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“It might have been the best one we've ever done.”
It's at least in the running. It was 2001 a space Odyssey, me Sean Fantasy and the one and only Steven Spielberg, just an incredible episode. We thought we were going to have them for like 75 minutes. He stayed for two hours and just put on a film school clinic for us.
What a rush. What a great time. Claims he's coming back to do draws next year. We'll see. But we love to have him.
I'm really proud of that episode. So go check it out when you have a chance. We're going to have another rewatchables episode this week. We have a mail bag coming on Thursday. So stay tuned for that one.
I am going to be doing a podcast right after game one tomorrow night. That's going to be live on Netflix, so get ready for that as well. The mixer in the finals had that Max Coleman to just talk about football trades, the next, Wemby, Wushido, KCD, greatest nicks of all time. We tried to cover as many things as we possibly could and you can check out Max as well
on the game over podcast with Max, Carmen and Rich Paul. So that's coming up next. We're going to take a break. We're going to bring our friends from a Pearl Jam and then two hours with Max Coleman.
Next.
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Hold your money with this story. Max Calarman is here. We are recording on a Tuesday morning Pacific time. A day before the New York next Saturday and the NBA finals.
A day you never probably thought you'd see again in your lifetime.
Had you given it to the finals possible. Winning the finals something else. Impossible. We're going to talk about that. I have a whole bunch of next step for you.
But I want to talk about football first. Just because I didn't get a chance. The NBA every time they think they have the stage. They've been coming in. Backwishing.
Okay. See. We have a Nick Spurs. Wet dream finals. The face of the league.
Everyone loves him. Yeah. Oh my god. Worldwide sensation. And the atmosphere versus the biggest market.
And like center of the known universe that is basketball starved. And that is, by the way, a basketball town above all things. Yeah. Perfect for the NBA. And they can get bumped off the back page.
Hardest ticket in probably the history in New York sports. And the NFL is like. Two monster trades for you today. How about this? We're going to take it for one day for me a buck 35 per seat for seats that sold.
A $270,000 for two courses. Think about that.
My dad was always in this.
But like my dad and the O8 finals. You know, he said season tickets in 74 for the sales. But it was bad for, I don't know, 15 years. They had one like these in team. And then the O8 finals.
They played the Lakers and it's like. It's a lot of money. I could get for these tickets. I could basically pay for the last seven years. But it's like, well, what's the point of having the tickets?
And if I'm not going to go to these games.
“But you have to do the mental math for it.”
You got to go to at least one. I feel like you got to go to. But I would understand if people sold. Yeah, we never had season tickets growing up. It was always like.
Yeah, I got box seats. And like, what are we doing up here? Well, when I was a kid, box seats man sat down there. So like I was a bleacher creature. Yeah.
Football. Miles Garrett. Yeah. For Jared verse, a one, a two and a three and three different years. In a lot of ways of a much bigger trade than Parsons.
Because Jared verses awesome.
Yeah. I was kind of stunned by this one. The Rams. There's ag in every year.
They're always trying to.
Everyone's doing this. We're doing this. We don't care about first round picks. Whatever.
“We'll just try to pick up guys later in the draft.”
We'll go in over and over again on these guys in their prime. And it's mostly work. They got, they want to Super Bowl. They're always relevant. They always feel like they're one of the five or six best teams.
I wanted to hate this trade for them. Because it was like man. First is really good. Like is that set upgrade worth all you're giving up. But then I kept thinking back to all the Browns games I watched the last couple years.
Especially last year. He's just Garrett's getting double teamed. And the line is just going back. Or next. Everyone better.
Yeah. But versus, when I first heard about the trade, I just assumed those draft picks. Yeah. And like, oh, they gave up this. This this.
Oh, wait. And verse. Got to do it if you're the Rams. Yeah. First of all, Miles Garrett's wearing the crown.
Right. So like there's a linear chip in football to on the defensive side. It went from JJ Wat to Aaron Donald to Miles Garrett. This is the Miles Garrett defensive era right now. And he's in his prime.
You like that. That's a fun championship, both, by the way. Would you wait for a few years? L.T. Yeah.
Reggie White. Bruce Smith popped in there. Yeah. Maybe between those two. Yeah.
There's like, it is. And every era has that guy. Yeah.
Occasionally, it's like, well, Khalil Mack never had it.
This guy never had it. But actually it was really always Aaron Donalds. And maybe you can find a few years. But by and large, JJ Wat. Yeah.
Aaron Donald. Miles Garrett. And I'm sure that that's not the first thing they had in mind. Hey, let's let's make verse into an even better player, right? Yeah.
But if the opportunity presents itself to get his special player. You go all in. You figure out the rest later.
“If you must say with how close they were last year.”
He worked. That was a super bowl. Like, you know, no offense. Pat fans. But like, it was very clear sometimes.
I think no offense. I'm not even sure we should have been in the super bowl. Out of the out of the out of the A.S. I was talking to my buddy. Guy's Ramsay yesterday.
Who's a huge Broncos fan. And I was just like, I can't believe you guys didn't beat us. Like that bone next thing was such a crazy. Yeah. End of the game, fluke.
And I just think it never gets to 20 points if they have bone next in that game.
Yeah. That's not a 10/7 game. No, but that's a pretty evenly. It's pretty even match it. It's like the it's like the junior varsity Ram Seahawks.
Right. Pretty even match up. Who go either way. We couldn't block though. Like the further I get away from the playoffs.
I'm like, I can't believe we thought we were going to win the Super Bowl. Yeah, you went on it. Both sides of our line couldn't block. And then Seattle was like, Oh, we'll camp out. We're going to attack this side too.
And they just destroyed us. And Drake may look like a deer and headlights in the Super Bowl.
“But they're going to be an anti brown trip.”
Okay. Well, first things first. So, so this is what I love about what the Rams did. Yeah. Is your faith misplaced?
Yes or no. Or if you put it in the right place. Hey, I know what we'll do. We'll trade for James Harden. That'll win us a championship.
And we'll give him everything he needs. Right? Misplaced faith. Especially when it comes out, they could have had Drew Holiday instead. Oh.
That is brutal. How did James Harden over Drew Holiday? That's insane. I couldn't believe that. So the Rams treat, let's back up before Stafford.
Yeah. They used a lot of draft capital to get Jarrogoth. Yeah. Jarrogoth not just like we had the number one pick. Jarrogoth represents multiple high level draft picks in order to move up to get
Gough. And it worked. You made a Super Bowl. Yeah. But you didn't win a Super Bowl.
So then you put even more draft capital. Multiple high end picks to turn Gough into Stafford. Thinking that is the difference between making and winning a Super Bowl. And it worked. And they were right.
And it almost worked twice. Right. So like, is the faith placed in the right place? With Matthew Stavante. Was that second?
Yeah. Yeah. Wasn't a fair. Yeah. No.
I'd have to check that out. I think it was on. No. They signed the Vante. They signed the Vante.
But like that is when you think about what that took to get Stafford, the draft capital, people would say you're insane. They want a Super Bowl. They came this close to winning another Super Bowl. So you have a two year window right now. And who knows it will be good two years.
So that's a really, they draft well in the later rounds, which I wonder. Like, when you know you don't have picks, you're basically crossing off the first 30 guys on the board. Right. And you're spending way more time on the next level guys. If you're good at it.
Like, like, Putin and Kua. If you're good at that, you can trade draft picks. Yeah. Right. They've been good.
And then even the McCarthy thing is like, they'll be better there. They'll be better there than they were. Like, the real, the real separation.
Okay.
Special teams, Seahawks had a big advantage going into the Super Bowl. The secondary, Seahawks had an advantage. Well, the secondary is kind of short up now. And then you add Miles Garrett. Like, even if it doesn't work, it's worth the, like, take a swing.
That is a swing worth it. Well, that's like, we're all enough to remember when this moves like this over the years. When you put a guy that couldn't get over the hump. And also wasn't getting enough attention for how great he was. And then you put him on the right team in a big city with a chance to win.
You always get the bump. You get the bump. It was Stafford. It was so unclear.
It was like he's always considered top five arm talent.
Right. But then after he got to the point in his career where it really wasn't clear. You know, usually a great quarterback, even in a bad organization, keeps you at a certain level. Yeah. If you did for a while, but not always.
“And it was like, well, is Stafford a little overrated by the real football heads?”
Or is this just a bad situation for him? Stafford is. That's right. Now, yeah, it was the same thing where the nerds were saying he was better than he was. But the eye test was like, all right, well, where is it?
And then he finally made the playoffs. But Stafford, I could never figure out because he was on the lines. The worst football team of, you know, run franchise. But he did have receivers. So it was always like, what is this guy?
Yeah. Oh, it seemed like he was getting the shit kicked out of him. But he put up numbers. He did. Yeah.
But there was a point I remember when it was like, he's going to be a Hall of Famer someday.
And the counter is like, really? Is that the Stafford? I mean, now it's a fire hole. Now is the shirt. And even to win that Super Bowl, you think about, I think we've discussed this here.
But when Brady is defending the title in Tampa, yeah. And he leads the team down and scores at the end of the game. The reason Brady wins all those championships. The reason like, like, guys, like, Kobe and these guys won a lot of games. Like, you think about, like, the Sacramento game with the makers is because everyone on the court believes
that that guy is destined to win, right? I don't know what kind of what the next of with Jalen Brunson stumbled into with Brunson. So they just feel like we can hang around. He died. But it does the other team believe it, too.
Yeah. Brady's on the field. Everyone, both teams believe it. Yeah. And like, okay, here comes the, like, they win now.
And Stafford drove him right back down the field and won the game. And then went on to win the Subaru. He's a special guy. Like to overcome that kind of stuff. That's, so it's like, like, Kurt Schilling, whatever you think about Kurt Schilling
should be in the Hall of Fame, obviously. And when, when, when, when guys like a. Brocious and Tino hit home runs at the end of games. That signals this thing, you're, you're, especially 2001, 9/11. And it, like, in New York and Yankees are destined to win.
“But a guy like Kurt Schilling's, like, not so fast, right?”
I don't know what was it destiny, whatever. And destiny or what, what do you have? It was, like, were strippers or whatever. Mystique and destiny or, or I forgot what two words it was. But everyone was using that New York that the Yankees are going to win.
Yeah. And, and, and the, the, the, the, the, the, the retort was those are, you know, that's all they kind of still can't believe they didn't win that year. Because part of it was because Rivera got dinged up in the night, which was inconceivable in the, in the moment.
Actually. I know it's like a couple of singles. Even worse than that. Rivera, who's one of the best fielding players at his position of all time. Yeah.
Turned around. Game was over double play ball. Turned around and threw into center field. Right. Like stuff like that happens.
And then you bring the infield then you get a little, a pop out. But the, but the point is when you have a guy like that on your team. It, it, like, the, all that kind of team of destiny stuff on the other side goes away. Staffers, that kind of guy.
Yeah. I don't think the most people know what he looks like. I thought the Rams are going to win the game late in the game. Even though C Hawks, you knew we're a little bit better than them. But it's like they got Stafford.
The Miles Garrett piece. Um, I don't think most people know what he looks like. Now, you could say this for most football players. But like if, I don't know, Carl Anthony Towns walked in on a restaurant. Most people know what he looks like because we see him on a basketball court.
And football players for the most part, we don't know what they look like.
“I think people know what the quarterbacks look like.”
You don't think they know what Garrett looks like. I think so. I don't know. Like, would my son know what he looks like? I'm just thinking, like, the recognizeability.
That's how it all found the field. We don't think this way. So I think there's just a level of fame that he doesn't have. That this Rams thing is going to immediately solve. He was this underground.
He's playing at Sunday, one o'clock, E.T. Getting the shit kicked out of his team's getting the shit kicked out of them.
Every game, basically, he's on one third of the night football game in here.
Probably against the Steelers and maybe a crappy Monday night game. And then everyone has telling us how great he is. But, you know, sometimes this happens. I remember this happened to Moss in the mid 2000s when he just became a relevant
For like three years when when you're just on shitty teams year after year.
Moss went from is he going to challenge Jerry Rice as the greatest wide-out ever to. Which seems like it's unbeatable. Yeah, at the time, and then it was like, well, I guess that didn't happen. And then it was like, oh, wait, maybe it did happen when he went to New England. It was, we got him for a fourth round pick.
“But that's how bad he was on the Raiders.”
That I have him, we might have talked about this. I have him second.
Yeah, who would be second over Moss?
I feel like Rice won Moss too. Yeah. Well, I don't know. Yeah. Well, I don't know what to do.
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These guys, who's better? That was a real thing. That was happening for about a week.
“And then Jordan was just like, I've had enough of this.”
He took it personal. Yeah. So the reason I'm picking. I'll do respect to the next. And they do check a lot of my nobody believes in us.
The Robinson thing worries me. I do think they have a really good team. To play the next. Like if you were creating a team to kind of stop runs. Especially in the fourth quarter.
You want these defensive guards and swings that could switch. Combine with this big tall guy in the back to challenge all like the 12 to 15 footer stuff. I just think it's a bad matchup. So the way the way for the next to beat him obviously is hope when be wears down.
Hope the first three point shooting is in there.
Hope the crowd is going to come through in your home games. And then just get an awesome OG bridges combo. If Josh. If Josh Hark is hitting from outside. Right.
But you know that's going to happen. One of the games. Josh. Which is how many times going to happen. And then can you get the offensive rebounds?
I see the path for it. I just think this is like a generational thing now. And I'm not going against it. And I felt the whole year. I was like are the spurs.
Really since December. They've the 90 bulls. They're the 91 bulls.
“And I think they're telling us they're the 91 bulls.”
Well, first of all, the 90 bulls were the best team in basketball. Pippin got a migraine in game seven. Yeah. Right. Like, you know, otherwise they probably.
Like, everyone was like, oh, Jordan had to win. No, he didn't. He needed one other all star with him. He didn't. And then the game seven.
He didn't have him. You can't beat the champs by yourself. But they weren't. They weren't dominant in the playoffs. No, the way they were.
No, the way they were. It took the next chair. They fucking destroyed. That was also baby Pippin.
Like, Pippin made his first all star game.
But he wasn't what he would be the next year. He became into his prime, right? 100%, I would say that I agree with you. 100% about your analysis of why the spurs would win. What got me thinking the spurs, like I was.
I said all season, but from from like the middle of the season, I said the spurs are the best team in basketball. They're going to win the championship. But by the time the nicks were finished playing in the third time, I thought if the nicks come out of the east,
they would have like a 40% shot of getting the spurs.
“I think 40% is the right number for what you identified,”
which is, and it occurred to me in game seven actually. Really, the number one name is Castle. Castle and Harper puppies. And they're even like out in front of themselves. Like a puppy gets out in front of themselves.
Yeah, but like their pure bread puppy. Like these guys are already dogs, right? They're already a problem. They don't even know what they're doing yet. They're overly exuberant on defense.
They can wind up in foul trouble because of how they're bumping around out there. But because of Castle's size and his tenacity, it's like you kind of don't want that overgrown,
you know, eager puppy at his size
on these smaller nicks players. You know, like, but they could ask a bunch of champagne on them. And they're getting themselves tar. They're also like big strong guys.
Like Brunson, yes, he's strong, but he's short. Michael Bridges is not built like those other guys. It's like there's a lot of kind of size and strength. And like you full exuberance on the on the perimeter defender types on the spurs that I think are a bad matchup for the next. We talked about unsattered in a mention on the podcast that it was Zach.
We were like, what is Castle?
I don't even know what he who is who's the Castle doppelganger.
“So a couple of cent emails, he's where the candidates.”
This is what got sent to me. Guard, Kauai. Yeah, Kauai. More defensive, Duane Wade. More explosive, Drew Holliday.
That's a good one. Springier our test. Ooh, that's, I hadn't even thought of our test. That's a good one. Yeah, early our test.
But our test could shoot for his time. Better than Castle can shoot for like, I don't know what the league averages are off top my head. But our test was a better shooter in his day than Castle isn't his. Jigar Jimmy Butler.
Another good one. Uh, let's try Spraywell. Didn't really see that one, but it made me think. Uh, well, Spray was a good defender. He was energetic.
Yeah, but he was, and I guess I see that because he was also athletic. Leaper guy who didn't shoot it especially well. But I just get to feel like Castle's going to be a shooter. A good enough shooter when it's all said and done. Better offense Marcus smart.
And Heinz Ward. Those were all the comparisons I got from all these various basketball players. Just like Heinz, how Heinz Ward was just like, he's a football player athlete. I'm physical. He's not just a receiver.
He's a football player. I can do in traffic.
I love, um, who did you say who was second a last?
Uh, Marcus smart. That's interesting. If smart were bigger and I think he's a better offense, a better offense, a better athlete, the Marcus smart was. But I like, I do too.
The way he, the way younger Marcus smart, how boss of the wall. He was all the time, which I think Castle has. I also want to think that love about Castle and this first team in general is. They don't seem to wear mistakes or like bad shooting or get psyched out. We're value possessions.
They were just kind of go. Yeah, true. Short memories. Yeah, when you're talking about like puppies, pure bread puppies. Like they're just kind of running around and they don't.
They don't really carry their past with them.
“And it, it's like, that's why you say to the 90 or 91 bulls.”
And my, like, the way I interpret that is. Is that short memory. And kind of like, is that going to go too much on the side of not valuing the possessions in crunch time. Because they just go. Yeah.
Or is that actually good for them? Because they don't worry about it. And if they don't score on that possession or they turn the ball live, turn over and it leads to two or three points. They're fine. It's gone and they're going to do it again. And because they're so aggressive, sometimes it's going to work.
The other reason I think I'm taking this spurs and I don't feel great about it. But the competition in the East, it has to be said. Like, they be, they fall too one in Atlanta. They change their offense. I love the way they play it.
They, to me, they looked like the 2014 spurs crossed. I agree. Whatever. But that Atlanta team, when you look back, it's pretty brutal. They had like five guys.
Like that were playable. They had one center. It couldn't really rebound. McCallum died as the series went along. They had no kind of guy who could want to run by a point though.
Yeah. And they could have probably should have gotten swept. They play Philly the next round and beads already. And bead put one week of the season he was done. Right.
Now you do shut down Maxie and you're good. And then that Cleveland team. There's just a mess. Well, the, yes. But they, the next one that came one loss was just,
one of the most degregious blown. You know, it was a sweep after that after that. After that, it's, it's, when you lose like that. It's switching combined with like them not running back and they just rolled over. So you go from that.
And meanwhile, here are the spurs who are just going through this gauntlet. Even Portland was like, you know, they probably would have been like a five or six seed in the, They were tough in the season. And they showed up.
Yeah. And I don't know that. Okay. See team may be. I just, I, I take that series.
So I thought, okay.
See was an incredible team.
No jail there. Really, really. Yeah. I want to miss one of the best guys. Missing their second best player.
Yeah. That's a lot. A lot to miss your second best player. Like if, if this, well, the spurs don't, if the spurs didn't have the Aaron Fox data lost.
Right. Like the live ball turnovers were. But that's the thing. So the spurs didn't have Fox for a couple games. And then he didn't seem right.
Really into game seven. And then the Harper thing Harper in the middle of the series is just a useless. And then kind of came back as it went along. But.
But.
“And I just think I think the spurs of 91.”
So I'm, I'm going spurs in five. The thing about the next is, I think it's going to be a long series. I do think that. But the thing about the next is
they're not beating these teams by 10 or 12 points. I get it. You're feeding everybody into a woodchipper. Right. They are destroying teams.
They have two losses. And then by a point. And they're beating the breaks off of everyone.
The, and the team that they are not compared to enough
is the 2016. They did lose in the finals. Warriors. They have a death line up. Yeah, except it's a better shoot.
They don't have the two greatest shooters of all time. In the death line up, right? When Josh Hart is hitting his shots. That's why I say,
“if you want to look at a few key things,”
if Josh Hart is hot, more often than he's cold in this series, the nicks are virtually impossible to beat because because everyone, like all five guys are killing you at that point. Right.
How do you guard that? Especially with the offense running through towns, who's like not only the best shooting big ever maybe, but he's also like kind of yokech in a way that I didn't understand. Right?
I'm not saying he's as good as yokech. I'm saying he's doing some of that stuff. There. It was impressive. So, like I think that's really what it comes down to.
If Josh Hart is hot in this series, this is going seven games and the nicks might win. You're probably right. I'm going to, I'm going to amend to nicks and six to the spurs and six. I'm sorry spurs and six.
I'm going to amend to spurs and six because you're right. I forgot to factor in the one Josh Hart game. That's it. And it can be two or three. Five for seven from three or something steeper.
Right. So correct score spurs and six is five to one. That also sets up for the devastating. Everyone at MSG trying to send the series to seven game and just the all time. Got punch of.
By the way, this is and I. So what did you have nicks and six or seven? If the next one, it'll be a seven game series, I think. But but by the way, you said about when you said about what you said about Wemby. Is the thing about him because he's so big.
So everything's magnified. You can see all the detail is it's very apparent when he's fatigued. Right. He looks uncoordinated all the sudden. He's like the most coordinated big guy you've ever seen in your life.
For so you never seen a guy that tall, right.
But yeah, he's so coordinated at that size. And when he is fatigued, you can see, oh, where's where the coordination go? You know, he even on lobs and stuff. He can do a little like almost like a little kid where little kids start falling down. Right.
You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Because but the guy's physiology is just like this is unexplored territory. And he is doing everything in his power to make to to give himself the best possible shot. But that schedule where there essentially no travel days was brutal in the Western
Conference finals for him. And more rest. It's also why good for Wemby. It's also why guys like LeBron as they hit their late 30s. It just becomes impossible to put together four straight rounds to win a title.
Definitely on the defense event. You have to have younger players. And that's been the thing over and over again that we've seen this decade is the combination of how the regular season got much harder. It became harder just for guys to carry big minutes.
But then you get into that every other day in the third round.
“You have to have the younger dudes for that.”
So you have next and seven that would be eight to one. What's talk about? I have not yet made my pick. I do think like I'm going to make it on Game Over with Bridge Paul. I think I will make it on Game Over with.
Do it. Make it on Game Over with Bridge Paul. I would say that it's the if I had to hand you cap it. I think it's a 60 40 type series favoring the spurs. But 40's a pretty damn good shot for the next.
And I have to think if I like their chances. I so I bet on the spurs for I had the spurs before the series. And before after Game Five. I did a head general case see for Game Six. Because I thought the Harper Fox thing.
I just didn't think those guys were there. And of course San Antonio want. Then I doubled down and bet on San Antonio Game Seven. Smart. Just because of the Wimbby piece.
And I think ultimately like.
I was thinking about I was like. I just think Wimbby's the best part in the league now. And I don't want to go against him in a game seven. And I've been saying this since like the all star break. Yeah, but you still you have to do it in the playoffs at a different level.
You got to see like the. I've been flow the games the fatigue the. How do you handle foul trouble. How do you handle when the handle and the refs aren't giving you calls. But you know what he has.
But now I think he's now I think he's there. He's tasted it. That okay. Same thing with such a good seasoning for this finals. It look.
It's a hunch until you see him do it. Right. My hunch was he's best player in the league. But you're right.
“You have to seem to do it in this circumstance.”
But the thing about Wimbby that I love that like I think I thought middle to season. He's better than Yoke. Right. Better next GA. I don't think SGA is in the conversation with Yoke.
It's going to be. But he's better than Yoke is. There's a floor to Wimbby's game because of the defense. Right. He can't really have a bad game ever.
He's such a defensive presence. So when his offense is clicking. It's like well. He he might he's a very good chance if he stays healthy. It's right.
If he hits a couple of threes and a couple turn around to get some fouls. That's all it takes. Yeah. But there's a good chance he winds up the greatest player of all time.
But health is going to be a big thing just because we've never seen a guy this size before.
Right.
So and the other thing about Yoke.
It's your down to possessions in the playoffs. Your seasons on the line. There's like two minutes left. Okay. Overcoming.
Right. And Jamal Murray was taken out of the series. Who's normally a very clutch player. Because you have a six foot eight. Wing defensive specialist.
Yeah. Who's doing the unbelievable job on him. So now you have go bare who's also great defensive player on Yokeich. And it's like. Okay.
Yokeich. Do it though. It's two possessions. Can you make up two possessions in two minutes. We've seen this from super great players throughout history.
And rich and I play a game nowadays on the show. Where it's like. Do you.
“Does this player need to win or does he love the game?”
So for example. Or love to play. For example.
The player that best epitomizes.
Needing to win and loving to play on the highest level possible is magic Johnson. That dude like Larry Bird needed to win more than he loved to play. Same thing with Michael Jordan, right? There are other guys who love to play more than they need to win. For example, Kevin Durant, right?
Clearly loves to play. Does he need to win? It doesn't seem that way, right? Or he would really. People who put him above bird and they should not.
It's because of that. No, he doesn't need to win like that. This is the LeBron issue for years. Yes. He loved to play more than he need it.
I think LeBron does need to win but not as much as LeBron. Then he flipped it. Yeah. Yokeach. I don't know if he's a basketball genius.
I don't know if he loves to play or he needs to win. I don't know if he has either. I know when he has both. Yokeach ripped through everybody in 23 because he's got to get credit for that. He's among the greatest players.
I'm giving him loves to play. I think you guys are wrong. Does he? Yeah, I think he does. He seems so pissed off at the press.
I don't think that's his right. He's from fucking Serbia. He is there's listen. His basketball brain could be like studied. It's ridiculous.
He's he's LeBron James Larry Burrow Johnson. I'd move him more toward a problem that was a problem for Shack. Is it fun to be you when you play?
Shack was, you know, I never, I shack was immensely frustrating for me because I never felt
like he was in shape the way he should have been. I never understood the free throws. It always felt like there was more there, but he's still in no pain. One of the best 15 ever. You do the Rick Barry.
Come on. We do the grandfathers. Just figured out. But I also think it would have been incredibly unfun to be shack for eight months of your point basketball.
When everybody's like, we can't stop you. So we're allowed to do it. We're just going to-- Yeah, this isn't fair. Do what you need to do.
Bang them in the back. Pull the shoulders down. And I honestly think with Yoke, it's becoming a little similar. Where the way he's defended, I'd-- Wendy, we're starting to see it.
Like, some of the stuff, okay, she was doing against him. I just don't think is legal. I don't--
“You should be able to go on the previous series.”
You should be able to run to your spot without somebody like pushing back like they have a blocking sled. It's because he's seven, seven. They let it go. I've had a big problem with the officiating all serious.
I feel like they've officiated it straight up and down at San Antonio and gave the thunder the whistles in OKC. Like-- Great. And like, it is so--
It's already-- there's already a rule on the books about-- It's a non-on-sportsman like tech. If you flop. Come on, Reff. Everyone can see it on TV in real time with--
That's actually-- It's nine days three. No, he percent accuracy, you know, every time. But like, and then go review it afterwards. And where did someone-- maybe you said this.
Someone said, maybe Zack said it. I had a flopping points. That's what I wanted to do. That you would-- Oh, yeah, you did.
But I really think just-- It's a tech. It should-- two of them. And you should be suspended again. Or like--
And it was hard. Yeah, like yellow card and soccer. Yes. I didn't like we did their yellow card. Yeah.
One more of those. And you're out, right?
“And then it would just stop and the product would get better.”
And also you're right. Well, any kind of guy who's seen as having an unstoppable physical advantage, like shack or like-- I'm sure this happened to Wilton, but I didn't see it. It wasn't happen.
Who started? That's when he developed that awful turnaround he had. Who'd have this little spin. Because he didn't want to get fouled. And he was tired again, hit.
By the way, with Karim, there were just like-- No, you can't dunk. I like it. Right. Yeah.
So you guys-- Well, Karim would be interesting now because if you're allowed to do this stuff in the 70s and 80s that we can do now with shoving a guy before he can get to his spot. Michael would have been in trouble. He came with a bit in trouble.
It's just-- it's this new thing that I don't really know why they have allowed it the way they've allowed it. I hate it. And it seems so like-- so to legislate out tanking is difficult. And I don't know-- they're trying to address it.
I don't know if they did successfully. We'll see empirically where it works or not or it helps. But this is like-- there's a problem.
The fans don't like what's happening.
There is a-- there are like a million easy solutions.
And they just refuse to do them, Brad. All right. The real reason you're here is coming up after this break. And now it's time for embracing the era brought to you by new era. The official cap of the NBA.
Take a trip back through some of the most iconic court defining moments with the new era NBA Hardwood classics collection. We're in talk about the 2000s today. Some amazing players. I'm forgettable teams and logos aging quite nicely.
A couple of decades later. I really love those Steve Nash Sunsteams, especially as the years pass when the league was getting very physical. Not as much fun to watch game to game in it. The Suns were playing a lot like some of the style that we have now.
Fast break and free wheel and unselfish.
“So when I think about 2000s, I think about them.”
I think about the 2008 Celtics win. The title obviously. The piston shocking the lacres. And then those three straight lacres ones in a row. Three titles.
That I still have trouble swallowing because I don't like the lacres. But the best team of that whole decade was the 2001 lacres. Which almost swept the playoffs that came within an Allen Iverson. Over time loss of actually sweeping the finals. So anyway, that was quite an era.
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All right, Max, it's education time. Okay. We need to have a nice big picture of settled down juice for everybody. [ Laughter ] Had it a fridge, it just happened.
It just happened. This is the moment we became old. It just happened. But we used to do this when we were younger. We were kids where you just think what you're saying recently has to be the greatest thing that ever happened.
A picture of settled down juice. A big picture of settled down juice. A big picture of settled down juice. This was an expression. [ Laughter ]
You don't pipe down your head. We're going to have a big picture. Big helping glass with ice cubes. Jalen Branson. Jalen Branson.
There's two separate things happening right now. There's two pass for him. One is New York immortality.
“And then the other is where do you rank in the greatest nicks?”
He's not the greatest nick yet, just because they made the final. Of course. I don't think people out there that are like, he's the greatest nick. They made the finals. It has to.
So I want to go through some of the history of the actual greatest nicks. But let's move into the New York side. Who is -- Can we establish a criteria for greatness before we do this? Yeah, I'm ready to do whatever you want.
So let's -- I want to just establish a criteria for greatness. Would you want to do the New York side first or the nicks side first? Anyway, you want. But like, let's establish, like, what --
I think part of the problem is when kids --
It's not just resencibious or, you know, you give a guy a book and he reads the book. It's only book. He ever read. It's everything he knows, right? Like, you know, it's something.
There's a conflation between better and greater, right? And kids correctly intuitively understand. And everyone now is better than everyone before. That is correct. Kids, you're right about that.
Everyone now is better just about, more or less than everyone before. It's the -- it's the cars analogy. If I had a 2026 Porsche, it would drive better than a 1982 Porsche. Because you built that new platform on what came before. Yeah.
You didn't just invent it from whole cloth. You saw it. You improved. You improved. Okay.
If you -- in the one sport that can be objectively measured, track and field, you can put a stopwatch on Jesse Owens and the stopwatch on the 10th best sprint during the world today and know objectively that Jesse Owens is not as good as the 10th best sprint. But that's -- I don't think that's how -- this is why I wrote my book. I don't think that's how you can think about it.
“I think you have to measure greatness by how you compare it to everybody you were going.”
Correct. Because I'm talking about better. Yeah. And the conflation is between better and greater. The reason it sounds ridiculous to say the 10th best sprint during the world,
whose name you don't know, is better than Jesse Owens, is because, yeah, duh, no kidding. That's not what we're talking about. Does Fox ain't worked this way though? Yes. But there are influences in boxing.
For example, the number of fights and stuff like that. And the number of rounds that -- and the number of participants in this country,
That selected out for different characteristics once upon a time that it does...
You needed to be tougher. You needed to be more resistant to cuts. You needed to have a better chin. You needed to -- you know, like -- There's 15 rounds in fights.
Yeah. But the point is that we are talking about greater everybody. We're talking about how you did against your contemporaries. Now, does it matter if you're playing in a league with eight to 12 teams as Bill Russell did?
Do you discount him? Yes, you do. But then look what? Do you discount Babe Ruth? Yes, agree.
And that's 12. But how much of a discount even when you discount Babe Ruth? Babe Ruth? It's a real discount because she was not playing against --
Blanny might earn his basically.
And he was a black player. Oh, yeah. Or Latin America, where is anybody? Right. He was people.
But no one who ever lived in any league ever dominated that league, nearly to the extent that Ruth dominated his league. So even with the discount, he comes out number one. I think with Bill Russell's discount, he probably comes out for something like that.
Obviously Jordan LeBron, Karim Bill Russell.
“If you want to argue Bill Russell's for whatever order you want,”
but those have to be the first four. I think Jordan has to be one, and then you can argue that the -- Right. The next half of Jordan won as well. But that, okay.
So first of all, it's about greater or not better. Let's establish that first. And we're talking about, you do take discounts on the Babe Ruth and the Bill Russell's. The question is, after the discount, where is their greatness? Sometimes it's still number one, sometimes it's no longer.
Now the next thing. Are we mostly value in career or mostly value in peak? When I got Bill James's historical baseball abstract, Volume 2 is a bar mitz for present when I was 13 years old. Yeah.
It taught me comparative analysis really in a new way. And the thing I loved he did is he separated it into two lists. Peak versus career. Right. Sending co-fax is peak or Nolan Ryan's.
How do you compare co-fax and Ryan? If you just weigh their value, Nolan Ryan did a lot more. Is that really what we mean though? Or are we talking about as long as they sustain their peak for a reasonable amount of time? Peak.
I favor peak.
“I think that's what we're really talking about.”
I had when I made the Earl Monroe trying to figure out where he ranked. Yeah. I called it the Bill Walton corollary. If a guy picked for just two or three years as a truly great player,
that's more appealing than someone who never picked it off.
I had a difference of Bernard King versus youing. Okay. Agreed. Then the question is, how close. So we both value peak over career.
Right. So you go on peaks for a year and a half. And then as a six man on the 86 Celtics. And that's it. I still had him in the top 35 of my book because that is best year.
He was the best guy in the league and took it to Korean. I had a, I had a, this is not exactly the same thing. But I had a producer John Crystal at HBO. We talked about Roy Jones in his prime. And he said, I know what I saw.
Right. Like you watched Bill Walton. I know what I saw. Well, the one that the Tony fight was at 94. Yeah.
And he beat him with one hand. No, he beat Hopkins with one hand. He beat Tony with both hands. But so. So.
Well, that's Aaron prior to Aaron priors peak was absurd. So this was the LeBron Jordan argument. If you just weigh their win totals, right? Their win shares. LeBron played twice as long.
“I don't think that's what we're talking about.”
At least it's not what I'm talking about. Well, a good question is. Okay, you can have one guy who played for 20 years. Or you could have another guy who played for 13, but the 13 years. And the peak of the 13 years was better than the 20.
Who would you rather want if you're starting a franchise? What would, well, what kind of fan are you? Are you the kind of guy who wants to be a powerhouse team for 20 years with no championships? Or would you like to. Maybe not be a powerhouse team for 20 years.
But you wind up with three, four championships. I'll take the championships. Like bird was bird came in the league in October, 79. And for the next nine years. Was either the best or the second best part in the league every single year.
And then was the best part of three years in a row.
You were always in the finals or near the finals with them.
That's basically what you just learned really was. And no one really because their styles weren't the same. He was the original Michael Jordan because their styles are so different. And also racial obvious, like their differences in the style of play. The white guy wants a black guy, the whole thing.
And bird was compared to magic. And Dr. Jay seemed to be the guy who, like Jordan was the evolution of no. There was Larry Bird who ran shit. And then there was Michael Jordan who ran shit. Like that's that.
And honestly, I think Webby's going to do that too. It seems to me that's like he's especially when you think this is probably the worst. He's going to be over the next seven years unless he gets injured. It just feels like the way when you're impacting every part of a game. That's kind of the last level.
I do feel like LeBron got there when he was on Miami.
No doubt.
The closest I've ever seen in terms of value of a player to a prime Michael Jordan. Like the one who made me think, hmm, that's getting close. It was years two and three in Miami. The 20s. I really, I've talked about this for.
I love the 27 game winning streak. In a way, like, I like that more than either title for them. I got started slow. I just thought it was such a cool streak because it was just so. A tip called it was in the middle of the season.
It wasn't like, like, the Warriors had that 24 an hour or whatever they had to start. I think when you start a season with continuity, it's a little easier. When it's just the middle of the season when you're just ripping off winds and you get a bullseye in your head around 16 and you can't rest anyone. And it's the rhythm and the schedule you're playing four and five nights.
I don't think we're ever going to see that again. That was LeBron defending defending. Not just switching on all five positions. You put LeBron on all five positions. On achieving 60%.
Should he knew exactly where his spots were on the floor. Yeah, he's a basketball genius. He was went, but like, you, that's an unsustainable style of play for your whole career. I think, right? I think, but you could do that for two or three years.
I had this thing, the wine bottle team where it's like pick a greatest team.
“But you have to pick the vintage year of what we're bottle vine.”
You'd want to order from that player's career. 2013 is LeBron here. Clearly. Like, you could put that version of him on any team with any teammates. And he would just be the most additive, where possible.
Right. No player ever could take a lower level group of guys farther than LeBron James or fit in with a better group. Like, or to me, it's like, with other all stars.
Because you always think about like, who are the best guys you could just put together.
And you kind of have to have LeBron bird magic in Jordan. On that for some and then just put the magic. I love magic Johnson. I love magic Johnson. Do you just worry about the defense?
No. The shooting because to play in the air. And if any shooting better, the shooting will get better. I would put LeBron at point. I have LeBron run the point Jordan at the two.
I probably wind up putting bird at the fore and how came at the five. And then maybe KD at the three. Because he doesn't need to really thought he just kind of gets in the flow. He can defend his tallies. You know what I'm trying to win?
It dunking would be in the conversation for me. But not over the first. He just gave me Duncan Bird LeBron. Jordan and magic. I'm pretty confident.
The thing about Duncan is. How keen needs the ball. Little more number one. And Duncan for more of his career was a better pastor. How keen wasn't a good pastor to later.
The problem with how keen is. Because I've done this before and every time I take Duncan. Someone's like. How keen. And I'm thinking.
Yeah, he just made my team a little bit better. He's just like by the time how keen if we're talking prime. Not just career. Yeah, the two way stuff for them is that's I just feel like the O3 Duncan gets slept on. Like he basically beats the Lakers by himself.
He was unbuilt. He was you know what Jim Lampley told me.
“Crushing every that if you want to know who.”
Bill Russell was he's Duncan, but not as good as shooter. And I never I never saw. Interest will play or will play. So I was like, Oh, okay, I get it. That's pretty damn good.
So that's another thing with Wemby because I think Duncan had it. Everyone said curry had it and it feels like feels like Wemby has it too of this culture.
They create like the leadership and I always called it with Duncan.
It was always the arms around the shoulders. There's certain leaders where they're just when they're touching their teammates. And they're just very inclusive. And they're like, then mother is almost. And he has that already.
It's almost 20. All right. He's a serial killer. You realize that right. It's a perfect.
No, like like when you say the serial killer. Yeah. He kind of is as a competitor. Yeah. I do think he has that side of like I think he wants to destroy everything.
But I mean like Wemby is so perfect in terms of the what he's doing. How he's preparing himself. How he's going after it. How he's using his talents. The whole thing that it's like there must be something really wrong with this guy that
I don't know about yet because he's perfect.
“Well, when was the last time you saw somebody celebrate?”
Like he did after they won game seven where you felt like it was completely authentic. Jordan after he won the first championship. Maybe right. It's like intent. Like this is one of the things that's been terrible with tennis.
And I don't know who started. Maybe it was agacy. But it was like you win and then you just sink to the ground. You see that whole thing. And now it's like this whole performative thing.
And you never because people are self-conscious.
Yeah. Yeah. He's not all. I don't feel like he's not. He knows.
Like he. Yeah. He's. There's nothing else to love his stuff. That's why it's vicious.
No one's this perfect. Okay. So greatest thing.
We've established the peak versus sustain career.
And then also we have about the greatness has to be when you're comparing
to the other people in your era. But we should take a slight discount. If you get past a certain like.
“A modern MBA starts obviously absorption of the ABA teams three point shot.”
Right. So you want to say 7980. You want to say 7670. Well, you can pick. I'd say 7980 is the start of the modern era.
That's fair. But I had when I did my book, which was 09. Did the paper back in 2010. Willis was the highest. Nick I had at number 30.
And now I have him 38. But Willis was two ten finals MVP 70 MVP went. Like one of the things. One of the two time finals MVP. But.
But Fraser should have been the 71. It's fine. One of the things I value with him. He's his prime is right against all of these great centers. He's against.
Carme coming in the league. He's against will. And he's going head to head with all these dudes for a couple of years there.
And I'm not saying I'm not saying that he's like this player.
I'm saying the position he occupies. And the way history has recorded him. And the way history has been done. And the way history has been done. And the way history has been done.
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in the league. For the first 35, 40 years of the league. And then game seven, seventy
finals, Willis comes out and he's done after a minute. Thirty five, thirty six, nineteen, and seven, and five steals and took it to Jerry West to Jerry West. So, and Will was playing. So, Willis or Walt. I go Walt. They're right next to each other. I had Willis slightly had just Cassenter was more
“important, but Fraser's fine. But those are the top. That's interesting. Like, now guard plays”
is so important. Or backwards, you had to have a fan. But I just feel like it's like magic Johnson. I guess the cream is greater than magic. I get it. But Clyde Fraser did in game seven against the Lakers in a more unlikely situation. What magic did in game six? Right. Against Philadelphia.
Right.
seven, and five, whatever it is. Both guards missing their big, the iconic guy in the big. And I guess I guess you're right. Cream is ahead of magic a little bit. Maybe, maybe Willis reads ahead of Willis. Definitely an argument. I had, I wrote about this in my book. So, they had game seven and the nineteen, seventy three eastern conference final, Celtics next. Have a check separate to shoulder halfway through. It's the best of all the Celtic teams,
even though they won the seventy four and seventy six. Everyone says seventy three team is the best team. Have a check, it's hurt. Celtics still have game seven at home to win. And Fraser just murders
them in the second half. But the NBA had, this is crazy. They don't have the game.
There would just be games that would just they just don't exist. But they had a game with no audio. And they sent me the game for when I was doing my book. Was it just a DVD of the game with no audio? Home movie or something? Yeah. It's like a home movie. And it's the way I've seen sugary Robinson fight it well to home movies. And it's just Fraser coming down back and down whoever to like 18 feet away and just hitting jumpers. And it's the whole second
half in silence. I was just like, oh my god. So anyway, Bronson, so Fraser was, is it, but by the way,
“isn't it amazing how you like your dad puts Fraser in the back court with MJ?”
Like not even blinking. Right. When you are, if someone says who's the most clutch player I've seen,
it's always going to be the guy on the other team who killed my team. Right. Like you can't tell
me if I'm making my all-time baseball team, George Brett is playing third bass. I don't care, you tell me whoever you want. I'm taking George Brett at third bass. The DHS David Ortiz, like yeah, these guys killed me. So like those are the guys I want on my team. Well, I had, I wrote, this is what I wrote in 2010. And I'm interested to see who he would add to this list. In my basketball watching lifetime, only seven guys were crowd killers.
Jordan, Bird, Kobe, Bernard, Isaiah, Andrew Tony, and strangely enough Vinnie Johnson. Those are my seven in 2010. Who would you add to the crowd color list?
“Since then, that's a great question. Because I think I don't think LeBron always had it, but he could”
summon it every once in a while, but I don't think it was really going to be a shooter. It's usually a shooter who's like, oh fuck, I feel like SGA is right on the border of having it, but hasn't really crossed over yet. But the funny thing, the reason I've been this up is, I think Bronson's on this list. I was the closest thing today, I think is Bronson. Bronson, right? Over, and I think Durant would be another one on paper, but I don't think there's a good one on this list. It's a guy who you know rises to
the occasion, and Durant didn't know his habit. And also like a guy who rises to the occasion, but physically, well, how can he he's rising to the occasion? You know, like Durant's seven feet tall. So I think Bronson's on that list. I think so. But anyway, the point is, you have something like
Frazier who was first team on BA4 times. Second team on BA twice was all defense basically from
they created the award in the late 60s. He was all defense for the rest of the time. I'd have him one in Willis Reed, too. But okay, what those two are the top two. So Bronson wins the title. Yeah. They win the title. He beats San Antonio as a two to one underdog. Would you have him ahead of those two guys? No, not not, but he'd be third. He'd be he'd unquestionably be third. He'd be third. One ship, third. Those guys won too. And also when you
mentioned all NBA, back then you're not talking about first, second, third team. You mean like he's there. He's one of the two best guards in the league. And by the way, he's contemporaries with the logo. Right. Right. That's the other best guard in the league every. Like, you know, that's the level he's on. And as the one thing I will say is that in a league where two thirds of the team are still playing when the season is over. Yeah. Right. There's no, there's no point in a regular season award.
The only season that matters is the very long and very high leverage playoffs, right, postseason. And when you say a guy and this is like the Jimmy Butler rule for me. When every year you're like when the playoff starts, you're like, you know, Jimmy Butler's one of the top five guys in the playoffs. What you're really saying is Jimmy Butler's one of the top five guys in the NBA. Right. That's really what that means. So once in is not first team all NBA, but he is first team all NBA.
“Yes, but if you asked any basketball fan, who would you rather have in the playoffs going forward?”
He wouldn't be one of the first three picks, but he might be four or five. But when you look back at it and
See what actually happens, it may be that we say, well, that's how we felt at...
he was the number one guy. You'd want like, I did this on the show the other day. How many guys in the
“NBA are you taking over Brunson right now heading into a series? Who do you want over Brunson?”
Brunson or SGA? They both, that SGA is tall. I'd rather have SGA. SGA is taller. He's a much better defender. I would rather have Brunson. I would rather like, this is not, oh, it's next Brunson. I'm just going to flip that for me in this series. I think SGA, like he won the title last year. He won good just now. I mean, he wasn't awful, but he won that good in this series. He wasn't. You know, and the different, and when, when we talk about like that, he was awesome in game seven.
Even though he died in the fourth quarter. I think he died because he kept the, but I just thought it were what he was doing in that game was sick. He, the difference between SGA and I'll say James Harden too. Yeah. And let's say MJ or Kobe when they are looking like when they get the whistle is the priority for MJ and Kobe were hit the shot. And if I get the whistle, fine, the priority for Harden and to a lesser extent SGA is the whistle. And if I hit the shot, fine. And it's not the
same thing. Brunson, second team on Bay three times in a row, three year peak of 27 and seven. Four-year playoff peak, kind of in this year, 29 points of game, four rebounds seven to six, 46% feel go 29 for four playoff years is really good. I mean, that's, so the case for him now is best part of finals team, which I value. I have to do my pyramid at the end of the year. I want
to, I always redo it every year after the playoffs. Yeah, he's sniffing around now in the top
“under because of the peak. I mean, you have to do it for a couple more years. But this is this is”
pretty special. There's also something about winning a championship for a franchise that hasn't for 53 years. But that's where you get the will, I mean, the Willis and Walt. That's why you have to value those because of what that team meant to the city and Patrick Ewing. I have third. I had him 40th in the book now because Brunson hasn't won a title yet. Now I have him 47th. Yeah. I mean, Ewing was top five once, top 10, six times playing during an era with a team and
shack and I also thought Robinson David Robinson was better. I get it. I also felt like Ewing maybe had the edge in that matchup when they played each other just experiencing those games. I thought it was close, but maybe Ewing had the edge obviously not against the Lajuan or shack, but who could against the Lajuan or shack. The 94 finals is tough for him. If you're talking about Ewing, big picture where he ranks like he just got his ass kicked against
the team is 18.9 points a game, 36% that series seven game. They just needed him to be better and it came down and like he was very good. He was very good defensively. Like people forget he was he had like some like six blocks in one of those games. The offense never he was he had the best he had a guy who's in the conversation for greatest defensive player of all time on him on his it is best like that's the best the Lajuan ever played. But it's a good example of like
if he flips that and they actually win game six or game seven and he wins the title then Ewing's the best think about time. Well how about this? A Lajuan doesn't get his finger tips in game six on Starks 3. Yeah, and I think that shot was going in. I don't know. I have no idea like
a Lajuan blocked it. My third that 94 next time was always you didn't win the title
because the ball was in John Starks's hands in the biggest moments of games for you and that's the reason you weren't a champion. But the bigger issue is John Starks is a sixth man dressed into action because they didn't really have an all-star caliber. They didn't have the Dach River's would have been the did need terrorist ACL there, but even was a black man. Even one of his rivers in there. That was parper. Parper. That was Derek Harper. What was he a river. Rivers was
pre-harper. But Dr. told me this whole story about how he was hurt and then they could have put him on the playoff roster and they did it in the dark so he's post-prime at that point but he has the next. He's just like a guy in the short. No, they were and they only had one all-star score. John Starks was an all-star sixth man type. He's like a, he starred in the role of sixth man. He should not have been the starting shooting guard. He had to be because the next didn't
have Reggie Miller or Alan Houston at that point. If they have that guy, they probably win that
“series. They didn't have that. That was the flaw of the team. 100, that's why I said”
this starting five to this last year. Best starting five starting five of my lifetime watching the next. There's, in other words, there's no, all the players are at least league average and you have a couple of all stars and you have a guy who's the next thing to an all-star and multiple
Players have an offensive game.
the busher four, okay, Bernard five, the busher over Bernard. Is the Bernard he just was not in the
next long enough? I mean, and his peak, where he's the second best part in the league,
the piston series taken the Celtics toe to toe for seven, which was an awesome Celtics team with multiple guys to throw them and did matter. But the peak was, here's where you're going to, okay, here's the debusher case though, okay, best defense of forward of his whole generation. Two were born to early, three point shooter, but they didn't have a three point line. So if you put him in a different era, it's actually more interesting, but everyone was just like, this guy was just
the all-time winning player to throw on your team. And so it's tough because I love, I mean, I love Bernard more than anybody, but I just don't think it was a long enough thing to put him ahead of the busher.
“Here's the thing that you'll run into with the busher pick. It was a different league. It's pre-modern”
basketball in the sense it's, it's, yeah, pre-d it. As you say, there's no three point shot. And Carmelo Anthony was on the next long enough, at a point where he was still among the 10 best players in the league, I don't know that the busher was ever considered one of the 10 best players in the league. Like, is he, the role of, he made, he made one on B.A. top 10, 69, all defense, six times, right. But the best player on two title teams. Yeah. He's kind of of that team, the OGN and OB,
who you love having on your team. But I don't know that 50 years from now will have OGN and OB ranked fourth on the old one. So I had him for, I had the busher 46th of my book, re-ranked to 57. But you love the busher. I mean, my dad loves the busher. That's the thing. I was, I was really riding with what the old guys were telling me and the busher was the guy over and over again
“that they talked about. Like, I remember that. You got it, like, by the way, one day,”
years from now, someone will look at Dramon Green and be like, but Dramon Green changed basketball. Right. Now, the Carmelo thing I think has been overblown and you could pick it apart pretty easily. I would not have him in the top five. I think we have to make allowances for Carmelo and for Kobe tend to get underrated. They're overrated by some and underrated by others because the game changed from under, like underneath their feet, the ground was moving. And because they were featured
offensive scores, the analytics will tend to underrate them. You know, they didn't, like Carmelo didn't evolve his game. The way Vince Carter did, let's say, not that there's some same kind of player, but like Vince Carter evolved with the league and had a 20 year career and Carmelo didn't. But the analytics are going to underrate Carmelo because the game changed out from underneath
his feet, like he was he just never had the one run. The closest was 09 against when they made
that conference finals. He went on the right team. Well, part of that was his fault, though. I got a thing among that. Like he said related assignment the next and instead he made them trade a whole bunch of shit for him. And he goes to a team that and then he has no help and it's like, I don't have any help. It's like, yeah, because you forced them to trade all these dudes to get you and you could away it. Well, by the way, Dolan didn't need to intervene. Donnie Wolf is going to get him
for a lot less, you know, like, but like the argument that convinced me about Carmelo is what if Detroit just has a normal draft and drafts Carmelo Anthony? What are we saying about him now? Right. I know it didn't happen. But nothing had to change about the kind of player he was he just needed to be in another situation. How many times does Carmelo all NBA?
“I would have that. I was a big Carmelo defender because I always felt like the best thing about”
him was that he thought he was as good as LeBron away. So if I end Kobe, so if I had that in a series, at least I know I'm going to war with somebody who's like, I'm just, whether it's true or not, he believed it. He was as good as like back end of the career Kobe, like the more kind of post-up
game Kobe that Carmelo is as good as that. Carmelo, two first team on NBA or two second team on
NBA is three, four, thirteen. Seven times one of the, yeah, it's pretty good. He wanted to defend her, you know. I thought in maybe 2013 he was the third best part in the week. Right. It was him and Durant and LeBron and LeBron and Durant were above him. He just had a game that was tailored to the previous era. Like you don't have to go back three hours. Just go back one, half an hour. Two, two in that nugget series. Yeah. nuggets, Lakers, and oh, nine. Right.
Series tied it to. He's playing really well in the playoffs. And then last two games, whatever. And then the Indiana, which everybody blames on Tyson Chandler, but Carmelo is in that
Series, too.
DeBusho over Carmelo is, you can argue it. I don't know if you win the argument.
“I don't know if you win that argument. But by the way, the Nick fans like who actually lived”
through the DeBusho era will agree with you. Yeah. I really trusted the old guys because I was then it was what we talked about earlier. And there were a couple guys that they were just fanatical about. DeBusho was one of them. Like we're talking about greatest Nick's. If you say greatest players hard to argue DeBusho over Carmelo, but greatest Nick's, you could argue DeBusho, over Carmelo. Yeah. I gotta say like, I don't 100% understand the romanticism with Carmelo in
the next. Like was that was that an incredibly fun time that I missed? Like even insanity was
probably the most fun part of the entire life. I was defending. And he drove, Jeremy Lynn added to
you. I was defending Carmelo to Nick's fans that whole time like, oh, when Carmelo gets back, he's going to stop the ball. I'm like, no, Carmelo's a winning player. Listen, I was hearing
“about TJ Ford all that year. Yeah. And I saw Carmelo Anthony play for Syracuse once and I said,”
they're going to win the championship. I got his best player in the country, not close. Carmelo Anthony. And they did. So I thought of him as a winner. I mean, he had a little McNamara and like winning players on that team. And then he doesn't get drafted by Detroit where he probably would have won multiple championships. And then when, like, so I'm like, oh, he's not going to stop the ball. He did. And he did drive Jeremy Lynn away. In the end, though, was Jeremy Lynn going to win
you a championship. Yeah. He was not. The Denver stuff is in great either when you go back and
there's just a lot of first round exits. And, you know, he basically until the old nine finals,
that's like his six year in the league. Then round two, just not enough Carmelo was unlucky. And then was a victim of his own hubris later on. And made the mistake, which the other guys didn't do of signing the longer contract in 2006. Oh, believe me. And those guys all had the outs, but he didn't, he was stuck with the next for that extra year. Well, second part of this conversation is the keys to the city conversation. All right. Guys who just minted in New York,
nameeth, Geter in order? No, no order. Nameeth, Geter, Eli, Reggie Jackson. Yeah, he is. There's a butt with Reggie though. What is it? Firm and Monson, but I had Monson. Was that so beloved that that the fact that Monson couldn't stand Reggie because of what Reggie said early on? Yeah, even though it's not, he didn't need to make it about Monson. Reggie showed up with a baseball bat. After the Yankees had been swept in the world series
by the big red machine and said, no one will ever embarrass the Yankees again as long as I'm holding this in my hand. Yeah. And then his five home runs three of them in a row in the deciding game six. Then they gave him the candy bar, because he had said the thing, you know, baby Ruth, he thought it was after Babe Ruth. And it was actually after Teddy Roosevelt's kid, baby Ruth, right, Ruth his daughter. But everyone thought it was named after Babe Ruth. So he
said, if I ever play in New York, then I'm a candy bar after me. So after no one did embarrass the Yankees with that in Reggie's hand, they gave him the Reggie bar. And on opening day at Yankees Stadium, 78 after they won the championship, he hit a home run. They'd given out Reggie bars and everyone threw the empty wrappers on the field like confetti. Like I know Bill James and others will argue that it's either very difficult or maybe clutch hitting doesn't exist. Look at Reggie Jackson's
record in the world series. It's a big sample. It's a big sample. Yeah, because how do you explain Ortiz then? Right. Did you think Ortiz was getting hit against you when Ortiz came up? Yeah, every time. He's still getting hit somewhere. I have Reggie and Thurman at Mariana, but there's a distaste that as much as people love Reggie, they're unlike everyone else you just mentioned. There's an undercurrent. There's a button. Okay. Because of Munson. That was Mariana.
“And I think Messi is there. No question, Messi is there. Is there a met?”
I mean, I would say Tom Seever once upon a time, probably. You know, he's not around, but I at Seever was the one I had. I didn't know if you'd want to there was an 86 met. I'm trying to think of who the 86, and that was like close. That's the Gary Carter. And by the way, not on that. Not on the level. You know what the real is? Here are the two guys. Good answer. Very good. Good answer. Very good. Good and extraordinary. We're the biggest
stars in New York at the time. Would you have any other Yankees from that 96 to 2000 run
Other than Geter and Mariana?
city. This is the exercise. Paul O'Neal. Paul O'Neal got the keys to the city. Paul the people O'Neal is but loved in New York. Okay. And then the other guy who people have a love for in New York, like other people outside New York don't understand his Bernie Williams. Bernie Williams, on my all-time clutch team. Remember, if you're all-time clutching a lot of didn't play for your team, because they, but like if I was the fan of another team in that whole era,
in fact, of everyone in baseball in that era, the last guy I'd want to see come up of everyone in any situation in the clutch would be Bernie Williams because he was a switch hitter. He was patient.
He was clutch. Look what he did in the playoffs. He was calm. He was calm. He fell. He always
wasted the good hitter. He had plus power. He would hit 300 plus every year, like, and he's a switch hitter. He always had the matchup. So, Bernie, I would say Bernie. For me, it's Bernie and for the people I know it's Bernie. Hard for me to talk for all of New York there, but he's up there. Jalen Brunson wins this man. Forget it. Read and fresher would be the two next. So many young people don't understand, like the reason that right Brunson is going to be the greatest
“of all time is because they don't, one of the most treasured memories I have in my life is bumping”
into Clyde Frazier downstairs the day of the decision. Yeah. And having breakfast with him at this little place across the street from Madison Square Garden. And while we're lamenting the state of the mix and the fact that all I can think about is breakfast with Clyde Frazier on the David LeBron. Like, this is the mix that goes to Miami. Oh, my, I'll tell my grandkids about this. But I don't think a lot of younger fans in New York care. I think there's for a specific generation
Bernardo's on that list, but it's only like it's an age window of like 15 years. Yeah.
But the Bernardo and 84 and then the first part 85 was like, go watch you. I was, I don't want
to have it. Right. Like, you know, he's arguing Bernardo King. Oh, slightly in she's got to have it is arguing Bernardo King over Larry Bird. That's who we had in New York at the time. Yeah. So Brunson has a chance to owe it to that level. No other next from this team. Oh, I'll tell you another guy with a keys to the city. Who? Don maddenly has the keys to the city without the title without title. Don maddenly. He is so beloved in New York. Like, between Geter and Mickey mantle, he was
probably the most universally loved Yankee and that includes Reggie and Thurman, even though those guys won World Series and he didn't and Lawrence Taylor just because he was the best ever. Right. Like, Lawrence Taylor is you out is a good winner. You can't tell anyone in New York anything about Lawrence Taylor. He's the best defense of part I've ever seen. Best play. Yeah, best defense
“player of all time. I think he might be the best football player of every city. Yeah, probably it's”
like, if we're, if we're doing, if we're doing a draft to try to, him and Jerry Rice and and even Brady, like, out divorced myself as a Pat's fan, but just like got nine Patriots, Jerry Rice and Taylor were the two best partners I've ever saw. But what about Brady is if we're choosing up and all time, let's draft an all time team. Right. Yeah. If you take Brady, I'll take Montana. I'm good. Right. The two players I don't drop off of LT to the next guy. It's LT and the other
guy for me is Dion Sanders. If we're strategically, like, if we're drafting short stops and catchers because there's going to be a run on them, like, there's no, I know, I know the advanced metrics like other guys better than Dion Sanders, but I know what I saw. Like, I don't think there's anyone close to Dion at his position. I don't think there's any what you can't approximate that. You know, you want to take Reggie White. I'll take Bruce Smith or I'll take, you know, I'll think I can,
you want to take, I can take Aaron Donald if I just want to guy on the defensive line.
“If you want to take Jerry Rice, I could take Randy Moss. Yes, I would much rather have Jerry Rice,”
but Randy Moss is, you know, basically, you know, but I don't know what to do. If you take Lawrence Taylor, I'm like, well, you're looking into Derek Thomas, like, you're already over there. Outside linebacker who can drop into coverage, like, forget about the past rushing. John Han is like that for, for guard. Yeah. If I get John Han and that's how it's like,
true. That's, and by the way, that's the strategy. You always go for, like, the
scarcity at the position. What should okay see do I had in my notes as well for you? Second, I talked about this for a while. There's a statement about this. And I don't know if it's the time we live in now. We have to overreact to whatever happens at all times, right? And how have that had been the case in the 80s?
The, with the lakers of traded magic after the 84 finals after tragic Johnson.
Especially when he wanted to trade the pistons, when I say the, the bird steals the ball, and they blow it in game 7 and it's like, what are the pistons do? They got to blow it up.
“They got to do this. That it's kind of the mentality we have. The more I look at it, I think the,”
the move is just to ride it out. You won the title last year. You went against a crazy freak
without your second best player. You didn't have your second best player. You had a big balls
of annual year, just like, take a deep breath. It's a marathon out of sprint. It makes me think of what what Riley said when he was trying to jade my trick right before LeBron left to go back to Cleveland and Riley had that press conference. And he's like, winning's hard. Only one team wins every year. Like the hard part is now when you don't win and you stay together, he's basically like sending this code of message to LeBron. Well, Jordan ruins basketball that way. Yeah. The problem with the
standard that Jordan set is he's the greatest of all time. And people know that they're going to be compared against that. And when you dig into the numbers, it says that Jordan's the greatest of all time. And when you dig into the analytics, it says Jordan's the greatest of all time. And when the analytics get more advanced, it furthers the argument that you're, they remember real box plus minus, you say LeBron at a slight edge over Michael Jordan. As it's become more sophisticated,
Jordan now has the edge even in that stat, like a kind of point guard stat over LeBron J. So he
set that bar. How do you beat that? Well, you at least like he also never lost the championship,
right? Yes. 6 and 0 and 3 p.d. twice. And the only time he ever lost when he had another all star on his team, even one was the year he played baseball, came back and didn't have his legs. And the year Pippin got the migraine against the position. Otherwise, if you gave him a note, so LeBron and everyone is being measured against that and they're aware of it. And if you look at the stats and the advanced data, it looks everything like shit. Not quite. I got to get him and
Jacob beat him on game and duration of careers, the way LeBron's trying to beat him now. Well, I mean, like you just do what you can. Kobe was like, I'm going to do MJ better than MJ.
“And he took the number 24. He should have taken the number 22 because he got super close, right?”
But not quite. So it ruined because like before MJ, you were allowed to lose championships. Yeah. And if people and it's like, it's, it's, um, what Harold Bloom, the literary critic, wrote about Shakespeare about how there's an anxiety. And it stopped me if I've done this with you before because this is from my greatest, it's volume three. But it's, it's, um, every writer since Shakespeare
because writers, great writers, or always aware of what came before them. And in fact, they're kind of
having a dialogue with what's come before them, right? And so, and or they're involved in this dialectic as time goes on. And, and, and, and every writer understands that Shakespeare covered it all, there's nothing new you can do. So you have this anxiety of influence. And, um, that's Michael Jordan. He has created an anxiety of influence and basketball that has warped the way we think about basketball. In terms of chat home, Ren, he has shown that at this point, he is at best the third best
player on a championship team. And, but he's very young. He ran into a guy who may replace Jordan one day as the goat, if he can stay healthy, maybe. And, and he can grow from this and I compared it to, or warrior fans mad at me right now. But, I, I just mean in this way, when the brawn blocked Steph in game six and screamed on him and Steph kind of hung his head in 2016, I was thinking, oh, I mean, not in retrospect at the time I'm thinking, that's not how you react to that.
Right. Like, he knows he's better than you. You know that, too. And then in game seven, yeah, I know Steph was heard. I know he was tired. Everyone's tired. You know, it's game seven, 73 wins at home, fourth quarter, five and a half minutes left. You can't score a point. You can't set up a teammate to score a point. You're throwing the ball out of bounds behind your back. And you lose like that at home, two LeBron James.
He told you he was better than you and you believed him. There's something about that. I believe that. And when we did that to chat, he's been prepping it this whole time. He, at every
“instance, I own you. Now, Steph, I think, consistently underperformed in the finals,”
earlier in his career in 15 and 16, I looked and I thought this is not the same guy as the regular season. Well, slightly worse. Different, even you're seeing a guy every day for two weeks. Okay. You can start to shift stuff against them. Sure. I took them a while out of luck. They shifted against
Jordan.
him turn the corner against Kauai. I saw him win games where it looked like, okay, Kauai is telling everyone, I'm the best player in this series. Look at this, look at this, look at this, and Steph answered him right back and won a couple games at home. Yeah. And then, and then by 22, he's the best player I needed. In other words, he got where I wanted to see him get. I mean, yes, it's a great thing. Kind of screwed it up to in in this way. I kind of wished to ran ahead just gone somewhere else. Even though that 17
warriors was the most fun or the most successful team we probably had since 01, but I thought that Rob Curry of like his rocky three moment. If you know, coming off of the 16 finals and coming back and beat and clover length. Yeah. But, yes, maybe, maybe. But the fact is, this is how it happened. But my point is Steph matured and figured it out in my opinion. And yeah, I'm going to push back slightly in the block. I remember the moment, I just, I don't, I just don't think Steph think that team was
banged up and tired from going for that 73 wins from winning the year before. I just thought they're running on fumes. He watched those games and it doesn't even look like a dream on has 35 in game seven and they still lose. He was going to be the MVP of this game. They were going to lose that game by 20 points if he doesn't do that. I saw, yeah, I saw that moment. Maybe you're right. But because
“I thought the key to me with that series is game four, Cleveland brought it. It that's an awesome game”
that's been lost in NBA history in Go and State won the game. I made the tail end of it, Drama got punched in the balls. But I haven't going to say it was going to win that series in five. I, I, well, I think that's LeBron goding. Like he knows this guy one more tech and he's not. He won't admit that he did it. I know, but I don't know why it's to it's to his credit that he did it. It's super smart. It's like Muhammad Ali levels. Like he should say like, yeah, I knew maybe I
could get to Drama and the game was over. And, and it, but I would say this. But that's like the you're pushed back 94. The Achilles Hill of that worst team was Drama. 100%. When you have that kind of that Dennis Robbmentai. Yeah. What side of the line is he going to be on? And if you, he fished and he got it. But I'll say this about your push back. It could be that I'm confusing correlation with causation. Like for example, if I saw a dark cloud and thought, oh, there's going to be
an earthquake. And then there was an earthquake. The cloud didn't cause it. But hard to tell me when I, when my, when I, you know, my great grandfather told whatever was that this and my family
we always knew if there's a dark cloud is going to break hard to tell me that that's not the
case if it happens, right? Whatever. It's a bad example. But you get the idea. Yeah. When I saw that moment, I thought, oh, right. That's my reaction to it. And then so that, I linked it to the last, but Bill, it wasn't the last minute. It wasn't the last two minutes. They didn't score six points and the other team scored eight points with five, 22 to go.
“I believe it was five, 22. In the fourth quarter of a game seven at home, they didn't score”
a single point. So maybe you're right. But hard to tell me that because it's not like I look back and connected those two things at the moment. I'm like, what is this? It's fine. It's such a fascinating game because the word is the bogot injury happens. And then Harrison Barnes over the course of that series basically just dies and becomes unplayable, right? Oh, and real could say anything. If you go back on watch, it's like an all-time game seven rock fight. Curry doesn't really have his just doesn't
seem like he has his mojo in the same way. Dre, mind's keep in the minute. And they have a zilly out there with like six minutes left. Who's also not good, by the way. Who I don't think ever, I'm pretty
sure he never played another NBA game. Yeah. I'm almost positive that's not that was an all-time
choke. Um, but they had to have a zilly out there. He didn't know who to play. He needed to buy somebody minutes. And LeBron sniffed it out in the first time he got, you've got it is zilly to fall into them for three free throws. And the second time is zilly is afraid to come out and hit the three. I always felt like that was the game. It's like you have fest this zilly out there, five minutes left in a game seven, because your team is just depleted or whatever. I mean, and then also, that was it.
And then, yeah, maybe I'll be a sure short. I mean, obviously, I just think they ran out of guys as that series went along. And you know, they went that deep to begin to find hit a shot.
“You have to five and a half minutes. It's just the greatest heaven of gardening curry is.”
So is the worst moment of curry's career. I just hit a shot or or use your gravity to create a shot for a teammate, like, or try this. Don't have an unforeseen turnover, like throwing the value a possession. But that is the only fun I'll see over last. Well, it okay except the only reason they
won in 15 is because LeBron's second best play with Matthew Delvedova. There is like, we look
Two years ago, last year the Pacers were better than the next clear.
Two years ago, the next were better than the Pacers, but injury allowed the Pacers to win.
We all saw 2015. That was injury. You know, that was injury. Now, we are in a time in the NBA.
“And maybe it's been like this and I don't know. And I'm not, I remember that up to an injury”
finals. I know that. No, I thought the words were good that year. I think I, of course, they were what I figured it out. So if you think the calves are good that year, it's because they have LeBron James and Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love. Yeah. And if you took Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving off the team, you'd be like, well, they're not so good, right? But they had to change how they played in that finals in a way that I thought actually weird they helped them a little bit
with what they did with LeBron. The difference was, in other words, LeBron because he didn't have his two guys. They played in a way that got the most out of the rest of the room. I thought it fuck the words up. And then when the words figured out the lineup of that thing, that flipped the series back. But there was something about how that series, it was so weird that I actually thought it, it kind of, I still feel like the Warriors, if you're just putting that those 15 teams together
in the newness of that team and what was going on with Kevin Love? That, you know, Kevin Love
thing was weird those first two years. Kyrie was a big game player though. He was, he never really
“done it before, though. And he couldn't have a chant like that. Yeah, that's what Bron on the O7”
Caves. He basically took the O7 Caves, Caves, six games against, against Warriors. I feel like the right team, so if you're going to go 15 and 16, going one and one was probably the right outcome. Yes, but, right, but you have to flip them. Yeah, but it's just like the each team probably should won. Okay. Here's the rest argument for Steph Curry for all the Steph Curry fans. Not only are the individual stats great, but he created an environment, both a culture and in terms of the space
that he provided every and the way he could play off ball on ball the whole thing. Where, where it's like in chess, if you dominate the middle of the board, yeah, all tactics will tend to favor you. Right. If you have Steph Curry on your team, if you have Steph Curry on your team, all these situations will tend to favor you because of the structurally what he creates, both in terms of the culture and in terms of the spacing on the floor and all that kind of stuff. Fine,
I would not take that away from Steph. I still think that he is an example of how a player can mature in the clutch and not the chat is Steph Curry, but I wouldn't be so quick to move off chat. Here's another, unless you just think at his size, we were worried about the longevity anyway, given his frame, blah, blah, blah, maybe even then you're still selling low. If you look at a guy like Igwooddala, who was miscast as the number one in Philly, eventually he's a number four
in Golden State, but you still want Igwooddala on your team. Yeah. If chat is a three or a four, I get he's a very expensive three or four, but he, like it seems that he's one of the things that makes that team really good. That's the biggest part of this though, is can you afford three expensive
“guys if you're not sure about one in the three? That's, that's how you, would you turn them into into a,”
into a? Well, let me ask you this, if they called the clippers and said give us the fifth pick for chat, what are the clippers do? Because they have the cap space to make it work. I think the clippers would. I think the clippers would too. Would Milwaukee do it? I'm not. Yannis is an answer in the question. The question for me is, would okay, see, want to turn chat into the fifth pick in the draft, making
$30 million less, then you bring heart and time back. You have heart and time and Jay Will is your
centers. And then try to go into your draft. And then guess there's someone like that. Or maybe you try, yeah, or you try to get Robert Williams of Fridge C, maybe at five, then try to trade in the top four. Maybe you can talk Memphis and then go back to spots or Chicago. It's just, that was the most interesting fake trade of all the chat, fake trades for me. But they get to five for the clippers, the team that has coiled there is Garland, emergency, not knowing what the aspiration settlement's
going to be, and all that shit without running please for chat home. He's giving you 17. What? He's like, he's like 19 and nine. 19 and nine. Second best defense of part in the league. I mean, like, it shuts a lot. He's, and also you want, you just are paying $41 million for him. And he's here. He's a three four, really. Like, like, when he's really a three, he's playing four, five, you think he's very tall, but he plays. He's a grim protection. I don't know. I would think about it.
Yeah. But that said, I would have to get major salary cap relief, and I would have to get some sort of big chip. The warriors are going to, sorry, the warriors. The thunder are going to have to do something is the, is the general feeling about things because of the way chat came up small and the money and the money. Sure. Right. Of course. If they have jailing Williams, maybe they
Win this year.
after you're licking your wounds, cleaning up the blood off the floor. You're like,
“fuck, what we have won that series of jailing limbs is 100% out. They probably would. It's more”
really preparing for what the spurs are likely to become. You know, like, when the Super Bowl and Madden, and then the next year all your, all your young players are rated 10 points higher. Right. Like all the sudden stuff and step, castle and harbour and everything, start to blossom and it's like, we needed to do something now. Here's that you'll love this analogy. I love to bring in boxing with you every once in a while. Just so, you know, Kate, it's puts the hair in your arms standing up.
Frazier couldn't be foreman. No. Frazier was awesome. Put Frazier against anybody else. It was a great fight. He was the worst possible guy to fight Ali. Something about foreman. He had no chance. Yes, rock paper scissors. Rock paper scissors. He said no chance. I don't know what the, like, I don't think Frazier at any point in his career would have figured out what to do against foreman. I don't think Frazier at any point in his career would have figured out what to do against
foreman. I don't want to knock them out every time. And the question is, is that chat against Wemby? But styles make Frazier against foreman. Probably, but styles make fights. So Ali, the boxer, has a hard time with the volume pressure fighter, Frazier, because the guy who wants you to miss, yeah, you make Frazier miss five times who cares. You're coming another 10 punches, right? Yeah, hard for Ali. Frazier versus foreman. The pressure fighter has to come inside against
the puncher. He gets clipped coming in. He's knocked out hard for Frazier. Foreman, the puncher, trying to swing one at a time against Ali. The guy who can make you miss bad for foreman. Right?
So it's rock, it really is rock paper scissors. And if you're saying that the problem is that the rock
is going to be sitting there in your path every single year. Yeah, that's true. But again,
“who's going to match up with Wemby? Like, you're not going to find that one. That's what you said”
Saturday night. It's like, everyone's going to have this problem. So do you just accept that there is no Wemby answer? And maybe you did the best job you could have done against him. But every team is going to have this issue. So just put your best possible team together. Yeah, if I'm the thunder, I don't think I'm looking at that matchup. I think I'm looking at it. I think we're better than them. We were missing our second best player. If we have them, one more shooter. If we have them,
we're good. Yeah. And one more shooter, I think is the other thing. They did this team that when they couldn't hit threes, felt like they could lose standing. Well, if they lose dork, then they're going to, you know, but could they make a run at somebody who's just a more reliable he checked three point guy that, but I think really what you're preparing for is not Wemby's going to, Wemby's
always going to be better than Chet, even if Chet does better. He's still going to be better than Chet.
You're preparing for the evolution of him though. This was, yes, he was, he, he, he, he, Chet was in trouble. Yes, he was. I didn't realize when we did the pod Saturday night, Chet took both of his shots at the beginning of the game. He went like 28 minutes without taking a shot. He was late possession where he thought about shooting. Yeah. But I think really if you're the thunder, you're, you're thinking, how do we counteract the evolution of Castle and Harper really?
That's really what you're going to have to deal with. Yeah. And that's, I wouldn't worry about. I mean, also like what if Carter Bryant all of a sudden is good in two years and he's good now. Yeah, no, like, but it could be like a 35 minute game back. It's pretty rough. It's, I think there's set up. It's so funny because we're saying this about OKC last year. And somehow San Antonio
“set up even better. And it's really just can Wemby stay healthy at 7 foot 6. That's what it is.”
If, if I was thinking, I said this on them because we remember when Samson got hurt. And Wemby's plays a much, he's playing in space more than Samson ever did. It's a different time. And when he, now he's, Samson didn't train with the shallon and monks either. Or like train had a fall. That's another thing. Like Wemby actually works on how to fall, how to land, which I don't, they just didn't know that like Samson 40 years ago, nobody was working with them on.
Here's what happens if you're starting to fall. Right. So he has a three year prime.
And that's what people are thinking. He fell in the Boston Garden. He was never the same phone as back led to all this other shit. All right, Max Kellerman, you're going to go to at least one next home game. I got to go do the show in a minute. I don't know if, like, let's see if I can get into a home game. I think I might have to catch him and say it at Antonio. Hot ticket. Yeah. Good luck, though. This is ever since I've known you, this seemed like an inconceivable conversation
that the next might have the greatest Nick Ever on their team. That they might win the finals. It's not like, when people say 99, it's so annoying. They didn't have a shot in 99. Yeah, you and you didn't play. And then they were in eight seed. Like, you know, Cambian and can't be kind of forgotten. He's excellent. That was a great tree. He had a great run. That was a good, but like it's pretty well and Houston and those guys, but they didn't have a shot. This was the only shot
they've ever had. So I said this on a pot a couple weeks ago, where I said this next team had the
Best chance to make the finals since the 94 team.
They made the finals. And it was like, they lost you in. Like, it was a miracle. They beat the
“Pacers. They wouldn't have won with you. Yeah. But they would have gone six or seven games. Yeah,”
like that was crazy that they even got out of the round three. But I would say that in a way, this next team is playing with how smarty that the 94 team wasn't playing with because in Jordan's absence, it's like, okay. Now, like we were taking the bulls, no one in the West took them seven games. We were taking them seven games. We took them seven games with Jordan and Pippin and Grant. Right. Now is the time. And this is Patrick Ewing's time. Here we get to see the parallel universe with
no Michael Jordan. The nicks are going to win a championship. So it felt you weren't playing with how smarty. You were like, destined to do it. And it was so bizarre when they didn't. It was like, wait, what? They lost the chip that houses possible. This is how smarty the nicks were not supposed to be here. Right. Like they came to the playoffs. I agree. And I disagree because I also think this is going to be your best chance to stick to win the title. Yeah. It's the best chance.
Probably not going to have Mitch next year. He's going to leave because I just don't think they
could pay him 20 to 25 million bucks. You had no Indiana this year. You had Boston let's take them
coming back. You're going to have other teams in these getting better. You don't know where the next challenge is coming from. You have younger Wemby who's only going to get better. Or okay, say,
“like, this is the nicks. This is it. I think it's not as much about they didn't have the gauntlet”
as it because I think they would have. You've got this rest based on what I've seen. They would beat and all those teams based on what I've seen these playoffs. Yeah. They wouldn't have swept everyone, but they would have won. I think they would they Indiana had your number though if it was they say Indiana team, but they're they're not winning by 12. They're winning by four. I get it. The absolute right. Who knows, but that's my feeling. I feel like they're really, really good. The
question is, is it sustainable for more than a year or two? Yeah. Right. Like so is this it? And they're fine with all of you guys that I wrote about this. The Pat Rally disease and more, which was one of my favorite things to read about in my book. You've all these guys sacrifice in this year, because they're trying to win the title. Once you win the title, you're not as excited as sacrifice. Towns is like, yeah, eight shots a game. I don't know. I'm ready to
“take some more. You know what? I don't think that's his problem. I think he has the other problem.”
Towns shoot more. I think that's really, he's such a team guy. It's like, yeah, you know, like,
I just think it's the, when you say the 2014 spurs, they had largely the same cast, but it never
came together like that year. It was awesome. Right. And so this is now it does seem like they caught lightning in a bottle. They didn't have to run the gauntlet. They're rested. They're mostly healthy. We'll see if Mitch can play. They just happen to be, and maybe they're catching the dynasty the year before it becomes a dynasty. Right. Right. I saw I do spurs in six. I don't feel great about it. You'll talk about your pick on Game Over with Rich Paul and Max Carmen. Correct.
Good to see. Thanks for coming. Always good. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Max Carmen. Thanks to Eduardo and Chris and Gahau as well. Don't forget, I'm going to be coming back right after Game One of the NBA finals tomorrow night. We're going to be live on Netflix and new rewatchables, man, bag, meal bag coming on on Thursday. And then I'm not sure if I'm doing another podcast that week after the Wednesday night pod. We will see. Don't forget about the new
rewatchables with Steven Spielberg and Sean Finances. Well, 2001 is based out of six. So I will see you tomorrow. 2021 plus some president select states for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas star Cassino or 18 plus some president DC, Kentucky Wyoming. Game problem call 1 and 100 gambler or 1,800 my reset. Call 888-797777 or visit ccpg.org/chat and Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org and Maryland. Hope is here visit gambling help line ma dot org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support mess.
She sits or call 877-8, hope and why or text hope and why in New York for Louisiana call 877-7077-676767.
