Should the Pacers Get Their Pick Back After Kawhi's Clippers Scandal?

0:00Today's episode of Set in the Pace is brought to you by Outlet. Outlet is building the Town Hall for sports, meaning you can easily find what fans are saying about any play, any game, any moment in sports. What makes Outlet different is that the platform is built around credible voices in sports like us, so the conversation is coming from people who actually know the game. If you're tired of the noise and want sports conversations that means something, this is worth checking out early. Head to the App Store right now and search Outlet Sports to download Outlet today. What's up Pace, your nation. Welcome back to another episode here of your go to Paceers podcast. Set in the pace. I'm your host Alex Goldman. Joining me is the president of the Germain on Neil Fan Club. Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Michael J Fachi. How's it going? Thank you. Thank you. Doing well. Labor Day celebration with the family,

1:00little barbecue action, just getting everyone together. It was nice. It was awesome. But we're back to reality. The Sunday scary is a K the Monday night scary is when we're recording this. They're real. You know, I got got to get back to the programming as usual, but how was your labor day? We get a lot of people were complaining about us giving a weekend update on one of the mailbags last weekend. I'm like, it was like three minutes. Why are we complaining about this? So I don't want to spend too much time on it, but didn't do a whole lot. It was kind of a show weekend, just nice to have an extra day off of work. And yeah, just I got to go on a nice long morning walk, which was great. You know, it's really nice. It's really easy to exercise when you don't have to work about work first thing in the morning. That's true. That is true. Yeah, I'm usually trying to squeeze my workouts in as early as possible, but still got to, you know, got to get home, got to get after it, got to get ready for work. But yeah, well, we don't want to rub anyone wrong with a weekend recap. So weekend update, they're like, we don't need this. Just get to the pastures and people are like, I like the weekend recap. It's like guys, relax.

2:00There's a need to be all business. So we're in the all season. It's early September now. Nothing significant has happened in quite some time regarding these Indiana pastures. Oh, first fantasy football draft that ended on Sunday night. Did you do your shit? Tomorrow night, Tuesday night. Yep, minus Tuesday night as well for my other leaks. So I'm in two leagues. I didn't actually do like a setting the pace. Like I had the last couple of years, but I am doing one with a bunch of different Pacers podcasts. So that's a lot of foam. We did that one on Sunday night. It was an auction draft by first time doing a real auction draft. So didn't really like it. If you're not too familiar with it, you can mess with your whole drafts on the first pick. You know, you really could. But it's it's an interesting, interesting like topic or, type of idea. I would say format. Yeah. I like it because I think it keeps you engaged the entire draft. As versus like, oh, I got the first pick. Now I got to wait 19 picks for my next pick. You know what I mean? So like you get that. And I think it's a little bit more you can kind

3:01of pick your team versus you have to kind of just like look at the draw, which I like about it. Because it's like, hey, I'm going to be smart and spend my money wisely. Like I feel like for you, it'd be really rather pure out of it with how well you like a bunch of my. I love a good negotiation, a good, you know, bargain, a good auction type of thing. But I'm just so used to the original fantasy format. The last time I did that, I was like, you start to second guess yourself after your first two picks. You start to be like, I should probably start saving up some some of my fantasy funds right now for some of the later rounds. So you don't go to top heavy. But yeah, I might fit the overall pick of my draft. It's about to be right in the middle. Not bad. It's not bad. It's not great. But it's not. It could be worse. Well, you bring up funds. And I think that's a great way to segue into our topic for the day show. A lot of people were asking me, why haven't you guys given us an update yet on the Clipper stuff? I wish all of your shows weren't. I mean, everybody's just complaining this week. I had three before did your mail bags. We have news to talk about. That's like, hey, guys,

4:05we also do have some lives, you know, lives, wives, kids. I mean, there's, there's stuff in between. So when there's no actual games going on, we could, you know, maybe get a little bit ahead on recording knockout two episodes or so in a night. It could go a long way for being able to relax here and there. I'd say yeah. So anyway, I guess people are just dying to hear our opinions on this much. So we're gonna give it to you right now. We're giving it to you right now. The Los Angeles Clippers got the hammer laid down on them. And Steve Balmer, $30 million fine, suspended for an entire season. What does it mean though? Like what is he's got to watch from home? Like when you're not a player, I mean, is it just you can attend the games? Because like, I feel like when I read that, he's suspended for the year. It's like, oh, well, good thing his production isn't felt on the court, you know, so well, have you seen an owner as active at games? That's that that's that's a fair point. He's definitely getting into it,

5:06twirling around stuff and you know, getting real loud. So yeah, I'm sure that'll probably eat him up inside quite a bit. Yeah, I mean, and especially considering they just bought that new arena like and you can't be there to experience it like I'm either to see this team kind of grow as they're in this rebuild, but you have this you have Lawrence Frank suspended for half a season. And it kind of feels like Lawrence Frank ratted them out. So I'm curious to see how that happened. That's what I heard. That dynamic play out moving forward. Like, I don't know if you can just fire a guy, but like there's no way I would trust a snake like that. Probably not. I'm not gonna get you. Yeah. So extension talks might be a little bit on the quieter side, but Pablo Torres who really broke this story for a forever quite I mean, this was like grade A journalism because I feel like when this first when news started, a first drop about this, people were like, well, I don't know about that. And it seemed like the clippers were fighting it and like, you thought maybe you'd kind of like blow over eventually or, you know, nothing significant would come of this. But this was one of the largest punishments

6:10we've ever seen. I did the research because I had heard of it, but I wanted to hear the specifics. This is not the first time this has happened in NBA. This happened with the Minnesota Timberwolves when they signed Joe Smith former first overall pick. I don't know. Joe Smith sounds like, yeah, it sounds like a made up guy. But there was a time where Joe Smith was the top overall pick and the Minnesota Timberwolves got punished five first round picks for trying to circumvent the cap. So this was, I want to say this was like, this was basically well over 20 years ago. I might have been like 2002 or something in the early 2000s, but in a long time. And for the fact that this to happen now just feels like an era of free agency being as big as it is trading picks. I mean, or not, you know, whatever it is, like the picks have become so much more valuable. I feel like compared to the past where, you know, this is really going to set the clippers back. Yeah, it really is. And it sent Minnesota back because this was the Kevin Garnett era. They ended up having to trade him to Boston. They had back to back picks and took Johnny Flynn and Ricky Rubio and didn't take

7:13Steph Curry. So I think it matters who's running organization. But like, this is just kind of the M.O. for the clippers. They've kind of been the laughing stock of the league for decades. And they've had some really good players, but like even probably their best player in franchise history, Chris Paul, they treat him like trashous last year in his final season, trade him to Toronto, dismiss him from the team. Like, what are we doing? I just, I don't really know what direction the clippers go from now. But from a Pacer's perspective, I think what really got a lot of Pacer fans intrigued with this was they're losing five picks from 29 to 33. So the reporting from Zaccalo and others that I saw was the 2029 first at Indiana did trade them would be the pick that would be stripped. And so that means that the Pacer's pick basically becomes obsolete. Nobody will pick it. And a lot of fans have said, well, how come we don't get our pick back? If that's the case, so I just want to kind of pick your brain on this because when a team gets fine like this, it just really sucks that you lose a draft pick. And the fact that it just impacts a player from

8:16getting drafted in the first round more than anything else. But now there'll only be 29 picks in the first round of the 2029 NBA draft. And the Pacer's will not get this pick. The clippers will not get this pick. It just disappears basically. So what are your thoughts on that? And do you think the Pacer should get their pick back? I think it's really interesting that when you like, yeah, it's unfortunate because what if that pick say for instances, I don't know, what if it's like the first, second, third overall pick and that's the worst case in every Pacer's. But that's like a large, a slot, a slotded salary that a player is then missing out on. So that's pretty interesting and unfortunate for whomever, you know, is giving me the 2029 draft class. The first from pick is missing out on a, on a big salary. As it relates to should the Pacer get their pick back, no, they should. Should it be awesome? It would be incredible. It would be magical. But that is so wishful thinking because it's not like the clippers duped the Pacer's in anything or like,

9:17you know, maybe like traded, coilinert or something like that to the Pacer's and like lied on some of his medicals. Like that maybe would have been an understanding of, understandable thing to be, hey, let them get their pick back. We would have never seen that before. But I don't think the Pacer should get their pick back. I think that the clippers should lose the pick. But it's also just interesting because I would imagine it's probably a scenario that maybe the clippers I assume just didn't have another 2029 first. Otherwise, what they do. So then that's where I'm kind of confused as to just like, why the Pacer's pick that? So I don't know how they get to pick what picks are for. I think they have another trade involved maybe with the 76ers. Maybe was back with the James Harden trade. It's got to be something where their pick is tied up into something. It's like top two or three protected. If I'm not mistaken, somebody can probably correct me on this in the comment section. I'm this is terrible homework by me. But from what I remember hearing about,

10:17it was something along the lines of like, they can either get like one, two or three in the draft or they lose the pick entirely. Something crazy like that. So I'm assuming they like had to pick between both of those and they're probably like a higher chance of getting a star player with this pick. So let's keep it. But then if you're the NBA, you're thinking, why are we giving them the less of the two picks? We should be penalizing them the hardest with this one. So you're right. Do you have it up? I do have it pulled up. So yeah, they own their own pick if it's from one to three. That's right. I was right. The word of 30. It does go to the Philadelphia 76ers. So I guess, yeah, I guess maybe they just I don't know. I guess if they were at worst case scenario, they're a terrible terrible team. They would want to own their own draft pick rather than the Pacers pick, which could probably be anywhere between the teens or later. I would I would hope or imagine. And who do you think the league will rather have get a first round pick? The Sixers are the Pacers. Yeah. I mean, Billy, I would imagine, you know, there I say it's a team that's got a

11:17LeBron. I won't even be there, but a bigger market type of team strip them. Yeah, exactly. Of course, you know, I think that they've never the leagues never been too kind to the Indiana Pacers, especially as it relates to the draft lottery. We know that. It seems like almost impossible to have never moved up in the lottery. But here we are. I've seen the idea of thrown around that these picks that are forfeited should be put up in the end season tournament. Whoever wins that should get like the 30th pick. What do you think about that idea? Because I kind of I think that would spice things up. That would be awesome. But it's not sustainable because like, you know, you're not always just going to have like a pick up for grabs. But I do think that would make every team care about it even more. You know, if you could all of a sudden win a 2029 first round pick, I mean, that's definitely some big time extra motivation. So I love the idea of it, but it's like just totally not realistic. Yeah, it's kind of weird to me like what you

12:18what you could do to me. I know this is like waste. It's kind of stupid to even think about this idea. So maybe I should name it. It's it's saying. But it's like, what if you just like added a second pick or excuse me, added an extra pick in the second round, right? Instead of it being, hey, we're going to have 29 first shop picks and 31 second round picks versus 30 and 30. That's my thought. Yeah. I mean, look, NFL has their compensatory picks like, you know, I don't know if if NBA could come up with something, but like that idea feels like a little bit more reasonable. Like I feel like that you could probably sell yourself on rather than, hey, we have this like 29, you know, 2029 first round pick that's up for grabs. You know, winter gets it that feels almost like someone's got like a storage locker and they got to get rid of it and just raffling it off. Like so wouldn't be able to do that. But the second round pick like that, if it's, you know, pick like 61. Yeah. You know, I don't know what that'd be fun. You still get 60 guys drafted that way. Whoever was going to be the 30th pick now becomes the 31st, whatever. So I don't know. It's just

13:22another way of looking at it and adding that pick back on. Just make it at the end of the second round. It's like, nobody really wants the last pick, Mr. irrelevant, right? Nobody wants that pick. But you never know like, there's no and then you get a Brock party. So I was at a time. He's the Mr. relevant was he was. Those are two players that want to have a really solid career. So, um, you know, never say never, but I do think that's a fun idea. But as it relates to Pacer fans feeling entitled to be able to we should get our pick back now guys. That's just, that's just us being homers just wanting our pick back. I can't blame us that for that. But I also have seen people then say, so you're telling me Benedict Mathur inside with the Pelicans. The 2029 first is gone. Is it really just essentially, you know, the fifth overall pick and Isaiah Jackson, for Zubats and, you know, Kobe Brown, like, yeah, if you put it that way, it sounds a lot better. It really does. It really does say like, I could live with that.

14:24Because if that was the trade, then you know what? You look at I Jackson's contract as a negative. You know, it was just he was going to be owed, you know, additional like 14 million dollars after the previous season and Keen Wagger. I'm still not 100% sold at all, but we'll give the guy the benefit of the doubt hasn't played yet. But to me, it definitely did feel like overall. It looked like the Clippers got a lot more assets than they actually did just given how things put, you know, played out. Yeah. I think everybody was like so torn when you think about it from this perspective, like, Mathur and six overall pick plus the fifth overall pick plus a future 2029. Like that's a lot to give up for big zoo. But the fact that the Clippers didn't keep Mathur and it almost made you feel a little bit better about the trade. You know, and I know that's like herbal, but well, we knew the complications with keeping Mathur in here. Like we knew he wanted to be a starter. They weren't going to offer him that. It was expected that he wanted around close to 20 plus mill. I mean, I don't know what he wanted. But the market was just not there

15:25for him to get it. So he signs his incredibly cheaper deal that nobody expected. And he's going to be a free agent at the next summer, right? Next off season. So it's like, you have the same headache you're going to have this year as well. So I don't really think moving off Mathur and really like made me feel it about the trade. It just kind of sucked that the highest traffic you've had didn't even make it past. He didn't get it. He didn't make it past his rookie scale deal. So just I wouldn't say it's a miss either, but it is kind of a miss because you didn't envision him as a starter after his rookie scale deal. And you kind of were hoping he would be that guy next to tie, but able to maximize that turn that into Zubat to a lot of people, you know, including Charles Barclay, Bill Simmons, different people are saying, wow, this could be a monster team next year. Like people are not sleeping on the pace. There's as much as maybe you think they would be. But it just fascinated me because I know people will say the pace are still traded at 2029 first round pick. And I'm not and I'm not disagreeing with that. They still traded it. They don't have a pick in 29. So neither do the Clippers. And I think what makes it a little bit more, you know, salvageable or,

16:30you know, it's easy to kind of understand why or just it doesn't hurt us bad. I guess is the right way to say I can't come up with the right word. But what I'm trying to get at five is you don't have to worry about that pick becoming it won't make you buy the battery better. The mystery box is shut down. It's shut down. It's just worn open up. It's locked. Right. Basically, you basically forfeited your pick to get zoo. And I think you would do that if you had to. Yeah. Because I mean, look around. I mean, that pick could have been traded to somebody else. That pick could have totally ended up in the Eastern Conference a couple of years. You know, we've seen, I mean, our pick got traded to the Toronto Raptors and the Raptors traded that pick to the Pelicans and the Pelicans traded it back to us. And then we traded it to the Clippers essentially. And like, that fifth overall pick made its way around. So anything could have happened. It could have ended up in the Eastern Conference. Who knows where it'll be, who it'll be or anything like that. But we won't have to worry about that now. So yeah, it makes me feel just a little bit better. But I actually

17:32want to flip it on you. Yeah. I'm just going to assume that the Clippers had no idea what the penalties might have been. Maybe they did. Maybe they didn't. Do you think if they knew they were going to be docked five first round picks, maybe they would have made a bigger effort to retain Benedict, Matthew. That's a good question. I think they had an idea that something was going to have. I didn't they did too. There's no way they just got this sprung on them. So I'm still going to say that I don't think they would have been like, oh my god, we should have totally resigned to a couple of year deal. It's still like you're talking about losing picks starting in 2029. It's still a couple of years from now. So it's like even if you sign math or until like a four or five year deal or anything, the next couple of years, like you still wouldn't have lost those picks yet. So I don't think it's a big deal. I'm looking if they really want to go back after them and freeing. See that they can. But it's just interesting to like lose math and then lose the picks. Now you just look like you got egg on your face. You're just the Los Angeles Clippers once again.

18:35I did kind of wonder if maybe they wish they would have had the 2031 pick instead of Keaton Wogler, but it's hard to imagine not one in the fifth overall pick. How do you turn that down? Yeah. I mean, it was kind of like one of those things that crossed my mind that I'm like, that's kind of a stupid thought, but I'm going to bring it up. Now, here's one way that I can tie this back to the pages. And I want to get your thoughts on this because there is a lot of talk about what the Clippers had to do to get co-while owner to leave Toronto to sign with LA. And we've heard about this four different sponsorships that he got outside of what he got contractually. And his uncle Dennis is now suspended for the next five years can't be involved in any kind of NBA stuff. I don't think he'll ever be an NBA agent again would be almost shocked if that happens. co-while owner gets slapped on the wrist with $700,000 fee for what happened. And then he gets traded back to Toronto. And people were saying, well, he shouldn't have ever left Toronto in the first place. They had a great thing there. And I'm just I'm just kind of wondering because I was thinking about this today and how much did Kauai Leonard's decision to go to the Clippers

19:43help build this Pacers team? And I want to lay this out here for you because number one, if Kauai stays in Toronto, does that become a dynasty there with him in Pascal, Siacum? I think there's a very good case that it could be if he stays healthy. But I feel like with Kyle Avery, everybody they had there with that mix, I wonder if Toronto isn't as who G was still trying. OG, I mean, let me just let me just talk this through real quick, set it up for you here. I just kind of wonder Pascal would have been available for trade when the Pacers got him in 2024. Then you flip it two years forward. They knew that Kauai and all this stuff was going down. The Pacers made the trade for Zubats in the middle of this investigation in the middle of this whole reporting for public. They start selling everybody this season. How much of Kauai Leonard's decision to screw the Clippers basically Steve Balmer and his actions and all that. How much at all this impact the Pacers building their starting front court essentially? First, I'm just going

20:45to back it up and just say that Kauai Leonard leaving Toronto probably the biggest ripple effect of anything we could remember in recent memory. Maybe ever NBA history. Like SGA. The Clippers. The Thundergaid all the guys. Where what are the Thunder even do at all? I mean, you can't even imagine where they're at. And then obviously you got Jada out of it as well. Yeah, exactly. They're two best players. They're two best players come out of that. Like Toronto would have remained really, really good. You brought up a fantastic point about, you know, no Pascal, see I can go into the Pacers. So then where are the Pacers? It's not as simple as just saying. The Pacers have an NBA title if SGA never gets traded because then everything's different. But I just think that overall the landscape of things could just be totally different across the league. And that's the crazy thing. So yeah, I mean, I definitely do think that you're onto something knowing that like, hey, if they're busted, here's probably what the repercussions could be.

21:48And we did see that Clippers team. They sold. They very much sold. And people liked the type of moves that they were doing. They followed. They got younger. Remember, wow, Deere, Scarlin, Benedict Matherman, you got to fit the overall pick. He and Wagger, like if you don't know those accusations are coming and you don't get Deere Scarlin, you don't get the fifth overall pick, anything like that. You have no draft picks coming your way for quite some time. So that's a great point that I didn't stop pause and really think about because I think they did get ahead of it. Yeah. And that's why I think Indiana benefited from getting the CYCUM and Zubots by this whole co-high-liner thing like him leaving Toronto to go and like and what's really even crazy, you brought up that pick that's been flipped all the way around from Toronto to New Orleans back to Indiana to the Clippers. Well, the Raptors traded that pick to get Brandon Ingram. Well, they just traded Brandon Ingram and Grady Dick plus other picks to get co-high-linered backs. Just like what a full circle moment.

22:51It's just it's just wild to me how much all this has happened. But even if you want to go back to Paul George requesting a trade from Indiana like that got him to okay see which got him to the Clippers which got co-high to the Clippers which then got Tyree's Halbert to the Pacers. It's like all this like ripple effect of all these different requests from just Paul George and co-high-linered essentially built this entire Pacers roster. Yeah. Released the main core of it their top three players. So you have to be thankful and in retrospect that co-high went to the Clippers because had he not who knows where the Pacers would be at today with what their roster would be. So you know and just to think about this co-high-liner was a former Pacers first track. Yes, that is so true. So weird man. That end. Yeah, co-high-linered has impacted so much between you know the championships and you know appearances and the finals with the Spurs and so on and then even that trade. I mean, George Hill was a huge part of those Pacer teams. Yeah, they were going to the conference finals.

23:54So yeah, that man has been responsible for a lot and then be a good or bad but the co-high-linered Clippers era results in one division title, one conference finals appearance which he wasn't even a part of and overall played close to about 65% total games during his time in those six years. Overall, if you add it up, it's like he basically missed like two seasons during his time there. So it's pretty rough but very, very hands down the costliest acquisition in NBA history. I mean, 10 years, Fox, basically a whole decade of co-high-liner going to have a hold on that franchise and what do they have to show from it? What you just said, one conference finals appearance. It's like you think about his that one that 2019 NBA finals run when the Raptors won it. That run changed everything. I mean, it really like it put him, it was such an incredible NBA

24:59finals. I'm every people are saying one of the greatest. It felt like George go out, give whatever you got to do to get him. Sign me this. It's not even good enough anymore. I need this under the table type of stuff and I'll put it on you. I mean, look, this is a second time NBA is dealt with this in terms of this punishment. I'm just a firm believer that I believe this had to have happened in other leagues and things like that, whether it's Otani playing for such a little amount of money and then all the back pay and there's been things going on. I just feel like there's this has to be going on in other leagues and circumventing the cat, like tips the balance in terms of fairness beyond. I mean, in a salary cap league, it's so unacceptable that I'm glad the punishment was this harsh. It had to be. I mean, they already set the precedent 20 years ago with Joe Smith and like Joe Smith, good player, but not even on the same level. So just laughable and it's like dumb franchises make dumb decisions.

26:01You know, my mom always told me growing up your sins will find you out. So don't be lying to me because I'll figure it out if you are. You know what I'm saying? So it's like your sins will find you out and that's what happened to Steve Balmer and the Clipper is they can play stupid all they want. Steve Balmer is embarrassed. He's going out there saying we're going to fight this arbitration, all this crap. You're not going to win, brother. You're not going to win. You're not going to sue. There's too much proof in the pudding and they hired someone on the outside to do an investigation on this. The NBA did not just do it themselves. You know, we've seen how the NBA likes to, you know, conduct things themselves and then they go out there and say, well, our doctors think are in Eastwood could have played. So you know, we're going to go ahead and find you guys. So I'm just saying that it wasn't one of those situations like they hired a law from to come in and do this investigation and they found the Clippers, you know, guilty beyond reasonable doubt. Like it's just obvious. They did it. And I will say there's probably a lot of other sports that are doing this crap. But you know what? If you're going to have a guy get four sponsorships that he's going to make tons of money off of, at least put him in a commercial to do it. So he doesn't look sus.

27:03If you think like, well, what? A electronics? Yeah. Like these, this is the craziest he easily could have done certain commercials. And it would have been like, okay, yeah. But it was like totally like, yeah, wait, what are they paying for? And a little while later, does the guy who speaks like the least out of anybody in the NBA to the boy where yeah, that does like race and red flag. So I'm glad that the punishment was harsh because it's just crazy how certain franchises like the Clippers who have never won anything were just desperate enough to do anything and everything to try to put themselves in position to win it all. And they still didn't. And I would like to believe that, you know, maybe that it's since it's been 20 plus years since this punishment last happened. And now this is a little bit more front of mind to say like, okay, yeah, this can't happen. I even heard them say, hey, they're going to, you know, they're investigating to Jalen Brunson leaving like $110 million or whatever was on the table. Because that is a lot of money. But

28:09at least they won a ring, you know, and whatever. Hopefully they didn't do anything illegal. But the co-high Leonard Clippers thing that they just, it was like disappointing year after year between the injuries. You're already paying a guy who only plays two thirds of the season regardless. So it was just desperation and it's finest. Yeah. And I will just say this, the Pacers have done a really good job of making sure that they target players that are best for their franchise. Character individuals absolutely co-high Leonard to me as talented as he is. I don't even know the guy at all outside of just what we see on TV. That's a fair point. But what I'm getting at is like no player is good enough to make you want to go through all this like now. Maybe Wimby, you know, you know, you know, Yokech, somebody like that. But even then like they're just built different and co-high to me. He just seems to kind of be to his own drum. Doesn't really seem to care about winning or losing that much. It's just all about I'm really good at basketball.

29:14I'll play really good when I'm on the court and healthy. But if I'm not healthy, then so be it. Maybe I'm wrong in that reading. But it just feels like he's just not shalon about everything. Yeah. And I'm the Clippers like the fact that this is over like I would feel refreshed that he's no longer on my franchise. But probably two or three years ago, they should have traded him two or three years ago. They probably had too much tied up into him financially where they couldn't do it or this stuff might have got leaked earlier. I don't know. But like you said, shout out, Pavotory for the incredible investigative journalism that he did on this reporting. And I'll be interested to see if there's more. It seems like he's not going to dive into the jail and Brunson stuff as much because I don't really know if there's as much of a smoking gun there. But if there was it'd be great. I would love to see it as a Pacer's fan just watching the next kind of implode would be great. But now I kind of like when the nicks are relevant. It makes it more of fun. It does. I don't know the price of people who hate hearing that for me. But it's a true thing. Like there was like when the nicks are a good team, there's just a lot more eyeballs on it.

30:18And I feel like a lot of people were like maybe at least where I live, it was way more evident. The entire life. I'm in New York. The entire woke up and started to care about basketball. After years and years of either not caring or being like, you know, fair weather fans, everybody seemed to care about this run. So hey, our rival now is the team to beat. I can't wait to hunt them down and beat them. Yeah. All right. Well, that's going to wrap it up for the day's episode. We were going to talk about a few more things, but we'll save that for the next episode here. So I hope you guys enjoyed our discussion on the co-while Leonard side of things, the clipper side of things and whatnot. But I will just say at the end of the day, the Pacers, I think just to kind of recap it here, we both agree the Pacers should not have got their pick back, but it does feel like, and even if you don't feel like it's, even if you don't agree with us, it does feel like the trade feels like a less of a blow knowing that that pick will not turn into anything special. That, that's just how I feel. And I think we both are just very happy that we had the opportunity

31:20to go out and get you beats of Zubads and put them with this core because, the more I watch him, the more I read about him, the more I think about him and Tyrese and see Occam together, my expectations are getting really high and my excitement level is going from like a 9 to an 11. That's, that's kind of where I'm at is like, we made this trade in February. It's now September. We saw them for five games in a meaningless stretch where it's hard to get excited and then there was, you know, we got to finish out the season. And there was the hard break of losing our draft pick, which then makes you second-guess some stuff. Now I'm just flat out excited loving the fit, even more, and just feeling really good about it. So I think, yeah, hey, you got to give something, to get something. Facers did give something, but in the end, I don't think it's going to be anything that's really going to bite them, you know, in the butt as much as it could have initially. So, I think you got to be excited about the trade rather than having any sort of regret. Yeah, that's how I feel. It's like, yeah, in the moment, you were like, just frustrated

32:23beyond belief because you go from having a top-of-the-top work pick. Oh, yeah. Who wouldn't want the first overall pick, which was a possibility? It was the highest of high possibilities with truly the lowest and worst outcome that happened. So, you know, stuff will never get over it, but we can move on with our lives. That's what we can do. Every day gets... We can move on with our lives, and we can look forward to the future. Unfortunately, there are some other people that might not be able to look forward to their future as well. And we'll talk about that on the next episode here of Setting the Pace. So, Pace and Nation, thank you all so much for tuning in. If you're not already subscribed to the YouTube channel, please subscribe, hit that like button, leave us a comment in the comment section below. We love hearing from you guys there, and if you're listening on the audio side of things, haven't asked for it in a while, but please give us a five-star rating interview. Help us get those rating-in reviews up. It always helps the podcast be found by more new listeners. And if you guys enjoy this content, it just helps us out to know what you guys think. And if there are things that you'd like to see us cover, talk about, we would love to hear that as well, because we are

33:26truly, you know, listeners of what the fans have to say, and we really try our best to give you what you want. And we even cut down our weekend recap for our listeners as well, which is a little petty. You know, I had some other people say, I really like the weekend recap. Don't get rid of it. It just kind of makes you guys feel more down to earth. I'm like, you know, you can't please everybody, Flaunch. Yeah, you can. You never will. You never can. But at the same point, we like to do the best to be can to kind of please each and every person to a certain degree. So thank you, everyone, for tuning in. We appreciate you. That season is right around the corner. I mean, things start to heat up in September. So pace your basketball, eat too far away. It is not too far away, Flaunch. And if you are excited, that your team has a front court of Pascal, Siacum, and Ebiz Azubats. Hit me with those three words. Let's go, PASERS!