Tatum’s Stunning Return, Wemby’s Big Weekend, and a 2011 MVP Deep Dive With Zach Lowe

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Sacklos here. I really screwed that up. It's a ringer podcast network. For some reason I froze. I'm so excited to talk about Tatum.

There's a lot to talk about since the last week when we got together and I was like, I've been all signs are pointed to Tatum on Friday and it just feels like so many things have changed. The spurs feel like more juggernautied than ever. We're coming on right after they beat the hell out of the rockets.

The South, except just inserted themselves now for real into the container conversation. The lakers look more interesting without LeBron James, which is a fun little wrinkle. And the pistons are looking a little gamey. A little teetery. Where do you want to start Tatum?

I'm sure you want to start Tatum so we can start Tatum that it is the most exciting thing that happened in the last 72 hours. I would argue it's the most exciting thing that happened this season just because when you go back to last May, and it was like, oh man, we're not going to see this guy for 18 months.

And then you think the first week of the season, I remember going to a saw home game in the

first 10 days and came away from the game thinking they got to blow it up. And this is ridiculous, just trade Derek White, just start this over who are we kidding with this team. And the transformation over the next four months has been startling. And I mean, the craziest thing, there's the Tatum piece, which I want to talk about

in a second. But then there's also the getting all these minutes and reps for all these dudes now that are now these trained dragons for a 10 or 11 in rotation. You saw Sherman today was one of the key guys in the game who just wouldn't have played this year.

Wait the whole year. But Tatum coming back Friday was emotional and it was emotional for him.

“I think he had a lot of trouble getting through it.”

I think it was his son sitting in the front row of the basket that they're going against

in the first half and he just looked way more like himself today.

But I didn't fully 100% believe until this, this driving, ready, lay a bank shot that he made in the second half where he pushed off his bad luck. I want to call it the bad luck. Because it's leggy, surgically repaired leg, I guess. And it was just a vintage Tatum play going off the leg that everybody was like, he's got

to be careful. He's just far further ahead of where I thought he was going to be is the same for you. Were you expecting 27 to 29 minutes and real intensity? I'm legitimately shocked at how good he looks. I realize he's 12 of a 32, 6 or 16 in both games, the eye test is, I mean, I'm absolutely

blowing away. He looks really, really good already. And it's a little scary for teams who have been saying, like, well, if not now for the next one, you know, because Tatum's out and Haliburn's out and loads out and well, even if Tatum comes back, he'll be a shell of himself and I wasn't sure how much of like he's

going to be 60% of Tatum, 80% of Tatum, I don't know what percentage he's at now. But 50 minutes into this or whatever it is, he's so far ahead of where anyone could have reasonably expected him to be, it's, it's legitimately shocking to me. He looks like Tatum. There's some stuff like there's some very careful, deep dive, eye test Tatum stuff.

“Like, I think he's being careful, jumping in traffic, like, for instance, like making”

sure when he's landing and a sea of legs, I'm sure that's in the back of his head.

I thought it wasn't really until the second half that he seemed like he really wanted to

like that right away, if I mentioned. Well, that's that layup, by the way, that's unmobly on a switch, getting, I believe we're talking about the same one where he gets by and then mobly going, right? It's Evan Mobley. Like, he also had a spin in the post around San Merrill.

They ran that white Tatum pick and roll a bunch to get switches, and he had a like a quick baseline spin finish through mobly, like that's just trademark Jason Tatum stuff that we're

I know they didn't have Jared Allen, but whoo.

“And the defense stuff, too, where when they had, when they had him out there with white”

and Jaylin at the same time, and their star abilities to switch, and I thought his side to side stuff looked really good, too. Look, going back to Friday night, my friend Hange came over because we vowed if he somehow

came back, that we're watching the first camp together.

So Tatum comes back, obviously it's emotional, obviously he's going to be a little nervous. I've been a little rusty camp make a shot, crowd starting to get tentative. The mist on cappons, we made my way of make cocktails, we're like, all right, this is now way more intense. Wow.

Excruciating. So she had to make. She made me a vodka soda. She made Hange a gin and tonic. I just want to, I just want to plant, you had your wife, you didn't make cocktails.

Hange did make. She's a good bartender. Yeah. I want to take advantage. You know, it's like, 430 on a Friday afternoon, we're so get the drinks.

“He finally gets that follow-up rebound dunk, right?”

Huge release in the crowd. We're like, oh my god, he got one. Okay. Now, and then within 20 seconds, hits the three. And the crowd just went ballistic and I know a bunch of people who were there and they

said, it was a finals level crowd, the explosion of that 30 seconds, the two plays in a row. Like people were just delirious and it really went from, oh, is this going to be a lot more awkward and weird and depressing that I was anticipating to, oh my god, Tatum's back, Holy shit.

And you could feel that ceiling kind of go up there in that game and then this Cleveland game was, he just looked like Tatum. Well, I loved the way he came out in the Dallas game. He was looking to pass the ball. And there was a play in that game where he got the ball.

Nothing was going on. He got the ball on the right wing. Nothing was happening. And you just thought, all right, he's going to get into his Tatum bag and ISO. And instead, he whipped a pass to Derek White and ran into a screen like ran, sprinted, set

a screen, slipped out of it. Like all, it's been the perfect mix of getting his stuff within the Celtic system and then being Tatum one on one against good matchups that are produced by switch. He's looked incredible. That dunk, that missed dunk was nothing but encouraging to me because on the way there,

first of all, it came off a catch, like an active catch.

You came off like a caught the ball coming around the screen and where, why to attack. So you're not doing all the heavy lifting on your own. We're going to give you a head start. And the change of direction and explosion toward the hoop were like jarring to me that he's already here.

And he didn't get the explosion quite up to dunk.

“He's been like he missed time to from how far away from the hoop he was, right?”

Which is just reps. But I, like the, like the explosion, the change of direction, the explosion on the way there was like whoa with this guy so far ahead. And by the way, to your point, about, I mean, we, you and I were not concerned about the chemistry and like any of these things, we were like, this is going to be fine.

Good players playing good basketball is good. Jalen Brown today. I thought had an awesome game 23, 23, 24, 8 is special. Yeah. 8 is 6, 9 rebounds are 9 is 6, 8 rebounds are here.

Remember, which is just, making every right play and yeah, low and behold, you're still going to put up huge numbers playing this way and play with Jason Thanham.

You know, I like what you said about that first half of the Dallas game, the shots weren't

going in, everything was short, whatever. But he was in the flow of the game, which was encouraging, right? And I was wondering, like nobody, people are asking a bunch of questions and you get the post game thing. Jason, how does it feel?

What's it like to be out there? I'd love for somebody to ask him. Do you feel like you gained anything from these four months just sitting on the bench watching basketball? Like do you feel, did anything slow down for you?

Has anything changed about how you think about when you're out there just from just being a spectator? Because I felt like he was a little more patient than maybe he was even at his peak, just like kind of not asserting himself too much and just kind of fitting in. But I might be, might have been imagining it.

What was cool about it, you know, that chairman and that spot in housing, who go and Jordan Walsh, all these different swing? When he's out there, you just kind of forget certain things about Tatum, like, oh, yeah, he can handle the ball. He's basically a point forward.

Oh, now we have one more guy out there who can do that. The line up that, I don't know what the plus minus that's where, but that line up with him and Jalen, Richard, White, and Keta, which we have last year, Keta's a different guy this year, obviously. Pritards up a level as a score.

And I thought they had two stretches in the Cleveland game that I would be really scared of if I was a team these because all they were doing was like, it was either Tatum or Brown and in the corner, there was Keta setting picks for either the guards or one of the other forwards and just a lot of movement and just things happening till they got the, the mismatch they wanted, which was usually hard and, or it was Tatum on Mitchell.

in space in these four elite shot craters, and that was the first time I was like, holy shit,

“they might pick the finals, like I wasn't even considering it until the second half of the”

Cleveland game. I mean, Keta's a real guy now, and like a real screen role, make plays into short role, like finish, rebound defense, like you put a real guy who does all the center dirty work stuff around those four dudes on offense, that's a scary line up. And so far, the only like rotation, casualty of Tatum to turn his wall.

And all this is still getting his, uh, shire, shireman's just good, like shireman's a good player on both ends of the floor. Yeah, they've looked awesome, and I just, Tatum, it's, you know, you can tell that you've mentioned the, not diving into traffic, they're clearly going to get him up to speed slowly on defense, like they're going to give him easier assignments, that's so far that's been

the case.

You're not going to guard Cooper Flag, you're not going to guard David Mitchell, we'll

put you on being weighed, whatever, you can switch into those matchups, but it's just, it's shocking to me that he looks so much like Jason Tatum, like it's, it's, it's, I can't, I keep saying it. It's shocking. The other thing is what a great sports story it is, and you could even see at the beginning

when a heart came over and hugged them and Mitchell had them at the end of the game. And it's just like, you know, you have your livelihood taken away, and you have it taken away when you're at the peak of, peak of your power. So I was thinking back to that next game, which I thought was one of the best games he ever played the game he got hurt.

The whole playoffs, athletically it just felt like he was at the highest level, he was every, you could feel it as you were watching those games, you're like, oh my God, this

guy is just one of the great athletes, you know, and I don't know if it's ever going to

100% come back to where he was, like, just from him flying around and challenging everything and maybe it will, maybe it'll just be reps. But even the stuff we saw today, like coming at 10 months after an injury like that, part of its modern science, but also I do think it's the age, you know, I think when you're in your 20s and you're in your prime like this, I think maybe it is more conceivable to

come back.

“But I just thought he seemed so relieved, and I think they did something important, keeping”

him with the team, which he's mentioned a couple of times, traveling all over the place with them and just staying in the fabric of it and staying with it so that it seemed kind of organic. Because this could go one of two ways, right? The other way is the guy just disappears, works out on his own with his coaches.

That wasn't like this at all. And I've been, you know, like every other Boston fan, I've been watching the Jalen Jason stuff, making sure Jalen handled it and said all the work you were, you were alarmed at point pre-returned. You were alarmed.

Well, there was, I was thought, Jalen was maybe two sentences short of just saying, like, I really missed my brother, we're just trying to hold the fort until it gets, I just thought he knew it was like too light, but he made a point to say in that after the game, he did one of those twitch things and I just thought, the way, I didn't feel any dueling ban just stuff at all today.

I thought everything was organic, it just felt like they're back and you were talking about one of the great unusual partnerships we've had this century. Just two guys playing together for this long is impossible. Like we're going to talk about the Utah Jazz a little bit later. It's tough to keep a pair and together for five years in the stage, you know, Westbrook

and Durant were together eight years, right, even curry and clay didn't make it, they made it to what 2023, but just in general, just having two guys do their thing together like this for a long period of time, it's unusual. The league's not designed for this to happen. I thought there was a little more dueling banjos today against Cleveland and against Dallas,

and that was part of 'cause Cleveland was just switching everything and kind of making the Celtics go one-on-one, but like when you have two players who are this good, going one-on-one, you can have some dueling banjos, like that's going to be part of it and as long as as long as they have the mindset and this is where Jalen is really leveled up this year of when I get into the paint and draw a bunch of traffic, like I'm just going to make the simple

play every time. If the simple play is me finishing 'cause I've got a good angle or a height event or whatever, that's it. If the simple play is the kick, to house or a Richard, like the little dish to Kada, that's the other thing he loves to do.

And even those, like there was a stretch even a month ago where some of those were getting a little reckless, like he tried some around the back bounce passes were like, ooh, that kind of hit somebody's shin and somehow found it's way through. He's cleaned that up too. He's had a really, a really great season.

And to your earlier, you said, you know, someone should ask Tatum, what did you learn watching basketball?

“I would like to ask him, what did you learn about some of your teammates, launching them?”

Because for all the change that the Celtics made over the summer to cut costs and move on to a new era kind of and prepare for this season where Tatum was maybe going to play maybe not, he does have a lot of built-in continuity with all the core guys that are left on the team. Like that's part of the reason why I think this was going to be seamless is he's just

but he also got to see them play in a different context. And I wonder if he just sort of like learned there's more breadth to their game or this guy can do a little bit more of this than I thought. And also, Jalen, I just think is a better player than he was last year and he was a great player.

He was one of the best 25 guys in the league, but like the point you were making about how he's making the right play, I just think he does that more consistently this year, defensively those three together, white, Jalen and Jason are just, it's going to be one of the best things, best three sums defensively anybody has combined with Keda, you know, the other piece, there was some luck with this, too, like coreford leaving.

I think ultimately it was probably a pretty good thing, you know, because this team is a

little bit more rebounding and centers and offensive rebounding and stuff like that. It was not not stuff for Ford was really that good at or poor singus, so the team's a little different, there's a couple things, I think we know for sure now that I wasn't positive of because from what I heard Tatum has been playing five on five for a month, that's why he's so far ahead and they've done a great job of keeping everything quiet.

Yeah, whatever whatever they've done starting from the moment to injury happened until now, and it helps when the guy's 27 or whatever and not 34, like needs to be studied by other teams because it's like crazy.

“Yeah, so he was playing, I think more than we realized and that's why I thought he was”

going to come back and be 20 minutes, like he, the shyrim and proxy theory was correct, like they've moved him right into those minutes, and he's 27 and 29, they want to build him up to the mid-high 30s by the end of the season, he's probably going to miss, I don't know, four games. So we learned, we learned that specifically, the Simon's trade makes a lot more sense now.

It was always like this.

Yeah, it was always like this.

Yeah, it was always like this. No, but I think if Vouch was good, it was a bonus, but I think the Simon's trade was really more about, he's Tatum's just going to take all of these minutes, and they kind of must have known this at the deadline, that was important, and then randomly Vouch breaks his finger, and I think they probably would have ended up with Garza in the Vouch minutes

anyway, because I don't know how great of a fit he was, and he was the one piece that I just couldn't, couldn't make, make sense with the group they have. So if you're talking about holes, Garza is your backup center, fine, how many teams

“is that going to really rear it so that we had against, I don't know, I think Tatum would”

have the ability to play small. I was interested in watching the dancers, and I love Lager, so you obviously it was interesting. I thought, I thought Cleveland went small for a while in the fourth quarter, and I thought it was a bigger story that Moplu, which was it out there, was like Tatum, Tatum coming off in a killy stair, has like a less of a minutes restriction than guys who are coming

off for angels and like co-injuries, and it's like it's remarkable. Yes, so they went small against them, and I'm wondering like down the road, will the Celtics respond by going small with Tatum Brown, two guards, and one of the wings. The other thing I think to watch long term with the Celtics is, will Hazard be the guy that starts, or would they move Hugo or Shiremen into that spot as the fifth guy that

and maybe move Hazard to the second thing.

Couple other things really quick. Well, could we just stop on Vouch for a second? I just think he was, I agree that they're not going to, like Garza's been good, he makes three, they're not going to miss Vouch pretty much at all, except I think the viewed Vouch is like Katan Garza is like a pretty small center tandem, and the Nicks can go double

big, the calves go double big, but his sins are just as ferocious, we'll fight anybody where giant team, and I think that could be a matchup thing in the playoffs, we're okay, we just need a bigger guy out here for 12 minutes, but it hopefully he's ready button. I think this might be the deepest Celtics team since the OAT team.

“Remember that OAT team when they added Kasell and PJ Brown near the end, and they just”

had too many, almost too many guys, and they had all these different line-ups and wrinkles, like the fact that Simon, Houser, Gonzalez, these are real bench guys that any team in the league I think would want, combined with the Walsh piece, like they probably go 11 deep for real now with Tatum, and I'll be interested to say how the minutes go, they can use these last 20 games basically to rest some guys, try some different things.

On the Cleveland side, I did have one mobiley question for you, because I thought that was a pretty big Cleveland game today, and I thought the halftime guys did a good job of properly excorating them. Now, these afternoon weekend games, I just think are impossible to predict, you know, I watched Orlando, Minnesota yesterday and Minnesota just didn't show up,

either don't show up or they were out the night before or whatever. It was weird that it took them

an hour and a half to really be like, oh shit, we're on national TV, and this is kind of a big game, we should really step it up here. Have we peaked with what we're getting from mobile in your opinion? I wouldn't say, I mean, what is he? 24 years old, I would very hesitant to say that we've we've peaked with Evan and mobiley, what's left is just what's left, what's the next, what's the jump for him, if you think there's going to be more there, what is it? I think it's all the

stuff that we think might be in there, right? It's a more consistent three-point shot, it's a little bit more aggression, assertiveness on offense, you know, a little bit more with the ball against mismatches, running picking roles, like they just, and you hear that this is going to come every

“preseason, like, oh, you should see the stuff of that. And it just sort of, you know, you see it”

and fits and starts and for a game and then these out this for a week and you don't see them, I think there's, you still so young that peaked is just way too strong of a word, but I think the question you're really asking is like, what version of Evan and mobiley do they need right now to get to the finals for a team that just made a huge trade that was clearly like a red flag of, oh, we need to get to the finals like immediately, we could not wait on Darious

Garland and we do we have that version of Evan mobiley. And I will say, I'm beginning to like the calves even more when they have the two bigs together. I feel like that's that is become their best look and we didn't see that. I want to see more of that. Yeah, that's why with this game, it was a great win for the Celtics, but I just feel like if you take out one of those four guys for the calves, it's a little more substantial than with some other teams, because I don't think

“they're five through 12 is really that impressive. The reason I brought it up with mobiley”

his stats are basically the same for his, he's in year five, basically this been the same guy for the last four years, like his field goal attempts set year two, he was 12 again, now he's 13. He shot 21% from three is second year, now he's shooting 32% his rebounds, he was nine in the second years, 8.7 in this year. His assists 2.8, now it's 3.8, blocks around the same. Everything's kind of around the same, and I just feel like by your fifth year,

I wanted, I wanted to level up, and I still think it's in there, but I also don't know, like when he shoots a 3d, do you think it's going in? I don't feel awesome about it, but I don't feel

bad about it. I just feel like it's a shot that the defense is willing to live with, and it may always

be a shot that the defense is willing to live with, given the alternatives on the team that has done it with Mitchell and James Hardin and whatever else. It is interesting that, you know, with Allen out, he doesn't, like, Hardin and Allen just had immediate pick and roll chemistry, like pocket passes, lobs, whatever, and it just, and this is not the first time this has been the case with Mobile and a ball handler when Allen is cleared from the picture, and he's the

center and the pain is all his. For whatever reason, that does not come as easily with him and for him as it does for a more traditional room run or like Allen, like I want to see just rampage, man, like, put some shooting in there, let Hardin loose and rampage, and it, it just isn't as easy, like, for Jared Allen, it was immediately like, oh, I'm just going to get 25 points every game now. There's more there, and I don't, not sure what it is. The 3-point shot would have to get better.

The ability to punish any sort of mismatch. I don't feel like he's totally there yet. The defense is really, really good. It's not, like, I won't be told my grandkids about it, but it's really, really good. And so it's, it's, I just wonder, two years from now are we in the same spot.

“I think about this with certain guys in the league, like, I look at Jabara Smith that way too,”

who's obviously, are these a year younger than Mobile. But I'm, when I watch him, because I like

his game and I have a lot of Jabara Smith stock, and sometimes I, I'm thinking, is this basically

going to be it? We're going to be at, like, 16 and 7, you know, hit some threes, and he'll be able to guard different guys. And this is just what we're going to, this is where we're going to land. So they're going to be a jump. Well, it have to be, you get straight into a bad team, or it's just just kind of the vicinity of where we're going to land. I don't know. We're going to take a break. I want to talk about the trait in the spurs and the rockets and the lakers and the next. That's

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I forgot to mention at the top it is CR Month on the rewatchable. He's an American hero. We did Cicario last week. We had Fargo coming on Monday. We had to live in DIN LA coming a week from Monday. And then we just had a vote for the fourth movie and it looks like the nice guys won the fourth movie with Frank Gasson and Russ Pro. And then the last movie of the month will be L.A. confidential. You mentioned something we went to break. Say your Cleveland point really quick about what happens

“if it doesn't go great for them. This spring. I think they become a very interesting offseason”

team and I think if let's say they lose in the second round and it's just another second round

loss for this iteration of the calves. We've already seen them trade Garland and you just mentioned mobly and when is mobly going to develop and the honest thing could be revisited and I just like I'll be watching. It's a team blowup. Did they sign hard into the extension or no? Not yet. Wasn't I think Hardin had one of those games or it's like wait, is it mid-bay? Oh no, it's the beginning of my shift. You're burying Hardin over? Hardin might have, yeah, this might have been

I left my first hit the hotel bar and now it's gone. We got to find it. The honeymoon and some jambles. To trade. Lost today. They're 65. They're last 11. They are 45 and 18. The Celtics are now two wins in the lost calm behind them. Nine and two in their last 11. The Brooklyn loss, which I did not watch, then did not have Kate Cunningham and blew a big lead near the end. You know, that's fine. The loss that it was a little different because they got their

asses kicked by Miami and we'll talk about Miami in a second too. To trade, hanging out a little bit

and then you watch some of these other teams in the East that have two, three, four guys who can create a shot and the trade soul, like we say every week, because the one guy who can create offense and then just a lot of good cutting, a lot of good cuts and some low post play, but not a lot of guys who can create shots. It's just the harder trade. I just don't understand their trade deadline. I understand that we said this in the trade deadline problem when we had it.

I understand being afraid to mess with the chemistry, but I also think they needed a freelance wing guard somebody and they didn't get it. Herders really not playing. And I just feel like

“they're a creator short. So what do you see? I think this has been the concern all season and”

why none of us have been ready to crown them East champions, like we would normally crown a team that was so that was like six games ahead. It's seemingly a blink of an eye ago. It's because you know that the offense is going to get harder to come by in the playoffs. When you play two non-shooters, it almost all the time, sometimes three and you're really, really dependent on an all-world player, but he's just one player. And you have all these little subsets, right? Like Dunkin Robinson

flying around is kind of like a creator, even though he doesn't dribble, because he creates openings and gaps and attention comes to him. And Jalen Durin can face up. Well, I don't love these Jalen Durin jumpshots that are starting to happen now. I think that's like we got a maybe a little 1995-ish. Maybe another offseason of working on that before you start busing that out in games. And I love JD. He gets, it's like a little bit of this and the offense of rebounding is part of it. But all that

stuff is harder to do in the playoffs when everyone is geared up on defense on every possession. And this has been the concern all year. I'm not going to panic. It's a late season, you know, slide one game without K. It team had a huge lead. Everyone is coming back from suspension one by one. Like B. Stu just got back. I grew through like we all had big dreams for the Pistons trade deadline all season, right? Like it started with marketing, like that's the perfect fit. And then it was good. You told

was just not going to trade marketing because I just going to, I guess, be a jazz lifer and just maybe one day make the playoffs for the first time ever. We took a trade Murphy spin around the

they settle on this, you know, IV heard or basically exchange of those two guys. There's a pick swap here and there. And JB, maybe they should have asked JB bigger staff first like, hey, are you going to play Kevin Hurder if we get them because we might trade for Kevin Hurder and yeah, like he's been a breaking case of emergency guy and he's the kind of player that could help them wouldn't change

“their life. I think we all knew that. But, yeah, I mean, look, this 14 race in the East and you”

want to throw Charlotte in and make it five, go ahead and do it because they can be thrown in the zombie heat. Zombie heat, five straight wins. Maybe I took a heat just heat around and they they heat

their way in one way or another. So as you know, I'm always terrified of the heat. I'd written them off

this season. I saw them in person last month when I was back for Koozy's thing in Holy Cross and the Southx came back from a big deficit beat them. Khalil, Khalil where looked like he was just a section eight for the season. He came in for two small stints in the game and was just a catastrophe. And it was like, wow, it's gotten this bad, like it was one of those. This last five games, it wasn't just winning the five. I watched that rocket's game. That's when I got scared.

That's a good win for them. What did Charlotte win? What they did is Charlotte, I'm Friday night, it was notable and I want to talk about that in a second. But then the one today too, just taken into the trade. Heroes just back. Heroes like, I'm actually offended that you guys forgot I was good at basketball. And I was being thrown around and he's traded that line shit. Like, I'm good.

“Bam, I think has gotten better offensively as the season went along. There was some pretty shaky”

bam stats, but it's basically been a 22 10 guy for two months. Powell's out right now. Powell isn't

even playing. So when he comes back, just thinking about them in a playoff series where you have these two heat check guys, you have Bam who's steady, you have a defensive by the end of you have good coach, you have a couple weird bench guys and wings and you only have to go foreign three to advance in a playoff series. I'll look this up. It's true. It's accurate. Let's go foreign three. You can have three shitty losses and still win the series and I just don't want to see them in a series.

And somehow they've been resuscitated, but Zack low and I'm just horrified. I'm already looking at a two seven Boston Miami series. Maybe you can look at it right now because that would be the matches if they had it right now. It's probably got a few to play in. They got to heat their way through the play and although you know six is becoming quite interesting now or Lando is six. Filly is dropped to eighth after a nightmare weekend where Maxi gets heard now. It sounds like

he's not going to be out for a long time, but NBA is still out with this oblique thing. And so that is flipped almost completely. The Hawks have won six in a row. Don't don't look at the don't forget about the Hawks, but Jaywin Johnson's played himself into like legit all NBA consideration. I had him there. I had him on my rough draft like two weeks ago, the 13 all NBA and people were kind of stunned. I was, I don't know. I think he's been pretty good.

And Kominga's been good for them. I wouldn't take like the all out victory lap on Kominga quite yet, but he's been very good for them and definitely more productive than Porzinga's who

finally will be a premature ejaculation victory lap. Yeah. Hey Matt, keep it in your pants.

All right. Well, you're a seven seed, like settle down. The moment he did that, everybody in the team got hurt. Yeah, the Dylan Brooks who blocked a little bit of a hit. Yeah, maybe take the victory lap after the season. Well, the the BAM where stuff has started to work and work big time. That combination in the last three to four weeks has really changed their team. And like I'm a Hawke as junior. I haven't done a detailed six-manity earth dive in maybe a month,

but I think, you know, he killed in Johnson, Nas Reed. There's a bunch of good candidates. He's just been consistently outstanding. And teams just can't keep him out of his comfort zones. He spins and drives his way into the little eight foot flip shots. He seems to make all of them. And he was a huge difference maker in that when at Charlotte, I'm Friday. Charlotte's playing right now and they're tied heading into halftime in Phoenix, ironically. But so I watched that Friday

game because they were going head to head with the Tatum game. So I had on the smart TV. It was

“monitoring. You have to say that you watch a Hornet game. We all assume that you are watching”

everyone. Hey, there's parents watching their children, legitimate or nothing. It's the thing. It's like when I would have Zoe's soccer games on on one of the side TVs. Charlotte played well at 120 points. Good game. Offensively, they kept doing stuff, but they couldn't stop Miami. And I thought it was interesting. It was a little cold water being thrown on the watch out for Charlotte. They could be this year's Indiana. Ben Wagon, that I think I was on with

three other people. That's a bandwagon is, yeah, we didn't have wheels. We were just like, we're basically building the foundation of it. But they had nobody in the team that could stop

those hero, protrured, these crafty guards, these crafty heat check guys. They just don't have

anyone. They're five, they're best five. Everything's good except for that one wrinkle.

“Donovan Mitchell, I think we'll be a real problem for them. And that was my lesson from that”

because they got 120 in this to last. Miami's going to be heard from them. And I think we can officially say the East is better than the West. We might be able to say it. I mean, you know, certainly the bottom five of the West is not covering itself in glory. No, nor is the bottom four in the East however, but it's a conversation now for sure. Well, we were about to have four legitimate East contenders all with various cases going on Cleveland took a hit today. And the next were the other one,

the next who I've been hesitant to trust because every time I'm about to buy in and then they had a couple good games, I even thought I thought that okay, see, lost they had was the best next game I've seen. Those are good loss. Yeah, that was like, oh, yeah, that this could be a final and then they just get waxed today against the Namobrona Lakers. They had there were some good stats with them. We have the number one defense last 20 games all the stuff. And they just

they just got smoked and they kind of looked like the bad version of the of the next,

“the sort of check on how I think they've gone. Did you see any of that game? What did you say?”

I've seen pieces of it. I'm going to go back and watch the whole thing tomorrow, but I saw a team that has been, you know, that the Lakers played really well in that game. I mean, that's the first and the Lakers I was a good Lakers game. Really nice. The next, you know, they've, they're losses tend to be loud, like the two Detroit Lakers. The Cleveland Laws, the Laker Laws today, losing by 13, McKilbert just puts up zero. And you know, the nicks are, I was texting with

a friend of mine who's a huge nicks fan and he was just over the moon after the Denver game and just I'm all in on the team. And that was, that was as good of a road win as you can have in the NBA, just taking it to the nuggets like that. And I picked the next to make the finals. I haven't been convinced to pick anyone else over them in a complete way yet, but I texted him back

and was like, there's, they seem to, no matter what kind of run there on, you're always like one

weird cat game or one weird bridges game away from being like, ooh, something is, it's just a strange happen, a strange brew that way. I agree. There's a, there's a number four seed subplot with

“the east that I think is worth mentioning where you could be in the two three and know that you're”

going to not only, um, probably play my aim, I think my aim is going to get to the six seed. So you two three, you if you're the three, you played my aim in round one and then you play the two seed and round two and you're in the road. Or you could just drop down to four, you play Toronto and round one and then take your chances with the trait. And to me, that's the more palatable path. I don't know how you feel about it, but that two three feels a little quagmire to me. Interesting. Yeah, you know,

Toronto is only a game ahead of Orlando and my Emmy now in the fifth spot. So, you know, let's let's say that could be that one. That could be that one. And they can't beat anyone good. I mean, that was another great win for the next day. I went to Toronto and blew them out and Toronto just can't beat any of the good teams in NBA. So to backing up your point that if you can park your way into a matchup against them, maybe that is a little less terrifying than seeing Spost ride up

it down the sidelines and like what kind of zone can we throw at these guys? Triangle and two, we bust that out of the blow their minds. That's the heat man. And then the lakeers really quick, nine and two without LeBron, which is a record that will be brought up over and over again over the next 12, 18 hours as the talk shows kick in. You know, you know, you know,

it never had a record like that when they were injured. Michael Jordan, Bill. I never

happened to Michael Jordan. Okay. Michael Jordan. I just like when it's Luke and Reeves, like just removal of LeBron out of it. I think that's the foundation of a really good team, because you could build the right team around those two guys. And who else are there to be or where's the fenders? You know who else thinks that? The lakeers? I know. I know. I think they like climate together. Yeah, they like playing together. So you can see the vision. I don't know why

they didn't start the vision in February. And this is just a really weird situation for LeBron, because he's still, it's not like he's washed up, but this has been a weird fit for him the whole season. We've known it. You can watch it. You can see it with your own eyes. And I don't know where he ends up next chair, but it's just I find it hard to believe it's going to be the lakeers. I don't think it's going to be going to stay. I find it hard to believe it's going to be

the lakeers, but as you've pointed out, I kind of find every scenario, a little hard to believe.

something, because this is going to hell of a depressing season for the warriors. I mean, they still play hard, and they play a fun style of playing on stuff there. But this is, this is not going to be the most fun stretch run and warrior history. There's been some good warriors news. I bought a small condo on Guy Santos, Archipelago, Guy Gulch, Guy Gulch, I bought a lot of great property on the Santos streets.

“That's what a great thing. They just paid him. They paid him a good, a good, what was it?”

Five a year for three years. He used the solid player. He's a very, very Steve Kerr player. Like, it's like just central casting Steve Kerr player. We got to talk about the spurs too, because they had an awesome weekend. They came back from 25 against the cuppers.

I was watching a movie with my wife. I had the TV on the small screen. Never turned it off.

But when it was like 75 to 50. Oh, no, what movie? I don't want to say. Okay. And, and, and, and, and, you listen, it wasn't a movie. It was this TV show called Vladimir. I'm unfamiliar. Clearly you're not that invested in it. If you have half one one on Wemby over here. It's with Rachel Weiss. She's like a professor. It's a Netflix show. It's basically my wife. It's her algorithm. It's just like, they put the show on Netflix,

and then her algorithm. There's a hammer that actually comes out of the TV and hits her with it. Because it's so like in her wheelhouse, according to the algorithm. They're like, you will watch this now! So that was on, and we're also watching this spurs game. I mean, as spurs clippers. So, neither house or who I was just touting to you. So we can go. Such a bummer. And the fear with neither house or is like, this guy's a maniac. He tries to block everything. He's going to get

hurt. Of course, he gets hurt trying to make some crazy block out for the year. And you could really feel it on that spurs game. Because you can only ride the Brook Lopez Express for so long. Great, come back for the spurs. I've no idea why Wemby cried at the end of the day. Did you stop founding? Did you get that? Did Vladimir make you weep? Where's it? I would have only wept if I had the clippers in a parlay. But so they had a big comeback win on National TV. And then they really

you know, thrash the rockets today. And look scary. And we've talked about um, is it too soon? And we've had all the spurs conversations you can possibly have at this point.

“I'm going to talk about Dylan Harper a little bit. Oh my god. Who I've liked the whole year?”

I haven't seen a rookie guard like this in a long time. And I'm having trouble fitting him in the context of rookie guards. We've seen since we've watched basketball. He can't really shoot. Right. He's not if it's if it's an open three. I don't think it's going in three of four today. He's got this great this combination like he's really nice along the baseline. He's likes to have his background guys. So I guess like the comparison, maybe it would be a

little Jason kid. Like very comfortable in with a little space near the low block with his back to a guy ready to go either way. Um, gets to the rim. There's crazy rim stats with him. Like it's

basically him and centers and and, you know, big forwards with like finishing at the rim.

And I don't know where we're going. But I don't know if there's much of a ceiling for this because when he learns how to shoot, when he gets a floater, combine with the back to the basket, with the way he uses body and bounces off dudes. And how hard he plays, that I'm starting to wonder if there's some Jason kid kind of potentially, even though they're different players. 62 combined points for Fox Castle and Harper today.

Throw in another 20 for Kelden Johnson before you even get to Wemben Yamma. I mean, the depth of scoring and rim attacking they have is crazy. And what I love, I mean, I could not love Harper and Castle anymore. I mean, and, and aside from all the highlight plays that Castle delivers, all the sort of classic attacking guard stuff that Harper has, they're just so tough and so competitive. And they want, they want to outwork you and out physical you. And I can't remember how this

possession ended up, but there was one position in that game. Somebody on the spurs mist and Harper had Finny Smith on him on the left side and was just like, I'm getting this fucking rebound. You're not stopping me from doing this offensive rebound. He ended up tipping it out to somebody.

“And I think someone made a three and it's just like, those are the plays from a rookie guard”

a tap out offensive rebound for Castle a second year guard day. Yeah, give me, give me Kevin Durant.

Like, I'll, I'll do my best to guard him. And then, you know, you saw today, the rockets put their Shen Goon on him to start the game and it had him on Castle for much of the game, which is a strategy that I've been saying all year. I think the spurs are going to see at some point. They saw it today and it didn't work because Castle figured it out. But those are the kind of plays that they make at such a young age. And they're just winning their winning basketball

and make an anthem themselves. Like, you don't see plays like that. Like, this team is so together, they play so on selfishly. They have sequences of ball movement. Yeah. For a young team, where you're like a, a team that's young shouldn't be able to, like, just pin, pin, boom, boom, boom, the ball's flying around. It's, it's really impressive. And those two guys are awesome. I'm glad you brought that up because one of my takeaways watching today was

“they play like they've been playing together for a few years, which I think is the rarest place”

you can get to as a team. Like, they really like understand each other and where, where the next guy is going to be and how to use each other and how to play. Even that play, they ran at the end of the half when they got one be that three. It was just, they're very well prepared. Some of the credits got to go to the coach. And then everybody plays hard, which is the other thing. And it's very similar to the Celtics and the pistons, where it's like, you're not playing if you don't play hard.

To think with Harper, we usually win rookie guards that are super talented come in. They have their things they can do. Right. And they're like, I can do this. I can really get to the rim. I'm a really good shooter. You know, they'll have these skills that they can kind of dwell on, but they're not basketball players yet. And I think what's just so bizarre about him is like what a good team basketball player he is, which is why I brought up the kid thing. He's just really smart.

“I didn't watch enough of that Rutgers team last year who it sucked. It was him and Ace Bailey,”

nobody else. It's amazing to me he could ever be on a bad basketball team. Because he knows where to go,

what to do, how to play off guys, I'm just really excited for him. Then big picture you think like for the league, this is a disaster that they have with with Castle and Harper with Wemby. And these guys are all 24 23 and under. And they have their 47 and 17 now and Wemby, I mean, this thing could win the title, like for real. I don't mean that's not even hot take anymore. This one, I would say probably the number two pick you would have to win the title at this point. Christmas is what finally,

not finally. Christmas was when I said they can win the championship. And nothing has changed. In fact, it's just gotten clear to me that despite the experience factor and they would be somewhat anomalous among championship teams, they have enough and they have a guy who's not far anymore.

He's a top five guy. And today was like, you know, you mentioned how this first play unselfishly,

super competitive, super hard. They drafted a bunch of guys who played that way, but when you're best player is unselfish and Wemby Nyamas, unselfish one of my favorite things about him and play super hard. No one else has any choice, but to play unselfishly in super hard, especially when you start winning. And today, you know, I know we're going to talk on BP a little bit and there's just so much uncertainty about who's going to be eligible and who's going to be not,

“not going to be eligible. But today was like, Wemby should be in the conversation if if I think”

Shay still has a clear lead in a clear case, but if he's not eligible, like Wemby has his good of a case minus the minutes, he's a little behind it minutes, but you just feel him every single second on the floor and the defensive dominance is just unheard of what he's doing on defense. His odds during that game drop from 20 to 1 to 15 to 1 on Fandel. That was an MPP performance tonight. He has he's in the fourth. He's in the third spot now. He's past Cade.

Yokeh is 9 to 1 and Shay is 41. Look, I don't know if this is the 90 bulls or the 91 bulls, but we're in that vicinity with this team where you have a potential generational star and you have a loaded young cast and the only question is when is this all going to come together? That's that's where we are now at this team. And I went back and I looked at the 90 bulls. There were 55 and 27. They lost the Detroit and seven. There was the Pippin migraine game. Jordan

was probably, you know, he's Jordan is the best part of her, but he was a little older than Wemby. He'd been a couple years in college and he'd been in the league for six years at that point. So he's probably a little further ahead than Wemby was, but it's the same thing. It's like these guys that you when you're watching a basketball game like that. You could bring in my mom. You could bring in your wife. You could bring in your daughter. You could bring in anybody

and be like, does this guy seem a little different than everyone else in the game? The answer is,

yes, he does. He's doing all of these things. I don't watch other players do combined with the identity to have. And like what they did to Duran today, I thought was just a sign that you're really well coached together team, right? They're like, we're just, we're gonna do these three things to make it really hard for him. We're going to cut and Johnson mugging him. We're going to pick up the ball with him at half court. We're just going to make it really uncomfortable for him the

entire game and they did it. And that was one of the reasons they won. So I think about Denver's

take out Shay? No, could they, could they make it really hard for him and make other guys in that

“team basically have to make plays or they're going home? Yes. What we've seen that? I mean, we've”

seen them. They're four and one against them. And today the Wemby, I don't know. It's different though. But I don't know. Today the thing that stood out to me about Wemby against the rockets was you see some games like this and some games where he doesn't do it. I don't know if it's a he was fresher in these games or he just likes to match up better or whatever it is. Today he did the thing where he just, when he got when he faced up off the dribble, he did the

thing where I'm taking an extra step to the basket to the point where I can just reach my arm out and at the basket he had one on on and Thompson like that. He had another one against somebody else. And you when he does that, you wonder why does he do that every time? And there's just something about that night that matchup. But today he had a clear directive in his mind of like, "I'm taking the extra step or half step off the bounce to the end just reaching my way

to easy buckets." And when he has those kind of baskets, that's when you feel helpless. That's when you feel like there's just nothing we can do. You know, I remember saying this early on in the Wemby experience that I didn't like how

I first of all the pin playing him as a guard. I was never liked. I understand that

you had to the process of it. But it was like the question with him will be when does he realize that the closer he is to the rim, the more devastating he's going to be. And it seems like he's realized that in real time, to your point. Like, "Hey, I'm seven for four and I have long arms and if I'm three feet from the basket, odds are something that's going to happen." He's just, you know, and then you talk about the defense. The Celtics play them on Tuesday and I look at somebody like

Richard, who was doing a thing this Cleveland game, right? All that Herky jerky low post upfaked up, maybe stick to threes for this Wemby game, Pritch. You can't read Shipper made a couple over him in the lane today.

“Yeah, it's man, it's high risk. Castle over Shipper. Shipper's been good the last month, I think.”

It's not like he's a buster or thing. But that's interesting. I wonder if they would redo that

on the rackets because they took Shipper third castle on fourth. I mean, I would redo it.

I like Shipper, but come on. I bet they would say no. I think they were just, what about after three drinks? They would crack a little bit. You'd start to hear anecdotes that you didn't hear before, but they were all, I mean, they were all, I mean, they were all, what about after we do fireball shots? That's, that's good. How many of you are going to serve them like God? You crack a few readers have suggested to me that Katie's nickname should be the burner.

I mean, it works on in on multiple levels. It's, it's, you've had it for the burner. You guys had a whole Katie nickname discussion, which I really enjoyed about how he's been reaper. He unilaterally was like that awesome nickname. I don't like easy money snipers better, not slim reaper. Like swim reaper was, it just meant it. It's so good. And he just didn't like it. The burner, I'm actually thought today, I'm a little bit surprised that road crowds haven't found a creative way

to throw this in his face a little bit. I don't know if it's going to take the wall, which is what I'm going to do that anymore. I don't know what to be mean. Everybody knows, like the fans all know. Now, I feel like I'm a little surprised that it just hasn't come up. The wall, I bet if they play after Clippers, I bet the fanatics who sit in the wall will do something. I got an email. I'm trying to find it and I can't find it.

Just because I was asking about the best nicknames of all time. And the guy said, the best nickname of all time is Magic Johnson. People literally think it's his name. That's the last stage of a nickname when nobody even really, they forget you have a real name. And I think that's a really good point. Magic Johnson, it's such a good nickname that he had other nicknames. Right. I think some people call it a buck. It's like the nickname for them. When you have

the second nickname because your first nickname, people think is your actual name. It's the final

level in nicknames. Playoff matchups. Detroit versus Philly Atlanta, Charlotte. Boston versus Miami, New England, New York versus Orlando, Cleveland versus Toronto, the East, then in the West. Okay, see versus bizarre Golden State Clippers Portland none of us. So that excited to even have this series. I wonder if you offered any of those teams, you could have the 10th pick or play in round one.

“What they would take. A bunch of them are digging the 10th pick. Yeah, that's what I think to.”

San Antonio Phoenix, which we're going to have to fix that series somehow. Minnesota versus the

We need some work with that. I would personally like to see okay see Phoenix and San Antonio in the

“one seed would be more fun. What is your, I don't remember if they're playing tonight. What is your current”

Denver concern level after Aaron Gordon came back and they got thrashed by the Nixon home. Here's some of my admari turned his ankle. So yo kids look better this weekend. That was a bonus. Murray did get hurt. I am now in the hate Denver just fall to sex and get everybody healthy. That the last 20 games don't even. But are you still are you still are you still are you still. Do you still have faith in the Denver fully healthy? Is it is a juggernaut or are you starting to

wobble on like well we just haven't seen a lot of camp Johnson and like oh I'm wobbling. I wrote

that in my I had a quicky thought thought section. I was going to do it. One of them is Denver

possible year for Minnie hell. Not year from hell. It's a year from Minnie hell. It's like they can't have a week without something happening, right? I call it it's not our year year. That's fair. I don't know if they're having it, but they seem to be having a year if you had it it would

“look a lot like this. It's what, well remember there was a couple KG Celtics years”

where they were like 25 and 25 and they're last 50 and then all of a sudden they would be in the eastern finals. Maybe like how did I ever doubt them? If I were them I wouldn't care about where I landed in this three four five six just like whatever. I don't like let's get everybody healthy. Yeah let's get everyone healthy. I have a new new gimmick for you that I had not prepared for completely unprepared stock draft. Okay. By stock and two guys right now. Okay. I can start if you want. Wait I'm just

just anybody in the entire NBA. It's just guys you've been looking at not necessarily putting real estate on their island, but just your buying some stock. So I'm not buying Yokek stock. I mean we're searching for a buy low under your buying 2015 Yokek stock. Okay.

2016 money to come in the week. Can you go first? Yeah I'll go first. I'd like to put a little

down. I'm going to call my guy Carter Brian. I'd like to put some stuff down on him. I mean you're making me angry with that one. That was that so he's really the only reason I wanted to have the stock draft Friday and Sunday. The crowds cheering for him now like they're changing his name which is a good sign. But I like that he's one of those quiet assassin just killer swing guys. He probably is not going to get into it once with anybody. He just got if you knock him down

and he'll just get up. He's like a Michael Myers and he's bigger than you think he is. It seems like there it seems like he can guard basically everybody in the league. He hits three. He's athletic and they got him at the 14th pick. It was a great draft pick and he's going to be in that team for well. That's a great. It's a great thing. He's putting down a little on him. Slam dunk runner up I believe. So his his playoff viability. Clearly they are trying to make him play

off ready now and when he was not playing much in the regular season, he's an every game player now. Because defensively he's a plus. He's ready for the playoff. He's ready for the highest level stuff. It's just going to be about his offensive readiness. Not even just about his three. Shooting 33% full hit or miss. He had a couple like plays today where you could see a little tentativeness in him when he would they put Houston put centers on him and kind of dared him

to beat him and attack him and he had a couple of plays in traffic where he's like, I don't know I'm going to pivot around here and like that's the kind of stuff didn't in the playoffs. You can

“get a quick hook. If you're a young player, rookie, untested like that. All right. You should”

make a pick. You can do one. Yeah, we can only do one if you want because I need to have as my other one. Who was your other one? I still have neither has her stock. I don't care that he got hurt. I love that you should hold that stock. Yeah, I'm just going to, I mean, again, no preparation. I'm assuming Alex Tsar is too high profile for this, where we want to. It's just the stock's higher, but you can still buy it. I'm going to buy some Alex Tsar stock and I'm going

to sneak in right now to the Mahloch stock market in Phoenix. I'm going to buy the Mahloch Marina. I'm going to play my flag in there and just it's got park Williams's hurt and I think he's going to get some run and he blocked four shots the other night and I'm just going to I'm going to buy now interesting. Yeah, because I was wondering what happened to him because house really liked him. He's been dominating. He's been like a gliath in the glee for whatever that's worth. Okay.

No appendix and I buy some no appendix stock. No appendix stock. You definitely could if you wanted to. This is a guy that I've had stock for a while from way back sold it did really well.

I know he's older but for this summer. I think this could be one of those Robert Williams just

“signed for three years for 50 million. What happened? I think there's going to be another another”

another cycle for him as a guy that that good teams talk themselves into as a playoff guy. Three years 50. I don't see it. I don't see it. He's just not really stupid contract that you'd be surprised by. I mean, Yaka Pertal did get a crazy extension that I didn't know. And it was crazy. It was happening. It was crazy. Maybe that was true. Yeah, whatever. But I think Robert Williams is going to have a moment as a free agency center with a deal higher than you think.

Which Brooklyn that's rookie would you prefer to buy stock in right now? Based on it, they're priced differently. Like Joeman is a little higher price because where he was picked.

Like if you had to buy one, are you going on, you know, the wolf, the wolf then? What are you going

in? Definitely not him. Wow. I don't mind a trailery. He's pretty good. Yeah, I think he's 19. I think if it was like you could only keep one of these five guys who you keep in. I actually think I might keep him over the other four. But pretty rough that draft when you think of some of the other guys that were in that draft. Don't say that to Nets fans. They're going to be like, you're missing. You're missing the three minutes in garbage time or a trailery hit a

scoop shot and Drake Powell guard. I'm like, you're sorry. Great. They passed on Hugo five times.

“That's unbelievable. Google gets him gets him. Did they take a go or they took him over coward, right?”

Yeah, and if you had a good players too. Yeah, that's a tough one. He's pretty good. He's pretty good. But again, like it's he's he's pretty good on a team that's horrible and you would like him to put up a little bit more. I have one more stock guy that I've had for a couple of weeks. Chicobee, unfortunately, cornered the market on it, but Nequan Tomlin, I have a little on him. I don't even know if we saw him today. We did not. I like him. He's pretty good. He's a good

little story. It's like a penny stock. Yeah. Did you have any others? I mean, if anybody on Philly, Darilo has had one or two guys to buy in on Barlow probably shot up a little bit. Yeah, I'm he's fine. I feel like the stock's probably overpriced. Right now. All right, a couple other things really quick before we go to the two things we had. Rob Dillingham, just a sunk cost, I guess. It's not it's not going great.

A rare L for Tim Connelly. It's a tough trade. You do that. Give him an up and unprotected

“picked down the road. You got to feel really good about the player. And one of the things I think”

about, and I'm that the draft's interesting because there's a bunch of like really exciting scoring guards in this draft. You don't follow the draft, but it's they're probably the best crew of scoring guards we've had and some of them are smart and some of them are bigger. It seems like more teams get in trouble over and over again. Are these undersized shooting guards or undersized point cards like the Sebastian Telfare, the booknight, the guy we're talking about now.

Like these guy Dillingham, these these guys that you talk yourself into and they just send up there too small. Jimmer, do I hear Jimmer's music? Jimmer is definitely in there too. But it seems like that's a recurring theme that you're probably just better off taking a 6-7

guy who can't shoot, hoping he learns how to shoot. First is an undersized guard.

I just can't believe how Lola is playing. He has played since being traded to the bulls. His minutes are up a little bit lately, but I thought they would just be like, hey, just don't be afraid to make all the mistakes that Minnesota could not afford to have you make. Make them here. And are they trying to win? They're not tanking. What are they doing? They're tanking. Okay. Every time I think they're tanking, they win. Adam Silver was at Sloan and

laid the Smackdown with tanking. I saw in his very, and his Adam Silver can only lay the Smackdown like a lawyer, like a highly trained Kervath lawyer. But if you read, if you put it through your Adam Silver Translator, the translator spat out, we are changing this and there's going to be real rules put in place after the draft was interpreted. I don't want to hear, when he says, I'm an incrementalist, which is fine. Like, there's going to be change. And I don't want to hear

from the peanut gallery over here of owners that are against it. We're doing it. So buckle up. Shack didn't know who Baylor Charmin was? I didn't see this. That's real. That was tough. He's been starting for the number two team in the East Road. Right. That went down. Yeah. I know it's like a running game ache that these guys don't know who's on. I know we all love the inside the NBA guys, but you could know who who's in the rotation for the best six teams

in the league. I feel like seems reasonable request from the fans. Has this buck season reached

to manifest Doc Rivers podcast guests. That's all you're doing. Be honest. No, I'm more worried because I like Doc Rivers. I want to have a job. They're 98 and they're last 17. Here are the eight losses. You don't need to think. We don't need to hear the one. No, no. This is pretty good. They lost by the following numbers of points. 28, 19, 28, 29, 23, 27, 18, and today, 39. No doubt. They just lose. They get annihilated. They get blown out. They had Janis for the

27 and the 18. And we were here a week ago wondering if things were going to turn around for them.

The answer is no. So you don't think this is a blow-it-up. This summer for them.

Oh, everybody goes. Look, like everybody. I'm talking GM coach. We're just, it's a reset button, nuclear boom. Janis has gone new people and we're doing a four-year tank full of things. Definitely possible. And the Janis story is not over just because he didn't get traded at the

“trade line. I think we all know it's not over. But I don't think they're going to trade them”

unless he demands a trade. I just don't think they're going to, because they probably correctly understand the abyss that's waiting for them on the other side of being completely irrelevant. And he's still 31 years old and one of the three to five best players in the league. And I think it starts with him. Now, could they make changes around him? Sure. We've seen them do that before. They've changed the coach a bunch of times and they would change the coach again in the

middle of the season. So, anything's on the table. But yeah, they, you know, I have some silver linings for buckspans. Sure. Let's hear them. They won the title four years ago, five years ago. That's it. That's it. We've downgraded that to silver linings. Yeah, I just just go back and watch the DVD. That's one. Two, if there's expansion, you're not going to lose somebody you really like, because you don't have eight players to protect. So that's a good one. And then that's mean.

That one was mean. You didn't need to. That was mean. Well, it's a silver linings. What about the fastest? Well, someone takes the necessary transfers. So they, they leave it up protected.

And then you do have your first round pick this year. Yeah, you do. And there is a scenario where

them versus New Orleans, because New Orleans has nothing to play for. They keep winning. They, their picks might be around each other. So they might end up with the pick. They would have ended up with any way or somewhere around there might not. They might not be like, oh, man, we could have blah, blah, blah, blah. What is your time machine? Yeah, on this trade, if you could go back in a month and just force a trade, because I have a team, I have a trade that I wish would happen,

because I just think it would have made the league more fun. I can just do any team. Like, you're going backwards a month. And you're being like, I know you didn't want to do this,

“but now I'm forcing you to do this on February 5th. Because I think there's a specific one.”

I'm trying to be realistic for the box, right? Like, I'm not just going to be like, I want them to go to the warrior. So I'm going to make a warrior straight. Would you can make a plausible warrior straight? I think the most interesting one to revisit that's realistic for the box is either it's going to be one of three teams you're going to bring up. It's going to be either Detroit, Cleveland or Houston. It's going to be one of those three teams. I had Houston. Yeah.

Who's going in the trade, Chengun? Chengun, Jabari and some picks. And right now, we watch that game tonight. Yanis is on. Yanis is on Houston. We're watching Milwaukee, Chengun's on Milwaukee. And I just think the leagues more interesting and Milwaukee probably feels better about where they are. I know that I know the Milwaukee fans don't want to trade Yanis. I think it is alarming that he came back and they just got crushed a couple times. As you say, there's a month time table

“extend before he got injured because I think that was an under. I don't think that was talked about.”

But we all talked about it. But I don't think it was the assumption that he was just going to

come back and be healthy and 100% and never get injured again. And he's actually come back and

looked good but not like Yanis and is always seemingly at risk of the some injury like this. Wanted to mention, haven't heard a lot from Drew Handlin taking shots at the ringer lately about how wrong we were about in bead. I just wanted to open the door for him if you wanted to keep taking the shots. I mean, in beads not playing. This is another just weird. Just added to the list of weird injuries. But he did he had to do it with Carmelo Anthony this week. I'm sure you saw

he's played 33 19 and 33 games in the last three years. This is why we can't put him in the top 30 and the ringer 100. One of the parts of being a high end MBA players playing MBA games. That's one of the things we value here at the ringer. There's going to be a WMBA strike. I think I think it looks more likely than less likely. It's a disaster. I don't think it looks good in the

I understand the reasons from both sides but it's just unbelievable to me that they would

“stop playing basketball when they finally had momentum after 25 years and now we're not going to play.”

I have a list of teams I've given up trying to figure out. Bronze. I'm going to go bronze silver gold bronze metal Houston silver matter metal Minnesota gold metal Orlando. I just give up. I was going to actually going to ask you Orlando. I give up. I have no takes. I give up. What's the deal with that team? What's the deal with the Orlando Magic? Do they know how to do Magic or they barely be Dallas on Wednesday? Like barely.

They're Dallas is even trying to win. They're going to Minnesota and they kill Minnesota in Minnesota Saturday. I just don't understand that. That was one of those games where you're like what's happening here? I don't understand how this Magic Minnesota games like them did just as funny games. Yeah, they bought Washington Dallas Minnesota Milwaukee is their four game winning streak. So forgive me if I'm going to just not go crazy over it because three of the wins are poopo wins.

The Dallas won down to the wires you mentioned. The Minnesota wins are going to go with their they have talent. They're fine. I just, you know, we'll see where they end up. I really wanted to believe in Minnesota. It was dying to believe they were 33 to one when the title. Heading into that Saturday game. I was like, here we go. They're going to be crushed by one loss.

That's it. You're out. It's just every time. Every time we feel like we're getting momentum with here's the mystery of contender we needed for the stretch run. It's Minnesota. And then they just suck in a game. I'm keeping them as the mystery contender. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not. I'm not wavering. That's fine. All right. Um, we're going to do our deep dive. So we've done deep dives on, we did

coi Leonard. Who do we do last week? Who did a good one last week? I already forgot. Once we're done. I forget. Yeah. Um, we're going to do the 2011 MVP race. Okay. And it's topical because there were some slight parallels until the trade fell off a little bit and

“Kate fell off a little bit. Um, uh, what happened with the hornets? Oh, then. Did it, did they?”

Other losing. Okay. So that's it. We pause. We now, we now pause the podcast real time because the hornets are losing. Oh, yeah. The deep dive was about the hornets last week. So we did coi. We did the hornets. Yes. During the 2011 MVP race because of a slight parallels to what we were watching this year with Kate and there was a brief MVP case for her and but now that she has come back this matter. This is probably, I think that other than 2017,

the most polarizing MVP race since the decision. Um, it wasn't polarizing when it happened because

Derek Rose won. Um, Derek Rose had 113 first place votes out of 120. Dwight Howard finished second.

LeBron James was third and Kobe Bryant was fourth. This was the season after the decision. Chicago was 62 and 20. They started out nine and eight. They finished 55 and 12. They were 24 of their last 27 games. And someone on the line, we all decided Derek Rose was the MVP. And now is the years of past because Miami made the finals four straight years. LeBron is who he is. This is a MVP race that people now point to as this should have been LeBron MVP. You did not vote for the LeBron James

“or Derek Rose. You didn't have a vote by your your fake vote. Was that for either guy?”

I would. I would have been the fourth Dwight Howard voter that season. I just thought he was

first of all he was defensive player of the year and was almost unanimous. It was easily the best

defender in the NBA and it was maybe his best offensive season 23 points a game shot well. The advanced stats all loved him and I just thought, you know, it's interesting. We were that is so long ago in sort of NBA discourse times that we were just sort of getting into like on off data and stuff like that. And again, when you're doing these races, it's it's all you're just splitting the thinnest of hairs between guys who are all deserving. And obviously Derek Rose was

the story of the season. The bulls were the story of the season. But one of the one of the arguments that you could make in favor of Dwight Howard in 15 years later, I probably over indexed on it in picking Dwight Howard was the on-off data that year. The magic were awesome with Dwight Howard on the floor. And I think they were negative something. I'm trying to look it up now with him on

off the floor because their defense without him was impenetrable. And some of that had to do with Derek Rose. Some of it was probably just random luck. And I probably under underestimated the luck factor in that back in 2011. But I think there's a there's a ironclad statistical case for Dwight Howard not ironclad, but you could make a statistical case for Dwight Howard easily. And I just thought he was the most dominant two-way player in basketball that year in the LeBron one.

Wait, can we talk about Dwight first and then go to LeBron? Sure. So I had Dwight at the kind of

fifth. And I said kudos to him. This is I wrote a big MVP calm that year and I said kudos to you him for getting about 11% better this season. Me blah blah blah. Magic's only rebounder only above average defender. Six percent of the shots blah blah blah. And then I wrote, I can't give my MVP vote for one simple reason. He leaves something on the table every night. Dwight Howard should be the leagues most dominant player than I had a couple things about comparing them to Shaq all this stuff. Shaq's MVP

season were that Shaq MVP season. I wrote, "Ha, that's the Shaq. We're waiting for our new

“head that extra gear. That's how I feel about Dwight Howard right now." Hakim average is 2414 with 4.6 blocks.”

2.1 Wednesdays in 1990. It wasn't even one of the best three seasons of his career. I keep going on

that. Are you telling me his 23.1 points for it to rebounds two point four blocks? 26.1 PR is the

best he can do. No way. So then I wrote, that's when you ask, wait, why does it matter? If it's better than anyone else's best season who cares if he peaks his players still the best season. And then I said advanced metrics should be used to accentuate opinions we're already leaning towards having instead of forming and shaping those same opinions. If Howard is Orlando's best player is holding something back every night, how can you say that doesn't affect the magic?

So they had the eighth best record that year. They were 52 and 30. I was saying how he gets the best record that year? Yeah, dumb tactical is dumb fouls, disappears in crunch time, didn't even rank in top 125 in crunch time, feel good with times they had an uneven season. Nobody's afraid to play them in the playoffs. Bob, Bob, how can I vote for him from VP?

“That's how I felt in the moment. So I think there's an I test piece to that where it's like,”

I just don't feel right saying that this guy is the best guy in the league. You've, you've been you don't care about as much about that. You're more a spock when you do the case. You're like, here's the mathematical case. This guy is the best at this. It's records this. I still slide the eye test stuff and they're probably a little too much out of my who's right. Well, I mean, part of the eye test is he was single handedly making the magic a good defensive team like

right by by himself as easily the best event that easily, but the best defense player in the NBA. I mean, that has to be, when you talk about leaving stuff on the table, Derek Rose was not a good defensive player that year. So he was leaving stuff on the table. But they were the number one defense. So he couldn't have been that bad, right? No, they were way better. They were way better. They were like a freaking juggernaut from hell without him. But that's like again,

all these guys had cases. Everything you said about Dwight is fair. And that was like the, that was the end of that year of the magic. That was the last year that team was good. And well, that was the irony of what I wrote is that was his best season.

“And I think it was like, is there more there? And it's like now there actually wasn't there,”

there wasn't. And there was in fact less eventually. But I did, did feel like at that time, he was holding together the last remains of that team that had made the finals and then the conference finals the next year. And they ended up losing in the first round the next two years. And then it was kind of over. And yeah. But I just thought defensively he was like he was a floor every night. Like your floor was pretty stable with Dwight Howard in the middle of defense. And yeah,

he took the shack thing is it's so tiresome because shack has perpetuated it too. Like they had this rivalry over the years. And then they would, you know, record sound, then it'd be a rival again.

He was never, he's not as big as shack. He couldn't just move people out of the way. He's

easily as shackled. I mean, shack was just, you know, just the 8th wonder of the world, kind of guy. And he just was never a polished post-up player. And those were the years where they stand being gunned, he just sort of successfully shoehorned him into it. Post up a few times a game when you've got a good matchups and we'll throw it a little bit about it. But just do these things you're awesome at. And you're going to be the foundation of every single thing we do.

Offensively and defensively, you are the tent pole of everything. And I just thought that was the best season. So the, the stuff I wrote about rose. And it's weird because over the years I've been like, I got the roasting wrong. And then I went back and read how passionate what I was about the rose case about that team was 62 and 20. He was the only guy in the, he cared their

like the Detroit case this year. One guy, little booser, a little, a little. Um, usage was pretty crazy.

In crunch time, per 48, second most feel goal, eighth most free throw at times, ninth highest

assist. He was doing everything. I was comparing it to the Iverson O1, sixers thing and just like, just everything was on him game after game after game. And they won most of their games, which matters. And then Booser and Noah both, I wrote rose keeping the bull's potential for three plus months. And Booser, no, a miscignificant time was the most impressive thing. I witnessed the season. Their quest for number one stage should have been the real dinner, November, blah, blah, blah.

He kept them hanging around, kept them relevant. And they were the best team that year. And whether he was the best player was the bigger question because LeBron was still the best player in the league, but that Miami season was super weird. It's interesting. What I wrote in that of the peak column was that I thought Wade had a slightly better case than LeBron that year, because he was more kind of stable and reliable. LeBron had all that. He was the villain that year.

He was a little up and down. There were games when you didn't know where his head was. Um,

but I really said both that they were basically Column VPs, which I talked about Column VPCs

of 1970, Read and Prasier, 72 Jerry Westville, Chamberlain, and O6, Shack and Wade. It was really like hard to separate the two guys and impact. If I had to do it over again, I think I would have rose one.

“I think I would have LeBron 2, Wade 3, and Dwight 4. And I think that's how I would go.”

Because those guys won 55 games. There was three guys. It was those two in Bosch, Mike Miller, who wasn't exactly awesome that year. They had Carlos Aureo, Mike Bibi, like they were grabbing dudes from the street. There are three on five, and they still went 55 and 27. Every game they played was the biggest game in the season for the other team. So I don't know. When I look back at that, they were two of the best three guys in the league other than LeBron and Dwight in there.

Can you imagine if LeBron had won MVP that year? And then had the same finals that he had that season. It would have been worse than the Durko 7. I mean, it would have been the all-time like, there would have been columns being like, we need to revoke the MVP and give it to whoever

finished second is what would have. The thing is the animosity from the decision. He was a winning

MVP unless they won 60 plus games. I also think it's okay for voters when these super teams happen to take a year and just sort of be like, I don't, I got to kind of see what's going on here because the word valuable in there does give you sort of leeway to be like, well, that one guy is so centrally important to his team. And these all three of these guys just team, but it's why like, this is an even a level up super team, but the moment the ramp went to the Warriors, those

“guys were never winning MVP again. And I think that was fair. Like it's just like, that gives too good.”

You have too much, like, there's another, there's going to be someone else doing more much more with doing the same with much less than you guys have. I think Wade, the Wade from O9 to 11 is the most underappreciated guy at the last 20 years. How good he was. And he's like, for instance, kind of started O6. Well, you started wherever, but those three years specifically, I just think like, I thought his own nine year was one of the best years any two guard had

Sid Jordan in 11. He's better than Wade. I wrote that in the MVP piece because Kobe ends up finishing fourth in the MVP. Wade was just better than him that year. He was just better pick a stat. He was better than him defensively. Kobe was still getting those all defense teams at that point. He wasn't the guy. Wade was and Wade was just as good as LeBron. And in the playoffs was actually better than LeBron, especially in the finals. I just think they were like this. They LeBron,

that year was not, I don't think, better than Wade. He might add better nights. But I just think Wade was like the engine of that team. And he was the alpha of that team and really trying to keep LeBron's head into it. And it wasn't until the next year that LeBron ascended and kind of went to that next level.

“But I thought Wade was, I'll never forget, watch away that year, especially in the finals.”

I just thought he had a, I can't remember if it was game through a game for a hit one game that was just, he was so fucking good in this game. In the Dallas finals? Yeah, I was either three or four. He was just so good. I still remember being in the stands like Holy shit, you know. And I just felt like Kobe, Kobe stole some of his sunshine. I think because they were going against each other and everybody, at that point, Kobe had become, you know, he was rising, rising up the ladder.

And I just think Wade was right there with him for years. We don't think of it that way now.

one deep dive because Wade would be very, very high and was an elite, elite two way player, who just like his athleticism betrayed him fast because of all the damage that had been done to his knees. But I mean, you go back and you watch peak to end Wade. And it just, he just jumps off the screen. There is nobody who can stay in front of him. I mean, he's, he's just a remarkable, remarkable athlete. He could pass the defense was there. It's just an unusual player, a guy that height who could block shots

like that and protect the rim and played vertically was very unusual. And very tough, tough and like fearless from day one. So I was, that was the other thing I was to say, it means spirited and I mean, it as a compliment, like really had an edge to him. Kobe did too. But really carried himself with, with almost the level of like anger when he played in a good way. But so that year he was 26 a game. Six rebounds, five is says Kobe was 25, five and five. He shot 50%, play 23 minutes.

Some of the minutes stuff to share was nuts. Rose played over 3,000 minutes, so to the brunt. I, Rose played up because I was going to bring this up. The top four finishers played 82, 78, 79, and 80 games. Like, that'll, but is that ever going to happen again?

“Right. And that's, that's the best thing with the Rose cases. He just played, he played 80,”

like 81 games, 37 minutes a game. He was their entire offense. He was in fifth gear every game.

You never saw a game when he had night off. And so the more I stared at it and thought about it

and read what I wrote, read some other stuff that was out there. I still think Rose is the right call. And the fact that it was that one side it. I think maybe it shouldn't have been as one side it as it was. But I think that is meaningful. It shouldn't have been as one side as it was. I think it absolutely holds up as, as an okay to correct decision to make. I wouldn't have been my vote, but I think it completely holds up as an MVP case. And if, I think the, all of the,

if there was ever a, we got this wrong, like MVP discussion about it, I think it would all focus on the brunt. I don't think any of it would focus on Dwight or Dwight or Koby. I think it would be, it all coalesces around did the voters punish Lebron for the decision. And when it was still obvious that he was by far the best player because the advanced stats will tell you, Lebron was the best player. The advanced stats, not every stat, but the advanced stats will tell you

“that. And I think it would cool us around him. And I think it's fine that he didn't win MVP”

there. I think that's totally fair. I think him and Wade were one A one B and I'm not even sure who when A was, Wade was plus 10.4 that year and Lebron was plus 10.1. They were just so intertwined. I don't know how you can even say one guy was more valuable than the other. And it really was

amazing to watch those guys those first three years and kind of culminated in the streak, right?

The streak, which was one of the greater achievements. And that was really Wade's last great run, I think, because even when they got to 2013 playoff, so you've started to break down. There's one guy, I was trying to think, did anybody have an advanced case that we didn't really fully understand in 2011, but now we understand better in 2006 if we were doing it with our lens and it's clearly dirt and whiskey. And I wrote some of this in the MVP

thing, even though I had him like eighth, where they were basically like 55 and 12 when he played. And then something like that, 55 and 14. And when he didn't play, they were helpless. He was the only guy in the team that could create a shot other than Terry. They had that Roddy Booboav, they've tried to turn him into a thing full of the air. Oh, he was untouchable. Yeah, he was untouchable. Couldn't, couldn't trade him. And then it all coalesced and the playoffs, and they found

a defensive identity. He went up a level. But his advanced stuff was, oh, they're 55 and 18 with him when he played, but he was plus 10.3. He was 23, 7 and 3. So it was a typical dirt gear, 52, 39, and 89. And they won like 57 games. So that was, there's probably a little better case for him. They had the fourth best record in the week. And that would be the guy, maybe if you had to do it over again, maybe he stinks in the fourth or fifth. That's probably, that's a good call.

And I remember writing it's court, so I'll show you that year that the maves were a contender hiding in plain sight because because of their, yeah, he missed like 10 games. I didn't think he went like one in nine without dirt or some crazy number like that. And that

“totally deflated their place in the sandings. I remember that year, you know, they played Portland”

in the first round. And I believe that series is two two and there's the branded Roy game

and Portland wins games three and four at home. And everyone's like, here go the mavericks again. And then it just skyrocketed from there. It's, it's a great fork in the road where it really seemed like not only they're going to lose the Portland, but that now we're going

outcomes. And then I'll send it flip the other way. Can I just say one there gross thing? Yeah. It might be the, I don't want to say rank injuries, but that injury, like heat bowls should have been an all-time great half decade rivalry. It just, it just had everything contrasting styles,

contrasting cities, Noah calling them Hollywood as hell, just defense first. The, a team that was

perceived as a highlight like lob dunk. It was just everything. And then the Pacers came in like filled the void, but it was clearly like someone's got to fill the void and they were not as good as the, but that, that should have been just four straight years of conference finals and just swung best the whole way through. Yeah. There were two great LeBron rivals that got crippled because I think KGs 2009 injury was the other one, right? The two biggest injuries in either conference

they're in this whole stretch where the KG09 and the rows and 12 where you had teams that probably had a chance to win one maybe even two more titles between them. And you look at the teams Indiana was the best team they played probably in that 2011 of 14 stretch that Miami played in the playoffs. There was probably the Pacers. Indiana took him to seven and then six, two times everything. I don't know. That next team I thought had potential with they kind of fell apart. Then you

go to the 2015 when he went back to Cleveland. I mean they played, they played a 40 41 41, 41 Milwaukee team in 15 that early on us with some Chris Middleton. I forget who else was on there. They played Atlanta. They played somebody else, but I just think the league is so much better than it was 11 years ago. I couldn't believe some of the teams that they's played out. Those four then, those four years, they were so visibly bored with not only the regular season,

but the playoffs two in the East. I remember there was a, I remember which Raptors year was because God knows they humiliated Toronto enough times, but it was the one where Toronto had them two

“in, I think it was the second round. And LeBron had this all-time quote after they won game five.”

Like, yeah, I think it was certainly, I've been in adverse situations before and this wasn't one of them. And it was like, wow, you're just like two, two in the playoffs and you just like, yeah, I don't care. They just wake us up when we have to actually win. Crazy. All right, that was a good deep dive. LeBron though. So you're keeping, I'm sticking out as you're about. I'm sticking with Dwight. The career from there, Korean sideways a few times.

That's weird. It is no bank fell into a lake. Like, there's, there's a lot of bad stuff that happened. I, as I was researched in this stuff, you know, as you, as I have the amnesia with half the stuff I wrote, you and I did a back and forth piece about the 2013 Lakers as it was going sideways. Okay. We exchange emails. It was like five thousand words. Yeah, I was like January or February 2013. And it was when Dwight's season was starting to go sideways for the Lakers and

“Nash was looking old and Kobe was doing the thing where he's like, I'm just gonna, I think”

it all culminated and Kobe just playing 48 minutes a game and then getting hurt. But that team went off the rails in like crazy swaying. We're writing about that in real time and one of the guys we're writing about is Dwight. Like, oh yeah, this probably probably isn't happening. Like, by the way, Dwight Howard, I'm just, just for the record, I wanted to say it's because I spent time looking this up. Dwight Howard, one defense player of the year that you're, I think it was just

served one in a row by a lot. He received 114 first place votes. The following players were the other

players who received first place votes. And this was before the voting was public. Kevin Garnet, one first place vote. Ken, are you with Kevin Garnet? You're in. Grant Hill, 38 year old Grant Hill of the Phoenix Suns got a first place defense player of the year vote that year. You'll joking know I got one, okay. Keith Bogons snagged a first place vote at that doctor, according to S.B. Nation,

“Dr. Jack Ramsey on a broadcast claim that it was him. That's what he lost his vote.”

And the only other player who received multiple first place votes with two Chuck Hades of the Houston Rockets. Chuck Hades. Two first place votes. Lopez, shut down guy. We all love Chuck Hades. Whoever those two people are take take it easy with with Chuck Hades love. Last thing before we got, we didn't get to our Utah thing. Maybe we'll do it next week. I read this book. I did a quick book review. I read this book called

Masters of the game. Okay. By Sam Smith and Phil Jackson. Oh, I have it. I haven't read it. So now

I will be interested in your review. They go through 75 players and it's basically a back and forth.

with each player. But each one kind of can basically zag into this different conversation.

“It's one of the strangest books I've ever read. I don't understand if they had a proof reader”

or an editor or anything. There's certain guys where they don't even talk about the guy. It's like number, you know, whatever. Anthony Davis. And then it's just the whole section. Some story about Phil Jackson when he coach for Albany. There's factual stuff that's wrong. Like they say at one point Lonnie Shelton got a fight with Bill Bridges when it was actually buckwams and just it's just kind of couldn't believe how lazy it was and why they didn't try to make it better. And at the

same time I got like 20 things out of it reading it. And there were some really interesting tidbits. And it was worth kind of zooming through the biggest thing that I learned. And I had no idea. As you remember, I used to love Pat Riley's disease of B. And I made a big thing about it in my

basketball book. And I would always bring it up and all this stuff. Apparently it was actually

Lenny Wilkins's thing that he called championship hang championship fallout that he called during the year after the Seattle Sonic's one. And he talked about all these factors that happened your team. And he named it championship fallout. I don't want to say Pat Riley stole it. But Pat Riley definitely renamed it into the disease of B in his book. And then I thought it was a Pat Riley thing, but it turns out it was a Lenny Wilkins thing. And that kind of blew my brain.

“Half a life is marketing, right? Like, yeah, you know, the Winklevye event Facebook or”

did Mark Zuckerberg event Facebook? Who knows? But championship fallout. It's called. So that review, that review just gave. There were some plot twists within the review. I mean, I thought it was going to be a full-on pan. And then it veered into like for the end of the guys where it's like, I don't understand how that's all you had to say about Chris Paul. Like, you couldn't have just done two paragraphs back and forth about Chris Paul and said

him with this way. But at the same time, I was really enjoying something of the story. So I don't know the book. I kind of enjoyed reading it as I was frustrated by it because there was some some tidbits that reinforced things I heard. Like, they killed Elvin Hayes. You know, they they talked about Dave Cowans, what a maniac he was. But there was some interesting coaching stuff with Phil. Like, guys that he clearly liked, like, he loved Jason Kidd. And he kind of didn't like Chris Paul.

And he was like, Chris Paul was kind of like, look at me, look at me on the leader, look at me, and Jason Kidd was like actually a leader. So there was, there were things to gleam from Phil Jackson. And then Sam Smith covered, believe, you know, and I really respect Sam Smith. And he had some really good insight on these different teams he covered. So you just kind of had to dig out the interesting stuff in the book. And that was the takeaway. But this was one of the things Phil Jackson said,

or I was actually Sam Smith said this. They're talking about Patrick Ewing. And the next go up two nothing in the bulls next series in 93. And he said, they go back to Chicago. And Ewing says the

next just had to win one, just had to win one. And he goes, you never heard that from Michael down

to nothing. He would say we're going to win the next four. Ewing was just more normal than Michael. And I was like, that's actually a really interesting point. There's two types of players, right? There's the guy that would go in a Chicago up to nothing and be like, we just got to win one and get it back to New York. And then there's like the Jordan Kobe type. So we're fucking winning the next four. Fuck these guys. And I was like, yeah, that's kind of so it got my juices going on

all these different basketball things. But I was still like incredibly frustrated reading it. So that's my review. More normal than Michael is a section of the band diagram that encompassed most of humanity. By the way, on Apple books, this book is $2. So you could just read it download it and zoom through it on your iPad and have a real good time. Well, let's do a book talk.

“So I'm about two thirds of the way through the new Larry Birdboat heartland. Oh, what's the best thing you learn?”

I mean, it's just it's all so far. It's all like he just got to Indiana State basically where I am. It's it's all his, I mean, I knew a lot of his childhood growing up and his dad and his family situation. But I did not know as much about like how long he was actually at IU before he left and one of the reasons why he left and what his roommate situation was. And just like you really get a good picture of of both French, Lincoln, Tara Hought, like they talk about the bars that

people would go to and and and some of the atmosphere around those early Indiana State games. But it was clearly had something with Bird and this international that I was not aware I had forgotten about this team of like a high school or might have been freshman year of college all stars that went and played internationally and on this trip that became like a disaster. They got

do I don't even know if we're getting to the Celtics in in the book ever. It's all college in high school. Oh, interesting approach. We ran an excerpt of it in the ring. I saw a couple of other things from that book by the way. Phil Jackson really loved what a tough guy Carl Malon was and

like I almost wonder I got a really rethink my Carl Malon because he obviously I was always glass

half empty on every aspect of him and he'd be created the 42 club to try to try to make his resume worse because I really valued how bad he was in these end of the game things. He was talking about just what an absolute intimidation guy he was and how he would intimidate like garnette Rashid Wallace all these dudes wanted no part of him because he was just this tough guy is obo's rose up and nobody really fucked up them ever and I don't think I've counted that

enough of them. So that was one thing and then he was talking about Shaq just would an awful practice

where Shaq was and he was and he basically was like as the years past you romanticize all the good

things about a square but it was like Shaq just ruined practice for us. We would have to play four on four like Shaq just was actually like a negative negative influence day to day because he just nailed the impractices done stop and it really hurt us. So you hear stuff for that and like all right that's

“something you know it's not just about the stats and then you would go score 45 and be that's why you put”

up with it yeah that's why you put up with it but it was interesting yeah I'm going to start I'm going to try to read a basketball book a week and give a little review at the end. He really loved Jason kid though man it may be wonder if I had Jason kid too high in my pyramid whether he should be lower what why would that make you wonder if he should be lower I mean like I have them in the forties like I'm wondering like yeah because I maybe I'm discounting his shot too much. How could any

coach not love Jason kid is a player? I mean he's just next level basketball so on like you and tough and plays defense like he's just he's got to be his coaches player. Well I wonder I did the pyramid before the 11 finals and maybe maybe I should factor that in more because he was awesome and that play out front even though he was running on fumes. I love being able to do what's key where I needed to go and be the leader of the team all that stuff. I loved that version of Jason

old man Jason kid because he learned a shoot threes and he was like I'm going to he he was like

“I think I think I can make up a position where I play point guard and I never go in the paint”

I just play like old man quarterback point guard and it's I'm still such a good passer that it works. Would you rather have Jason kid or Chris Paul if you could have one guy for their whole career? Jason kid. Yeah I got to redo the pyramid. All right see I'm glad I read this book even though I was frustrated by it. It really did get my juices going in nine directions. So thank you Sam Smith and Phil Jackson two dollars on Apple books right now. Zach low this was a pleasure as

always thanks to Eduardo and Gahouse. Well Zach's going to be back on his podcast on Tuesday.

I have Fargo for the rewatchables to Maro and then I'm not sure I'm going to do some football

“I think on Tuesday and then I don't know and Thursday so and then potentially I think I'm seeing”

you again on Sunday. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Sounds good. Well you're you're traveling their stuff. We're going to figure out some sort of some sort of give some stuff. Zach low thanks man. Thanks to everybody on Netflix and Spotify and we'll see you next time around. Must be 21 plus in president select states for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas star casino or 18 plus in president DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Game problem called 100 gambler or 1-800 my reset

call 888-797777 or visit ccpg.org/chat and Connecticut or mdgamblinghub.org and Maryland. Hope is here visit gamblinghubline ma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support mass chisits or call 877-8 hope and why or text hope and why in New York for Louisiana call 877-770-787-867.