Kirk Goldsberry
Appearances
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he's the most skilled player in the world. He does everything at a very high level, except one thing, which we'll, we'll get to later, which is why Michael Malone got mad at me. PFT, you know, the story, but, uh, One thing that I came across this year doing a best shooters of the year column at the ringer was that Nikola Jokic was the most efficient jump shooter in the league, big cat.
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And that's not even his calling card. This dude is one of the best rebounders, one of the best passers, one of the best close range scorers, has the best floater in the league, but he's also an incredible jump shooter. And that's not even a strength. So long story short, he's just the most skilled big man we've ever seen. His stats are insane across the board.
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And if you look at the box score from the Game 1 victory against OKC, it looks like a Wilt Chamberlain 48-22. What are we doing? This is insane.
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Yeah, at least our age. And there's some old heads who saw Wilt score, like, 60 or average 50 and 50 or whatever. But we're not those dudes. Like, I was thinking about Shaq this morning because he's the most dominant center of my life, right? Like, this dude... single-handedly won the 2001 NBA playoffs. It destroyed everybody in his path. Jokic is putting up way better stats than that guy.
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Again, with one exception, which is interior defense. The way to beat the Nuggets is to attack him in the paint, something the Thunder haven't been able to do yet. But they're the worst paint protection team left in the playoffs. I wrote an article about it a few years ago and former Nuggets coach Michael Malone took exception with my analysis. But that's exactly the one weakness this guy has.
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It's his Achilles heel, if you will. The dude can't protect the basket like some of the other great centers of all time.
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Post Malone, shout out Posty. The face tattoos, I would say. But no, I think the biggest thing, PFT, is the leadership of Jokic in those huddles. We've seen him being very animated, like you're saying, almost drawing up plays. But the players seem to be getting along. The morale seems really good. There's just a cohesiveness. It simply wasn't there.
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One of the reasons they moved on from Michael Malone and Calvin Booth is the vibes were toxic in that organization. near the end. We don't have enough numbers to really say, oh, they're doing this, that, or something else different at this point. It's been such a short amount of time when the playoffs started. But dude, they're just getting along well.
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And I think that image I have of Jokic at the sideline, like yelling at his teammates, like a fiery Greg Popovich moment as a coach, that's new. That's what I've noticed that's different.
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I love that. Dude, their second scorer is a great point, Big Cat. It can't be Alex Caruso like it was in game one. Right. They need either Chet or J-Dub to show up. And again, attack the teeth of this Nuggets defense. Make them protect the rim. They don't want to do it. They're not good at it. So I think that's the key I'm watching for. They should be worried.
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I mean, this is a team that swept a weakened first-round opponent last year in New Orleans and then played Dallas in the second round as the No. 1 seed. Dallas was, I think, the 5 seed, and they lost 4-2. It's a really similar trajectory here with another sort of Balkan dude, like leading the opponent and showing them how to win games late like Luka did last year.
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They need and I think it starts with SGA. The other thing I'd say, which is sort of a first take take is like SGA has got to start playing like the MVP right now, because right now Jokic run one round one. of the head-to-head MVP battle, which is also great. Like, no shade it takes about superstars. That was awesome. But SGA has to win a couple of these head-to-head battles, dude.
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Yes, I think so. Thanks in part to the Los Angeles Lakers' bold strategy of not employing a center in the NBA. It was worth a shot not having a center on your basketball team, but Rudy Gobert really exposed the weakness of that.
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And what's interesting to me is if there's one other team that's really small left in this playoffs, it's the Golden State Warriors who start a very small front court, obviously. And Rudy, I don't know if you guys know this, Rudy has a little bit of a history with Draymond Green. Yes. And so I'm very much looking forward to these toils in the front court in this series, but... Size matters, guys.
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You know this better than anybody. Size matters. And I really think that's what this series is going to come down to, not only in the front court where the Timberwolves have Rudy Gobert, but also, dude, all the looks they can throw at Stephen Curry with Ant and Jade McDaniels and Alexander Walker. They're just bigger and longer and more athletic.
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So I think they have a good shot of advancing in this series.
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I agree with that. I mean, Houston is an insane defense just built for war. And Eme Adoka is the toughest coach, most defensive minded coach in the NBA right now. That said, dude, Anthony Edwards isn't afraid of he's a great defender. He's more athletic and youth is a big thing. at this stage of the season and Steph is beat up. Look at the shape of it.
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The best shooting hand we've ever seen is deformed right now. These guys are beat up and that's such an underrated part of this. We're asking this older team to go in and play this younger team after that war in Houston.
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And I just see a real opportunity for Minnesota to keep that momentum going using a similar formula of just pounding them inside, getting rebounds, whether it's Gobert or Nas Reed, Jaden McDaniels. These guys are big, and I think they can give the Warriors problems. And the other thing I'd say, Big Cat, lastly, Houston couldn't score.
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This Minnesota team is going to score on that end of the court too.
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Yeah, they need one more guy. But they have a great season. And I think like Golden State also deserves credit, guys. That's a very good defense when they've been at their best in the postseason for 10 years now. Draymond has been the middle linebacker, one of the best defenses in the postseason. And they deserve credit for making Houston look bad a lot of the time, too.
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Dude, he is, honestly.
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And I heard you guys calling out my good friend Zach Lowe also at the Ringer the other day because he had like a really great observation, Big Cat. I think it was you. He said he's laboring all the time.
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He looks like he's played one too many games of pickup on a Sunday afternoon, and he's still out there trying to make it work. And it's just he's slow on defense. He's slow to the basketball. And then, yeah, he looks like he's overweight. I'm sorry. It's not –
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It's not a nice thing to say about another person, but when you look at some of the other superstars in this league and how they take care of their bodies and how they work out and how they present themselves physically, like Luka sticks out. And you make fun of that Jokic piece. Jokic really had a body transformation itself that get him over the top. Yeah. So I think Luka needs to do that.
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I think he will do that. But when you ask me the question, he got torched on defense, dude. Jade McDaniels, Anthony Edwards were just driving on him like he was the slow guy at the pickup game.
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Steph is arguably the most conditioned player in the league, period. If you watch him at the fourth quarter, one of the reasons he was so great in the Olympics or he's so great in the playoffs is he, at age 37, is still the guy with the most juice at the end of the fourth quarter. That childhood picture of Nikola Jokic is legendary for a reason. I know you guys love that.
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But yeah, like it's a battle for a lot of us. Like everybody has to deal with this. It's some facet of their life. And I think a lot of players have had a really good nutritional awakening in the middle of their 20s. And Luka Doncic has an opportunity to do just that. And like I said, I think he will.
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But I do also think it's fair to say it's limiting him, particularly on the defensive end of the court and at the end of games.
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Yeah, that was not the right kind of five guys. When JJ said they were going five guys, he got confused and he got excited.
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Well, the other thing, and when Nico Harrison was still alive, he had assembled like this great defense last season with PJ Washington, with Daniel Gafford. Like they were really good. And there was some deodorant on the floor with Luca defensively. And the Lakers had Austin Reeves and aging LeBron, Rui Hachimura. They just...
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They didn't have guys to clean up the mess behind Luka when somebody would beat him on a drive. Dallas did a great job of building around a slower, weaker defender. And to be fair to the Lakers, PFT, they haven't had time to do that organizationally.
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I've had a few people say, hey, that Mark Williams trade that they canceled at the deadline, they probably should have forced that through so they could have had that bigger guy. Regardless, they have to build a different team now with this Luka Doncic situation.
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Dude, I wish I was at the bed gala last night. What a moment that must have been for you guys.
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I mean, yeah, they had more fight. And the thing that drove me crazy, so the Celtics, the stat from that game, PFT, is what? The Celtics broke the record for most missed threes in a playoff game. They missed 45 threes in a game. That's almost one a minute. Like, that's ridiculous.
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And at some point, let's say when you miss 34 threes and it's the middle of the third or the end of the third quarter, you're like, maybe we should do something else. Well, they didn't do anything else. And one of the things that Jalen Brunson has done a lot this year is when, in that Detroit series, they needed points to stop a Detroit run. Like, he would flop.
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He would go into the teeth of the defense and make a play, draw a whistle. The Celtics didn't do anything like that during that Knicks run. They seemed really content to sit behind the three-point line. I think the last play of overtime, when Mikael Bridges, like, rip the ball away from Jalen Brown was like a poetic ending to that game. Like they refused to attack the basketball hoop.
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Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown are too good to be that passive when the threes aren't going in. I don't expect that to continue, but when the Celtics team isn't making their threes, they do have a tendency to sort of just say, oh, that's all we have. Now, the other thing is Porzingis wasn't out there. He's a big weapon. They could have posted up. They didn't have that.
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So I don't expect this to continue, but the Knicks are not going to go away. And if you give them a chance and let them stay in the game, they're also a much better clutch team than the Celtics, in my opinion, right now.
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Yeah, I mean, I've played both sides of that line. I think Joe Mazzulla loves math. I know he loves the town. I know he loves part of my take. I wish he loved two-point scoring a little bit more when they have a nice slump going. Like 15 of 60, that's your game. You're not going to win if you miss 45 threes.
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Yeah, I got two. I'll do a basketball one first that involves James Harden. The 2017 playoffs, we were playing the second round against the Rockets. They were incredible, like peak D'Antoni Rockets with Harden. And one thing I had really sort of done in the scouting report was dive into their three-point shooting fouls.
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And I told Pop in this memo, I was like, they've drawn 108 three-point shooting fouls this season, Harden and Lou Williams at the time or something. And I said, you know, they're scoring 11 points a game in the first round against the Thunder on these three-point shooting fouls. You know, you get the guy in the air, you jump into him, or you do the rip through.
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And I was like, we can't give them those. That was my one analytics. Like, let's not let that happen. And... Right before game one of that series, he pulls me over and he had like a glint in his eye. And he's like, Kirk, that's way too many. That's way too many three-point shooting fouls. And he kind of winked at me. And I had no idea what the game plan was. And then we come out.
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And that's when we were playing pick and roll defense. Our guys had our hands in the air. Do you remember this? We were playing defense with our hands up because Pop had said, hey, we're not going to get caught in that whole series. Early in game one, Patty Mills got caught with a three-point shooting foul that he shouldn't have been called for.
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And that was the only three-point shooting foul the Rockets got that whole season or that whole series. We won in six games. That's the game six where Harden famously didn't show up in Houston. We didn't have Kawhi. But that was a really great moment of watching how Pop looked at a stat And then devised the defense that nobody had really seen before or since.
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Watching guys play defense like this, it was a remarkable thing. And I loved that. I loved seeing how he was able to implement that and win a series with that.
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Yeah, I've had another quick one. So Pop is also more than basketball. And in one of our New York road trips, he took us, he came into the team bus. It was like, who wants to go to a play tomorrow? And nobody raised their hand. And I raised my hand. I was like, I'll go to a play. And so we go to this play, just me and him.
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And it's Kate Blanchett and PFT, I'll know this, it's Anton Chekhov's The Present, Chekhov, the Russian playwright. And in the first act, like, I don't know anything about Chekhov, right, except for one thing. And the play is called The Present. And in the middle of the first act, the Cate Blanchett character opens a present that's a pistol. And I'm like, wait a second.
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I've listened to enough prestige TV podcasts to know. And I was like, Pop, we had intermission. I was like, dude, I think this is Chekhov's gun. I think this is where this came from. I don't want to spoil anything for you, Pop, but I think we're going to see this gun again in the third act. And sure enough, it happened. And he had never heard of Chekhov's gun. But that's a great example.
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Pop loved Russian. He loves plays. He's just a culture guy, and he always wants people in basketball, which is very rare in the NBA. Very few NBA teams do stuff like that. And he was always really... about taking us out to museums or having great speakers come in or taking us to theater or having musicians come through. And that was just a really cool thing for him to do.
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He didn't have to do any of that.
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Westbrook's gone. Yeah.
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Dude, I don't know if memes – have you guys seen the clip of the studio crew from Denver watching that last play as it happened live? Oh, you got to clip this and show this. You know, Christian Brown gets that rebound. He's racing up the right side, and he makes the right play. He finds Westbrook right at the mid-court line, right?
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And the Denver – or these guys watching from the desk in the studio show – are like, no, no, no, no. As soon as Westbrook gets the ball and they're watching it in real time. And then, to your point, Big Cat, Westbrook doesn't do what we've seen him do a hundred times. He makes the beautiful pass. And this guy is one of the great passers of his generation.
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Finds Aaron Gordon on the exact opposite side of the court. The defense is turned around. Gives Aaron enough time to knock down one of the biggest shots of the Nuggets postseason. Maybe not even the biggest one. But... Just a remarkable play, but I thought it captured that exact transformation of Westbrook when he plays within the guardrails, guys.
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He is a phenomenal bench player, but there is a roller coaster you sign up for when you have him on your team.
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You know, I would have still been a red flag with that game. Um, the, the rebounding differential Detroit coming in on fumes after a seven game series, uh, still coming in there, these young team just waiting around the fact that in your, in your hypothetical PFT, they've still been a very close game. I think I would have been surprised by that. They wouldn't have covered the spread.
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Uh, they would have, they had a shot to win. Um, so I think it would have still looked bad. And again, they did not take it to the paint. Right. Yeah. Che needs to attack more. This dude was put on earth to drive the basketball and not settle for pull-ups. And I think he needs to be more aggressive and really attack the weakness of this Denver team. So I'm with you. It's a make or miss league.
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That shot could have gone either way and narratives would have changed. But Denver played pretty well last night, especially when you consider they were playing less than 48 hours before in a game seven in a different state.
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Yeah, and these are champions. The Denver Nuggets are champions. And playing that fouling up three game, and I know you guys already talked about it, but one thing I haven't heard is you've got to make your free throws. You've got to trust your young guys in these big moments.
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If you're going to play that game, Chet Holmgren, you better have a lot of faith in Chet Holmgren to make those two, at least one of two, and he missed both of them.
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So, you know, I think the coach, I keep zeroing in on the coach. He doesn't have enough playoff experience, Dagnall. I think he has some regrets about how he played out the end of that chess game last night. And they need to be better up and down the roster, but also on that coaching staff.
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I thought when people thought this was going to be an easy series for the Cavs, they were out of their mind. Indiana made the semifinals last year, you know, conference finals, and they're better this year. And Tyrese Halliburton is better. And I think Big Cat Cleveland is the team that is banged up right now. Darius Garland is hurt. Evan Mobley is hurt. Yeah.
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DeAndre Hunter dislocated his thumb like this is not a good time. And I have a nominee for the 2025 take ease. If you guys will accept the external nomination, the three days after the playoffs started, the athletic released their annual player poll. And in this player poll, 90 anonymous NBA players were asked who is the most overrated player in the NBA right now?
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And they said Tyrese Halliburton. And that take is aging very poorly, very poorly. They are 5-1 in the playoffs. He isolated Giannis Antetokounmpo multiple times in the deciding moments of that series and took him to the rack. He leads the playoffs in assists at 12, just two turnovers.
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His passes, when they find shooters, suddenly everybody turns into Klay Thompson because he's creating incredible looks for guys like Andrew Nembhard. Neesmith, Siakam, Miles Turner. He is just the best. He's like a Steve Nash-level orchestrator right now. And like Steve Nash, the defense isn't great, hand up. But this dude isn't the most overrated player in the NBA. That is a terrible take.
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And in fact, I might go so far as to say he might be the most underrated player in these NBA playoffs.
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He's 25, and he's three wins away from bringing his team as clearly the best player on the team to the conference finals two years in a row. Yeah, that's that's not normal. Like when Jason Tatum was doing that, we're like, oh, my God, this guy's incredible. And he is. He was.
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But if they win this series and like I said, I think it's about a coin toss right now, in part because of the injuries in Cleveland, in part because of those injuries. And if they win this, look, Tyrese Halliburton deserves some flowers. He deserves some of those media cycles where we're like he's like the Luka Doncic stuff.
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Like when Luka was like, oh, Tyrese is having this offense play very well. And I think Cleveland should be a little bit worried if any of the teams that lost game one should be pretty worried. I think it's Cleveland.
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Could they put him in a straight jacket or something? Tie him to a chair?
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My pops was wrong. He said that. Yeah. You know, in all seriousness, I think he handled that about as well as possible. That's a pretty awkward situation. Very awkward. Yeah. Yeah. Like also his dad was wildly inappropriate. Your son just won. It reminded me when Angel Reese did this. I don't want to get political.
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When Angel Reese won the national title in her first instance to talk trash to Caleb, like, go hug your teammates, dude.
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Yeah, I see that. You're a real patriarchy guy. I see that.
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That's all facts. Next up on Pardon My Freud.
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Yeah, I don't like to do victory laps like Schrager. I think he's done this for a long time. But yeah, I picked the NBA finals correctly for as long as I can remember PFT on your show.
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I'm sticking with the Boston Celtics. Bing bong, hanky. I still support the Celtics. And, you know, I'm sticking with the Thunder. And I'm a little bit nervous today. It was a safe pick all year. And you know what? I'm happy to be nervous. PFT, I'm happy to be nervous because it was like I didn't want both of these teams to just plow through the bracket and end up there.
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And now there's some adversity for both of these teams for game two. But, dude, these teams both deserve credit. Boston... It's just the most dominant team when they're healthy, and they're healthy right now. Drew's back. And then OKC, I mean, they won 68 games. What can you say? It's a juggernaut. Best defense we've seen in a while.
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It's a spherical map of the world. And this is the first edition. I sent one to PFT for his birthday. Oh, thanks for sending it for mine, too.
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NBA With Kirk Goldsberry, The Knicks Stun The Celtics With Special Guest Jerry O'Connell, Pacers With Another Thrilling Comeback, Hockey Playoffs And Listener Submitted FAQ's
Yeah. But this is the first edition. And the breaking news that I'm happy to announce, this is the Atlas Ball. The Kyrie Ball is coming now. So I have made one as a tribute to Kyrie Irving and globe basketball for sort of a get well soon sentiment to one of the great point guards.
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But, you know, Kyrie is a big fan of spherical geography and so am I. And what better way to celebrate that as a basketball lover than a decoration for your office? Big cat that is actually a basketball and a globe at the same time. You can have the whole wide world in your hands.
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Or a Mother's Day present.
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Wait, 10,000 or 100?
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Yeah. Yeah, I do. I do. I think there would have been a lot of truthers come out of the woodwork if he hadn't. Guys who were playing in the game, for instance, his opponents. I was talking to Chris Bosh and Matt Bonner a few weeks ago about when Kobe scored 81. That's a great story for them to tell because they were on the Raptors. It's kind of a cool story. It's humiliating at the time, but...
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I think those guys would have been like, yo, this wasn't true. I don't think there was a bunch of fake news on that one.
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Yeah, I'd agree. Yeah. Yeah. Did Kobe score 81 though, PFT? What do you think about that?
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Yeah, I think it would have to start in the West with what you brought up earlier. Somebody not stepping up for the Thunder, like J-Dub or Chet. And Chet looked like he shrank in the moment. I'm not going to hold it against one game. But that did not look good with those free throws in that moment. So if they continue to get big misses from their supporting cast, I could totally see the West...
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which is so brutal and so unforgiving. You can't have a lot of flaws on your roster and win the Western Conference in this league. So I think, you know, OKC's supporting cast needs to fail them. And I'll leave that on the table. I don't think that will happen. But then in the East... We saw it a little bit there too. Like the Celtics need to break down with the three-point shot.
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They need to not have the diversity in offense and find solutions. Ultimately, I think Boston has a much easier path to the finals than OKC. If I had to pick one of these teams to not get there, it would be OKC at this point.
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Yeah, I think Denver and Minnesota, who have history, are both looking good. And obviously, Golden State has won the Western Conference, I think, six of the last 10 times. There's some big players on that side of the bracket. But just for the sake of the take, I'm going to take Jokic. I mean, dude. He had one of the best seasons we've ever seen.
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He was incredible down the stretch last night in a game that will always be remembered for Aaron Gordon's incredible shot. Jokic scored 18 points in the fourth quarter and was the best player on both ends of the court, getting every rebound. And if he keeps that up, dude, you could see that this league has seen big men run through the playoffs for decades.
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So I could see a path where he sort of throws back to the future and it's just a dominant big man dragging his team through the playoffs.
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A big cat. I know you're a big hoops guy. You haven't had any of your takes. Where's your bet at right now?
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Yeah, I think that's a great, great question. I think Chris Finch has found ways to keep Rudy in games and get away with drop coverage in places that some of the other teams haven't that Rudy's been on. But... Yeah, I think it's also fair to say, like you said, this is not the 2022 Warriors or the 2017 Warriors.
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This is not Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson and Steph Curry in their primes like Pajemski, Buddy Heald, Gary Payton. This is not exactly the 27 Yankees of jump shooting. Like we saw from this other previous Warriors era. So I have the Timberwolves winning this series simply because the offensive depth isn't isn't a good enough to outscore the Timberwolves.
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But I also don't think they'll be able to play Gobert off the court like that.
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Yeah, and it would be really cool. Last time I was on here, we were talking about how American superstars are washed and we need to put tariffs on international basketball players. And I think... Anthony Edwards could make America great again as a, as a basketball player.
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Hey, it still says Gulf of Mexico. So the updated version will, we'll have to change that. But I appreciate you guys. Thanks for having me on.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
Yeah. And I think they reclaimed their own pick, which is great. So they can be there. But yeah, Vucevic has some value on the market. I know teams like Phoenix or Golden State have been looking for shooting bigs. And he matches that description. This guy is one of the best jump shooting bigs. Defensively, he leaves a lot. to be desired. Um, but I think he's, he's a good player.
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Paul versus Peter
Um, and I wouldn't be surprised to see, you know, by the end of this week that he's, he's playing in a different uniform.
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Paul versus Peter
I think his nickname was layup line, if I'm not mistaken, but I might be, I might be mistaken on that.
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Paul versus Peter
Yeah, and it should be symbiotic. These guys should make each other better. De'Aaron Fox's strengths should play into Victor Wembanyama's strengths and vice versa. Yeah. The dude is, you know, lightning. He's one of the faster players with the ball in his hand in the league.
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Paul versus Peter
I think when you have him, you have to. Are they going to want to push and run and go? Is Wemby going to want to do that? I mean, the first pass you look for, Victor Wemby gets a defensive rebound. Now that first pass is okay. Can he get Fox at midcourt on this sort of Bill Walton style outlet pass or, you know, this Kevin Love over? Yeah.
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Paul versus Peter
So I think when you have Randy Moss, you throw the ball deep. And I think when you get this, this is not Chris Paul, right? Like they've been playing with Chris Paul. He's slowing everything down.
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Paul versus Peter
But, you know, so I think they will play fast. And I think, you know, Victor at the five is one of the more, you know, agile five men in the league. So I think they will. You'll see that pace number creep up in San Antonio. You have you have a bunch of young guys now. So I think they will play to his strengths and he should get some easy buckets.
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Paul versus Peter
Crunch time. Yeah, for sure. The shooting has always been his challenge. But if you look at his free throw number, which is what us nerds look at, it's great. He shoots 80% from the free throw line. That should be a 40% three-point shooter. It just hasn't been there. I'd love to see him... as he goes into sort of his late 20s, become a 37, 38, 40% three-point shooter. He hasn't done that yet.
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Paul versus Peter
Right. And that's the thing that could take him over the top and make this a triumph for the Spurs. But he has a lot of potential here. And you're right. It's a laser focus for him.
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Paul versus Peter
Like everybody else, this is hacked. It's embarrassing for Shams. I can't believe that the hacker didn't come up with a realistic trade. If only the hacker had come up with a realistic trade, this would have been a masterpiece.
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Paul versus Peter
Literally, that's my reaction. I think it says it all, that everybody I know legitimately thought this was a hack and now are like digging into David Stern-style conspiracy theories, trying to rationalize it afterwards. So those are the two points. When it happened, this guy got hacked. After it happened, this is a conspiracy theory. What explains this? In reality, shocked.
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Paul versus Peter
I mean, count me among the people, Bill. This is the biggest, craziest NBA trade of my life. This is crazy.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
Okay. Hell no. I talked to people who were involved with this deal. I had no idea. this was possible. And I think you had him fourth in the trade value. Yeah. Generally when anybody's, I would like to do a historical analysis of what's the highest person on that list that's ever been moved.
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Paul versus Peter
What about Kareem out of Milwaukee? Like that reminds me of this too.
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Paul versus Peter
Nobody knew that this dude was on the market, which to me is the legacy of this deal. And it actually helps explain it now, 24 hours later, to me, is that the Dallas Mavericks valued Anthony Davis as much as Luka Doncic. Say what you want about that assessment,
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Paul versus Peter
But that is the only justification or rationalization that explains how we got here right now, Bill, because they only called one team, which you and Russillo and Mahoney did a great job of calling out that part of this. They really were zeroed in on getting Anthony Davis to their team. And I disagree with that assessment. I think most people around the NBA wildly disagree with the assessment that
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
But that is the only explanation of how we got here today. That Nico Harrison looked at Anthony Davis and says, I want that as much as I want Luka Doncic.
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Paul versus Peter
It's staggering. That remains and will always be the staggering part of this transaction. And I think when the dust settles, that's the biggest question that Nico Harrison's gonna have to answer to for years is, sure, you reach the conclusion internally. Again, I'm not justifying this, but they reached the conclusion internally that we do not wanna pay this person $350 million.
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Paul versus Peter
We don't think his calf is gonna hold up. We don't think his body's gonna hold up. We don't think his nutrition is good. Whatever. They reached the conclusion that they're out. That's part one.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
Or the ownership is involved. And I had one executive experience to me like this. The why is pretty clear. They didn't want to be in the business of Luka Doncic long-term. They think he's more like Joel Embiid than the rest of us. They think that this is a big long-term risk.
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Paul versus Peter
And they don't want that Joel Embiid albatross contract hanging over their cap table for the next, whatever, five, six years. That's... But you reach that point, and I think Ryan did a great job with this too. Okay, now what is the process? The how is the problem. We can disagree with the why, but the how they executed this is the problem. You have a generational trade asset.
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Paul versus Peter
You have to canvas the league. You have to cast a wide net. You have to get two or three parties negotiating against each other to get the best deal. You're trading Herschel Walker, dude. You got to get the dynasty coming back to Dallas. You got to get all those offensive line, all those Vikings picks for those of us of a certain age. And they didn't do that, dude.
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Paul versus Peter
That's going to be the thing he has to answer to for the next few years.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
Yeah. And there's a week long process. One of my sources inside the Lakers was indicating that the deal was bigger. And I think you guys were literally joking about this last night that there were two firsts and there was Dalton connect and the deal got whittled down because I think Rob Palenka was able to convince the Dallas Mavericks that Luca is a lot of risk.
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Paul versus Peter
You guys are right for trying to look at this this way because this guy, oh, he's drinking or whatever, his weight problem, whatever it is. So they were able to convince it. This is a weeks long process. That's another thing that came out today is this wasn't, this was a, and Dallas started. Almost three and a half weeks. Dallas started it, dude. This is, this fell in Rob Palenka's lap.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
And then he was able to reduce the outward Lakers assets to such... Dude, Mikael Bridges commanded five first-round picks.
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Paul versus Peter
The other thing is they think this team is going to win. They think that the Kyrie, Clay Thompson, Anthony Davis trio is a big three. They think that. They can't think that. They think they're going to win. Otherwise, they wouldn't have done it. But I think the only way, again, that you can explain why they would only call the Lakers is they wanted Anthony Davis.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
They started off this process, hey, we think we can get Anthony Davis. And Nico has this pre-existing relationship with Anthony Davis. And Jason Kidd has this pre-existing relationship with Anthony Davis in the Lakers. And Again, I don't agree with these things, but I, like everybody, spent the whole day trying to understand how this could have gone and how they only called one organization.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
Yeah. Stephen Curry hasn't made first team all NBA as much as Luca has.
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Paul versus Peter
Yeah, I think the idea that this traveled in silence the whole time. It's absurd. It's a lot. It's absurd.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
That's right. That's what I learned today, too, is that this was a month long process. And the idea that that this was as quiet as it is hard to believe, particularly the way that Clutch and LeBron have inserted themselves into Lakers basketball operations. And I agree with you that the idea that that Anthony was so quick to waive that thing is.
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Paul versus Peter
Yeah, that's a great point. It's also a big compliment, I think, when he all said this last night, that he is the piece for Luka Doncic, and I think that's almost flattering to a point.
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Paul versus Peter
And there's some intel that Anthony was not in love with playing in Los Angeles the way they were playing basketball. I think it all comes together, that he might not have been as satisfied there as he was letting on.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
Ever tried red wine instead of these Czech pilsners that you've been crushing over the last 10 years? Right.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
What if he's in better shape? What happens then? Well, dude, and he is, and I think a lot of us feel this way. This is, they poke the bear and that's not a fat guy. Yeah.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
Now we have a huge FU potential bill. Huge. This guy, he talks like when I first got into Luca, uh, when he would run his mouth against dudes like Pat Beverly and stuff, and he was a kid and he would just give it right back. And sometimes more than he was getting. Uh, and I was like, this guy is a competitor. Uh, and now I, yeah, you guys did say this yesterday, but it's true.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
They poured a bunch of gas on this dude's fire. And, uh, If he's able to channel it the way that I think and a lot of Mavs fans think right now, look out, dude, because you're right. He can come in in like LeBron 2012 mode, you know, after that Mavs series and just be like, all right, I'm here and I'm mad. And I can't wait for February 25th to play the Dallas Mavericks in Dallas.
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Paul versus Peter
They're in a different regime. I think they're officially now built in try-to-win mode, which is sort of a big paradigm shift for the San Antonio Spurs that have been in rebuild mode, but now they're in try-to-win mode. I think this is the symbolic threshold of a team that's ready to compete.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
No, it's totally true. Like so many fans, like when Mbappe goes from PSG to Real Madrid, they're just like, I'm going to Real Madrid. I'm a Real Madrid fan now, I guess. This is a generational talent who is going to bring fans like Jason Gallagher's son with him. That's not going to be a unique story. Poor Gallagher. Poor Gallagher. Sorry.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
But yeah, dude, I went to the Mav subreddit today and it was like Sons of Sam Horn in October 2003. Yeah. It was so bad, dude.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
And I'm in Texas right now. One more layer to that one is like gambling in Texas may or may not happen, right?
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
So yeah, like this family made, for those who don't know, this family made its money in Vegas. Like they're a casino family. Yeah, so- That's a good one. There's definitely some other ones about just trying to get ratings up and the Lakers back. But yeah, there's a lot of conspiracy bill stuff. How do we help the Lakers?
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
Because I didn't have to, was the short answer. They gave up some draft capital, obviously, I think, Those are some nice picks they gave up. But I expected maybe to see Devin Vassell's name, maybe see Jeremy Sohan's name. I think, yeah, you're right. The headline is that none of those guys, as we have right now, are included in this deal.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
And they got, yeah, and you guys did a little of this yesterday, but they got Shaq and they got Pau Gasol exactly when they needed them. And like, yeah, what we said in San Antonio is like, there's three ways to build an NBA team, the trade, free agency, and draft. And the Lakers really have access to all three of those levers in a way that no other team does, specifically trades and free agency.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
And this is just another example of that. And the Spurs or the Grizzlies or the Thunder will never get a trade for somebody like Luka Doncic or a free agency play like that. So they do start on third base. That's exactly right. And this is the updated version of them getting Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 50 years ago. It's just wild. But it is kind of cool in that sense as an NBA historian.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
It falls in line with this, but as Celtics fans, not exactly thrilled with that historic parallel, I guess.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
Yeah, and pick any other NBA team and say, who's the best player your team's ever traded for? Right.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
The Bucs or even the Sixers or the Magic. These kinds of players don't just show up on your doorstep.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
The defense is that Luka Doncic is the next Joel Embiid. He is a person whose body isn't going to hold up to these crazy pace and space games that happen 82 times a year, plus playoffs. Like Luka played 100 games last year. He's repeatedly strained his calf. We think there's an Achilles tear risk here. We think there's a weight.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
We think the lower body is going to go or the back's going to go and we're going to be on the hook for that Joel Embiid equivalent. And we don't want to do it. And this is the last trade deadline opportunity we have to turn him into something. I don't take that stance, but that's the case. And I think that's what they saw. Moreover, I thought specifically they wanted Anthony Davis. And I think
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
they think they're a better team with Anthony Davis than with Luka Doncic. That's the only case.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
It's yeah, we'll see. I mean, I will leave a sliver, a sliver of hope for the Mavs fans that they could be hoisting up Larry O'Brien in the next year or two. I don't think that's going to happen.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
Fuck you! It's almost like Ohio State football. They won the national title and they're still pissed off that they lost that Michigan game. We won, but we're still mad. They could literally boo the parade. I don't see it. I think they really believe that Anthony Davis. And I think this is Nico Harrison believing that Anthony Davis can anchor a top defense in the NBA.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
And that with Kyrie and clay and their role players, uh, that they can, they can compete for a title. That's the defense.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
Yeah. Jimmy Butler. Is he from Dallas or Houston? Where's that from?
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
Yeah, Austin Reeves is expendable now. I mean, why do you need Austin Reeves if you have Luka Doncic?
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
Claxton and Time Lord are the names that keep coming up. And I would guess that one of them will be on the Lakers. I would guess that, um, They need a five. Obviously, they need a five. They don't have it.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
Yeah, I'm a professor at the University of Texas and Jackson is one of our guys. So I'm a big Jackson Hayes guy. But no, I want a five, man. And my question for you, Bill, is like, do you believe that this Lakers team thinks they're going to compete for a title now this year in the next five months?
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
That's where I'm at. But it hinges on that rim protector because right now they're just not built for a playoff run without rebounding and rim protection.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
Yeah, and every call I'm sure you had today that I had today is like, oh yeah, they might trade LeBron to Golden State too, which I don't think will happen, but came up so many times today that we have to address it. It came up last night too.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
Like, what are we doing? Yeah. And there's still the buyout market too. And these guys just became the biggest magnet. And that market is always irregular and unreliable. Don't get me started. But every once in a while, there is a valuable piece on the buyout market and they will get really attractive potential buyout pieces looking at their their team. So I think they have two moves left.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
You know, this is a big four day period for the Lakers front office. They're going to look at sending out that pick. They're going to look at sending out Austin Reeves, maybe even Rui Hashimura to try to turn it into something that at the five especially, but around these two generational playmakers, two generational playmakers, and two guys who don't shrink in the playoffs. Yeah.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
So I think they are going to try to go, but I think they're going to do a little bit cautious. I'd be surprised if the pick went. I'll say that. I think they're going to try to do it with personnel.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
I love it. But again, they don't have a North Star. The Sacramento Kings have been like this my whole life. I don't know what they're trying to do. Now they've reunited the great DeRozan-Levine duo.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
Who's he going to be dating? TMZ is getting ready. But yeah, in all seriousness, that 77 jersey in purple and gold, how long till we start seeing the tweets that the number one selling jersey in the NBA, it's already done. Again, this is a team that just finds money. And this is just an updated version of that.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
Yeah, because it felt like they were heading towards an era where they were going to have a 34-year-old Anthony Davis as their focal point. Just breaking down. Yeah.
Renewing Your Mind
Paul versus Peter
And now they're going to have a 27-year-old Luka Doncic as their focal point. just angry at the world. And hopefully, you know, they are able to extend him. And I do want to say that. And one of the sort of main points here is like, there's no guarantee he's going to sign that extension in Los Angeles. What if Miami is like batting their eyelashes at him?
Renewing Your Mind
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What if San Antonio, like what if Oklahoma city, like there, there are, there are teams that are going to let him know that they really want him to play there. Oh, come on.
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So I think that's something I haven't heard talked about enough is there is a chance that he will not want to be there. I think it's a small chance. I think he's now at the New York Yankees and he is sort of that A-Rod character who's going to settle into that sort of prestigious role.
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All right, let me ask the sports guy this. I think he stays. Let me ask you this. How far do the Lakers go this year?
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Paul versus Peter
And, dude, I think his odometer benefits from this. I think off-ball LeBron, he lasts a little bit longer. He's a little more durable than on-ball LeBron. And I think just him setting screens is a crazy concept. Right, them running pick and rolls, right? Yeah, he's the new Karl Malone. He just becomes Karl Malone for them.
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Yeah, for me, the story here is in San Antonio, Bill. The Spurs have a sort of a stopgap point guard in Chris Paul who's been great. Harrison Barnes has been great. But this is a player in Fox that is a young... great offensive weapon that I think will pair very well with Victor Wambanyama.
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Yeah, I mean, Oklahoma City gets my respect. They deserve it. Me too. Beyond that, Houston, who I adore, Memphis, I love. I just think they're both too young, really. And if you're telling me I have Luka and LeBron against either of those two teams, there's a case for those Lakers to just get them with wisdom.
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By the way, we put it on wax. Your season tickets for the Clippers, we put it on wax like three weeks ago that we was like, let's not forget the Los Angeles Clippers. Then Kawhi comes back and they've looked like the best team in the NBA at times.
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Oh, yeah, that's right. They lost to Toronto. But, yeah, like over the last two months, or I should say January, just look it up. Like their indicators scream, we're good. And their defense has been good all year.
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I think the Nets have a for sale sign up in the front yard. I think both Claxton and Cam Johnson are on the move, if I had to guess.
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Jeremy Grant, I think, is one to watch in Portland. If Portland can find a taker for Jeremy Grant.
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This is a team that I think was going to have a very high defensive ceiling just because of Victor for years to come. But the offense was the question mark. This helps them address that. And now I think it's like we have Victor at the five. We have Fox at the one. Let's let's surround two, three and four with defense and shooting. I think there's a clear team building there.
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I'm sure there's more. Another classic Bill Simmons trope that was relevant this crazy weekend is new owner syndrome, which, by the way, when the Bucs changed owners, that's when this Lillard thing happened and the Drew Holiday thing. Yeah. This is like the owners remain the most underrated characters in pro sports sagas. And this is another example. Would Mark Cuban have done this deal?
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I remember one of the, we, we did a Gremlin feature with Mark in 2013 or 14 on, you know, at that time he was like symbolic of this new era of bad boy tech owner guy. Yeah. And we talked about how the Mavs were a laughingstock before him, you know, and no, no disrespect to Mark McGuire or Orlando Blockman, but yeah, They were never a great franchise.
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And then he gets him to the finals two or three times. And it sure looks like this new ownership group is, is taking things in a different direction. So yeah, he's gotta be just so destroyed.
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project in front of them that they are thrilled to have. It's a pretty simple problem now as opposed to a bigger problem.
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Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I mean, obviously, we had a big piece on Victor on the ringer last week. I went all in on this guy. And then he had a great game in Paris right after, so I felt good. But everybody around the league is seeing the same thing that we are, Bill. De'Aaron Fox among them. This is a superstar. In the ringer 100, he's gone from number 67 to number six in less than two years.
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You had him as the number one trade value asset in the league. Do you agree with that? Of course. I mean, he's 21. He's a 25-point-a-game scorer, and he's the best defender in the league. And this is the worst Victor will ever see is his famous quote about himself.
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There was a sequence in Paris at the end of the third quarter that I'd ask everybody to go watch the first Pacers game in Paris where Victor blocked four shots in a row. One was a goaltend, and then he made a three, threw a lob, and caught a lob on the other end of the court. And that was just like, all right, that's crazy. That's what De'Aaron Fox is seeing. That's what everybody else is seeing.
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This dude is only getting better. And I think the Spurs are really excited today to have another piece in place, another all-star level piece for the future to build an offense, specifically, Bill, around a guy who... And I think this is your term, looks like a giraffe on ice a little bit sometimes on offense. De'Aaron Fox is going to take care of some of that and they can grow together.
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And is there a better, just a lob game than Fox and Wemby? I love it.
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Well, yeah, and I wrote this in the Wemby piece, but there's like two guys under, you know, 26 in the ringer top 100s, top 10 rankings. Victor Wembanyama is by far the youngest, and the other one is Luka Doncic, who is about to be 26, right? So, I mean, Wemby has, he's going to be Doncic's age in 2029, I wrote, which is just crazy. Just think about how much time he has to get better, right?
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And look, yeah, he is there. He's going to be this great player. I don't want to sort of belabor the point, but this is a deal that the Spurs, they don't make a lot of trades. They don't do this kind of thing. Historically, So this is a big deal for them. And I'm sure they're, they're pretty happy with it. They didn't, like I said, I think the other headline is they didn't give up castle.
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They didn't give up the cell that didn't give up. So Han, uh, and they still have Atlanta's pick this year, which is, is looking really good.
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Maybe even better than that. I would have wanted that one. Atlanta is cratering right now, unsurprisingly, without Jalen. So, yeah, I think they're in really good shape. And, you know, nobody's truly surprised by that. But this is the kind of move that a pop organization hadn't typically made.
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This is a team that builds through the draft, through savvy free agency signings, doesn't usually go after a big trade piece like this. So it's a big deal for the San Antonio Spurs.
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It feels like the same old thing to me, Bill. The West has been brutal since we've been covering basketball together. You're looking at teams like Memphis, Houston, Oklahoma City, San Antonio for the foreseeable future, not to mention the LA Lakers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not, it's just, okay. What are you trying to do to get past teams like that?
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Um, so it's not a slight against the Kings, but it is, do you really think this is going to beat the Grizzlies or the Rockets or the Thunder? I don't see that, uh, with a team built around DeMar DeRozan, uh, Zach Levine. Um, And it was a cool story when they were, because we've already seen it. Um, that's right.
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Detroit played better basketball tonight. I think the play that sealed it for Detroit, in my mind, one of the most beautiful passes of the playoffs, but Detroit just picked apart the Knicks in the pick-and-roll game. Jalen Dern is growing up in front of us. This kid, he's a monster in person. If you haven't seen him, it's just like one of these guys. It's just a different size than everybody else.
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One of the great rebounders in these playoffs. But I think there was a pick-and-roll near the end. You know, the Knicks sent two towards Cade, who ended up with the right elbow. And who was it who snuck into the dunker? Asar Thompson, who also played a great game.
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Sneaks, yeah, catfalls asleep. And Cade throws that pass, a rocket pass, right into the dunker. And Asar finishes it. And it was...
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It wasn't quite curtains because the Knicks made some shots, but that was just, I think, really emblematic of a bread-and-butter play where the Cade Cunningham pick-and-roll with Durin, sometimes it was Paul Reed, is just basic basketball, and it looks better, especially with a hobbled Brunson, than what the Knicks were able to counter with. So I think the Pistons have a very good defense.
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They're very young and motivated to win this game six at home and the fundamental basketball they're playing right now. And one other thing is like, you talk a lot about tips coaching. I know that. Can we post up Carl Towns on Tobias Harris, please? He just dominates him when they do it.
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I have no idea, but every time they do it, it's like there's no answer. Tobias Harris has no chance.
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Particularly if Jalen Brunson is playing on one foot. I don't know what his injury is. I'm not speaking out of turn here. But if your star is hurt, you have this other guy, this other bread and butter action, you could increase. And if it's going to be Tobias Harris defending Carl Towns on the block, dude, Make them pay for that. Go old school. Yeah.
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You know, and I haven't seen enough of that, those adjustments from Tibbs.
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Yeah, there's two things. The interior defense with Towns, when they made the Towns deal, that was always the red flag to me. Are we really going to see a playoff defense anchored with Carl Anthony Towns? And as I said, this key moment. you know, it's not his fault, but that's who you're relying on to be your rim protector. He's not always great at that.
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And then the other thing is sometimes the offense looks like crap. And there's multiple possessions and big moments where it's just Brunson pounding the air out of the ball and everybody else standing around. And there's either going to be a foul or some kind of fade away and nobody else is going to touch the basketball. And I hate that. I hate watching it.
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And I'm sure the players playing alongside, it's just not
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Yeah, the pick and roll game too. It's like they only scored 27 points in the pick and roll game. And the Pistons doubled them up in that category. Again, Cade Cunningham, it's a lot of people's introduction to him. But, you know, there's a danger because if they do win in Detroit, look out. Look out, Bill.
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If the Pistons win in Detroit, look out.
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Dude, that's such an underrated part of this. Like Cleveland getting out in four games and OKC getting out of there today.
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Yeah, and they just need all the treatment, some cold plunges, all that rest. And these other teams are going to be flying back and forth, putting more miles on their bodies, twisting ankles. It's such an underrated part of this. So it was good that Boston emerged relatively unscathed from that Orlando series.
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Is the new wrist thing that he's doing related to the injury? Is it like a celebration of overcoming the wrist injury? Is that what he's doing?
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But that's new. I like that too.
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Eight of 38 from three for the Orlando Magic. There's a couple of teams in the playoffs. Like Houston, I think we fairly characterized as they're going to have trouble scoring the ball. But Orlando is going to definitely have trouble shooting the basketball. And then the other thing I like is Orlando does play phenomenal defense.
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And for a long time, the Celtics, I think, had no threes deep into the second quarter.
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Yeah, I was trying to go back between these two games. And it was pretty incredible. So shout out to them. They do some good stuff and they force you into these isolation modes. And that's where Tatum really shined, I thought. And I know sometimes the Celtics are at their worst in those isolation moments. But Tatum can get buckets in those moments.
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And they actually, if you look at the advanced stuff tonight, they really dominated in that isolation category. And duh, that's Jason Tatum. It was 59-58, to your point, with six minutes left in the third quarter. And then I don't know what the final score was. I guess it ends up being 120-89. They were 36-13 in the third quarter.
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And Franz needs to develop a jump shot. And there's been some aggression there. You mentioned this. There's the hitch and the shot. It's not great. But if they can get healthy, Mo Wagner, Jalen Suggs, you know, I'm not going to put them in the class of the Celtics or the Cavs, but I like where you have them. They could replace Milwaukee in that 3-4-5 tier.
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And they might have been there this year if they had just been healthy. You alluded to it. Their three best guys all missed significant time and they ended up at the seventh spot and won a game against the champs. It's just like the rung on the ladder this organization is at right now. And I think they should expect to be a little bit higher next year for sure.
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You're confident. You're confident.
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Yeah, I said out loud, good luck with that for the game winner. Because he's like, he's ISO'd on the left wing against Giannis. And he's like, I'm going to take this to the rack. That's crazy. He did it multiple times. Yeah, good luck. And he did it. And that exact moment, I was surprised. We have to go through the seven point lead in 40 seconds. So AJ Green misses a free throw.
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Nem hard uses like a, a miles Turner screen and Giannis, this is his fault. He's in drop coverage. So Nem hard just rises up and choose the 28 footer. Okay. So four foot four point game timeout. Here comes the first big blunder, AJ green inbounds and Trent gets trapped, anticipates a foul. It didn't come and just throws a bad pass. Nem hard picks it off. Pacers pretty patient.
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And then, then we get the first big Halliburton play, the three point play that cuts it to one. Yeah. Time out. And then this is one of the most depressing plays in NBA history. The tread through the legs? Oh, dude. I don't want to tell you what it reminded me of, Bill, because it'll trigger you.
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As long as, yeah. So...
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Yeah, I did a rare tweet myself. I said, you know, overtime score, Indiana 8, Gary Trent 12. Because it looked like with one minute left in this game, Gary Trent had just saved the Bucs season. He took 25 shots, Kirk. Yeah, he became the second biggest player in Milwaukee after the Dame injury. And he made huge three after huge three.
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And then these two mammoth turnovers, just a cruel, cruel end to their season and potentially, Bill, the Giannis Antetokounmpo era.
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Yeah, I have no idea where to start with what happened after the game. From the Halliburton dad incident to the Matherin hug that turns into a shove.
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Yeah. It was very strange.
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There's some troubling end of game stuff where he's a very competitive guy and he's lost to school. Do you remember early in his career, he tackled Mike Dunleavy. Right. Remember that?
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And I was, I was worried. And it also evokes and sort of gives the Pacers a little bit of credit and some shine here. It evokes like these incredible Reggie Miller moments from that franchise's history where they have, oh my God, what? So they just got another one of these, like, what was, you did the 30 for 30. Was it eight points and nine seconds?
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He had a bunch of them. Yeah, but the seven-point comeback, 8-0 run in 34 seconds is just unbelievable from the Pacers' perspective, too.
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They're going to score points. I think the front line of the Cavs will have something to say between Mobley and Allen. And I like, you know, DeAndre Hunter. I like, you know, Ty Jerome obviously deserves some credit. But I think, can we do a little bit more on Milwaukee? Like, you look at this team.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead.
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Indiana, Cleveland. Cleveland minus 200. Yeah.
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And I was listening to Rob Mahoney and Zach, who were great the other day, and I'll stack on their point. Can you blame him? Look at what's happened around him at this franchise since they won it all. they've sort of taken the car apart piece by piece. And he's really all that's left. Like Lopez is there, Portis is there, but Middleton and Holiday are gone. You know, Bud is obviously gone.
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And what we see there is, you know, Chris Middleton for Kyle Kuzma. Are you kidding me? And Kuzma's not even playing in these games. 13 minutes was 2-5.
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You got to start with Jamal Murray. I mean, that was the game they needed from him in this series, in this exact moment. It was his best playoff game since the bubble. The Clippers looked tired, though. The Clippers looked... I don't know if it was elevation or they just hadn't had enough rest, but they looked like they were slower to the basketball.
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Right. Since he was at Disney World in the pandemic. But yeah, I think... Can you blame him? I think is what Mahoney was saying. And I think it's fair. Like, he got them a title. Damian Lillard. Can I blame him a little bit? For leaving? No. For wanting to leave? You can.
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I'll always remember I was at the Grant Williams game in Boston. I don't know if you were there. I was. Zach was talking about it the other day. It's like a sliding doors moment, right? Because I remember talking to everybody being like, man, it feels like we're going to be watching these two teams play for this Eastern Conference Championship for a long time.
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And then this team is just and that's why I think it's an interesting match macroscopic study. Like you can talk about this collapse in the last 34 seconds here. But really, this is a collapse that's three or four years long and just goes to speak to the importance of ownership, transactions, roster building.
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But, dude, yeah, I thought that Giannis and Milwaukee were going to be a big time factor for a huge part of the 2020s. And they simply haven't been since that Grant Williams game.
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Yeah, and they've not made any good draft picks, Bill, during this crucial time where even if you get somebody like Dalton Connect or Corey Joseph, like when the Spurs were picking at the Derek White, we would always pick well at the end of the DeJounte Murray. You got to get those picks to keep the momentum going, to add role players, and they just haven't.
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been able to find anybody in the draft. They have A.J. Johnson, Tyler Smith, Chris Livingston, Bo Schomp, Isaiah Todd, R.J. Hampton, Jordan Awora, like nothing. That's their 2020s draft history. So it's just they haven't been able to build from the draft either. And that's a huge reason why this roster is so thin, too.
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They looked old, and you sort of alluded to it, Bill. James Harden did not look very good. I think the headline's got to be Jamal Murray, but there's a little bit of an underwhelming current from these Los Angeles Clippers to me.
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Oh, well, if San Antonio is an option.
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I mean, I will, again, hand up. I'm very biased like you are with the Celtics. I will say the San Antonio Spurs. I think it would be a really perfect pairing evoking the great Duncan, Tim Robinson era, or David Robinson, Tim Duncan era.
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Dude, I saw his new A24 movie. What is that called? But anyway, I think that's, what about you?
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Yeah, I think it's going to jack threes. it's just like David Robinson and Tim Duncan 20 years ago. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, that's why I love it. It's a fantasy of mine. Realistically. I don't, I don't know if that's a possibility. Um, have you thought about it? Other destinations?
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There's been smoke around Miami and Giannis for years.
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Playoff Jamal, Playoff Harden, Farewell Giannis, and a Draymond Deep Dive With Kirk Goldsberry and Zach Lowe
Again, when Ernie Johnson at halftime is like, this is the worst basketball game I've ever seen. Yeah, we're not showing highlights. He's saying that on air, by the way. He's not saying that at the water cooler before they go to the segment. He's saying that on air. That's how bad it was. Yeah.
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They might not have a choice. We've seen that one before too. What do you think about Wemby, by the way? I think he's on schedule to return for next season. I haven't heard anything specific medically, but he was caught playing soccer in Costa Rica on video. I don't know if you saw that, Bill. It was a very interesting video.
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That sounds great. Hey, you got to be deep onto the Spurs message boards to see these great videos of Wemby playing soccer.
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Well, they just got two rookie of the years in a row. So why not go for three? I mean, shout out to Stephen Castle for getting the rookie of the year. Not a great class, but I thought he was deserving. I don't think they're going to rig the draft for the Spurs to get Cooper Flagg. But dude, Cooper Flagg can play, dude. This guy's going to change the fate of wherever he gets.
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This is another one of the biggest lotteries of the century. Whoever gets that number one.
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Yeah, the Spurs have two picks they're pretty excited about. I think most likely outcome is, right, eight and 14, something like that. And they could combine those and try to move up or they've drafted pretty well in the past.
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You have to take Minnesota at this point. Okay. JJ Redick. I think, You know, there's two reasons, depth and defense. The Lakers don't have much either. And I think the stat was that nobody has ever played all five dudes for the last 24 minutes of a playoff game. And JJ just did that. That tells you something.
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You'd like to think Jackson Hayes can do something, but I think Minnesota just deserves credit. And the other thing is the defense. Los Angeles' defense is not good enough. Jade McDaniels is exposing them on drives. And no disrespect to Jade McDaniels. He's helping Minnesota win this series. But that goes to show that this is not the Thunder defense, dude. This is not the Rockets defense. Right.
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This is the Lakers defense. It's been a red flag for me for a while.
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Yeah. The rim just not really involved. And Luka, like, has not been great on defense. And again, the Western Conference is unforgiving. You want to call it a weak link era of NBA basketball, fine. We're hunting matchups, whatever you want to say. Anthony Edwards is just the best offensive player in the series right now. And on top of that, I think Minnesota has...
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a better defense and more depth. So I'm taking Minnesota bill. I agree. I think there might be a free throw discrepancy tomorrow. Is it tomorrow? I'm guessing it's tomorrow. I'm going tomorrow and I'm just going to be laughing the whole time. You're going to games back to back, huh? Oh yeah.
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I think Cleveland deserves a little more respect. And the Drew Holiday hamstring injury, Bill Simmons. Not happy about it. Yeah, not great. So, look, Cleveland, I think if Boston is limited somehow, Cleveland is a very dangerous team. So, Drew Holiday in street clothes is my answer to that question. Have I seen anything that makes me think Boston might not get there?
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If he comes back, I love that dude. If Porzingis is healthy, if Tatum is playing like this, Jalen Brown, Derek White, Peyton Pritchard, Joe Mazzulla, I think they deserve to be favorites coming out of the East. But Cleveland... is shooting the shit out of the basketball. They've been a great team all year. They've won in Boston, if I'm not mistaken.
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I'm picking Boston, but I will not be shocked whether it's because Drew Holiday's limited, somebody else goes down, that Cleveland wins the Eastern Conference. So I think that's the case. On the Western side, OKC, again, clear favorite. I don't see anybody in their class right now on the Western Conference side.
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Thank you, Bill. Good to see you.
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Three of nine tonight. I mean, players that shot more than him. Zubach had 15 shots. Kawhi had 15 shots. Norman Powell had 12 shots. Bogdanovich had 11 shots. Three of nine, Bill. And then, okay, maybe he's getting it done with the dimes. No, barely had five assists. A lot of those were later in the game. I was just...
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No, I'm ready to say if it's a big game like a game five and big series like this, I just I'm almost more expectant of this kind of performance from this point, which is a sad. So I don't think we're ever going to see it. Now, maybe he we get another chance here in game six or game seven. And he tells me I'm wrong with the performance that just turns back the clock.
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But this was just a complete no show from a guy who's had a bunch of no shows over the last 10 years and big moments like this.
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This is a team that was supposed to be one of the best defenses in the playoffs. One of the best defensive rebounding teams in the playoffs. The stat that I kept going back to is I think they ranked first in defensive rebounding percentage all year long. And then in this playoffs, they ranked 15 out of 16 in that category. Some of that is because of Jokic.
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But this is also a defense when Jamal Murray gets going, you'd think Kawhi Leonard or Chris Dunn or some combination of Ty Lue schemes. could do it, and they just didn't have the fight tonight at all. And I don't know what, how many points did the Clippers end up with? 131, Bill Simmons. The Nuggets. Yeah, sorry. The Nuggets ended up with 131, Bill.
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And that's just, to me, that's a dumb guy stat, but that's what you need to know. You're not going to win a lot of playoff games if you give up 131 points. So this is a proud defense that just laid an egg tonight.
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I was wrong, too. I remember, but I was, like, very scared coming into the playoffs because I was, like, looking at this Clippers team. They have that history you just mentioned. But then they have James Harden, Kawhi Leonard, and Ben Simmons, who, by the way...
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What a beautiful shot tonight. He got to the just inside the paint. He rises up for that little half hook and he almost hit the rim. God bless him.
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On Verno's podcast like three weeks ago, when all the trends that I look at throughout the year are pointing to the Clippers are the best analytic team closing the season.
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Except they're the Clippers. And I was like, I'm not going to know what to do. I picked them to win this series in seven games, too. I now would. I wish I could switch it. They just they just haven't been there. And I think they could win game six. But I just didn't unless they completely reinvent themselves for a game seven. What we saw in Denver tonight is not going to get it done, obviously.
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Yeah, I think if we say there's Harden, Leonard in one corner, and then you have Jokic and Murray in the other corner, the second tier guys, the Brown and Aaron Gordon, obviously, have been great. Those like guy number three and guy number four, Those have been the Nuggets guys that have gone.
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Christian Brown hit that huge three, I thought, to end the third quarter in this game, which really set the tone. He's really an emotional leader. That's sort of a big thing for him. And you mentioned earlier, Russell Westbrook. Getting a performance like that, too, is just a huge gift and another reason they put him over the top tonight.
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The defense is still a big red flag to me. The defense is, I don't know if they're going to keep up with the Oklahoma City Thunder if they play them in the next round. So I still think that's their Achilles heel. I don't think they'll be able to hold up on that end of the court against that young, ferocious, deep defense.
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team uh with so much rest and so much energy coming into that series so they've won me over with this this this this starting five the murray yokich porter who has come around in this series it feels like after a game one no show Yeah. And getting called out kind of, I mean, uh, by, by the Joker, but that, that starting group I think can hang where I have trouble.
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Bill is below that line where the thunder are just, they almost have a second starting five. And this team has, uh, you know, Russell Westbrook and Deandre Jordan.
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Oh, that's great. And it's a big Hartenstein test. That's why they got that guy.
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Yeah.
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I feel like Detroit needs, they need to win one of these games. They had a tough weekend back home in Michigan. I think they're going to win game six back at Little Caesars.
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Yeah, I thought it was a great game. You know, New York is fortunate that there wasn't a late foul call at the end of Sunday's game. Yes, they were. But they've been playing with fire in this series, and they've been getting away with it. I think they had a poorly timed injury here at the end of this game. But the Pistons have been ahead, Bill, in every fourth quarter of this series.
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I think in game one, they weren't ready for the smoke of the moment. But since then, these games all could have gone either way to an extent. And I think... Tonight, Cade Cunningham, they played better pick and roll offense than the New York Knicks. And they took it to him. And I'm not shocked, but I was impressed.
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The Lakers don't have like real bigs. Rui, LeBron. Right. They just have bulk. Masquerade it. They have bulks. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. Bigs in this Western Conference playoffs are a big piece of the puzzle. I think the Hartenstein acquisition changes Oklahoma City's ability to play big this time around. Obviously, Joker is in there.
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But I think the Western Conference, there's three incredible series, and let's probably expect that 1-8 series to not be that great.
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OKC Memphis, by the way, should be Vancouver, Seattle. Think about that. That would have been pretty crazy if that would have happened.
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Yeah, I hope our man John Morant is back and ready to go on Friday. I think he turned his ankle pretty bad. I have a really bad memory.
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Well, they did seem... They played well. Bane had a great game. Bane almost helped. He almost stole this game. He was making it seem like every shot. And the ones he missed were like these torturous misses that would go in and out. He looked great. But yeah, Memphis played pretty well, I thought. And I think...
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OKC isn't going to have a problem there, but if John Morant gets to play OKC, I think that would be really entertaining, actually.
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Yeah, he settles for threes too much. Well over half of his shots, again, today against that smaller team were behind the three-point line. You know, when he was sort of running that offense last year in the absences of Bain and... Moran, he was doing a lot more driving and a lot more playmaking. That didn't exist tonight. It didn't exist tonight.
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And I'd like to see him be a little more aggressive against some of these matchups because he's so talented. He can finish with both hands near the rim. But yeah, I still think they're going to win against the winner. I would pick them to win against the winner of the Sacramento-Dallas matchup. What are your thoughts on that one?
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Yeah, I have no idea what to make of either team. I think I'm pretty sure that Sacramento's got enough to win this game in advance.
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Yeah.
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Oh, they're lighting that thing. Oh, they're still lighting it?
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Yeah, they'll light it up, I think, tomorrow night. I think they'll light that thing up and then hop on a flight.
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Dude, I've never seen a player taunt a ref like with the ball. He was like going to pass it to him and he spun it back to himself like a big brother to a little brother. And that's when he got tossed. That was great. Yeah.
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Jalen Suggs. What do you think, Cerruti? Jalen Suggs. Oh, God, no way.
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Yeah, I think he deserves a lot of credit for that run. I mean, what we saw him do in the Knicks series and becoming that villain and becoming a guy who's capable of winning those big games. There was a little bit tonight where I thought he was going to get it going in that third quarter, Cerruti, where they opened it up and finally got your team running up and down the court.
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And he was at the forefront of that. And then, yeah, it's not ethical hoops. When the bonus light comes on, he totally changes into the worst, most annoying player. With all due respect to Chris Ball, somehow he's taking it to another level. When the bonus light comes on, Trae Young shines even brighter. But... There is some value there. There is a team that would take a chance on them.
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Maybe it's somebody like Portland or Sacramento. I don't know. I don't like the player. I think what the Hawks have that makes it really interesting is they have this incredible defense waiting to be there with these wings with Risha Shea, Jalen Johnson, obviously Dyson Daniels, a Kong Wu. They have this like fleet of young athletes that are ready to shine. I don't feel like Trey fits into that.
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Oh, it shouldn't have been that close. It was a frustrating game for both teams, honestly. And Steph Curry, I mean, two giant threes. You know, I think he's bookended his season before the season, that masterpiece in Paris. And now to wrap up the regular season and secure the playoff spot for his team, two just classic Curry threes when they needed him most. It was an incredible moment.
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So I'm among the other. I just I believe that he will be mentioned in a lot of trades this summer.
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I think that's the problem, dude. When you talk about it with Cerruti's team, it's like there's this visceral reaction. When you talk about it with my team, there's this visceral reaction.
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But a real frustrating end, too. I mean, Draymond fouling out there. Jimmy Butler throwing the ball away. This team, oh, they should have put him away earlier, in my opinion. But they got it done. Now they have this fascinating series coming up with the Houston Rockets, Bill.
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Wow. That's a pretty good price. A lot can happen in these games. People forget how few sweeps there are sometimes. I think that the case for the Magic winning one is like what they did to the Hawks three-point shooters tonight. They had four made threes, Bill. That's like only out of the 1,200 NBA games we watched all year long, only...
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I think 13 times that a team, either team make four or fewer threes. So Orlando has been the best three-point defense in the NBA all year. They've suppressed attempts and makes at a very high level. That said, I think, you know, the Hawks are not the Celtics. The Celtics and Missoula have a way of going from good to great against every defense. And it's terrifying.
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But the case is they will sort of force Boston into, you know, and you watched them all year. if Boston has a below average three-point shooting night, if they hit 26% of their threes, they're beatable. And I think if Orlando can get some better scoring, if they have Cole Anthony playing like this or Wendell Carter Jr. playing like he played tonight, they could steal one game.
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I think this is a five-game series, but I wouldn't surprise if it were four or six. I would say it's a five-game series in my head.
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Yeah, it's like the batting title in the Ted Williams era, right? This just feels like this is going to go to him. But in the piece, I looked at some potential young players coming along, and there's some surprising names. There's the Devin Bookers of the world that you think of.
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But, dude, I'll give you a name that is really relevant for the playoffs who is suddenly an incredible jump shooter, and that's Anthony Edwards, who is combining volume and efficiency and age, I would throw that in there, at a ridiculous level. And some people early in the season sort of lamented the fact that this hyper-athletic
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you know, highlight machine was taking so many threes, but he's good at it. And so he comes to mind as somebody who, like it or not, could be the best shooter in the NBA in four or five years if he continues this trajectory. I mean, I don't know if you saw the stats, but like, very few players in NBA history have had more than 300 threes in a season.
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And, and now he's on that list and he creates a lot of them. And specifically with a step back bill, which is a very difficult shot that only players like Luca and Stefan and Harden have really been able to do reliably. Well, he's actually hitting at that at a rate that's better than all those guys. And that really caught my eye this year. So Anthony Edwards could potentially,
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take the torch in a weird way. I would not said that last year, but doing the research for the piece, I was like, it's undeniable that this guy is ahead of schedule as a jump shooter.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, and it's a perfect stage for him to check in and see where he's at. Because there's a chance that the Wolves will win this series and he's going to be just the star of the show on some of the biggest stages in the first round of these playoffs. And when he came out of Georgia and was the number one pick, I didn't think that he would be the best shooter ever.
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in sort of his cohort of early 20s players. I didn't think that was going to happen. I always thought it was going to be an athlete. But he's great. And then the other name you mentioned that I don't think people quite realize how great of a shooting season we just had was Malik Beasley. And if you look at just the catch and shoot stats, it's better than any Klay Thompson season except for one.
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Like Malik Beasley... It's not an exaggeration to say when you look at the volume of threes he's taking and the percentage he's making, it's like having Klay Thompson out there. In fact, it's like a better version of Klay Thompson for most of Klay Thompson's career. And I think that helps explain what's happened in Detroit. Because he's doing it at the end of games, too.
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Yeah, and he doesn't even start, which is why he's a six-man-of-the-year candidate. But he finishes a lot of games, and he gives Cade Cunningham just a great spacing weapon. But it's also just a—you know, Malik's been a great catch-and-shoot guy in the league for a while. He had one down year in the Lakers. But this is not— this is, he's taken it to another level.
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So he's another one that sort of popped in this awards and it gave him the best catch and shoot guy. Cause I don't think people realize, and we'll see that in a big series too with the New York Knicks. Yeah. To bill is, is can he continue this under the bright lights?
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Yeah, they're always among the league leaders in turnovers. Yeah. And they've been loose with the ball this whole era.
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Yeah, anybody who doubts, go to Basketball Reference and look at Clay and then look at Malik. There have been only nine instances of a player hitting more than 39% of their threes while also hitting more than 300 threes in a single year. Curry's done it six times. Clay's done it one time. And then this year, Bill... Anthony Edwards and Malik Beasley both did that.
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So I think that was a stat that was like, oh, my God. Yeah, there's more threes than ever. Nobody wants to hear me complain about that anymore. I get it. But we're seeing the emergence of more of these great shooting campaigns. And this year was Beasley and Edwards.
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And he was... He didn't have... Pritchard had that one game where he had like 45 against Portland, right? Yeah, that's the thing.
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Uh, well relevant to this weekend, I'm going to say Tyler Harrow, uh, has had a breakout year, but he's, he's, he's mastered the floater, which is really interesting, uh, and kills, kills a lot of drop coverage. And he's just the best at that. The floater sort of replaced the pull up jumper. For young guards, you know, Chris Paul's generation would always pull up at the elbow off two feet.
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A little loose with the ball. But yeah, the Draymond foul was like, dude, the time is on your side at that point in the night. And they just give them the free throws. The refs didn't help either. I'm not going to say it helped either team. Like the Phantom foul on Edie and Pods had a great block I thought was clean. But this is the result I think we all thought was going to happen tonight.
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Tyler Harrow and John Morant's generation is definitely like running towards the basket, throwing up the floater. The stats back that up. And this year, nobody has been better than that, than Tyler Harrow. And, you know, I think in the Butler absence, If you look at the Miami Heat's numbers over the last 15, 16 games, their numbers jump off the page.
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And I think whoever wins that game in Chicago has a really good chance, Bill, of winning taking the eighth seat in the East from Atlanta. And I think Tyler Harrow and the Heat.
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And both Chicago and Miami are playing above that 9-10 level right now. And so I think whoever wins that game is going to have a lot of momentum going into Atlanta. And I could see that being Miami. And I could see Miami going into Cleveland and stealing a game.
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Yeah, me too. I think I'll go a step further. You have Spoh. You have these guys that have gone very far in the playoffs still on that roster versus the Chicago group that you can't say that about. So I feel like I am picking Miami. I like Chicago. Again, I think they're playing better than the nine spot right now.
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Yeah. And then, yeah. So I love that. But I was here. What else in the piece is interesting?
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The last thing from the shooting piece that I think you'll enjoy is the best shooting big man in the NBA this year. Yeah. You'll remember a couple of years ago, Carl Towns. claimed to be the best big man shooter of all time.
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To those of us who watched basketball before 2000. There were other good shooting big men before Towns.
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But Nikola Jokic, among his many feats, is literally the most efficient jump shooter in the NBA among all the people that took 400 jump shots this season, which I forget, 98 players. So of the 98 players that took at least 400 jumpers, nobody's more efficient than Nikola Jokic.
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That includes the three. It includes all jump shots. And I think that is an astounding fact. I know you and Ryan are debating the MVP votes, but I didn't know that going into that.
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I think the Warriors securing the seventh seed. And a little Houston matchup. And Memphis not done.
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Oh.
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And you ended up with Nikola, right?
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Okay.
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Yeah. I think the last one you said, for me, I really think the MVP vote comes down to how you look at the word value and valuable in this context. And for me as a stats guy, those on-off differentials with the Joker are so extreme. that it proves to me that way I think of value. And again, I think this is a year where we have really unique two candidates. Both are deserving.
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Yeah, yeah. But I always come back to, and I think you alluded to this with the two through 12 thing. But yeah, like when Nikola is sitting down for the Denver Nuggets, they're immediately a lottery team. They're immediately a lottery team until he takes off the towel and stands up and goes to the scorer's table and comes back into the game. And then they're a playoff team again.
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And it's one of the themes for me this season too, Bill, is like if you look at the top four teams, top two on both sides, there's something in common is they're all pretty young. I think the Boston Celtics have a couple older guys in Horford.
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And Drew. Yeah, but, like, when you look at the absolute core of the Cavs, the Celtics, but also, obviously, in the West, the Rockets and the Thunder. It's a young man's game, dude. It's a young man's game.
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And in these playoff series, like, where I can see myself talking myself into the Rockets beating the Warriors is, like, dude, there's just these young bucks who have a lot more energy, who are a lot more resilient. Like, when Jha turned his ankle and, like... For an older player, that's probably the game, right? You can't come back from that.
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Yeah, those are the moments. And I think there is a case for depth being more important than ever right now in the NBA. And I think the Rockets have that and the Warriors don't. But yeah, I think that's an interesting way to look at these playoff matchups too, is who has the most depth. And what you just said about the Rockets is another reason I'm going to talk myself into taking them, I bet.
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We'll find out, man. Kirk, I kept you up too late.
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No, I mean, it was great to see the Longhorn Corey Joseph back on the television screen tonight. I haven't seen Corey Joseph in a while.
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There's Corey Joseph. But yeah, Bill, thanks. And I can't wait for these playoffs to start, buddy.
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Yeah, we did that one.
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Yeah, that was a fun one.
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Yeah, it's remarkable. I know I was listening to you and Zach, too. It's great to have Zach in the network. But it was it was noticeable tonight. I mean, Golden State's old. You have Draymond, who's old, who had sort of banged up his neck the other day. Old guy injury. When you have like neck injuries, it's an old guy thing. Steph has a bandage on his hand, his shooting hand.
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And Jimmy, obviously, was limping around after that Clipper game. This is an old team, so it's another reason why I expected to see Kaminga again tonight. Just because of the depth. He's a young player. He's another body. But again, Bill, like you said, no Jonathan Kaminga. Early in the game, the bench actually saved them early. Memphis came out hot and post-game.
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And Gary Payton, both, I thought, sort of gave them a fresh burst of energy. But yeah, what does Kaminga have to do to get some run out there?
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Yeah. And I think he's going to be an interesting figure to watch in another way too, because Houston's one of the better rebounding teams in the league too. And, you know, when Draymond's your big and, You're not getting a lot of rebounds with Post out there.
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And you just start to wonder, are they going to have to put Kaminga in just to match the athleticism and the physicality of this Houston team?
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The other thing that's interesting with that matchup, I believe, is, you know, Dylan Brooks and Fred Van Fleet, nobody stopped Steph Curry, but those two guys have both done a great job defending Stephan, relatively speaking, for the last five to seven years. Van Fleet in the 2019 finals and Dylan Brooks for years on this Grizzlies group. not to mention, as you said, I'm at Thompson.
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I think Stefan had one of the worst games I've ever seen him have on April 6th, one of 10, three total points. The only three points he got bill were on a 34 foot three bomb. Uh, he never got anything going. Um, Ime Adoka was essentially calling him a crybaby to his face. It was just a nightmare game. And so I'm really fascinated by this matchup on a lot of fronts.
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And the question for me is, can this aging set of great players, Hall of Famers, match the energy and the physicality of Ime Adoka's fleet of young bloods who are just dying for this moment?
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Yeah, yeah.
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I think FanDuel is going to have the Warriors as slight favorites. Am I right?
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It's not slight.
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Dang. I think that's too much, Bill Simmons.
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I assumed it was going to be this matchup all day, and I'm with you. I don't know who I'm going to pick. I'm tempted to pick Houston because I'm sick of everybody just telling me Golden State's going to walk away with this series like it's going to be easy. And I know that's not going to happen. I know that's not going to happen. And I don't think those odds are correct, but...
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Yeah, I also could see a world where Golden State goes down there, steals game one or game two, and is feeling really good about their chances back in the Bay. I don't know. I just think those odds are a little wrongly priced. I think that Ime Adoka is going to have these guys ready to do, you know, what they do best, which is incredible defense, incredible defense, physicality. Rebounds.
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And rebounding.
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They held Golden State, Bill, to 90 points in one of their, what did they play, five times this year because of the in-season tournament? Yeah. In one of those games, Golden State only scored 90 points. You know, that's a pretty remarkable stat. I think Golden State needs to score a hundred to win. I think they're like one in 10 when they don't score a hundred or something like that.
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So if, if, if Houston's defense is able to clamp down on this golden state offense, the Rockets have a chance, a good chance to win the series.
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It crossed my mind many times today. And the great thing about that too for the league is like it guarantees that either LeBron or Steph is in the Western Conference Finals too, right? So if they get to round two, you know either one of those glamour franchises and superstars is going to be in the Western Conference Finals. So yeah, that crossed my mind too.
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They're 5-6, I think, which is probably not what they want to be. But, dude, I'll say I'm not worried about the Dallas Mavericks. I think their defense will come around. I think if you have Luka and Clay and Kyrie, your offense is going to be fine against every team in the league. So I'm not worried. I think this is just an awkward start.
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And they're playing the kinds of opponents, Bill, that we're not seeing anywhere. eastern conference teams have to play i was watching some of these eastern conference um emirates cup games this evening and some of the uh some of the basketball wasn't as good i would say uh i i noticed so you're right so you think the emirates cup was better last year
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I don't know.
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I like it. I think we're going to need to see a little bit more. I have to say, if the three of us are kind of confused by the format, that's not a good sign. I think like the six groups of five teams where point differential matters, I challenge you to name any group and list the teams in it right now. Like none of us can do that.
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Yeah, I didn't know the Hawks were in the Celtics group until the game started. So I think some people have said, hey, maybe we should just do this with the divisions and send a division rep to Vegas, maybe a couple of wild cards. I don't know what the solution is.
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I like the idea, and I believe old school Bill Simmons, maybe yellow page, page two Bill Simmons, actually advocated for an in-season tournament.
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I don't think it should be in Vegas. And apologies to our friends in Nevada. But I went there, Bill. I remember I saw you in the concourse on the semifinal day. Remember, I think it was a Tuesday and they had the two semifinals back to back. They clear out the building and bring on another audience. And that's a plot point. I think this should be in Barclays in Madison Square Garden.
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And then the final should be in Madison Square Garden because it was felt so weird to be in Vegas in the middle of the day. None of the team's fans were there. Like the Pacers fans couldn't make it out because they didn't know they were going there until like three days previous or something. So I wonder if it'd be better in New York City where it would be dark outside.
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There's if you go to Brooklyn, there are Pacers fans or Bucks fans or whoever else is making these semifinals. They're already in New York. So I think that would be attended better. And I think, yeah, there's just the Vegas during the 2 p.m. tip off in on a Tuesday just felt really weird.
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But that would be one of the things I'd look at for them is bring it to the East Coast where Jacoby is, where there's two great arenas are and tons of bring it to Jacoby.
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Yeah, bring it to Jacoby. bring it to Jacoby, bring it to the East Coast. And by the way, just put another meaningful basketball game in Madison Square Garden every year. What's wrong with that?
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It makes sense. Uh, and it probably is what they're doing. Uh, but yeah, they have Vegas.
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Well, I think Daniels is the defender that Atlanta thought they were getting with DeJounte, but DeJounte just never showed up as a defender for them. It didn't work. I love Dyson Daniels. I think he's had freaking six steals, three games in a row, Bill. That is like Kawhi Leonard stuff. We don't see those numbers. He's a legitimate defensive player of the year candidate. And you're right.
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Looking back at that trade, I think it's fair to be... it's fair to be on Atlanta's side of the deal at this point, because I think Larry Nance also played very well tonight. He's at least a nice rotation piece.
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He's a great player, a great rotation piece, I should say. And I think that Jalen Johnson is the other revelation. This dude had a triple double tonight. And when Trey Young is out there, we don't see these guys get to do this. When Trey Young is out there, we see Trey Young being Trey Young. almost every trip down the floor. And so for me tonight, I thought it was a revelation.
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I don't know if this is sustainable, but I didn't know Jalen Johnson had that. I didn't know that he could go out and get 10 assists and score the ball and rebound the ball like that and essentially being a leader. And Dyson Daniels also sort of a really powerful two-way playmaker with just quirky offensive game. But I agree.
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I think this, at least this game, makes you think about an Atlanta future without Trey Young in it.
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If you're another player... I think he might have found it, Jacoby. The Lakers? Do they like their point guard right now?
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$42 million, I think. Yeah.
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Hell no. That's a hell no. Yeah, and I think Jacoby hit on it. And I actually texted a couple of friends around the league just to take their temperature on it. And they said there's no market for this guy. I don't know if they're right or wrong, but the number is... Again, the CBA is not this old CBA. It is brutal if you start overpaying for talent, particularly starting guard.
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So everybody has a point guard, as we said. And I think he's... He's not sort of enchanting anybody around the league, but I do like the idea of him taking a six-man role in Atlanta. I don't know if they can pull that off, but that would be interesting to see come to play.
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Grady Dick is leading all sophomore players in scoring, which is insane. He's ahead of Wemby. He has the ball a lot. He is like their primary offensive playmaker in some parts of the game. So I did not expect to see that. He had 32 tonight. I think there was the game they should have won against Denver last week, and that dude had 26. This guy, he doesn't look like an NBA player.
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His face changes color depending on what quarter we're in. Yeah. He plays such a weird kind of aggressive, slashy game. I thought he was going to be more of a spot-up shooter, but he has made a leap, and Toronto looks like they have something there that I didn't expect to have last year.
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Again, I'm going to say no. I think they deserve time to sort of implement their new pieces with Randall and Dante. This is a bad loss, though. You can't lose to that team in the Emirates NBA Cup of all times to lose to a bad team. So I think I would have expected them to win this game. I still think the West is loaded. Again, these aren't the kinds of records.
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If they were playing in the East, they would have a much better record. So they're just playing tougher games.
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It's not great. I think Finch is good. I love Ant. I think that Gobert starts you at worst as the fifth-ranked defense in the NBA. I think they're going to be fine once they get settled into this season. Again, remember our Western Conference champion last year didn't look good until February. So yeah, I think they, I think they're going to come around.
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I think they're just too talented on both ends of the court. They have a good coach and they have depth. So I think this is just an awkward start from a group that hasn't really played basketball together very much. I don't know. What do you guys think?
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I don't think that's crazy. Again, the West is so stacked that being the fifth or the sixth seed over there is no sort of bad situation. I mean, that's a good team. Whoever's going to land there is probably a pretty good team. Yeah. You know, I think they had to do something. You can't pay Gobert and Towns. You just can't do that. That's not what their owner wants.
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And I hate to be the cap guy, but part of this move was to get off the Towns deal for all the out years and get some flexibility, maybe get off Randall when he expires.
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uh and have more flexibility for a team that's built around anthony edwards and rudy gobert long term with players like naz reed and dante di vincenzo and nikhil alexander walker who's been awesome um so you know again this this is the the boring character in the nba saga is the cba but i think it explains some of their their their reasoning for this trade in the first place uh but
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Are they better off as a basketball team? No, you're right. They're not. Not right now. But long term, I think within the constraints of the team building sort of apparatus that the league has put on us, they see a path to be a championship team with Anthony Edwards and Rudy Gobert and a bunch of great role players in depth. Whether that'll work, I don't know. I think they're going to be fine.
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I think I'd put them at four or five right now, if I had to say, in the West.
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Yeah, definitely. And I think it felt like the Warriors were going to lose that game. I think they were down seven or something, I want to say. And then Stefan just, yeah, he was like, I'm the prime Splash brother right now and I'm going to take over. And I feel like we're seeing the night-night
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1.30.
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I saw one of the worst games I've ever seen Joel play today. Two of 11 in 26 minutes, three rebounds. This is supposed to be one of the most impactful players in the whole league, man. And he took it easy, and he is, like you say, playing his way into shape, but also the Sixers are playing their way out of any kind of postseason potential.
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more often than ever starting with the olympics but also i think that's two night nights we've seen this week alone um but this one was especially sort of potent with with clay who had a pretty good shooting night a couple of bad ones like jacoby said yeah but still ended up it was nice to see clay make six threes uh but you're right stefan made the most impressive ones when the game was on the line it was just awesome well the cool thing
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They're 2-8, and it's a lot of Kyle Lowry, too, out there, because Maxie's hurt. And I just don't know how much deeper they can dig. And in normal year, they'd be screwed right now. But the East is so bad below the Cavs and Celtics, there's still time for them to be fine. But what I need to see is more from Joel. He did not look... active. He did not look competitive.
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And if that's what we're going to get this year or this fall, they're not going to be good, period. Jacoby was texting earlier. He didn't seem very impressed. Is that fair to say, Jacoby?
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Can I ask you guys a question? If this were Shaq, right? If you were tracking Shaq's career from Orlando all the way through the end, what era Shaq is 2024 Joel Embiid?
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Yeah. Right. Yeah. That's what I was going to say. Phoenix era. Yeah. And it's not pretty, but this is what it looks like. I'm sorry. He's been in the league 11 years.
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I love those guys. I think, to answer your question, I think this is Miami. First of all, Shaq's a better player, but I would put him in that optimistically, the Miami era Shaq.
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I think there's a chance that he is still capable of turning a corner and getting in shape. Um, So I think that's the optimistic version. I think the pessimistic version is Phoenix Shaq, which is like, we're never going to see what we thought we were used to seeing ever again. So it feels like he has about 30 games to figure this out. And if he doesn't, that contract is going to be
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And Albatross, plain and simple.
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Yeah, I think so. I think pace and space are a big part of it. And tonight was a great example. We were texting about the sort of awful Tim Hardaway injury that happened in the Detroit game. And that was a very violent play. And then in that same game, I think it was Jaden Ivey got caught like on a closeout and on his spine. And then you look at all the pelicans and the hamstring injuries.
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I think those are resulting from the sport being faster and really demanding on athletes, being athletes for a huge amount of time, running up and down side to side in ways that Kevin McHale never did or Robert Parrish never did. And I think both of those things are a factor. It's still a very physical sport. And 82 games of this is the other thing I would say.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Curry vs. Klay, the Embiid Situation, Atlanta’s New Look and Cleveland’s Ascent With Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry
It's not just the game is faster and wider. We're still asking the guys to play 82 of them. And that's a lot on muscles. Plus playoffs. Plus potentially the Emirates Cup Championship, that 83rd game for two lucky teams. So I think... All of those things lead into it. But you're exactly right. It's the demand on the bodies in the pace and space era. It's just unprecedented by NBA standards.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Curry vs. Klay, the Embiid Situation, Atlanta’s New Look and Cleveland’s Ascent With Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry
That's not normal.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Curry vs. Klay, the Embiid Situation, Atlanta’s New Look and Cleveland’s Ascent With Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry
And if you look at, Bill, one other thing, I was talking to Rod Adams from the Warriors. You remember Ron Adams, their old coach? And he told me one time, he's like, Kirk, basketball used to be a two-foot sport, and now it's a one-foot sport. So if you look at Jokic's teammate, Jamal Murray, he tore his ACL doing what? A Eurostep. That move didn't exist 25 years ago. DeJounte Murray tore his.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Curry vs. Klay, the Embiid Situation, Atlanta’s New Look and Cleveland’s Ascent With Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry
all jonathan isaac tore his a lot on these one-legged moves so it used to be two feet in the paint drop step in this and now it is torque on that one foot drive and that's very violent on your knees uh and i think on your muscles too but it was just a from a guy that's how derrick rose got hurt by the way when he same thing flying to the basket remember yeah one foot Here I go as fast as I can.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Curry vs. Klay, the Embiid Situation, Atlanta’s New Look and Cleveland’s Ascent With Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry
Eurostep decelerate, put everything on my lower body that I can. And it was just a guy who'd been in the league for 50 years being like, here's something that's different. And it was so authoritative and simple. But I do think like just like those fundamental offensive moves, like going from the drop step to the Eurostep increased a lot of injury risk for our guys like Jamal Murray.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Curry vs. Klay, the Embiid Situation, Atlanta’s New Look and Cleveland’s Ascent With Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry
Right.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Curry vs. Klay, the Embiid Situation, Atlanta’s New Look and Cleveland’s Ascent With Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry
Well, and he came off the bench, too. So Trey Young could take two things, I guess. Right.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Curry vs. Klay, the Embiid Situation, Atlanta’s New Look and Cleveland’s Ascent With Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry
It's getting close. I will say yes. I will say yes to that because it appears like here we are one more year. And I think for me, this was the breaking point year for Zion. I don't know where Griff is, but Dyson Daniels looks like a real player. Larry Nance, as we mentioned earlier, and by the way, don't forget the picks.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Curry vs. Klay, the Embiid Situation, Atlanta’s New Look and Cleveland’s Ascent With Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry
So if you had traded Zion, you would have gotten something probably pretty significant back. Um, at that moment, remember the, the play in games, he, he was playing really well and then he got hurt there too, uh, against the Lakers. I'd say yes, because it looks like at this point, the other thing, and I'd say to David Griffiths, he's done a great job drafting Herb Jones, Trey Murphy.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Curry vs. Klay, the Embiid Situation, Atlanta’s New Look and Cleveland’s Ascent With Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry
These are great. These are nice players he's put together there. Yeah, he could do a great job with whatever they brought back, either in draft assets or talent, I think. So I'd say yes. I think that's a good point. And I wish I wasn't saying yes, because Zion is my favorite NBA player to watch when he's out there being Zion. Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Curry vs. Klay, the Embiid Situation, Atlanta’s New Look and Cleveland’s Ascent With Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry
doing all those aforementioned dangerous moves, putting more torque on his one leg than anybody else in human history ever has. Could you imagine the sports science segment on that, Jacoby?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Curry vs. Klay, the Embiid Situation, Atlanta’s New Look and Cleveland’s Ascent With Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry
This is unnecessary.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Curry vs. Klay, the Embiid Situation, Atlanta’s New Look and Cleveland’s Ascent With Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry
No, I do not like this theory at all. I think he remains the best prospect in pro basketball. I will meet him halfway, though. If there's something that really irritates me about the young man's development, it's his jump shot and his tendency to lean on it too much when it's more Westbrook than Curry. And I feel like nobody can stop this guy inside of eight feet. that I've seen.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Curry vs. Klay, the Embiid Situation, Atlanta’s New Look and Cleveland’s Ascent With Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry
And I feel like he needs to do that and the team needs to help him get there more often. He's shooting 25% from three. His jump shot in the mid-range is one of the worst in the league efficiency-wise. This is not unusual for a young potential superstar. But it's frustrating when that young potential superstar has the potential to be the most dominant interior player of his era.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Curry vs. Klay, the Embiid Situation, Atlanta’s New Look and Cleveland’s Ascent With Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry
And so every time we're spending more and more time away from the basket, we're not getting towards his true calling, which is to be, I think, the best player near the hoop, Bill.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Curry vs. Klay, the Embiid Situation, Atlanta’s New Look and Cleveland’s Ascent With Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry
Right, particularly in a team environment where those shots were outlawed for years when they were put guys on the roster that probably could do that. So, you know, we were the last team to sort of let our players dribble into threes when I was around there. So I agree with this. And again, his shot diet is something that needs to be talked about and improved and optimized.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Curry vs. Klay, the Embiid Situation, Atlanta’s New Look and Cleveland’s Ascent With Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry
And for me, yeah, you're right. This dude should probably start with catch and shoot threes and shots near the basketball hoop. These off the dribble, Eurostep, when they work, it looks great. When his step back works, I should say. But it doesn't work enough. And it's hurting the team's offensive efficiency overall.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Curry vs. Klay, the Embiid Situation, Atlanta’s New Look and Cleveland’s Ascent With Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry
So I think this team, if it wants to compete, they need to optimize their star player.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Curry vs. Klay, the Embiid Situation, Atlanta’s New Look and Cleveland’s Ascent With Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry
When do the Cavs lose? Yeah, when do the Cavs lose is the right one to finish on. I think this team goes at least 16-0 if you look at their schedule. I don't want to jinx it, but if I'm just playing the numbers, I think they can go. I think they play your team in Boston coming up, right? Yeah, next week. Yeah, I think that's going to be one of the big games.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Curry vs. Klay, the Embiid Situation, Atlanta’s New Look and Cleveland’s Ascent With Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry
And so I think only one team has done more than 15-0, and that was the Warriors that did 24-0, Grantland-era Warriors. Yeah. Durant. Oh, no, it was the right after Grantland. It was the 15-16 Warriors.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Curry vs. Klay, the Embiid Situation, Atlanta’s New Look and Cleveland’s Ascent With Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry
Incredible shooting, jump shooting, and then high defensive potential with their bigs. So I like that analogy. I'm not ready to give them more of your status.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Curry vs. Klay, the Embiid Situation, Atlanta’s New Look and Cleveland’s Ascent With Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry
Oh, yeah. Garland is their crunch time guy. Donovan's their main time guy. And then Dave goes to Garland for crunch time. And it's been great. And Evan Mobley's been better. Ty Jerome's been great.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Curry vs. Klay, the Embiid Situation, Atlanta’s New Look and Cleveland’s Ascent With Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry
Yeah. So that's the spot they need to really get production from is the wing in between their incredible front court and their incredible back court. Can they find some Dean Wade magic, some Karis Levert magic, some Okoro magic and then Ty Jerome. So they found some depth there. I think they're the real deal.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Curry vs. Klay, the Embiid Situation, Atlanta’s New Look and Cleveland’s Ascent With Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry
I'm not ready to say they're going to beat your Celtics, but I could definitely see them being undefeated going into that game. And it's in Boston, right, Bill? I think that game next week.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Curry vs. Klay, the Embiid Situation, Atlanta’s New Look and Cleveland’s Ascent With Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry
55 and a half. What's Boston?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Curry vs. Klay, the Embiid Situation, Atlanta’s New Look and Cleveland’s Ascent With Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry
43 and a half, 46 and a half.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Curry vs. Klay, the Embiid Situation, Atlanta’s New Look and Cleveland’s Ascent With Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry
Fuck you, but they all have captain's hats on while they're saying fuck you to them, I guess. Dude, the CBA is a very cruel device. It's not a very nostalgic device. And I think... This version of it, Bill, is really just so harsh on teams. And it's so punitive for teams that overspend on players that aren't good enough for numbers. And that's what Clay was getting to.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Curry vs. Klay, the Embiid Situation, Atlanta’s New Look and Cleveland’s Ascent With Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry
And dude, I think, forget tonight just for a second. They're 9-2. They won in Boston. They got beat in Cleveland. They won at Oklahoma City. Then they just beat a Dallas team. They're on a hell of a run here. They look deep.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Curry vs. Klay, the Embiid Situation, Atlanta’s New Look and Cleveland’s Ascent With Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry
And I'm here to say that Mike Dunleavy and that group, as hard as this choice was, it looks like they made the right team building choice to get the last maybe chance with Stephen Curry to get an MVP or to compete for a championship. So as hard as it was, I think they made the right call.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Curry vs. Klay, the Embiid Situation, Atlanta’s New Look and Cleveland’s Ascent With Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry
asking yourself who actually can play defense i don't know how many how many defenses do you love kirk no not many and that when they've won the championship that's been their formula they're going to be remembered for all the threes but the defense that draymond has been running for years is great and in this game down the stretch bill was was a great example he had wiggins like really guarding don just about as well as anybody welcome back andrew wiggins welcome back to the league
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Curry vs. Klay, the Embiid Situation, Atlanta’s New Look and Cleveland’s Ascent With Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry
He looks different. And then you have Draymond himself really getting into Gafford in some of the key moments and turning that seven-point lead into a tie game. And so everybody's going to think of this game as like a microcosm. Everybody's going to think of this game for Steph in those late threes. But it was also some major stops by some A-plus defenders. I will zag. I think this is for real.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Curry vs. Klay, the Embiid Situation, Atlanta’s New Look and Cleveland’s Ascent With Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry
I think they could be 14-2. I agree. In their next, if we wake up in a week or two, they're 14-2 if you look at their next five games. That really seems like a contender, assuming Steph and Draymond are able to stay healthy, which at their age is a big question, obviously.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Curry vs. Klay, the Embiid Situation, Atlanta’s New Look and Cleveland’s Ascent With Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry
It's being overused because he's winning these major games. He beat Oklahoma City on their home court the other night. He beats Clay tonight. He wins the freaking gold medal. He's not out there overusing it. So can I be the tie-breaking vote?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Curry vs. Klay, the Embiid Situation, Atlanta’s New Look and Cleveland’s Ascent With Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry
These are the exact games that we're not seeing in the Eastern Conference. So it's unfair for me to almost judge them. They didn't really click until the second half of last year. And that's probably generous. It was really February when this team really started to click. So with the addition... of Clay Thompson, I think they're going to be very good.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
You know, I think P.J. Washington is a huge part of that equation. And I don't know if that's the correct answer, but it's not going to be Kyrie and it's not going to be Luka. I think we all know that. And then they have the big. And, you know, I think P.J. would be my answer. But, dude, who can guard this guy? Nobody can guard this guy. So, Dallas...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
I think beat them last year on both sides of the ball. And I think that it was really PJ who, if you look back at the stats from that series, did a lot on both sides.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Yeah. So I think I can't talk myself into what I saw from Dallas beating Oklahoma City, but I have very, very, very big recency bias right now because of what we just watched.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
I think if I zoomed back out, seven-game series, yeah, if PJ is going to be 20-10, kind of like he was, I think it was 18-8 in that series, and shooting threes and playing great defense, and they have their bigs, and Luka and Kyrie, obviously, at the end of games, they could win four games against that team if they broke their way.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Yeah, I think they've been sort of showcasing players all year. I think it helps explain why Steve Kerr's been playing 12 players a night. Oh, look at all these guys. Like, you could read into it. And I think they're one player short of being.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Yeah, farm-raised Kyle Anderson over here. But I think then, but Jimmy Butler to Houston intrigues me too, because of something you said earlier, Bill, which is like, who's their guy at the end of the game? We don't have that guy. And Jimmy's from Texas. You could see E-May talking himself into Jimmy Butler. I'm not sold on it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
The other thing that I would say is the trade machine Picasso is coming into hard times. This new CBA is pretty much, could make a trade into half, if not more, because so many teams are limited into what kinds of trades, the financial rules, what they can and can't send out or take back are so punitive or prohibitive that just the trade market itself has shrunk.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
And I think that's going to sort of limit the amount of Picasso-ing you can do between December 15th and February.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
The whole trade demand thing. ecosystem, the whole science of the trade demand from the player's perspective has to get updated too because you can't just say, oh, I want to trade and make sure it's the Phoenix or whatever.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
I think so, and I think there's one more layer of it, which is the Moneyball era of pro basketball is so intense. We know so much about how bad bad contracts are, particularly in this new CBA, that those were the contracts the teams used to be able, hey, take this guy. Maybe you can deal with the contract for a year or two and win a title.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
No, like I was trying to think of who the best team with a terrible contract is, and there aren't many. And so it's like, okay, do you want this Levine deal or this Beal deal? The answer to that question is smaller than ever, not to mention the point we already made. The rules to get that player in a trade are more sort of strict than ever.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
So yeah, I think we're in a brand new era and it is bad for podcast content.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
I think it's working, but I think those are valid points. In fact, I talked to one Western Conference executive who's like, oh, I'm kind of glad we don't have to go play at Oklahoma City tonight and maybe play Houston and Vegas. And I think I'd much rather have the time off or these lesser opponents. I think the league has something.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
I also think it's really cool that we had these two games tonight and the whole league was watching them. And I wish we had more of that, that sort of community feeling. where it's not just like league pass overload, where these games are meaningful in December. Let's not forget, this time of year is really hard.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
I do think, and I think we talked about this last time, they should use the divisions for the groups and just bring some spice and meaning back to those teams. groupings of teams. I think there's some little stuff. I'm glad we have it. But I think it is fair to say that some teams are kind of not disappointed they're not going to Vegas this weekend.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Yeah, like the Elam ending. Wait, one more thing on that. The Elam ending would be great. And I know they got rid of it from the All-Star Game, Bill. But like tonight, the end of that first game was like 25 minutes. The last two or three minutes. And it bled into the second game. It's like, what are we doing? Doing this free throw, free throw thing.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
I mean, every pickup game we've ever played ends with a bucket, dude. And then we watch these free throw contests. The worst one I saw this year was Celtics-Cavs, and it was like 30 minutes. And it was back and forth, back and forth. And now, because I always say this, the team that's ahead is now fouling a lot of times. So it's just adding to it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Yeah, so I'm a big Elam ending guy, but I like Jacoby's idea. Make it feel special. Do something else. Elam ending is the best I got for that one.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
I think they're 11-3 in their last 14 games after starting 2-8. And what you just said, one of the sort of deep cut takes is like, yeah, AJ Green, Gary Trent, Torian Prince, Bobby Portis. They're getting really efficient three-point shooting from those dudes. And then Giannis stopped shooting threes. He stopped shooting threes. Today, he shot his first three in six games, I think.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
He shot another one at the end of the game, but he'd gone five games without shooting a three. He's attacking the rim, and then they're surrounding him with shooting. Tonight, they played a smaller lineup. They took Brooke out, and they put these aforementioned shooters. Chris Middleton's back in the lineups. Damian, obviously. spacing starts at the rim.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Giannis pressures the rim better than anybody in the league right now. And he can make passes. If they can make those shots, they're very good. The Bucks were always supposed to be this good. The other thing weird was they were two and eight. Uh, do I trust them to be better than the Boston Celtics?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
No, but it looks like they've righted the ship and look like they're a viable Eastern conference contender now. Um, because Giannis is putting up scoring title numbers and they're getting this three-point shooting from the supporting cast and now they're whole. So they have Chris, Damian, and Giannis. They were supposed to be good.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
No, I was just saying, when they won it all, they were great on defense. This was a defensive juggernaut, too, with Brooke and Giannis protecting the paint, and then Drew and Chris. And the role players all seeming like, you know, these younger Thunder Rockets teams that we're seeing the more like, yeah, they were a great defense. I don't see that happening.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
And for that reason, I'm out to quote Mark Cuban on their ability to compete with Boston and maybe even Cleveland at the very top of the Eastern Conference.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Yeah, they're the clear favorite now. And I know Dallas is going to sit here and say, oh, we didn't have P.J. Washington and we beat him last year and this. And fine, they should be confident. But from what I'm seeing, Bill, their net rating, their defensive rating, like Jacoby just said, and then the eye test, Oh, my God. Yeah, Luka threw a lob.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Yeah, so Rudy should be thrilled, man. I was talking to Vince Carter and Jalen. We were watching this game, and we're like, holy crap. a score on and like Oklahoma City they're a pain in the ass to pass on and get rebounds on I love the two big lineup I love that it's Mo and Goga and Wendell like they're playing bigger than almost any De Silva too when he's at the three they're just big
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
And yeah, the biggest point here is they didn't have three or four of their normal rotation pieces. Gary Harris, Jonathan Isaac, but obviously... Gary Harris. Bill's favorite guy. Paolo and Franz, who, you know, torn oblique club, like stand up. And as a holder of Suggs coin for years now, You guys should be thrilled.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
I know you didn't get the result tonight, but it looks like you're built for war for a long time, and you're the Orlando Magic. You guys should be thrilled.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
He said their defense is hard. But I think those corner threes come from good movement elsewhere. Corner threes are created when their best offensive players are doing other shit somewhere else on the court. Those guys aren't playing, particularly their best offensive player. And now Franz isn't playing, who's also great at offense. So those are like indicator species.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
I think it was to Lively near the end of the game that he's thrown 100 times. And all of a sudden, there was two Thunder guys, and they were playing small, and they intercepted it. I think they had 12 steals, 31 points off turnovers. But more importantly, they just frustrate the hell out of everybody.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Yes, their three-point shooting personnel, Jacoby, does lack. KCP is underwhelming. But some of these are sort of byproducts of the offense itself just not having its alpha and beta creators.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Dude, yeah, he is incredible. I didn't know that Tom Thibodeau was an offensive genius until this year.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
And I feel like they're so far and away better than anything else I'm seeing in the West through the first quarter of the season that, yeah, I'm going to say they're the favorite to come out of the Western Conference.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Yeah, I just learned that. 25 and 13, though, I think I would have put him around there. The 45, 46% number from three-point is crazy, dude.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
They're going to get Precious, and they're going to get Mitch Robinson back. And I don't think we've seen what their defense really could be. But I'm with Cerruti. I definitely go Celtics, Cavs, Knicks. Then I go Bucs. But I do think the Knicks offense deserves respect. They can score against anybody in a variety of ways. It's just like their shooting is great, and then Brunson and Catt.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
I do love the geometry, to borrow Jalen's basketball geometry phrase. I love what the Knicks have spacing the court right now.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Unbelievable draft.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Yeah, that's a perfect word. It really is just like a black cloud or a stranglehold. I'd actually compare it to Tim. A lot of people forget that Tim Duncan had a really bad knee his entire career. Yeah. And The scourge that is known as load management has a lot to do with Tim Duncan's knee and Greg Popovich and the staff really making sure that they could get everything.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
But that also meant that Tim had to be very serious about his nutrition and his sleep and all this other stuff. And I think as Joel mentioned, enters sort of the later stage of his career, if he wants to keep playing at this level, he has to be more serious, more professional, not just about being on time to the bus, but taking care of his body.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Like the reason LeBron is LeBron at this age is because he was really careful about his body and respected that stuff. And unfortunately, this is what it looks like when somebody doesn't do that kind of thing, in my opinion. And I'm not quite sure where this is going. I do think Philadelphia has reasons to be more optimistic than the last time we talked about these guys on the podcast.
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I still think the East, what we just went through, is like, oh, maybe Miami's the five seed. Unfortunately, there needs to be eight playoff teams in the Eastern Conference. And I think Philadelphia will get one of those slots. And so I think they could be pretty patient here. I just agree with what you guys are saying.
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This is really troubling, like the lack of communication, the lack of clarity, the weird Timmy Bontemps quotes from this week. It's depressing. I don't even know it's injured. It's just inflammation. These are bad signs, guys.
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No, that is a very debilitating contract. And we talked about this earlier. It's like, you don't see a lot of good teams with this new cap bill with any bad contracts, let alone a max contract with a guy who's not playing.
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It's like, how do you build a team when you have that much sort of money locked up in a player that may or may not even be able to play most nights?
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Yes.
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I'm going to come back to you on Edie, because I need to know how the surf has been over at Edie Island, if the seawalls are holding up. But I want to know, yes, Castle is the answer for me, and it's not close, and I'm obviously close to the Spurs. They are very excited about all the stuff he does. I love the description of a Thunder-like player.
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He is that kind of dog in him stereotype, but he does the stuff that doesn't show up in the box score. They love this guy. He's adding sort of an edge to their group. I think Jeremy Sohan is kind of like that too. And I think it could help them They're destined to build a great defense in San Antonio, and I think he could be part of that.
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Like Lou Dort, another potentially great defender, he needed to get a shot, and Lewis figured that out, so I feel like Castle could get a little of that. Dalton connect obviously needs to be mentioned. I know he's older, but I think he's been fantastic given where they got him in the draft. I'm still on research day Island. I'm not giving up on that anytime soon.
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But for me, I'll say Reed Shepard, I think is going to be great in this league for a long time, but I'm going castle has really won me over in the last few weeks specifically. But tell me bill, Zach Eadie, was he everything you dreamed of, or are you a little bit let down at this point in the season?
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Well, this one's for Chris Vernon. The Memphis Grizzlies. I've been very disappointed. I'm just kidding. He passed word and he didn't hear it. Yeah, that's right. That's right. I would say... The Minnesota Timberwolves, because I thought the Randall trade was good. Dante DiVincenzo, too. It hasn't worked. It has not worked.
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They went from having a very strong identity with great defense and good offense to not really having an identity and looking like a middle-of-the-pack team in the Western Conference when most of us thought they were going up a level. not down a level in this exact season, Bill. So for me, I think the Pacers have a very strong claim to this conference finalists.
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But I will say Minnesota because I really want Anthony Edwards to be the face of American superstars in the next five, 10 years. I love everything about him. So I've been particularly disappointed with that team's performance after what they did last year.
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Yeah, it goes back to our theme earlier. It's like, there's not a lot of old and overpaid great teams in the NBA right now. And they're best players older, as you pointed out. Devin Booker's certainly not old. I'm not mad at his contract. The Beal deal, to me, sticks out like a sore thumb on their cap sheet. Nurk, like... you have to have pretty much a perfect roster.
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And I kind of agree with you. Doesn't everybody have at least one superstar that we're talking about winning at all? Yeah, pretty much. I think that is fair. And to me, the differentiating stuff is now lower down on your depth chart. And that's where this team is just really not great. And I don't think they'll ever be able to play defense well enough to keep up with the top teams in the West.
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But I keep going back to that Bradley Beal Because that was a lot of depth they traded, essentially, for one other player that might have sort of a repetitive role next to Devin and Kevin.
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Houston, I think... Golden State here in this quarterfinal. I don't see anybody else because Minnesota, I think coming in to the season, Bill, was that other team for me. And they have just been off to an awkward start. So I don't see the Randall piece really fitting in there to put them in that category. And Dallas was the hottest team in the league, period, before tonight.
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And I think they clearly deserve number two status. They won't. won the conference. They beat this team in the playoffs last year in six games. So I think until further notice, it's OKC, Dallas, then Houston.
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I love Houston at three, and I want to see what they do in this tournament. I know some people think it's silly, but I think this is a catapult for them. If they beat Steph and Steve Kerr tomorrow, and they get to Vegas, and they play the Oklahoma City Thunder, I think it really starts to feel like they're not just a flash in the pan. Like OKC, Bill, their defensive indicators scream contender.
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They are not... Just like Orlando. Orlando, OKC, and Houston. Three young, pain-in-the-ass defenses that nobody wants to play against. And Ime has really built that team up. So I would put them at three. I don't know if there's somebody I'm forgetting.
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That might be intentional. I might have heard that he fast forwards the minutes that I speak on this show.
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Yeah, I think that's valid. And I think that we went too long not talking about what we saw from SGA tonight. And I think he really is the differentiator in the top of the West because he is legitimately the MVP candidate over there right now. When you look at those three teams we talked about, you throw in Memphis, maybe John Morant, but SGA is on a different plane.
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And what we saw tonight from him on both sides of the court, nearly scoring 40 points and then just putting up crooked numbers. Made some threes.
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5-9 from three, and then just sets the tone on defense, too. Like, he is a truly, truly impressive two-way superstar, Bill Simmons. And I think No other team has that. And if it does get to sort of crunch time at the end, you know that the guy who has the ball in his hands can score in an isolation situation. By the way, he's isolating more than anybody else in the league.
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And Houston doesn't have that. That is fair to say. And I think that is one of the things that separates the Oklahoma City Thunder from everybody else in the West right now is that their best player can be that guy at the end of a big game like we saw tonight.
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Who do you have in the MVP ladder right now? Just between those two.
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I agree, but does it matter to you that OKC is emerging as a clear number one and they're sort of dropping down to maybe play-in status? Does that factor into the Professor Simmons model?
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Exactly.
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Yeah, and I would say, you know, we got on here before the season. I said, hey, look out for Cleveland. I think they could get the two seed. And right now, like, obviously, at the season end of the day, they're the one seed. And then the other team I put in there, and one of the general themes of the first part of this, the East isn't as bad as we thought it was in the first few weeks.
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And the other team I got to put in there is New York Knicks. Yeah. And that's sort of a related one here, Bill. The NBA is so much better when the New York Knickerbockers are good. And MSG is hosting games in April and May. Bing bong. They've won nine of their last ten. Their defense has come around. Their starting five slash closing five is legit.
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They could pass the Celtics, depending on how your team does on this road trip in early 2025. They could be the two seed here in a few days. But I think the East has three very good teams. I'm with you. I'm still taking Boston. I think they're tired from the Olympics and the playoff run last year.
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But I think the Cleveland Cavaliers and the New York Knicks, we could sort of pair these and be like, look, East Coast basketball is good. And if Philly has a pulse now and can come around and Milwaukee's good. Look, the East has as many good teams as the West right now, period. And I wasn't saying that at the beginning of the year.
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And I think it's good for the league and its ratings when the Eastern time zone has some good basketball. So I think if we loop all this together, I think it's a really good storyline for the league in 2025 that the East is pretty good.
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He should average two a game, so I'd say 30.
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It's too bad there's not a Villanova center that they could put next to town. So I don't think they have.
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That's exactly right, but that's in all seriousness. I love OKC because they have two different frontcourt looks when Chet's right and Hartenstein's right. I feel like that's the weakness right now, especially against Porzingis or Giannis. They need, and I'm not sure what Mitchell Robinson's going to bring come playoff time, but if they can get a real sturdy five
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They're not going to get a go bear, but just a traditional five that could let them go big, play big against some of these rim pressuring teams, especially in Milwaukee or Philadelphia. I think they're in great shape. Now their defense is already, I think it's number two in the last 10 games. They've won nine of those 10 games. Their defense is good.
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I just, if they really want to get over the hump bill, I think they need to have a couple of different looks in that front court. And right now that's sort of the weakness with towns only is, maybe a little Mitch Robinson in there. I think they need, they miss Hardenstein, somebody like that.
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If they could get on the biomarker or even in trademark, somebody could come in and give them a traditional five up front. I want to keep going on the next, but let's take a break.
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No, this team, this front office has made me feel dumb over and over again. I didn't love the Brunson deal. I didn't hate it by any means, but I certainly didn't see that coming. And then the trade, I thought I liked the trade better for Minnesota. Yeah. Hand up. And... Credit to Towns, credit to Leon Rose, credit to Tom Thibodeau. They've won that trade, I think, hands down.
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The Bridges trade, again, looked like a disaster there for a few weeks. I'm not sure I love it to this point, given how much they gave up. But this team now looks very good, and all of those transactions look great. The bridge is won. I'll reserve some judgment for it until we fully see it. But Towns, I didn't see this. I was worried about him in the New York media as well.
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I'm still worried about him as the primary interior defender in the playoffs. Like I said, I think that's a fair point to sort of hold back. But Towns and company have proved me wrong. They built this team in an era where trades and free agents are sort of less powerful than ever. And the best teams tend to be building with the draft more.
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The New York Dicks sort of built this team from other teams players. And it's very good. And I think they deserve credit for it. But it's working very well, Bill.
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Yeah, that's a great take. I love that. And I think like the Western Conference talent, like Bronson, Donovan Mitchell, and Towns going from West to East. We talked about how the Celtics are the favorites, but the Eastern Conference needed a talent infusion. And I think these transactions sort of bolstered, again, the Cavaliers or a story of Donovan Mitchell going to Cleveland.
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And then this Knicks team has two really big Western Conference imports at the top of the box score every night. So I think, Those transactions, that's a great point. So now who can we get from the Western Conference to move East Snacksville? I mean, it's like so much more.
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brunson thing i don't know if i've seen before that like his arsenal of weird shots and and herky jerky he'd be a fucking nightmare to defend anyway i wanted to mention that yeah he's also a great you know uh sort of rebuke of the idea that everybody plays the same here's this undersized guard going and playing two feet in the paint like john wooden is his coach doing all these pivots and drop steps and floaters and pull-ups and
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He's just so talented and so smart. He's got the Kevin McHale footwork as a guard in the paint. And it's brilliant to watch. But dude, if the Mavs knew that this guy was going to be putting up 50 in playoff games, I think they would have had a different whiteboard strategy before they let him go. I think he would still be in Dallas. Nobody saw this coming. I don't think the Knicks...
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Knew he could do this. And of course they should say he did. Right, man. He's been a revelation. And the other thing I'd say just on the Knicks is it's not only they're good. You mentioned this earlier. The vibes are immaculate and they're fun. They're a fun group of guys. It's a fun team to watch. Might be hard for a Celtics fan to admit, but it's sort of a neutral.
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I like the Knicks because they're fans.
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And I hope we see Jalen Brunson playing your team in the conference semis between Boston and New York. That would be absolutely a dream come true for the Eastern Conference playoffs this year.
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the future is french bill simmons uh the future is french and it's it's temporarily stationed in san antonio texas uh victor wimbenyama we have lebron james at age 40 we have nicola jokic turning 30 in a few days or a month i think And Wemby's 20. And Wemby is giving us a very clear next up. It doesn't mean he'll be the only one, but this dude is special. There's no other way to look at it.
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Everything is clicking. He was very hyped, like LeBron coming in. But I think Victor Weminyama is poised to be the next greatest player in the NBA at some point in the next five years.
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yeah i got sick of it it is uh we're toughest though everybody's going through the holidays right we're toughest on the ones we love the most that's one of the things you learned about it yeah yeah and we have high standards for the nba bill don't we it's it's it's a it's a product that we cherish that's been with us uh for our whole lives so i think a lot of it comes from a good place honestly but
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He is so much more comfortable on the basketball court, specifically on the offensive end. I still think the biggest growth there is in the two-point area as well. I think he needs to have a couple of just signature moves, like not a Sambor shuffle, not necessarily Eurostep, but he should be able to develop some footwork. And we talked about Brunson.
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If he had a little bit more footwork and some go-to moves, like we can all picture Michael or Kobe going to one of their go-to shots. Like what's that going to be for him? I don't know what that is, but once he gets it, look out. So I'm watching that. He turns 21 this week. Nobody in league history has ever averaged three made.
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Yeah, so nobody's ever made three threes and averaged three blocks a game. He's hit four blocks and easily three threes. So that's his signature thing. He's going to be a three-point shooter. But what can he do inside the arc, I think, is where his big growth area is. I think he'll also usher in, you sort of alluded to this, a new rivalry in FIBA.
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I know it's a little early, but like 2027 World Cup, 2028 Olympics, you know... France is going to be loaded and they're going to be younger and he's going to be great. I think there's going to be a new France-USA rivalry in these big competitions.
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I work for Team USA. I love international basketball. FIBA is a great product. I think we all enjoyed the Olympics. I remember talking to R.C. Buford after the Olympics. I said, R.C., what was that like? He was like, the perfect outcome. Wemby almost won, so he's coming back angry. My country won. A lot of Spurs people love that he almost won, but not quite.
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I think he has a chance when he's, what, 23-24 to do what Manu did, which is upset Goliath on the international stage and really become a special, different level international player. But ultimately, as it relates to this season, they're better than I thought they were largely because of him, Bill. I do think they're sort of where LeBron was in year two, kind of a dicey playoff team.
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There's been a lot of people just waiting, I feel like, to take shots at the NBA that have used this recent sort of news cycle as a chance to just get their grievances out. And frankly, it has gotten to be a little too much.
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Nobody expects much, but ahead of schedule. So I think the Spurs are thrilled with where he is.
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Yeah, I have never thought about it in these terms, but it's like, OK, post plays kind of dead. Here comes like the best big man of a generation. How is he going to get two point shots? And I love the Timmy, you know, the bank shot from the left side, you know, and Bede is the free throw line face up guy. Bede's a good one.
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Yeah, and I don't know. There's no manual. There's no George Mikan tutorial video on how to drop step and get a half hook because we're not doing that anymore. So it's a cool thing. Again, in the All Positive podcast, it's like, how is this guy going to figure it out? He clearly has the tools. Yeah. But there's no manual to learn from here. Maybe it's Embiid a little bit.
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Maybe it's Jokic a little bit. But I think he has a higher ceiling as a scorer, is it crazy, than those guys do near the basketball hoop. So I don't know how he's going to get there. But that is, I think we're vibing on that. That's the same thing. What is his signature two-point move going to be, Bill?
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Well, and I just say, one last thing, like shout out to Brian Wright and RC and all those guys for getting grownups in that, like Harrison Barnes and Chris Paul. It really did let this happen. So let's, they do have another level to get to and it's going to require some good front office craft to build this team around him.
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I see the same thing for them. They're 11-4 in their last 15, playing pretty good on both sides of the ball. Landry Fields, Kyle Korver, great front office moves. I think the DeJounte trade, the original one, it didn't turn out very well. But then sort of getting the edit undue and getting back Dyson Daniels and draft capital has completely changed. completely refresh the outlook in Atlanta.
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I think Trey Young still has something to give. He's a terrific offensive player. And if you surround him with four great defensive players, you have a chance to be able to hide him on the defensive end. And that's what this current sort of lock of wings lets them do. Obviously, Dyson Daniels deserves all the shine for Defensive Player of the Year candidacy.
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No, I don't think New Orleans did either. It's again, it's sort of like Brunson's like if freaking New Orleans knew they had this straight at him. So I don't think anybody knew it. I mean, we always he was always kind of interesting in the draft because he had the size and the athleticism and sort of this quirky playmaking thing. Um, but I don't think anybody knew he could do this.
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I don't think anybody, I don't think Atlanta knew he could do this.
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Yeah, I mean, LeBron got him on that chase down block.
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Oh, and like, don't forget Trey Young, you know, rolling the dice on the Knicks logo. And he loves going up to that building. I mean, again, the Eastern Conference, here we are again, positive podcast. The Eastern Conference is not the dumpster fire we thought it was like early in the season, Bill. In Atlanta, 11 and four in their last 15, Dyson Daniels, has recharged their defensive identity.
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They have Richa Shea. They're letting him grow. DeAndre Hunter, as you mentioned, is great. Okongwu. They just have an identity. Quinn Snyder deserves some love here, too. Figuring it out on the fly and maybe finding a playoff team.
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But as Jacoby called it, the Sally Jesse Raphael glasses. I think the Great Barrier Thief is one of the great nicknames in the contemporary NBA.
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Quick Philly interlude. What is your takeaway from that Christmas game as a Boston guy?
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I think that's a great point. I think that's what Boston, they're going to get that every night. I mean, Indiana got them. Again, they're getting everybody's best welcome to a title defense. This is one of the reasons it's hard. Everybody's like, oh, okay, let's bring our A game.
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inside the nba is perfect sports television and we've seen it be saved from potential doom it was doomed to bill simmons the inside the nba was was left for dead there for a few months uh and you know i got a chance to visit with those guys in atlanta when i was doing those data casts and i love it i think i speak for millions of nba fans
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Unlike the NFL, unlike Major League Baseball, NBA fans have this incredible pre- and post-game show. And I think, you know, there was the world's worst take a couple weeks ago that it was actually bad for the NBA. That's terrible. Charles Barkley is probably the GOAT sports media guy since Madden, probably. And I just love that we have this Turner crew and this TNT crew.
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And I'm happy that we're going to have it going forward.
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Yeah, I think I share some of that concern as a veteran.
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It's like Walmart on Black Friday, the Brooklyn Nets in January of 2025.
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Cam Jackson right now, lightning deal. But to Sean Marks' credit, one of the worst things that can happen to a front office is these trade demands. And he lived through one of them. And they got back these pieces, Bill. And now they're able to spin it off into future team building resources. So I know they want to keep their draft pick.
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I had one of the team sources say, hey, if we start winning, watch out. We're going to start trading players. That's what they've done already. Schroeder. is out. And I think, you know, Cam Johnson is out.
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Hell no. In fact, I feel like somebody told me, you know, small ball was about the 2010s were about small ball. We're halfway through the 2020s here, Bill. And we might call it skill ball, I think, because even the big dudes are like Jokic and Embiid and Wemby, like name a center from 2004 or 1994. Could they do anything that Jokic do? Maybe a game where she did Wallace.
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I shouldn't say that. Yeah, I should say Cam Johnson is likely. Everybody could. Cam Johnson's on his way out. They're trading Cam Johnson. Slide him into any team in the league, they get better. And Claxton, I agree with. Ben Simmons, I don't think so, but maybe that would be a Sean Marks masterpiece. But I think they're not done. And I think Claxton and Cam Johnson are the ones to watch.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
Maybe even Cam Thomas or somebody like the Houston Rockets that don't have a go-to score. But I definitely think Cam Johnson is the number one player to watch on the trade market right now.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
Oh, my God. Yeah, I stole that from you. I think when you saw the scoring and title odds at the beginning of the year, you were high on Cam Thomas. Yeah, don't count him out. He could shoot 40 times a game a few times down the stretch here. What do you have for your next one? I mean, I think we have to talk about Nikola Jokic, dude. I think... Twist my arm.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
I feel like they should broadcast games differently for the Nuggets because I just want to watch Jokic. I just want a Jokic cam the whole game.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
Yeah, like the NBA 2K, my player. But I think he's about to turn 30. We have Wemby at 20, LeBron at 40. This is the guy in his prime right now. Yeah. If you would have told me 10 years ago at the midpoint, of the 2010s, Spurs are defending champs, Warriors are about to take the lead by a storm. If you would have told me in that time that the best player in the world
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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in the mid part of the 2020s was the giant serbian center who's not very fast not quick i would have said you were crazy but one of the things i love about nba basketball bill is you don't know what the next thing is going to be and you've alluded to this i think in your nba ratings monologue it's like we don't know what's going to happen in this league and i think he's a perfect embodiment of sort of one of those unicorn moments we're like what this guy's going to come along here's a stat
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
He's currently averaging more points per game than Shaq ever did in his entire career. More rebounds per game than Tim Duncan ever did in his entire career. He is averaging more assists per game than Chris Paul has ever done in his entire career. And he's making 49% of his threes, which is like Kyle Corver numbers. This is insanity. Watch him, people. This is the best show in pro basketball.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
Um, It's like an NBA 2K make your own player thing and you move all the bars to 99 except for rim protection and like fitness or whatever.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
There were some, there were some guys that were super skilled that could shoot the ball and pass and dribble.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
Yeah, I love Cade Cunningham. I think he's finally clicked into what we thought he could be at the draft. And I agree. I mean, coaching changes matter. And I think this new coach has brought in sort of a new culture. And that term is overused, but it just feels differently. I love B.U. Stu, by the way, is my favorite league pass player.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
Isaiah Stewart, you never know what's going to happen when he's out there. Great bench guy. I wish the Celtics had him. But sort of like Houston last year, there was something cooking, but we don't know what it is.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Yeah, the thing I always say, Bill, is the road from bad to good always has to go through average or mediocre on the way. And that's where they are. And that's a good sign. This is where they wanted to be this year. And again, like the Spurs, they're a little bit better than we thought. And I think they should be excited about the next couple of years in Detroit.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Yeah, I agree. And I think LeBron helped change that, too. He's like, I'm going to be a 5-2 player, to borrow the term from baseball. And this generation does everything. Everybody does everything. Dribble, pass, and shoot. And skill has never been this high. And it's one of the reasons offenses are scoring so much. It's not just the lack of defense.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
I left them for dead two or three times. Oh, okay. They can't do this without Powell and Franz. Then Franz shows up and then Franz goes out and then they start with Suggs as the guy. And now, you know, they lose Mo. They made a run in the in-season tournament. And yeah, look, if they get whole before the Eastern Conference playoffs, I don't care if you're Cleveland, Boston, or New York.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Nobody wants to see that. Nobody wants to. That's the worst case there.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
I have sort of... Well, I think this will sort of segue. I think the magic and the rockets and the thunder sort of reminding us that the NBA is a young man's game. But on the flip side of that, superstars are sort of aging gracefully, but in a weird way. We're able to go see LeBron. I was able to take my family to see LeBron in San Antonio this year. Stefan, KD...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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As a Larry Bird scholar, Magic Johnson scholar, you know, it's not always... You don't always get to see these guys after 35. And I think one of the cool things is we can go see LeBron James in 2025. And we can go see Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry in their late 30s. And it's not like a nostalgia act. These guys are great. Like...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
what lebron and stephen did on christmas and i know you talked about it was awesome they might not be championship contenders but again in terms of the depth of league pass offerings some of these old dudes are bringing special things uh to league pass on a regular basis and 37 year olds aren't necessarily sort of dead weight anymore and i think that's great for the league
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
These offensive skills have made the offensive end almost impossible to defend. So I think... It's fair to say that the talent pool of the NBA, the 500 dudes in that league at any given time, this is the best group of 500 basketball players we've ever had.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
Well, in the all positive NBA podcast, I think, you know, the NBA is a collection of markets. And when LA and New York are relevant, it's good. It's good for television. It's good for matchups like Celtics.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And one of the things that Brian Windhorst always talks about is the league also always backloads LeBron's second half of the schedule. He always has a lot of national TV games after football ends, you know, so they could have a really tough go. But I think they have another trade to make. I love Dorian Finney-Smith there.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
It took like three years too long to get an actual three-point shooting wing back in his life. I still think they're one or two pieces away. But if they have luck with health, I believe in J.J. Redick as a coach. I believe in LeBron James as somebody who can sort of figure out how to endure through this marathon season and get to the playoffs in one piece.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Anthony Davis is the biggest question mark. If they can add one, maybe two more pieces around those guys. Again, nobody wants to see them in the playoffs.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
Ask me again to the all-star break. Okay. Get me to the all-star break. I think there's a potential for either answer there. admittedly, I don't think Memphis would be scared if it showed up.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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It depends on who I am. I think if risk were a human being, it would wear number one on its New Orleans jersey. I think that's what we're looking at. There's just so much risk there. And if I'm a good team, no. If I feel good about my team now or in the next couple of years, I'm not going to give up anything relevant to bring in that kind of risk.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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If I'm the Kings, if I'm the Blazers, I'm having very different conversations because I need something. I need an injection of something. And if that guy turns it around, Major if he's one of the best players in the league, he's one of the best players in the league. The guy we've seen at his absolute peak is unstoppable in the paint. Can't be the king.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
Shaq Giannis in Zion, the top paint scorers of the 21st century by season. He's that good. If he, if he gets into some sort of rhythm with availability and health and nutrition, um, it's worth looking. There's whiteboard discussions happening in struggling NBA front offices right now.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
If I'm Miami, it makes a lot of sense.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
Yeah, it's super depressing, right? Because he still has a very high ceiling. And a lot of front offices are simply not going to take the risk. It's a non-starter for a lot of the general managers around the league. We're not That kind of risk in this NBA where you can't have one bad contract and compete for a championship, it seems like that's where we're going.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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It's not guaranteed next year or something like that, right?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
They have really good tradable pieces, beyond Zalat. I mean, I don't know if they want to do that, but they got some shooters and some wing defenders that would make every team in the NBA look a little bit better. So if they want to press the explode button, I think they have some draft capital and maybe some young players they can get back.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
This one is sort of in jest, but I love the Washington Wizards because they let you see the GM's vision of every opponent, right? So if your team is playing the Wizards, I recommend you go watch it because this is what the front office envisioned when they put their team together. Whatever they're going to get against the Wizards, clean looks, layups. Yeah. Great stuff.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
It's I encourage everybody to go. It's almost like the Washington generals, right? The wizards are one of the best teams to go watch right now at home. Like if your team's playing the wizards at their home arena, go see it folks. This is the best your team's going to look all year.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
The draft, the draft workout video against the chair that you always call out.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
I think if you contextualize it like you did, yeah, I like it. I think it's going to go down in history as a relatively weak class, especially sandwiched by the Wembley draft and then what we're getting in the Cooper flag class. I love Steph Castle. I'm disappointed one player you didn't mention, Reed Shepard, who I wanted to be better than that.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
He's kind of, well, that's in a related story. He's not shooting the ball well, and if he's not shooting the ball well, it's hard for him to find justification to get minutes, especially in a Houston environment where they're trying to win games.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Yeah, but when you're drafted that high, Bill, right? Like, I don't care if you're a two-seater. That player, you're drafted in that slot, you should find rotation minutes. But I've been disappointed by Riyad. Yeah, that's a good point. I'm not done with him by any means, but I think the other players you mentioned, De Silva, I think, is the one that jumps out. I was like, what? Okay.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
And again, this Orlando team, this culture, next man up mentality, he's great. Dalton Connect has been a big piece of why the Lakers are above water right now. And Richa Shea, It's going to be good. I think the Hawks made the right choice in retrospect. If we redrafted, it would be hard for me to put anybody above him right now. If you redrafted, would you go Richa Shea if you're the Hawks?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
I think he fits into what they're doing, like we were talking about earlier.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
I'll go one step further. I mean, there's a crazy what if there. If Kawhi can be 88% of Kawhi Leonard for the last few months of the regular season... I love this team. I love their coach. James Harden remains somehow underrated. Norman Powell has been a revelation. But if Kawhi Leonard can come back and have one really good five-month stretch here, that's a pretty dangerous team.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
I think they've got to move the line. And again, I'm staying positive here, but you, you started with the guys throwing to the corner. Well, one of the reasons those guys are so good at throwing to the corner, every trip down that there's two guys at the corners the whole time, every time, you know, that wasn't true. There's just guys there. I, I,
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
Let me ask you this, Bill. Do you feel like that arena will bring a home court advantage to Los Angeles Clippers in the playoffs?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
Yeah. You're talking me into it. I think, yeah, I'll watch these Kawhi return games with newfound interest. Maybe a dark horse in the West.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
I don't think, and we're probably going to talk about Jokic and Wemby and Shea. I mean, if you're really watching the game, there's not that much sameness. I agree. And again, you started the podcast by talking about like people forgot what we were watching, like dump it down to McHale or Parrish or Mike Jeminski. Like you have to remember, this wasn't Jordan and Bird every night.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
We've seen him. 2019 isn't that long ago. He put a team on his shoulders and got on there. He's not that guy anymore, but he can win a playoff game. He can play good defense, get rebounds, make big shots in crunch time. James Harden can create shots.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
but yeah, I mean, banking on, you have to be in an all positive podcast, Bill Simmons to bank on Kawhi's long-term health and James Harden's, uh, post-season, uh, you really have to be in a positive environment to, to project them as a potential sleeper.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
It's going to be a Stephen Curry celebration weekend. Most people call it the All-Star weekend, but it's going to be Stephen Curry's convention. So he's definitely making it. I don't know what they'll have to do, but he's definitely in, Bill. There's no way that they're going to host it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
I just, I just want to say to my beloved Texas Longhorns that are playing football tomorrow against Arizona state, uh, hook them horns. Let's see. Let's see a win and get to the semifinals bill.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
Sometimes it was the Mavericks and Bullets. And there used to be some pretty repetitive actions in the post-up era of the NBA that weren't fantastic, so to speak. So I think it is relatively fair, but it's not new to say that the NBA is kind of homogenous at times.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
Happy New Year. Thank you, Bill.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
Yeah, the three-point line has made basketball a lot better. The 2010s brought us pace and space. D'Antoni had the controls for those Suns teams, but also that sort of heliocentric offense in Houston that really figured out how to sort of spam a superstar over and over and over again, but to great effect to make their offense some of the best in the NBA. I don't always love Harden.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
I know Rosillo and I vibe on that point.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
aligning that hyper usage superstar, that guard, that skill with spacing and smarter plays and high screen roles has been effective and made possessions more successful in general. But I think the game is more open. And if you like scoring, it's definitely more fun to watch now than an average NBA game.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
And this, again, is something I've been noticing like Jordan, this Jordan, that Jordan was only one of, you know, one of 30 teams, right? So an average NBA game in the 90s was not Michael Jordan. And I think people forget that, Bill. It's like the replacement level game from the 90s was not a great product.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
No, I was just saying the average league pass game right now is way better than it's ever been. Way better. Tonight's game, we have Clippers-Spurs. That's not a bad game. We have Timberwolves in OKC. That's a great game. Grizzlies at Suns. That's a great game. Cavs at Lakers. That's a great game. That's just tonight.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
Those are your options on New Year's Eve if you're going to watch a game before you go out. That's a great set of games. And again, we can't just judge everything by, oh, Jordan versus the Knicks was incredible in the 90s. Well, the Mavs versus the Bullets was not. And I think the average NBA game in 2024 as we hit 2025 is a very good product relative to where we came from.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
Yeah, I agree. I think the 2014 Spurs is probably my favorite basketball team in my life. That's a special team for me. Beautiful game. Good to great. Manu, Tim, Kawhi, all firing on all cylinders. Great chemistry. yeah, not ancient history, but sort of becoming old school.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
And I think that team was as deep as it gets to remember their bench, the foreign Legion had a bunch of international players. They were ahead of their time with ball movement, player movement, and this international stuff. Uh, but spectacular aesthetics on the court. Uh, it's probably an unfair standard for an average NBA team. Again, an average game, but, uh,
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
Yeah, like the games that I mentioned tonight. Those are great. The Cavs don't just stay there. They're playing with a lot of movement. They're great on both ends of the floor. And then you get to watch the Lakers. So LeBron playing Cleveland. There's just great games, great players almost every game tonight, for instance. I think the league's in a good place.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The All-Positive NBA Show With Kirk Goldsberry
I didn't, but I have a related one. What do you got on the Cavs, Bill?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
I think in a nutshell, the hottest teams out West, not counting the Thunder, have been hot all year are the six and seven right now in the Warriors and Timberwolves. And that just that just sets us up for a great, great first round. Not to mention the talent over there, the superstar talent, the all star talent fighting for these slots is just off the charts.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Yeah, they lost that game in Brooklyn the other night. And I think that's a fair indication of the kind of game they can lose. Yeah. You know, and again, the West is just jam packed. I think two to five is separated by a game or something like that. So you start losing at Brooklyn. You're going to drop. The Rockets, as you mentioned, are hot. They've won four straight.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
They're going to win those kinds of games. So it is, I think it is fair to expect the Lakers are going to drop.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
It's terrifying. You got Kawhi Leonard, Ty Lue on the other end. You got one game. I love the planned tournament because it makes these sets up for real meaningful games. And, you know, I think the executives and the coaches of these teams much prefer the sixth slot to the seventh slot just because of the uncertainty, the stress.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
You're locked in. Yeah. And you get another couple of days to game plan your three-seat opponent in a playoff matchup. And that's a huge deal, too.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
I like how they have it because if you finish seventh, I think you've got to get beat twice at home to get kicked out of. I like the format. I think the 7-8 format is cool. You know, win one and it gives you this advantage to get in. What are your thoughts on that?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Yeah, Bulls, Heat.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
You just hope that the Orlando Magic, because the Magic and the Hawks, they could be decent playoff teams if they awaken from these pretty dark stretches.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Apparently longer than two months.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
I think the Cavs and Celtics deserve to have a pretty easy first round series. Oh man. I think they will.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Yeah, with Jalen Johnson, they're a good team.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Well, Dorca Palooza, they did the they named the transaction of the year and the MB extension did not win it. Didn't get it. Oh, wow. It was the Luka Doncic trade. The Luka Doncic trade. The Paul George deal did not get the transaction of the year. But it was given to the Los Angeles Lakers.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
But yeah, I got to see the Boston Celtics play the Philadelphia 76ers, more like the Delaware 87ers than the night I chose to attend. Yeah, tough one. Tough one. They're two and eight in their last 10. They are doing all they can, as they should. The saving the season for the Philadelphia 76ers is keeping that draft pick in a good draft.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Oh, remember, even forget the Georgian and the Georgian and beat stuff. They have a pretty good young backcourt in McCain and Maxie here. Like, right. They could have a young core if they hit on this draft pieces. Yeah. So it's it's crazy. I know the cap. They're in cap hell. They are in cap hell for the rest of this decade.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
But if they have rookie players playing over value, that's a pretty good deodorant for that situation.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Yeah, they're deep. They can survive a few injuries, you'd think, and still be better than this. Better than this.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
I don't know if last year is a fair precedent, but yes, you could if you have a very physical, strong front court like the Dallas Mavericks did. That seems like a thousand years ago now. But yeah, it seems like... They are by far the most physical, nasty defense. And that depth really enables them to play almost like with line changes. They had that perpetual sub story this week.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
But they have such a great deep bench. But as you mentioned, they didn't have Caruso, who's one of the biggest dogs on the team. And they didn't have Jalen Williams.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Other guys just came in flying around. And one of the things that crossed my mind yesterday is that could the second five best players on Oklahoma City be a playoff team by themselves? That's the kind of thing I was thinking, like, oh, my God, this team is so deep. Right. You take one of the backup bigs, you take Case on Wallace. You know, you take one of the Jay Williams.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
They have so much talent. But the coolest thing about them is they're all aligned to play this ferocious defensive style. One of the crazy stats from that game last night, though, is like, OK, the 63 threes. We can talk about that. They play like that and you only get 12 free throws. The Celtics only shot 12 free throws. Now, Celtics fans might say this or that or the other thing.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
A lot, like you said, has to do with your 63 threes.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
And then here's the stat that I thought I was looking at it today. SGA, again, was a magnificent player, but he drew 10 fouls himself on the Boston Celtics. He drew 10 fouls himself. He puts you in foul trouble, like it or not. And Jalen Brown was the Celtics player I was most sort of concerned with after this game because he got off to a slow start.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
He started getting hot in the fourth, but then he entered the fourth quarter with two fouls, and he fouled out with three and a half minutes left. What happened? SGA got him twice. SGA got him with some of the foul merch and stuff twice, his fourth and fifth fouls. Nobody's going to remember that because they remember him fouling Chet at the end.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
But he had the fifth foul because of SGA's sort of antics there at the elbow. But...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
SGA does that to you Derek White fouled out at the end SGA needs a nickname maybe the bonus because he's just always drawing bonus yeah at least they're just always in the bonus when does Jalen Williams and Derek White both foul out in regulation I don't know SGA is a pretty good nickname on its own it's a good acronym but the bonus is solid I like that one well it just I was looking it up.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
He's drawn 10 or more fouls by himself like 11 or 12 times this season. Well, it's funny.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Yeah, you can't hate him for what he's doing. I mean, we define athletes in different ways. But in the 2020s, we really started to understand that guys who can change direction and decelerate better than other guys are athletes. Those are top-tier athletes. We learned that with Luka and Harden. But this guy just makes it so hard.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
to have proper defensive position, even for guys like Derek White and Jalen Brown, who are incredible at that. And then he layers on this off-arm Hardenism, where he snakes his left arm when he's dribbling with his right hand into anybody's defensive arms, and then he flails, and there it is. And that's what happened to Jalen Brown on first fifth foul last night.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
I looked it up. There's three guys who are drawing six fouls themselves per game. In other words, they're fouling out the equivalent of a player on the other team every game. And you got Jalen Brunson, your favorite. There's SGA. And then there's the one guy who actually deserves to be on that list, Bill, which is the most physical assaulting player in the league right now, which is Giannis.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Well, yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Yeah, he's still right. We're good. We're good on the scoot island or whatever we're going to call it. But I would say the Celtics fans also can't complain about this off-arm hijinks that Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown both played.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Well, I've always liked this team, and I feel like they traded Carl Anthony Towns in part because of the new CBA, and I think it sort of took them off course. I'm a believer that they're going to finish this season very strong for a few reasons. One, you just pointed out, Julius Randle is playing his best stretch of basketball since he's gotten to Minnesota. He missed pretty much all of February.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Yeah, I think bigger win for the Thunder than it was a loss for the Celtics. And same, I would say, about that Cleveland win in the same building a couple weeks ago, the comeback win. That was bigger for Kenny Atkinson and the Cavs to win in that building for what's coming down the road. Again, I don't think there's anything to worry about.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
If there's one thing to worry about in Boston, it's Christoph Spurzingas, like, get well soon.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Yeah, let's get that guy back. He needs to get there before I make any judgment about where the Celtics are in this title defense. But, dude, he hasn't been there. And that's an issue. We need to get him back in the fold to see this fully-fledged Celtics title defense. Because I think teams like Boston and OKC are good enough to beat them without Christophs Porzingis.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
I think that's one of the lessons we've learned over the last few weeks, that the Celtics team isn't quite as dominant defensively. as they were last year. And maybe that there's better candidates to upset them in the postseason than there were last year.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Dude, I'll remember. It was Tim's last season. I think I was at the Spurs. And yeah, we had the playoff series up there.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
That's important because they went 5-7 in February. But they won those last 11 games with him. I think 5 in January, now 6 straight games.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
It's a very difficult place to win.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Not to go full Spurs deja vu, but it was like that 2012 Spurs team was so great. You remember that? That the team didn't make the finals. And OKC came back with Harden and Ibaka and took them out.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
They won game two, like by 30 at home in San Antonio and then didn't win the rest of the series. That building is a very, very difficult place.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
They can't pay all these guys. And Wallace is written on my board because he deserves to be because he played really well last night. His starter made those big shots. Five of six. Great shot blocking guard like Derek White. He loved that. Just another great young two-way player in Oklahoma City.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Dort. And yeah, like Wallace, Isaiah, Joe, Isaiah, Joe was so SGA took his, his, his rest at the beginning of the fourth last night and the Celtics were making noise. And then he hit his own, like killer three at the top of the arc and, Yeah, the depth. I think this has come up with a couple of the teams we really like out West. Depth is going to be a real separator. It gives you versatility.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
It gives you sort of injury insurance. And Oklahoma City has the biggest depth. I think your team had the most depth in a way last year. Just could play so well. This year, I think the Thunder and the Cavs can match that. I couldn't agree more.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Yeah. Well, the, the, the Indiana conference finals last year, right. That, you know, that this is going to be leveled up. Um, so that could be every round. Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Let me ask you this Detroit, New York. If you had to pick that series right now, who are you taking?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
You have Gobert, obviously, as the defensive anchor. You know what Ant is going to do as a scorer. I think he's sort of your second scorer and maybe your primary playmaker when things are going well for him. And without him, their second scorer, Bill, that's a pretty big question mark for this team.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
That's all good analysis. What I see on my end of the efficiency landscape is over the last 15 games, Detroit has the second best net rating in the entire NBA. I know.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Cade Cunningham, Malik Beasley. Malik Beasley turning into Klay Thompson. I don't think many of us predicted that, but he is averaging like 43% from three-point range.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Yeah. He's shooting almost 10 a game and he's making 43% of them. It's one of the best catch-and-shoot seasons of all time. And... You know, they are playing great defense in a way that the Knicks are not.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
I wouldn't want to play them if I were the Knicks. But, you know, we want to see what the Knicks get whole. But anyway, I just thought throw that in there.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
And they have a great offensive player. And I know if you haven't gotten a chance to enjoy the Cade Cunningham breakout season.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Who are our candidates?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
So I think his biggest thing is scoring and playmaking and just filling that void below Ant on the box score. And here's the sneaky thing with this team. They have the easiest remaining schedule of all of the Western Conference competitive sort of teams, that top seven group. And it's by a landslide.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
No, I'd go Cade because I think it is the most significant.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Yeah. What was the other? Oh, Beasley is six man. Yes. I mean, as a nerd who loves catch and shoot stats, like this guy, this season is incredible. It's up there with the best catch and shoot seasons we've ever seen.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Yeah. And what he brings to that team's offense that needs more offense is, um, is very important to their, their recent success. And Kate is a perfect distributor. Um, I love what they're doing. And they are not... I think you're right. Milwaukee and Indiana sort of fading while they're scorching. I don't think they'll end up as a sixth seed, which should be good news for Knicks fans.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
When the semester began, I'll take you back to January of 2025, and you and Russillo and a bunch of people were doing check-ins on the NBA vibe. At that time, the story was ratings are way down. We designed a case around what's going on with the NBA. what would you do to change it? And we had a bunch of students, like 40 or 50 students, and we'd work with FanDuel.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
They'd send us some of their handle data, which was really interesting. So to go beyond just TV ratings and look at betting handle as a proxy for interest in the league.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Yeah, because the theory is whether you gamble or not, I think we would all admit if there are more bets on a game, that probably means more people are paying attention to it. It might not just be on in the background, people are actually paying attention to it. The key thing we found right away is that it is a good proxy for interest.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
They have this homestand where Orlando, Utah, Indiana, and two games against the Pelicans coming in. This current win streak could extend to 11 very easily. And I think if there's anybody that's going to catch that group two to five on the Western Conference standings, it's the Minnesota Timberwolves. So I really like their chances of finishing the season pretty strong.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
It may mix a lot of the TV ratings stuff we saw early in the season, which troughed in December and rebounded with that famous Christmas night game between the Lakers and Warriors. Now we're slightly down year over year, but I had the students like, hey, what would you do?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
What would you recommend to the commissioner of the NBA to improve the popularity of our broadcasts and the overall league itself?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Got to start later. Move to start 45 days later in the calendar. Now, their opening day is in December. You still get that Christmas slate and you go into July, Bill. And this is really for one main reason, which is to get away from the monster that is football, specifically NFL and college football. which hogs all of our attention. It hogs my attention in the fall. It hogs your attention.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
And we think that there's a compelling case for the NBA to consider moving out from under that boot of the football attention. And in an attention economy, I think if you play more of your games In January, February, March, April, May, June, July, there's a much better chance for better television audiences and other sort of signs of interest.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
The presidential election.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Yeah, July, traditionally, and we were lucky to have Bob Iger came to our class a couple of weeks before and said, there's a metric called HUTs, households using television, that traditionally says July is a no-fly zone on television. That's why there's no new shows. But with streaming and the changing landscape of media consumption, even he was saying, This is no longer the case.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Like, July is open for business. There's streamers that are launching huge shows during the summer now. I think it's a little bit antiquated to say that there's no business case for playing high-level basketball games. It's a lot antiquated.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
And if you're on vacation, you have you bring your cable package with you. All of us are bringing Hulu or YouTube TV or whatever it is with us wherever we're going. I do think it is a fair criticism, Bill, to say that the NBA finals being in July would be annoying to a lot of the key stakeholders, whether those are the players, the coaches, the
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
the executives, the people running the buildings, people in Phoenix or Los Angeles might not wanna be in town in July. Those kinds of thoughts are relevant here, but ultimately I think there is a strong business case to be made that we could play the playoffs in the finals later in the spring than we currently do. That's where I landed. That's where the students landed.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
And I think it's compelling enough the league should consider it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Yeah, I think it would make way more money, too. And there's one word that hasn't come up, which explains why it isn't like this already, and that's baseball. When the NBA started, avoiding baseball on the calendar was that era's version of avoiding football now. You know, Mickey Mantle and the Yankees, we can't compete with that. Like, let's...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
let's start our season right after the World Series. Like that was the logic. This is now an updated version of that where Mickey Mantle and the Yankees is now Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs. And one further point, what did Disney just do this week or last couple of weeks is get off of their baseball relationship.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
That's one of the major media partners and they need inventory later into the spring and summer. There's no Sunday night baseball anymore. Well, let's put the first round of the playoffs. into April, May, June, and give them more summertime content for those key moments because they're also strapped down with football for the entire fall too.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
I think there's a lot of compelling reasons to think about this from a media perspective and as a league that's trying to gain more eyeballs and revenue in an attention economy that's increasingly competitive and increasingly in the sports world dominated by both pro football and high-level college football in the fall.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
If attention is good, then that's better. And I think the other thing you mentioned in there is like make the NBA Cup the all-star game right after the Super Bowl. That's our welcome back to the NBA moment for football. It's such a great format. Shout out to the NBA for adding that. It really makes those meaningful one-game events that the NFL has taught us are so great.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
But the NBA Cup is a winning event.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Well, so let's say, you know, early April, college season ends. You know, if we're not starting until December, who cares if the draft is not till August or whatever?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Well, and the other thing that I think is starting to percolate out there is this rumor of alternate leagues coming around.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
It's not a rumor anymore. And I wonder, you know, in an era where live golf came in and the Saudi soccer thing came in, If the league keeps jamming us up with 82 games and making it such a slog, if they don't show some concession to the athletes or the players, Are they making these rival league potentials more attractive to some of their talent around? And you can call me crazy all you want.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
I'm saying if you follow soccer or golf, you've just seen this. Those things weren't going to be real until they were. I think there's a real chance. The NBA needs to be proactive here. That's what I would say. Keep being proactive. Don't be reactive here. There's a chance to make the NBA better. And if you look at the numbers, I think it was Lakers Celtics biggest broadcast of the year. Perfect.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
When did that happen? After the NFL. If you put that game on a wild card Saturday, you're done. Nobody watches that. and you put it instead in march and here we have five million people watching it on american television uh that's a big deal that's the kind of incremental improvement we could ramp up across the across the business uh if we got out of the way of football
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
So one of the people at the NBA told me is like, you know, we came up with the NBA Cup as a way to sort of help the owners compensate for a loss of regular season inventory. And when confronted with the idea, hey, let's go down to 70 games or 74 games. We're going to add this in-season property to compensate for that. We'll sell it to a media partner.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
The owners, of course, came back with, well, why don't we do 82 games and the in-season tournament?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
And not lose any money. So I think somebody needs to do a better job of convincing owners and players that somehow we're going to make the same amount of total revenue if we drop the games to 70, 69, whatever we decide. Because right now, that's the case that has failed to make it across the table and land with the owners. And that's the simple reason why we still have 82 games.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Yeah, imagine a world where you get paid more money to play less basketball and travel around the world. Way less basketball. Way less basketball, right? Imagine a world where you're paid more money to play less basketball, travel around the world.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
You get to live, if you're Luka, I haven't heard anything, but if you're Luka, you can live in Slovenia and make these flights to Singapore or Manila or Shanghai to play in this touring style, F1 almost structured basketball league. Again, anybody who's followed soccer or golf knows this could happen. It's happened. So to sit here and say this is impossible is to be naive. And
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Basketball is legitimately a global sport now in the NBA. It is a global league to its credit. I got to go to Paris and watch NBA games. But there was two games on the continent of Europe all year long. People in the Philippines would kill to see this level of basketball. People in China, people in Europe. people in Africa, Australia. This is truly a global game, unlike baseball or football.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
And so I think that makes it even more attractive to somebody to come through and try to disrupt it. Because you know what? Memphis and Cleveland, those are cool cities, but so are Singapore and Shanghai. And there's real money around there.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Dude, down here in Texas, there's like more than one of my friends, multiple friends, Mavericks fan friends that are not joking when they say I'm rooting for the Lakers this year.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Like maybe these brands aren't as strong as we think they are in the in the social media era where you say, oh, not with kids on. Yeah. Oh, I'm a little bit conscious. Kids follow the players. Yeah. Shout out to Jason Gallagher's kid again. I mean, like, that's the future.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Dude, I mean, that's exactly how these kids follow soccer. They're Ronaldo or they're Messi or they're Mbappe and they're going with them wherever that's going. Why wouldn't that happen to these athletes that are just as popular?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
And one last point about the 82 games. It's more than just too much inventory. Load management, if you look at the data, load management really annoys fans. People don't want to turn on TNT like we did for that Celtics-Sixers game the other night and see the main Red Claws and the Delaware 87ers. Yeah. Uh, one of the reasons that happens is we're, we're, we're putting too many games out there.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
If we had fewer games, there'd be fewer load management situations. We would have full, full teams playing each other. The product would be better on average.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
simulation mode you can enter yeah yeah but yeah i think that's a big thing bill i think the shorter season where games feel more like events it takes a little blind faith to see that that could get you to more revenue but i love your point about hey well you just locked up this huge media rights deal do you really need a lot every people are paying the most money they've ever paid for your teams like this is a time now to be proactive
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Yeah, Dillingham is a nice rookie story, but, like, come on. We're talking about a team that had Western Conference title aspirations at the beginning of the year, and a rookie really isn't going to slide into that and make a lot of noise. I think Dave Vincenzo is a great sort of similar thing to Randall. He's gotten time to learn this team. He's fitting in.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Thank you, Bill. Thank you.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
But remember last year, I thought this team had the best vibes in the playoffs for a while, and a lot of that had to do with Nas Reed, who is like the spirit animal of the whole Timberwolves fan base. Never say anything negative about Nas Reed, Bill. Right. Alexander Walker.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
But they're big and they're physical and they're long. And they gave, you know, everybody forgets, like, they gave Jamal Murray a lot of problems last night. They gave MBJ a lot of problems last night. When they're really at their best, you know, they have McDaniels on defense. They're long on the perimeter. They're playing hard. And when those same dudes...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
that are playing great perimeter defense are also knocking down shots like that. There's a really good team. That's a really good team. And I like it. And there was a couple of times last night where I thought Randall, like, yeah, it's like what it looks like. He'll just take it right at Joker and just overpower him.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
And that's another thing he can do is, is go get an unassisted bucket in a way that some of these catch and shoot guys can't do.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Dude, he is like the ultimate hot and cold analytics guy. Yeah. There are even whole seasons, Bill, where you're like, this guy's terrible. And then the next season, you're like, this guy's an all-star. Yeah. If he has sort of a legacy for the stats nerds, it's like he is the hardest guy to pin down maybe in the whole league.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
And so he's been a frustrating guy to characterize even through the most advanced numbers over the last five years.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
I think he's ready to be the best player on a playoff team that's going to win one, maybe two rounds. It's hard for me to see them winning two rounds. Just out of respect for the rest of the West. Although, one of the more sort of emergent stories with last night is they give the Nuggets a very difficult time. And it's not just last night. I think it's five straight against them. Yeah. And...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
It is because Jamal Murray, who has been great, you know, the Nuggets, Jokic, you can set your watch by this guy's going to be great. But Jamal Murray, they seem to have his number. And I think if you can slow down Jamal Murray, you have a good chance to beat the Nuggets in the playoffs.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
And I think this team is built to slow down the Jamal Murray's of the world because of their perimeter defenders. And I think Anthony Edwards is just the kind of fourth quarter crunch time score, go get a free throw, go get a bucket. Uh, I think he's there. Um, and I think they're really well-rounded. The last thing I'd add bill is I do like their coaching. I like their coaching staff.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
I think they're built for a playoff series. I think they make adjustments. I think they're not one of these coaching staffs that just goes in and does what they always do. Uh, so I like how they're built. Uh,
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
And depending on the matchups, which I think is the biggest story in the Western Conference, Bill, going into this last 20 game stretch, 15 game stretch, how these seeds shake out is going to be fascinating. Who gets who in the first round is going to determine a lot of who makes it to the conference finals, because some of these matchups are really good for one side and really bad for the other.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
And I think that Minnesota Denver matchup is a great example of that.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
Yeah, another thing to watch on strength of schedule, because the Western Conference is brutal depending on how your schedule sort of shakes out. The Lakers and the Grizzlies are on the opposite end. They have a very tough remaining schedule. So the Lakers are sort of hanging on to that fourth spot right now, as you mentioned, without LeBron James. The Rockets have won four straight.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Minnesota’s Coming, OKC’s Here, and We Can Save the NBA Season With Kirk Goldsberry and Bill’s Dad
They could surpass them. You could see a world where the Lakers... the Timberwolves and the Warriors are really good teams, but all going into these first-round series as a road team. Yeah. And many of them with championship experience. Obviously, the Warriors and Lakers have some championship experience. So it's really interesting to me.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
Well, I think defense in a nutshell, and I think some of the more advanced individual defensive numbers, specifically when Victor's around, paint shots don't go in, is the definitive stat of this young man's career so far. And that has gotten better. In fact, it's some of the best paint protection numbers we've seen in the player tracking era.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
I think this man's ceiling was always on the defensive end of the court as potentially the most disruptive defender in the world. And I think from year one to year two, Ryan, we started to see him assert that. in deep player tracking numbers. When Victor is contesting a shot, what happens? It doesn't go in. When Victor is near a layup attempt, what happens?
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
It doesn't go in at a rate we would expect. Even compared to people like Rudy Gobert or Jaron Jackson, he's starting to climb above those guys. I think it's still fair to say he's not a great offensive player. I think that side of the court is where he needs to find his footing. Um, and I think at times he looks awkward.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
I think at times he settles for shots that, that I don't think he's happy with. I don't think his teammates are happy with. So I think he's ahead on defense and still a work in progress on offense. But I always say this, the most important stat with Victor is this he's 21 years old. He just turned 21. Um,
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
When he's 25, and I said this when I wrote about him, I think in the ring or top 10, the second youngest guy in that is Luca, who's just turning 26. Wimpy's not going to be 26 until 2029. So think about that. That's when he's going to be fully formed on both ends of the court. And that, I think, is one of the scariest things in the NBA.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
They've got to be a candidate. From what I saw last night, remember, they're playing a game. It should be a really emotional game. So let's set the stage. We're in Austin, Texas. We're Kevin Durant people here. Kevin's playing his first game on our campus in 15 years or more. And... And it just was, it was kind of sad. It was kind of depressing. Royce O'Neal was their leading scorer.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
They have Devin Booker and Kevin Durant. The offense looks stagnant. They had stashed Kevin in the corner a lot. I'm like, it looked like another UT guy. It looked like PJ Tucker out there at times. And I love PJ and I love Kevin. I just they didn't it didn't look like they had a North Star as a group.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
It didn't look like they were playing for each other in a way where the Western Conference is so brutal. They're going to get exposed on offense and defense if you're not playing like that. There's still a point guard issue there. It was only one game. I don't want to overreact.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
But the thing I would ask you about, Ryan, is it seems like the trade deadline gossip and rumors around Kevin Durant have the potential to derail the morale in that locker room. And I think if I saw anything last night, it was a team that wasn't thrilled with each other.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
Yeah, I mean, is it fair to say he's a journeyman at this point in his career? I wouldn't throw that term out, you know, for many superstars, but he just seems to travel around and the teams that he's played for since, and including the last year in Golden State, have had this sort of moody, dramatic undertones.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
And out of respect, he's one of the best players in the world, but teams sort of take on the personality of their leaders. And again, here we are, and last night he's, yelling at people. He's being demonstrative. He's sort of pouting at times. And then he'll make a couple of plays. You're like, gosh, he's the only player in the world that could do what he just did.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
But dude, you know, you are the way I look at the game. You are what your stats say. You are 55 games. I'm looking at their stats through this season. They're, they're, they're 20th in that rating. They have an average offense and a below average offense. I mean, what can you say to that?
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
Why am I supposed to believe in the next 27 games something meaningful is going to change here and they're going to become something they're not? And so I could see another playoff exit similar to the one we had last year, and I could see that being Kevin Durant's last moment in a Suns uniform.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
if Memphis is healthy and John Moran is available this year, I like Memphis, uh, long-term. I think I like Houston, but for this season, my answer is the Memphis Grizzlies. Um, I love what they can do on both ends of the floor. Um, I love the John Moran seems unafraid and that's the character that Houston is missing right now at the, at the, at the running the offense in a big moment. Um,
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
in a big game, you know, it's not, everybody's been saying this all year, but the Fred van fleet thing has been okay. Uh, but there are moments in a close game, like we're going to encounter in the, in the post season where that Houston rockets offense doesn't seem to get anything going. Um, and for that reason, uh,
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
Looking forward to the postseason, I'm going to say I like the Memphis Grizzlies better. I love Jaron Jackson. I love what they have as what Jalen Rose would call their basketball geometry. I love how they are able to decorate the basketball court in a way that Houston, by the way, they should be thrilled. This team is on the road to something really good.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
But right now in this season, I'm going to take the Grizzlies, Ryan.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
Sometimes it just makes sense, right? They don't have a guy who can go create their own shot. Jalen Green's not that guy for you? Too erratic? He's better in 2025 than I expected him to be at the beginning of 2024. And I would give him credit for having sort of this awakening. But he's not there yet. He could be there, Ryan. He could be there.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
And again, this team went from really bad to really good in the last three years. I don't have many notes. I think Imei has been a fantastic hire. I think the defensive identity is sustainable. I love this team. But yes, what you're saying, the weakness is this is an average or below average NBA offense.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
And that's just really hard to win with in the playoffs when all the bad defenses go away from the equation. And you're now playing against the best defenses in the West. You win round one. OK, now level up round two. Are you going to be able to score against OKC in a third quarter or fourth quarter when they're locked in? Again, no disrespect.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
I just think that's where John Moran or Desmond Bain or Jaron Jackson has a little more to give in 2025 than some of these Rockets players.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
I remember I thought I was bullish on the Cleveland Cavaliers at the beginning of the year. I said, hey, I think this team could be second. And to everybody's credit, they're first. They deserve to be first. And I think you're exactly right. They went from a cool story to, oh, this might be a problem for the Celtics. This might be a problem. It's the best first-year coaching performance ever.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
In terms of an offensive remaking, since Steve Kerr took over for Mark Jackson, and what did he do there? It was a lot of motion stuff. It was, hey, how can I unlock this backcourt of Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson? How can we get away from some of this pick-and-roll traditional stuff and play through... some bigs and Golden State was never the same. And they just took off and changed the game.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
Kenny is the guys playing such great offense and has really found ways to get the most out of Darius Garland, Donovan Mitchell. Remember Donovan Mitchell seemed like, Oh, is this guy going to go to New York? Is he going to ask out? Like, it doesn't seem like that anymore. And I think the biggest magic trick Ryan has been what Kenny has been able to do.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
With Evan Mobley, and I remember talking to Kenny this summer, and he was like, I got to get this guy to shoot. I got to get this guy to shoot. And, you know, this is the guy who presided over the Brooke Lopez metamorphosis in the Nets organization. And he recognized, man, if Evan Mobley can just stretch us out a little bit, because Jared Allen's never going to do that for us.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
We're going to be really hard to guard. And to Evan's credit and to Kenny's credit, they had faith they could pull this off and they've done it. And I think that's been really, aside from the motion sets, the Evan Mobley shooting stuff has been one of the biggest parts of this Cleveland surge. But I love this team. And to add on to your point, I love DeAndre Hunter at the deadline.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
I think that could really be a difference maker in the playoffs.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
Yeah, it's my golden rule. I stole it from Zach Lowe, I think 10 or 15 years ago. He really drilled down on the fact that you need to be a top 10 defense in the regular season if you want to win the NBA title. And as a matter of fact, over the last 25 years, I think only one or two teams have have not checked that box. One was a Lakers team that famously played themselves into shape.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
And one was the Denver Nuggets from a few years ago. And that was behind Jokic's masterpiece in the postseason. So you kind of have to factor that into the Nuggets playoff future. They've already done it, as you said. Nikoli Jokic has a red flag on defense. His rim protection, I wrote about it right before the playoffs that year. And I said, I don't think they can do this with this guy.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
And I was wrong, hand up, you know, live and learn. But I still see that. And the thing with the Knicks is the same thing. Everybody's been saying, hey, can you have Carl Anthony Towns as a five man and win playoff series against Cleveland and Boston? Hey, call me skeptical. I don't think you can. And I would say the same thing with Denver.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
Can you stop the best teams in the West with that defense? Can you stop OKC and those young legs with a defense that's not that great? I'm skeptical. I still think that people overlook Denver. defensive excellence at this stage in the season as a predictive factor for who's going to do really well in the playoffs. And right now there's teams who check that box that are legitimate contenders.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
Starting with Boston, obviously Memphis and Houston, OKC being the number one of those teams. And we talked about this a little bit earlier. What OKC is doing on defense right now screams title contender to somebody who's trying to predict this with the key metrics.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
I will be. I mean, they deserve it. The way I look at the game, I'd be doing a disservice to the analytics guys. But yeah, they are, to your point, the league average in offensive efficiency right now is, I think, 113 or 114 points per 100. They're giving up 104.5. That delta from the league average is one of the highest deltas we've ever seen.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
I don't have the teams that have beat them in that category yet. But Sam Presti has architected a great Spurs-like defense here. He is a product of R.C. Buford, and he knows to win in small markets. Defense is very important, and he has built – The best defense in the NBA by far.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
The gap between the Thunder and the Clippers, who currently are quietly the second best defense in the NBA, is massive relative to what we normally see in an NBA season. So they are an outlier on defense. And by the way, they're a top ranked six, I think sixth ranked offense, too.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
There are some red flags, and I go back to a different game where Giannis at the in-season tournament really exposed their lack of size, which has been the sort of fatal flaw in their Death Star. I think for a couple of years, the Hartenstein acquisition was designed to sort of deal with that, but it didn't deal with that with Giannis.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
But they're not going to face Giannis in the Western Conference playoffs, and he's sort of a one-of-a-kind player. physical force that can expose that lack of physicality in a front court. I don't think there's a Western Conference Giannis out there right now. So I like the way they're positioned, obviously. And I think their defense is their calling card. And it starts with Shea, who is a menace.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
He leads by example. He deflects. He grabs about more loose balls than anybody else in the NBA. You don't see a lot of superstars or MVP candidates diving on the floor like that in this league. And so I think he sets the tone and I anticipate picking them to win the NBA championship here in a few weeks.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
I, I will defend Charlotte here as at least as not being that, um, As we've seen, Ryan, I think ownership matters. I think we've learned that in the last few weeks following the NBA. And Charlotte has new owners. And I think they're committed to building a smarter team. I love Charles Lee. You want to talk about sort of assets. And I love the coaching staff.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
That they've assembled some former Celtics guys. Josh Longstaff has been around. I think they've made some good choices there. And I would argue that Brandon Miller and LaMelo, yeah, they're decisions, but they're also, if they make the decision to get off of them, they bring back a harvest. Yeah, but not Miller.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
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No, no, no. I'm just saying. So I'm going with the Wizards. I should have said this. I buried the lead. Apologies to our listeners. The Wizards don't have anything like I just said. To me, they're the clear answer here. I don't see a Brandon Miller. I don't see a Charles Lee there. I would say the Wizards have a track record of not performing. So I'm going to say it's the Wizards.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
I mean, Jordan Poole is fun to watch. They're 9-45. Who is he fun to watch for? The other team? If you have a struggling offensive point guard and you need to get the slump to bust, you just get that Jordan Poole ISO. And it's fun to watch.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
I don't know, dude. I guess Corey Kispert is somebody to be excited about. Saar could still, I think he's pretty good. What about Buck Carrington? Yeah.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
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Yeah, I've thought, I think Toronto, since winning the title, has made a series of big moves. And I don't know if they've lined up for a really strong second half of the 2020s. In fact, I would say Brandon Ingram reminds me of paying DeMar DeRozan did a few years ago. It feels like he's a talented player. He's a great scorer.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
But really, what's the ceiling of your team when you have a Brandon Ingram, Scotty Barnes player? cap sheet. Those are your two headliners on your cap sheet. What's the ceiling here? Again, this is a league where you're playing Boston and Cleveland. Indiana looks good. The East is the Knicks. It's hard to get up there. And I just don't see those guys helping you overcome those other teams.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
So I think Toronto is fair to throw in there, but I'm going back to the Washington Wizards who have been one of the worst teams of the decade so far this year, and I don't see a lot of bright spots there.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
It starts with the Oakish for me. Um, And it starts with Stephen Curry and SGA in the backcourt, which I think if there's a weak link in my team, it's can that backcourt play well together? But that's where I'm going. And then I got Giannis and Tatum. All right. So Stephen SGA, Tatum, Giannis. There were some hard decisions for me here.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
I wanted to do something crazy like put Franz Wagner in there for Cerruti or put Derek White because I love off-ball and defense. But I think I was able to find things. My philosophy with this exercise, Ryan, was I wanted to establish a few core competencies.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
I needed the diversity of skills, rim protection, rebounding, playmaking, three-point shooting, paint scoring, passing, screening, everything. And my group addressed all of those. And I hired specific members of my group to address those core competencies. Okay.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
Derek White. So I'm biased because I was part of the group that drafted Derek a long time ago and I've loved him. So I'm a little too close to call it like a Nico AD situation. I'm pretty biased. I might be blinded there. Would you trade Luca for him? I would trade Luca for Derek White. Yeah, that's how much I, but I do love Derek.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
And as we saw in the Olympics, sometimes it's not the superstars that you need out there. And what I would say about Derek White, is he's too good to be called a role player, but he's an off ball. He's a great off ball player offensively and the stuff he does on defense. And again, when people do these exercises, they barely talk about defense. Derek White has the heart of a defensive champion.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
He is, I love that about him, but ultimately I thought I could get that with SGA, with Giannis and Tatum. So I took him off of my short list.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
I think that's the right question. And I would say there's no way it clogs because Steppen, the other thing that Steppen does is he thins out the defense and terrifies the 10 eyeballs of the defenders at all times. He's distracting. And so we're going to have an expansive scoring area.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
And then I think the reason I chose Giannis, I mean, this is a guy who won finals MVP a few years ago with one of the best finals games we've ever seen where he scored, what, 50 and Get all of his free throws. Of all the times to do it, yeah. I think Wemby would replace him in this group in two or three years. I just don't think he's there yet. The other thing is Giannis is a rebounder.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
And as a rim protector, though, Wemby can do that. But just as a physical force to pressure the rim. And here's the thing. Spacing starts at the rim, Ryan. And nobody pressures the rim as much as Giannis Antetokounmpo does. He... Freaks the defense out because he look at the in-season tournament final. Dude, he took it to them. Power up the middle. That's the the the the tush push of the NBA.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
Right. Is is Giannis going forward and getting to the rim? And I think that's the most underrated value of Giannis Antetokounmpo is that. Bud built that five-out offense around him because he knew the teams had to protect the paint so much with Giannis on the floor. And that's really the weakness with Wemby right now.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
And if you talk to people around the Spurs, it's like, oh, that's how he's got to grow. He settles for too many jumpers. He should be a top 10 points in the paint guy. He's not. So that's ultimately why I chose Giannis for now. I hope that Wemby gets there, but he's not there yet, in my opinion.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
Well, do we get Jokic's brothers if we get Jokic? Because those guys live in that gray area, bro. I think that's right. Tatum, I love Tatum. I had Tatum versus LeBron, and I disagree with Steve Kerr. I think that Tatum right now in 2025 is a more complete – His rebounding numbers and his defense when he locks in is still really good.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
He's averaging, I think, eight defensive rebounds a game, which I think is really important. But I love the end point, honestly. And SGA, and when you're trying to build the dream backcourt, I think that's where we zero in on. Are SGA and Steph Curry a good pairing? And I said that. I'm not sure. SGA, there's a little bit too much ISO. For me, it's a little herky-jerky.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
I think Ant can space the floor next to Jokic and knock down catch and shoot threes at a high rate, which... Look, some people don't love that this dude is shooting 10 threes a night or whatever it is now, but he's good at it. He's shooting 40%, like you said. And I think that goes really well next to Nikola Jokic, as we've seen.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
And if there's a criticism of Calvin Booth in the Nuggets front office, it's like, give him more shooters, please. Give him more shooters because he is just that good. And when they've had those shooters in Denver, they've been unstoppable on offense.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
I will say, to pander to our friend Saruti, Franz to me is like the Swiss army knife, or I guess a German army knife, if we're allowed to say that. He can do everything. And he was on my list, and I almost put him on there. But again, he's a couple years away from being that guy. But I like his size. I like his versatility. I love his basketball IQ. He has become...
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
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A guy who I think could slide into any team and just thrive in multiple ways. But ultimately, Curry, Jokic, SGA, Giannis, and Tatum was my list. And I feel pretty good about it without Wiggins or Derek White or Franz Wagner.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
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Mm-hmm. Yeah, leave Wemby for sure. He's 21. I mean, he's going to get to a point where he's a 40% three-point shooter, and that's curtains. And he's going to get there, I promise. Look at his free throw number. He's going to get there, just like Ant. And Ant's a few years ahead of him. But when Wemby shoots 40% from three, it's going to be crazy.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
What do you have coming up? I'm looking at Luka. We don't have an angle, but we're looking at Lakers-Luka. If you have an angle, Ryan, you're really good at framing these stories. Been a little disappointing early, so we're trying to hedge, but I think I got to dive into this new look Lakers team and look at Luka Doncic.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
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He scored 40 points in his two of last five games as a 40-year-old man. I know we're running out of time. What is your Lakers ceiling for this season? I think the Luka story is a longer-term play, but what is your Lakers ceiling this year?
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
Again, the defense is going to be the problem there. Too many one-way players. Some savants on offense. And Austin Reeves is a nice player. But, yeah, how are you getting stops in the playoffs against these teams? That's the question I'm looking to answer. But, yeah, I'm looking at Luka Doncic, man. I mean, he's giving us great content at the ringer. And I'm going to dive in. So look for that.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
All right. Sounds good. Thanks, Eric. Thank you, brother.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
including Saruti and Simmons and Shea, Chris Ryan, Kyle, the whole group. We had a great time and got to see the Spurs beat the Suns here on the campus of UT last night, which was great.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
I mean, this is a serious health condition. This is not a sort of tanking technique. That's a disgrace to suggest that. Given my proximity to the situation, it's just sad that people would think that. Nobody wants this. I've had blood clots myself. It's a terrifying diagnosis. It changes the way you look at mortality. It changes the way your friends look at your mortality.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
So I think what the Spurs are going through right now is pretty traumatic, not just as a basketball team, but as a group of people, because their leader, their future star has this sort of health issue right now. So like everybody, I was shocked by the news. I was devastated. And you just hope they can
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Hockey Was Fun! But Are the NBA Comps Fair? Plus, Wemby’s Future and the Perfect NBA Starting Five With Kirk Goldsberry.
find a treatment plan that gets him right, one, for his long-term health as a human being on planet Earth, and two, as a basketball player. So I think it was a really devastating moment for the season. But in a way, it's a good thing they caught it when they did. And we're just hoping that we get fixed this thing long-term.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
Harden and Kawhi are going to be good, but it's going to be the Clippers role players, specifically guys like Norman Powell and Derek Jones, that rise up and make big plays and take these games for the Clippers.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
No, I can't wait. I cannot wait. I think, you know, we haven't talked enough about Joker, but I think everybody knows how both of us feel. I think this is another tremendous stage for him to just go crazy. And, you know, with all due respect to Ty Lue and Zubats, I think Nikola Jokic has an opportunity to carry a team in a harsh environment once again. So I just throw a little shine on there.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
I can't wait to watch it.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
Yeah, small nitpick. Small nitpick with what you just said. They fired coaches, which is different than what the Nuggets did. I think that's a big point. And when you prepare for the playoffs, it is like a war room where multiple coaches are studying film for multiple hours a day. And they decided... not only to get rid of their head coach, but two or three of the under, the supporting coaches.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
And I think when I watch them, I'm like, you guys have no game plan.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
Yeah, no notes. I don't know how much you can learn from a series against said Grizzlies team. But one thing I think that's important, sort of building on what you said, is if we anticipate this Nuggets-Clippers series to go six or seven, you're getting a wounded older team in round two. And I fully expect...
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
OKC to take care of business this weekend in Memphis and get another long period of rest and get ready for another beleaguered opponent to come in. Whoever wins this Clippers Nuggets series will probably be in a little bit rougher condition than the young bucks from OKC. I love their depth. And that seems like a cliche. But what you just said, they have optionality. Depth gives you a few things.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
It gives you optionality with the lineups, but it also gives you fresher legs on defense later in the game throughout a series. Their ability to play 7, 8, 9 guys, 10 guys and not miss a beat, I think... In short, Zach Lowe, the Oklahoma City Thunder are built for war.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
And I can't wait for them to get to the next round, in part because I want to see them try to do it against a little bit better opponent. But I've seen nothing so far to dissuade me from the simple idea that they're going to win the Western Conference.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
To quote Kareem from Subway Takes, 100% agree. I think the Knicks are in trouble. I'd go a little bit further. The biggest stat here is about that starting five. That starting five that they put all their poker chips into the middle of the table for Zach Lowe. they're losing this series when those guys are on the court. That can't happen. The only reason they won game one is campaign goes crazy.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
And the one moment I think the Pistons were not ready for was it's Madison Square Garden. It's game one of the playoffs. Holy shit. We're not ready for this fourth quarter. And to their credit, the Knicks took advantage of it. And thank God they did if you're a Knicks fan, because that has kept you from being down 0-2 right now. The other thing that caught my eye in this series was,
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
Beasley and Hardaway were awful, awful in game two from three-point range, and the Knicks still lost. We've talked a lot about Brunson and the iso play and the foul baiting, but I keep coming back to something you just brought up. Where in the hell is Carl Anthony Towns? When you get Tobias Harris on you, dude...
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
You're supposed to be the best big man of your generation, one of the best scoring bigs of your generation. You get Tobias Harris on you, you need to go to work. You need to do that barbecue chicken thing that Shaq's always talking about. You need to go win that. And he just disappeared when they needed him. I blame it on him.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
One more Knicks point. This is Knicks trivia with Zach Lowe. Zach Lowe, if you had to guess how many fouls Jalen Brunson has drawn in the first two games of this series...
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
Yeah, 23 fouls. No other Knicks player has drawn more than five. He's essentially fouling out almost two Pistons per game.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
I'm sure the audience of the Zach Lowe show wants you to chime in on, are you annoyed by Jalen Brunson right now?
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
Hallelujah. This was the top note I had for Rockets Warriors. I mean, it's very annoying when the regular season is a different sport than the postseason. It's rendered even more meaningless because the game is it's like a different sport. It's like a different sport. So we just said Jalen Brunson has drawn 23 fouls in those two games. OK, shout out to the Pistons defense. They're physical.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
No notes. How many fouls do you think Stephen Curry has drawn in these two pro wrestling matches in Houston? Six. I'm going to get six.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
You got it, buddy. What are we doing? Anybody who's watched Houston and Golden State has seen Curry been manhandled. Apparently, in the regular season, you can't touch Stephen Curry, but in the postseason, you can wrap your arms around him. Every time he comes off any kind of off-ball screen or on-ball action, you can put your hand on his hip and spin him around.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
I don't care what the rules are, but you're exactly right, dude. As an analyst trying to make sense of this sport, you're supposed to be able to learn from the regular season. You're supposed to be able to strategize based on the regular season. And if we're going to change contact allowances...
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
in these games so drastically, and you can say Kirk has been like this playoff foul, but this Rockets warrior series seems like the biggest chasm I've ever seen between what would be allowed in the regular season versus what is allowed in the playoff. So I think there should be some level of expectation that the games get more physical and
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
But between that Brunson stat and that Curry stat, I think it's fair to say, like, what are we doing here? What are we calling a foul? And what are we not calling a foul? Like, these games are dangerous. I remember Jimmy Butler is laying on the ground and Stan Van Gundy is saying, well, these games are more physical than... I'm like, yeah, of course, this guy's getting an MRI tomorrow.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
And then early in that game, Jalen... Green dives into Stefan's legs on a loose ball. Again, that's just playoff intensity. Of course, there's going to be some of that, but I think you nailed it. How can these coaching staffs and front offices prepare for the postseason when the rules are so drastically different, specifically those contact allowances?
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
Yeah, it's like Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. I got George Carlin. I got a phone booth. And in 2016, 2017, when I was among the people who thought this guy was one of the best players on planet Earth, I thought we at the Spurs could win titles with him as our centerpiece. And I never thought I'd saw it again. It didn't end great with Kawhi and San Antonio. Everybody knows that.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
Yeah, I mean, I'm with you. If Butler can come back, I'll be interested in seeing if Golden State can win this series. If he doesn't come back, I think it's curtains. Because what I've seen is Houston is just much deeper. And if you look at the weak links on the Houston Rockets, they're a lot stronger than the weak links on the Golden State Warriors. And I think Pod's led...
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
the Warriors in rebounds in game one. His absence was no small issue here either. And I know he was technically out there. I hope he feels better. I hope Jimmy Butler gets better and is able to play because this series should go seven games. But I think if Jimmy Butler is limited in any way, the stats point to that being curtains for the Golden State Warriors season. I think...
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
He saved their chances to advance throughout the Western Conference playoffs. And in an ugly series, they need him. This series is so ugly. Among the 16 playoff teams I'd written down, Houston ranks 14th in offense and Golden State ranks 15th. You know who 16th is? I bet you can guess. Memphis! The Memphis Grizzlies. So not counting the Grizzlies, these are the two worst offenses we've seen.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
And when you take Jimmy Butler out of that equation, the Warriors are now left with no choice but to put in players like Kaminga and ask Quinn Post to play more minutes than he probably should and ask Moses Moody to take more shots than he probably should. All of that production... going away makes this break for Houston. Obviously.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
I think, like I said earlier, the weak links in Houston, you mentioned Tari Eason, you know, they, they have Steven Adams coming in off their bench. They have Jabari Smith, Jr. Coming in off their bench. One of the big macro trends in the 2020s in the NBA is depth is so vital, especially in the Western conference as a differentiator between good teams and great teams. Well,
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
I know Butler and Curry are the biggest stars in this series, but the depth, that bench in Houston is so much better. It's so much deeper. And it allows them to do more things and play harder defense for a longer amount of time. So long story short, if Butler can get back in, Golden State has a chance. If he's not coming, I think this thing's over.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
But it's incredible to watch. He's averaging 1.61 points per shot in the series in the postseason. That's like batting 600, Zach Lowe, in baseball. It's insane to watch. I never thought I would see it again. The Nuggets have no answers for him. That's not surprising if you watched Denver all year long.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
The shooting numbers, the depth on offense, you said about Donovan, I think that was a cool test last night. Without Donovan Mitchell, that team is in trouble, and that was going to be a very different story this morning. We might have led with that story if Miami did what I thought they might do there for a minute, which was turn... Davion Mitchell turned into, like, Michael Jordan plus...
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
Kyle Lowry, some mix of those two players for about five minutes. And Heywood Highsmith turning into Klay Thompson late in the game. I did not have that.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
It wasn't super helpful. No, he cost them the key moment of that comeback. I thought he had a blunder that might have cost them. But with Cleveland, their offense is – signature weapon. And specifically when it is, it's the open, the ability to create open shots on the edges last night, they were 22 of 45 from three. You're not going to lose many games in any part of the NBA season.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
If you're making 49% of 45, three point shots and you have guys like Donovan, Mitch Lewis, seven of 10, Max Struess was good. Deandre Hunter hits his Sam Merrill, Evan Mobley, hit three threes.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
So what sticks out to me is sort of the breadth and depth of their three-point attack and how that offense, whether it's in transition or in half court, seems to be almost as good as Boston at reliably creating clean looks for their good shooters on the edges of the court.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
What is surprising is that Kawhi Leonard looks to be right now the best player in the NBA postseason, which I never thought I would say again. I'd say that we've all said that previously, six, seven, eight years ago. But here we are in 2025 watching Kawhi Leonard blend volume efficiency as a scorer better than anybody in the postseason.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
I love Orlando's future, but dude, do they need to find some catch and shoot help on that roster? No! Really?
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
This is a shout out to Cerruti and all the magic brethren. But they thought they had it in KCP. Franz, I thought, was trending in the right direction as a shooter. And they essentially bring in a knife to a gunfight when it comes to this three-point war they're having with the Celtics. They don't have... Enough firepower. I'm surprised they got to 100 points last night.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
But, dude, I like this team. I like the core. They don't have sucks. That's one of their most important pieces on both ends of the court. Mo Wagner as well. Like the rotation is limited. We didn't expect them to beat the Celtics with this rotation. I just think you can still learn from this series. And, guys, we need to have some more shooting out there.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
We need to have some more reliable shooting out there if we're going to compete with the best of the East. And I would say they have the potential to be the best team in Florida for a long time. We just talked about the Heat.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
And of course, playing incredible defense on the other end as well.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
Hang the banner. what I would say to Orlando is like, you're in a new phase of team building. You need to, you need to learn from these games. And what do I learn? I think it was one of 15, one of 16, two of 15 from Franz and KCP, uh, their supposed shooting and their starting group last night. Um, so, So I don't know what's going to happen in the next two games.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
I saw our boss, Bill Simmons, was irate at the physicality of coming from the Orlando Magic. He took to Twitter slash X last night and accused the Orlando Magic of being like children in a bouncy house, flying around and torpedoing into his beloved Celtics players.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
Now imagine if Goga was in that bouncy house, how dangerous that would be. And you're jumping around and all of a sudden you're Kristaps Porzingis. The line of the night, was it Scalabrini? On the Celtics broadcast, I want to give it credit. I'm sorry if I get this wrong. Maybe it was the play-by-play guy.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
But somebody, you know, when Porzingis is there bleeding from his forehead, somebody said the unicorn has lost his horn. And it was just perfect because it was right there where the unicorn horn should have been. But you just hope the Celtics come out of this in one piece. We want the full title defense. And you already said it. We lost Tatum for a little bit here.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
Porzingis, that was pretty scary. And you just hope that the Celtics come out of this in one piece.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
No. They have dismantled a championship team. Championship team? Well, they were a champion. I don't want to go too far back in NBA history. But I look at this as sort of a macro scale thing. Looking at the new owner syndrome, if you want to call it that. Firing coaches, trading star players. making just blunder after blunder. They got rid of Drew Holiday. They got rid of Chris Middleton.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
They got rid of Mike Budenholzer. And this is what we have now. And the key moment in game two was, you know, Damian, to his credit, hasn't played basketball or exercise in six weeks and comes out and makes a giant shot with two minutes and 30 seconds left. To get it within two. It was a two-point game somehow. The next two possessions embody what you're saying. Siakam comes down.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
This is the biggest defensive possession of the Bucs season. Halfway through the shot clock, Pascal Siakam is shooting a practice shot from the right wing.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
Can you get on Twitch for that? Can we get a Zach Lowe show Twitch feed where we watch the first few minutes of game three?
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
Hey, you never played in the NBA like Glenn Rivers. The subsequent possession after that Siakam three was another wide-open three, this time from Nembhard. And next thing you know, that two-point game is an eight-point game. There's a minute left, and we're talking about this being the end of an era in Milwaukee. And I'm not going to go into the sort of palace intrigue that could happen.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
But suffice to say, I think like the Phoenix Suns and like the Denver Nuggets, the Milwaukee Bucks, since getting to the finals, have really dismantled what made them great and thrown it away with a series of transactions and decisions that now have you on the verge of losing a first round series to the Indiana Pacers.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
You know what I say? I always say, and everybody, I'm sorry if I talk about the Spurs too much, but you know, one of the things you learn there is they were relevant for 20 years and they made the finals six times. 14 times they didn't. And they didn't, when they lost to Memphis in a 1-8, they didn't go fire pop and RC and all this. You can't overreact.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
If you're trying to build a long-term thing, whether it's Phoenix or Milwaukee, you can't overreact to one disappointing postseason. How about this?
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
The light years ahead is over there somewhere. Oh, there's so much.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
Nico saying, I didn't know he was that important to us. I can't even. We're making a wing here. We need to include all the people.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
That's where I was going to go. I think the Pacers deserve more credit than we've given them, not only this year, but last year. Let's not forget they went pretty far last year. I think that team still has a great identity as sort of a fast-paced, smart offense that can spread the floor and score and play really fast. I think they put your defense in tough positions.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
I think they deserve credit for creating those kinds of, open threes and mismatches that are exposing this Bucs defense. Tyrese Halliburton, I kind of left him for dead middle of the season. Nope. He's good. He's come back strong. He was on my own NBA team.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
I don't know if he's going to make it, but he was a must for me. So I love watching that team. I think Rick Carlisle deserves a little more credit and conversation than he gets as building this group up. But, you know, I think they if they come out of the series, I think it's a really intriguing matchup with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
So I think that the Pacers deserve credit for being one of the more unique, more powerful offenses in the league and getting through and potentially exposing this Bucks team for being as mediocre as it currently looks.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
I'm envious that you guys got to talk about Wolves and Lakers. Kyle Kuzma is my parting thought. With all due respect to Kyle Kuzma, Chris Middleton did not deserve to be jettisoned like this for a player who essentially made Tony Snell look good in game one. And come on, we need more from Kyle Kuzma to justify that transaction. To me, it epitomizes where the bucks are. Thank you, Zach Lowe.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
Thank you for having me on the Zach Lowe Show.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
He's been great. He looks like Kobe. And I don't say that lightly. And when he was drafted, it was a lockout summer, and they couldn't really work out with him. Remember when he couldn't shoot? Remember that coming out of San Diego State?
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
His ceiling is Bruce Bowen, ladies and gentlemen. That was not an uncommon scouting report when he landed in San Antonio. His ceiling is Bruce Bowen. The Spurs think they found the next corner 3 and D guy. Well... Chip England deserves a lot of credit. Kawhi deserves more credit, but they couldn't work out together in the summer of 2011.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
$380,000.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
I think you've written about this, but, you know, they modeled, they looked at Kobe's game and they looked at Kobe's shots and they looked at how we could build a portfolio of ISO heavy players. And they they they shared a vision. Obviously, Kobe was a role model for anybody growing up playing hoops in Los Angeles in the early 2000s. And Kawhi is no exception.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
But when he hit that shot against Gordon off the right elbow, it looked a lot like the Kobe shot in Phoenix. And again, I don't make these comparisons lightly, but. Both you and I know that Kawhi Leonard is capable of making some of the biggest shots in some of the biggest games in the sport. We've seen it for years. We didn't think we'd see it anymore. But he is dominating this series.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
You know, Denver is kicking the Clippers behind when Kawhi is out of the game. Their net rating, I think, in those precious minutes is plus 10 or something, Zach. So he is the MVP of this series. I don't think that's an exaggeration. And I'm a huge Jokic guy. But Kawhi right now is the best player in the series. And that is stunning to me. That is absolutely stunning.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
And I also want to echo your point. Ty Lue remains one of the league's great coaches. And it's a shame he didn't get more attention in the Coach of the Year discussion. I know you've gone out of your way to throw him some some flowers. But you're exactly right. Get into 50 wins in this conference without your best player. That is stunning. So I'm just as this series shifts back to Los Angeles.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
I mean, what what do you expect? What do you expect in games three and four?
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
How are you? I am terrific, Zach. Always great to be with you during the playoffs especially, but also running on less sleep than normal. Sleep.
The Zach Lowe Show
Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski
Yeah, I think this is breaking for LAC. I think one of the—I've never called them LAC before just now.
The Zach Lowe Show
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Well, on a macro scale, maybe this weekend, not doing X's and O's for just a second, maybe this is the weekend the Clippers fans get a real identity. This is the biggest moment for their new arena, their fan base, finally out of the shadows of the Los Angeles Lakers, hosting incredible games in their brand new building. Maybe the LAC era is here.
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Ultimately, one of the cliches in pro basketball this time of year is what role players play better at home in the playoffs, right? Role players. And I think one of the biggest advantages we can talk about Kawhi and Harden and Jokic and Murray all we want. The Clippers are undeniably a deeper team. The Clippers undeniably have more talent. Norman Powell hit one of the biggest shots of Game 2.
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Derrick Jones Jr., Zubach, the list goes on. Ben Simmons is out there playing well. They just have more optionality. He's out there playing. He took a shot. Ben Simmons made a basket. He's out there. I remember telling Chris Vernon, like, here's what's going to happen two weeks before the playoffs. I was on his podcast.
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It's like the Clippers are going to end the season as the hottest team in the Western Conference. And people like you and me are going to be looking at James Harden, Ben Simmons and Kawhi Leonard and trying to make sense of what to do with this team that undeniably can play at a very high level. And here we go. Now they're playing the Nuggets.
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So long story short, I expect those role players to be a little bit better. And I expect Denver's role players to be a little bit worse on the road. And I think that breaks for Denver. the Los Angeles Clippers to win these two games. If I had to predict what's going to happen, I feel like Jokic and Murray, that two-man game is going to be great.
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Yeah, I wish I had taken better care of some of the other stuff. The Grantland Quarterlies, I foolishly lost those. I mean, hand up. What an idiot. But yeah, dude, at least we got what we got, okay? And we're old, like you said. Take what we can get. And again, shout out to the Podfather for putting us together once again. This is great.
The Zach Lowe Show
Luka’s Emotional Night in Dallas: Scenes From Last Night’s Lakers-Mavs Game With Marc Stein. Plus, More NBA Awards With Kirk Goldsberry.
Yeah, I'm going to go in a sequence that's going to throw off our rookie of the year discussion. I don't want to give it away by saying some name first. So I'm going to go Saar, Wells, Eadie, Risa Shea, Castle. First team all rookie.
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Yeah, I like this kid. I think Saar is going to be a great player in this league for a long time. I think the Wizards should be happy with him. I'm not mad at the Kallelware take. That was the one I struggled with. You can make an argument that a player playing on a team like Washington should be sort of docked because there are stats to be had. What do we call it?
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Good player, bad team guy, for sure. I just think, you know, he... he is what we thought he was. This is a good rookie year for one of the top players in the draft, a weak draft. Um, and I think that he is set up for long-term success at his position. Um, and I don't know what else he could have really done in that environment this year, uh, to, to get noticed. Um, but Zach, I'm not mad.
The Zach Lowe Show
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In fact, yeah, I'll just leave it at that. I'm not mad, but I have sorry there. I have sorry there.
The Zach Lowe Show
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Yeah, and one other thing. He is a full year younger than Kalel Ware, and I wouldn't factor that into voting, but I would factor that into the analysis of the player. You know, the rookie awards are for rookies. It doesn't matter if you're 19 or 22 or whatever. So I'm not saying that.
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But at his age, these numbers are equally encouraging, and essentially he'll be the same age as Kalel next year in his sophomore year. And I think that's really relevant because I expect him to be –
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a much better shooter, like a lot of these young players you alluded to, and if they can get some better playmaking and some better offensive threats and gravity on that team, I could see a lot of his numbers going up. And the passing I had circled, too, I think classic sort of European big. Like, that's an area to grow, too. I like this player, and I like this pick. No disrespect to Colella Ware.
The Zach Lowe Show
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That's the exact place on this list that I struggled, too.
The Zach Lowe Show
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You gave Bub the volume award? Yeah. I gave Bub, again, he probably benefits. And one of the things that is weird with the rules, with the games, and some of this stuff, is the Wizards have space to showcase these rookies. And some of the teams, some of these guys are penalized for getting drafted on more competent teams. Teams with deeper rosters.
The Zach Lowe Show
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Ultimately, I landed with Bub Carrington on my second team, yeah. Wow. Okay. It's tough out there, dude. This draft, there's not a lot of differentiators. Last year, I was looking back, who do we have? Wemby, Brandon Miller, Chet. I mean, it's a different group, dude. Well, it's...
The Zach Lowe Show
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Wow, we're not. Dude, I don't know why you expected this to coalesce. This is chaos on this list. I was just really happy with my team. Now you have me questioning. Don't keep our new listeners waiting.
The Zach Lowe Show
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Yeah, I like his future better. I think he's been a little more explosive at times. I think he's more congruent with the way the league is. Some of his highlight plays have stuck out to me. But it's really hard to evaluate these players in these environments.
The Zach Lowe Show
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Again, I think one of the biggest problems in the NBA right now, we would agree, is this competitive thing at the end of seasons and in some cases throughout the season. And for me, it's really hard to evaluate players in an ecosystem where – teams may not be putting their best foot forward.
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It's really, I think, relevant to the Memphis players who deserve credit for playing meaningful minutes as rookies in really meaningful games. I think it's a case we'll talk about.
The Zach Lowe Show
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One of the scariest falls I've seen in pro basketball in my life. A terrifying moment. Prayers up to him and his family. But out of respect, those Grizzlies characters, they had to play meaningful minutes against Western Conference opponents, and they're trying to win basketball games. And I wish I didn't have to say this, but when we're talking about players from the Jazz or the Wizards,
The Zach Lowe Show
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It's simply not the same conversation. How do you evaluate players in this environment? And I think, like, Wells is a great example, defending, you know, really good players on the other team very well in meaningful moments, like Zach Eadie coming out there and getting big rebounds, making big plays in big moments. I think Risha Shea has a little bit of that.
The Zach Lowe Show
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claim too so ultimately I really struggle with the second team all rookie because it's stacked with candidates from these environments Zach let me let's go through my honorable mentions and I'm going to focus on the ones I feel guiltiest about
The Zach Lowe Show
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I looked at him for the second team. I mean, again, with the standard of did you play meaningful basketball in your rookie year? I don't think that's too high of a bar. But unfortunately for this conversation, it's a real sort of litmus test for some of these dudes.
The Zach Lowe Show
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And Dalton obviously had a bizarre incident in February that derailed whatever he thought was happening in his rookie season, where he sent to Charlotte temporarily and then returned.
The Zach Lowe Show
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I feel like he has one thing he does really well, and it's really important in the game of basketball. And I think his rim protection is... Noteworthy. And, again, he's not first team, but Portland had flashes of competence throughout the season, and he was a part of that. He can rebound the basketball. He's a presence. But ultimately, it's blocked shots and rim protection, Zach, with this dude.
The Zach Lowe Show
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And I think that's a really valuable skill in the NBA right now, and Portland should be excited they got it.
The Zach Lowe Show
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Others receiving votes. I know Bill Simmons is, if he's listening to this, he's screaming that, that neither of us had him on this. No, I have him.
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All right. Well, shout out. I think he's a great player. I think the bulls, I wish that we saw a little more of the, This version of the Bulls without Levine, because I think he had if he had a full season with with that environment, I think he would have easily made second team on my list, maybe even first team. But I think he's a great young player.
The Zach Lowe Show
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And I think, you know, probably the 11th guy on my list if I had to if I had to say that.
The Zach Lowe Show
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Well, you know that I worked for the San Antonio Spurs for a while. And this should come as no surprise that I believe Stephen Castle is the rookie of the year. And then Risha Shea is a close second. And then I would probably have Wells third. But I...
The Zach Lowe Show
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think this is an interesting race as you alluded to earlier this was another player's award to lose something that we're going to talk about again here in a minute this went to uh when was it december we saw an injury change this race um when mccain got hurt and had surgery and was ruled out that was a great story uh for the sixers and a great story for the rookie class but since then i think this has been a hard question to answer in a way that it's been
The Zach Lowe Show
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It's been up in the air. But I went with Castle. I think he's done the most different stuff. He's been really impressive to me in two different roles, sort of as a two-guard and as a point guard, as a starter, as a bench player. There is a fair knock on this young man, which is shooting, which is not unusual for a rookie player. Everything else, though, Zach, is pretty strong.
The Zach Lowe Show
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And if you go watch him in person, he is one of these dudes who is just so physical and so competitive. He just gives the Spurs another dude. He's a good defender. He's a great finisher. He had 14 assists in a game last month against Philly. Good pick and roll player. Can play ISO. He's the most complete player here.
The Zach Lowe Show
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Now, there's a case for Risa Shea, and you might make it, but I like the completeness and the versatility of Stephen Castle, and that's my case for him.
The Zach Lowe Show
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Yeah. And when you talk to the Spurs, they don't talk about stats with them. They talk about presence in the locker room, the intangibles, the competitiveness. And that's not a common thing in this league right now. And so I think the player is more than the stats. But that said. If I'm picking as a stat nerd between Risha Shea and Castle, I'm picking Castle.
The Zach Lowe Show
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We didn't even mention his rebounding. There's some Josh Hart-like rebounding numbers here. It's a good point. It's a good point.
The Zach Lowe Show
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Yeah, there's games where he has double-digit rebounds, and he is not one of the bigger guys on the floor. He is a physical force. And I think there was a Mike Munro piece in The Athletic that I'd call out. Cause I think it was Mitch Johnson. It's like, they have very little doubt that the, the man, the young man is everything he does. He works so hard that the shooting's going to come.
The Zach Lowe Show
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The shooting's going to come. It's like, it's such a hard piece of the NBA for the young players to get. But his work ethic is there. It's like a, it's kind of like a Lou door thing. Like if he can just get this man, he's going to have a very, very long, good, valuable career. And there's confidence at the Spurs that he's definitely got the work ethic to get that shooting piece fixed.
The Zach Lowe Show
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Agree, disagree, give me your top three, wherever you want to start. Again, the sixth man of the year playing 20 minutes a game, it's like, what are we doing? Like, that's going to eliminate a lot of potential candidates for years to come.
The Zach Lowe Show
Luka’s Emotional Night in Dallas: Scenes From Last Night’s Lakers-Mavs Game With Marc Stein. Plus, More NBA Awards With Kirk Goldsberry.
Quick tangent. Did you watch the Celtics-Knicks game last night?
The Zach Lowe Show
Luka’s Emotional Night in Dallas: Scenes From Last Night’s Lakers-Mavs Game With Marc Stein. Plus, More NBA Awards With Kirk Goldsberry.
Interesting, I know, collapse. They were doing a Duke Blue Devils imitation there, I think. But look, if you look at Jalen Brown's game logs over the last week, speaking of the player participation rules and these thresholds, Jalen is suddenly playing 21 minutes a game.
The Zach Lowe Show
Luka’s Emotional Night in Dallas: Scenes From Last Night’s Lakers-Mavs Game With Marc Stein. Plus, More NBA Awards With Kirk Goldsberry.
yeah and he didn't look good out there and like they have a real title defense here and and if that knee is flaring up like maybe it's time to to make sure the knee's ready for for the postseason i'll let them run their team but i just saw that and i thought that you would think that it's interesting is there's there's clearly some gaming of this system um that affects these awards whether it's all nba six man of the year um
The Zach Lowe Show
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And in some cases, it's having really positive effects. In other cases, like this Jalen Brown thing, I think he should probably be shut down. They're the two seed. These games don't really matter.
The Zach Lowe Show
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I have... A DeAndre Hunter two team thing. I think he has to be on there at number three.
The Zach Lowe Show
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Yeah, I learned this from social media. Keep the audience on the platform a little bit longer. Number two is very hard, but I'm going to go with Peyton Pritchard because Malik Beasley deserves to be sixth man of the year in a league that insists on three-point shooting being so valuable.
The Zach Lowe Show
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This is simply one of the best three-point shooting seasons we've ever seen from a player not named Stephen Curry. and if you think I'm exaggerating, I have some facts to back it up. He's having one of the best catch-and-shoot seasons we had in the player tracking era. He's made over 300 threes and is converting over 40%. It's a season that compares favorably to almost any Clay Thompson season.
The Zach Lowe Show
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I think there's one Thompson season I'd put above this season. So the Pistons have a Klay Thompson-like shooter coming off the bench. He leads the entire league in both catch-and-shoot threes attempted and made, and among the top 50 in that category, ranks sixth in efficiency. All told, he's made 305 total threes. Only two players in NBA history, Zach, have made more than 305 threes in a season.
The Zach Lowe Show
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Stephen Curry and James Harden. Klay has never made 305. So when I look at that and I look at what's happened in Detroit and I did this other exercise because Peyton Pritchard, I went back and forth. If I took Pritchard off of the Celtics and I took Beasley off of the Pistons, I think the effect of the Beasley removal would be catastrophic for the Pistons.
The Zach Lowe Show
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And I think the removing of Peyton Pritchard is not necessarily catastrophic for the Boston Celtics.
The Zach Lowe Show
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Thank you.
The Zach Lowe Show
Luka’s Emotional Night in Dallas: Scenes From Last Night’s Lakers-Mavs Game With Marc Stein. Plus, More NBA Awards With Kirk Goldsberry.
Thank you.
The Zach Lowe Show
Luka’s Emotional Night in Dallas: Scenes From Last Night’s Lakers-Mavs Game With Marc Stein. Plus, More NBA Awards With Kirk Goldsberry.
Thank you.
The Zach Lowe Show
Luka’s Emotional Night in Dallas: Scenes From Last Night’s Lakers-Mavs Game With Marc Stein. Plus, More NBA Awards With Kirk Goldsberry.
Thank you.
The Zach Lowe Show
Luka’s Emotional Night in Dallas: Scenes From Last Night’s Lakers-Mavs Game With Marc Stein. Plus, More NBA Awards With Kirk Goldsberry.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Zach Lowe Show
Luka’s Emotional Night in Dallas: Scenes From Last Night’s Lakers-Mavs Game With Marc Stein. Plus, More NBA Awards With Kirk Goldsberry.
Draymond. Now, I talked to our friends at FanDuel because this has been one of a – it's just been a crazy saga. I'm not a big gambler, but I like to look at odds throughout the season as a way to sort of track the sentiment of these awards. And Victor Wambanyama on February 20th was a runaway favorite to win this award. At that time, Draymond Green was 86-1 to win defensive player.
The Zach Lowe Show
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That's not that long ago. That's seven weeks ago. Uh, he began to publicly campaign two weeks later. He's 28 to one Zach three weeks later. He's five to one a month later. He's the favorite. So what happened, dude? It coincides with the Butler trade. Obviously the Wembley injury is the biggest event that we can look back at and how this race changed.
The Zach Lowe Show
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But two other things I think happened that are really relevant. Um, the Warriors go on a terror. They go on a highly visible terror. He's running his mouth. Their defense looks like, again, like a top-five defense, and he is clearly the biggest reason for that. He is clearly the biggest reason for that, and that's a point I'll come back to. Lou Dort's come up.
The Zach Lowe Show
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Jaron Jackson has fallen off quite a bit because of the Taylor Jenkins stuff and that team sliding, and so it does come down to Green and Mobley. My question for you, my guy... is Evan Mobley even the best defensive player on his own team?
The Zach Lowe Show
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There's a great tweet by Jay Croucher out there that my friend sent me, and it goes through like six of the nerdiest models for defense, like one number metrics. These things are flawed, but all six of them have Draymond in the top 10. These are things like Estimated Plus Minus, Raptor, the LeBron.
The Zach Lowe Show
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um evan mobley is not in the top 10 in any of those and then if you drill down even further on you know play types rim protection stats draymond really outperforms mobley across the board with the exception of rebounding i think which is naturally hard to do when you're a very undersized player so
The Zach Lowe Show
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I think you then layer on sort of the defensive leadership piece that he provides the Golden State Warriors. Again, if he left the team, if he's hurt, this defense falls apart. It falls apart. So I landed on Draymond. The name that I haven't heard enough of in the Lou Dort class is
The Zach Lowe Show
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Right, right, right, right. You don't have to go far back this week to find examples of him, you know, making Steph Curry look terrible, which is not easy to do.
The Zach Lowe Show
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And I think when you look at some of these advanced metrics, Amin Thompson is the name that deserves to be included in this discussion with Lou Dort as that kind of guy, the very physical, muscular perimeter defender, the athlete defender. Yeah.
The Zach Lowe Show
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I think I agree with the people who say this award almost all the time should go to a front court player just because that's where the influence of defenders really is. I also want to say that I love Evan Mobley. I could see him winning this award multiple times in his career. I think he's a very deserving candidate.
The Zach Lowe Show
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No, that's true. Still, there's fatigue, dude. We talked about this. There is fatigue. There's a list of superstars that should have eight of the same trophy that have three or four. Fair. But, yeah, you're right. Hey, as a Spurs guy, I think Wembley should have this award locked up for a while. But nothing against Mobley.
The Zach Lowe Show
Luka’s Emotional Night in Dallas: Scenes From Last Night’s Lakers-Mavs Game With Marc Stein. Plus, More NBA Awards With Kirk Goldsberry.
I just think what Draymond brings to the table, both through the nerdy stats and as a leader of that group, and enables them to play lineups in a play style because of his versatility on defense. So that's where I landed.
The Zach Lowe Show
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Great to have you back.