd be really tough for America not to win this. I'm trying to figure out. There would have to be some sort of ego alpha dog weirdness on the team, I think, for them not to. Is it Ant? How about that? Well, that's the thing. Ant says that thing today about they know I'm the number one option. I was like, okay, here we go. This could get interesting because I guarantee Embiid thinks he should probably get the ball at the end of games. LeBron is wired to have the ball in his hands in big situations. And then

I think it's going to be a hard team to coach. You have all these, you have older players, you have players in their primes, you have players on the way up trying to prove something. And they didn't do the thing this year when they put the two at the end of the bench who clearly aren't playing. Like, all of these, like, Hal Burton's probably the 12th man on this team now. Hal Burton was in the Eastern Conference Finals. You know? So I don't, I think it's going to be a hard one. Then you have the Kawhi piece of it. There's not a ton of defense once you get past

The Tatum, Edwards, Drew, Bam, Davis, Kawhi. If you want to add the defensive lineup. So I don't know. I don't know how it's going to play out. Why are you smiling, Marcelo? Well, because he said, I'm worried about the defense. Then he just went through the guys. I went through six guys. But six guys that probably aren't half of those guys aren't playing at the end of games. Bam's not going to play crunch time. Kawhi, I don't know at this point what he...

we'll be able to consistently give you. Maybe it'll be terrific. I don't know. But if there was one guy... They're just going to... I'd imagine they're just going to defer to the older guys. Has it always been... Is this the best example of like an absolute changing of the guard roster? Well, they had it in 92. I guess like...

Maybe 08 would be the other example. But even then, like Kobe was in his prime. Yeah, this is, I guess because the guys are so much older now. Yeah. You know, we have LeBron is almost 40 and Durant, you know, the guys from drafts that happened 20 years ago and 17 years ago might get. Here's my starting lineup. Tell me if you guys agree with this. Edwards and Curry is the backcourt and beat is the center. And I think Durant starts because he has that long Olympics thing.

And then the next question for me is, is it Tatum or is it LeBron starting? And I can't imagine LeBron not starting. LeBron's going to start. Tatum's not going to start. He just won the title. He's in his prime and he's like the perfect international player. But I don't think he starts. I think Durant and LeBron start over him. So it's Embiid, Durant, LeBron, Edwards, Curry. Or does Kawhi get the Edwards spot? And they go Embiid, Durant, LeBron, Kawhi, Curry, LeBron.

And they don't have a two guard. What do you think, Saruti? If I'm the Clippers and Kawhi starts for USA Basketball, I'm going to be pretty bummed out about that. You're infuriated? That's not awesome. You lose Paul George and then watch Kawhi have an awesome Olympics and then gets hurt again next year. That's not what you want to see. So I don't know. I wouldn't start Kawhi unless he's just unbelievable in camp and we don't know. But yeah, I think Curry, Edwards, there's no way. LeBron is the first guy on the team and the five. I just...

There's no way. So LeBron has to start. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. And like, you know, it's not an anti-Tayton thing, but yeah, LeBron's going to start. First of all, LeBron's going to start. And I think Durant's going to start just that's going to happen. Right. You know what I loved about the pictures, you know, when we first saw the Durant picture next to Bosch and you're like, wait a minute, somebody's height is a lie because Durant was that much taller than Bosch. We saw him lined up. Did you see the picture of Tatum next to Bam? Tatum's huge.

So I'm glad you noticed this because I noticed this in person. I think Tatum's 6'10 now. I do too. I noticed this at the finals going to the games, watching him stand next to different people. And I'm like, there's, it feels like he was closer to 6'11 than 6'9. Like he might be like, is he still growing? You think he's huge? I'm kidding about the, is he still growing thing? But whenever these guys are lined up next to each other, I'll look for it.

Like who, because, you know, you think of Bam positionally, it's not like Bam's listed height is wrong because there's a picture of Gobert and Wemby the other day where Wemby's a half

full head taller than Gobert. Somebody's lying. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's because Wemby is the first player I've ever heard prior to the draft that the agents actually were hoping to figure out a way to lie about his height going the other way. Like nobody's ever wanted to be shorter ever in the history of the lead up of the NBA draft. But there are people like he's actually like seven five, but they want him to be like seven three. And then when he's next to go there, Kareem lied and Bill Walton lied. Kareem was like seven four and a half.

And I think he used to say he was 7'2". And Walton was absolutely at least 7'2".

Wasn't Porzingis in that category too? I feel like Porzingis, it was like kind of getting weird there at the top. What is 7'3"? Yeah, he's a legit, he might even be like a whiff taller than 7'3". You're giving him 7'3 1⁄2", are you? Yeah, I would. But Tatum, there's no way Tatum's not 6'10". And I always thought Durant was the other one. I feel like Durant might be like 7'1". I think Durant's like 7'1". Yeah. 7'7"? Yeah. Yeah, like a 7'3", something like that. But he's definitely 7' or over.

I don't think he's 7'1". Bam's listed at 6'9". So as a center, you said you think that's correct. See, I think Bam's like 6'8". Yeah, there's a good chance he's probably not 7'9". See, I didn't look at the Tatum-Bam part and go, Bam's lying. I just thought, I can't believe how big Tatum looks next to him and that he's at least 6'10", at least. And it also, when I saw him going up against Gafford at the post, it's not like Gafford is listed at like 6'11". Is Gafford listed at 6'10"?

That was the beauty of Tatum. And I'm just going to forever be pissed off about Jalen Brown getting both conference finals MVP and NBA finals MVP because it's not something that I'm upset that Jalen Brown has. Just seeing what Steph had to deal with and all the bullshit post-2015 until he finally got here seven years later when, in fact, Curry was the guy that was making all of this stuff happen. For Tatum to be playing point guard for as much as he was and then also defending centers throughout the playoffs...

And he was the most important player, even with the bad shooting stretches that he had in the finals. But the first impression with the finals part of it was just going to be such in favor of Jalen, which is fine. But watching him physically and then seeing that picture, you're like, are we talking about like a 6'10 guy that's playing point guard in the NBA finals that's defending centers?

Is Tatum underrated, Bill? Well, this is what we talked about during the playoffs is whether there was another stop for him. I always feel like it's the physicality that's the next piece for him. And not taking step back. Yeah, and that 8 to 12 range would be ideal for him. I will say really quickly, if you're putting together the five that just on paper you think works the best together, I think you can make an argument Tatum over KD is actually the right basketball move, right?

All right, so let's do this as an exercise. Your five guys, if it was just like, who are the best five guys we have to close games with that you would trust the most? Because to me, Tatum has to be over Durant because of his two-way ability at this point and the fact that he's younger. I just think he has to be. And he beat Durant in a playoff series two years ago. I just think he's a better player at this point. I would go Embiid. Are you sure? Yeah. And the games? Yes.

Well, depending on who the, if it was a team that it was just clearly, it would be easy buckets for him. Uruguay. Yeah. Yeah. He's probably not going to pass. But if we're going for best possible team that could play defense and resemble a finals team, then AD has to be the center, right? So you just changed it. Tatum at five. I'd go small. You go small. Yeah. I wouldn't play a center. I wouldn't play any of those guys. So would you go Tatum, Durant, LeBron, Edwards, Curry, or Tatum, Durant,

Booker Edwards Curry or Tatum Durant Drew Edwards Curry? Drew's not going to make this closing five in any version. They're going to need him in these Olympics though. I understand. There's going to be a team where there's going to be some fucking little guy going nuts and Drew's going to be the guy who's going to have to guard him.

You're going to like, sorry, I kind of agree. Like it'd be really fun to just watch five ball handlers out there and see what happens. But there's also going to be a matchup in international play where there's just going to be horrified of him beat. They're not going to be able to do anything with them. So I think it's going to be right. I like the Tatum. Tatum's like the perfect.

like small ball stretch international five. Has your mood entirely changed as we just theorize on what Tatum might be? You have a pep. You're closing strong. I'm glad that you noticed that he grew. I do think Embiid as this crazy weapon, we haven't had this since Shaq in like 1996. Like certain teams were just like, Embiid's just way bigger than anyone on your team. He's just going to score every time now for the next,

next like five plays will be fun to watch right i mean you're sitting there going like i don't know if mitchell robinson can do it on his own i'm worried about the celtics frontline depth or forgetting a little bit early i'm worried about belgium although i don't know off the top of my head with my luck it'll be like actually belgium has this really awesome huge guy yeah there's it might not even be in the olympics i don't know yeah it's it's a weird team i wish they had like one more role guy but in general one more guy like lebron

Olenek, Brooks, Dort, Murray, SGA closing or is Nembhard in there for you? Which, what Pacers, Eastern Conference Finals, Nembhard. Four guards. I would clear it out for Nembhard. Let him run it. Iso, Isaiah Thomas style the entire game. I think it's important to point this out because of Canada, but I wasn't really paying attention to the rosters until this assignment.

And it felt like a lot of people were going like, dude, Canada. And I was like, man, that is a nice roster. When you go roster spot for roster spot against the U S team. Yes. There's still a significant, significant gap. The go bear. When B France combo ain't nothing.

When did he get the crowd behind him? That's going to be that we're going to need Joel Embiid in that game. I mean, the funny thing about this is that it might end up being like the biggest game Joel Embiid's played so far. Oh man. Other than maybe the 2019 Toronto game, I guess game seven Boston, but that almost doesn't count because they lost. But can you imagine if that became Embiid's great moment, like laying the smack down against Wemby and Gobert and the semifinals against France in France, like Embiid's answered all our questions.

That's Ryan's favorite thing. That'll be the first bullet point on his Hall of Fame credential. Like, you know, killed it in the 2024 Olympics. 35 points against France in the semis. Would Nando DiColo, excuse me, Nando DiColo, would he be on Canada's roster? He's on the French roster. Yeah, but would he make Canada's roster? Probably not. I'll tell you this. There's a really interesting crunch time decision with him and Franklin Linka.

We'll see what France does. See, I screwed up. It's called his name. That's the Lachina. He's been out of the league so long. All right. Try to throw my guy for the mix for them. Yeah. For me, I got a fight with Schroeder the other night. Yeah. Cool. Germany and France throw out the records with the history of those two countries. You want to talk fucking invasions? Like, wait, are we being invaded? No, don't worry about it.

Serbia is one away from having a really fun team because they have Jokic and Jovic. They have Bogdanovic, the Atlanta Bogdanovic, and they have Micic, who I actually kind of liked last year, but they don't. And they also have the other Jokic. They have both. No, they don't. Double Jokic.

They have Poco on that team too, potentially. Anyway, and then Australia is going to be Rosillo's favorite team with Jock Landale, Dyson Daniels, Dante Axum, Josh Green, and Josh Giddey. And then Ingles and Patty Mills coming off the bench. Will Magnet, Jack McVay. Your kind of team. All right, we got to wrap it up. Really quickly, it's just sad that Yugoslavia is not in the mix because we could have gotten a Jokic, Doncic,

two-man game going, but you know, politics, all that stuff. Yeah. Didn't know you're such a fan of oppression, dude. All right. We got to wrap it up. We're still out. What was our most fun season together doing the pod? It wasn't probably not this one. Cause the playoffs were good. Not this one. What was our best one?

19? 19, yeah. 19 was great. We had Game of Thrones going. We were ordering takeout food. We had the Kawhi jumper in the corner. And then I went to two of the finals games. Warriors lost both of them. Yeah. There was a lot of Warriors drama. Durant got hurt, came back, got hurt again. I went up to the NBA countdown desk and I said, hey, you guys are doing a great job. Don't believe anybody. Don't believe all the negativity around. They all got whacked.

I seriously, I wasn't bullshitting. I was like, you guys are doing a good job. Don't worry about all this negativity and the rumors and the operatives, the people angling for your chairs. Don't worry about it. Clean house.

Sorry. Rosillo, good to see you. Enjoy the summer. He's still got his podcast going. So Rudy, you can listen to on the Ringer Gambling Show doing some soccer stuff. I've watched a lot of the Euros. The Euros have been good. They have been. Yeah. I watched Brazil, Uruguay. No, Uruguay. Who'd Uruguay? Uruguay, Brazil. Yeah, Brazil. Brazil, not a great game. Yeah, the Copa is definitely a level below. The Euro stuff is...

Awesome. Okay. That is the first time I finally dug into it years ago and I was stuck in the hotel in Bristol. I was like, I'm not watching this. And there was nothing on. And I go, let's just give it a shot. The Euro stuff is, I don't know what's going on. I usually don't have time for it. I'm just giving you my full endorsement of it. I enjoy it. I love it too. Great job, bud. No gatekeeping here. It feels like it is.

Like, you know, the world cup's obviously the biggest, but it feels like it's commanded that two week window in the same kind of way, even though the stakes are slightly smaller, but it's super fun. It's been fun to gamble on too. Yeah. I've enjoyed it. Yeah. There's been a, it's been some nice ones.

All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Mike Wargon. Thanks to Steve Cerruti. They produced this one. Thanks to Rosillo for a great stretch in 2024. Thanks to everybody for listening. Don't forget about a new Rewatchables coming on Monday night, Twister. That's happening. And then I should be back in two Sundays. So I'll see you then. Enjoy July.