Why Brunson Is Top 50 All Time, a Finals Mega-Mailbag, and NBA Fake Trade Season With Joe House

ringer podcast network where on the rewatchables it is from Helmont.

“We've done single-way female, we just put up the hand that rocks the cradle and then we”

have domestic disturbance and the good sun coming later this month, domestic disturbance, judgeable to Vince Vaughn. That's going to be Monday's movie, that is one of the funny, or unintentional comedy movies of the 2000s. Netflix has all these movies, if you miss them, including Pacific Heights, which they just added in mid-June, which we are definitely doing over the next few episodes, love that movie. So check all that out. Don't forget about

the beautiful pod with Adam Friedland. That's on his Adam Friedland feed, little special

world cup analysis and all kinds of stuff. Chris Ryan, the original CR, has been joining

him as well. And then we had a bunch of bunch of ringer basketball podcasts. If you didn't get nearly enough about the next winning, we're all over the place with the ringer and be a show, the mismatch, Max and Rich on Game Over, ringer gambling show, it just keeps going

“and going. So we have the draft coming up. I'm going to try to hit, I think I might do”

three podcasts this week. We might be going Monday once they Friday this week. And at least one of those, we'll have a bunch of draft stuff. But today I want to have Joe House on this has been the guy I have argued about with about historical basketball stuff the most over the past almost four years of my life. But we got to talk about Jalen Brunsett, big picture. I have great meal back questions. I'm trying to figure out what the hell happened over these

last two and a half months and how the NBA shifted. And house is going to be by millbag slash pyramid sounding board because we got to figure out where Jalen Brunsett goes in the pyramid. So I'm excited. It's all next. Can't wait. We're going to bring him Pearl Jam right after we take this break. Pearl Jam. This episode of the Bill Simmons podcast is presented by PayPal. You know, a clutch move when you see one, a no look pass, a buzzer beater, a big steel. Well,

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issuers, terms and conditions. It is Monday morning nine o'clock Pacific time. My long time buddy Joe has to say we're going to do a mailbox. We're going to talk a lot of historical NBA pyramid stuff which is the real reason you're here. We're going to talk US open near the end because you have a lot of thoughts and picks. We are coming off an awesome sports weekend. The next and probably when the

NBA title in five games and spurn a bunch of narrative spurn spurn spurn spurn. Spurn. Spurn. No pun intended spurn a bunch of a bunch of big narratives. That happened. There's been a lot of draft us. There's been a bunch of yannas stuff now. It feels like this yannas thing is in full gear.

We had Darren Peterson basically saying he would only work out with your Washington

Wizzards and that's it. We're going to talk about that. We had the Stanley Cup finals, Carolina one, El Chippo. El Chippo carrying the code. We had this UFC White House event that everybody was pretty bummed out about and yet it had two of the most kind of shocking

“fights in a row that I can ever remember and you have see where we had Pereira and Tuporia,”

both lost two of the best three fighters in the world. Pereira got his ass kicked and then Tuporia looked like he was in a car accident by the end of the fight. It was, that was great. And then we had a bunch of world cup. Are you betting world cup? Are are we in danger zone here, post NBA finals where you're just sprinkling stuff everywhere? I mean, obviously, yes, the biggest lesson with the world cup is any team that starts with the T, not betting them.

We're we're really relying on Tony Tokens every morning of this world cup. We wake up. We hit up our guy the bundle. Tony Tokens. What are we doing today? What the world cup so far? The

direction. So I'm not betting anymore countries that begin with the letter T. The T is stands for taking it in the in the take my money. Take my money. We we were talking about these these top 4 NBA draft odds too, which has been fun like in the prediction market where and Fandle has some stuff too, but they're it's all over the place that keeps moving around and then

Peterson happened today where he basically said I only want to work out for Washington. But we're

both convinced that Washington's good take AJ to bands with the first pick. And this this to me

“is a situation now worth watching because if Utah takes boozer second, I could honestly see Peterson”

being like, I'm not playing for Memphis. You guys are going to have to figure this out. It's not happening. Wow. Yeah. We have not. I mean Steve Francis is famous in 1999 or 2000 somewhere in there. Yeah. And then maybe he tried to go to the bulls. I don't know, but I'm prepared for just meant in there, then you have Acuff who seems like the most popular pick, but the Quippers have the fifth pick right after the top 4 and they don't need a point guard, but everybody's in love with

Acuff. So that pick feels like it's for sale. There was a trade where we're going around the

internet today about if there's going to be a third team for this Yana's Boston trade, which I've

been talking about on this podcast for a week. And there I think would have to be a third team of Jailons in it because what is what's more walking into a Jailon could the clips I'd heard this too during the weekend could the clips with the fifth pick move in there and be the third team. And then the second piece of this with they then sent Kuwait to Miami as a consolation price and you're basically replacing Kuwait Jailon. Use the fifth pick. The real story here is I'm not sure the

Quippers have anyone they love with the fifth pick. So we have basically a little over a week here with a bunch of crazy storylines and play. What's your team doing? What's you Todd doing at two? Where's Peterson actually going and does he want to go there? What happens from fifth pick on?

My favorite storyline can the warriors get somebody good at 11 because it's basically a nine

square draft with Marin and it's like the wild cards that could go higher and push people down. It's okay so you're going to try to trade a center. This is about as fun as we've had for the eight days. So what's your favorite storyline? AJ Devon said to the Washington Wizards of course the

“number one overall pick is the only thing that I care about. It will be fascinating to see what”

happens behind. I do really put some faith in the idea of booser to Utah. It just makes too much sense and when some smart folks on the internet have started doing some here's how the chemistry would work and for sure the relationship between the booser family and the organization and that of that all we've all we're all familiar with that narrative aspect of it but but the fit who Hardy is like the first time. This is the first time I'm going to see Will Hardy

be actually coach for wins. Yeah, it's a team to win, right? I think booser is a great fit there. So that that creates this jump all situation and the thread this morning was moving. Our little thread, our draft expertise. Yeah, I loved the notion of Peterson to Chicago. It makes a ton of sense. And for sure Memphis, I think Wilson fits what Memphis wants. He kind of immediately fills the triple J roll. Does that mean like there's a whole bunch of reasons why that makes sense but we

don't have great precedent for teams swapping draft position without there being some kind of compensation but the fit for Boach Chicago and Memphis, those respective players make sense if they swap positions. So couldn't they do something where it's like I wonder what if Chicago offers Memphis a year's worth of Jordanos deep dish? What are like, you know, something because

“it's like, I think it's like it would have to be three years or maybe they're going to put”

Jordanos satellite deep dish place in downtown Memphis. Fine, I have an easier trade for you. What if they just give them the 15th pick, four and 15 for three. Fine, we'll stop your Darren Peterson issue and Memphis can get four and 15 and just take Caleb Wilson, who might have done a bigger better part anyway. I like that for both sides. So do I. The most fun NBA scenario is you guys take AJ, Utah takes Booser. Peterson ends up in Chicago. Memphis gets four and 15 takes Caleb Wilson

and then Utah calls San Antonio and they say, "Hey, do you have a Darren Fox problem?" We have a matching salary and Lori marketing, but you're going to have to wet our beak.

and let's call it a day. You get what you did in post? The files ended and you were immediately

in the trade machine. What time Saturday night were you in the trade machine? Be honest, and it was after you the game finished at what time at West Coast? Oh, you and Zach had to do the pod. Now we've finished the pod and then Fox trade started pouring out of me. Like like the plus for open source. All right, that's the key. I'm ready with that direction. I thought it was other bodily fluids, but it all makes sense. Would Lori marketing have solved some of the new San Antonio's problems

in that 2026 finals? Here's the problem that we're going to have for a little while.

“It is overreaction of the moment, all of the recent C bias. I think quite a bit of the Fox,”

as the in the crosshairs kind of concept, is really emblematic of Prod this spurs team is

and the fact that they arrived a year early. They just weren't ready. They weren't ready from top to bottom. They weren't ready conceptually. They weren't ready schematically. They weren't ready for in terms of the coaching. They weren't ready in terms of the personnel. They happened to run into the one team in the entire NBA where their youthful, the speed, Wendy's force, their defensive intensity. There was only one team in the NBA that could match them because New York to their

credit, they showed up healthy. This was the single biggest underrated storyline because they swept the two previous teams that they faced in the East. They had so much time to get the very best version of themselves ready for these playoffs. Remember, Fox was missing games in these playoffs. It's not fair to me to be pinpointing Fox and not for sure. We can look at the moments where he was not up to the task and you say, he's supposed to be on this team. He's supposed to be the

calming influence. He's supposed to be the guy that makes the intelligent high IQ basketball play at the end of these games and every one of these games that are so close. It's crunch time ends. He's a previous crunch time winner. He's a guy who's with a demonstrated track record of success.

“I think when we start taking some steps back, there is yet still a version of this spurs team where”

we say we're a little more gracious about it. Can we be generous and say that Mitch Johnson and Deer and Fox will get on the same page with the benefit of what they learned from that series and all of the assets that the spurs possess coming into the next season. There's a version of this spurs team. What do you think they're overall open up at in terms of regular season wins? Well, they're the same way at these 60s. I didn't really realize this until Sunday as I was

going through all the clips and stuff from watching the post game interviews. It does feel like the fundamental issue with the spurs. By the way, all the stuff you said about the spurs about, hey, if they just lie, I said that on Saturday, if they just lost game seven and okay, see, we don't have any of this stuff and we're fine with the spurs and it's a successful season. I do want to point out you were very mean about the number of the Patriots who made this Super Bowl.

It was the same scenario and I don't remember you making that defense for my Patriots. Oh, I don't understand. It's a radically different sport and I was on the correct side of the young team that got to the Super Bowl and maybe it would have been better off losing in the FC title game, which I said, but you didn't want to hear it. You just, you thought it was because the South's Drake may jokes. All I did was win money. I like betting against the Patriots.

I like winning the money. But watching all the stuff the next day and then thinking about the series more looking at the minutes, I do think the fundamental issue with the spurs. They had two

“issues. One is when be is a 30 minute game guy who cannot play 40. I think we've learned that in”

the playoffs. He's going to have to figure it out. That's who he is right now. That's who he is right now. He's going to have to figure that out over the next five years. How can I handle being on the court more than 29 to 30 minutes a game? That's one issue. The other is the Harper issue. You saw it

in game five who got the car keys near the end of game five. It was Harper. It was the first time

you saw them do that all the series where he got the impact he brought it up. They were running stuff through him and I just think they were afraid to do that the whole series. Fox played more minutes than him. Fox played 36 minutes. 12 points a game. All his stats were terrible. And then had a couple of big brain fights. I think he was afraid to shoot by the end of the series. Like he couldn't eat threes. Harper wasn't much better on threes, but at least wasn't afraid to take them.

And I think fundamentally that was almost the bigger issue than the one be thing. Is that they had this issue. But did you hear of a cell set about? He talked about Harper. He was like, this is

minutes. It was the first time he was kind of like, yeah Harper wanted to play more and was ready to

be this guy. Harper's attitude during that finals was, I'm here. I'm ready. I'm ready for all this. And Mitch Johnson was afraid to tell Fox to go sit in the passenger seat. And that was a big issue for them. Sure. And you know what? Everything you just said, that's fine. That's great. All of that is part of the maturation process. The growing up process. Like the the minutes thing, you know, as Acklo and Sean Fennessey and extraordinary podcast set at Sunday night that I

enjoyed listening to very much stuff right now on the ringer podcast network. You know, made the point about the the capacity of the next to play all 48 minutes. And that that was an advantage

that they possessed over the spurs. Well, the spurs losing steam in the second half and especially

in the fourth quarter running out of energy. That's a skill. That's not about like the conditioning

“of the spurs versus the conditioning of the mix. It's a skill. You have to learn it. You have to”

learn through these kinds of playoff reps. How to allocate that that energy. Where to save energy. And I thought, you know, we saw an experiment happening in real time in quite a bit of the strategizing that the spurs undertook that Mitch Johnson undertook. We saw it in game five. He took one be out with five minutes left in the basketball game for crisis. How is that pot? What do we do in? Like we know what the current minutes produced. But look, this was to me a

giant success for the spurs. Like, you know, like, they have nothing to to really resent or regret other than like, we're just quite not ready. And there's really only one team in the NBA that

could could, you know, really take advantage of it. I never think it's a giant success if you could

actually win the title and you didn't. Well, the Patriots had no chance to win the Superbowl against the Seahawks, right? And that put me in that mode of out, man. I just wish we lost in Denver.

“San Antonio, they led for, I think, what was it? 72% of the series they led by double digits and all five”

games. So what they led in the last two minutes of every game? Hang a banner with all those deaths on it. I have good meal back questions about this. But one of them I'm going to read now. This is from Timothy. My closest friend was supremely confident in every juncture of the NBA finals about the spurs losing. He said in the first quarter of game five, the spurs are like drunk teenagers who eventually black out, a lot of early stamina. And it's totally true. Are you

wanting to get your buster shots? Yeah, let's go. And then by 11 o'clock people throwing up in the bushes. That's the way that wasn't Timothy Shala May. No, it was just a magician. Okay, just check it. Now, it was a spelling he ended the spelling with a why. Okay, good. So I think you're right in the sense of, hey, let's not overreact. But I do think this Harper thing, I think he has to start next year.

“And I think he needs to drive the car and if I'm them, I'm looking at getting out of this”

boxing, if I can. Because the other trade and people were sending a bunch of different trades. And you could do like, oh, we'll get Randall for a year and different chains. I'll like there's all kinds of whatever's. Porter from the nets as an expiring for Fox was one that got sent to me a few times. And that one made me go, huh? Because you have the nets who, you know, I don't think they want to be rebuilding for the rest of the 2020s. They just had the entire city got, officially taken away

from them. They're irrelevant. And, you know, could you, could you do that trade and then trade this six pick for a star and just try to be like, we're here. We have good players now. My only pushback on that is that the Porter expiring should be more valuable than the next five years of Fox at 55 this year. Or you say you're by and low at Fox a guy who two years ago is average in 25 points of game. Are you, are you, are you maybe just on the wrong team? I don't know. That is

in his late 20s. You could say we were here during the playoffs last this confidence. We're by and low. But that's the most interesting. The idea of him being on the wrong team would suggest that he's not a winning player. He's on, he should be on exactly the right team. It should be the spurs should be the right team. They have this opportunity this summer to, like, lessons learned and take that right. Okay. You and I have been falling basketball our whole life. It's true. This

Fox Harper thing is not going to end well. I'm sorry. It's just won't. I'd be, I'd be shocked if it's like, hey, we figured it out. Three guard rotation like the trait in the late 80s and looking at all these

What we saw from him in the playoffs was about as high of a level from a 20 year old guard as we've

seen with magic being a 10 out of 10 and Kobe, you know, in the 2000 was Kobe, I forget how old he

“was in the 2000s finals. I think it was somewhere around 20. But if that's the top of the pyramid,”

some of the stuff Harper was doing was wasn't there, but it was at least sniffing in the vicinity of it. And I thought in game five, I thought that had a chance to be his masterpiece. It was like, we've safely flipped the series. He went all the way to the hole to lay up in the last two minutes that he missed. I mean, he was there. He did the thing. He got all the way there. He loved all the questions. He wasn't afraid at all. I loved the defense. He was playing on Bronson. Bronson was

making big shots on him. So yeah, I'm interested to see what happens with Fox. And then you have

the honest piece, which people have been reporting now for two days. Like the reason the stuff gets out, if it's just Boston and Milwaukee and they're talking about stuff, very unlikely stuff gets out. But if, and I, for the aggregators, I am saying, if, if J. Lim Brown was the piece being dangled for Janice and Milwaukee is like, well, we don't need J. Lim Brown. What could we get for them?

“That's how stuff gets out. That's where you get in the trouble. That's when you start calling”

these different teams, including the cuppers. I do wonder though if there's a, the cuppers thing feels a little real to me because I don't know who they know, who, I don't think they have any idea who they should take it five. I think that's a real issue because they just invested in Garland and the next three guys at five are all point cards. So you can't take a point guard there. You have to do something at five. I like the idea of the clippers taking a big swing. They want to

stay in the mix for sure, Balmer and the front office there. They've shown, you know, the, the, the willingness to go ahead, like, look at what they did preceding this trade deadline. Those are big swings. James Harden and Zubocht. Those, that's a front office that's like, we know we got to do something. There's a reset. So Kawai is an element of the next step of the, of the reset.

“Certainly makes sense to me. But they are retooling, not rebuilding and how can they play a role?”

It feels like Milwaukee wants a full rebuild, right? They want to come up with some combination of draft picks and or very young players, you know, players brand new to the league. And is the clippers the right conduit to that? I mean, it feels like there needs to be a 14. Well, let me ask you, do you think if you're the clippers and you have Kawai and you have Garland and you have a little more of a veteran team, you're probably on a little bit of a shelf life with Kawai, not just contractually.

But just with him as an impact guy is 34. If you're able to turn that fifth pick in a jailin or somebody like Jaylin, is the fifth pick worth more or less than that? Because I think you could make a case, Jaylin being one of the top 12 players in the league. Second team on BA last year coming off a career year is probably worth more than the fifth pick by himself. Well, that's a, it's an

impossible contract. That's the thing that how could the three years like 60 million year basically?

But the clippers are under the cat now. They Garland's at like 36, 37. Kawai is close to a max, but they have a bunch of their math or anything. Or just let him go or he's in the trade. You know, interesting. I still like math. And if you're the bucks and you could, I saw that to my fans that I traded you on us, but I got the fifth pick back and I saw the tenth pick. Now I have five and ten in an awesome draft. Is that enough?

Well, you and I both are a big cuff probably the most. Oh, yeah, there's a lot of buzz on him just killing these workouts and teams being like holy shit. We need one or two more assets for remote walkie. I agree. I feel like well, we'll see what happens. I'm really excited to see how all this plays up. This is great. What a Monday after the finals. Let's go. We're going to take a break. We're going to come back and we're going to talk about J.

L. Branson and the pyramid right after this. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. This summer soccer is here. The watch parties will be spectacular and they'll be going every day back to back to back. Don't worry, Uber Eats has your game day essentials covered with 30% off offers from all the croaker dollar general. Oh, yeah. All the snacks and groceries to keep your

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on Uber Eats for a limited time offer eligible for 30% off entire order taxes fees in terms of high offer valid through July 5th product availability varies by region exclusions may apply. All right. So I wrote my basketball book in 2009, spent three years on it. Joe House was one of my conciliaries and one of the gimmicks, which was an idea initially from my buddy Gus's dad

Wally Ramsey still kicking it in his mid 90s, shout out to Wally, who always thought the

Hall of Fame should be a pyramid. I wrote a column about this or another column about this, eventually built the basketball around it. Five levels and as the levels go higher and higher, we then get the true, true flavor of who battered the most with the with the top level being the pantheon. The biggest thing is we talked about all this stuff. Trying to figure out why guys matter, why people should have been underrated overrated. Just trying to measure impact. Could you win a title

with this guy? We always gravitated to the actual titles. Did this guy carry a team to a title? Did this guy do everything it took? Would you rather have 15 years of somebody who was really, really good and made a bunch of all NBA teams and brought it to the precipice, but you couldn't win a title if he was your best guy, or would you rather have a shorter window with somebody who, his peak, you could win the title with them. And we always gravitated to that as we talked about it.

“And that's why somebody like Bill Walton who really had the 77 blazers run the win the title,”

he's the MVP of the next year even though he gets here near the end. He's hurt for the rest of his career. And then it's the six man on the 86 South Thicks. So has basically three moments. And I still had him in the top 35 in my book. I can't remember where he landed exactly, but it was like, I know for that one year, Bill Walton, I can win a title with him. So now you have Jaylem Brutson,

who's never been a first-team NBA guy who had no MVP votes this year at all.

And yet he just dragged the team to the NBA title house. He did something that a bunch of great guards were never able to do. He did something that James Hardin as a starter on a his own team never even made the finals and fell short over and over again. Steve Nash who was an unbelievable player two-time MVP. Through no fault of his own, could never quite get the team there. Chris Paul finally did it in the 2021 finals late in his career, but they lost Jason Kidd,

two straight finals, but he lost and then finally gets one later as a as a role player starter and Dallas, what Brutson did was up there with Dwayne Wade in 2006. It was up there with Walton in 77. You can go on through, but we're just dragging a team to the finals. And he is somebody that I

never in a million years would have thought would make the pyramid that I sent you a piece of as I

“keep always work on the rankings. I'm going to start here. I think he has to be one of the”

top 50 parts of Walton though. And I agree. It's debatable. So you're initial thoughts on that. Yeah, so I want to gently push back. You said twice that he dragged the team to the, now I'm not that that we have to recognize the greatness of Carlette and he towns the contribution of. Oh, yeah, no way the best secret teams we've had a long time. I, yes, conceding all that, but you know, it really helped. Right. Any time they were down in the end of games, down nine down 10,

down 14, Jalen Brunston would just figure out how to get offence for them. And not just figure out, but by design. Like this is part of the brilliance of the front office of Leon Rose and Worldwide West in assembling a team and ultimately arriving on a Jalen Brunton centric end of game on a phenomena. And it's truly a phenomena. I didn't, I couldn't get in touch with the ringer research staff to go back to the point where we measure, okay, all the guys are together. How many times

did this group in this combination come back from double digit deficits in a second half and win games in the regular season? And in the playoffs, but we do know that in these playoffs, they went six and two, the greatest accomplishment in playoff run in terms of being down double digits and coming back in, and winning games in the play by playing here. One of the great live bet teams in the history of any sport exactly right. He was the leading score on a team that had the best point

or on top of that mountain. Well, they go ahead. No, no, it's good. I was going to say the a big part of my book, which was basically the premise of it, was Isaiah saying the secret of basketball is not about basketball. It's about all the other stuff. It's about selflessness. It's about putting ego aside. It's about how you connect with your teammates. The chemistry you have, your ability to galvanize everybody around you. Brunston had all this. And yes, in one of the best

“possible ways as a guard, I truly don't think he had ego and what was I think he just wanted to win”

and he wanted to prove everyone wrong and he didn't care how they did it. But over and over again, he was their best option because he was the guy over and over again who could create the best

offense for them. And he got better when it mattered. He never got tired. He played 39 minutes

game in the finals as a small guy. The stuff that he did was inconceivable. And what he did in game five, I'm just going to say it. The more I look at it and stare at it, I think is one of the great final scams. Jordan game six, 98 is the greatest game I've ever seen anyone play when you consider Pippin's hurt. Rodman's a mess. Basically, he had to control the pace and every moment of that game and then what he did in the last minute, basket steel basket to end it. But the Brunston thing

was pretty close. Like towns being in foul trouble. They're covering OG on the corner threes and there were multiple moments where the game was going to get away from them and he just wouldn't let it happen. And especially in the second half, he was just like, "All right, I'm just going to keep scoring and let us hang around and the spurs are going to fold." So I value that more than anything. And maybe I overrated with the pyramid, but you seem to agree with me. Of course, I mean, this is the

funny, the league invented an award, the clutch player of the year for as a regular season award. It's only been around for four years. He wanted, I mean, he's one of the four guys that wanted, not the air in Fox did when it also. So yeah. But it's regular season. It is regular season, but this is one of the themes of when we've gotten together, we've talked about this is the DNA

of this particular next team, the particular run that they are on. They just never conceived

anything in any kind of deficit. Second half, it doesn't matter. And that's a regular season and postseason trait for this team. And the tip of the spear is Brunton. We really haven't seen a guy that fits his to your point, his stature. But also, I mean, he's in that class of who do you trust to go get a bucket right now or to make the best basketball play right now. His 30 foot shot over Wemby at the end of game four was the right basketball play. He'm getting that shot up immediately,

created an advantage for the next that they, he recognized it as the T double team came over. As Fox came over to double, that created an advantage. Like even a miss shot is the right basketball play. And that's the thing that we're, we're looking for a historic, how do we put him in a place in the history of the league amongst the all-time grades and where you have him feels right to me. He's probably the toughest guy in the league. Is that fair? Sure. Tough for guy in the league

right now. I mean, he did withstand some injury scare at the very beginning of the series. And when you know, maybe Wemby getting in his landspace in game five, it's just like,

“I think that guy could have had, you know, a high ankle spring, whatever and he just would have”

been like, I'll deal with it later. He's the mentally toughest guy in the league, which, you know, I think curry's up there. There's been some great players over the years. But for right now, the mantle of, I just trusted the most that doesn't matter where he's playing on top of taking the responsibility of 53 years, which is like, you know, when this happened for the Red Sox,

it was really Ortiz, right? And it was a bunch of guys and there were a million heroes in that

from Derek Lowe to even Curtis Laskanic coming in and getting three outs at the perfect time. But it was ultimately Ortiz and the entire Red Sox fan base going, this makes no sense. We lose all the time. We haven't won in 86 years. Something bad's going to happen. The other shoe is going to drop. We're going to get kicked in the teeth. And just kind of looking over at Ortiz and being like, but he doesn't seem scared. And we have this guy and the

“Anki fans seem scared of him. And that's what Brunson did for this next team. Like, as great as OG was,”

when we'll talk about him in the middle back, towns, bridges, like their bench guys. Everybody chipped in, which was a great thing about this team. But ultimately to flip history, you have to have a guy who's just completely different. And so when I think of him historically, even though he's

is when you start comparing him. So I got an email from Carrey, who said, did he just, did Jalen just set the record for biggest historical leapfrog and NBA history? What was the biggest jump in one

“post season? Really, you have to say by an older player. Brunson's been in the league eight years.”

So I think one guy I was thinking was Kawaii in 2019. I'm told it you, of course, of course, you and I immediately, that's the first guy that comes to my mouth is Kawaii in 2019.

Amazing. Because I wouldn't have, I don't think Kawaii in the pyramid. Right. I've been in the

honorable mention with a chance. Sure. But then that 2019 playoffs ended and it's like, well, he's down in the top 40. I got to figure out the wreckings now, because this is what he just did was nuts. Finals MPP for two different teams. He dragged Toronto. Oh, yeah. Well, Dirk's the best example for a late late career guy. His Dirk was in the 1997 draft. He won that finals in 2011. So he's year 14. I had him 39th in my book, which was, which came up before the 2011 title, right?

So then he wins the title. It's like, well, now you're moving up, buddy. Here, I have a little,

“I have a little sweet right underneath the penthouse for you. So he's, you know, I think I have”

him in the 2021-22 range now. And then you have the younger guys. I guess GA that they win the title, they jump up. But that's a little more common. The bruncent thing, I wouldn't, I wouldn't even had him on honorable mention until these playoffs. Like, I understand. Yeah. He just, I mean, he didn't have the credentials yet. Right. And, and he's only halfway through his career. I mean, he's only 29. He should play another seven or eight years. There's a chance to bump it. Yeah. So just enhancing

the overall career resume. So if you go in the top 50, where just so people know, like, there's you know, Clyde Drexler, I have in the mid 50s, Gary Payton, these are guys that were the best baron finals teams who had a bunch of all MBAs and really good careers. But we just had a lot of players. Since I did the book, we've had, you know, almost two decades worth of more seasons and more great players. In level three, so goes level one, level two, level three, which was no dad about

at Hall of Famers, who ranked them on the best for a few years, with every requisite resume, statistic to match no MVP winner can drop below, level three unless there's a fantastic reason. Unfortunately, that's Derek Rose. But, um, had I ever sent it 52, who I think you and I ride for maybe a little more than others historically. But it's really just a 2001 playoffs and really no success postseason wise of their in that. But you go down and there's this whole bunch

of guards that Brunson is in the middle of now, historically. Luke Adonchich, George Garvin, James Hardin, Sam Jones, so I'm going to ride forth to the death because he was the best big

game guard of the first, basically, 40 years of the league other than Jerry West, Jason Kid,

Steve Nash, and well, Fraser. I have all those guys in the 40s and you could argue about the order, but they're all there. They all have the on BA's. Fraser has the 70 and 73 finals. Fraser was top five first, top five first team on BA four times, Nash had the two MVP's. Kid was an MVP runner-up, but dragged those two net teams to the finals, which matter, then he won a title. And was Jason Kid was just awesome. Like, oh, yeah.

The stats are going to be kind to him because of the three-point shooting in the field golf percentage, but we were there. Made three. So it would be a three-point shooting percentage thing to knock him, but made three seasons of the top five in the history of the league. But in for years, he was 29% right now. And he was the best defense of where of all these guys other than Fraser. Sam Jones was 10 championships. He had, he had three, he had, I think a couple on BA's.

Oh, there it is. Three top 10's. But was the key guy in those Russell teams in the 60's,

because they needed somebody to basically do the bruncine at the end of the games. Harden gets,

Harden was MVP, three-time runner-up MVP, six top five, three 30-mom BA's. He was runner-up from VP three times. And at which 36 again, when you're at his statistical resumes, just overwhelming. And it's basically the car alone situation. I don't know what to do with Harden.

“Yeah. Well, I mean, here's the thing. And I spent some time with, what do they call basketball”

reference now? Is it basketball, stat heads, stat heads? Yeah, it's part of basketball reference. Yeah. If you side by side, James Harden and Charles Barkley, you would be surprised.

He's an icon. He's an NBA. And I have a icon. I have Barkley much higher than these guys. You do. You do. Yeah. He was in the 20's for me when I did the book. Right.

“It's going to be tough. I think as we try and process the NBA from the kind of the, this era”

and going forward, what do we do with the player like James Harden? And how do you contextualize his inability? He's only been the one finals. He's coming off the bench for Oklahoma City.

Yeah. He never made the finals as a starter. He was one and four on conference finals in general.

He's 17 and 17 in playoff series. And you know, one of the conference finals he made, they benched him against the clippers and games six and came back with the bench guys when the game was over. Like he was about to get bouncing that. But, you know, this is one of those cases where sadly we were there. Right. The fiscal resume was was there. But ultimately the number one value we have with all this stuff is how did you perform when it truly mattered? Did you

understand the secret? Could you elevate your team around you? And he just could never do it. Really at any point in his career. Right. Parkly is a good example because the 93 songs they come as close as you're going to get to win in the title and they lose to the best part of all time who's at his absolute fucking apex. Right. That's the only reason he didn't win the title. And I, I don't know how much I can hold that against him because I don't feel like,

I feel like he did everything possible in that finals and we know what happened Kevin Johnson's

“stunk in those first two games. Yeah. That's why they lost the finals. The both teams are ready to beat.”

The question with Harden and obviously you and I share the same kind of perspective on on him. We've watched it. Like he was, he was there present for us and in all of our NBA Hoops fandom, you know, he's been in our lives for so long. Will, will history be more gracious towards him. Like because like it's happening with Carmel and right now basketball as that personality. Yeah. Yeah. Well, but right because the era in which Harden hardened in the West

against the teams that he went up against, not being able to topple gold state, you know, catching the end of the spurs run. You know, is it, can we legitimately pin responsibility on him for the, for his inability to take the can in 18 and 19? Okay. Um, because 18 was sitting there

for them and they didn't win and basically because he didn't do the, have the J. L. Bronson game,

19 derrants out. Yeah. And they have six at home against Curry and Curry has what two points in the first half or one point I can't remember and the gold states ready to be taken down and they just couldn't do it. The fundamental question here because George Garvin's another one, I have him and Harden right next to each other. Very similar careers and Garvin's big moment was the 1979 Eastern Conference finals against your beloved Washington bullets up three one in the

series and can't close them. And if he gets to that, if he gets to that finals and they're probably favored to, uh, to beat Seattle at that point and they win the tech like it's like it's a complete what up, but fundamentally this comes down to this. You're the, you're a Washington fan, I'm giving you the ability. You can have Harden or Bronson for their entire careers. From what you've just witnessed which guy would you rather have and we don't know how it's

gonna end with Bronson. He's only been in the league eight years. But your whole goal is I just want to win the title. Are you taking James Harden or taking Jayland Bronson? I mean it's a no-brainer. It's easy.

“Flags fly forever. The only thing that matters is the chip. That's why the pyramid is tilted the”

way. It's tilted. You have to have the rings and it's not just, you know, Bronson delivering. It would be a really curious how we would regard Iverson. Iverson took a team that really, you know, when you look back at that sixer's team was like, wow, look at the surrounding cast here. Built around all his strengths and weaknesses. Right. If they had somehow pulled something out, that, you know, that, but Bronson's a different cat, a different animal all together. He is such an

important element of that cohesive team that the nicks have built. And yet when there are six

minutes left in the game, and the nicks could be down a dozen points. You never, never, never think

for a second that they don't have a chance to win as long as that dude has the ball in his hands.

celebration over these last two weeks. He was the one that got the ball in game two and went through to have castles back and got Wemby to fall him. Yes. Like that, the thing, one of the things with Bronson that I've ever prepared. He missed one of the free throws before it. Yeah. He did. But one of the things that I appreciate about him is it's like, oh, you got to pick on Bronson, pick on Bronson. Much like Jason Kade and some of these other dudes is actually like sometimes an asset defensively,

like he's fucking annoying to play against. He's taken charges all the time. He's getting steals. He's in in the right spots. But you look at his four year, four years in the playoffs now. It's 29 a game. This is four years across the board. Like a lot of playoff games. 29 a game. 26 finals. See, was 33, four and five. Put 39.2 minutes a game. It's just better than anything James Harden ever did. And it was a higher level than anything James Harden ever did. And I'm sorry.

And I just, if I could have either career for the same reason out or when I did my book, I would rather have built Walton just so I could get those peaks versus David Robinson's entire career. I just would because at least all my only thing I want is a title. And I just know that if I have

“that guy have a better chance. And that's not rings culture to me. It's more like that. That's why”

I'm not discounting Barclay because I don't feel like Barclay did everything he could have done. And they probably should have won the 93 finals. And he went against a fucking comment that we've

never seen in our lives. That's the only reason he went. Carl Malone went against that same older

version of the comment and really fucked up in both finals. And not to mention some of the other stuff that happened. It's hard to separate that from his from his history. So I do value that stuff because the only goal is to win the title. And I'm care about your career. Like, and care about your career in the context of did it produce championships and chances to win championships. So with Brunson, I don't know that. So I have them at 40, which I sent to you.

“Yeah, my only quibble because it was in the vicinity of the Bill Walton range. And I think that's”

fair to put him near him. You had him once upon a head of Fraser. I did. I think they should at least be tied until we get a little more. I'm happy to flip them. This is why I wanted to have you on. So you'd put so that this opens the different conversation because greatest Nick of all time should probably have the higher pyramid ranking, right? Sure. And let's I'm all ears. I'll listen to everybody. All the smart folks that will be doing this greatest next of all time. It is appropriate

for that conversation to be had. Now, you saw Rick Brunson do the Well Patrick Ewing's the greatest Nick. When that was nice. I understand the gesture. He's not that they're making that here. So the thing with Fraser, two titles not one played one of the great games sevens ever in 1970. So he matches Brunson there. 35 and 19. I think he had six deals like the Mollish Jerry West.

And then, you know, was probably the best defensive guard of the first 35 years of the league.

Not to mention all the other stuff. His career was shorter because everyone's career was shorter back then. Like I'd love to see the guys now. Do you think LeBron would have played

“20? How many years do you have to 23? It's a plane. 23 years in Congress with no”

Versa-Quimer and Flying Coach. Guess what? He's not. So you got a factor that into. All right, I'm fine with Fraser over Brunson. But Brunson has a chance to pass them with a couple more crazy seasons. He's sitting right there. He's only halfway through his career. Let's let him get there. And then we'll clean it now. Yeah, go ahead. Have him above Nash, kid, Sam Jones, Harden, Gervin and Luca. What's wrong with that? I'm just for the audience. Okay. And for Luca, the regular

season resume is tremendous. Yes. He did make a finals. He did. He is the second highest career

playoff average of all time. 30 point nine points a game. He's six first team on biz already and has a chance to, if he can put it together for one year, move into the top 20, 25. Yeah. And it will be a combination of him and the right circumstances. I mean, you know, it shouldn't be lost that the Brunson place in the pyramid is a testament to the front office of the next, taking the swing that they took. He wouldn't be in this place without the

context. And just that people think this is reactionary or whatever. Like this is how I did the

the 2006 finals. Like sure. That's it. Like you get a major bump if you pull that off on the biggest stage and you help drag your team to the title. So there's some centers ahead of a

“ahead of Fraser and Brunson just because I think the center position was more important for a”

longer period of time with the league, Collins, Willis Reed, David Robinson, Walton, Barry. So I do have by the pyramid rankings, Willis Reed as the best Nick ever. But I don't know if I'm right. I just

know from he was the MVP of the league, Fraser and Brunson were never MVP's of the league. He went

against all of these great centers during a time when you basically couldn't win the title or compete for one unless you had an awesome center. He's going against Korean and will, and all these dudes like you kind of had to have that. So I have the Cowan's Reed Robinson, Bill Walton, all in a row. And then the two guards I have ahead of all of these guys and I got to look at John Stockton again because I'm trying to set if I overrated him a little in my book. But I'd right now I've stocked

in 34 and Chris Paul 33 because of how long and ridiculous their careers are. And they were in finals and really guys I, you know, I thought had some some bigger moments and James Hardin. But that, that gets, that's where it gets tough. James Hardin versus Stockton versus Chris Paul with Chris Paul. Really that 21 finals changed Chris Paul's legacy by about 1012 spots. And and appropriately so I do think when you sit down and do the side by side of Hardin and

Stockton, it's really close. It's a very like their, whatever the comparability score is, like they're, they're really close those two. When I did, when I did the book, I wrote about, I wrote about Stockton why he couldn't get to level four, why he was in level three.

“And I think you're mentioned in this because it was like, here's the thing, he probably shouldn't”

be this high, where did I have him? I had him, Jesus. So there he's, I had him 25 in the book. And I made all the cases for why maybe he shouldn't be there. But then it was the experience of

watching him and how great he was and how he would always like just pick his run the team,

get everyone else involved for three and a half quarters and then pick his spots. I'm as a fucking assassin, it was like assassin. I just don't feel like the stats can properly reflect that. The way he kind of carried the team and, and you just kind of always knew he was lurking and you always thought he was going to come through when it mattered, right? Yeah. I wonder if if going back Miss, are we miss remembering how effective he was in the clutch versus Carl Malone?

It's possible. But this is what the, the further we get away from this stuff, we always felt like stocked in was the good guy in that team and, and Carl Malone was the one you could get the 44 minutes out of and you didn't trust the last four. We were probably too hard and Carl Malone. I mean, I created the whole 42 club so he would be discounted. Anyway, when did Miss the 42 club? It worked against the prize? No,

either. Brunson, uh, Brunson didn't get there, but really hard for guards to get there because they're in the very best. All right. So, Jalen Brunson, 41 in the pyramid. Unbelieveable. Great, great, welcome aboard. The Fandoads have been on that before the, uh, before the playoffs. They wouldn't have given a shot, you know, 150,000 to one. All right. I'm going to take one more break and then we're doing a mailback. Café in his best form. With Cuba, we're here at Café, off Knopfdruck,

on Gunnar's Moment. Then with the 9 Cuba, one capsule machine from Chibo, Ginis Dufeinstenspitzen Café, from besonderen Anbaughgebieten. Follow Monday's Arômen, thank Innovative Press Brutechnologie and über-sipzinsorten Café for jeden Geschmack. Eléber Premium Café, from up 1920 Euro. And Decke, yet the Cuba capsule machine in Deiner, Chibo, Fiale, and of Chibo.de.

All right, mailback. These are actual questions from actual listeners.

“B.S. podcast [email protected] if you want to send one in. Thanks to everybody who sends stuff in.”

It's always really fun stuff to go through. Math from New York wants to know.

Jalen Brunson now has the number one Jalen spot on lock. They're four Jalen's on all on B.A. teams. I'm requesting you to stop calling Jalen Brown just Jalen during podcast because it's too confusing. So he's basically making the argument. We have all these Jalen's. The only Jalen now should be Jalen Brunson and then everybody else. We should say they're last stamps. But Jalen Williams is J. Dub. Jalen Brown becomes J.B. Jalen Johnson now becomes Jalen Johnson

or double J. Jalen Durance just Jalen Durance and Jalen Green. Jalen Green. I'm fine with this. I think Jalen Robinson has assumed control of the name Jalen along with everybody Jalen Rose.

Sure, fine. I can I can subscribe with this. I feel like Jalen Brown's been J.

“be for a little while now anyway. It's been convenient to call him J.B. But Alpha Jalen is Jalen Brunson.”

It's undeniable. My wife calls him Brunson Werner. Brunson Werner. Okay. Because when she would ever watch the finals and they would be down like that and she'd like did the Brunson Werner heat up yet? That was great. Really good. Joel. I didn't send you any of these.

So you're reacting to these in the moment. Joel wants to know. The answer is most likely still no.

But now it's more interesting. With Brunson winning championship finals at BP is Dallas letting him walk now worse decision than trading Luca. No. Which in case. It is a diabolical mismanagement to not get anything back. To have not. But nobody in the entire league forecasted this version of Brunson. And think about all of the pieces that had to be put into place for us to achieve and realize

this version of Brunson. We thought it was ridiculous at the moment that they weren't paying Brunson. We did. That's four years for 55 billion. They should have done it without blinking. But that's right, mismanagement. Yes. It was a colossal blunder. The Luca trade led to Cooper Flag. What did the Brunson trade lead to? Or Brunson leaving? Luca.

Now, Brunson led to eventually trading a first pick for Carrie. They made the finals after he left.

Because that's because Brunson left. They went and traded for Kyrie. So that would be the case.

“I still think Luca's worse. Luca's worse. Here's the thing. They didn't as we discussed 100 times.”

They didn't shop the Luca trade. This is what made it horrible. And they didn't shop it because if it came out, their fans would have rioted. That should be alone. Right. That's worse. Their fans did riot too. Their fans weren't rioting after J. Limbrunson left. But they were upset that it was meant. They were upset. Yes. The Luca trade led to actual Dallas almost surely down as a city. The league had to give Cooper give them the number one overall pick. The league gave them

the number two pick. I don't know, but I don't know. He was in charge of not giving Brunson the four from 55. He hired Nico Harrison. He did that. Who then traded Luca Donchich with the new owners that Mark Cuban sold the team to. But none of it's his fault. I don't know how all this happened. Unbelievable. He said an unbelievable spin job. Read wants to know. He said they're in the playoffs this year that Brunson isn't a top five player. But the next bill to perfect roster

around him, complimenting his offense. Well, compensating for his defensive limitations. Are there any other players on your you can't win if that guy's your best player list that you'd reconsider in that Brunson met a title team. So I will I will say this. I didn't have a Brunson as a top 10 as a top five player. But I do now. I handed in Ranger 100 and I had him fourth. I didn't put him ahead of Wemby and Joker and SGA. But you could make a case that he should have been. But I thought

four seemed fair. It also was fair over the course of the regular season. I went back and looked at just the season rankings a handful of times where we're sharing lists and comparing notes and stuff. You had him 10 at different points during the regular season. You had him 12 at a moment or two. He was eight to 12 range. That was all fine. And he, you know, would he end up making

the second team all in B.A. or did he make third second team? Yeah. Yeah. Because that's a

couple of years. But yeah, that's that's all fair. So you can't win if that guy's your best player. The only names I wrote down were Devon Booker and J.L. Brad. Oh, wow. I went through the ring 100 and I was trying to figure out because the natural inclination of this is like could you win

“a title now with Tray Young? It's like I don't think so. I think this is this is at the moment. This”

right now, right at the moment. We're not talking about two years ago or talking about because I won't. I mean, I was going to include Joe L. and B. But that's obviously ludicrous now. I think I think that's okay. I think you could include that because that would seem improbable now, but also conceivable, right? J.L. and as the guy, because ultimately what we're talking about here is I have a good team built around this one central force who will be able to

get me baskets when I need them the most. This is the reason this first human. They couldn't get baskets when they needed them the most. Ultimately, that's why they lost. Booker, I think,

is now looking at what just happened with the next being like we could do this here with Booker.

We could build the same type of team over the next two, three years of chemistry, the secret. We just learned the secret from Kevin Durant and Bradley Beale when not to do. And let's build a team around Booker and he can be our Brunson. The only other one I was mildly intrigued by, but feel free to talk me out of this in two seconds. Shengun? I don't think he's good enough. Yeah, that's where I landed, but I had the conversation.

“I thought about it in my head. I think I think that's the best kind of asset guy right now”

who I feel like somebody could get. Like if I was Milwaukee, I would be looking at him. I thought he was in the worst possible. He didn't know fucking point guard last year.

I didn't know three point shooting and Kevin Durant with a burner scandal and it will always

go down as one of the most curious set of decisions by the Houston rockets for a team that was that seemed so prepared coming into the season. And as soon as FBV got hurt over the summer, it's like they went into some climate mode. I don't understand it. Like you had a catastrophic thing happen. You were completely loading up. You had the head coach in place. We're EMA. You brought Durant in. This has a thing. They had Durant in. So why are you tossing

away the air? Right. Just nothing. We're just going to try to water and see if we can pulse up the nada of our butts. Shengun tears to me. He turns 24 in July. Last season he was 29 and six assists a game. Chef 52% without a point card. I don't know. I feel like there's more there. Plus two picks to Milwaukee. Now you're talking. Like he reminded to... If I'm a walkout, rather have Shengun and other stuff for Yannas, then that weird Miami offer. Here's like here's a

bunch of bars from a 41th win team. It's a non-latery non-top ten picks. There's literally nothing coming out of Miami that's of any interest whatsoever. Like I love BAM BAM's good but it's a bad it's an average basketball. Rocky called you and said Shengun for Jibari, but you got to say yes

“right now and you have to take back Kuzman to deal. Would you do it? Wait wait wait. Shengun for who?”

For Jibari Smith and Shengun for Yannas. And Houston would also have to take Kau Kuzman's expiring as part of the deal. So Kuzman Yannas for Shengun and Jibari Smith. Could Mr. rather than the Miami offer? 1,000%. Not even close to America would too. Jason from Ohio wants to know, after seeing the love and affection New York City's had for

Brunson as the star that finally brought them the championship. Which player do you think has the

most regret for not going to the next and ending the drought when they had a chance? Is it LeBron, KD or someone else? So this was the case. I remember writing a piece about this in 2010 that 2010. Think about that. Yep. 2010 saying this was the all-time move for any MBA player. They had 16 more years of sadness after that. But we're saying like this is the move for LeBron and Wade. You win a title in New York. That's the greatest thing you can do in the league.

Right. They ended up not going there. There's a lot of reasons for that. Including the next team, a kind of a mess. Donnie Walsh and the wheelchair. They made some weird surprises. That's video all that stuff. Then KD and Kyrie in the summer of 2019, KD's coming up the Achilles. Kyrie wants to get out of Boston. KD wants to be in New York with Bridge Climbing and their whole business. I was doing pod saying because I knew they were going to be in New York.

I was saying he's going to the next. They're going to be in New York, not realizing that they were picking Brooklyn in New York. Which one is worse to you? LeBron and Wade not going there. KD and Kyrie. I'm going to say KD and Kyrie just because the East is so, was so getable. You could fast forward right into a bunch of finals, like a string of finals appearances with the talent that they could have had in place there in New York. The

big whatf is the injury situation or surrounding Kyrie would he have gotten hurt with that same

“kind of frequency. Remember, Durant was the only guy out of the hardened Kyrie, the only one that”

was healthy. They were a 17-win team heading into that for agency led by Tim Hardaway Jr. Kevin Knox,

if I were tanking. They tanked. Freck new linker. They were going for the Zion's which Robinson was there.

The court that was there. But they went to the Nets and made them kind of clear the house and do the whole thing. It's a really interesting KD whatf. I don't know if they win the title with them, but think about how he is considered right now versus if they had gone, him and Kyrie together to the next, rejuvenated MSG. Maybe Leon comes with West the next year anyway. Gold's the right team right on them. Wow. And maybe this all happens for those two guys.

It isn't really whatf. That's a great one because think of that, right? That the magnetism of those two guys coming and what that does in terms of the incentive for other people in the league to come up with. He loves the bright lights of MSG. Everybody wants to be the kingdom of New York. Those guys, miscalculation was that Brooklyn was going to be a thing.

Brooklyn is never going to be a thing. It's not a thing now. It wasn't a thing back then,

and it's never going to be a thing. Think about the next four East title winners after that after they went to Brooklyn 2020 Miami unbelievable COVID season. 2021 Milwaukee, which was a good team. I mean, that little team, that was the best year he's had drew holiday on us. They had their rope or his kind of team was good that year. 2020, a very young Celtic team that probably wasn't ready. We're not ready.

2023, the heat again. Katie, Kyrie and a couple of other people could happen. Now,

“Kyrie did get a little, little kuku there for a couple of years. And I think I think stuff.”

Yeah, and I think he settled into a better, much better place. I actually like everything that Kyrie is saying and doing the last couple of years. But he was going to have a new round of Kyrie sweepstakes this upcoming season. It's going to be one of my favorite ways. Katie, stay in there and brunch and moving in there. Who knows? But it is pretty much. James, who says, love the pot. Thanks, James. With brunch and winning a title in NYC, my friends and I,

New York the animals have been debating who is the top dog of the city. The debate falls large and Geter vs. Brunson, while Fraser etched in stone. I introduced the backroom theory. Essentially, Geter and Brunson walk in a restaurant at the same time. Who does the owner give the backroom to? This is a great way of framing Brunson vs. Geter. And I'm going to throw Aaron Judge in there, too. Let's give him a number one. Yeah, and Judge is there, too. And all of them,

“there's one backroom for 10 seats who gets it. I think Brunson gets it now.”

You don't think the owner says, "Guys, can we share?" Would you guys be willing to share? No, each of them have nine people with them. Some of them, like, you know, I would be, it would be like you and I don't know who your equivalent is going in there. And then, like, if I, I would get kicked out. Like some of the entrepreneurs has to go sit out. No, they would see you and be like, "Oh, Joe, how's this here? That's going to run the bill

up by $2,000. Fair enough. Fair enough. I think it's Brunson. I think Geter lost his spot. He had it from the late 90s to now. I think it's over. Because there's a generation. We should ask Jaco. I feel like there might be a generation now that might not remember the greatness of their Geter. Is that possible? It's a long time. He's last World Series. They went in 2000, and then they had the Tainted 2009 title. Here's a great one. Scott Cameron.

By the way, Judge wins the World Series. And now, him versus Brunson is an argument, but he has.

Scott Cameron writes, Brunson just became the only the third under six with three guard,

along with Isaiah and Gus Williams to be the best part in a title team. Where does that put him in the small guard Pantheon? I, I bring this question up, and I'll answer in the second. I left out Gus Williams last weekend, and I feel really bad about that. He

“also wasn't in the pyramid of my book. And I feel bad about that too, and I think it's one of my”

big misses, because I went back and made a playoff MVP list at one point. I think he was the 79 playoff MVP. He was the best guy in the 79 champs. He averaged 26.7 points a game during that playoff's. He has a first team on a second and two thirds. He was fifth in MVP voting in 82. He made finals finals, Eastern Conference finals, three straight years, held out 881. He's the best point guard in the league from 78-82 for five years. He's the best point guard in the

league, and then magic takes it. And then ends up on your beloved wizard's team. But I, I feel like I've done a bad job keeping the Gus legacy alive. I know you loved him too.

league, right? I know. I think I realized that for that. Yeah, and it was like, Walton was in there. It's like, you can't do it. So if you're going to praise Bronson, you can't just discount Gus Williams. You know, so I feel like I did a bad job. Anyway, the small guard pantheon, it's Bronson Isaiah, Gus Williams, and Tony Parker with titles. And then Iverson and Dam,

“and Chris Paul. Wait, where's Tony Archibald in this?”

No, Tony can be there too. I'm just saying those are the four guys with titles. So I think if you're doing a pantheon, you do the titles and non-titles. So maybe the non-titles is ever so damn Chris Paul, Tony Archibald. Okay. Okay. Although, Tony Archibald did win a title in 1981. So maybe he should be on there too. To me, it's Bronson Isaiah, but I think Gus Williams, I think that's, you got to start with those three. And I, again, apologies to Gus. Ethan wants to know where I planned on putting

OG and Anobi in my ringer top 100, that there's a case that he should be top 25 or higher. That's non-centred offender in the league. Really good offense. If you secured your number one awesome superstar, isn't he the perfect number two, perfect compliment all time when he basketball player coming off a great playoffs? I handed my ringer 100. I had OG 17th. Oh my god. Yeah. What? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. You know what I like house winning? Is he, is he ahead of cat? And what you just handed

in? You know where I had cat? 11th. Oh, okay. All right. All right. I mean, all right. Okay. Fine. Yeah. I'm the only top three next in the top 20. And I think that's the right call. Yeah.

Again, when I was looking at over the course of the regular season, OG was always in the like the

40 range. Now he was consistently ahead of deer and fox, which I felt, I was glad that, you know,

“look at the rankings and see that. But the only thing ever with OG is availability. Like, you know,”

he, it's just the injury stuff. Now, congrats. We have. We thought, congrats. Of course. Of course. That's right. Congrats to the next. Congrats to OG that he, we got all the way through. He was able to get himself completely healthy for the finals run. It was a thrill to see him at his, at his peak, his basketball IQ. This is the thing that though we should also load this, this next teams for what the reason that they had the highest point differential is because they had the

highest level of decision makers. Yes, Kent with the dumb foul trouble would always be something

that you can point to. I would also say that he was getting picked on. I mean, the two fouls at the beginning of of game four were to me ludicrous, but look, that's setting all that aside. OG,

“what the OG fifth foul game game five. They didn't replay that. I don't think. No, I know. I know.”

I know. But it's like, yeah, fifth up. And all time big brain. OG. So great. Congrats. Great job. Matt from LA wrote that I said OG is the best 3D guy at the era. And he's like, what about early spurs, who I Leonard, best defense put in the league, sat in the corner, shot threes,

crashed a glass. So I was looking at the 3D only really goes back to 2009. Trevor Risa was the first

like impactful. And it was really only in the finals, but had a really good 3D finals. It was the first time posty was in there. There was a couple like sure 3D adjacent, but not like what we have now. I was like, I went through all the title teams trying to figure out the best. Like there's 2023 KCP. There's a couple Danny Greens. But they're all like 11 points of game in that range. I didn't take a lot of field goals. It is 14 quiet 26 OG. These are the playoff stats.

Great. OG was 20 points again. 20 point one points again. His percentages were 56 field goal 49 3 85 free throw. You know, it took 11 point 6 field goal temps again, and average 20 point 1 points. 2014. Quiet 14 points again. 10 point 4 field goal temps. Only one less shot a game. 51 42 74 percentages. So they're around the same. It's just he took less threes than OG did. But it's a good one. Now, KWI was guarding LeBron. OG, I guess was was guarded in the guards on the

spur. He didn't have a LeBron type assignment, but that they're one A and one B. I'm that KWI won the finals MVP. OG had the most famous play last 10 years. Let's just have them side by side. I think it's side by side. I don't want to pick between that. Okay. Glad you agree.

19 out of 80 champs not to have a top five player. 26 next 14 spurs, O four pistons, 88 and 89 pistons, 79 and sonic, 78 bullets, 73 next. And he threw the 48 bullets in there for us.

Thank you, DeBob. Basically, he's saying going by MVP votes or first team.

He suggests can we get rid of the can't win a title that a top five player roll, if nine of 80 champions, didn't have a top five player. That's like 14%. My counter is that I would argue Brunson now is a top five player, and maybe he doesn't count for this one. 14 spurs was really the last one where we were like, I don't even know who they have a top 10

“player. But I think Brunson, it's Joker, SGA Brunson, Wemby and Luca, probably in that order.”

Or Wemby over Brunson, however you want to do it. But those are the five best players in the league right now. True. Yes. But do you, do you think, are you ready to dump that rule though, because that didn't make me think? No, because it's 86%. That's right. Yeah, the way. I was thinking about doing a play. I was going to do a play up manifesto for basketball next year, and I think that would be one of them. Like, there's

suggestions. They're not set in stone. But I think that is a good one to look at, because that is once a decade. Yeah, right. There you go. Once a decade. Once a decade, something weird happens.

This is basically why you look at it. Jonathan and Jersey wants to know, wants us to know,

guess who has the most playoff wins for a player since 2021. It's no longer Brown or Taylor Bernie Southic. It's Jandland Brunson at 51. Wow. Great. This playoff performer, the decade so far. That helps the, yeah, the pyramid case. All right. We're going to take one more break. And then I have a lot of spurs fan spurs emails that you're going to enjoy. Oh, boy. David wants to know, game five did the rich New York asshole fans just in decent proposal, the entire city of

San Antonio. Wait a minute. What's the walk me through it? Remember in the Ripper proposal. Yeah. Redbird Woody Harrison and Jimmy Moore need money. Right. They're in Vegas

gambling and Robert Redford becomes a fatuated with Demi Moore. And he's like, a pay a million dollars

for a night with your wife. And then they argue about it and decide to do it. And she does it. That's basically all the spurs fans with their game five tickets. There's 45% Nick fans there. Now, I saw it. You were able to pay for your season tickets by doing it. But it is, I do like the in this decent proposal game is a pretty funny way to do a game five. Really good. Mike G wants to know, um, 2026 next best example of the secret since the 14 spurs. How many other

teams would you say fully embodied the secret as well? Um, I thought the 16 cabs kind of got there. Sure. Sure. I mean, I really respect the lack. I know there was drama on suspension, but winning that game seven in gold and state and Richard Jefferson and Kevin Love like playing

“date. Like, I thought that I don't think they got there. The whole playoffs. But I think they got”

there in those last three games. But every team embraces at the Sunday. The 14 spurs is the most famous one I think in the last 12. Sure. That's fine. Um, and the 11 maves out put up there too. We're really splitting fine hairs to me. Because every one of like the every champions. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty good. Yeah. That's pretty good. Like, you know, they really understood and and Joker is the facilitator of of the secret, right? You don't who do you want touching the ball

to administer the secret? 17 more has had it. Joker. The thing is every every champion has that secret. Yeah. There's two teams that feel like they won because of the secret in the last 13 years. The next. That's fine spurs where it was like that. One of the top two reasons they

“won. Fine. Um, I think 11 maves are up there. I would put the O4 pistons there.”

Good. Um, agree. That's probably it. That's fine. Um, Travis from San Antonio said salty spurs fan here. Watching Fox in the finals was as painful as it can get. He had me wondering what are the worst finals performances from the highest paid guy in a team. I did that sentence to you. I did the research. So Fox was 13, 3 and 6. He shot 34% 25% from 3. Brut got torched by Brunson on the other end and then had the game for brain fart.

I'm not ready to put 2016 curry in there. I do think some people would

bad for the series. These five, I think are in the combo. Um, I'll go backwards from for this weight. 1993 Kevin Johnson mentioned earlier. 17 points a game. Um, just absolutely murdered them

in the first two games. It's got to the point where Frank Johnson seemed like a better option for

“him in the series. I remember this. Yes. My mind went there immediately. Stats back it up. Nick”

Anderson with the four free throws that he missed for the series 12 points a game 36% shooting three for 10 free throws. And just got wiped out. So he has to be mentioned. There's a great. This one got lost to history. But Kevin Martin. I'm sorry. Kenyan Martin in the 2003 finals against Duncan when Duncan ran a mock and one of the great start to finish seasons. Anyone's had. He destroyed Kenyan Martin in the first couple games of the series. Kenyan Martin for the series was 14 and 10,

34% Phil goes. We made a lot of jokes as it was happening. I don't think it was really just fault,

he got destroyed by that. He took a lot of shit that series. I'm just saying no, but he was going against Tim Duncan to say that as part of all time. Kobe Bryant,

“2,000 four finals against the post. Oh, wow. That's funny. That's of course you had to do that.”

Wait, you're not. The premise here though was like the highest paid. It's not just naming famous guys finals performance from highest paid guys. So that Kenyan Martin was the highest guy in that netston. Yeah. For sure. Okay. I get that. But Kobe in 2004. Okay. All right. All right. Can I give you the stats? Go ahead. They lost in five. 46 minutes again. 23 points again. Three assists again. 38% shooting 17% from three. It was three for 23 from three.

And kind of got his ass kicked by the pistons. Now. Well, the Laker fans. I've heard this spin from the Laker fans on this. Shack was out of shape. Yes. Kobe had to take a lot of shots near the end of shot clock positions. I'm just saying. Yes. You mentioned, but the worst one ever is LeBron in 2011. Oh, wow. Yeah. Okay. All right. He dipped down. He was like a 27 28 points a game guy. He dipped down to 18 a game. 18 seven and seven. 32% from three. 12 for 20 from the free

throne line and famous say the 8 point game and game for being guarded by JJ Barrae and really felt like he melted down in a bunch of different ways to a point that we started to wonder is this going to happen? Do we put too much pressure on him? Then he bounces back the next

“year and goes on his run. But I think I think that that's probably the worst one other than”

Nick Anderson. What would you say? Well, I was Nick Anderson at that point. That's the other one. Was he he was paid at the top of that Orlando team? Nick Anderson was not and he shouldn't be in the conversation. But I just wanted to talk about how terrible of a fantasy had Kevin because Kevin Johnson versus Barkley is probably even. Yeah. I mean, the Kevin Johnson made more than Marley at that point, right? Yeah. So he's in the top two. But yeah, if you're talking to

highest highest paid, it's Kmart Kobe and LeBron. But I wanted to mention Kevin Johnson and Dearen Fox by default is the highest paid spur. It's the highest paid spur. I am going to again, mount a gentle defense for Fox. I remember he was missing the trade for him. No, no, I definitely do not want that. But he, he missed a whole bunch of playoff games. He was missing games because he had a leg injury had an ankle injury. Yeah. And it is not that uncommon for

a guy to come off of an ankle injury and to not shoot the ball well. Now, the challenge is the moment called for the highest level. All of the shots that became that's a mission. That's right. I agree. It's more of a mid Johnson problem than Dearen Fox, uh, blame circle to me. If I'm handing out

slices of blame pie, um, the what the way the next played second half defense, especially is and

fourth quarter defense, what was open was a mid range jumper for whoever had the ball. And that mid range jumper, the buck, the guy with the ball at the end of games was Dearen Fox and he missed nearly every effing one of them. I mean, and that's the why you have salty spurs fans writing it. That's a really good trade. It's really good. You're going to love this next email. And I must sent it to you, but I wanted your natural reaction live on the podcast. It's from Todd Womack.

Put it out there Bill. I love it. He's 22 and this is probably the low point of his career, but the big fondue is pretty funny. Somebody, you know, part of the, um, rich experience of these finals was after each game trying to imagine what the New York Post might run as their cover thing. And one of the after game four, my two favorites. They didn't go with either one of them. Was just the tip for OG, complying in. That was magnificent. I heard that from many quarters.

That's my boy, my boy. Peter Friedman gave me that one. And then Sackray blew it. That was somebody on the internet who did had had, I'm in your, I'm in your head, when be on the floor, yelling at Mitch Robertson doing that thing. And then the headline was, Sackray blew it like, wow. Oh, thanks God, damn magnificent. I don't remember who put that on the big fondue. It's what I'm making post post score. Let's keep going. The big, that's great. There's no reason to be

off of it. Do you like, do you like the big fondue? I like the big fondue. I like the big fondue better. I want to get out of the jokes going because he's going to wreak havoc on the league and the angrier he gets the more fun the next set. I don't know. This is what makes next season. There's up coming season. So God damn magnificent. How many times did Nick go write the fuck at him? He's like,

OG owner, no, but he's like, I'm going to dunk on this bit. Did you see Dunconson clip in the second

half? There was a slow moversion of it was one of his baskets in the fourth quarter. When we get switched on him and Brunson does like, he does the Brunson thing where he seems like he's going to go left crossover. Get Swimby on a side. And when he's like sprawling around, it looks like a deer on a get Swimby on a side. Then cuts in like he's going to try to get a foul in Wimby. So Wimby kind of stops and he does this thing again. And then Brunson cuts the other way. Wimby flails the other way to

go get him. And then Brunson comes back and does the left left. It's like, it's so motion. It's like one

“of the great clips I've ever seen in basketball and it's like everything you need to know about how”

great Jailman Brunson is. Just fucking working a 7 foot 6 guy. He was cooking up the fondue. It's

amazing fun news show. We this good before we move to LA my wife and I went to Montreal. Yes. And we

went to a wonderful city. We went to a fondue restaurant. Yes. And we just ate fondue and it was like one of the great most memorable dinners I've had. It was like just fondue. Just there was a chain of no son fondue. There used to be a chain. It was like called the hot pot. I can't remember now. It was like a V-hat fondue together. I don't think we've ever had fondue together. That's amazing. How have we not had fondue? What have Chang has fondue thoughts? Let's do this. Let's do this.

I'm going to do it. I'm going to talk fondue with Chang. I'm going to talk fondue with Chang. You're making that because you're living here. Manifested. Camp from North Carolina. I got a bunch of different versions of this question. We'll go with camp. Is Wemby the quickest here at

“a villain arc in sports history? I think you can make the case. The finals alone changed how”

people looked at him entirely. Like even SGA that happened over the course of the season and the playoffs. Then Chris from DC. He added on Chris. He added. Wemby walked into June as the consensus future face of the league and walked out of it as the most unlikeable man in the sport. I went dirty for this guy hard. I came out wondering if he's the most punchable player since peak dream on. Then Kevin said, has anyone in history pulled off the difficult feet of going from

emerging face to the league to man? This guy's a fucking jack-off. Unless in two weeks, Nathan Stewart wants to. Wemby a fake tough guy. He comes across like the villain in a teen movie. It's smiling and acting like the perfect kid when the adults are watching, but playing dirty and trying to bully people with no one's looking. It just keeps going and going phenomenal. This is the sentiment right now. This is why I said to Zach Glow on Saturday night when I was

talking about face of the league, future the league, Wemby's here. It was kind of a catastrophe for all those angles. I think it was. It wasn't a catastrophe for his career. He's 22. He's got his whole career. I'm not overacting to that. This is part of the process. It was just interesting to watch the

“perception of him shift that fast. Here's the thing. I want to take a couple steps back and see”

as we approach the next season, whether this still holds true. I think there is. There's never been

a more pronounced kind of experience of NBA basketball than this moment. I think he's absolutely beloved by kids around my age, by teenage kids and younger. They will all universally tell you that they love Wemby and they are not like, you know, my son. Right. He's 18. He's a little

finals? I mean, I could tell you for my kid none. Zero. My kid doesn't sit down and watch, you know,

games all the way through. He comes in. I make him come in and watch first quarters for me. But nothing

about what went down in these finals changes his perspective when it comes to Wemby and, you know, the reverence. I can't tell you how many times this big dummy kept coming to me. Dad, how far away is Wemby from the goat? I'm like, you've got to get, you've got to leave the room right now.

“That's what I do not want to be responsible for child abuse. But I will hit a man if you keep talking”

me that way. Even if it's a young man. But I mean, that's, that's, there is, we out, the basketball commentariat, everybody in our echo chamber, writ large, all of New York. He, all of New York hates Wemby now. I mean, it's wonderful to have him as a villain. But I think there is still yet amongst this generation that's coming up as NBA fans consuming the NBA, not by watching games, but by consuming it on the internet that will still hold Wemby in the highest regard. Honestly, similar to us with Jordan.

We were in college together. We loved Jordan. We loved them. But when they played the one, when they played the Lakers in '91, I was like, he's going to lose. He's not ready for this yet. He's a magic. The old guys, they're going to teach teach that Michael Jordan a lesson. And this is part of the process. You got to get your teeth kicked in early. You got to climb the ladder rungs. And then you got to get to where you're going to get it. I will read these two emails, though.

Well, melting pot. That was the name of the fondue place. I didn't look it up. I knew I could get it. The melting pot. Keep going. Sorry. Michael from Chicago, can't help but think Wemby is pulling a 98 carmelone. Oh, clutch free throws aren't going in, tentative to shoot. Didn't seem like

he totally wanted the ball. That's to say he'll never have it. But he just doesn't have it yet.

Might be mean or unfair, but here we are. He's 22. Yeah. This criticism I agree with. After what, this is from KJ, after watching the playoffs, I knew two things about Wemby. He's either

“seven foot six or seven foot seven. Agreed. I think he's seven seven, but they're claiming”

seven five, but he's probably really seven six. That's the first thing. Second one, he's gased at the end of these games. Has there ever been a 22-year-old superstar who was always gased at the end of big games? Magic certainly wasn't. Jordan Bird will Russell Kobe Duncan. You get the picture. This is it. Who's dead wrong? Who do you have? Go ahead. Shack. No, no, I'm not. I'm not. Go ahead. I will finish that's it. That's it. That's it. Okay. We began this entire time together. This

wonderful time on this Monday, post NBA finals, talking about, you know, some of the ways that the nicks took advantage of the spurs. I think it is a learned skill. Part of what is is involved with this version of the spurs. None of those guys ever played this level of basketball under these circumstances. Yeah, these are the same. I love Rich Mo exactly. The highest leverage moments of their entire lives on the basketball court. Now, when we did get the

Olympics, you know what? The difference between the Olympics and the NBA is the Olympics. It's the game for 40 minutes. They're not 40 minutes. Two and a half weeks. Big big breaks in between games.

“This this version and this one I said earlier, it's a learned skill. It's a skill you have to”

and you have to not just the individual players understanding window, expense, energy, and win,

win, not to. You don't win the game in the first quarter or the second quarter. Like all of

those kinds of lessons. You don't celebrate the Western Conference finals like you won the title. That was fine. I mean, this was unexpected in there. Their target all along was Oklahoma City. We know this from from the Wadley win at Oklahoma City all for a long. My biggest regret was I discounted how they reacted after the veto case. Because your own handy capping. Am I on any next verse? I thought that was better than the New York. I thought they had the

perfect team to go against Princeton. And I was right for three and a half games. But what I discounted was they kind of already climbed the mountain, where it's the next were like icy fucking older veterans. Yeah. Yeah. The next series is the one and that spurs. I don't think ever realize that until it's too late. How else are they going to? They can't learn it. That this is the reason why you know, it's a very very unique thing that we experienced this year where we kept saying is this the moment

where we see the spurs in experience catch up to them. It wasn't until they made it to the finals and went against the next. I don't think there's any other team in the entire NBA except for maybe a fully healthy Oklahoma City. If if Oklahoma City hadn't undergone the injury in the experience with Mitchell and and jade up exactly right. Then where would that have ended up?

Like Castle lost confidence says the finals went along. Now you could have said it was the

“moment. It was the how many minutes they played in the playoffs. But those last two games he”

he went sideways. You know, did not shoot the ball well. He didn't shoot. But I mean again, foul trouble on game four and then game five was kind of afraid to do stuff. But this is a part of the learning experience. All right. We are learning experience. This next question for me thin is good one though. 80 years that NBA history tells us that if you make the finals this young and lose, you probably won't make it back with the same iteration of that team. He lists 86 rockets

to came in Samsung. Didn't get back there until 94. Shack and penny in 95 never happened again.

LeBron and 07 never one in Cleveland. KD until 16. But came back and it was he was the only same guy in the team and had to leave for four years fair fair. And then to rig three lotteries form that I said that a lot. KD Russ Garden. That was a joke. KD Russ Harden and a vodka in 2011 traded hard and never got it back. Interesting. So this is once a decade, 86 95 07 and 11 and now the spurs would be the next example in 26. There's two outliers for this. The 22

Celtics, they lose the finals. Everyone's ready to trade JB for whoever and they make it in two years later and they win with the same nucleus. They have Derek White, they have pictured, they have

poorford still and they get, they get they add poison gas and they add drill out. But they

had a lot of same nucleus. So that's an outlier. And then the 79 SONIX, they make the 78 finals. They

“lose game seven. Dennis Johnson goes I think over 11 and game seven, but then they win the next year against”

your team. So interesting theory though. Did make me go, huh? Cole can the spurs do. Because I think this is the version of the spurs. So we're going to see for the next couple years. There aren't like, they just came down hard to become the guy we think he is and build. I don't think that far away. But the, the right thing that I'm going to want to support the idea that it may not come next year that it might not even be two years from now is how good the West is. We still

have these injuries. Yeah. Oh, sure. Yes, always injuries, especially with Wendy. Coach Steve

has a spurs over reaction trade. All right. The words received the air in fox pick number 20 and Mitch Johnson. The spurs received Jimmy Butler's expiring and Steve Kirk. Wow. Wow.

“I got to say, I kind of thought about this for a couple of minutes or I landed in a really”

good place with it. The sound's very petty. Coach Steve must be from San Antonio. That is a very petty trade. So Steve Kirk, you're, you're buying low at Mitch Johnson. But young, younger guy moving in, maybe, you know, it, it may be learns, got some scars in the finals. You get picked 20. We don't look far above. There's expiring and Steve Kirk gets to go back to San Antonio. I like when only that. He loves stuff. But who, what coach would say no to the opportunity to coach up

Wendy? I'm just an asshole. Could somebody aggregate that like that's a real trade. I want to let us say everybody go nuts. Yeah. Andrew Rell says, as someone who loves all sports, you know as well as I do sports are a copycat league. If you're an NBA executive in any state your franchise, what did you learn from how the nicks were built? How would you copycat it? I have five things for you to tell me if I missed anything. Okay. Executives with connections that

run a little deeper than just, oh yeah, I met that guy a couple times. Like West recruited towns when he was 15 years old. Yes. OGN and Obu CAA, Bronson, Rick Bronson, that whole thing. Like these are like real relationships and bridges Villanova. Like, kind of you replicate that with somebody, right? So we've seen aren't tell them went to Detroit, that didn't work. We saw Bob Myers go to Golden State that did work. We saw Nico go to Dallas. To really to tell if that worked.

But you're talking about connection personnel, you guys. There are a few of those left. There's some pretty high powered agents left. There's somebody like even the ringer's rich Paul could run a team like there's guys who have a lot of relationships who could who could do it. So that'd be one. This one's interesting. Targeting proven starters, hitting the 25 to 28 age range, a little bit older, like the Rashid Detroit, OG bridges, even when they got Bronson, like getting guys at that

Jonas and you're 14. Or Kevin Durian and you're 15 to find out. But you know what I mean? That makes sense, right? Like that second five years is somebody's career. Can we get somebody in that range? Leveraging the player to player friendship histories. Chemistry work at the gritty guys, I think is one. And then that I think it's less important for them is don't be afraid to take a couple of swings. Like firing tips was a swing. Doing the OG trade and guaranteeing them this contract when we

weren't positive, he could always stay healthy was a swing. Jalen for four for 106

was not a hugely popular contract. Five picks from Macau Bridges, like this team

“fucking went for it a few times. And I think anything else would you add?”

No. And I don't know how rep-replicable any of that is. I mean, the challenge that the thing that the next pulled off was like literally decades in the making, right? It's Leon Rose and World Wide West in the situations that we've been in building these decades relationships, right? Yes. And having perspectives on players that were undervalued or underappreciated in their situations and understanding the force multiplier of bringing those guys

together. Like, you know, as we know, we can unlock something. We know something about Bridges that he doesn't need to be in alpha that he can be even a what is he, a theta, whatever, alpha

beta, whatever. The third, the third wheel is he doesn't even need to be a second. He could

be fourth because you have key of cat also. And they got the best version of cat because they got a combination of cat maturing also, like, you know, because think about how many times the next, you know, theoretically we're trading cat, right? Over these last two years, oh, we got a trade cat. Like, even in advance, we're not reaching our potential. You know, we only won 50 games two years ago and 53 games this year and cats holding us back and tids and

cat can't get on same page. Like, well, that means tids has to go because we're not going to trade cat. Like, just think about that and how they were rewarded for just let's just settle down.

Let's just hold on. And the two, the best player in the first two games of the NBA finals was cat.

Do you want to be one of the judges of my ringer game show that I'm going to start this summer

“where we take Nick's fans. We give them true serum. What's the thing where you have to”

eat the drug where you have to tell the truth? I don't know if they've traded towns in O.J. and O.J. and O.B. for Janice and Calcusma a year ago. It's fun to have any Nick's fans would have 100% locked in for that if they want to see. Now he'll, he'll lie, fantasy, fantasy lies all the time. And it's in the liar. Travis wrote a tips thing actually about did I hate watching tids run a rigid seven man rotation into the hardwood until the wheels fell off against Indiana. Absolutely,

did it drive me crazy. I like completely froze out of assistance. Managed shuttles, blah, blah, blah, blah, but I cannot to deny the results of that boot camp. Tids pressured cook the core. He conditioned these guys to play heavy minutes without buckling, taught them a lead habits, blah, blah, blah. If he hadn't done all that, this roster doesn't want to title. So why is he still single without an NBA team? I was running a ladder team like Charlotte

watched in Portland, Chicago, Dallas. I would take a fly around him immediately. What are your thoughts on that? This is a brilliant email and I hope it didn't come from tib's agent because it came from Travis Thompson. Well, Travis Thompson, I don't, I don't, Travis, this is brilliant. I could

“not agree more. I think what tib's, this is literally the thing that I've been sort of rambling”

against in terms of the criticism of San Antonio. They're, they're not being ready. Then this team was ready. And part of the getting ready was what tib's did to them. Yeah. That's absolutely on the money. And I do think I have been wondering aloud. Why isn't tib's at least like a defensive assistance somewhere? You know where tib's would make sense? And I don't know San Antonio defense of coordinator. I mean, he could, it could work. Well, because Sean Sweeney is about to leave

he's the new head coach of Orlando. I wouldn't hate to see tib's in Washington DC. I would not hate as your head coach. I don't know what role can you get rid of the guy I have to give up 83 points to bear about a bio. I'm not Brian Keith has done a magnificent job and I don't have anything bad to say about him during his tenure here in Washington. But I, I don't hate the idea, tib's deserves another shot. We'll just I'll leave it at the angry. Gerald sent a long email

about the 2026 spurs being the reincarnation of 2012 thunder that I thought was interesting. How they ended up in 2012 finals going against like like a boy's against men type situation.

the rest. Good. I like it. I love the refereeing of the first four games and that series then

“by game five, they kind of wilted and you know, but they were toe to toe with them, that whole series.”

All right, a couple more than we're got. Tim Gibson said I'm sorry. I have to bring this up. The closest sporting event to what happened in MSG with game four, the finals has to be game six to the 86 world series, not just because of the insane comeback and the choking aspect, but because it was the win before the clincher. Thanks for all you and everyone else that the ringer does from Tim. It's pretty good. It really is a win before the win. It was kind of the

miracle that got the next fans to drop their guards finally after Trump game three, game four down 27 and you need some sort of karma shift. You have the Brunson front rim bouncing

right to OG crazy tip sequence. That's basically the equivalent of the Red Sox having the

14th straight strikes that in the game and not being able to. And then the Darren Fox slash bill

“buckner. You keep going, but I thought that was pretty good. And I still think game six to the 86 world”

series is the worst sports loss of all time. I'm biased because I'm a Boston fan, but to come all of those pitches away from winning the world series and then not doing it, but then having to play game seven. I love this and it marries up perfectly because it was the game before the clincher. The only one that rivals it and you mentioned it in the moment. No, no, no, no. No. The Atlanta Falcons giving up a 2828 in the Super Bowl. But that wasn't, you know,

that's the Super Bowl, which is not a game before a game clincher kind of situation. Yep. Dustin says, I've great news for Dallas fans. It's been a tough month for Dallas fans. He's talking about the Dallas Mavericks. He has great news for Mavericks fans. He thinks the Cowboys have replaced the next as the sports team with the most fans who have had the longest drought. And we'll go the most nuts if they actually win the title.

And he was like, sure, it's cool that they won the Super Bowl when I was seven, but the last 30 plus years have been brutal. So they won the Super Bowl in 95. So that's 31 years. So if you're your 36 years older under, you have no recollection of the Cowboys win in the Super Bowl. I turned the podcast over to you, Joe House, because we're the X-red skin commander fans in this whole thing. And I would argue Washington has almost, not as many fans as Dallas, but they have a

fucking lot of fans. And your Super Bowl drought was Mark Griffin, 91. 91. And to, you know, further this, we had a, you know, a demon in charge of the franchise. I mean, a person that came in and ruined every single tradition that Washington had in place. And a whole, I mean, part of the point of pride for Washington fans growing up in the 70s and 80s was that there was a culture. There was a way, Jack Kent Cook, you know, not notwithstanding his checkered history

with the Lakers and the rest of it as an owner of the Washington Redskins was a magnificent owner. And did entrust, you know, the people that he put in charge to make good decisions. And a, and a culture developed in Washington. And that was part of the pride that we all felt that we felt like Washington was built up the right way. All right. Yeah. The hogs here in the city. Yeah, it was the biggest, by far, the biggest team in this city. And then to have the new owner come in

and basically for two decades, take a shit on every single thing. He took a shit on the fans.

He took a shit on the, on the, on the city. He took a shit on winning. He, he was all to his own narcissistic ends. And he was a huge dick. And it took a, a, a, a near act of God for the league to kick him out, you know, to finally try and realize the potential of what this Washington franchise. Dallas is not in that class because Dallas has been relevant the whole time. And has the owner that actually spent money was interesting to build a new stadium all of it. Yeah. You, you had more of the next arc

of just being disemboweled for two straight decades. And then the top of it, the RG3 piece of thinking you finally had the savior and then the guy gets hurt in a year was another. Yeah. The ramps sent out in, in a game after RG3 was no longer on on Washington. All of the draft picks, they sent out to the center of the field when, when they were doing the, the coin flip before

“regular season Rams, Redskins. Just a fucking, yes. Yeah, Sean, like, based, where I don't remember”

the head coach was just sent out all the guys that they got in that trade. Terrible. We'll end

think there's only a couple, you know, like Buffalo is obviously, yes, Buffalo deserves. But Buffalo doesn't have a million fans, you know, Minnesota is another one. They haven't won a title since

91. They've never won a title with the Timberwolves, the Lakers left and went one of these titles

“without them. But they don't have a million fans. I think when you get to the Cowboys and Redskins,”

which is what we grew up with, those, those franchises, and then also had success, and then that success was taken away. I think that, I think those are the right two answers. There's nobody in the NBA, like that. And then the Maple Leafs and the Maple Leafs and hockey, I think, would be the other one. Ironically, the giants have been bad for a long time. I mean, now, but that is 2011. I'm okay. All right. Fine. Anyone who wants to shed tears for the giants can honestly go fuck themselves.

Obviously, I agree. Right in the face. Yes. Um, wholeheartedly agree with it. Before we go, what's your US Open Pick? I know you're covering this on Fairway Row and in the ringer game, I'll show a week, but what you got? Yeah. So I get, I reserve the right to change my mind over a couple of times.

“Scottie Sheffler, plus 550 is the best odds of any major. This is his first one, Fandle right now.”

Yeah. His first attempt to clinch the grand slam. It says first attempt because he just won the British Open last summer. So this US Open that he hasn't won. He's got the master's. He's got the PGA Championship. He could clinch the US Open at those odds. Um, I like how about this. I like the prohibitive favorite, but it is a good setup for him. And the thing that has been holding like the narrative. I do like the narrative. Um, it is the lead narrative. Uh, Scotty is it's

fine. And then going down the card a little bit, Matt Fitzpatrick has been on an absolute heater. Now we've had two European winners win the first two majors of this season. We had Aaron Rye from the UK win the PGA Championship. And obviously, Rory won the masters, but Matt Fitzpatrick very easily could have four wins this season. He finished second this most recent week at the

Canadian Open. He's just on a all-time heater. And so I want to guy like that, um, of the incredible

ball striking and no problem at all with the distance to Shinocaka is going to pose. Can I give you two? I'm listening.

“Fleetwood 21. Love Tommy Fleetwood. Everybody will remember that in 2018 he shot a 63 that came”

this close to being a 62 lost by one stroke to Brooks Keppka. Great. Love Tommy Fleetwood. It's just wondering, is it in the air from this next title, be improbable, feeling a little more probable? We just have UFC where Pereira and Seporia just lost. Like, we're like, the world cup got only knows what's going to happen. To the Team USA, uh, look at you.

Look, the incredible on Friday night, um, is just just going to be a weird month of sports. And

if that's the case, Fleetwood, I thought also like to offer you Zander Schaffley at 21. Zander's wonderful. Um, he has an extraordinary track record at US opens in particular, but nobody, uh, in golf other than Rory and Scotty has as, as many high finishes in, in majors over the last 10 years. He's our number one, you're due to actually win a major guy right now. Well, he has two majors. He won two in one season, but, but he won the PGA championship about Holland, and then he won,

um, the British open at at true. So he's due to win, you know, the, the US open, the granddaddy of all. I'm at the real majors. The masses and the US open, fine. He's, there's two tournaments that actually matter. And he hasn't, he hasn't won either of those. Both of those are great picks worth worth getting, uh, some of some money down on both of them. Um, before we go, I just, I went to the, I went to the World Cup. Oh, yeah, the other. So, that's so fine.

They're, look at you. I saw the best American soccer game we've ever played in the World Cup. I was, uh, I was in the Fandelbach shout out to Christian. And, uh, and we had great seats. I had a great time. It's, I got to say I was, I was blown away by the, by the, by the team. And Debundo was calling this before the tournament. He was telling us, like, look, I get it. I get the skepticism. Just know, this is the healthiest we've been in like four

years. This is the first time we've had all of our guys. Okay. They demolished Paraguayan the first half. It was unbelievable to watch. We had guys put, Pulisec was just just dominating their back right guy. Um, we over and over again, guys, just beating people 1v1 and then creating plays. And I couldn't believe it. I was just, I was just dumbfounded. And then, uh, I don't know if that's the peak.

Friday game that I think is really great. It's Friday afternoon, three o'clock Eastern time.

“This is a, everybody has to leave work. Um, lunchtime. That's not, do not put in a full day.”

Go to a fucking bar. It's a national holiday. There's no work. There's no work. It's Juneteenth. It's a national holiday. It's Juneteenth. You're definitely with Juneteenth. I forgot it was Juneteenth. It's a holiday. This is unbelievable. I didn't realize that was the same

year. Yeah. I don't, I don't look at it. Yeah. Three o'clock every day. I never know what the holiday is.

I understand. I don't know. I don't like this is going to be a really special day. And it's really a country that I like. Yeah. In general, but not on Friday. I hope you guys. I hope we get to see. Is it at so fine? Where's the game? See, Adam. Oh, uh, I wanted to be in a warm climate because the photos that are coming from the warm climate games. Like I had a buddy who went up the Philadelphia, yesterday to see Ecuador play the Ivory Coast allowed card. And he was, it was hot

in Philly yesterday. Woo! He says, first of all. I mean, I wonder if this marriage is up with your experience. Uh, this is my boy, Mickey. He says that, um, it's like a rock concert. It's like it's not

like a sporting event that you've ever kind of gone to. It's like a concert constant high energy

of the crowd, the entire time. But, yes, I mean, I'm not going to have that kind of complete experience in LA. Like where you're really getting it, you know, Scotland was in in the Boston game, playing in Foxborough. And my daughter went out with my daughter went out with the boyfriend Saturday night. They went to this place called Cougins, which was filled with Scottish people watching the world cup and lose their minds as game five of the NBA finals was on. And she

said it was the best sports bar experience in real life. They had like the greatest time ever. And she was like, the Scottish people were fucking nuts. She was like, we love them. But we

they've never seen anything like that. They were just maniacs. And I was like, you realize your

mom's half Scottish, right? And she's like, oh, now it all makes sense. She just, she's 21 years old. She just realized. Yeah, you know, it was like 25% Scottish and 25% Italian. But, but she said, she said it was one of the most fun nights because now she's 21 too. But she said to have like

“the greatest time. And so I think in some of these other cities, it's a little bit of a different”

experience than going to so far in LA. But it was still great. I mean, it was everybody at the Jersey's people going nuts. The strikers third goal for us, yes, was had to be the greatest American goal I've ever seen. But I just in pretty say his name, Balganne. Balganne. But yeah, we're both going to fuck that with up. It was like, our country doesn't score goals like this, normally, you know, that's great run. Muscles the dude off, and then just like blasts like,

and he's already turning around as the ball's gone in the corner. I was like, I totally shit. He could have played for two other countries and he chose us. I like the guys that the two of us, the guys that have options, but choose us. Yeah, there's, I don't want to point out there's two weeks back guys that I didn't love during that game. Don't want to talk about me now. I don't want to, I don't want to talk about weekness. So I'm talking about strength.

Be positive. You're awesome. Richards. What is your fucking maniac in that game? Um, but I really got excited. Like I couldn't be more excited to, uh, for the Friday game and everything else. So World Cup. I can't wait to lose more money on it. Thanks to Tony Tokens. You'll be on ringer and hammer show fairway rolling. Uh, thanks to Gahouse and Eduardo as well for

“producing the pod today. I'm going to be back. I think I'm going to have two more pods this week. So”

stay tuned for that. And then hand that rocks and cradows up on rewatchables right now. Joe House. I didn't tell you this yet, but you're, you're going to be one of the people live with me at the bread after the NBA draft on Tuesday night. So don't go. Let's go. Don't go anywhere. Yeah, you're team will take a. I fly out to LA for that then if I'm going to be alive, I might as well be alive. Why don't I have a meal? Like you're driving out meals with your Dave Chang over my head.

Why don't I just call it? I'm sending you a picture tonight from the Dave Chang Mill. We're going to a good one. Go get some fun, dude. All right. Thanks, House. Thanks to the big fun, dude. Thanks everybody. Thanks for all the meal bag emails out there and I'll see you a little bit later in the week. [Music] Must be 21 plus in President's likes, states for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas star casino

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