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

For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters.

Tremphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start.

Tremphia is administered as injections under the skin

or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks.

If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Tremphia, proper training is required.

Tremphia is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease

and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis.

Serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections and liver problems may occur.

Before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis.

Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or if you need a vaccine.

Explore what's possible.

Ask your doctor about Tremphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit www.tremphiaradio.com

www.tremphiaradio.com

www.tremphiaradio.com

It's the Bill Simmons podcast presented by Fando Sports Network and the Ringer Sports Network, Sack Lois here.

I really screwed that up. It's a Ringer podcast network.

For some reason, I froze. I'm so excited to talk about Tatum.

There's a lot to talk about.

Since the last week, when we got together and I was like,

I feel all signs are pointing to Tatum on Friday and it just feels like so many things have changed.

The spurs feel like more juggernautty than ever.

We're coming on right after they beat the hell out of the rockets.

The Celtics have just inserted themselves now for real into the contender conversation.

The Lakers look more interesting without LeBron James, which is a fun little wrinkle.

And the pistons are looking a little gamey, little teetery.

Where do you want to start Tatum?

I'm sure you want to start Tatum.

So we can start Tatum.

It is the most exciting thing that happened in the last 72 hours.

I would argue it's the most exciting thing that happened this season,

just because when you go back to last May and it was like,

oh man, we're not going to see this guy for 18 months.

And then you think the first week of the season,

I remember going to a saw home game in the first 10 days

and came away from the game thinking they got to blow it up.

Like this is ridiculous.

Just trade Derek White.

Just start this over.

Who are we kidding with this team?

And the transformation over the next four months has been startling.

And I mean, the craziest thing, there's the Tatum piece,

which I want to talk about in a second.

But then there's also the getting all these minutes and reps for all these dudes now

that are now these trained dragons for a 10 or 11 men rotation.

You saw Shireman today was one of the key guys in the game

who just wouldn't have played this year of Tatum and played the whole year.

But Tatum coming back Friday was emotional.

And it was emotional for him.

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

I think it was, you know, his son sitting in the front row

with the basket they're going against in the first half.

And he just looked way more like himself today.

But I didn't fully 100% believe

until this driving righty layup bank shot that he made in the second half

where he pushed off his bad, I want to call it the bad leg

because it's like he surgically repaired leg, I guess.

And it was just a vintage Tatum play going off the leg

that everybody was like, he's got to be careful.

He's just far further ahead of where I thought he was going to be.

Is the same for you.

Were you expecting 27 to 29 minutes and real intensity?

I'm legitimately shocked at how good he looks.

And I realized he's 12 of 32, six or 16 in both games.

The eye test is, I mean, I'm shot.

I'm absolutely blowing away.

He is, he looks really, really good already.

And it's a little scary for teams who have been saying,

like, well, if not now for the next one, you know,

because Tatum's out and Haliburne's out and loads out.

And well, even if Tatum comes back, he'll be a shell of himself.

And I wasn't sure how much of like, is he going to be 60% of Tatum, 80% of Tatum.

I don't know what percentage he's at now.

But 50 minutes into this or whatever it is,

he's so far ahead of where anyone could have reasonably expected him to be.

It's legitimately shocking to me.

He looks like Tatum.

There's some stuff.

Like there's some very careful, deep dive eye test Tatum stuff.

Like I think he's being careful jumping in traffic.

Like for instance, like making sure when he's landing in a sea of legs,

I'm sure that's in the back of his head.

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

like that righty layup, I mentioned.

Well, that layup, by the way, that's on mobility on a switch,

getting, I believe we're talking about the same one where he gets by Evan Mobley going, right?

It's Evan Mobley.

Like he also had a spin in the post around Sam Meryl.

They ran that white Tatum, pick a roll a bunch to get switches.

And he had a like a quick baseline spin finished through Mobley.

Like that's just trademark Jason Tatum stuff that we're seeing.

And 27 minutes in this game against Cleveland, a team that's been rolling.

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

And the defense stuff, too, where when they had,

when they had him out there with white and Jalen at the same time,

and there's their abilities to switch.

And I thought his side to side stuff looked really good, too.

Look, going back to Friday night, my friend Hange came over because we vowed

if he somehow came back that we're watching the first game together.

So Tatum comes back.

Obviously it's emotional.

Obviously he's going to be a little nervous.

Obviously it's a little rusty.

Can't make a shot.

Crowd starting to get tentative.

The mistunk happens.

We made my wife make cocktails.

We're like, all right, this is, this is now way more intense and excruciating.

Wow.

She had to make, she made me a vaca soda.

She made Hange a gin and tonic.

I just wanted to put it.

You had your wife.

You didn't make cocktails.

Hange, she's a good bartender.

Yeah.

I want to take advantage.

You know, it's like 430 on a Friday afternoon.

So get the drinks.

He finally gets that follow up rebound dunk, right?

Huge release in the crowd.

We're like, oh my god.

He got one.

Okay.

Now, and then within 20 seconds hits the three.

And the crowd just went ballistic.

And I know a bunch of people who were there.

And they said it was a finals level crowd.

The explosion of that 30 seconds, the two plays in a row.

Like people were just delirious.

And it really went from.

Uh oh.

Is this going to be a lot more awkward and weird and depressing than I was anticipating to.

Oh my god.

Tatum's back.

Holy shit.

And you could feel the ceiling kind of go up there in that game.

And then this Cleveland game was, he just looked like Tatum.

I love the way he came out in the Dallas game.

He was looking to pass the ball.

And there was a, there was a play in that game where he got the ball.

Nothing was going on.

He got the ball on the right wing.

Nothing was happening.

You just thought, all right, he's going to get into his Tatum bag and ISO.

And instead, he whipped a pass to Derek White and ran into a screen.

Like ran sprinted set of screens slipped out of it.

Like all.

It's been the perfect mix of getting his stuff within the Celtic system.

And then being Tatum, one on one against good matchups that are produced by.

So he's, he's looked incredible in that dunk.

That missed dunk was nothing but encouraging to me because on the way there.

First of all, it came off a catch.

Like an active catch.

He came off like caught the ball coming around the screen and went white to attack.

So you're not doing all the heavy lifting on your own.

We're going to give you a head start.

And the change of direction and explosion toward the hoop were like jarring to me.

That he's already here.

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

It seemed like he missed time to from how far away from the hoop he was.

Right.

Which is just reps.

But, but I like the explosion, the change of direction and the explosion on the way there was like,

whoa, with this guy so far ahead.

And by the way, to your point about, I mean, we, you and I were not concerned about the chemistry.

And like any of these things, we were like, this is going to be fine.

Good players playing good basketball is good.

Jalen Brown today.

I thought had an awesome game.

23.

Third quarter.

Third quarter, especially.

Yeah.

Eight assists, nine rebounds or nine assists.

Eight rebounds, I can't remember which.

And just making every right play.

And yeah, low and behold, he's still going to put up huge numbers playing this way and play with Jason Tatum.

You know, I like what you said about that first half of the Dowskin.

The shots weren't going in.

Everything was short, whatever.

But he was in the flow of the game, which was encouraging.

Right.

And I was wondering like, nobody, people are asking a bunch of questions and you get the post game thing.

Jason had us to feel what's the like to be out there.

I'd love for somebody to ask him.

Do you feel like you gained anything from these four months just sitting on the bench watching basketball?

Like, do you feel that any has anything slowed down for you?

Has anything changed about how you think about when you're out there just from just being a spectator?

Because I felt like he was a little more patient than maybe he was even at his peak just like kind of not asserting himself too much and just kind of fitting in.

But I might be it might have been imagining it.

What was cool about it?

You know, that shirman in that spot in Hauser, Hugo and Jordan Walsh, all these different swing.

When he's out there, you just kind of forget certain things about Tatum like, oh, yeah, he can handle the ball.

He's basically a point forward.

Oh, now we have one more guy out there who can do that.

The lineup that, I don't know what the plus minus stats were, but that lineup with him and Jalen, Richard, White and Cata.

Which we have last year.

Cata's a different guy this year, obviously.

Pritchard's up a level as a score.

And I thought they had two stretches in the Cleveland game that I would be really scared of if I was a team of these.

Because all they were doing was like, it was either Tatum or Brown in the corner.

There was Cata setting picks for either the guards or one of the other forwards and just a lot of movement and just things happening until they got the mismatch they wanted,

which was usually hard and or it was Tatum on Mitchell.

And just over and over again, they were just getting the right matchup and the right guy in space in these four elite shock creators.

And that was the first time I was like, holy shit, they might make the finals.

Like I wasn't even considering it until the second half of the Cleveland game.

I mean, Cata's a real guy now.

Yeah.

Like a real screen role, make plays into short role, like finish rebound defense.

Like you put a real guy who does all the center dirty work stuff around those four dudes on offense.

That's a scary lineup.

And so far, the only like rotation casualty of Tatum to turn his wall.

Gonzalez is still getting minutes.

Sharmin's just good.

Like Sharmin's a good player on both ends of the floor.

Yeah, they've looked awesome and I just Tatum, you know, you can tell that you mentioned the not diving into traffic.

They're clearly going to get him up to speed slowly on defense.

Like they're going to give him easier assignments.

That's so far.

That's been the case.

You're not going to guard Cooper flag.

You're not going to guard Donovan Mitchell.

We'll put you on Dean Wade, whatever.

You can switch into those matchups.

But it's just it's shocking to me that he looks so much like Jason Tatum.

Like it's it's shot.

I can't I keep saying it. It's shocking.

The other thing is what a great sports story it is.

And you could even see at the beginning when Hardin came over and hugged him and Mitchell had him at the end of the game.

And it's just like, you know, you have your livelihood taken away.

And you have it taken away when you're at the peak of your power.

So I was thinking back to that next game, which I thought was one of the best games you ever played.

The game he got hurt.

And the whole playoffs athletically, it just felt like he was at the highest level.

He was every you could feel it as you were watching those games.

You're like, oh my god.

This guy's just one of the great athletes.

You know, and I don't know if it's ever going to 100% come back to where he was.

Like just from him flying around and challenging everything.

And maybe a will maybe it'll just be reps.

But even the stuff we saw today, like coming, coming 10 months after an injury like that.

Part of its modern science, but also I do think it's the age.

You know, I think when you're in your 20s and you're in your prime like this,

I think maybe it is more conceivable to come back.

But I just thought he seems so relieved.

And I think they did something important keeping him with the team,

which he's mentioned a couple times, traveling all over the place with them

and just staying in the fabric of it and staying with it so that it seemed kind of organic.

Because this could go one of two ways, right?

The other way is the guy just disappears works out on his own with his coaches.

That wasn't like this at all.

And I've been, you know, like every other Boston fan.

I've been watching the Jalen Jason stuff, making sure Jalen handled it and said all the work.

You were, you were alarmed at points pre, pre returned. You were alarmed.

Well, yeah, I was, there was, I was thought Jalen was maybe two sentences short of just saying,

like I really missed my brother, we're just trying to hold the fort until he gets.

I just thought he was like too light.

But he's, he made a point of saying that after the game, he did one of those twitch things.

And I just thought the way, I don't, I didn't feel any dueling banjo stuff at all today.

I thought everything was organic. It just felt like, it just felt like they're back.

And you're talking about one of the great, unusual partnerships we've had this century.

Just two guys playing together for this song is impossible.

Like we're going to talk about the Utah Jazz a little bit later.

It's tough to keep preparing together for five years in the stage.

You know, Westbrook and Durant were together eight years, right?

Even Curry and Clayton make it, they made it to what, 2023.

But just in general, just having two guys do their thing together like this for a long period of time.

It's unusual. The league's not designed for this to happen.

I thought there was a little more dueling banjos today against Cleveland and against Dallas.

And that was part because Cleveland was just switching everything and kind of making the Celtics go one on one.

But like when you have two players who are this good going one on one,

you can have some dueling banjos. Like that's going to be part of it.

And as long as, as long as they have the mindset, and this is where Jalen has really leveled up this year,

of when I get into the paint and draw a bunch of traffic, like, I'm just going to make the simple play every time.

If the simple play is me finishing because I've got a good angle or a height advantage or whatever,

that's it. If the simple play is the kick to Howzer or Pritchard.

Like a little dish to Keita. That's the other thing he loves to do.

And even though it's like, there was a stretch even a month ago where some of those were getting a little reckless.

Like he tried some around the back bounce passes.

We were like, ooh, that kind of hit somebody's shin and somehow found its way through.

He's cleaned that up too. He's had a really a really great season.

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

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

Because for all the change that the Celtics made over the summer to cut costs and move on to a new era kind of

and prepare for this season where Tatum was maybe going to play maybe not.

He does have a lot of built-in continuity with all the core guys that are left on the team.

Like that's part of the reason why I think this was going to be seamless.

He's just played even Pritchard White, Howzer.

Like these are guys he's got a lot of built-up reps with, but he also got to see them play in a different context.

And I wonder if he just sort of like learned there's more breadth to their game or this guy can do a little bit more of this than I thought.

And also Jalen, I just think is a better player than he was last year.

And he was a great player.

He was one of the best 25 guys in the league.

But like the point you're making about how he's making the right play.

I just think he does that more consistently this year.

Defensively, those three together, White, Jalen and Jason are just going to be one of the best things.

Best three sums defensively anybody has combined with Kada.

You know, the other piece, there was some luck with this too, like Crawford leaving.

I think ultimately it was probably a pretty good thing.

You know, because this team is a little bit more rebounding in centers and offensive rebounding and stuff like that.

It was not that Crawford was really that good at or poor Zingas.

So the team's a little different.

There's a couple of things I think we know for sure now that I wasn't positive of because from what I heard Tatum has been playing five on five for a month.

That's why he's so far ahead and they've done a great job of keeping everything quiet.

Whatever they've done starting from the moment the injury happened until now.

And it helps when the guys 27 or whatever and not 34.

Like needs to be studied by other teams because this is like crazy.

Yeah, so he was playing I think more than we realized.

And that's why I thought he was going to come back and be 20 minutes.

The Shireman proxy theory was correct.

Like they've moved him right into those minutes and he's 27 and 29.

They want to build him up to the mid high 30s by the end of the season.

He's probably going to miss, I don't know, four games.

So we learned that specifically.

The Simon's trade makes a lot more sense now.

It was always like this.

Yeah, it was always like this.

No, but I think if Vouch was good, it was a bonus.

The Simon's trade was really more about he's just going to take all these minutes

and they kind of must have known this at the deadline.

That was important.

And then randomly Vouch breaks his finger.

And I think they probably would have ended up with Garza in the Vouch minutes anyway

because I don't know how great of a fit he was.

And he was the one piece that I just couldn't make sense with the group they have.

So if you're talking about holes, Garza is your backup center.

Fine.

How many teams is that going to really rear it's like we had against.

I don't know.

I think Tatum would have the ability to play small.

I was interested in watching the answers.

And you know, I love Lager.

So you obviously it was interesting.

I thought Cleveland went small for a while in the fourth quarter.

And I thought it was a bigger story that Mobile who just wasn't out there.

Tatum, Tatum coming off in Achilles tear has like less of a minutes restriction

than guys who are coming off screen ankles and like co injuries.

And it's like it's remarkable.

Yes.

So they went small against them.

And I'm wondering like down the road will the Celtics respond by going small

with Tatum Brown, two guards and one of the wings.

And the other thing I think to watch long term with the Celtics is

Will Hauser be the guy that starts

or would they move Hugo or Shireman into that spot as the fifth guy to try

and move maybe move Hauser to the second thing.

A couple other things really quick.

Well, can we just stop on Vouch for a second?

Yeah.

I just think he was I agree that they're not going to like Garza has been good.

He makes threes are not going to miss Vouch pretty much at all.

Except I think they viewed Vouch as like Keita and Garza is like a pretty small

center tandem.

And the nix can go double big the cabs go double big the pistons are just

this ferocious will fight anybody were giant team.

And I think they I think that could be a matchup thing in the playoffs.

We're okay.

We just need a bigger guy out here for 12 minutes.

But it will hopefully he's ready button.

I think this might be the deepest Celtics team since the 08 team.

Remember that 08 team when they had a casserole and PJ Brown near the end.

They just had two minute almost too many guys.

And they had all these different lineups and wrinkles like the fact that

Shireman, Hauser, Gonzales like these are real bench guys that any team in the league

I think would want combined with the Walsh piece like they probably go 11 deep for

real now with Tatum.

And I'll be interested to see how the minutes go they can use these last 20 games

basically to rest some guys try some different things.

On the Cleveland side.

I did have one mobility question for you because I thought that was a pretty big

Cleveland game today.

And I thought the halftime guys did a good job of properly excoriating them.

Now these these afternoon weekend games I just think are impossible to predict.

You know, I watched Orlando Minnesota yesterday Minnesota just didn't show up.

And I've seen those get that over and over again on a Saturday or Sunday.

It's just kind of either don't show up or they were out the night before or whatever.

It was weird that it took them an hour and a half to really be like, oh shit,

we're on national TV.

And this is kind of a big game.

We should really step it up here.

What are we peaked with what we're getting from mobility in your opinion?

I wouldn't say.

I mean, what is he 24 years old?

I would I would be very hesitant to say that we've we've peaked with evident mobility.

What's left is just what's left.

What's the next what's the jump for him?

If you think there's going to be more there, what is it?

I think it's all the stuff that we think might be in there, right?

It's it's a more consistent three point shot.

It's a little bit more aggression, assertiveness on offense,

a little bit more with the ball against mismatches, running, picking rolls.

Like they just and you hear that this is going to come every preseason.

Like, oh, you should see the stuff.

And it just sort of, you know, you see it and fits and starts and for a game.

And he's out this for a week and you don't see him.

I think there's he's still so young that peaked is just way too strong of a word,

but I think the question you're really asking is like, what version of evident mobility

do they need right now to get to the finals for a team that just made a huge trade

that was clearly like a red flag of, oh, we need to get the finals like immediately.

We could not wait on Darius Garland.

And we do we have that version of evident mobility?

And I will say I'm beginning to like the calves even more when they have the two bigs together.

I feel like that's their that has become their best look and we didn't see that today.

No, I want to see I want to see more of that.

Yeah, that's why with this game, it's it was a great win for the Celtics,

but I just feel like if you take out one of those four guys for the calves,

it's a little more substantial than with some other teams because I don't think

they're five through 12 is really that impressive.

The reason I brought it up with mobile.

His stats are basically the same for his in year five.

It's basically this been the same guy for the last four years.

Like his field goal attempts set year two.

He was 12 the game.

Now he's 13.

He shot 21% from three a second year.

Now he's shooting 32%.

His rebounds.

He was nine in the second years 8.7 in this year.

His assists 2.8.

Now it's 3.8 blocks around the same.

Everything's kind of around the same.

And I just feel like by your fifth year, I wanted I wanted to level up.

And I still think it's in there, but I also don't know like when he shoots a three,

do you think it's going in?

I don't feel awesome about it, but I don't feel bad about it.

I just feel like it's a shot that the defense is willing to live with.

And I it may always be a shot that the defense is willing to live with given the alternatives

on the team that has done of a Mitchell and James Harden and whatever else.

It is interesting that you know with Alan out.

He doesn't like harden and Alan just had immediate pick and roll chemistry like pocket passes,

labs, whatever.

And it just and this is not the first time this has been the case with mobility and a ball handler when Alan is cleared

from the picture and he's the center and the pain is all his.

For whatever reason that does not come as easily with him and for him,

as it does for a more traditional room runner like Alan,

like I want to see just rampage man, like put some shooting in there,

let harden loose and rampage in it.

It just isn't as easy like for Jared Allen who is immediately like,

oh, I'm just going to get 25 points every game now.

There's more there and I don't not sure what it is.

The three point shot would have to get better.

The ability to punish any sort of mismatch.

I don't feel like he's totally there yet.

The defense is really, really good.

It's not like I won't be told my grandkids about it,

but it's really, really good.

And so it's I just wonder two years from now are we in the same spot.

I think about this was certain guys in the league.

Like I look at Jabari Smith that way too,

who's obviously at easy or younger than mobility.

But when I watch him because I like his game and I have a lot of Jabari Smith stock

and sometimes like that, I'm thinking,

is this basically going to be it?

We're going to be at like 16 and 7,

you know, hit some threes and he'll be able to guard different guys.

And this is just what we're going to, this is where we're going to land.

So they're going to be a jump.

Well, it has to be he gets straight to a bad team.

Or it's just just kind of the vicinity of where we're going to land.

I don't know.

We're going to take a break.

I want to talk about Detroit and the Spurs and the Rockets

and the Lakers and the Nicks.

That's coming next.

So what?

This episode of the Bill Simmons podcast is presented by Sam's Club.

It is that time of the year when you just got to get in your car and go somewhere

than that plenty of times of my life.

Nowhere gets you ready to go quite like Sam's Club.

Snacks, the gear, super low prices on gas.

They got a bunch of stuff that keep you in the whole crew rolling.

And here's what you got to do.

You got to join the club of yes and at Sam's Club dot com slash yes and.

You must be 18 years or older to purchase membership of membership is subject to qualifications.

Visit sams club dot com slash yes and for details.

This episode is brought to you by Venmo supporting your team never gets old.

But here's something new.

You can now pay for your game day wings and rip your team at the same time.

How by getting your college colors on your card.

Score more with the college branded Venmo debit card.

Get up to 5% cash back with Venmo stash.

Sign up at Venmo dot com slash college card.

The Venmo master card is issued by the bank or bank NA select schools available.

Venmo slash bundle terms and exclusions apply at Venmo dot me slash stash terms max $100 cash back per month.

I forgot to mention at the top it is CR month on the rewatchables.

He's an American hero.

We did secario last week.

We have Fargo coming on Monday with to live in die in L.A.

Coming a week from Monday.

And then we just had a vote for the fourth movie and it looks like the nice guys.

One the fourth movie with a.

Rangassing and roast pro and then the last movie of the month will be LA confidential.

Oh my god.

You mentioned something we went to break to say your Cleveland point really quick about what happens if it doesn't go great for them.

This spring.

I just I think they become a very interesting offseason team.

And I think if let's say they lose in the second round and it's just another second round loss for this iteration of the calves.

We've already seen them trade Garland and you just mentioned mobile and when is mobile going to develop and.

The honest thing could be revisited and I just like I'll be watching.

It's a team blow up.

Did they sign harder than the extension or no?

Not yet.

Wasn't I think Hardin had one of those games where it's like wait is it mid bay.

Oh no, it's the beginning of March.

You're bearing honeymoon hard.

Is honeymoon hard and over?

honeymoon hard and might.

Yeah, this might have been I left my purse at the hotel bar and now it's gone.

We got to find it.

The honeymoon and some channels.

Detroit.

Lost today.

There's six and five in their last 11.

They are 45 and 18.

The Celtics are now two wins in the lost column behind them nine and two in their last 11.

The Brooklyn loss, which I did not watch then did not have Kate cutting him in.

Okay.

And blew a big lead near the end.

You know, that's fine.

The loss today was a little different because they got their asses kicked by Miami and we'll talk about Miami in a second too.

To trade hanging on a little bit and then you watch some of these other teams in the east that have two three four.

Guys who can create a shot and Detroit still like we say every week has the one guy who can create offense and then.

Just a lot of good cutting a lot of good cuts and and and some low post play.

But not a lot of guys who can create shots and it's just the herder trade.

I just don't understand their trade deadline.

I understand that we said this in the trade deadline problem when we had it.

I understand being afraid to mess with the chemistry, but I also think they needed a freelance wing guard somebody and they didn't get it.

Herder is really not playing.

And I just feel like they're a they're a creator short.

So what do you see?

I think this has been the concern all season and why none of us have been ready to crown them east champions.

Like we would normally crown a team that was so that was like six games ahead.

It's seemingly a blink of an eye ago.

It's because you know that the offense is going to get harder to come by in the playoffs when you play two non shooters at almost all the time.

Sometimes three.

And you're really, really dependent on an all world player, but he's just one player.

And you have all these little subsets, right?

Like Duncan Robinson flying around is kind of like a creator, even though he doesn't dribble because he creates openings and gaps and attention comes to him.

And Jalen Durin can face up.

Oh, I don't love these Jalen Durin jump shots that are starting to happen now because I think that's like we got a maybe a little 1995-ish.

It made me another off season of working on that before you start busting that out in games and I love JD.

And he gets some it's like a little bit of this and the offense of rebounding as part of it.

But all that stuff is harder to do in the playoffs when everyone is geared up on defense on every possession.

And this has been the concern all year.

I'm not going to panic.

It's a late season, you know, slide one game without kid.

Team had a huge lead.

Everyone is coming back from suspension one by one.

Like beef stew just got back.

I grew with you like we all had big dreams for the pistons trade deadline all season, right?

Like it started with marketing like that's the perfect fit.

And then it was for Utah was just not going to trade marketing because he's I just going to I guess be a jazz lifer and just maybe one day make the playoffs for the first time ever.

We took a tray Murphy spin around the parking lot that didn't bite.

It doesn't I never really heard Detroit being aggressive and they settle on this, you know, iv hearder is basically exchange of those two guys.

There's a pick swap here and there.

And.

JB picker that maybe they should have asked JB picker staff first saying hey are you going to play Kevin Herder if we get him because we might trade for Kevin Herder and yeah, like he's been a break in case of emergency guy and.

He's the kind of player that could help them wouldn't change their life.

I think we all knew that.

But yeah, I mean looked at this four team race in the east and you want to throw Charlotte in and make it five go go ahead and do it because they're pulling the zombie heat.

Zombie heat five straight wins.

Maybe the heat just heat around and they they heat their way in one way or another.

So as you know, I'm always terrified of the heat.

I'd written them off this season.

I saw them in person.

Last month when I was back for Tuesday's thing in Holy Cross and the Celtics came back from a big deficit beat them.

Clio Clio where looked like he was just a section eight for the season.

He came in for two small stints in the game and was just a catastrophe.

And it was like wow, it's gotten this bad like it was one of those.

This last five games it wasn't just winning the five.

I watched that rockets game. That's when I got scared.

That's a good win for them.

What they did.

What they did a Charlotte on Friday night was notable.

And I want to talk about that in a second.

But then the one today too just taken into the trade heroes just back heroes.

Like I'm actually offended that you guys forgot I was good at basketball.

And I was being thrown around in these trade deadline shit like I'm good.

Bam.

I think it's gotten better offensively as the season went along.

There was some pretty shaky bam stats.

But it's basically been a 22 10 guy for two months.

Powell is out right now.

Powell isn't even playing.

So when he comes back just thinking about them in a playoff series where you have these two heat check guys.

You have Bam who steady.

You have a defensive by the end.

You have good coach.

You have a couple weird bench guys and wings.

And you only have to go four and three to advance in a playoff series.

I looked this up.

It's true.

It's actually four and three.

You can have three shitty losses and still win the series.

And I just don't want to see them in a series.

And somehow they've been resuscitated.

But Zach low and I'm.

I'm just horrified.

I'm already looking at a two seven Boston Miami series.

Maybe you can look at it right now.

Because that would be the match.

If they had it right now.

It's boss.

They got to get to play in.

They got to heat their way through the play.

And although, you know, six is becoming quite interesting now.

Orlando is six.

Philly is dropped to eighth after a nightmare weekend where Maxi gets hurt.

Now it sounds like he's not going to be out for a long time.

But MB is still out with this oblique thing.

And so that is flipped.

Almost completely the hawks of one six in a row.

Don't don't look at the don't.

Don't forget about the hawks.

Jaywin Johnson's played himself into like legit all NBA considerations.

I had him.

I think he's there.

I had him on my rough draft like two weeks ago, 13 all in a day.

And was people were kind of stunned.

I was like, I don't know.

I think he's been pretty good.

And Kaminga's been good for them.

I'm not.

I wouldn't take to like the all out victory lap on Kaminga quite yet.

But he's been very good for them.

And definitely more productive than porzinga's who find it.

The match be a premature ejaculation victory lap.

Yeah.

Hey, Matt, keep it in your pants.

All right.

Well, seven seed like settle down.

The moment he did that, everybody in the team got hurt.

Yeah.

The Dylan Brooks who blew up took a little bit of a hit.

Yeah.

Maybe take the victory lap after the season.

Well, the, the BAM where stuff has started to work and work big time that combination

in the last three to four weeks has really changed their team.

And like, I'm a Hawkeyes junior.

I haven't done a detailed six man of the earth dive in maybe a month.

But I, I think, you know, he held in Johnson and Nas read.

There's a bunch of good candidates.

He's just been consistently outstanding.

And teams just can't keep him out of his comfort zones.

He spins and drives his way into this little eight foot flip shot team.

It seems to make all of them.

And he was a huge difference maker in that when, uh, at Charlotte on Friday.

Charlotte's playing right now and they're tied hitting a half time in Phoenix ironically.

But so I watched that Friday game because they were going head to head with, with the Tatum game.

So I had on the smart TV.

It was monitoring.

You, you, you'll have to say that you watch a Hornets game.

We all assume that you are watching every one of the parents.

Parents watch their children.

Legitimate or not.

That's the thing.

It's the thing.

It's like when I would have Zoe's soccer games on, on one of the side TVs.

Um, Charlotte played well.

They had 120 points.

Good game offensively.

They, they kept doing stuff, but they couldn't stop Miami.

And I thought I was interesting.

It was a little cold water being thrown on the watch out for Charlotte.

They could be this year's Indiana.

Um, um, bandwagon that I think I was on with three other people.

That's a, that's a, that bandwagon is.

Yeah.

We didn't even have wheels.

We were just like, we were basically building, uh, building the foundation of it.

But they had nobody in the team that could, uh, stop hero.

And I think, I think if, if you're going into a playoff series,

their issue is going to be stopping those hero-pricured, these crafty guards,

these crafty heat-check guys.

They just don't have anyone.

Like they're, they're five.

They're best five.

Everything's good except for that one wrinkle.

Donovan Mitchell, I think would be a real problem for them.

Um, and that was, that was my lesson from that,

because they got 120 and they still lost.

Miami's going to be heard from.

And I, I think we can officially say the East is better than the West.

We might be able to say it.

I mean, you know, certainly the bottom five of the West is not covering itself in glory.

No, no, nor is the bottom four in the East, however,

but it's an, it's a conversation now, uh, for sure.

Well, we were about to have four legitimate East contenders all with various cases going on.

Cleveland took a hit today.

And the next were the other one, the next who I've been hesitant to trust,

because every time I'm about to buy in and then they had a couple of good games.

I even thought, I thought that OKC lost they had was the best mixed game I've seen.

That was a good loss.

Yeah, that was like, oh, yeah, this could be a finals.

Um, and then they just get waxed today against the non-Labrana Lakers.

Um, they had, there were some good stats with them.

We have the number one defense last 20 games, all this stuff.

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

this little check on how I think they have going.

Um, what did, did you see any of that game?

What'd you say?

I've seen pieces of it.

I'm going to go back and watch the, the whole thing tomorrow.

But, uh, I, I saw a team that has been, you know, that the Lakers played really well in that game.

I mean, that's the first thing.

The Lakers, I was a good Lakers game.

Really?

The next, you know, they, they've, their losses tend to be loud, like the two Detroit losses.

Like the Laker losses.

The Cleveland loss, um, the Laker lost today losing by 13 McKielberg just puts up zero.

Um, and, you know, the nicks are, I was texting with a friend of mine who's a huge nicks fan.

And he was just over the moon after the Denver game and just I'm all in on the team.

And that was, that was as good of a road win as you can have in the NBA just taking it to the nuggets like that.

And I picked the nicks to make the finals.

Uh, I, I haven't been convinced to pick anyone else over them in a complete way yet.

But I texted it back.

I was like, there, they seem to, oh, no matter what kind of run they're on.

You're always like one weird cat game or one weird bridges game away from being like, ooh, something is, it's just a strange.

What happened?

It's strange brew that way.

I agree.

I, there's a, there's a number four seed subplot with these that I think is worth mentioning where you can be in the two three and know that you're going to not only, um, probably play my am.

I think my aim is going to get to the sixth seed.

So you two three, if you're the three, you played my aim in round one and then you played the two seed and round two and you're on the road.

Or you could just drop down to four, you played Toronto and round one and then take your chances with the trade.

And to me, that's the more palatable path.

I don't know how you feel about it, but that two three feels a little quagmire to me.

Interesting.

Yeah, you know, Toronto is only a game ahead of Orlando and Miami now in the fifth spot.

So, you know, let's say that could even swing even more.

And they can't beat anyone good.

I mean, that was another great win for the next day went to Toronto and blew them out and Toronto just can't beat any of the good teams in NBA.

Backing up your point that if you can park your way into a matchup against them, maybe that is a little less terrifying than seeing Spowe stride up and down the sidelines.

And like, what kind of zone can we throw at these guys trying to untouch?

We bust that out.

They blow their minds.

That's the heat, man.

And then the Lakers really quick.

Nine and two without LeBron, which is a record that will be brought up over and over again over the next 12 to 18 hours as the talk shows kick in.

You know what?

You know, it never had a record like that when they were injured.

Michael Jordan.

Bill, that never happened in Michael Jordan.

Okay.

Michael Jordan.

I just like when it's Luke and Reeves.

Like, just remove LeBron out of it.

I think that's the foundation of a really good team because you could build the right team around those two guys.

You know who else?

There's going to be a worse defenders.

You know who else thinks that?

The Lakers.

I know.

I know.

I think they like playing together.

Yeah.

They like playing together.

So you can see the vision.

I don't know why they didn't start the vision in February.

And this is just a really weird situation for LeBron because he's still.

It's not like he's washed up.

But this has been a weird fit for him the whole season.

We've known it.

You can watch it.

You can see it with your own eyes.

And I don't know where he ends up next year, but it's just.

I find it hard to believe it's going to be the Lakers.

I don't think it's going to be going to stay.

I find it hard to believe it's going to be the Lakers.

You've pointed out like I kind of find every scenario a little hard to believe.

Gold state needs them.

I think gold state would be the team.

I mean, gold state needs something because this has been a hell of a depressing season for the Warriors.

I mean, they still play hard and they.

They play a fun style of play on Steph's there.

But this is.

This is not going to be the most fun stretch run in Warrior's history.

There's been some good Warriors news.

I bought a I bought a small condo on Gi Santos archipelago.

Guy Gulch.

Guy Gulch.

I bought it.

I bought some property.

I'm just saying to straights.

Uh-huh.

That's what they just paid him.

They did.

They paid him a good.

A good.

What was it?

Five a year for three years.

Maybe he's a solid player.

He's a very, very Steve Kerr player.

Like it's like.

It's like just central casting Steve Kerr player.

We got to talk about the spurs too because.

Well, yeah.

They had an awesome weekend.

They came back from 25 against the Clippers.

I was watching a movie with my wife.

I had the TV on the small screen.

Never turned it off.

Even when it was like 75 to 50.

Hold on.

What movie?

I don't want to say.

Okay.

And.

And.

It wasn't it.

It wasn't a movie.

It was this TV show called Vladimir.

I'm unfamiliar.

Clearly you're not that invested in it.

And if you have half.

I wasn't on Wembee over here.

It's with Rachel Weiss.

She's like a professor.

It's a Netflix show.

Uh, it's basically my wife.

It's her algorithm.

It's like they put the show on Netflix.

And then her algorithm.

There's a hammer that actually comes out of the TV

and hits her with it.

Because it's so like in her wheelhouse,

according to the algorithm.

Like you will watch us now.

Uh, so that was on.

And we're also watching this spurs game.

I mean, as spurs Clippers.

So Neaterhouser who I was just touting to you a week ago.

Such a bummer.

And the fear with Neaterhouser is like this guy's a maniac.

He tries to block everything.

He's going to get hurt.

Of course, he gets hurt trying to make some crazy block out for the year.

And you could really feel it on that spurs game.

Because you can only ride the Brook Lopez Express for so long.

Uh, great comeback for the spurs.

I have no idea why won't be cried at the end of that.

Did you, did you, did you, did you, did Vladimir make you weep?

I would have, I would have only wept if I had the Clippers in a parlay.

But so they had a big comeback win on national TV.

And then they really, you know, thrash the rockets today.

And looks scary.

And we've talked about, um, is it too soon?

And we've had all this spurs conversations you could possibly have at this point.

I'm going to talk about Dylan Harper a little bit.

Oh my god.

Who I've liked the whole year.

I haven't seen a rookie guard like this in a long time.

And I'm having trouble fitting him in the context of rookie guards.

We've seen since we've watched basketball.

He can't really shoot.

Right.

If it's, if it's an open three, I don't think it's going in three of four today.

He's got this create this combination like he's really nice along the baseline.

He's likes to have his back on guys.

So I guess like the comparison, maybe it would be a little Jason kid.

Like very comfortable in with a little space near the low block.

With his back to a guy ready to go either way.

Um, gets to the rim.

There's crazy rim stats with him.

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

And I don't know where we're going.

But I don't know if there's much of a ceiling for this because when he learns how to shoot,

when he gets a floater,

combined with the back to the basket with the way he uses body and bounces off dudes and how hard he plays.

I'm starting to wonder if there's some Jason kid kind of potentially,

even though they're different players.

62 combined points for Fox Castle and Harper today.

Throw in another 20 for Keldin Johnson before you even get to Wemba Nyama.

I mean, the depth of scoring and rim attacking they have is crazy.

And what I love, I mean, I could not love Harper and Castle anymore.

I mean, and aside from all the highlight plays that Castle delivers,

all the sort of classic attacking guard stuff that Harper has,

they're just so tough and so competitive.

And they want, they want to outwork you and out physical you.

And I can't remember how this possession ended up,

but there was one possession in that game.

Somebody on the spurs missed and Harper had finished Smith on him on the left side.

And was just like, I'm getting this fucking rebound.

You're not stopping me from this offense rebound.

He ended up tipping it out to somebody.

And I think someone made a three and it's just like,

those are the plays from a rookie guard.

A tap out offensive rebound for Castle a second year guard.

Yeah, give me give me Kevin Durant.

Like I'll do my best to guard him.

And then you know, you saw today the Rockets put their Shenguin on him to start the game.

And it had him on on Castle for much of the game,

which is a strategy that I've been sitting all year.

I think the spurs are going to see at some point.

They saw it today and it didn't work because Castle figured it out.

But those are the kind of plays that they make at such a young age.

And they're just winning.

They're winning basketball plays.

They are they events a competitiveness and a toughness that rookie guards

who want to score and make an am for themselves.

Like you don't see plays like that.

Like this team is so together.

They play so on selfishly.

They have sequences of ball movement.

Yeah.

For a young team where you're like a team this young shouldn't be able to.

Like just pim pim boom boom boom the balls flying around.

It's it's really impressive.

And those two guys are awesome.

I'm glad you brought that up because one of my takeaways watching today

was they play like they've been playing together for a few years,

which I think is the rarest place you can get to as a team.

Like they really like understand each other

and where where the next guy is going to be and how to use each other

and how to play.

Even that play they ran at the end of the half when they got win be that three.

It was just they're very well prepared.

Some of the credits got to go to the coach.

And then everybody plays hard, which is the other thing.

And it's very similar to the Celtics and the pistons where it's like

you're not playing if you don't play hard.

The thing with Harper we usually wouldn't rookie guards that are super talented

come in.

They have their things they can do.

Right.

And they're like I can do this.

I can really get to the rim.

I'm a really good shooter.

You know they'll have these skills that they can kind of dwell on.

But they're not basketball players yet.

And I think what's was just so bizarre about him is like what a good like team

basketball player he is, which is why I brought up.

The kid thing like he's just really smart.

I didn't watch enough of that Rutgers team last year who it sucked.

It was him and Ace Bailey and nobody else.

It's amazing to me he could ever be on a bad basketball team.

Because he knows where to go, what to do, how to play off guys.

I'm just really excited for him.

And then big picture you think like for the league, this is a disaster that they

ended up with with Castle and Harper with Wembee.

And these guys are all 24 23 and under.

And they have their 47 and 17 now.

And Wembee.

I mean, this team could win the title like for real.

I don't know.

I don't mean that's not even hot take anymore.

This one.

One of I would say probably the number two pick you would have to win the title at this point.

Christmas is what finally not finally Christmas was when I said they can win the championship.

And nothing has changed.

In fact, it's just gotten clear to me that despite the experience factor and they would be somewhat anomalous among championship teams.

They have enough and they have a guy who's okay anymore.

He's a top five guy.

And today was like, you know, you mentioned how this first play,

unselfishly, super competitive, super hard.

They drafted a bunch of guys who play that way.

But when your best player is unselfish and Wembee,

Yama's unselfishly and my favorite things about him and plays super hard.

No one else has any choice but to play unselfishly and super hard, especially when you start winning.

And today, you know, I know we're going to talk MVP a little bit.

And there's just so much uncertainty about who's going to be eligible and who's going to be not not going to be eligible.

But today was like what Wembee should be in the conversation.

I think Shay still has a clear lead in a clear case.

But if he's not eligible, like Wembee has this good of a case minus the minutes.

He's a little behind it minutes.

But you just feel him every single second on the floor.

And the defense of dominance is just unheard of what he's doing on defense.

His odds during that game drop from 20 to one to 15 to one on Fandall.

That was an MVP.

That was an MVP performance tonight.

He has he's in the fourth.

He's in the third spot now.

He's past Kade.

Yokej is nine to one and Shay is four to one.

Look, I don't know if this is the 90 balls or the 91 balls, but we're in that vicinity with this team.

Where you have a potential generational star.

And you have a loaded young cast.

And the only question is when is this all going to come together?

That's that's where we are now with this team.

And I went back and I looked at the 90 balls that were 55 and 27.

They lost the Detroit and seven.

That was the Pippin Migrant game.

Jordan was probably, you know, he's Jordan.

He's the best forever.

But he was a little older than Wembee.

He'd been a couple years in college and he'd been in the league for six years at that point.

So he's probably a little further ahead than Wembee was.

But it's the same thing.

It's like these guys that you when you're watching a basketball game like that.

You could bring in my mom.

You could bring in your wife.

You could bring in your daughter.

You could bring in my, he could bring in anybody and be like,

does this guy seem a little different than everyone else in the game?

And the answer is yes, he does.

He's doing all of these things.

I don't watch other players do combined with the identity they have.

And like what they did to Durant today.

I thought was just a sign that you're a really well coached together team, right?

They're like, we're just, we're going to do these three things to make it really hard for him.

We're going to have Kelden Johnson mugging him.

We're going to pick up the ball with him at half court.

We're just going to make it really uncomfortable for him the entire game.

And they did it.

And that was one of the reasons they won.

So I think about them versus OKC if Jalen Williams doesn't really become Jalen Williams again in the playoffs.

Could they take out Shay?

No.

Could they could they make it really hard for him and make other guys in that team basically have to make plays or they're going home.

Yes.

Well, we've seen that.

I mean, we've seen.

And we've seen it.

They're four and one against them.

And today the Wembee.

I don't know.

Plants is different though.

But I don't know.

Today the thing that stood out to me about Wembee against the Rockets was.

You see some games like this in some games where he doesn't do it.

I don't know if it's a he was fresher in these games or he just likes to match up better or whatever it is.

Today he did the thing where he just when he got when he faced up off the dribble.

He did the thing where I'm taking an extra step to the basket.

To the point where I can just reach my arm out and at the basket.

He had one on on and Thompson like that yet another one against somebody else and you when he does that.

You wonder why does he do that every time?

And there's just something about that night that match up.

But today he had a clear directive in his mind of like, I'm taking the extra step or half step off the bounce to the end just reaching my way to easy buckets.

And when he has those kind of baskets, that's when you feel helpless.

That's when you feel it is just nothing we can do.

You know, I remember saying this early on in the Wembee experience that I didn't like how I first of all the him playing him as a guard.

I've always I never liked I understand it through the process of it.

But it was like the question with him will be when does he realize that the closer he is to the rim, the more devastating he's going to be.

And it seems like he's realizing that in real time to your point like, hey, I'm seven for four and I have long arms.

And if I'm three feet from the basket odds are something good's going to happen.

He's just, you know, and then you talk about the defense, the Celtics play them on Tuesday.

And I look at somebody like Pritchard, who was doing his thing this shit, this Cleveland game, right.

All that herky jerky low post upfaked up.

Just maybe stick to threes for this Wembee game.

Pritch.

Rechapper.

Rechapper made a couple over him in the lane today.

It's man.

It's high risk.

But Castle over Shepherd.

Shepherd's been good the last month, I think.

I it's not like he's a bus or anything, but that's.

It's interesting.

I wonder if they would redo that one.

The rockets because they took shepherd third castle one fourth.

I mean, I would redo it.

I like shepherd.

But come on.

I bet that I bet they would say no.

I think they were just they were about after three drinks.

They would they would crack a little bit.

It's you start to hear anecdotes that you didn't hear before, but they were all I mean, they were all.

What about after we do fireball shots?

Yeah.

There.

Then let's go.

How many trees are you going to serve them?

My God.

You crack.

A few readers have suggested to me that Katie's nickname should be the burner.

I mean, it works on on multiple levels.

It's it's.

35 for the burner.

You guys had a whole.

A D. Nickname discussion, which I really enjoyed about how.

He's the reaper.

He unilaterally was like, that awesome nickname I don't like.

Easy money snipers.

Better not slim reaper looks like his was, it just.

minted it.

It's so good.

And he just didn't like it.

The burner.

I'm.

I actually thought today.

I'm a little bit surprised that road crowds haven't found a creative way.

To throw this in his face a little bit, I don't know if it's going to take.

the wall. No, we're going to do that anymore. I don't know how to be mean. Everybody

knows, like the fans all know now. I feel like I'm a little surprised that it just hasn't

come up. The wall, I bet if they play at the Clippers, I bet the fanatics who sit in

the wall will do something. I got an email. I'm trying to find it. I can't find it. Just

because I was asking about the best things of all time. And the guy said, the best thing

thing of all time is Magic Johnson. People literally think it's his name. That's the last

stage of a nickname when nobody even really, they forget you have a real name. And I think

that's a really good point. Magic Johnson, it's such a good nickname that he had other

nicknames, right? I think some people call it a buck. It's like the nickname for them.

When you have the second nickname because your first nickname, people think is your actual

name. It's the final level of nickname. This episode is brought to you by Venmo supporting

your team. Never gets old, but here's something new. You can now pay for your game day wings

and rip your team at the same time. How? By getting your college colors on your card, score

more with the college brand of Venmo debit card. Get up to 5% cash back with Venmo stash.

Sign up at Venmo.com slash college card. The Venmo master card is issued by the bank

court bank in a select schools available. Venmo stash bundle terms and exclusions apply

at Venmo dot me slash stash terms max 100 dollars cash back per month. This episode is brought

to you by Mikalo Baltra, those superior moments in the game, like dropping a buzzer beta

at the last second are worth it. It feels so good. And have you noticed all the smoothest

plays are served ice cold, just like Mikalo Baltra. That's why Mikalo Baltra, it's one of the

reasons the official beer partner of the NBA or maybe it's because it's a superior light bear

or the smooth refreshing taste in only 95 calories or maybe it's because they're giving fans

a chance to win amazing prizes, including court side seat tickets. Mikalo Baltra superior is

worth playing for and are now at mclobaltra.com slash court side. Mikalo Baltra court side 2526,

no purchase necessary open US residents 21 plus begins on October 1st, 2025 ends on June 30th,

2026 multiple entry periods, see official rules at mclobaltra.com slash court side for free entry

entry deadlines and prizes and details. This episode is brought to you by state farm, upsets,

buzzer beaters, game changing plays, what happens on the court keeps us on our toes and life isn't

any different. That's where state farm comes in with over 19,000 neighborhood agents for when

you want to talk to a real person and easy to use digital tools. State Farm is there to help when

facing the unpredictable because in life's uncertain moments bigger small you need to know someone

is ready to assist like a good neighbor state farm is there with the assist coverage options are

selected by the customer price and eligibility vary by state. Playoff matchups Detroit versus Philly

Atlanta Charlotte Boston versus Miami New England versus New York versus Orlando Cleveland versus Toronto

East and in the West. Okay, see versus bizarre golden state clippers Portland none of us are that

excited to even have this series. I wonder I wonder if you offered any of those teams you can have

the 10th pick or play in round one what they would take. A bunch of them are digging the 10th pick.

Yeah, that's what I think too. San Antonio Phoenix which we're going to have to fix that series

Minnesota versus the Lakers which would be a mismatch and then Houston versus Denver would be our

four matchups. We need some work with that. I would personally like to see okay see Phoenix and

San Antonio in the one seed would be more fun. What is your I don't remember if they're playing

tonight. What is your current Denver concern level after Aaron Gordon came back and they got

thrashed by the Knicks at home. Here's my and Murray turned his ankle.

So Yokeh's looked better this weekend. That was a bonus. Murray to get hurt. I am now in the

hate Denver just fall to six and get everybody healthy.

That the last 20 games don't even. Are you still be careful? Are you still do you still have faith in

the Denver fully healthy? Is it is a juggernaut or are you starting to wobble on like well we just

haven't seen a lot of Cam Johnson and like I'm wobbling. I wrote that in my I had a quicky though

thought section I was going to do with the one of them is Denver possible year from mini hell.

That year from hell. It's a year from mini hell. I call it can't have a week without something

happening right. I call it it's not our year year. That's fair. I don't know if they're having it but

they they seem to be having a year if you had it it would look a lot like this.

Well remember there was a couple KG Celtics years where they were like 25 and 25 and their

last 50 and then all of a sudden they would be in the Eastern finals and be like how did I

ever doubt them? If I were them I wouldn't care about where I landed in this three four five six

just like whatever. I don't think let's get everybody healthy. Yeah let's get everyone healthy.

I have a new new gimmick for you that I'd not prepare you for completely unprepared stock draft.

Okay. Buy stock in two guys right now. Okay. I can start if you want. Wait I'm just just

anybody in the entire NBA. Just guys you've been looking at not not necessarily putting real estate

on their island but just you're buying some stock. So I'm not buying Yokech stock. We're

searching for a by-low under. You're buying 2015 Yokech stock. Okay. 2016. When did he come in

the week? Can you go first? Yeah I'll go first. I'd like to put a little down. I'm going to call

my guy Carter Brian. I'd like to put some stuff down on him. I mean you're making me angry with

that one. That was that's what though. He's really the only reason I wanted to have the stock

draft Friday and Sunday. The crowd's cheering for him now like they're chaining his name which is

a good sign but I like that. He's one of those quiet assassin. Just killer swing guys.

I don't he probably is not going to get into it once with anybody. He just got if you knock him

down who'll just get up. He's like a Michael Myers and he's bigger than you think he is.

It seems like they're it seems like kick in the guard basically everybody in the league. He hits

threes. He's athletic and they got him at the 14th pick. It was a great draft pick and he's

going to be in that team for a while. That's a great. It's a great putting down a load on him.

Slam dunk runner up I believe. So his his playoff viability clearly they are trying to make him play

off ready now and when he was not playing much in the regular season he's in every game player now

because defensively he's a plus. He's ready for the playoffs. He's ready for the highest level

stuff. It's just going to be about his offensive readiness and not even just about his threes

shooting 33% slow hit or miss. He had a couple like plays today where you could see a little

tentativeness in him when he would they they put Houston put centers on him and kind of dared him

to beat him and attack him and he had a couple of plays in traffic where he's like I don't know

I'm going to pivot around here and like that's the kind of stuff that in the playoffs you can get a

quick hook if you're a young player rookie untested like that. All right. You should I make a pick?

You can do one. Yeah, we can only do one if you want because I needed a lot of his bathroom.

Who was your other one? I still have Nader Hauser stock. I don't care that he gets hurt.

I love that guy. You should hold that stock. That's what I'm going to hold it. Yeah, I didn't panic.

I'm going to I'm just going to I mean again no preparation. I'm assuming Alex SARS to

to high profile for this where we want. No, it's just the stocks higher but you can still buy it.

I'm going to buy some Alex SARS stock and I'm going to I'm going to sneak in right now to the

Mala watch stock market in Phoenix. I'm going to buy a little one of the Mala watch marina.

I'm going to play my flag in there and in just it's got park Williams is hurt and I think he's

going to get some run and he blocked four shots the other night. I'm just going to I'm going to buy now.

Interesting. Yeah, because that was learning what happened to him because House really liked him.

He's been dominating the G he's been like Goliath and the G Lee for whatever that's worth.

Okay, Noah Penda can I buy some Noah Penda stock Noah Penny Penda stock?

You definitely could if you wanted to. This is a guy that I've had stock for a while from way back

sold it did really well. I think it's low right now people aren't seeing it.

Like a little Robert Williams the third I know he's older but for this summer.

I think this could be one of those Robert Lambs just signed for three years for 50 million. What happened?

I think there's going to be another another another cycle for him as a guy that that good teams

talk themselves into as a playoff guy. Three years 50 I don't see it. I don't see it. He's just not

a really stupid contract that you'd be surprised by. I mean, Yaka Pertle did get a crazy extension

that I didn't know. And it was crazy. That was happening. It was crazy. Yeah, whatever.

But I think Robert Williams is going to have a moment as a free agency center with a deal higher

than you think. Which Brooklyn net's rookie would you prefer to buy stock in right now based

on it? And their price differently. Like Joe Man is a little higher price because already was picked.

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

Definitely not him. Wow. I don't mind a triary. It's pretty good. Yeah. And I think he's 19.

I think if it was like you could only keep one of these five guys who you keep in,

I actually think I might keep him over the other four. But pretty rough that draft when you

think of some of the other guys that were in that draft. Don't say that to net's fans. They're

going to be like, you're missing. You're missing the three minutes in garbage time where

Treyori hit a scoop shot and Drake Powell guard. I'm like, yeah, sorry. Great. They passed on Hugo five

times. That's unbelievable. Hugo gets in. Did they take Egor? They took him over Coward, right?

Yeah. And if you had a good players, yeah, that's a tough one. He's pretty good. He's pretty

good. But again, like it's he's he's pretty good on a team that's horrible. And you would like him

to put up a little bit more. I have one more stock guy that I've had for a couple of weeks.

Jacobi, unfortunately, cornered the market on it. But Nate Kwantamlin, I have a little on him.

I don't even know if we saw him today. We did not. I like him. He's pretty good.

He's like a penny stock. Yeah. Did you have any others? I mean, anybody on Philly,

Darryl always has one or two guys to buy in on. Barlow probably shot up a little bit. Yeah.

He's fine. I feel like the stock is barely overpriced right now.

All right. A couple other things really quick before we go to the two things we had.

Rob Dillingham, just a sunk cost, I guess. It's not it's not going great.

A rare L for Tim Connolly. It's a tough trade. You do that.

Give me up an unprotected pick down the road. You got to feel really good about the player. And

one of the things I think about, and I'm the drafts interesting because there's a bunch of

like really exciting scoring guards in this draft. You don't follow the draft, but it's

probably the best crew of scoring guards we've had and some of them are small and some of

them are bigger. It seems like where teams get in trouble over and over again are these undersized

shooting guards or undersized point guards like the Sebastian Taufehr, the book knight,

the guy we're talking about now, like these guy Dillingham, these guys that you talk yourself into

and they just send up they're too small. Jimmer. Do I hear Jimmer's music? Jimmer is definitely

in there too. But it seems like that's a recurring theme that you're probably just better off taking

a six seven guy who can't shoot, hoping he learns how to shoot versus an undersized guard.

I just can't believe how low he's playing. He has played since being traded to the bulls as

minutes are up a little bit lately, but I thought they would just be like, hey, just do make,

don't be afraid to make all the mistakes that Minnesota could not afford to have you make. Make

them here. Are they tanking? They're not tanking. What are they doing? They're tanking.

Every time I think they're tanking, they win. Adam Silver was that Sloan and laid the Smackdown

with tanking. I saw it in his very, in his, Adam Silver can only lay the Smackdown like a lawyer,

like a highly trained Krobat lawyer. But if you read, if you put it through your Adam Silver

translator, the translator spat out, we are changing this and there's going to be real rules put in

place after this draft was my interpretation. I don't want to hear. When he says I'm an incrementalist,

which is fine, like there's going to be change. And I don't want to hear from the peanut gallery

over here of owners that are against it. We're doing it. So buckle up.

Shaq didn't know who Baylor Sharman was. I didn't see this. That's real. That was tough. He's been

starting for the number two team in the East. Yeah, I know. It's like a running gaming that these

guys don't know who's on. And I know we all love the inside the NBA guys. But you could know who

who's in the rotation for the best six teams in the league. I feel like seems reasonable

requests from the fans. Has this buck season reached everyone might get fired status yet?

Because I'll give you their last seven years. You're just trying to manifest Doc Rivers podcast guests.

That's all you're doing. Be honest. No, I'm more worried because I like Doc Rivers. I want

I want him to have a job. They're nine and eight. They're last 17. Here are the eight losses.

You don't even need to say stink. We don't need to hear the one. No, this is pretty good.

Okay. They lost by the following number. So it points 28, 19, 28, 29, 23, 27, 18. And today, 39.

They don't just lose. They get annihilated. They get blown out. They had Janus for the 27 and the 18.

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

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

Oh, everybody goes. Look, like everybody. I'm talking GM coach. We're just it's a reset button.

Nuclear boom. Janus has gone new people and we're doing a four year tank full effect.

Definitely possible. And the honest story is not over just because you didn't get traded at the

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

them unless he demands a trade. I just don't think they're going to because they probably correctly

understand the abyss that's waiting for them on the other side of being completely irrelevant.

And he's still 31 years old and one of the three to five best players in the league. And I think

it starts with him now. Could they make changes around him? Sure. We've seen them do that before.

They've changed the coach a bunch of times and they would change the coach again in the middle of

the season. So anything's on the table. But yeah, they, you know, I have some silver linings for

Bucks fans. Sure. Good. Let's hear them. They won the title four years ago, five years ago.

That's it. That's it. We've downgraded that to silver lining. Yeah. I just just go back and watch

the DVD. That's one. Two, if there's expansion, you're not going to lose somebody you really like

because you don't have eight players to protect. So that's a good one. And then that's mean.

That one was mean. You didn't need to. That was mean. Well, it's a silver lining. What about

assets? Well, someone takes an asset. They leave them up protected. And then you do have your

first round pick this year. Yeah, you do. And there is a scenario where them versus New Orleans,

because New Orleans has nothing to play for. They keep winning. Their picks might be around each

other. So they might end up with the pick. They would have ended up with anyway or somewhere

around there. It might not. They might not be like, oh man, we could have blah, blah, blah.

What is your time machine, you honest trade if you could go back in a month and just force a trade

because I have a team. I have a trade that I wish would happen because I just think it would have

made the league more fun. I can just do any team. You're going backwards a month and you're being

like, I know you didn't want to do this, but now I'm forcing you to do this on February 5th.

Because I think there's a specific one.

I'm trying to be realistic for the Bucks, right? Like I'm not just going to be like, I want

them to go to the Warriors. So I'm going to make a Warriors trade, which you can make a plausible

Warriors trade. I think the most interesting one to revisit that's realistic for the Bucks

is either it's going to be one of three teams you're going to bring up. It's going to be either

Detroit, Cleveland or Houston. It's going to be one of those three teams. I had Houston.

Yeah. Who's going in the trade, Shengoon? Shengoon, Jabari and some picks. Right now we watch

that game tonight. Yannis is on, Yannis is on Houston. We're watching Milwaukee. Shengoons

on Milwaukee and I just think the leagues more interesting and Milwaukee probably feels better about

where they are. I know the Milwaukee fans don't want to trade Yannis. I think it is alarming that

he came back and they just got crushed a couple times. As you say, does our month timetable extend

before he got injured? Because I think that was an under, I don't think that was talked about.

We all talked about it, but I don't think it was, it was this assumption that he was just going to

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

and looked good, but not like Yannis and is always seemingly at risk of some injury like this.

Wanted to mention, haven't heard a lot from Drew Hanland taking shots at the ringer lately about

how wrong we were about to beat. Just wanted to open the door for him if he wanted to keep taking

the shots. I mean, in Beads not playing. This is another just weird, just added to the list of

weird injuries, but he didn't, he didn't do it with Carmelo Anthony this week. I'm sure he's

so. He's played 33 19 and 33 games in the last three years. This is why we can't put him in the top

30 in the ringer 100. One of the parts of being a high end NBA players playing NBA games,

that's one of the things we value here at the ringer. There's going to be a WNBA strike, I think,

I think it looks more likely than less likely. It's a disaster. I don't think it looks good

in the barring America, but it feels like we're heading that way and I just wanted to say that I

think that sucks. I understand the reasons from both sides, but it's just unbelievable to me that they

would stop playing basketball when they finally had momentum after 25 years and now we're not going

to play. I have a list of teams I've given up trying to figure out bronze. I'm going to go bronze

silver gold bronze medal Houston silver medal medal Minnesota gold medal Orlando. I just give up.

I was actually going to ask you Orlando. I have no takes. I have no takes. I give up.

What's the deal with that team? What's the deal with the Orlando Magic? Do they know how to do

magic or they barely beat Dallas on Wednesday, like barely. Their fastest team trying to win,

that they go to Minnesota and they kill Minnesota in Minnesota on Saturday. I don't I just don't

understand them. That was our same Minnesota either. That was one of those games where you're like,

what's happening here? I don't understand how this magic Minnesota game is like,

the NBA just has funny games. Yeah, they both Washington, Dallas, Minnesota, Milwaukee is

their four game winning streak. So forgive me if I'm going to just not go crazy over it because three

of the wins are Pupu wins. The Dallas one down to the wire, as you mentioned. The Minnesota wins

going there. They have talent. They're fine. I just, you know, we'll see where they end up.

I really wanted to believe in Minnesota. It was dying to believe they were 33 to one when the

title heading into that Saturday game. I was like, here we go. They're going to be just crushed.

You're crushed by one loss. That's it. You're out. It's just every time, every time we feel like

we're getting momentum with here's the mystery contender we needed for the stretch run. It's Minnesota

and then they just suck in a game. I'm keeping them as the mystery contender. I'm not, I'm not,

I'm not wavering. That's fine. This episode is brought to by on it. Need to perform at your best

alpha brain helps you focus, react faster and think clearly under pressure with science

backed ingredients like L. Thienine. It's trusted by professionals and it's the number one multi-benefit

brain support supplement based off US unit sales data from Serkana brain VMS capsule data

October 2025 visit on it.com o n n i t dot com and shop alpha brain to unlock your next level.

This episode is brought to by Whole Foods Market. You know, with just one trip to Whole Foods,

you can travel the world. First stop, discover the taste of the Mediterranean with big sales on

brands like the Seco Arreos and San Pellegrino with Whole Foods prepared foods dinner is solved.

You can roam the world with empanadas, burritos, soups and more. Maybe expand your snack repertoire

to South America with colorful and crunchy Peruvian potato chips. Then straight to Mexico for

dessert. You can pick up a trace Leche's family pack cake for only 10 dollars every Friday. All

aboard, save on regional flavors at Whole Foods Market. All right. We're going to do our deep dive.

So we've done deep dives on we did Kauai Leonard. Who did we do last week?

We did a good one last week. I already forgot. Once we're done, I forget. Yeah. We're going to do

the 2011 MVP race. Okay. And it's topical because there were some slight parallels until

Detroit fell off a little bit and Cade fell off a little bit. What happened with the hornets?

Well, then, did they, did they?

Oh, they're losing. Okay. So we now, we now pause the podcast real time because the hornets

are losing. Oh, yeah. The deep dive was about the hornets last week. So we did Kauai and we did

the hornets. Yes. We're in the 2011 MVP race because of slight parallels to what we're watching

this year with Cade. And there was a brief MVP case for her. But now that shades come back,

doesn't matter. This is probably, I think, been other than 2017, the most polarizing MVP race since

the decision. It wasn't polarizing when it happened because Derek Rose won.

Derek Rose had 113 first place votes out of 120. Dwight Howard finished second. LeBron James

was third and Kobe Bryant was fourth. This was the season after the decision. Chicago was 62

and 20. They started out 98. They finished 55 and 12. They were 24 of their last 27 games.

And someone on the line, we all decided Derek Rose was the MVP. And now is the years have passed

because Miami made the finals for straight years. LeBron is who he is. This is a MVP race that

people now point to as this should have been LeBron's MVP. You did not vote for the LeBron James

or Derek Rose. You don't have a vote, but your, your fake vote was not for either guy.

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

first of all, he was defensive player of the year and it was almost unanimous. It was

easily the best defender in the NBA. And it was maybe his best offensive season, 23 points of

game. Shot well, the advanced stats all loved him. And I just thought, you know, it's interesting.

We were, that is so long ago in sort of NBA discourse times that we were just sort of getting

into like on off data and stuff like that. And again, when you're doing these races, it's,

it's all, you're just splitting the thinnest of hairs between guys who are all deserving.

And obviously Derek Rose was the story of the season. The bulls were the story of the season.

But one of the, one of the arguments that you could make in favor of Dwight Howard in 15 years

later, I probably over indexed on it in picking Dwight Howard was the on off data that year.

The magic were awesome with Dwight Howard on the floor. And I think they were negative something.

I'm trying to look it up now with him on the bench. And the bulls were really good with Derek

Rose on the floor and really good with Derek Rose off the floor because their defense without him

was impenetrable. And some of that had to do with Derek Rose. Some of it was probably just random

luck. And I probably underestimated the luck factor in that back in 2011. But I think there's a,

iron clad statistical case for Dwight Howard, not iron clad, but you could make a statistical

case for Dwight Howard easily. And I just thought he was the most dominant two-way player in basketball

that year in the LeBron one. Wait, can we talk about Dwight first and then go to LeBron?

Sure. So I had to wait, I think I had him fifth. And I said, uh, Kudos to him for,

this is, I wrote a big MVP column that year. And I said, Kudos to you him for getting about 11%

better this season, blah, blah, um, magics only rebounder, only above average defender,

six percent of shots, blah, blah, blah. And then I wrote, I can't give my MVP vote for one simple

reason. He leaves something on the table every night. Dwight Howard should be the league's most

dominant player. Then I had a couple of things about comparing him to Shaq, all this stuff, Shaq's MVP

season, um, where that Shaq MVP season, I wrote, huh, that's the Shaq we're waiting for. I

knew I had that extra gear. That's how I feel about Dwight Howard right now. Hakeem average is 24

14 with 4.6 blocks, 2.1 steals in 1990. It wasn't even one of the best three seasons of his career.

I keep going on that. Are you telling me his 23.1 points for two rebounds, 2.4 blocks, 26.1 PR

is the best he can do. No way. So then I wrote, that's when you ask, wait, why does it matter?

If it's better than anyone else's best season, who cares if he peaks his player, it's still the best

season. And then I said advance metrics should be used to accentuate opinions we're already leaning

towards having instead of forming and shaping those same opinions. If Howard is Orlando's best

player, he's holding something back every night. How can you say that doesn't affect the magic?

So they had the eighth best record that year. They were 52 and 30. I was saying how he gets

the eighth best record that year. Yeah, dumb technicals, dumb fouls, disappears in crunch time. Didn't

even rank in top 125 in crunch time. Feel good with times that an uneven season. Nobody's afraid to

play them in the playoffs, blah, blah, blah. How can I vote for him for MVP? That's how I felt in

the moment. So I think there's an eye test piece to that where it's like, I just don't feel

right saying that this guy is the best guy in the league. You've, you've, you've been, uh,

you don't care about as much about that. You're more a spot when you do the case. You're like,

here's the mathematical case. This guy is the best at this records this. I still slide the

eye test stuff in there probably a little too much. I don't know who's right. Well, I mean,

part of the eye test is he was single handedly making the magic a good defensive team.

Like, right by himself as easily the best defend that easily, but the best defense player in the NBA.

I mean, that has to be like when you talk about leaving stuff on the table, Derek Rose was not a

good defensive player that year. So he was leaving stuff on the table, but they were the number one

defense. They were. So he couldn't have been that bad, right? No, they were way better. They were

way better. They were like a freaking juggernaut from hell without him. But that doesn't like,

again, all these guys had cases. Um, everything you said about Dwight is fair. And that was like the

that was the end of that year of the magic. That was the last year that team was good.

And well, that was the irony of what I wrote is that was his best season.

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

but there wasn't. And there was in fact, less, uh, eventually, but it did feel like at that time,

he was holding together the last remains of that team that had made the finals and then the

conference finals the next year. And they ended up losing in the first round the next two years.

And then it was kind of over. And yeah. But I just thought defensively, he was like, he was a floor

every night. Like your floor was pretty stable with Dwight Howard in the middle on defense. And

yeah, the shack thing is, it's so tiresome because shack has perpetuated it too. Like they had

this rivalry over the years. And then they would, you know, reconcile and then they'd be a rival.

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

It's easily as shackled. I mean, shack was just, you know, just the like eighth wonder of the

world kind of guy. And he just was never a polished post up player. And those were the years where

they stand there in Gundie just sort of successfully shoehorned him into a post up a few times

again. And you've got a good matchups and we'll throw you the ball. But just do these things

you're awesome at and you're going to be the foundation of every single thing we do offensively

and defensively at you are the tent pole of everything. And I just thought that was his best season.

So the stuff I wrote about Rose and it's weird because over the years, I've been like,

I got the Rose thing wrong. And then I went back and read how passionate I was about the Rose case

about that team was 62 and 20. He was the only guy in that he cared their offense was the only

guy in their team who really could create his own shot, right? Who else was a little like the

Detroit case this year? There's a little boozer. A little. A little.

Usage was pretty crazy. In crunch time per 48, second most field goal, eighth most free throw

attempts, ninth highest assist. He was doing everything I was comparing it to the Iverson 016ers

thing and just like just everything was on him game after game after game. And they won most of

their games, which matters. And then boozer and Noah both. I wrote Rose keeping the bulls

contention for three plus months. And boozer, Noah missed significant time was the most impressive

thing I witnessed this season. Their quest for number one siege should have been derailed in

November, blah, blah, blah. He kept them hanging around, kept them relevant and they were the best

team that year. And whether he was the best player was the bigger question because LeBron was still

the best player in the league, but that Miami season was super weird. It's interesting. What I wrote

in that MVP column was that I thought Wade had a slightly better case than LeBron that year

because he was more kind of stable and reliable. LeBron had all that. He was the villain that year.

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

said both that they were basically CoMVPs, which I talked about CoMVPs seasons of 1970,

Reed and Frazier, 72, Jerry Westville, Chamberlain, and O6 Shacken Wade. It was really like hard to

separate the two guys and impact. If I had to do it over again, I think I would have Rose one.

I think I would have LeBron two, Wade three, and Dwight four. And I think that's how I would go.

Because those guys won 55 games. There was three guys. It was those two in Bosch, Mike Miller,

who wasn't exactly awesome that year. They had Carlos Aroyo, Mike Bibby. They were grabbing

dudes from the street. They were three on five. They still went 55 and 27. Every game they played

was the biggest game of the season for the other team. I don't know. When I look back at that,

they were two of the best three guys in the league. They're literally wanting to throw Dwight in

there. Can you imagine if LeBron had won MVP that year and then had the same finals that he had

that season? It would have been worse than the Durco seven. I mean, it would have been the all-time.

There would have been columns being like, we need to revoke the MVP and give it to whoever

finished second is what would have happened. The thing is, the animosity from the decision, he

wasn't winning MVP unless they won like 60 plus games. I also think it's okay. I think it's okay

for voters when these super teams happen to take a year and just sort of be like, I don't,

I got to see what's going on here because the word valuable in there does give you sort of leeway

to be like, well, that one guy is so centrally important to his team and these all three of these

guys just teamed up. It's why like, this isn't even a level-up super team, but the moment Durant

went to the Warriors, those guys were never winning MVP again. I think that was fair. The team's

too good. You have two, there's going to be someone else doing much more with doing the same

with much less than you guys have. I think Wade, the Wade from 09 to 11 is the most under-appreciated

guy of the last 20 years. How good he was. And he's like, for instance, when I started oh six.

Well, when you start it wherever, but those three years specifically, I just think like I thought

his 09 year was one of the best years any two guard had, Sid Storden. In 11, he's better than Wade.

I wrote that in the MVP piece because Kobe ends up finishing fourth in the MVP. Wade was just

better than him that year. He was better pick a stat. He was better than him defensively. Kobe

was still getting those all defense teams at that point. He wasn't the guy Wade was and Wade was

just as good as LeBron. And in the playoffs was actually better than LeBron, especially in the

finals. I just think they were like this. LeBron that year was not I don't think better than Wade.

He might have had better nights. But I just think Wade was like the engine of that team. And he

was the alpha of that of that team and really trying to keep LeBron's head into it. And it wasn't

until the next year that LeBron ascended and kind of went to that next level. But I thought Wade was

I'll never forget watching Wade that year, especially in the finals. I just thought he had a

I can't remember if it was game three or game four, but he had one game that was just

he was so fucking good in this game in the Dallas finals. Yeah, it was either three or four. He

was just so good. I still remember being in the stands like holy shit. You know, and I just

felt like Kobe Kobe stole some of his sunshine. I think because they were going against each other

and everybody at that point Kobe had become you know, he was rising rising up the ladder.

And I just think Wade was right there with him for years.

And we don't think of it that way now. No, we don't. And it would be interesting to do the all-time

shooting guard rankings one one deep dive because Wade would be very, very high and was an elite

elite two-way player who just like his athleticism betrayed him fast because of all the damage

that have been done to his knees. But I mean, you go back and you watch peeked away and Wade and

it just he just jumps off the screen. There is nobody who can stay in front of him. I mean,

he's he's just a remarkable remarkable athlete. He could pass. The defense was there. It's just

an unusual player. A guy that height who could block shots like that and protect the rim and

played vertically was was very unusual and very tough tough and like fearless from day one.

So I was that was the other thing I was to say mean spirited and I mean it as a compliment like

really had an edge to him. Kobe did too. But really carried himself with with almost a level of

anger when he played in a good way. But so that year he was 26th of game. Six rebounds, five

assists. Kobe was 25, five and five. He shot 50%. Played 2,823 minutes. Some of the minutes

stuff this year was nuts. Rose played over 3,000 minutes. So did LeBron. I'm glad you brought it up

because I was going to bring this up. The top four finishers played 82, 78, 79 and 81 games.

That's that ever going to happen again. Right. And that's that that's the best thing with the

Rose cases. He just played. He played 80 like 81 games, 37 minutes of game. He was their entire

offense. He was in fifth gear every game. You never saw a game when he had night off. And so the more

I stared at it and thought about it and read what I wrote, read some other stuff that was out there.

I still think Rose is the right call. And the fact that it was that one sided I think maybe

it shouldn't have been as one sided as it was. But I think that is meaningful. It's I it shouldn't

have been as one side as it was. I think it absolutely holds up as as an okay to correct decision to

make. I wouldn't I wouldn't have been my vote. But I think it completely holds up as an MVP case.

And if I think the all of the if there was ever a we got this wrong like MVP discussion about it,

I think it would all focus on LeBron. I don't think any of it would focus on Dwight or Dwayne Wade

or Kobe. I think it would be it all coalesces around did the voters punish LeBron for the decision

and when it was still obvious that he was by far the best player because the advanced stats will

tell you LeBron was the best player. The advanced stats, not every step, but the advanced stats will

play that. And I think it would call us around him. And I think it's fine that he didn't win MVP

there here. I think that's totally fair. I think him and Wade were one A1B and I'm not even sure who

won A was Wade was plus 10.4 that year and LeBron was plus 10.1. They were just so intertwined. I

don't know how you can even say one guy was more valuable than the other and it really was amazing

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

which was one of the great achievements. And that was really Wade's last great run I think because

even when they got the 2013 playoffs he was starting to break down. There's one guy I was trying

to think did anybody have an advanced case that we didn't really fully understand in 2011 but

now we understand better in 26 if we were doing it with our lens and it's clearly dirt the whiskey.

And I wrote some of this in the MVP thing even though I had him like eighth where they were basically

like 55 and 12 when he played and then something like that 55 and 14 and when he didn't play they

were helpless. He was the only guy in the team that could create a shadow than Terry.

They had that Roddy Boo Boah they trying to turn him into a thing for a lot of the year.

No he was untouchable. Yeah, untouchable. Couldn't trade him and then it all coalesced

in the playoffs and they found a defensive identity he went up a level but his advanced stuff was

oh there are 55 and 18 with him when he played but he was plus 10.3 he was 23.7 and 3 so it was a

typical dirt year 52 39 89 and and they won like 57 games so that was there's probably a

little better case for him. They had the fourth best record in the league and that would be the guy

maybe if he had to do it over again maybe he stinks in the fourth or fifth. That's probably that's

a good call and I remember writing at Sports Illustrated that year that the maps were a contender

hiding in plain sight because because of their yeah he missed like 10 games I think they went like

one in nine without dirt or some crazy number like that and that totally deflated their place in

the sandings they remember that year you know they played Portland in the first round and I believe

that series is 22 and there's the branded Roy game and Portland wins games three and four at home

and everyone's like here go to Mavericks again and then it just skyrocketed from there.

It's it's a great fork in the road where

it really seemed like not only were they going to lose to Portland but then they were going to have

to blow everything up and maybe that was going to be it for dirt and all kinds of outcomes and then

all of a sudden it flipped the other way I just say one there gross thing yeah it might be the

I don't want to say rank injuries but that injury like heat bulls should have been an all-time

great half decade rivalry it just it just had everything contrasting styles contrasting cities

Noah calling them Hollywood as hell just defense first is a team that was perceived as a highlight

like lob dunk it was just everything and then the Pacers came in like filled the void but it was

clearly like someone's got to fill the void and they were not as good as the but that that

should have been just four straight years of conference finals and just slugfest the whole way

through yeah there were two great LeBron rivals that got crippled because I think KG's 2009

injury was the other one right the two biggest injuries in either conference during this whole

stretch where the KG09 and the Rose and 12 where you had teams that probably had a chance to win

one maybe even two more titles between them and you look at the teams

Indiana was the best team they played probably in the year in that 2011 of 14 stretch that Miami

played in the playoffs it was probably the Pacers Indiana took them to seven and then six two times

everything I don't know that next team I thought had potential but they kind of fell apart

then you go to the 2015 when he went back to Cleveland I mean they played they played a 40 41 41

Milwaukee team in 15 that early honest with some Chris Middleton I forget who else was on there

they played Atlanta they played somebody else but that I just think the league is so much better than

it was 11 years ago I couldn't believe some of the teams that these playoffs those four then

those four years they were they were so visibly bored with not only the regular season but the playoffs

to in the east I remember there was a I remember which Raptors year was because God knows they

humiliated Toronto enough times but it was the one where Toronto had them two two in in I think it

was the second round and LeBron had this all-time quote after they won game five like yeah I think

it was something I've been in adverse situations before and this wasn't one of them and it was

like wow you're just like two two in the playoffs and you're just like I have an okay they just

wake us up when we have to actually win crazy all right that was a good deep dive LeBronto so you're

keeping you're thinking how it is your vote okay thinking with Dwight the career from their

Korean sideways a few times yeah it is no bank fell into a lake like there's a there's a lot

of bad stuff that happened I as I was researching this stuff you know as you as I have amnesia with

half the stuff I wrote you and I did a back and forth piece about the 2013 Lakers as it was going

sideways okay we exchange emails that was like five thousand words yeah it was like January or

February 2013 and it was when Dwight's season was starting to go sideways for the Lakers and

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

it all culminated and Kobe just playing 48 minutes of game and then getting hurt but that team

went off the rails in like crazy swaying we're writing about that in real time and one of the guys

we're ready about is Dwight like oh yeah this probably probably isn't happening like

by the way Dwight Howard I'm just just for the record I wanted to say it's because I spent time

looking this up Dwight Howard won defensive player of the year that year I think it was a third one

in a row by a lot he received 114 first place votes the following players were the other players

who received first place votes and this was before the voting was public Kevin Garnett won first

place vote Ken Argy with Kevin Garnett this year in Grant Hill 38 year old Grant Hill of the

Phoenix Suns got a first place defensive player of the year vote that year

you'll joke him Noah got one okay Keith Bogins snagged a first place vote that

docked according to espination Dr. Jack Ramsey on a broadcast claimed that it was him

the voter for Keith and that's what he lost his vote and the only other player who received

the multiple first place votes with two Chuck Hayes of the Houston Rockets Chuck Hayes two first

place votes low post shutdown guy we all love Chuck Hayes but let's let's whoever those two people

are take take it easy with with Chuck Hayes love last thing before we go we didn't get to our Utah

thing maybe we'll do it next week I read this book I'm gonna do a quick book review I read this

book called masters of the game okay by Sam Smith and Phil Jackson oh I haven't I haven't

read it so I'm now I will be interested in your review they go through 75 players and it's basically

a back and forth almost almost like how we did that's why it Howard thing it's a back and forth

of their conversation with each player but each one kind of can basically zag into this

different conversation it's one of the strangest books I've ever read I don't understand if they

had a proofreader or an editor or anything there's certain guys where they don't even talk about

the guy it's like number you know whatever the Anthony Davis and then it's just the whole section

some story about Phil Jackson when he coached for Albany there's factual stuff that's wrong like

they say at one point Lonnie Shelton got in a fight with Bill Bridges when it was actually Buck Williams

and just it's just a I kind of couldn't believe how lazy it was and why they didn't try to make

it better and at the same time I got like 20 things out of it reading it and there was some really

interesting tidbits and it was worth kind of zooming through the biggest thing that I learned

and I had no idea as you remember I used to love Pat Riley's disease of B and I made a big

thing about it in my basketball book and I would always bring it up and all this stuff apparently

it was actually Lenny Wilkins' thing that he called championship hang a championship fallout

that he called during the year after the Seattle Sonics one and he talked about all these factors

that happened to your team and he named it championship fallout I don't want to say Pat Riley stole it

but Pat Riley definitely renamed it into the disease of B in his book and then I thought it was a

Pat Riley thing but it turns out it was a Lenny Wilkins thing and that kind of blew my brain

half a life is marketing right like yeah you know the the Winkle Vi and Ven Facebook or did

Mark Zuckerberg event Facebook who knows but championship fallout it's called so you're that review

that review you just gave there were some plots with within the review I mean I thought it was

going to be a full-on pan and then it veered into like there was guys where it's like I don't

understand how that's all you had to say about Chris Paul like you couldn't have just done two

paragraphs back and forth about Chris Paul and sitting with this way but at the same time I was

really enjoying something of the stories so I don't know the book I kind of enjoyed reading it as

I was frustrated by it because there was some there was some some tidbits that reinforced things I

heard like they killed Elvin Hayes you know they uh they talked about Dave Cowan's what a maniac he

was um but there was some interesting coaching stuff with Phil like got like guys that he clearly

liked like he loved Jason Kid and he kind of didn't like Chris Paul and he was like Chris Paul was

kind of like look at me look at me on the leader look at me and Jason Kid was like actually a leader

so there was there were things to gleam from Phil Jackson and then Sam Smith covered the league

during you know and I really respect Sam Smith and he had some really good insight on these

different teams he covered so you just kind of had to dig out the interesting stuff in the book

and that was the takeaway but this was one of the things Phil Jackson said or I was actually

Sam Smith said this um they were talking about Patrick Ewing and the net the Knicks go up to nothing

in the Bulls Knicks series in 93 and he said they go back to Chicago and Ewing says the Knicks just

had to win one just had to win one and he goes he never heard that from Michael down to nothing he

would say we're gonna win the next four Ewing was just more normal than Michael and I was like that's

actually a really interesting point there's two types of players right there's the guy that would

go in a Chicago up to nothing and be like we just got to win one and get it back to New York and

then there's like the Jordan Kobe type so I'd be like we're fucking winning the next four fuck these

guys and I was like yeah that's kind of so it got my juices going on all these different basketball

things but I was still like incredibly frustrated reading it so that's my review more normal than

Michael is a section of the bend diagram that encompasses most of humanity. By the way on Apple

books this book is two dollars so you could just read it download it and zoom through it on your iPad

and have a really good time. Let's do a book talk so I'm about two thirds of the way through the

new Larry Bird book Heartland. Oh what's the best thing you learn? I mean it's just it's all so far

it's all like he just got to Indiana State basically where I am it's it's all his I mean I knew a lot

of his childhood growing up and his dad and his family situation and but I did not know as much

about like how long he was actually at IU before he left and one of the reasons why he left and

what his roommate situation was and just like you really get a good picture of of both French

lick and Tara Holt like they talk about the bars that people would go to and and and some of the

atmosphere around those early Indiana State games when it was clear they had something with Bird and

this international I did it was not aware or had forgotten about this team of like a high school

or might have been freshman year of college all stars that went and played internationally

and in on this trip that became like a disaster they got into a right and it was crazy there's

a lot of good stuff in there and I like that it's I don't do I don't even know if we're getting to

the cell to the Celtics in in the book ever it's all college in high school. Oh interesting approach

we ran an excerpt of it in the ring. A couple other things from that book by the way

Phil Jackson really loved what a tough guy Carl Malone was and like I almost wonder I got

to really rethink my Carl Malone because he obviously I was always glass half empty on every aspect

to him and even created the 42 club to try to try to make his resume worse because I really valued

how bad he was in these end of the game things. He was talking about just what an absolute intimidation

guy he was and how he would intimidate like Garnett or she'd wall us all these dudes wanted no part

of him because he was just this tough guys oh both were always up and nobody really fucked up

them ever and I don't think I've counted that in enough with him so that was one thing and then

he was talking about Shaq just what an awful practice player Shaq was and he would and he basically

was like as the years pass you romanticize all the good things about a player but it was like Shaq

just ruined practice for us we would have to play four on four like Shaq just was actually like

a negative negative influence day to day because he just nailed the impractices nonstop and it really

hurt us so you hear stuff from that and they're like all right that's something you know it's not

just about the stats and then you would go score 45 and beat that's why you put up with it yeah

that's why you put up with it but it was interesting yeah I'm gonna start I'm gonna try to read a

basketball book a week and give a little review at the end um he really loved Jason Kid though man

it made me wonder if I had Jason Kid too high in my pyramid whether he should be lower

well why would I make you wonder if he should be lower I mean like I have him in the 40s like

I'm wondering like yeah because that maybe I'm discounting his shot too much she was just like how could

any coach not love Jason Kid as a player I mean he's just next level basketball so

not like you and tough and plays defense like he's just he's got to be the coach coach's player

well I wonder I did the pyramid before the 11 finals and maybe maybe I should factor that in more

because he was awesome in that playout front even though he was running on fumes I love being

able to get to whiskey where I needed to go and be the leader of the team all that stuff I loved

that version of Jason old man Jason Kid because he learned to shoot threes and he was like I'm gonna

he was like I think there I think I can make up a position where I play point guard and I never

go in the paint I just play like old man quarterback point guard and it's I'm still such a good

passer that it works would you rather have Jason Kid or Chris Paul if you could have one guy

for the whole career Jason Kid yeah I gotta redo the pyramid all right see I'm glad I read this

book even though I was frustrated by it it really did get my juices going in nine directions so

thank you Sam Smith and Phil Jackson two dollars on Apple books right now uh Zach Lo this was a

pleasure as always thanks to Eduardo and Gahau as well Zach's gonna be back on his podcast on Tuesday

I have Fargo for the rewatchables and wait tomorrow and then uh not sure gonna do some football

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

you again on Sunday okay yeah okay sounds good well you're you're traveling their stuff but

we're gonna figure out some sort some sort of some stuff Zach Lo thanks man thanks to everybody

on Netflix and Spotify and we'll see you uh next time around

must be 21 plus in president select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas start casino

or 18 plus in president DC Kentucky or Wyoming game prom caught 100 gamble or 1 800 by reset

call 888 797777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat commenticate or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland hope is

here visit gambling helpline ma.org or call 800 327 50 50 for 24 seven support mess shootsets

or call 877 8 hope and why or text hope and why in New York for Louisiana call 877 777 0 7867

this episode is brought to by tax act like an expert coach tax act offers step-by-step guidance

and guaranteed accuracy when filing taxes get tips along the way add expert assist to talk to

tax experts and let our experts do your taxes for you with expert full service tax act helps you

find the directions and credits you deserve so you can get them over with visit taxac.com to learn

more conditions apply see taxac.com for details two teams one cup the prime time stage is set for

the tgl presented by so five finals Los Angeles golf club versus tiger's Jupiter links keep up

it's playoffs tune in Monday March 23rd 9 p.m. Eastern on ESPN 2 and Tuesday March 24th 7 p.m. Eastern

on ESPN and on the ESPN app